So, Skyrim's out 11/11/11

[kandrathe]

I think you are correct to suggest postponing making a choice in the war until after most everything else is done to avoid further fouling the already screwed up quest lines. Currently, the thieves guild line leading to Master is broken. I wish I had known that before my character went to the trouble of doing all those quests for Vex and Mallory. I even completed the quest for the Crown of Bereziah (and I did find a list of the locations of all the gems). I think this line must have been broken by the last patch or maybe the one before that. Even if it was not already broken, participating in the civil war would certainly screw it up. I am currently in pursuit of Alduin and am not sure what to do after I finish that. I still have the last of the main Dark Brotherhood quests to do. A previous character did that and I did not find it very gratifying. I have done few of the Daedric shrine quests and am not interested in most of the rewards. It seems like the game almost forces you to join all of the guilds in that you miss things that are encountered while doing those guilds quests (like word walls).

My first character is the completionist. But, I don't think all the shouts are necessary.

I finished the Thieves Guild master after the main quest, and the civil war. I spent a big part of last Saturday doing jobs for Delvan and Vex(bypassing my self imposed rule of traveling on horse, carriage or foot to the quest place, but allowing for fast travel via the map home), until I would get the special job. It felt like you needed to do about 5 jobs (each) per major city before Delvan would give you the special job for that city. Once you've completed the special job for Whiterun, Markath, Windhelm, and Solitude, and have completed the Nocturnal quest, then you are made the Guild master. I completed the main Nocturnal part first, before doing many of the Vex, and Delvan jobs.

There are a few of the quests that are messed up due to 1.2, like buying a house in Windhelm. There is a needed quest to make the house available, that isn't happening, so the steward just tells me there is a house, but it's not ready yet.

I've adapted my tactics to get by the deadly elemental damage. 1) when fighting elemental spammers, like caves of necromancers, I use "Summon Dremora Lord" to do the damage and dying for me. He wields a nasty two handed daedric flaming great sword, and the cloth wearing squishies die in one or two hits. I find a choke point, summon, if they get by him, I use unrelenting force to send them tumbling back down the tunnel, then rinse, repeat. 2) with dragons... esp. Ancients... Getting dragon rend helps alot, as it forces them to land. I stay on a wing, slashing with one hand, and when it turns it's head toward me, I shield bash. Keep health above 50% to prevent the dragon from getting a critical on you. I try to run towards potential allies of the moment to distract it as well, such as giant camps. It's sometimes easier to deal with post dragon hostilities from an ice troll, or a camp of bandits, than deal with the dragon alone. "Hey, bandits, I just slew the dragon that toasted your friends!" They reply, "WHY... WON'T... YOU... DIE?!?!"

The funniest so far in delayed dialog are the nearly Monty Pythonesque Black Knight moments. I execute a critical decapitating strike on say a Bandit Leader, then the dialog says something like, "This is only a scratch", or "Is that all you've got? I've had worse." Really?