I killed my first giant last night at level 17 dual casting a firebolt spell. Bastard ran up while I was fighting a dragon and actually killed the dragon in like 2-3 hits, while I'm staring like "Oh fuck this is bad..." So I started slowly backing away firing off spells at his chest and using an awesome shout that freezes enemies solid which helped when I was waiting on regen to start, because it let me get in 5 swings while the giant was on the ground and trying to get up. Since I had picked up the perk that staggers them when you dual cast and had a +100% magicka regen robe and a +75% magicka regen hat on I actually pulled it off, but it took a while.

I got arrested stealing crap out of the alchemists shop in Whiterun last night, and after getting out of jail I walked back in to get all the crap back out of the evidence chest. I guess my sneak skill is high enough with the +25% sneak boots I have that I can hide under a torch with a guard staring right at me and not have him see me, because I looted the chest right in front of him. Either that or the guy was blind as hell.

Just had this happen as I walked out into the College's courtyard.

Oh! Nice to see you blood dragon. Glad you could drop in.

The good thing is that in such an enclosed location his ability to fly was negated almost completely. Leading to this:


Sadly now I have a giant skeleton laying in the middle of the courtyard that I have to run past every damn time I want to use the enchanter in the Arch Mage Quarters...

I'm not even sure what you would call the class I'm playing. I run around smacking dragons with my Elven Warhammer but against weaker stuff it tends to be sneaking and either dual casted spells, an Elven Bow, or dual wielded Elven swords. I got my sneak skill high enough that I can cast firebolts and such from sneak and not get detected so killing just about everything got really easy.

I already finished the College questline before I posted that and I agree. I had to get creative to win the fight before the last one.

So as not to spoil anything:

[SPOILER:58845588ac]I think the fight took me like an hour and a half while I died and reloaded until I realized he couldn't find me if I constantly shot him with an arrow while sneaking and then ran two rooms back when he got too close and might have spotted me. His two thralls were super easy and died in one firebolt shot each but good lord he demolished me in a shot or two from his lightning. Once I finally abused the sneak system and beat him I was like "Damn I hope the next fight isn't harder..."

Then I get back and stop the dark elf from fucking with the Eye of Magus with two swings of my warhammer after I get him away from it. So disappointing that the hardest things in that fight were the magical anomalies, seriously fuck those things they can survive way too many spell blasts and still take three or four hammer hits.[/SPOILER:58845588ac]

I'm doing the Thieves Guild right now. It is kinda easy but that might be because I've got my sneak so high stuff can run right up to me and still not see me until I stick my swords in their gut. Several conjurers and flame atronauchs found that out last night before I went to bed.

Cameron wrote:

How's the alchemy system in Skyrim? Are there as many ingredients as in Oblivion?

There are tons of ingredients all over the damn place. I avoid doing alchemy because I end up with huge stacks of heavy potions in my inventory, but I have tons of each common ingredient just hanging out in a chest in my house and a decent number of the rarer ingredients. Plus alchemy stations are all over the place too, you'll run across them even in caves and such which is what lead to me being overburdened after every dungeon I cleared early on. Buying a house is almost necessary just to store all the potions and ingredients.