SKYRIM: Let's kill some Dragons!

[Rahvin]

That was pretty fucking funny. And tempting to try.

[Executor32]

I just tried it with a new character, and after getting Heavy Armor up to 30, taking the perk, and wearing unenchanted iron armor, I can punch a mammoth in the ass to death in less than 30 seconds.

[xthetenth]

Sounds OP as hell actually. Too OP to be that manly, really. Plus you get to save on a whole tree of perks. I may consider that for a munchkin build.

[Anacronian]

I'm trying this with a Nord instead of one of the cats and it only feels slightly overpowered that way.

[Eulogy]

Okay, I've just about burned a big hole in my wallet.

How does I moniez? Money is actually not useless in this game. And no, I won't suffer through the tedium of chopping wood.

[Chardok]

Sorry man. Especially in the early going, you're making loot runs to and from various dungeons/towns in order to secure fundage for your upcoming adventures. Basically, muling trash. unless you want to make yourself combat ineffective by smithing a billion iron daggers and enchanting them to sell for MASSIVE PROFIT AND INFINITE GOLD.

[Mr Bean]

Okay, I've just about burned a big hole in my wallet.

How does I moniez? Money is actually not useless in this game. And no, I won't suffer through the tedium of chopping wood.

You average dungeon contains 2000-4000 pieces of gold in sell able loot. If you don't mind clearing the first time then carrying only the best bits out selling those then stripping naked to grab the next load via fast travel you'll be good to go in short order. Working you way up the speech tree is vital to get the perks to sell anything to any merit and being able to invest gold. In about two hours of work (Less if you invest your profits into a trainer to train speech fast enough) you should be rolling in gold just via fast traveling from merchant to merchant as you sell every book, door nob and enchanted rake you find.

[Sinewmire]

Haven't played this, though all my friends seem to be obsessed with it.

Overall it looked dreadful - awful dialogue and voice acting, and rather poor looking combat, but I understand that the lure of this game is the exploring open-world feel so I suppose this would suffer even more than most games by being a spectator sport.

I later saw my friend chasing a dragon on horseback. Pretty cool. He landed, and fired some enormously ineffectual arrows at it, and he slowly moved further and further towards the end of town, at which point the dragon swooped back and made off with his horse. That was awesome! It had drawn him out, snatched up the far easier meal, then it came back and killed him.

[His Divine Shadow]

Okay, I've just about burned a big hole in my wallet.

How does I moniez? Money is actually not useless in this game. And no, I won't suffer through the tedium of chopping wood.

Goto forge, make lots and lots of iron daggers, then enchant them and sell them. This way you level up your smithing and enchanting also. You will need lots of soulstones as well, I enchanted my favorite blade with soul trap and I also got the black star from the azura quest so I tend to have enough of them. A bow with soul trap is also nice, because then you get souls and hide at the same time, you will need leather & leather straps too.

[Serafina]

Get the Transmute-spell. Buy every single piece of iron ore you can find, or mine some yourself. Transmute it into silver or gold ore, smelt it down into bars. Forge jewelry, possibly enchant it, sell it.
This will make you some money, and it will level up Alteration, Smithing, Speech and possibly enchanting. It will make you much MORE money if you can actually incorporate gems into the jewelry you forge. Normally just going for gold items is better, but gold and silver items need different gems, so silver can be quite useful to use up the right gems.

Edit: You can't buy the Transmute-spell (not surprising, since it's a money-making spell ), but you can find it in various locations, most notably in Halted Stream Camp, which is northwest of Whiterun.
It's quite costly magicka-wise, so getting some gear that lowers the cost of Alteration-spells might be handy. Alternatively just use it while you travel somewhere, or stand next to a forge, transmute two ores, smelt them, transmute two more, smelt those etc., since that gives you time to regenerate magicka.

[Chardok]

Or could could stop being a whiny little pussy and don't waste precious time and resources casting namby pamby magic spells on pretty brooches and go out into the world shooting dudes in the face, taking all their shit, and selling it for a pittance, reveling in the bloodshed like a MAN/BOSS. Arrows are cheap, and even cheaper if you take them off the back of a still warm victim and cheaper still when you pull it out of their face and reuse it to shoot another guy. Need better armor? Shoot someone in the face (with an arrow) then, once dead, remove their arms and legs and take their armor. If it's not better than your current armor, throw it in a river. Or, if you're still hurting for cash, you could always sell it. (For a pittance)

See, if you're like my non-prissy character, you have stamina oozing out of every pore because archers need stamina, see? Which means you can carry a million pounds of shit, so you can shoot looooots of people (in the face) and take all their gear (selling it for a pittance). so by the time I'm in river-throwing mode, Ive already got 17 more armors in my bag of holding worth more money. Point is - don't pussyfoot around making jewelry and worthless daggers of sparkles, go out there, hunt down some sabercats, steal jewelry from people's houses, (see? let some other schmuck waste time making it, you just sell it. [possibly back to the person who made it.]) and generally terrorize the local "Bad things" Population until they are no longer a threat.

Sweet Mother, sweet Mother, send your child unto me, for the sins of the unworthy must be baptized in blood and fear

[Eulogy]

It's a good thing Chardok keeps his psychotic episodes confined to a video game.

Unless there's something I don't yet know...

Can't believe I forgot about Transmute. Whoops.

[GuppyShark]

He has a good point though. The province of Skyrim is just full of riches waiting for you to rip them from the still-twitching hands of the fallen. While you're collecting Words of Power you might as well be filling your coffers too.

[Imperial Overlord]

Money's easy to come by. I'm fairly picky and tend to take just useful items and stuff with high value to mass ratios and I've got plenty of cash. It's even easier if you use your minion as a mule.

[Thunderfire]

Okay, I've just about burned a big hole in my wallet.

How does I moniez? Money is actually not useless in this game.

Alchemy. Go to an alchemy shop. Buy all ingredients and turn them into potions. Sell the potions and repeat the process with a different alchemy shop.

[Xon]

The actual hard part is selling all the loot you can pickup/create so you can use it on something useful.

[charlemagne]

Sometimes my follower/wife-with-built-in-shop bugs out and her gold doesn't go down when selling stuff to her. I think it happens after I use her as a trainer. But when it happens it's time to LOOT ALL THE THINGS.

All the house carls you get as thane in the different holds make nice Blades recruits

The main quest so far has been surprisingly entertaining. It's a lot better than the Oblivion main quest. I just wish I had known sooner that Spoiler

Ulfric is just the Thalmor's bitch

because I would've made another choice earlier in the game if I had known that.

[The Vortex Empire]

Spoiler

He may not be anymore, seeing as the same book mentions that he is no longer in communication with them anymore and they're worried he may just win the war instead of prolonging it. Still, his dividing the empire will just help the Elf Nazi cause.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Does the Civil war wrap up? I finished the main plot line, and did a bunch of Imperial quests, but they all seem to have become procedural "attack the wagon/fort and kill all enemies" quests.
(I tried killing Ulfric, but the NPC is unkillable )

[White Haven]

Spoiler

If the Empire was less obsessed with OMG MUST KEEP SKYRIM BECAUSE...PROFIT and more open to actual reasonable dealings with a people who've no interest in belonging to the empire, there's a real opportunity there. If Skyrim goes independent, well, they never signed the White-Gold. Imperial Talos-worshippers can flock to Skyrim, the Empire can stop losing lives and money trying to hold onto Skyrim, the Nords can stop losing lives and money trying to kick the Imperials out, and both sides hate the Thalmor, so there's a natural alliance there once the Empire stops being assholes about the place. Of course the sooner they stop being assholes, the easier and sooner an alliance could be practical. I find it amusing that the Empire constantly harps on the fact that Ulfric is playing into Thalmor hands by continuing his civil war, without any acknowledgement that so are they. It takes two to tango, and nowhere in the Stormcloak manifesto does the phrase 'and then conquer Cyrodil for an encore' come up.

[charlemagne]

Spoiler

I think the Empire wants to hold Skyrim exactly because they signed white-gold, the Empire is nothing but a dominion puppet right now. Oh, and I don't think the Thalmor wouldn't mind Nords worshipping Talos even if Skyrim left the Empire.

What I like is how they took the end of Oblivion - with the Dragonborn emperor line wiped out - to the logical conclusion of the empire crumbling. They have lots of possibilities now, but it'll probably lead to the birth of a new empire, Tamriel united in its fight against the nazi elves (lead by the Eternal Champion of Cyrodill Tamriel)...

[AniThyng]

Does the Civil war wrap up? I finished the main plot line, and did a bunch of Imperial quests, but they all seem to have become procedural "attack the wagon/fort and kill all enemies" quests.
(I tried killing Ulfric, but the NPC is unkillable )

Spoiler

After a few fort attacks you get to assault and seize windhelm. My understanding is that if this is done before the main plot requires you to negociated a ceasefire, then the ceasefire quests won't happen, since you've already seized windhelm and broken the rebellion

[Eulogy]

Spoiler

He may not be anymore, seeing as the same book mentions that he is no longer in communication with them anymore and they're worried he may just win the war instead of prolonging it. Still, his dividing the empire will just help the Elf Nazi cause.

Spoiler

Skyrim can help fight the Nazi Elves whether they are part of the Empire or not. Meanwhile, at this point in time the Empire is just a puppet and other former provinces (i.e. Hammerfell) have shown that they can resist the "superior" High Elves. There's no reason for the Nords not to help kick Thalmoor ass even if they don't like the Empire.

[xthetenth]

Spoiler

The funny thing is that the best way for the Imperials to get the Nords on their side is to let them go, especially if they send refugees who wish to worship Talos. Then if the Thalmor attack, the Empire can step in to help the Nords and get them firmly on their side because the Nords now need allies and they'd be stepping in to protect their citizens who worship Talos, which would turn the hatred over banning Talos worship on its head. The empire goes from imposing a ban on Talos worship to doing everything they can to protect it even if they can't keep it safe in its borders yet.

[Serafina]

Spoiler

That would actually start a new war against the Thalmor, which the Empire has plenty of reason to avoid (there is a reason they signed the whitegold contract in the first place.