Out of Pod Experience

ok even though ultimately makes no difference, just gives me a heads start in certain skills, I have done many new games swapping which race, and now its getting stupid..

Played Oblivion as imperial and as Dunmer...

Never played Morrowind

See I like the whole thing with improved speech meaning better gold for stuff, and finding more gold, as in theory it should make all other things easier to do, whether its heavy armor or light, or two handed weapons or one.. more gold always means more options....


I generally do not like Magicka, preferring to use good old fashioned weapons to kill my foes, but I have noticed that for the 2nd dragon at least, its rather hard to get close enough to use combat weapons, and just about manageable with arrows..

Orcs well they are just plain ugly, but I still like the idea of perhaps a warrior mage type

Dunmer, same as orcs really, but not sure if I like the look of elves, have never liked elves

Imperial, as I said above the extra money would be good, but what else will I be getting? and is the voice that good considers you get something similar?

cat person thing - I like, but really only for theiving and perhaps assassin work

Lizard man - do not like, come on if I had problems with the look of the elves and orcs, then I was never going to like these guys!

Other races I have not really considered at all, but overall despite appearances I am leaning towards orc / imperial, shame I cannot do a hybrid! like the old white orc of oblivion

Gold as any type of melee character is a non issue if you smith all of your own equipment. Even if you don't you can find good stuff just from clearing out caves. I have a stockpile of expensive rings, necklaces, and other things that I can't sell without spending a few weeks in a city sleeping the days away waiting for the merchants' gold to regenerate.

Gold as a pure mage however is quite difficult to keep early on since you'll be spending much of it on spellbooks.

The racial skill bonuses are really not that big of a deal since you will almost always be starved for perk points even if you make something completely contrary to its bonuses, a wood elf knight for example.

Roleplay. Play a nord barbarian intent on helping Ulfric liberate skyrim.

Play an Argonian assassin for the empire.

Play an Imperial treasure hunter.

Play an orc berserker with hide armor and dual axes.

If you worry about stats and abilities you'll continue to restart because the min/max will never be perfect.

Racial abilities help early on, but past a certain threshold even the best become useless because the gear becomes so powerful.

This is my experience exactly. Most of the abilities become totally obsolete and can even be gained from items or spells. I'd suggest either choosing a race for their convenience ability or take one that has an ability you either can't reproduce or don't want to waste item abilities on. The orc racial ability is one of those and resistances in general are good, although easily replaceable by spells, items and potions.

My original character was Argonian, but so far I have still never seen a water area. The handful of places that even had you move around underwater for a short distance usually had water breathing pots on shelves nearby. Plus all the dialog had people calling me 'Lizard'.

You can't even pull your weapons out underwater to fight the rare slaughterfish you encounter in the water.

Like others said, it doesn't really matter what race you pick. In the short term, an Altmer will be better than an Orc at magic, but as you increase your skills and choose appropriate perks it won't really matter in the long run. One of my characters is an Orc mage and by level 20 she could kick any Altmer's ass to Summurset IsleAlinor and back with her destruction arsenal.

What about Orc Berserk. Is there a potion for that or something? I was wondering if they had different relations with the various Orc camps too. Do they need to be 'blooded' like my current characters did or are they considered to have that from the word go?

Beserk is simply fortify health, strength and stamina but less agility - easily replicated without the drawbacks with potions and food. Haven't become an orc in skyrim, but i got access to orcs camps by doing a fairly simple quest. They don't attack you anyway, I mined some Ebony for my bow and swords for my deadric weapons in one of their camps south of winterhold and they didn't touch me, just kept telling me to leave. BTW has there ever been a deadric artfact bow?

Did you acquire a belly full of mead after that? It makes you a lot warmer and a lot happier.

I usually just find a conjurer to conjure me up a warm bed to sleep in.