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Running The Gauntlet; This is neildarkstar's challenge competition.
Topic Started: Jun 22 2017, 06:27 PM (1,442 Views)
neildarkstar
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I think I've just figured out what I'm going to do with my summer break. I'm going to have my own competition, in which I expect to be the only participant.

The essence of the competition? Well, much like Rick's "Adella's Way" competition... the rules are pretty much the same as Rick's except, no weapons, no armor, no crafting. (and no spamming of firewood chopping. You need 10 gold desperately, chop some wood. You need 500 Septims desperately, sell your sister or something... but don't chop 500 Septims worth of firewood).

Difficulty will be Legendary.

Dead is Dead rules apply (a save may be used at the cave exit or at any point previous to that in order to restart your character)

All skills start at 0

NO exploits allowed.

You may have a character of any vanilla race... (including Khajiit and Argonian) and modded races are okay as long as they have no special abilities that give an unfair advantage.

I will reiterate that no spells may be used that use magicka. The exception is naturally the fire and frost spells needed to set the focusing crystal for the CoW Staff of Magnus quest. Shouts are allowed (though getting the dragon soul could be fun, eh?).

Scrolls are allowed.

Training is allowed.

Crafting:

Enchanting:
You cannot create enchanted items, but you can recharge some non-weapon staffs.

Smithing:
You CAN use Smithing, but you cannot make or improve weapons or armor. Need leather for furniture for your house? Fine. Need to build your house? Fine. Need to make a bedroll for your camping mod? Fine.

Alchemy:
You cannot create any potions. Additionally, No potion may be used that restores or fortifies health, or fortifies health regeneration. Other potions are fine to use, but not to make. You may eat ingredients and enjoy their benefits, i.e. Hawk Feathers, Snowberries, etc.

Unarmed combat may of course be used, and the only exception to the "no armor" rule is that blocking is allowed, but it must be with a torch only. If it is armor or a weapon, you cannot use it.

Named artifacts are NOT forbidden, just remember that you can't use it if it's a weapon or armor. So, let's say that you manage to get Spellbreaker... KUDOS to you, but... you can't use it.

You cannot use a staff except for those that are combat neutral. Magelight, for instance. While no crafting is the general rule, such a staff may be recharged. If you have a staff of chicken summoning, that would be cool (but the chicken cannot engage enemies in combat).
NOTE:
I don't really see how you could function as the Archmage of the College of Winterhold, but... if you get that far, the Staff of Magnus may used in the final confrontation with Ancano, but never before or after that point.

Guardian Stones such as The Lord Stone or the Atronach Stone may be used.

You may have and use any item you can find, buy, or steal as long as it follows the no armor/no weapon/no heal potion rule. You may either keep or sell any item you have found, purchased, or stolen.

You may eat nature's foods (apples, tomatoes, potatoes, etc.) but you can not create stews, soups, fondues, etc. You may NOT eat more than 3 of these food items in a day (unless of course you are using a mod that requires more to avoid penalties). This is for people who want to use mods like "Super Simple Needs" or "Real Needs and Diseases" that require food and sleep. Honor system, yes? Eating more than is required is simply cheating.

You may have and use mods that add extra slots (Left hand Rings for instance), mods like Convenient Horses, camping mods, and so forth that might make life a touch easier, but such mods must not make combat easier.

You cannot use a follower or an animal other than quest specific, and they must go to their quest destination ASAP.

No map-based fast travel, carriages and boats can be used.

The goal of this competition is to do as much as possible while remaining alive. Obviously, completing the DB questline would be difficult in the extreme, but it might be interesting to see what people do to try to complete it.

Like I said, I expect this to be just me, but if you want to try it, just post your name, character's name, race and gender (gender is optional) in this thread. Give us an update now and then so we know the player didn't die trying.

I may have forgotten something (like my name perhaps) so feel free to comment with questions or suggestions.


I may have encountered my first block... I can't seem to find either a mod or a console command to reduce skill levels for SSE. If something doesn't turn up, then I guess it'll just be with vanilla skill values.

Edited by neildarkstar, Jun 23 2017, 05:28 AM.
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Kane
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:bolt:
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Rick
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Hey Neil,
I am flattered that you are using the essential bones of Adella's Trial to formulate your own version. Thanks for the plug :)

You can set skills to zero on pc using console commands....don't ask me how, but I have seen it explained !

The fire and frost spells you mention are only needed for the CoW questline in fact....in Mzulft....to align the focusing crystal in the apparatus.

It looks practically as tough as mine so......Good luck with that. It is the non healing that gets ya.....so many folk rely on simply pumping healing potions to get through fights. Without healing, fights need a far more cautious approach and running away will be more the norm in the early levels.

Finally I should say.....if you fancy having a crack at Adella's Trial...be my guest. We have several participants now and would love you on board.

Right...time for me to awaken Cruella, sorry I mean Adella, and get our show back on the road :)
Edited by Rick, Jun 22 2017, 07:09 PM.
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Serethil
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Neil, there are various "setAV" commands (http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Console#Commands - and search for setAV). They should be the same in SE. There's also forceAV and modAV which do similar but slightly different things.
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neildarkstar
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Serethil
Jun 22 2017, 07:16 PM
Neil, there are various "setAV" commands (http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Console#Commands - and search for setAV). They should be the same in SE. There's also forceAV and modAV which do similar but slightly different things.


Yeah, I'm aware of that, but the problem is in the values. You see, first, they are geared for cheating to advance skills, rather than go the other way... Second, they don't advance by a skill value, but rather by an experience point value.

So, for example to get an alchemy score of 100, the command reads:
"Advskill alchemy 999999999"
to set the skill to 100.

The problem is knowing the value to get to 0 from 15, 20, or 25 when the skills have different amounts of required experience to change levels. I thought about just putting a negative in front of that 999999999, but I'm uncertain about the results of such an action.

Rick
Jun 22 2017, 07:07 PM
Hey Neil,
I am flattered that you are using the essential bones of Adella's Trial to formulate your own version. Thanks for the plug :)

You can set skills to zero on pc using console commands....don't ask me how, but I have seen it explained !

The fire and frost spells you mention are only needed for the CoW questline in fact....in Mzulft....to align the focusing crystal in the apparatus.

It looks practically as tough as mine so......Good luck with that. It is the non healing that gets ya.....so many folk rely on simply pumping healing potions to get through fights. Without healing, fights need a far more cautious approach and running away will be more the norm in the early levels.

Finally I should say.....if you fancy having a crack at Adella's Trial...be my guest. We have several participants now and would love you on board.

Right...time for me to awaken Cruella, sorry I mean Adella, and get our show back on the road :)


"Practically as tough as yours"? Hmmm... Have you tried yours without weapons, armor, or spells?

The thing is that I was looking at your setup with the idea of joining in, and I read your parameters and decided that it only went halfway... and that halfway denies my entire style of play, since I'm into the mage thing. If I'm going to do it without the parts I enjoy, then I felt like I should get rid of the weapons and armor too...

You gave yourself Smithing, Alchemy, and Enchanting to negate the really tough parts. I decided that a true challenge is doing it in your underwear while armed with a wet noodle.

BTW, thanks for pointing out my brain fart with the frost and fire spells. :)

Edited by neildarkstar, Jun 22 2017, 07:44 PM.
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Serethil
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Yeah, see - I don't know anything about those, never used them. I thought I read something somewhere about how to tweak to a given (+ or -) value, don't know where now.
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neildarkstar
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I used to set up batch files for SLE, but I never messed with skills. My batch files equipped different clothing, or put the character in a different faction, or just changed gender. Skills are done a bit differently.
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glargg
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"player.setAV Block 0" will set the Block skill to 0. Etcetera. Isn't this what you want?
Edited by glargg, Jun 22 2017, 07:43 PM.
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neildarkstar
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That's exactly what I want! Thanks!
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neildarkstar
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My first Gauntlet Character:
Neildarkstar
S'Virre
Female
Khajiit
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neildarkstar
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S'Virre Repercussions

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Rick
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Hmmm, there is a fundamental difference between the aims of your Guantlet and Adella's Trial.

Your goal is to 'get as far as possible' but with your rule set, as levels raise, death becomes inevitable. A bit like Nekkid Nord. Ultimately that is gonna sap your will to continue restarting, but hey ho prove me wrong eh!

Adella's goal is to complete all major quest lines....so although very hard...her questing must not become truely impossible. Its a really long haul aspiration Neil, and surviving for many hundreds of hours is necessary.

So crafting is not "negating the really tough parts" my friend....it is essential on Legendary with any quest line commited, long play through (unless you can sneak avoid all combat and traps I guess, but avoiding everything seems kinda like a cop out to me and in some cases you still have to kill a boss or two!)

I see you can still use scrolls....intentional? Or just an unclosed loophole? They don't cost magicka to use of course, but you get spells all the same!

Well good luck Neil.....I WILL be curious to see just how far your unarmed, unprotected, sneaky, punchy scroll reader will be able to get. :)




Edited by Rick, Jun 23 2017, 05:42 AM.
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neildarkstar
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The problem with the differences between Adella's Trials and the Gauntlet is simply that when I play, I want to have fun. I want to be entertained, titillated, and frankly frightened occasionally by my encounters. The problem is that you eliminated magic users entirely from being able to join in your play.

Fine for warriors, not so fine for the rest of us.

Mine also removes magic users, but to compensate, it removes warriors as well. The result of that should be some truly terrifying encounters, some extrememly inventive tactics, and just plain fun trying to accomplish what would seemingly be the impossible. That's fun. Grinding along trying to maintain or even improve an impossible status quo using crafting and OP weapons and armor does not seem to be so much fun to me.

"We the unwilling, led by the unqualified, have been doing so much for so long, with so little, that we now feel qualified to accomplish the impossible with nothing."

Oh, BTW, yes scrolls was an oversight, but I think perhaps I'll leave them in as is. You know, I've never tried a major usage of scrolls. In fact, I almost never use them. I carry them around from the time I find them (never buy them) until the game is done without ever using them. Mostly because they tend to be slow, cumbersome, and of limited value. By the time you get the scroll working, you're already dead, it seems to me...
Edited by neildarkstar, Jun 23 2017, 05:25 AM.
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Rick
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Your choice of course, but scrolls handled with care and not wasted are most definitely easy magic casting solutions and include such things as 'Conjure Storm Atronach', which I would call a temporary follower since it is still an Ai controlled npc that fights for you.

To me there is also no technical difference between scrolls and staves. Both are just objects, which cast spells ! Which is why I banned both.

Like you, prior to the Trials, I used to collect the most potent scrolls and keep them for emergency only use.....but then either forget them in the heat of battle or be loathe to waste them 'this time'. So they never got used! Plus, yes, they seem to take longer than just hand casting.

But these challenges are very personal creations.....so if your Khajiit can read scrolls, so be it...it is what it is. :)

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After Dark
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I have simple solution for you: forget about the cat and embrace the wolf within. A werewolf is a really powerful creature and you won't need any weapon or armor.
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neildarkstar
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Rick
Jun 23 2017, 06:04 AM
Your choice of course, but scrolls handled with care and not wasted are most definitely easy magic casting solutions and include such things as 'Conjure Storm Atronach', which I would call a temporary follower since it is still an Ai controlled npc that fights for you.

To me there is also no technical difference between scrolls and staves. Both are just objects, which cast spells ! Which is why I banned both.

Like you, prior to the Trials, I used to collect the most potent scrolls and keep them for emergency only use.....but then either forget them in the heat of battle or be loathe to waste them 'this time'. So they never got used! Plus, yes, they seem to take longer than just hand casting.

But these challenges are very personal creations.....so if your Khajiit can read scrolls, so be it...it is what it is. :)

You do realize that there is very little difference between using scrolls and enchanting items, right? I mean when you enchant something, you are essentially casting a spell on an item that causes said item to retain a permanent (or semi-permanent if the object requires recharging) magical effect.

To learn that spell, you had to destroy a magical item, but to use a scroll you have to destroy the scroll. Of course the scroll doesn't grant a permanent effect as is the case with an enchantment, right?

Frankly, I would say that if you can have enchantments in Adella's Trials, I can have scrolls in the Guantlet without much in the way of difference in the end... except it's harder to have really good permanent resistance when you can't enchant anything... or items with TWO enchantments on them.

Aside from that, I'm kinda wondering just how many scrolls of summon Storm Atronach I'm going to find or be able to afford to buy or even how many would be available to BE bought, eh? I do not see that scrolls makes my game any easier than yours, and that's without even thinking about the essential "magic" of smithing weapons and armor that do tremendous amounts of damage... :)
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neildarkstar
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Jun 23 2017, 06:39 AM
I have simple solution for you: forget about the cat and embrace the wolf within. A werewolf is a really powerful creature and you won't need any weapon or armor.
Yeah, but you have to survive Dustman's cairn to even become the wolf... and then there's that Silverhand hold that's your first mission while you still can't even become the wolf until nearly the end. I never personally found the Skinner all that easy to take without weapons, armor, or magic...
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Rick
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Neil there is a big difference between enchanting and scrolls!

Enchanting is passive....it does not 'project' at range and whilst you can enchant weapons to increase damage, by late game it amounts to such little extra difference that it may as well not be used....e.g. A bow of say 300 damage gaining a fire enchantment of typically ball park, 30 points. It ain't a night and day difference.
However, Its real value lies in armour enchants to add resistances, carryweight and fortify effects......of which you will have the paltry vanilla finds only!

Scrolls on the other hand cast all kinds of ranged offensive spells and summons as I illustrated. You can buy them if you can make coin!

But this is not a pissing contest Neil and you don't have to match up 'your' scroll use against 'our' enchanting use.

But I don't see how....if you ban staff useage as being too easy.....you don't ban scrolls under the same concept. <shrug>

Enchanting...for Adella is as necessary as the other crafts if we expect to have even a chance of surviving long term. We do not take any crafts just to make the game easier....we take them to make the game even possible.

You have already identified a watershed moment for S'virre....The Skinner! How can you face Krev with zero weapons or armour....on Legendary...with only say a fireball scroll.

If you make it to the point that high level foes like Marauders and Deathlords appear....you won't be able to explore practically any dungeons except real slow in sneak and let bosses live. I don't see much quest progression in your future! There are a lot of Krev the Skinner moments in Skyrim!

But again....prove me wrong...and maybe you'll enjoy it regardless. ;)
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neildarkstar
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I'm sure I'm going to enjoy it regardless... because it is so far from an easy or sure thing.

I really wasn't (and am not) trying to get into a pissing contest with you over it, but we've always known since nearly the very first that we have some entirely different views on things associated with the game and how it's played, right? I just see it as conversation, I'm not going to get heated on it, and I hope you don't either.

Anyway, in my mind, the difference between staves and scrolls is that you pay a thousand coin for that scroll of conjure storm atronach, use it once, and it's gone. The staff on the other hand can be used quite a number of times with no further investment until it runs out of charges. A vast difference between using it once and having it disappear, eh?

Given a choice, what would you rather have... A scroll of Summon Storm Atronach with a value of 250 Septims that, if you buy it, can end up costing 750 to a thousand Septims, or the Sanguine Rose?

As long as you have enchanting and weapon use, you're going to be able to recharge staves easily with soul gems filled by an enchanted weapon. There is actually no comparison in my mind between staves and scrolls.

As to enchantments, you can say enchanting's different all you want, but I really don't see it. You have a bow with soul trap even for 3 seconds and it's worth it's weight in gold and at a pretty fair distance. Build up your enchanting, and how effective would a Daedric bow be with dual enchantments of paralyze and soul trap? You say it's negligible damage and it may be as opposed to critters with a couple thousand health points, but how much damage is my fire storm scroll going to do to the same creature? If facing a dragon with a medium frost breath, would you rather have boots with a 50% fire resist, or a scroll of flame atronach?

Anyway, I'm going to , as I say have fun with it. I don't care at all if anybody else joins in or not, but I'm going to find out just how far I can get, if it takes all summer.

The nastiest thing S'virr has hit so far is a skeever that jumped off a cliff in its desire to get me. ...and he nearly did!
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Brambleberry
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Well that was a bit to chew through this morning and fun to read! :)

Neil one can hotkey up to eight scrolls of similar types if one is so inclined and then equipping is just a push of a button rather than having to go into menu, pan down a list find the one you want, select it, then get out of the window and then activate like a normal spell which is very cumbersome. Long, long ago in a land far far away I tried a scroll only play through for magic source. Was fun and with this mod http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/152/? one can make their own scrolls, but I'm not sure it fits with your roolz. ;)
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