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So far I'm having a blast with my first-created character - an Imperial Spell-sword type.

I wield a sword in my right hand and cast destruction spells with the left. Heavy armor, which I usually build myself (crafting is super easy to upgrade). I've lately been working on my enchanting, too. I'm level 27, but currently have all Ebony armor, plus an Ebony bow and sword.

I usually do pretty well in combat. I start fights from a distance with my bow whenever I can, continuing to shoot as they approach. I can take out most enemies in melee one-on-one. The only enemies I have real trouble with are aggressive melee types (especially heavily-armored two-handed wielders) and advanced mages (ice spike is a real pain in the ass). Not carrying a shield and/or being able to block hurts my defense a bit, but I do alright. Dragons I take down pretty easily (if gradually) if I have some cover to rely on, but in the open they clean my clock. Still, I'm getting a lot better and have a long way to go.

I also started a game with a Kajiit assassin-type (level 7), and a high-elf mage (level 4), but I think I'll finish the game with my Spell-sword before advancing them much further.

Yours? Tips and tactics welcome, as well.

 

I am a pure mage. I am lvl30 and am getting close to maxing out destruction. If I cant blast I am in trouble, thankfully pretty much everything can be blasted and I always keep an Atronach around to draw some of the attention. I upped the difficulty to expert because things were getting a wee bit easy, of course shortly after I run into an Elder Dragon (something I according to the levelling charts should not see for another 10 levels or so) who proceeds to fry me with one breath, chomp me in one bite (some cool dragon eating animation there) and completely melting my poor atronach. Had to lower the difficulty for that but otherwise my character works wonderful. He really feels like a wizard, sorcerer a caster and master of the elements. At first I thought to use one-handed but it is not needed. Anything that I don't one or two shot is not something I want to go into melee with but something I need to continue to kite with the cheaper spells.

Pure caster, try it, it works!

 

I'm currently playing a good natured pure thief, she'll be turning assassin soon depending on how the quest with the orphanage goes She's supporting the Rebellion dual daggers only, no bows or spells - which makes dragons hilarious. Lydia is arround to tank and do most of the legwork in that regard! Lightly armoured and focusing on the six thief skills for perks.

Originally started a character designed to use spears but then realised they weren't in the game so started over, now knowing what was and wasn't available. She was a heavy armoured warrior with two handed weapons and practiced healer.

 

Playing a wood elf thief/assassin chick, maxed the sneak tree out, and some of the one-handed/light armour tree. Dual wielding daggers, decent archer but haven't put any points in archery. Spending quite a few points on alchemy although that's more for roleplaying purposes than anything. I make more potions than I actually use.

 

Ok, so - got a wild hair up my ass this weekend, decided to start a new character just to experiment. What started out as a planned 2-3 hour saturday morning gaming session (because I woke up inexplicably at 6am on my usual sleep-in day) turned into a full-on weekend marathon session. I was having too damn much fun. I got absolutely NOTHING productive done all weekend, and my wife is a little mad at me as a result. But damned if it wasn't worth it.

I created a Wood Elf archer/assassin type, and I'm having a blast. I decided to prioritize Archery and Sneak early, and man is it paying off. I one-shot kill most enemies from a distance, and god DAMN is it fun to hear that "TUNG!" sound when you score a sneak bow attack - especially when it's a kill. I was never able to build an archer this effective in Oblivion, despite my best efforts.

I'm level 23 already, using an upgraded Forsworn bow, no enchantment. I switch to an Orcish bow of soul trapping for certain kill shots, making soul collection a piece of cake. Up close combat doesn't happen as often, but thanks to the Archery perk that makes enemies stagger 50% of the time from a bow shot, I usually just stick with a bow when I get charged. The time it takes the enemy to recover from the stagger is usually all the time it takes me to draw another arrow and fire. I'm now starting to upgrade my dual-wielding and one-handed skills, so melee should be more effective going forward. Though I have only used it a few times, the x15 backstab perk is off the chain. Once I get the silent armor perk in the Light Armor chain, I'll use it more.

Speaking of light armor - I've skipped over Elven armor entirely, as the Scaled armor is better and much simpler to find materials for (plus - I got a great unique Hide set from a long mystery quest in Markarth). What I'm really looking forward to is a full set of Glass - and I'm 2 smithing points away from that. Iron daggers, iron daggers, iron daggers...

Dragons are still a bit of a chore to take out, but it's getting better. I still pick them off over time with my arrows and a tree or pillar for cover. I had a strange experience with a black dragon where after killing it I could not absorb its soul...but I think this was just a glitch or something.

Also - two quick non-cheating money-making tips with Alchemy and Enchanting:

Making potions that buff skills - particularly Two-handed and Conjuration - are very lucrative. I've been selling such potions for around 160g each - which adds up very fast, and if memory serves the ingredients for each are fairly easy to come by. As for enchanting - as soon as you can get ahold of a weapon that banishes Daedra, do it - even if it costs you a few thousand. Destroy it on the enchanting table, and enchant iron daggers with the maximum enchantment of banishment and a common soul gem. Those little suckers will sell for 800g or more, each. Even more once you get your Speech up.

Making my way over to Riften to join a certain organization next...

 

A CN Breton Conjurer, with Persuasion and Alchemy. Out of combat he's a traveling bard-slash-potions merchant, in combat he's a warrior-summoner/necromancer with a propensity for sneak attacks.

Gotta agree with Death Rabbit on Alchemy and Persuasion, once you know which ingredients to look out for you can make a staggering amount of gold with just these two. I can buy the best armor for enchanting, buy uninteresting enchanted armor with interesting enchantments off NPC's for disenchanting, and I have a constant supply of ~25% resist potions, ~30% one-handed/archery/two-handed potions and invisibility potions. Between potions, poisons and bound weapons this character can hit pretty hard at level 28 even without weapon perks, which is just gravy on top of his summoned undead/dremora.
Most of the surplus gold I make goes into improving his collection of high level spell scrolls. The build has enough spare points to develop enchanting/smithing at max level, but I rarely play past level ~45.

He's my third Conjurer character, my first one was a pure mage and my second one took weapon perks. This is my strongest build so far though, and when I finally get home tomorrow I'll be able to test the build from scratch in Master difficulty. Just as soon as I finish playing the BG series again...
If all goes well this will be the first character I'll be maxing out.

 

My good natured thief isn't so good natured anymore she's slowly turning into a more self serving person and has just taken out Grelod the Kind and taken up Archery.

 

How's killing Grelod the Kind a bad thing? That woman was evil!!

 

Because I'll probably be halfway through the Dark Brotherhood quests today

She was selfish and mean, but not necessarily evil.

 

Dark elf night blade.

 

I went for heavy armour, archery and two handed sword. Speech as well. Had two handed and heavy armour pretty much maxed out by level 32. Never been in trouble once.

 

Generally high sneak, light armour & archery, with a bit of destruction and restoration.

Most things are dead before they can land a melee hit, thanks to the 3x damage and the high chance for the arrow hits to stun.

 

Playing a proper nord barbarian now swinging axes and wreaking havoc. It is surprisingly much more difficult than a pure mage and I have had to lower the difficulty. Summons and destruction dual cast stun are extremely useful. Maybe I ought to bring a friend but the ES games are solo games. Follower feels cheesy. It takes forever to level heavy armour and I am trying to focus on that, two handed and smithing but I still have extra perks cause you can't avoid to level due to getting the occasional skill point here and there and smithing is disturbingly easy to level. Need to stay away from it so my combat skills can catch up. I am using my bow now and then and I guess it wouldn't be wrong to put a few points in archery? The world is not swamped in dragons yet but it is just a matter of time and I guess archery is useful then.

I also have a quest question, there is no way to progress among the companions without turning into a werewolf? I was one in my last play through and did not enjoy it and I seem to remember talking to Kodlak after the fact and he said that I shouldn't have had and that there seemed to be some way to avoid it but when I turned down the offer and went to talk to him now I had no conversations options and the wikis speak of no other options. I do not want to be a non-rested werewolf again although I reckon I could do the quests quickly in succession.

I would also like to say that there are so many things you do properly on a second play than the first confusing one. I have gold, I have a home, I do not stockpile everything and I found out that I could use carriages to quick travel to places I haven't been to before saving me the trouble of walking all over the world. For some reason I have not experienced the freeze lags on my warrior that I did on my mage, when my mage was out and about the game froze constantly and it was very choppy now it doesn't do that at all. Dunno if it is because they patched it or it was some skill or gear my mage used that made it choppy.

 

My wood elf light armor archer dude is now at level 52.

I one-shot kill just about every enemy from sneak, and have done since about level 24. Part of me thinks it's overpowered, but I'm having so damn much fun I'm going with it. My damage is over 200 per hit now, and after my opening sneak critical shot, Elder dragons go down in about 6-8 hits. I'm delaying finishing the main story so I can explore some more.

One thing I've noticed in terms of role play is you have to go out of your way to be what you want to be. The natural progression of the story seems to be Helgen -> Riverwood -> dragonstone -> Whiterun -> Fight first dragon -> become Jarl of Whiterun. This gets you to about level 10 or so. But what if I want to become a thief and join the thieves guild? It seems like a while before Riften is even mentioned, let alone that the Thieves' Guild is headquartered there. Riften isn't exactly on the way to any of the points on the main quest until halfway through. Being a mage is a little better - as I was told about the college of Winterhold at the very first trader I went to in Riverwood. But getting there is very tough, especially for an unarmored, low-level mage. I kept getting eaten by snow leopards. And it's a long, long walk. It almost seems like the game is tailored to you becoming the Harbinger of the Companions as a warrior-type.

Case in point - by the time I got around to Riften I was about level 22, and I'd become so formidable as a sneaking ranged fighter that becoming a thug for the thieves' guild just seemed...beneath me. I'm level 52 now and I haven't even finished the second task for whats-his-name in the Ratway, despite how curious I am to see the Thieves' Guild armor and Nightingale Armor (though I doubt they hold a candle to my decked-out full set of Dragonscale Light Armor).

 

Yeah, if you want to focus on anything but a warrior you have to go out of your way but it isnt that far fetched from a rpg perspective. It seems to be common knowledge that Riften is the headquarters for the thieves guild so no reason why your character wouldnt know about it. Just take the carriage to Riften right after you arrive in Whiterun and dont even touch the companions. Another "problem" is that you level so quickly in the beginning that as you say, if you start the guild quests a bit later it doesn't feel quite right.

I would recommend you up the difficulty though even if it doesnt matter much now. I ran around oneshotting everything on a mage for a while and it got, well, it didnt get boring but it wasnt challenging and you dont get skill points very quickly if everything just dies on you. On my warrior I am still stuck on adept, enemy casters are a pain especially fire mages they roast me well quick. The good thing is that there are always ways, sneak up and put an arrow in their eye, lure them into a trap, run around goading them in to spending all their mana. Combat is quite dynamic and if the head on approach doesnt work there are always other ways. Too bad my current character is a heads on kind of guy. Charge and swing!

 

I figured out the carriage thing about halfway through my first game. A shame, since my mage had to sneak past giants, necromancers, and worse just to get to Winterhold.

I think the reason why they made the presence of the mages' guild much more explicit is because mages need to buy stronger spellbooks to become more powerful (the dialogue usually goes Q: "Where do I have to go to learn more spells/become a more powerful mage?" Ans: "The College of Mages in Winterhold"). The only other faction that's just about as advertised are the bards, for people who'd want to rely heavily on speech and Illusion magic I guess. I think the Companions are mentioned only in Whiterun, and usually by people who a warrior would normally approach anyway (the blacksmiths, the Battle-borns/Grey Manes). I didn't know of their existence until I interviewed Proventus Avonecci(sp?) about Whiterun's history, since initially the only NPC's I found interesting were the alchemist, the trader and Farengar. In subsequent runs I was properly introduced to them in a random encounter involving a battle with a giant. If, like me, you also used your magely powers to assist them in that particular battle then I doubt you'd have much love for the group when you finally reach Whiterun.

I recommend upping the difficulty if the game becomes too boring for you. At first the changes seem minor, but as your skills go up (yep your skills, not your level, curiously) some fights start to become a lot more difficult. My level 14 mage currently has 150 HP and even with Oakflesh and improved leather bracer/boots some bandits are still able to 1-shot me in Master difficulty. But as joacqin said, there's more than one way to approach a battle in Skyrim.

There's a bug in the PS3 version that developers are still claiming to be working on, and which is the reason why Skyrim has received more than a few boos from PS3 users. The bug appears when your savefile reaches 5MB or higher - at that point, you'll start to experience light to crippling FPS lag and other such hiccups. Apparently resting and waiting can help alleviate this, and personally I haven't experienced the bug beyond slight FPS drops in busier areas like Whiterun (my characters are all merchants/traders when not questing, so whenever I reach a city before 8 AM or after 8 PM I rest/wait. This happens often). All my characters are only around level ~45 though.

 

Yeah, Kevs game is pretty much unplayable until the patch for the framerate comes out (again?) they managed to patch it once which worked on my game when it started lagging at a smaller size but he's a much higher level and plays it a lot more than me and it's suddenly turned into a slow motion guesswork game - such as guess where the dragon is going to be in three seconds when the screen finally catches up.

 

Been playing a two handed wielding Nord kitted out in heavy armour. I'm only 15th level and mostly prefer to go for a wander and see what I can find, have finished the companions though.

Past few days though I've had the urge to play an adventurer type, namely a lightly armoured redguard focusing in sneak, archery and one handed weapons

 

Started my Redguard a few days ago. As soon as I'd finished Helgen and talked to some folk in Riverwood I'd pretty much decided I didn't want to bother with any of the quests I'd done before so when I left town I took virtually the complete opposite direction I'd taken with my Nord.

My Redguards a lower level than my Nord but already he's kitted out in better armour and weapons (all dwarven) and for some reason the Dark Brotherhood have a contract for him. I'm pretty much just using him as a wanderer and avoiding any faction quests but I think I might give the thieves guild a try. Also want to hunt down the Dark Brotherhood and find out who put the contract on me.

 

The contract is just a random encounter type thing, like when the lone thalmor attacks you along a road or you meet the revellers who give you mead.