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ELDER SCROLLS OMNIBUS THREAD


JLSigman

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9 hours ago, Ramo2653 said:

Falkreath has the fishery option so you can farm salmon for salmon roe which can be mixed with nordic barnacle and garlic for a big money potion. I'm not sure you're really hurting for funds like that tho.

The Morthal manor has the fish hatchery and yeah, I am farming the shit out of salmon roe for Waterbreathing potions.  I want to hit 100K as soon as I can for the achievement.  I am saving coin at a pretty good clip, but Corkbulb Arrows and health / stamina / magicka potions are a constant expense.  My Alchemy skill is high but I don't have a lot of Perk points invested in Alchemy, so I depend on merchants for high end recovery items.

The Falkreath house has an apiary that yields bee related potion ingredients that don't yield too many big money recipes.

It took me a long time to figure out that if you catch a salmon with your hands, the only thing you can do with the fish you catch is make salmon steaks out of it.  If you "kill" a salmon with a weapon, you can harvest the roe.

Edited by J.T.
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On 6/22/2022 at 5:52 AM, J.T. said:

The Morthal manor has the fish hatchery and yeah, I am farming the shit out of salmon roe for Waterbreathing potions.  I want to hit 100K as soon as I can for the achievement.  I am saving coin at a pretty good clip, but Corkbulb Arrows and health / stamina / magicka potions are a constant expense.  My Alchemy skill is high but I don't have a lot of Perk points invested in Alchemy, so I depend on merchants for high end recovery items.

The Falkreath house has an apiary that yields bee related potion ingredients that don't yield too many big money recipes.

It took me a long time to figure out that if you catch a salmon with your hands, the only thing you can do with the fish you catch is make salmon steaks out of it.  If you "kill" a salmon with a weapon, you can harvest the roe.

Shoot that right, I got my holds mixed up.

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12 hours ago, Ramo2653 said:

Shoot that right, I got my holds mixed up.

I also messed something up.  The only way to get salmon roe (other than building a kitchen for one of your holds and raiding the supplies) is to catch a salmon that is swimming upstream.  There are a couple of places where you can see salmon swimming up the falls.  I usually get my salmon roe at the falls near Riverwood along the river near Anais's Cabin.

It is hard to catch a salmon while it is jumping, but it is doable.

Edited by J.T.
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They don't have to be swimming to get salmon roe but you do need to kill them versus catching them swimming. You can use Unrelenting Force or Animal Allegiance to kill them and harvest the roe. Getting the Azidal Boots of Waterwalking and going outside of Windhelm and farming the salmon there is a good spot, or the Solitude Docks.

Or arrows to kill them but that's silly.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Every time my kids ask me for money, I make them go and do their chores and I do not accept any backtalk.  You'd think they'd learn and stop draining my coin purse when I return to the crib for some inventory maintenance.

I nearly have all of the Stones of Barenziah.  Not only did I have to join the College of Winterhold, I had to buy and renovate the really expensive manor in Solitude so now I am that much further back from accumulating 100K gold and earning an achievement.  I am starting to hate No Stone Unturned.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

So yeah.  The boon you get from the Serpent stone in Skyrim does not suck.  A ranged spell attack that caused 5 seconds of Paralysis and 25 points of Poison damage which also lasts 5 seconds.  The location of the Serpent stone is on an island northeast of Winterhold. 

If you felt sorry for Brand-Shei because you framed him as a part of your Thieves' Guild initiation, visited him in Riften jail, and got the quest to recover his lost lineage papers from the wreck of the Tel Vos, the island where the Serpent stone is located should be a straight northeast swim from your position.

IMO, it is not better than 60 seconds of Invis once per day (Shadow stone), but it is much better than the Touch attack in Morrowind given to you by the Serpent sign that only damages health.

The only downside is that the spell casts immediately so make sure you have your target lined up before you use the power.   It is a good power to add to a build that relies on stealth.

Edited by J.T.
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On 8/8/2022 at 5:12 AM, J.T. said:

If you felt sorry for Brand-Shei because you framed him as a part of your Thieves' Guild initiation, visited him in Riften jail, and got the quest to recover his lost lineage papers from the wreck of the Tel Vos, 

I had no idea you could do that!

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6 hours ago, BrianS81177 said:

I had no idea you could do that!

Yeah, you can still get that quest from Brand-Shei if you frame him for the theft of Madesi's ring.  Just go to the Riften jail and talk to him.  He is in the cells on the lower floor.  You will end up going to Riften jail anyway if you get the horse theft quest from the guy in the Bee & Barb and have to go chat it up with Sibbi Black-Briar.  If you are doing the No Stone Unturned quest, you will want to do the horse theft quest because one of the Stones of Barenziah is located at the Black-Briar Lodge in one of the upstairs bedrooms.   Complete two tasks in one trip.

If you have a Stealth build, I suggest bringing several invisibility potions so that you can just Sneak upstairs and grab the stone without having to fight all of the mercs.  That includes Mages with access to the Illusion spell, Muffle.

You can also fail Brynjolf's planting assignment on purpose (take too long to plant the ring after Brynjolf's distraction begins, remove the ring from your inventory by putting it back into Madesi's strongbox and then taking the dialogue option telling Brynjolf that you lost the ring once he finishes with the distraction) and still manage to get the quest from Brynjolf although he will express disappointment in your pilfering skills. 

You will still get the quest to join the Thieves' Guild by braving the dangers of the Ratway, but Brand-Shei will remain a free man and a vendor and you can get his lineage quest from him.

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3 hours ago, BrianS81177 said:

Huh. I just always forget Brand Shei exists after I frame him. I'll be damned.

You can even go and visit Sabjorn in Whiterun dungeon after you get him arrested.  He has some unkind words to say about Maven Black-Briar.

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Finally got around to doing the Daedric quest, The Taste of Death.  I had to fail it on purpose.   I may be a douchebag thief and Skooma pusher, but I am not a fucking cannibal.  Well, technically I would be only a cannibal if I ate another Khajiit, but you get the picture.   

Four legs -> Eat.  Two legs -> Do Not Eat.  I draw the line at killing and feasting on the flesh of other sentient humanoids, especially priests.

Lycanthropy provides the only acceptable exemption to the above rule since it is a curse.  I will have no conflicts of conscience when I am devouring bad guys for nutrients while I am in werewolf form.  I also plan on ridding myself of the curse once I finish the Companions questline.

The downside of failing Taste of Death is that Lisbet, the merchant that runs Arnleif & Sons, was a member of the cannibal cult so I had to decapitate her punk ass in self-defense.   Now I have no general goods merchant to sell my shit to in Markarth, but at least I know how she came to be the proprietor of her husband's business. YUCK~!   I also forfeited obtaining the Ring of Namira, so no Daedric artifact for me.

Hogni Red-Arm, the Markarth meat merchant, was also a cult member.  I wish there was an option to burn his stall down.  I bought a lot of raw beef and venison from him for stews that might not have been animal meat.  Ugh.

It's a good thing you can fail one Daedric quest and still unlock the Oblivion Walker achievement, provided that you complete the other fifteen to the letter, but some of them still require you to perform some pretty despicable acts.  Really dreading having to kill friendly people with the Ebony Blade while trying to earn Mephala's favor.

You also have to sacrifice a friendly follower in the course of completing Boethiah's quest for the Ebony Mail, so I don't feel terribly bad about bashing in the head of one of his priests to gain the Mace of Molag Bal.  When the time comes, I will probably just hire a merc to kill for the cause and I will hate doing it.

I pondered sacrificing one of my housecarls to Boethiah with the Ebony Blade and get two quest advancement steps for the price of one murder, but I kinda need my housecarls to serve as  nannies and watch over my kids while I am gone since I haven't bothered to get married yet

It's quests like these that show you the wisdom of helping Sven fuck over Faendal in Riverwood.  if you are going to murder someone, kill somebody that has it coming to them.  Once Sven meets his end as the sacrifice to some Daedric god, Faendal can comfort Camilla Valerius in her time of grief and you will have yet another powerful magic item to add to your collection.  All is right with the world.

Edited by J.T.
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I'm pretty sure Lisbet's assistant takes over the shop once she dies. And he might have some dialog that unlocks after. Most shops have a backup merchant if the primary merchant isn't an essential character.

I still feel bad about Adrienne getting killed in a vampire attack in Whiterun. Her poor hubby didn't know how to forge so he has to buy weapons from traders to make a living now.

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Every time I play the Companions questline the very first thing I do after turning into a werewolf the first time is go kill what's-his-name that is constantly yelling about Talos. I can never shut that guy up fast enough. Then if he's close by I kill Nazeem next.

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  • 5 months later...

Oh and don't forget that since Dawnguard is bundled into the new Special edition, it is practically impossible to fix the Marked for Death / Drain Vitality shout glitch if you are on console.  The best way to circumvent the bug is to avoid learning any of the WoPs for MFD until you have at least learned the first two words of DV.  Learning the complete DV shout BEFORE learning MFD could bug MFD so it cannot be learned. 

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Drain_Vitality

Learning one word of MFD will not not hurt, but learning the second word of MFD before learning DV will bug your game because DV and MFD both share the same second word.  I think you have to learn the first two words of DV first and then go and learn the first word of MFD in order to keep the shouts separate and unglitched.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Marked_for_Death

Most of the fixes involve uninstalling Dawnguard.... which you can't do with the Special version.

https://help.bethesda.net/#en/answer/36367

If you have a PC, you can use console commands to get rid of the bugged shout or you can download and install the Unofficial Dawnguard 1.2 patch.  Console users do not have access to the console and installing unofficial patches and mods locks achievement hunting.

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  • 3 weeks later...

It turns out load screens are a major barrier to fun.

Since installing my M.2 drive and moving all my Steam games onto it, I hadn't messed around with it much until deciding to fire up Skyrim again (because I am basic AF).  I'm only level 8 but well into my typical meta-game strategy:

  • Skip Helgen with a save file because it's boring - CHECK!
  • Skip Bleak Falls Barrow altogether because frankly the game is nicer and more leisurely without dragons and the Main Quest - CHECK!
  • Carriage ride around to Riften & Winterhold for future reference and join the College for cheap spells - CHECK!
  • Venture north of Riften along the road to Windhelm to gather Creep Cluster, Jazbay & the occasional Scaly Pholiota - CHECK!
  • Carriage ride to Markarth to save Margret from Weylin's assassination and also saunter out to the Lover Stone (aka the only Sign worth taking) - CHECK!
  • Cozy up to that a-hole Siddgeir and get Falkreath favors going - CHECK!
  • Buy Lakeview Manor and spend myself into a hole so I can plant 13 Mora Tapinella, 8 Creeps & 8 Scaly for the absurd potions they make - CHECK!

From here it's:

  • Exploit Alchemy & Speech for a while (combat is for suckers)
  • Hunt for a Banish-enchanted weapon to disenchant and level my own Enchant skill
  • Hunt dwarven metal for bows & easy Smithing
  • Eventually sneak into Fort Amol for the very early copy of Bound Bow
  • Eventually eventually set up 100% free magic with the Fortify Restoration glitch
  • Eventually eventually eventually get very bored with being able to crush everyone and everything

But hopefully that boredom step comes a good bit later since my load screens are either non-existent or about 3 seconds.

Edited by Contentious C
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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's a little lesson for anyone interested in Crazy Skyrim Bullshit:

One of the easiest ways to utterly break the game, exploits or not, is Alchemy.  A lot of the time, at least early-game, once you can plant things at one of your 3 houses (typically Lakeview since it unlocks the soonest and doesn't require a separate quest), you can plant Canis Root/Imp Stool for Paralysis poisons and make major bank off those.  That by itself is pretty broken, both in terms of their utility as you play Sneaky Archer for the 740th time and their sale value to merchants.

But!  That's not the best potion you can plant, harvest, and make yourself.  The strongest one in the game from purely harvested ingredients is Creep Cluster; Mora Tapinella; and Scaly Pholiota.  The latter two are found on downed trees all the time, but Creep Cluster you have to buy or find in the hot-springs area south of Windhelm & Kynesgrove. 

Annnnnnnd, Creep Cluster is where shit gets weird.

The hitbox for harvesting Creep Cluster is, uh, a Cluster-fuck.  It's usually hovering way overhead of the item, especially for planted varieties of it (this is less of an issue when it's found in the wild).  So your best best is to Sneak near it, look a little up, and then way in one teensy little spot, you can find the "Harvest" command.  Typically, this is successfully dealt with if you plant indoors (build the West Wing Greenhouse) and put the Creep Cluster in the 6 small planters that ring that part of the structure.

However!  If you want optimal numbers of ingredients, you don't just plant 6!  You plant 8 (as well as 8 of Scaly & 13 of Mora for 40/40/39 harvested per loop).  So where do the other two go?  Well, they go in the busted-ass spots where you have to Sneak or whatever, and that's where the "fun" happens, and by "fun" I mean, "running around for 10 minutes wondering why the Hell you can't pick things that have clearly grown".  Because as it turns out, if you are holding the Telekinesis Spell in either hand while trying to pick Creep Cluster from the outdoor planting spots...you can't pick planted Creep Cluster at all!  I wish I'd taken some video of me running around and going in and out of Favorites mode to show the "Harvest" command popping up and then disappearing when I hold the spell, but it's the damndest thing you can just try out for yourself.

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On 2/24/2023 at 7:16 PM, Contentious C said:

Here's a little lesson for anyone interested in Crazy Skyrim Bullshit:

One of the easiest ways to utterly break the game, exploits or not, is Alchemy.  A lot of the time, at least early-game, once you can plant things at one of your 3 houses (typically Lakeview since it unlocks the soonest and doesn't require a separate quest), you can plant Canis Root/Imp Stool for Paralysis poisons and make major bank off those.

You at least have to clear out the random bandit gang hideout for Jarl Sidgeir before he gives you permission to own property.   If you are lucky enough to draw Embershard as your target, murdering the bandits is dirt simple and you can buy the land to start building Lakeview in no time flat.

As for Alchemy breaking the game, I acquire salmon roe from the salmon swimming up the rapids near Riverwatch as early as I can and raise salmon in the fish hatchery at Winstad Manor.  Then I either raise histcarp or goldfish at the hatchery with the salmon or harvest chicken eggs from your own farm or steal them from other people's henhouses.  You can harvest the roe from the salmon in your hatchery by killing them with spells or by using the Fus-Ro-Dah shout.

Salmon roe yields the highest duration for Waterbreathing potions and that adds to the resale value when you create them.  You can make a fortune off of Waterbreathing potions.

That coupled with raising Paralysis poison ingredients in your garden is a recipe for unlimited funds.

When I am really feeling min / max ridiculous, I'll configure Winstad to have a greenhouse to grow the appropriate fungi and Creep Clusters and an alchemy tower for storage and ingredient sorting so I can do all of my money potion making in one location.

Edited by J.T.
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I've never bothered with the fish hatchery because I figured the reset time on it would be on par with the Apiary at Lakeview, which I think you have to completely stay away from for up to 10 days before you get more bees.  Stupid bees and their stupid honey.

But, that's not the case, and GODDAMN those roe potions are friggin' stupid.  Off to Windstad!

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Oh, and you are absolutely right about the Lovers sign.   It is the best one to have ESPECIALLY if you like being a werewolf.   The Lovers sign negates the Restlessness penalty that comes with being a lycanthrope, so you can still earn 15% towards all of your skills while chewing people's hearts out of their chests and getting perk points.

Othwerwise you cannot get the Rested or Well Rested perks for bonus skill progression after sleeping in a bed if you are a werewolf.

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I didn't think that was the case for anything with lycanthropy.  My method for dealing with advancing the Companions is to hold off on the Soul Cairn stuff until I get turned, then let Serana make me a Vampire Lord to clear it (then drop the vampirism as soon as I get back). 

My stupid ass decided to do a Black Book with Orchendor in tow as a Dead Thrall, which basically adios'd him as far as I can tell.  Really lame - always kill your Thralls before doing a Black Book.  But I went and handled the Malacath quest and got Chief Yamarz and his massive HP pool as the new Thrall.  It was trippy as Hell coming back from Fallowstone Cave with him following and having Atub ask, "And what of Yamarz?" while I'm over here doing the Awkward Monkey Puppet Meme glance.

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And I'm down yet another Dead Thrall because I got bad info.  I read that you could make non-permanent characters into permanent thralls by giving them an item marked as "permanent", so I chucked Arvel's Journal (the guy who is tied up and has the Golden Claw) on Yamarz, thinking that's all it took.   Motherfucker disappeared, too!  Argh!  I should have given him something really useless as a permanent item, like, I dunno, the Deathbrand Armor.

I'm Level 130 and don't want to start all over (well OK I kinda do because those early bits are somehow always more fun) so now I'm on Thrall # 3, who is...

Kornalus?  Who?  Who TF is this?

Yeah, it's that weird place in the western part of the map that's just....uh...spiders.  And he's, well, the guy who likes spiders.  He's no Orchendor, let me tell you, but hey, when bandits kill him, it makes it easier to turn him into a pack mule full of Dwemer smelting items!

...

Oh man, his groaning is the worst, though.  The Orc groaning is all right, definitely tolerable.  The Bosmers...not so much.  But the Altmer?  The bloody godsdamned Altmer?  OOOF.

.......

Yeah...I'm gonna start a new playthrough.  I want Orchendor back.  And maybe I'll just keep a rotting corpse of a different Dead Thrall at each of my 3 houses.  Plus, it'll let me get the fish hatchery going a lot sooner.

The nice thing about Shouting your fishies to death - which, correction, @J.T., we decided some time ago it was called Fus-Roe-Dah! - is that it also kills Dartwings in the area and they sink to the bottom of the hatchery, which is way better than trying to catch them.

Edited by Contentious C
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I basically never use that Shout and haven't played Bosmer to use the equivalent Power, so I have no idea.  There are some funky interactions throughout the game, though.  Casting a Harmony spell - aka, the Most Broken Leveling Strat in the Game - will send clutter flying everywhere, so maybe things like that knock down Dartwings?

A part of me wants to do a breakdown of the different utterly broken leveling strats, but...it's an 11-year-old game, I mean, that's already out there in some form.

Also, in "honor" of my upcoming colonoscopy, I named my new character "Snake McSphincterson" and tried to make him as Snake Plisskin-esque as I could (for a Nord, anyway).  When he collects arrows from dead bodies, don't ask where he got them.

Edited by Contentious C
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