Mazra wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestions!

I'm in mostly leather armor now, with a light piece and a heavy piece for skill-ups while leveling.

Yes, I know, many old guides tell you to do that... but you're only gimping your sustain more than even ZOS did with the last update by not going with a full 7 pieces of medium.

When and if you want to level up the other armors later on you can do it in a couple of hours at level 50 by equipping it then.

Besides, the undaunted passive that provides a benefit for wearing all 3 armor types takes a very, very long time to unlock.

You're doing nothing but self-nerfing your stamina cost of abilities and stamina regen by not using 7/7 pieces and you're doing it in the low levels when cost and regen are even bigger issues than they are later on.

mcb123 wrote: »

Mazra wrote: »

Relatively new to the game, so I'm hoping someone here can shed some light on this.

At the moment, everywhere I go in this game (in Vvardenfell, at least), people want me to break in and steal something, assassinate someone, or skulk about in the shadows. From what I've gathered, later content also includes the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood. I get the feeling that I should have rolled with a dual-wielding Nightblade to fit the "canon" of the game's story. My two-handed Orc in clanky armor, with a giant bear companion (and a bear cub, because bear power) just feels terribly out of place.

Does the content get more... versatile later on? Or does it continue the trend of "be sneaky, be stabby, take loots without permission" that the opening quests in Vvardenfell force down your throat?

My best advice is to start leveling a magic sorcerer now, when you start progressing through the game you'l quickly realise no one actually does quests. I learnt this the hard way having wasted my time with a useless stamblade. High elf magicka sorcerer. Get on it!

Bad advice. If you are having fun on your Orc keep on playing him. Plenty of time to develop more characters later. First characters often go through fits while you learn the game. My first character became my master crafter because I really messed him up.
All kinds of people do the quests. The first time through the story for most is interesting and worth taking your time on. I would suggest take your time in each zone picking up anything you can pick up, kill anything you can kill, talk to NPCs even if they are not part of a quest and of course look in every container along the way. I have eleven 160 characters now and took three of them through all the quests. The others I leveled by exploring and doing delves/public dungeons but skipped most the quests. I know some in our guild have done all the zone quests on eight or more characters. Questing may be your thing or you might decide grinding is the way to go. Either way you are missing quite a lot if you rush through on your first character. After you have learned the game and decided what style you want to play you can start other characters and have the experience behind you to create something that will work well in end game stuff. And ya never know, could get lucky and have a winner with your first. THe gods know I didn't but hey it could happen.

Mazra wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestions!

I also noticed that the detection range seems to be tied to me and not my companions, so the bear isn't an issue unless I get spotted, but being spotted usually ends with me whipping out my mace and killing everyone, anyway. Got to level 15, so now I can do sneaky things with my bow and bring the mace to the face, too. Love it!

Right now the bear is quite "buggy". You may notice he disappears a lot when running around. I've had my bear in combat without me being detected. If this happens in a trespassing zone, you WILL incur bounty. Best to leave him outside when sneaking around.

Also, a word of advice...Check EVERY bookcase. You'll get quite a few skill levels by doing that for free.

Mazra wrote: »

So much useful advice in here - thanks!

Switched to 7/7 leather medium (whoops, WoW terminology showing), and will definitely send pooh bear on vacation when I'm doing the odd B&E. Does this change from "old times" also mean I shouldn't run around with mixed weapon abilities on my bars to level up bow and 2h at the same time? Right now I've got one bow ability on my 2h bar and vice versa.

I noticed that I got some skill-ups when I read some books on bookshelves, so the completionist in me now has to check all bookshelves ever. Good times!

Noticed a lot of comments about my Orc... are Orcs an underdog race or something? Like, did I pick the most terribad combo of them all?

No you should definitely have a mix of skills on your bar to level them up at the same time

Yeah those are the only zones that make you feel like that because ZOS had the brilliant idea or releasing two dlcs one after the other that involved being sneaky almost all the time. It will get waaaay better later in the game, those are just dlcs, and they are doable even with your stam warden.