The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 11/11/11

General question and sorry if it's been asked but is there any negative effect to stealing books if nobody sees you do it? Or is the fact that you stole the book inherently known to people? I ask because there are so many books I've spent so much time reading and have forgotten so much (like details from those that give you sidequests) and would rather just take the books than try and remember where the hell I read them to go back and reference them. When I'm reading the books I don't see anybody around but I'm afraid if I build up this inventory of books some secret counter is going to build up and put a bounty on my head.
 
generally there is a bug when it comes to pickpocketing/stealing from npc's, even if you successfully do it there are times when you have a band of thugs go after you. if you win, there's a contract on them with your name on it instructing them to rough you up...but there's no bounty added and your stats do not reflect a bounty, only items stolen.

a gold piece counts as an item, so if you steal 1000 gp, it'll add 1000 items to your items stolen counter.

so far I haven't encountered any negative effects with successfully stolen books, save the weight of it in your inventory. quest books generally can be found scattered throughout skyrim. i.e. said book can be found early or late in the campaign, and in multiple locations. once a quest or skill book it is read, your skill will automatically be leveled up and/or map updated for said quest (which you'll need to activate in your menu screen so you can see the map marker).

as for bounties...nothing on stolen books unless it's witnessed and the witness lives to report it.
 
Is there a way to tell whether a book will give you a boost to your stats/an extra quest compared to just a regular ol' book? I'm not particularly a fan of just reading the random books, but the ones that give me an extra boost are nice. There doesn't seem to be any sort of indicator, am I missing something? Scouring random books sucks.
 
as soon as you read a book, without even it opening to the first page, if it is in fact a skill book you'll see your skill level up...same goes w/quest books. otherwise, there's really no disadvantage of not reading skill books as you can level up a skill rather easily to the point of explotation in this game. It's just another thing to do. I've actually spent the time to read some of them, it has a lot of interesting and useful info. There's an app I think for Ipad as well for the books, so you can read them on the throne or during a commute.

(you just need to see "map updated" or the familar fallout 3 drum roll for leveling a skill)
 
I've opened a few skill books, it's cool to see that a random book can upgrade certain stats, I'm just not aware if there's a way to differentiate between normal books and skill books. I'd rather, if I can, only open the skill books so I can get to exploring instead of opening up every book on every bookshelf I see in the off-chance one of them will upgrade something, know what I mean? (I should have used the word "open" instead of "read" in the other message, I haven't been flipping through books hoping for an upgrade. That'd be torture.) Someone told me that skill books have a symbol on the front cover compared to other books, but that doesn't exactly seem to be the case.

So, as a general consensus, is it a good idea to patch the game right now or should I wait for them to straighten it all out next week?
 
[quote name='AlphaPanda']I've opened a few skill books, it's cool to see that a random book can upgrade certain stats, I'm just not aware if there's a way to differentiate between normal books and skill books. I'd rather, if I can, only open the skill books so I can get to exploring instead of opening up every book on every bookshelf I see in the off-chance one of them will upgrade something, know what I mean? (I should have used the word "open" instead of "read" in the other message, I haven't been flipping through books hoping for an upgrade. That'd be torture.) Someone told me that skill books have a symbol on the front cover compared to other books, but that doesn't exactly seem to be the case.
[/QUOTE]

Skill books have a value of at least 50 gold while regular books range from a few gold to about 25 gold.
 
idk, the patch seems to have fixed a few problems i've experienced before while adding new ones randomly. last dragon fight was normal, as well the new patch now removes the dragon remains after you transition the area long enough...otherwise it used to fall from the sky and move closer and closer to a town. Arrows also seem fade away after you get hit by them, no more arrow stuck in your or your hirelings head for several hours.

it's a gamble.
 
[quote name='100xp']idk, the patch seems to have fixed a few problems i've experienced before while adding new ones randomly. last dragon fight was normal, as well the new patch now removes the dragon remains after you transition the area long enough...otherwise it used to fall from the sky and move closer and closer to a town. Arrows also seem fade away after you get hit by them, no more arrow stuck in your or your hirelings head for several hours.

it's a gamble.[/QUOTE]

Personally I liked walking around with an arrow sticking straight THRU my head, it was quite interesting. Walking around with arrows sticking into his eye and out the other side. :rofl:
 
The first dragon that I came across after the patch was stutter-flying and also flying backwards.

I just kept walking.
 
[quote name='js1']So, if you fight a dragon that is flying backwards do you fight it's ass? lol[/QUOTE]

So that's why the fire breath was so much more deadly then usual!
 
I played for like 6 or 7 hours post patch. Resistances are gone, makes some enemies easier, but dragon breath now does a lot more damage, mages appear to be even deadlier...

I had one dragon bug out and fly straight up and never come down.

Doesn't really seem like a big deal to me. The PS3 version becoming unplayable after 25+ hours seems like a much bigger deal.

Finished the main quest. I was pretty disappointed by the last dungeon; it;s too plain. There are some really cool looking dungeons scattered throughout the game. I probably run through them too fast and don't appreciate them.
 
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Anyone have Lydia disappear in battle?I was fighting a bandit leader in one of their hideouts,in a corridor.I'm playing archer.Bandit leader hits Lydia she goes down, he hits her again and she disappears. This is before the patch.
 
[quote name='mrx001']Anyone have Lydia disappear in battle?I was fighting a bandit leader in one of their hideouts,in a corridor.I'm playing archer.Bandit leader hits Lydia she goes down, he hits her again and she disappears. This is before the patch.[/QUOTE]

She might have died or fell through the world. I have seen enemies fall through the world rarely pre patch. Haven't seen it since but it never happened very often.

You can always try to fast travel and wait to see if she comes back. I have had companions get lost somewhere, but they have always come back. I wish they would tell you in big letters if a companion has died, because it can be hard to sort through the bodies and notice sometimes.
 
ive had Lydia pursue enemies into buildings...and find her inside with all the enemies slain.

I haven't noticed much post patch w/resistances. Playing a Breton, the innate magical resistance + the racial ability makes magical encounters feel like being licked by a kitten. while I have encountered the backasshat dragon, theone following it after the reload behaved as like normal and was quite an epic battle.
 
[quote name='AshesofWake']question: if I finish the main quest do all the dragons go away? I mean I assume so but that would kinda suck :/[/QUOTE]

im trying my best to avoid the main quest line because im having too much fun exploring.
 
[quote name='AshesofWake']question: if I finish the main quest do all the dragons go away? I mean I assume so but that would kinda suck :/[/QUOTE]
Nope, dragons stick around and still randomly appear. Apparently, the last shout you get
actually allows you to summon a dragon to fight for you thus allowing you to set up some awesome dragon vs. dragon action
 
[quote name='RedvsBlue']Nope, dragons stick around and still randomly appear. Apparently, the last shout you get
actually allows you to summon a dragon to fight for you thus allowing you to set up some awesome dragon vs. dragon action
[/QUOTE]


omgoshles. That's really awesome >_
 
[quote name='AlphaPanda']Is there a way to tell whether a book will give you a boost to your stats/an extra quest compared to just a regular ol' book? I'm not particularly a fan of just reading the random books, but the ones that give me an extra boost are nice. There doesn't seem to be any sort of indicator, am I missing something? Scouring random books sucks.[/QUOTE]

Some books also give map locations and/or misc quests too
 
[quote name='MrPiggles']Some books also give map locations and/or misc quests too[/QUOTE]

Sword of Red Eagle will give a sidequest, not a bad one either for example. I think the name is something like "Explorers Guide to Skyrim" and updates your map. I don't know what it updates it with, but it updates something.
 
[quote name='Thekrakrabbit']Sword of Red Eagle will give a sidequest, not a bad one either for example. I think the name is something like "Explorers Guide to Skyrim" and updates your map. I don't know what it updates it with, but it updates something.[/QUOTE]

It marks your map with locations of certain standing stones.
 
Gone through about 23 hours in the game. About 2 hours post patch. Mostly harmless stuff, but it's starting to crash to my desktop every 15 to 20 minutes. I've tried adjusting the sound quality like Bethesda said and been playing with my video settings to no avail. I've tried it pre and post mod also, but still crashes every 15 minutes or so. I'm gonna see if I can rollback the patch and continue. Hopefully I can. I've put a lot of time into the game and would be sad if I couldn't play because of something like this
 
11846163.jpg
 
last 3 dragon encounters were normal, no silly vertically challenge dragons either...one even had a very unique attack which surprised me, not to mentioned completely changed the landscape. for now, the patch seems to work for some ppl.
 
one of the things the developers are saying is save often and take breaks, reloading a saved game will greatly improve the framerate if you're experienceing a drop...since marathon games (or extended play w/out breaks) causes the world to continously run in the background as your character does their thing. hope that helps.
 
when it comes to the books once you read one do you need to keep it or can you get rid of it once youve read it and still retain the info? especially when it comes to spell books once youve learned the spell do you need to keep the book?
 
If you mean like, for example, getting a Sneak upgrade from a Skill book, you don't need to keep the book. I believe once you buy a Spell Tome and use it, it just disappears. From what i know, you don't need to keep any of the books unless you want to read through them.

Still waiting on the patch before I fire the game up again.
 
good to know ive been jacking books like crazy and gotten some interesting things from them but now ive got to damn many but dont want to get rid of them.
 
[quote name='lokizz']good to know ive been jacking books like crazy and gotten some interesting things from them but now ive got to damn many but dont want to get rid of them.[/QUOTE]

Get a house.

I have a chest full of every book I've found that isn't a duplicate.

I plan to read through them never.
 
[quote name='Indignate']Get a house.

I have a chest full of every book I've found that isn't a duplicate.

I plan to read through them never.[/QUOTE]


i just joined that
military group in the first castle and part of being with them is you get a bed and a chest to store stuff i
n so im cool now. i just killed my first dragon ,
became the thane
and brought a horse now im all good. damn game is really fun just wish i had the conan theme to listen to while playing it.
 
[quote name='iNFiNiTE HORiZON']still haven't found replacements for my glass swords, is there anything better?[/QUOTE]

there's a point in the game where you're cutting things in half w/a single power attack or a few swings etc...so having a small damage boost in your wpn seems trivial. my friends and I are at that point and we just wield wpns for based on the over look for our heroes over which one simply just deals the most damage. while ebony and daedric wpns happen to deal more damage than others, the design kinda clashes with what we're going for.

...not to say if we found a daedric artifact we'd just lock it up at home. but fashion over function seems to work just fine in skyrim.
 
[quote name='Rumors']Hey, I'm kinda interested in playing other classes without starting a new file. Is there a way to respec?[/QUOTE]

on the PC, yes...on the xbox, no.

if you feel you made some poor choices, it's far from the end of the world. since skills can be leveled, it's really only perk investments that you can't take back...but even then, unless you invested 9 perks into the destruction tree and then decided you're going 2H + heavy armor til end game, there's really isn't much reason to restart. Just start using the skills you want to invest in, put perks into those trees, don't worry about crafting so much and you should have more than enough perks to satisfy your craving.

in skyrim, there is really no classes only what you specialize in...and you can specialize in a lot of things before end game.
 
ok so i did the mission where you save
alfphild battle born from being kidnapped
went in kicked ass got some loot and walked her happy ass back to wherever and got the message to d the last bit of the mission. i didnt realize till later i was supposed to talk to her because the way it was wrded i figured that was that .so now i cant find her anywhere. i went to her farm i looked over town nothing. am i pretty much screwed?
 
[quote name='lokizz']ok so i did the mission where you save
alfphild battle born from being kidnapped
went in kicked ass got some loot and walked her happy ass back to wherever and got the message to d the last bit of the mission. i didnt realize till later i was supposed to talk to her because the way it was wrded i figured that was that .so now i cant find her anywhere. i went to her farm i looked over town nothing. am i pretty much screwed?[/QUOTE]

the worst thing that can happen is, you dont get a few extra gold coins...or you miss out on some reward item that most likely isn't anything special or unique. honestly, the thing that bothers ppl the most is the unfilled quest diamond in their completed quest log.

the main storyline quests are really the most important, the rest just help give background to the struggle between the factions and allows you to decide if you want to join one or the other.
 
[quote name='Tha Xecutioner']Daedric > all.[/QUOTE]

where do I find daedric weapons? and I want to use ebony but I don't have ebony unlocked in smithing tree so I can't upgrade them nearly as much as I can my glass weapons, so I'm using two glass swords and a glass bow, and the ebony weapons are just so much weaker that I don't bother with them. can daedric weapons be made if i unlock daedric in smithing?


and @100xp so you think I'd be okay using ebony even though the stats are a lot less then?
 
@Infinite Horizon, a good buddy of mine plays this game like a real RPG. So as a warrior who fights w/honor etc, he won't brake into ppl's houses, he won't pickpocket unless it's part of a quest, he'll literally walk everywhere or take his horse, no craft spamming, no saving before a lockpick attempt etc. He's using steel plate and a steel battleaxe...and he 1-2 hits everything on a charge.

I don't play as hardcore as that guy, but I try to have a certain look with my guy and hireling since the difference in armor and damage isn't that far apart enough to make a huge difference. Yes, the Daedric stuff is top of the line armor/wpns but the availability is not as common even when compared to dragon armor. Once you smith a few items, it's very easy to have lower end stuff be comparable if not better than the higher end equipment...this is because lower end equipment has a lower smithing skill level to upgrade higher than higher ones. A foresworn bow at smithing XX, will be within 2-3 pts of damage with an elven or dwarven bow that was also upgraded. etc.

So, go for style...your shouts, enchants, and personal strategy will make the difference. better to look cool beating the enemy into a pulp than be miss_matched and beat them 1 swing sooner.
 
as far as Daedric wpns/armor, without spoiling anything...they can be found, rewarded through tasks/quests, forged via the smithing tree w/the right skill level and perk(s). in order to force Daedric wpns/armor you need a variety of forging items and the most important component, a Daerdric Heart.
 
[quote name='100xp']the worst thing that can happen is, you dont get a few extra gold coins...or you miss out on some reward item that most likely isn't anything special or unique. honestly, the thing that bothers ppl the most is the unfilled quest diamond in their completed quest log.

the main storyline quests are really the most important, the rest just help give background to the struggle between the factions and allows you to decide if you want to join one or the other.[/QUOTE]


oh well all is good she ended up showing up on the map later behind a bar just wandering around lol. wonder what sorrority shes in lol.
 
[quote name='100xp']@Infinite Horizon, a good buddy of mine plays this game like a real RPG. So as a warrior who fights w/honor etc, he won't brake into ppl's houses, he won't pickpocket unless it's part of a quest, he'll literally walk everywhere or take his horse, no craft spamming, no saving before a lockpick attempt etc. He's using steel plate and a steel battleaxe...and he 1-2 hits everything on a charge.

I don't play as hardcore as that guy, but I try to have a certain look with my guy and hireling since the difference in armor and damage isn't that far apart enough to make a huge difference. Yes, the Daedric stuff is top of the line armor/wpns but the availability is not as common even when compared to dragon armor. Once you smith a few items, it's very easy to have lower end stuff be comparable if not better than the higher end equipment...this is because lower end equipment has a lower smithing skill level to upgrade higher than higher ones. A foresworn bow at smithing XX, will be within 2-3 pts of damage with an elven or dwarven bow that was also upgraded. etc.

So, go for style...your shouts, enchants, and personal strategy will make the difference. better to look cool beating the enemy into a pulp than be miss_matched and beat them 1 swing sooner.[/QUOTE]

Of course this really only applies later in the game, after quite a few level ups. You can't take cool looking stuff that matches together over more powerful items right off the bat, or you will be reloading your saves an awful lot.

Once you get pretty powerful though, making a guy with a completed set of armor + weapons to match sounds appealing though. I look forward to having multiple sets of matching armor + weapons once I get a little higher level on this character.
 
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