Skyrim redone and fun

[LaughingAlex]

So i'd been messing with skyrim redone and finally found a configuration that really brings the mod out.  So I thought i'd go through what I learned of the mod and how to really enjoy it well.

The first thing to note is that, you need to either use the uncapper or have a dragon souls to perks mod to make any kind of effective character that is enjoyable.  How many extra perks is up to you but Skyre has a very nasty habit of dramatically increasing the number of perks every skill in the game uses.  Smithing/enchanting/alchemy all see a dramatic increase, with smithing requiring DOUBLE the perks and enchanting about the same.  Destruction magic also see's an immense increase in perks, easily taking over 20 for just one type of damage.  So you need a perk to increase the number of perks available or you'll end up in a very painful grind to do anything beyond a very, very limited build(and I mean far over limited).

Secondly, get deadly dragons.  The weapon damage skyrim redone is dramatically increased in general(destruction magic also see a sharp increase in damage relatively quickly).  This means even high end dragons will get slaughtered in seconds by the town guards.  Deadly dragons can increase the armor and health of the dragons, as well as make them just far more entertaining to fight.  Otherwise dragons will quickly become total pushovers later as they get pelted to death by 100+ damage crossbow bolts.

Thirdly, install dance of death and enable to "player killmove immunity" option.  Even normal skyrim gives the npc's a hardcore cheat in that they can initiate kill moves on you far easier than you can, but skyrim redone increases the damage so much that even if you have an especially high armor rating they can litterally initiate a kill move on you while you have over 350+ health with low-end weapons and they'd only take 20% of your health off.  So download the mod and turn it off to save yourself an annoying "haha you automatically die" moment of plain cheapness.

Lastly, even before installing skyre, make sure you have the unofficial patch and then also get the skyrim redone unofficial patch installed after you have installed skyrim redone.  Then use the reproccer to ensure the extra weapons are given their correct damage modifiers.  Otherwise you'll see very silly things like longbows doing almost no damage compared to shortbows, and other exotic weapons being far out damaged by broadswords/greatswords.

So having configured the above, lets get to playing the mod.  Like normal skyrim, it supports the same combat/stealth/magic we are used to.  But it gives us so many different weapon types, and enemies look for us much longer if we decide to try and snipe them.  Magic has the same problems as before but now we cannot reduce the cost of spells enough so magic needs alchemy far more.  yet they are viable.

Sword shield or two handed

At first glance, light weaponry seems very underpowered or even "gimp" in the skill tree.  The armsman perk now only gives 10% damage per rank compared to two handed giving a staggering 20%.  But remember that one handed weapons have a much higher base damage, and in fact two handers without perks are only doing slightly more damage per hit.  Timed blocking likewise greatly reduces the damage taken, and is thus far more important.

Ranged weapons also see a significant change.  Bows are now divided into "shortbows" and "longbows".  Crossbows also get no damage increase from perks, but have their own tricks.  Firstly shortbows, are THE weapon of choice for an archer who does not want to use a melee weapon.  Shortbows fire very fast, do almost as much damage as longbows much of the time, let you move fast with them and with skill WILL outdamage crossbows in terms of raw damage.  Before you discount longbows and crossbows however, longbows are made for sniping.  They have a very slow draw speed, but if you hit from very long range they will do more damage per shot then a shortbow in those circumstances.  But they are very, very weak when enemies are rushing at you and can get to you.

Crossbows out-damage both weapons early on, but do not inflict as much later on though, so why use them?  The answer is in the weapon description, they pierce armor.  Enemies in skyrim redone can get very high armor, so much so that longbows and shortbows end up doing almost 0 damage to bandit chiefs.  Crossbows however, can punch through that and inflict their full damage.  Crossbows are also solid at long range, not quite as devastating as longbows, but on the other hand, you can make far stronger bolts and crossbows than you can bows.  Simply put, crossbows can receive specialized enhancements, and crossbow bolts have more "enhancements" then arrows plus can be upgraded.

Wait wait wait, enhancements did you say?  Yes, arrows and bolts can be "enhanced" with some perks to do things like explode and knock people off their feet, make them bleed or even attach ropes(something I do need to try sometime).  Unenhanced crossbow bolts can be "upgraded" to be strong or stronger bolts at the expense of some metal, and the appropriate perk in archery.  However, exploding arrows still do not pierce armor very well, so you will need to get creative if your not using a crossbow on a bandit chief(such as using a hammer or magic).

Lastly, destruction magic becomes far more damaging, but requires some knowledge of the game and how to get the resources to make sufficient amount of magicka potions.  Like in skyrim, it's easy to run out of enough magicka potions to be able to do anything and end up in a mobility kill.  Skyrim redone however removes the ability to make enchantments that reduce destruction and restoration spell costs, instead favoring +damage enchantments.  So this changes the strategy of "get to 100 enchanting before running out of magicka potions" to "lets figure out how to have a supply of magicka potions coming in."

When it comes to armor, light and heavy armor

Armor is also changed significantly.  Heavy armor provides far better protection overall than light armor, but will actually slow you down by about 16-20%.  Crossbows and maces/warhammers will be somewhat problematic, be warned, so you'll need to be extra careful against them.  Light armor has far less armor(in fact, you cannot max armor with light armor unless you have a shield) than in vanilla in comparison to heavy.  Heavy armor also provides 2 points of flat damage reduction that applies after armor in skyrim redone, to further make you more tank like.  Light armor perks allow more stamina regen as before, but the perks themselves do not scale up fast.

Armor now goes up to 900, with 1% damage mitigation for every 10 armor you have.  Heavy armor CAN get up to max protection AND provide more mitigation layers, but light armor allows for more offense and mobility, in fact if you can 'somehow' get up to 120 light armor skill you can even double the effect of armor secondary effects granted from smithing.

Stealth is changed, but not entirely ruined, overall, thanks to the sharp increase in damage weapons do.  But the strategy isn't to much different.  Snipe enemies from a distance with crossbows/shortbows/longbows, and make sure you invest extra in the skill; enemies hear you more easily.  But overall I found it impractical to bother backstabs anymore, instead sniping is the one and only way to use stealth effectively, unless you get max silent foot, max sneak and maybe vampirism then you can effectively get in close to backstab.  Destruction gets sneak attack bonuses, making it far more effective.

Next part, tactics implementing these play styles.

[LaughingAlex]

So we went over some of the play styles, we are pondering how to actually do things in this game, at least how I tend to play it.

Light weapons plus crossbow assassin.

One of my favorites uses advantage of the high sneak, and if combat does end up more direct alchemy can save the day.  The first thing is alchemy.  You need 60 in it to get the "fuse" perk, which allows you to make crossbolts/arrows explode.  The explosion does 60 resistable physical damage and knocks the enemy it hits off their feet.  The splash is modest, can and WILL knock you off your feet to, so be careful.  Earlier on before 60 alchemy crossbows have to be used in stealth.  Even then you need ammo.  This means you MUST ABSOLUTELY MUST take principles of smithing, steel smithing, and meltdown early on.  In fact i'd even recommend dwarven smithing to enable meltdown to make dwarven metals.  You also need to be patient, make sure every stealth hit does it's max, and make sure they don't catch you.  At 45 in archery you can take advanced ballistics(unlocked with ballistics) and also have taken recurve.  Both perks are VITAL to keep crossbow damage up with enemies earlier on, as recurve crossbows and strongest bolts(either dwarven or steel, doesn't matter to much there) are critical to successful sniping.

Getting alchemy to 60 is also tricky, but if you get a hearthfire home early, you can grow canis root and imp stool for paralyze poisons, which can also make the demonic spider that is bandit chiefs who near one shot you easier to deal with.  in fact, if you get a hearthfire home early you absolutely MUST get these ingrediants cause giants CAN AND WILL attack very early on if you get one.  Paralyze is vital to taking them out without being one-shotted, especially since you need dozens of hits to take them anyways.  Don't go for 60 alchemy to fast or you may kill the challenge of things.

After you get to 60 in alchemy, things change, big time.  All it takes to make any bolt, be it an upgraded strongest bolt or arrow if your using shortbows instead, is a bit of ale and a torchbug thorax.  This can allow you to be especially cheesy with nastier enemies who'd otherwise rofl curb stomp you(and trust me, they will regularly even doing this untill you get used to the mod, enemies do THAT much damage).  Simply keep them from getting back up.

While they are on the ground, likewise, don't be afraid of slashing them to death with lighter melee weapons.  Try not to use two handers if your knocking them, as they are to slow for this tactic.  If they do get up, remember to use timed blocks(you should and very well make sure you get used to that or they'll REALLY kill you, big time).  Paralyze can also help deal with bandit chiefs earlier on.  Always remember to time your blocks, do NOT let a two hander ever get a power attack on you or you WILL lose 80%+ health in one hit and could easily die of bleeding to death after.

As long as you make decent use of paralyze poisons and exploding bolts you can easily handle many things coming your way, just make sure to watch what enemies are doing to you.  Remember that arrow fire is very lethal, and never stop improving your health even if you hadn't been hit recently.

Next part: How I handle mages(or why hearthfire homes are extremely critical for mages to be fun, or at the very least why you will have to spend hours gathering red mountain flower/giant lichen/creep cluster or generally lose anytime a durable enemy comes up to wtf-stomp you with ease when your outa magicka).

[LaughingAlex]

The Destruction Assassin(my solution to limited supplies of magicka potions)

As anyone knows, destruction mages depend heavily on magicka.  Without a supply of potions they will have some fu- er, lose automatically on a regular basis.  Or they have to resort to armor and weapons and then end up eventually not using destruction.  Indeed destruction is hardly better then vanilla other then doing more damage and costing more, is it?

In truth, it's not only viable but can be very fun, you just need resources to use it.  The biggest danger is running out of magicka from exhausting eastmarch/hjaalmarch/the rift of ingredients you need to make magicka potions.  Indeed the "mobility kill" I speak of is in fact being so much out of magicka potions that it's impossible to play the game without waiting 10 days in some small isolated cell somewhere just to reset all the ingredients.  So EVERYTHING in this guide is about NOT letting that happen, ever.

So this boils down to making destruction magic efficient and ensuring enemy counters can be bypassed.  Any of the three elements is viable, but I found fire to be my favorite.  I will never bother with frost however simply due to ward spammers turtling behind wards as ice spells have no real solution to that than simply powering it down, but I suppose frost is best against warriors anyways.  Lightning and fire can get past wards, frost cannot.  Simple as that :/(but don't discount frost, it's good for those who fight with melee, but against mages it's very bad).

Runes; your best friends.

So this also brings out maximizing the damage per casting, this means stealth is also critical.  Stealth strikes do immense damage and can even one-shot most enemies.  Rune's are also very effective, as long as enemies hear your cast, they'll know where to look, and that'll lead them through a rune.  Remember, enemies always automatically look in the exact location you are when they take damage from a sneak attack every time.  So plant the ward, and pull back and lay another one.  Skyrim redone lets you plant two runes by default, and that can be increased to three.  Wards do gain damage from perks and fortify destruction damage enchantments as well, making them viable long-term booby traps.  And if you get detected but the enemy has NOT walked into a ward, just sprint a ways and then crouch into sneak, there is a good chance the enemy will lose track just long enough to allow you that sneak attack bonus.

Fireballs, chain lightning and ice storms; your other best friends for more stealth strikes.

For range, sniping is better done with splash-damage spells than spells without.  As anyone who played normal skryim will note that projectiles STILL pass through enemies past a certain range, fireballs can bypass that by splashing.  Splash damage still benefits from stealth hits as well.  This means more damage per cast, meaning less magicka potions being used, meaning less chance of running out of magicka potions and ending up in an unwinnable game due to a mobility kill.  This tactic is better done later when you have unlocked silent casting.

Direct combat(where magicka potions may get used).

Most of the time, the lone animal or wolf pack can be dealt with using the appropriate spells as before.  When dealing with sabre cats/bears, use firebolts.  Keep a distance, make sure they are running directly at you when you fire.  Try not to fire to far away or in positions where enemies can dodge them.  Use the unrelenting force shout to stun them before hitting them.  Weaker enemies should ALWAYS be taken down with flames/frost/sparks.  Mages are another matter however....

Mages pose an enourmous, crippling problem for destruction, as they love to turtle behind wards.  So much so in fact that if alerted, they'll even ward up runes occasionally(if alerted).  This means you WILL need fireball or chain lightning, as direct spells generally get sucked up by the ward.  Ice storm cannot hit from behind to my knowledge, so don't bother(use another weapon if your using ice damage and don't bother being pure destruction, OR forsake taking cryomancers contract and go duel element). If you cannot get behind the ward, you'll end up having to try and power it down directly with firebolts/ice spikes/lightning bolts, which will mean a lot of magicka potions.  Multiple times true with enemy electromancers who sap your magicka.

Dealing with the crippling supply problem.

So this now comes down to getting more magicka potions.  Magicka potions = power afterall, they are your batteries.  This means alchemy and getting as high ranks in alchemist, physician and benefactor early.  This also means gathering lots of plants from hjaalmarch, the rift and eastmarch, as creep clusters, giant lichen and red mountain flower can produce magicka potions.  But of course, thats normal for skyrim to.  And this is about not running out early.

So what I do, is I push for a hearthfire home early as possible.  Both the hearthfire homes in hjaalmarch and falkreath home are easy to get(hjaalmarch has you going up against vampires with the quest Laid to Rest, but vampires are easy to incinerate even early on, while falkreath requires fighting some bandits and may be harder or easier then the other home).  But it also means getting money that is neigh-impossible to make at all, period, unless you are an imperial.....

.....OR you can mine ore and sell it, as that was not penalized.  In fact one thing I tend to do is gain the trust of orcs asap just so I can mine Gloombound mine and sell the ebony for half the money needed for the plot of land.  Clear out Kolskeggr mine for a certain guy at left hand mine and you can easily make most of the money needed early on for the land.  Then plant a few imp stool+canis root for anti-giant defense(they are to tough to kill with magic alone early on, so paralyzing and then blasting is recommended unless your using frost but then your using TONS of magicka potions) and then plant giant lichen and creep cluster for magicka potions.  Sell excess paralyze poisons and use that money for more logs(or saw them yourself with permission from a friendly lumberjack) and you can have a supply of magicka ingredients producing 20-30 magicka potions every three days(or even daily if you replant every day).

I do NOT recommend playing a mage on just the ingredients of skyrim, as you can easily run out of magicka potions, especially since alchemy levels up slower.  Think of it this way, skyrim redone is more like playing on master difficulty, only enemies aren't quite as durable, they certainly do more damage then vanilla skyrim on master difficulty even on normal mode.  I'll share some more tactics later.