AWKWARD ZOMBIE

FINALLY started playing Skyrim in earnest, and now I've got that golden claw dealie for Captain Dickshits over in Fucktown.

but apparently first I need to go DEEPER INTO MOUNT STUPID
and man sneaking past all these skeleton guys is making my sneak skill go up like crazy

Finally got the platinum trophy for Skyrim.

My work here is done.

You never leave a dungeon before you've explored the whole thing.

Becareful about just running into random dungeons because even though some enemies kind of scale with your level the bosses don't.
I forget what cave it was but I basically slaughtered everything in there only to meet some named Draugur with full ebony armor and weapons.
Same thing happened in the next dungeon but this time it was a dragon priest.

Draugr Deathlords and Overlords scale, theres only a.handful of named Draugr. Death/Overlords have Ebony weapons, but ive never seen one in anything but Ancient Nord Armor.

The dragon priests are pretty horrific the first time you find one, since they just pop out, and you have no idea what they are. They are in fixed locations and if you find one at the wrong time you will be in a world of hurt.

On that note, I killed that dragon priest in front of the portal to Sovngarde in one hit. Snuck up on the sucker, and nailed him with an arrow before he could nab the staff. I would learn later that that is supposed to be a difficult fight. Oh, Bethesda.

What are you doing to make stuff like that happen? My arrows don't do shit to stronger enemies like Death Lords.

100 Sneak + 100 Archery + 100 Smithing

Sneak attacks with arrows do x3, smith a glass bow that has an attack value of over 100, I forget which arrows I was packing but I think dwarven or elven. Own everyone.

I may have gotten a critical hit in that I don't remember now. But even non-stealth archery does big damage to anything short of Ancient Dragons. Draugr Deathlords go down in 2-4 hits.

But then I am playing on a lower difficulty, so maybe...?

How do I Archery 100. I get it to maybe around 70 when I'm around level 15-20 because there's 2 kinds of enemies: those that get felled with 1-2 arrows and those where my arrows do shit fuck nothing, they come in mellee range and I have to pull out the mellee weapons. So I have to sneak attack then hide until the AI forgets I was there for harder enemies if I want to use my bow. And that's not always possible. I once killed a Dragon priest at the top of some mountain by it falling down onto a lower rock of the mountainside and not being able to come back up again I could just pick him off but usually it takes 15 minutes or so for every boss kind of enemy.

Well, I got Archery 100 by probably doing a bad thing: I don't melee. At all. I still use my bow even when dudes are in my face. If you use weaker bows you can draw them faster and get more hits in, and with the stagger perk you can (with luck) keep most foes from overwhelming you. This doesn't help in crowded situations, so kiting can be useful. Even if your arrows don't do a ton of damage, if you can get the stagger (or, with good enchants, paralyze) on a foe, you can just poke him to death.

The basic point is Sneak. If you get the first hit, 90% of enemies will die in one hit, or be reduced to low enough HP where they kneel/stagger. My entire game was basically "Abuse Aura Whisper + Snipe." This probably isn't fun for most people, though.

Again, this is on lower difficulties, so it tends to work out fine in the long run. But this strategy nearly led to my demise because it completely fails agains Ancient Dragons or any foe who is immune to staggering. As I said, I can see this not working too well on higher difficulties.

Too bad there isn't a shout in the game that pushes enemies away if they're too close to you.
That'd be swell.

Really late, but a lot of people responded to my commenting on the Derp Brotherhood. Before I continue, I know: they have their reasons for killing who they did and advertising their presence. By the end of it, I felt sorry for the two members that were left; thankfully the ones that never rustled me off. I do understand, and I'm not oblivious to their place in the rather genius and expansive world of Skyrim. Everything they do does make sense in its own right.

However...

I think you guys missed my point about the undeniable dilution of the Dark Brotherhood's logic and game plan. It's not so much their actions or the quests they give you, but rather how they go about themselves or expect you to behave. This is a very powerful case of "deep story, shallow characters" where the usually-awesome plot direction is either skewed or outright ruined by the shoehorn implementation by its faces; looks great on the outside, sounds retarded on the inside.

Everybody said something about their desperation tactics, but I refuse to believe that on behalf of the bitch you first run int- I'm sorry, I mean the bitch that kidnaps you in your sleep and forces you to kill one of three anonymous people who're obviously all under contract to be killed. Am I seriously supposed to believe, as snarky and disconnected as they are, that this paltry handful of halfwit assassins have scripted together this "brilliant scheme" based on the opportunism of a complete stranger at the whims of a disgruntled orphan?

I mean, really. Of ALL the shit that happens over the course of the DB's storyline, did anybody really think any of this was going to work? Was ANY of this shit prophesized, or expected to succceed? Think about it in sequence: Random douchebag kills a mean old woman for a kid's silver platter, douchebag gets abducted and recruited into assassin organization, organization sends douchebag on pilgrimage to assassinate the most powerful man on the continent, organization's magical corpse starts talking to douchebag. Keep in mind, this is the same group of people who- WHILE you are carrying out their feigned assassination plot to punctuate their return to the world, they sell your booty out to the very people you're trying to kill, and then they're fucking surprised when everything goes tits-up! They ruined their own plans for a paltry amount of gold they could've gotten from any number of regular targets or cooperating with the Thieves Guild!

Think about it! Is it really any surprise that such a huge move orchestrated by such loose, shallow-minded cockstrokers went wrong because they relied on A) a complete stranger, B) the guidance and foundations set by a rabid jester and his pet magical talking cadaver, and C) a plot to stab THEMSELVES in the back resulting not only in alarming everyone to what was an otherwise-secret mark thusly ruining their chances to have a clear and definite return to clout, but also in their last safehouse being discovered and successfully beseiged by the very people they're trying to kill/tip off?! When you look at it from their point of view, did any part of their entire storyline make any sense? Did any of it seem like a good idea? These are not professional killers with a long, proud, withstanding history of tradition, unity, and tactic, these are a bunch of fucking thugs using the disempowered name of a bunch of killers they probably destroyed with a series of social blunders befitting their lack of intelligence and nuance!

I'm sorry, but no. The powers that be simply aren't that competent in hindsight. They're fucking STUPID, so much so that the only part that surprises me, is that they survived as long they did. It did not shock me that I was betrayed by these slipshot, biscuit-brained fuckers, yet I was the only one who came out ahead while everyone and everything else crashed and burned. I was satisfied by everything that happened because I saw it coming every step of the way. Maybe that's what they were going for, MAYBE. I wouldn't know, and I did have fun on the ride! It was great in a lot of ways, but the NPC support is just unforgivably dumb and does not carry the ironic love-hate plot in any form that any self-respecting writer would allow.

Oh, and as for subtly advertising that they've returned by assassinating the Emperor's cousin at her own wedding, couldn't they have done it before the ceremony? Like, she's getting ready in her chambers and you stick her when nobody's in the room. Gather some blood or use some ink, leave the trademark handprint symbol of the Dark Brotherhood on her mirror or something. Y'know, that marking that everyone in Tamriel recognizes as a sign of tnhe Brotherhood's involvement? Couldn't have done that and evaded the risk of having your only talented agent being gangbanged by the entire Solitude Royal Guard? Fucking publicity stunt...

TL;DR Fuck the Brotherhood, fuck the Night Mother, fuck that sassy cunt who recruits you, fuck her werewolf buttbuddy, fuck the old man, fuck the snarky cat, fuck their tamed spider, fuck their fruity outfits, fuck their half-assed plans, fuck their marks, fuck their style, fuck their rituals, fuck their publicity, and fuck their employers. Long live Skyrim, inb4 necrophilia/bestiality joke, AWKWARD ZOMBIE ROCKS.

I'm gonna go eat a bagel. I expect to be verbally destroyed in the next hour since I'm usually wrong about these sorts of things, so get to deconstructing!

Whoa lets SETTLE......

They establish pretty early on that the DB you meet in Skyrim are pretty much not following the older traditions as it is,, which is what gets Ciceros little jester panties in a twist. He decides that he's not having any of that shit and tries to take over, which if you read his journals it spells that out. Astrid then sells YOU out specifically in hopes to get Maro off her back since the Pentitus Oculatus has been hounding them since forever, but he double-crossed her. Stupid yes, but not petty. She's paranoid and they already had a breach of security with Cicero. Also, they didn't rely on a total stranger. You proved you could handle yourself and the Night Mother said that YOU, the player, are to handle this specifically not the DB. You tend to not want to disagree with Daedric Princes, especially when you're the Listener. DB never sent you on a Pilgrimage. THE DB just went along with what the Night Mother said you should do since hey its a pretty great contract and all.

The other thing to remember is that ASTRID sold you out, not the entire DB. Because since the DB lost power, they went from "amazing assassin's guild that rules the land with fear" to "Astrid runs this group, and what she says, goes."

The whole point is that it's NOT the DB, not really, not anymore. It's just Astrid's group clinging to the old name in order to keep some meager resources. When Cicero tries to restore the DB to their actual namesakes, Astrid flips out because she doesn't actually want the DB to have power, SHE wants to have power. You being the Listener/assassinating the emperor takes power away from HER, and that's why she does what she does.

Remember also that Astrid realizes her folly at the end, saying she thought rejecting the old ways and selling you out would protect her family. She realizes that she's the one who let things go as badly as they had gone, and by attempting to foil the only one who could redeem the DB, she shot herself in the foot.

Small caveat, the Night Mother is not a Daedra.