T w e n t y S i d e d

Since this recording, I did indeed start a new game as an unarmed / heavy armor user. It strikes me as being OP the moment you get the “do your glove armor rating in damage” perk, although it’s annoying to get to that point. I parked myself in a cave and let a bandit tickle me with his dagger for 20 minutes to get heavy armor that high. That skill levels slow.

I’ve heard it suggested that unarmed is weak in the late game. I’ll let you know how it goes. Or maybe I won’t. I might forget.

I actually really like the love triangle quest we talked about here. It has a lot of freedom and is kind of playful about it. (I do wish the “none of the above” option was a little easier to find, though.) For context, here is how it goes:

Sven and Faendal both love Camilla. If you talk to him, Sven will ask you to deliver a letter to Camilla, supposedly from Faendal. The letter is written to make Faendal look incredibly bad. You can deliver the letter and lie to Camilla as asked (making Faendal look bad), or you can deliver the letter and tell the truth (making Sven look bad), or you can give the letter to Faendal, who will turn the trick around by writing a false letter of his own. Or you can start the quest with Faendal, which offers the reverse choices and outcomes. OR you can pickpocket the false letters from both of them and make them both look bad.

That’s, what? Six ways to resolve the quest? This tiny little easy-to-miss sidequest about a silly love triange between three not-so-bright people has lots of freedom. On top of this, there are after-quest outcomes where the other parties respond if you choose to murder one of the three.

Remember this freedom when we get to one of the many, many no-option, no-choice dialogs that plague the main quest.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Here is the Extra Credits episode where they discuss the opening of Skyrim, and here is the post I wrote about the same section.

I think Extra Credits makes a stronger case, but I’ll defend my position a bit by saying that I was coming in with a lot of Oblivion-esqe expectations. I expected to end up stuck in a linear corridor section punctuated by camera-lock closeups on emotionless plastic faces while a series of NPCs info dumped on me and my only dialog options would be variants of “Tell me more about that.”

So I guess the takeaway here is that the intro is outstanding compared to Oblivion, but terrible compared to Call of Duty?

Protip: Probably best to let the Empire vs. Stormcloak debate wait a bit. We’ll get into it in more detail later. But, you know. Do what you like.

Official Spoiler Warning Skyrim Drinking Game of Fun and Alcohol Poisoning

OFFICIAL RULES; DO NOT ATTEMPT

1. We want to kill an NPC who is unkillable for no good reason.
2. Bizarre and inexplicable glitch!
3. Josh gains a point in a skill he never deliberately uses.
4. We run into a massive annoyance fixed by a mod one of us is using.
5. Merchant runs out of money in one set of transactions.
6. An unarmed NPC pointlessly charges into a fight better left to the player or the guards.
7. “This was better in Morrowind…”
8. “This was better in Arena/Daggerfall…” 2 drinks.
9. “This was better in Oblivion…” Finish your drink.
10. Reginald dies: Pour one out in memory of your lost “friend”. (If you can’t pour it out, just drink it.)

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.