Quadratic Wizards

Spent the weekend doing family things. And playing Skyrim. Had an idea; there's this great mine you can own, Winstadt Mine I think it is called. First you have to clear out some really tough bandits. Thing of it is, the bandits in mines tend to be digging for ore and not paying attention. So I figured I could sneak in a little ways, "quietly" mine some iron ore (yeah, yeah, the weirdness of being able to use a pick-axe on stone and nobody comes looking) and use that to buff up my Smithing skill. Build myself some armor and a decent weapon, penetrate a little deeper into the mine where the ores are to make better metal, lather, rinse, repeat.

Plus I've got a mod that makes running a smelter count towards Smithing skill. Well, it worked. A little too easily, actually. Then I did the handwork to expand the mine, eventually crafting nice weapons to sell back in town. Very zen-like, a lot of swinging a pick-axe and staring at the forge, and that's the perfect thing for being inside on a cold rainy day trying to relax from a really long year.

Well, once the mine is up and running with a full staff of miners, guards, cook, bard, your own fisherman and even a brewer, money starts rolling in. I've been wandering around Skyrim now, buying up every bit of property I can. (Unfortunately only Hjarken Farm also earns money. But it also has the only grain mill I have yet discovered that lets you make flour from the wheat you grow.)

Also, finally, maxed out on Smithing and Enchanting, with Alchemy almost there. But you know what? The best armor you can build in the game still doesn't make it safe to go hand-to-hand with the really bad stuff. And hand weapons don't do enough damage, either. Skyrim very much falls into the Quadratic Wizard problem. Somewhere around level 30-40 you can do more damage with magic than you can with any "honest" weapon.

So you need to buff up magical skills -- alchemy, enchanting, destruction magic or something -- in order to buff your weapons enough to be competitive. Or go Stealth Archer. Stealth Archer takes off at around level 5 (when your Stealth skill gets high enough to pull it off and you have enough health to survive it if they do find you.) It has a slump around 20-30 because it doesn't, again, do enough damage. But with magic in the mix...enchanted items of plus stealth, potions of sneaking, and the same for arrow damage, and it is powerful out to end game.

I did Meridia's Beacon just for the hell of it (and a half-decent sword) and decided I was a Bane of the Undead. Joined the Dawnguard and totally trashed Harkon. Poor guy was flying around the room in cloud-of-bats form trying to hide long enough to regenerate. I never touched Auriel's Bow. Just kept blasting him with Sunfire.

One of my "cheats" now is that Garlic Bread is just as good as a Cure Disease potion for curing the Vampiric taint, and the ingredients are easier to find. That is, if you own a farm. That and owning a meadery and a farm means carrot juice -- which gives night vision -- is a nice option for dark dungeons.

(Oddly, one of the changes of the Anniversary Edition seems to have made all the underground spaces really bright. There is no need for torches, lanterns, magelight, or any of that. Much less night vision.)

After I was chatting with Serana and she decided to go get herself cured. So now she's back as my companion, in human form, and I don't have to listen to Sophia natter on anymore.

I definitely leveled a bit too far. The second dragon I met was an Ancient Dragon. That's the toughest one in the base game. Gonna make it difficult if I decide to finish the "main" quest line.

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And had some success with jolloff rice. Got the base note of the flavor happening, finally. Simmered tomato sauce with a mixture of powdered garlic, oregano, finely chopped habanero peppers and meat stock until it got that smokey flavor, then cooked two cups of rice in that plus a bit of water.

Also got the heat right. Unfortunately. Chopped yellow onion, peeled garlic, simmered them in English butter, mixed in diced bell pepper and crushed tomatoes and...seven habanero chilis. Was a bit much.

It was good, though.

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Added a couple more mods to my stack. One of them gives Serana more dialogue, recorded with a new actress who sounds similar enough to the original to be acceptable. So now she's as talkative as Sophia. Trust the mods, though; none of the base game companions interact with NPCs (they do in Fallout 4, but not at lot). Serana now initiates conversations with other NPCs, and they reply. Could have floored me when out of the blue Serana introduced herself to Jarl Balgruf and asked him about Nazeem. And the Jarl told her exactly what he thought of the twerp!

I'm in the middle of a familiar spell-sword deficit. See, at some point the best way to increase your weapon damage is to increase the additional damage they do via flaming and so forth. Which are affected by your base level at Destruction magic. So you end up running around taking horrible chances using your less-powerful spells just so you can level up that skill and make your good weapons work better.