Oblivion:Roleplaying/Mountain Man

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This article provides one suggestion for character-type roleplaying. Please see the main Roleplaying article for contribution guidelines.

Mountain Men explore the wilderness, wearing rugged clothing, living off of the land and avoiding main roads. Use a bow and arrow to hunt game and sell the meat and pelts for clothing, arrows, and food. Move throughout the realm, finding new camps as you go. Sell your stuff to roadside inns and other small places, only rarely visiting the big cities. Roam around the countryside. Avoid Ayleid ruins, but explore forts, caves and mines.

A variant is to be a Ranger. Rangers are isolated people who protect the wilderness and only kill when they need the food. Protect the wilderness from all trespassers of the forest. Attack bandits, Imperial foresters and monsters of nature (ogres, goblins, etc). Rarely visit the cities, you are a man of nature, protect it! If you have the Knights of the Nine DLC then the Boots of the Crusader as well as the Saviour's Hide from Hircine will greatly enhance the ranger roleplay.

[edit] Creating a Character

Make a Nord, Imperial, Redguard, Dark Elf, Wood Elf, Argonian, Breton, or Khajiit character with preferred attributes of Agility, Endurance, Speed, and Strength (as you see fit). Give it a custom class "Hunter" that specializes in Marksman, Alchemy, Acrobatics, Athletics, Light Armor, Sneak, and either Blade, Blunt (War Axes are more Hunter like than Clubs and Battle Axes), or Hand to Hand, with a focus on Stealth. A Steed or Thief birth sign works well.

[edit] Rules

• Avoid fast traveling.
• Sleep every day. Aim to find a camp before 7pm. If you still haven't found a camp by 1am, you'll just have to rough it that night and sleep (wait) in the open. Look for a large boulder or just sleep under a tree, or the overhang outside a cave.
• Eat at least three times a day, preferably four or five times. Eat as soon as you wake up ( 5:00am ), sometime around midday, during the afternoon ( from 4:00pm to 5:30pm ) and a bit before going to sleep ( 8-10pm ). After the last meal of the day ( 8-10pm ) go for a little walk around the camp and then return.
  • Once you have eaten, wait for one hour to show it takes time to actually eat--you haven't just instantly eaten your meal.
• Rarely use magic ( none if possible ); Try not to use enchanted items unless they fit a Mountain man, you can use enchanted items if they actually fit a hunter, like the Full Fur Armor used by the Fighters Guild Cheydinhal Hall leader, Burz gro-Khash.

[edit] Clothes

Wear a combination of low-end light armor (leather and fur) along with dark, cheap clothes. Don't wear any jewelry. Shields are out of the question. A Leather Bracer (rather than gauntlets) would work well, as you will be using archery a lot. Since you don't get to visit towns much and you have basically one set of clothes, find water and drop your clothes in the river/lake for a few hours to wash them (and yourself). Also have a set of green or tattered robes enchanted with chameleon named camouflage. Use your clothes depending on where you live and where you are. It wouldn't be realistic to be using a shirt, pants and sandals when in Bruma, so use Fur; But when in the Imperial City or so use other things like Leather Bracers, with Pants, Boots and a Fur Cuirass or similar. Use your helm when it's raining or snowing.

[edit] Loot

Don't loot your enemies' corpses for expensive equipment. You shouldn't have to in any case: the idea isn't to adventure around, but to simply to live off the land. If you kill things that drop elven longswords, you aren't doing this right. Don't carry much around at all; don't ever have a encumbrance above about 90.

[edit] Notes

• Bears are good game as they have valuable pelts, but they are hard to kill. Brown Bears take a quiver full of arrows! Black Bears are a fair bit easier, but still take some effort.
• If you must loot bandits and minotaurs, do it later. Write down the location and come back to it after you're done roleplaying. If you are roleplaying long-term and still want the loot, make a note of your money made roleplaying so far, take the loot, sell it, but continue keeping a track of your cash from then on. Only spend as much as you have made on arrows, food and other items.
• Do Alchemy with just a mortar and pestle: you're a hunter, not a scientist. All you know how to do is create a few restore health potions from mixing together plants. Do this whenever you're wounded instead of using Heal Minor Wounds. Don't make anything else, except maybe a few Cure Disease and Cure Poison potions now and then; you live in the wild and avoid cities, so you're bound to get sick or poisoned by a Bandit or an animal every now and then!
• It is often a great idea to slide the difficulty bar a ways to the right. That way, getting into fights with bears and timber wolves combined with your relatively poor protection and lack of magic skills can make it a desperate struggle.
• Modding the game a little can make things more interesting. For example, taking the Health, Magicka, and Fatigue bars, along with the compass off the screen can make it more immersive.

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