IiS Chapter 06

I sold off all my items, picked up some of the quests, and headed to do the quick blacksmithing tutorial. Turns out that making things takes a really long time. It isn’t just click a button and bing bang boom iron dagger, the experience gained for completing it was higher than making things in Skyrim as a balance though. It meant that I could definitely hit max making daggers like before they nerfed it, there just wasn’t that much of a reason to because there were easier ways.

My plans didn’t change much, it would just take a little longer to become a god than I’d have hoped. Just making the dagger and leather helmet took most of the rest of the day. Before I went to sleep I put in my new talent points. Like the older games, you couldn’t just level whenever you wanted, the process was it needed to be nighttime instead of whenever the main character slept to put in points.

I looked at all my choices and noticed three new ones that were not from the original game. Spears, throwing, and magic staffs. Each filled the gap in something missing from the original without overwhelming it with more than one extra skill for each archetype. One for warrior, rogue, and mage. 

Spears added one of the most basic/accessible weapon types for the different races. When they show a picture of a caveman he’s normally wielding a spear not a sword. Throwing weapons was in Morrowind, so I’m glad they included them because they fit my playstyle. It always bugged me that staves took soul gems to replenish but using normal magic was just better in most cases since magicka would replenish itself. I was bummed they got rid of mysticism but I understood why they’d give a skill on staffs over a defunct school of magic. I looked at the skill perk list for spears.

PERK RANK | DESCRIPTION | SKILL REQ | PERK REQ

Spearman

1 | Spears do 20% more damage

2 | Spears do 40% more damage | 20

3 | Spears do 60% more damage | 40

4 | Spears do 80% more damage | 60

5 | Spears do double damage | 80

Blocking Adept

1 | Blocking is more effective than other melee |  30 | Spearman

2 | Bashing at the right moment staggers enemy | 50

Thrust

Power attacks have increased reach | 30 | Spearman

Debilitating

1 | Blows targeting a specific area can apply debuffs | 50 | Blocking Adept or Thrust

2 | Debuffs are stronger | 75

3 | Debuffs are even stronger and last twice as long | 90

Expert aim

1 | Backwards power attack will allow you to throw | 30 | Thrust

2 | Thrown spear deals double damage on fleeing enemies | 60

3 | Thrown spear can knock the enemy down | 90

Battle tactics

1 | Sideways power attacks can trip enemies | 30 | Thrust

2 | Charging power attacks can bypass shields | 60

3 | Forwards power attacks can pin enemies to walls | 90

Phalanx

1 | Gain 50% bonus damage while next to another spearman | 30 | Blocking Adept

2 | Increased defenses while next to another spearman | 60

3 | Attacks made near allies bypass them to strike enemies | 90

Pinnacle

Able to wield spears one-handed | 100 | Debilitating

Pinnacle had interesting implications. Suddenly, having a hand free to use a shield or magic would bring far more utility than the normal two-handed skill. It also looked like it was more suited to large groups, which made sense. Most large-scale battles had people wielding spears over swords; spears were just cheaper to make and easier to teach than swordsmanship. 

I looked at the throwing specialization next. It had the same beginning perk with five ranks named Accuracy. Same thing where it would double damage at rank five as all the other similar perks.

Trick shot, three rank perk that auto corrected thrown weapons by 5, 10, and 15% respectively. It would allow thrown daggers to bend to hit the enemy if they moved to dodge, which could be the difference between hitting or missing. Thrown weapons deal ten times damage when sneaking perk. 

Another three-rank perk that would apply a stacking debuff depending on the type of weapon thrown, IE bladed weapons cause bleeding and blunt bypassed 10, 20, and 30% armor. A two-rank perk that would allow you to pick up more thrown weapons off corpses. A single rank perk that would allow you to power attack with the thrown weapons. The final perk that would allow you to teleport back any magical weapons thrown out. It would let me throw the special daggers and even iron baseballs as long as I enchanted them first without risking losing them. 

Daggers had fewer perks on average than the melee-focused ones but there was already a lot of cross-skill synergy with them. Sneak and one-handed both had perks to help ramp up the damage even more. I don’t think the fifteen-times sneak attack damage from daggers stacked with the thrown weapon but it was worth trying and the utility of being able to land a sneak attack from ranged without using a bow. 

Bow’s were great for methodical and slow pacing but I didn’t have the time to be skulking around trying to pick people off. It wouldn’t work as well anyway with real people being able to realize someone is killing everyone near the camp or in the building and alerting all the other enemies.

Last but not least I looked over the staff skill tree. The starting perk only had four ranks each increasing the damage while reducing the charge cost by 10% for staves. Staves were kind of useless in the base game unless they were unique. Additional damage depends on the type like the destruction tree for three different kinds of magic. Staff also had a separate cost reduction tree reducing the price for utility spells even more.

The final perk was another game-changer. Charges would naturally replenish over time. It looked like that applied to all of my weapons once I picked it up as well, so it was going to be useful no matter what my build was. I could see myself wielding a spear and staff in the future or even two daggers or a dagger in one hand and an iron ball in the other with pouches containing more on each side… I put a point into steel smithing and went to bed thinking of what I needed to accomplish the next day.