I did a deadpool style role play. Joined the army then got kicked out for not following orders. Became a hit man fighting for the little guys. Married miuri, 'cos she's a bit nuts. Uthgard the unbroken as a steward for the snide banter. You can choose to be nice or be a dick when you please.

Once I'd got the worn shrouded armour I got my superpowers. I resto looped fortify healing to about 500‰ +500 health and played on legendary with a bow and sword boosted to about 200 damage. This balances out the damage mechanic at that level so you can have fun without being (too) op. No improvement was made to armour value so a few big hits from a giant or getting mobbed by several draugr deathlords could be deadly.

I also resto looped gear for my mutant follower Colossus. Improved Steel plate with +500 health, gloves with + 300 unarmed. He enjoyed his work.

I try to make cool and interesting chars, but for some reason they always just end up as archers with sneak ��

I’m playing a cleric at the moment. Heavy armour, mace and restoration magic focusing on the undead damaging spells.

Jack of all trades good at everything

Gameplay-wise my favorite build is a mage who uses bound sword. If you want it to be more difficult, stick solely to bound sword, healing spells and armor spells, or if you want it to be a bit easier, add in some summons and illusion. Usually a breton or altmer. Roleplay-wise I tend to enjoy good-aligned characters, since roleplay often depends on what you can't do rather than what you can do, and good characters are more restricted in their actions than uncaring or evil ones

High elf.
2-handed, light armor, conjuration, smithing, enchanting, restoration.
Specialization - 2 handed maces and conjuring atronachs/daedra (no necromancy)
Once you are able to make/find it, you can only use elven gear (...and glass. Why not) or a conjured weapon.
Imperial, dawnguard

You Are the dragonborn, and will take advantage of the blades, even if it means acting as a double agent.

You are pro-elf, 1000%. You summon your atronachs and then beat things down with your hammer. True elven superiority isnt found in casting a lightning bolt across the battlefield, its beating your foe into submission. Which you do.

While your goal is to help the imperials beat back the stormcloaks (even if they did try to behead you... you'll show them who is superior...), you will also help destroy major threats as they appear

Classic Adventurer

1. Dunmer
2. One handed/ block/ archery/ pickpocket/ light armor
3. Thieves guild/ dawnguard
4. On
5. Yes

Crowd Control Mage

1. Breton/ Altmer (or Dunmer, all my characters are dunmer)
2. Illusion, Conjuration (mainly necromancy), Alteration, Destruction (shock), Enchanting (think of it as your trade, capture souls and sell enchanted items), Alchemy
3. College of Winterhold/ Volkihar/ Do all of Neloths quests
4. Off 5.Yes

All part of the same build:

Dark elf/Dunmer, non Dragonborn, complete most all quests in the city of windhelm, companions, you choose the rest from there

Pickpocket Sneak Heavy armor Enchanting Smithing Other one is for you to decide. Could go destruction, alteration, Conjuration, 1 handed, or archery, or 2 handed. 2 handed would be good for blocking and nerf how broken sneaking is.

You RP as a trainee to the local court wizard (Wuunferth), blacksmith (Oengul War-Anvil), and the local (seemingly thieving) merchant (Sadri.)

There are some big names in that city and a lot of political intrigue. You have a natural inclination to side with the imperials due to your treatment, but you’re grateful for those living there whom decided to teach you along the way. The thieves guild best suits your talents so you move south to the city of thieves after completing most/all local quests. Following the mastery of sneaking and pickpocketing you loot your way into being a royal nightmare for all who oppose you. The mages college is up the road and magic sits there awaiting you to master enchanting and eventually other schools of magic. Feel encouraged to add destruction in at some point, even if just for flame cloak and damage/magic resist enchantments.

Even if you don’t do it this detailed, don’t be afraid to try something new. Combat archer is dope too.

Stormcloaks

Become a bard.

1. Nord.
2. Speech, Illusion, Alteration, One Handed, Sneak, Enchanting.
3. College of Winterhold and Stormcloaks, but obviously Bards College too.
4. Survival off for a more casual playthrough.
5. You are the Dragonborn.

Wear fine clothes and carry a sword. Do all kinds of cool heroic things so you can sing about it. Drink all the Nord mead you can find. Carry a lute even if you can’t use it. It ends up being pretty fun.

All builds dissolve into stealth archer anyways...

I know I would. I love Skyrim build stuff

You could use the UESP instead of resorting to memory.

I think i would be interested atleast, always a good fun read for me ��

I mean if you have them online you can always post links or even download links for the files for others to use

As someone who is about to start this game for the 2nd time on switch - I will read your guides!

I have played Skyrim with dozens of different character builds. They all seem to be sneaky archers in the end.

Just wanted to point out that there is also a /r/skyrim subreddit that may find such a thing useful. Not as many users as /r/gaming here of course, but still a half-million strong and typically 1-2K online at any given moment.

I misread the title as Skyrim Builds Character. I was like, "ch'yeah!"

I support this. Lmk if u need anything

Looks like you are missing the following major play styles.

• Two handed - slower swings but longer reach warrior.
• One-handed block bash (off hand free) - quicker movement than shield
• Dual wield warrior
• Spellsword - mage and melee
• Combat Archer - no stealth and usually crossbow and heavy armour.

I've got 49 builds on my build website that cover pretty much everything. It's reasonably new as it's the 1 year anniversary of it on the 31st March.

https://www.skyrimaebuilds.com/

• Stealthy destruction mage

• Jack-Of-All-Trades with two skills in each archetype and The Lover Stone

• Dual-Wielding with all three words of Elemental Fury

Gotta be at least one of these you haven't tried yet.

Battlemage

No-blood-on-your-hands illusionist/conjurer

Mai’q Tyson: fists only khajiit heavy armour build

Orc two handed warrior. Been building his character over multiple saves and different mods. His name is hagar and he's my favorite character

Normally just a bunch of extra quest mods

A high elf named Zenthara Mane. A warrior mage who started out as a scavenger raised by her adoptive Nord parents. She’s the granddaughter of my Oblivion character, Zentha, and the great niece of my Morrowind character, Zenthor. I have a LOT more story regarding her, but I’d rather not turn my comment into a novel.

This channel has some cool and interesting builds, with lots of mods.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZtneZaHt6ixm0WXc5A4cLw

I don't do "builds" unless you have a name for a Breton who solves the majority of her problems with a fireball to the face (pyromancer, I suppose, but I use all schools of magic, the occasional bow and 1H). I do occasionally inflict actual morals/restrictions onto a character, though, with options of no theft (with the exception of required stuff for Markarth and TG), no attacking until attacked (for humanoids and dragons), no deals with daedric lords (Sheogorath being the exception), and so forth.

Every last one of them is addicted to tapping ore veins, collects way to many ingredients, and spends a lot of time making pithy comments at whatever follower she has in tow about being in the way.

Most recent character was a Relic Hunter for Legacy of the Dragonborn (since I'd never installed that mod before).

I did a Björn Ironside build which was really cool. In the show, Björn was pretty well rounded in terms of skill sets and was mostly light armor. I mainly used 1 handed with an ax and a shield, but also built up archery, and dual wielding a little bit. Well spoken and crafty (thanks to Ragnar) so points into speech, lockpick, and sneak. Obviously smithing and enchanting <- But that was so I could make gear, not so much for the character.

The items/ gear I crafted were all appropriately named after mythological Norse relics/gear too so the story building there was pretty fun.

Also tried to be more lore friendly by having a set of winter gear (mainly using the Nord group from Solsthiem’s gear)

Travels with Freya as a companion.

Lots of mods though to get unenchanted versions of unique gear (targe of the blooded for example) to tailor to my specific needs.

My favorite character that holds a special place is a Orc Nightblade.

The skills at the beginning were

• One-Handed
• Archery
• Light Armor
• Sneak
• Illusion

By the endgame it was

• One-Handed/Two-Handed
• Archery
• Illusion
• Sneak
• Light Armor
• All the crafting skills
• Restoration

You may ask yourself, “How did you get that many skills at the end?” A combination of skill minimization spread and know-how.

My fav was a necromage vampire dual wielding warrior. I used mehrunes razor and windshear to stun lock oponents, elemntal fury because mehrunes razor doesnt count as enchanted and necromage makes the dual wield perks and elemental fury more effective. So I just become a blade tornado of death. It increases your dps to an insane amount.

I play a lot of Mages but my most favorite is a Dunmer, I've just been calling her build "Grand Necromancer"

Very cool list!

I fucking love bosmer illusion/sneak/archery characters. However, alteration/two-handed orcs are challenging and the skill sets match up really really well. RPG the shit out of it!

Mage assassin get illusion to 70 for that quiet casting helps but using ice spear for long range kill and the kill cams for it are pretty dope I just wish there was a spell that launched 6 or 7 for a shot gun effect

Stealth archer is best, you can become so powerful.

Naked face painted unarmed Nord named GelMibson

I like illusion assassin due, being invisible and dealing 30 or 60X backstab damage

I think it’s the best for me when it comes to steamrolling combat I shouldn’t be able to yet and just progress through the game. I play as orc so you get beserker rage once per day. I use that on hard bosses.

I use shrouded gloves so that’s double sneak attack damage. With assassin’s blade (15X with dagger) it’s 30X sneak attack with dagger.

Illusion is not only for invisibility you can also get calm or fury spells. It’s so fun you’re like a psychopathic puppet master. I try and sneak kill a room flawlessly, but some rooms are too tightly packed. So I kill one person and calm the rest. They’ll just stand there waiting to die, they’re completely de agroed and will let you sneak up behind them and everything.

This build also keeps you engaged and thinking about positioning.

All character builds lead to stealth archer

Stealth archer

I suggest a superior alternative: Combat archer

Instead of sneaking around exploiting Skyrim's piss poor enemy AI, you could use a build that makes you actually fight enemies, not just delete them like drunken text messages the morning after a night of bad decisions.

And by actually fighting enemies, yes you will have to learn how to play well or get killed, but that provides challenge and reward, which means you'll actually have fun!

Instead of being the guy from Sniper Elite but with a bow, you'd be Legolas or Hawkeye. The guy from Sniper Elite might be cool, but he's no Legolas.

Anyway, welcome to Skyrim, enjoy your stay. :-)

Honestly, the best character build is whatever you're happy with. Skyrim isn't one of those games that punishes you for investing skills outside of strict archetypes. If you want someone who's kinda good at Illusion, One-Handed, Sneak, and is a tank in Heavy Armor, go for it. This is your world. There are no mistakes here, only happy little accidents.

Truer words never been spoken. I don't understand people asking for tips and tutorial before even giving the game a blind start its akin to asking entire spoilers for the movie you are about to watch.