Skyrim talk:Character Creation

One Shot

Per this edit, I wish to point out that you only get one shot to develop your character this time. Any mistakes require you to restart the tutorial.

FangMaGuoLai Li Song @DCDeacon Will you be able to tweak your race/name/appearance at the end of the intro to Skyrim like in Oblivion and FO:3? Please respond.

@DCDeacon Pete Hines @FangMaGuoLai No. Make sure you do it right the first time.

The reasoning for this seems to be that you have to make a choice involving supporting the Imperial Army or the Stormcloaks. While I'm not sure if that decision is the one that decides which side you end up supporting throughout the rest of the game, this is probably why they require us to rerun it each time. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 21:56, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about that, in the skyrim character creation video it was at the end of the cave, in the first 23 mins it was at the execution point so I assumed that you got 2 chances as usual. As for which side to join, the player had the opportunity to follow the prisioner or the guard after the dragon attck. He followed the prisioner and had to put on stormcloak armour which caused the I.L to attack him. This is possibly when you have to decide which side of the civil war to be on.RIM 22:01, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm aware. I was the one who originally wrote that note for the wiki. As I said though, still to early to tell for certain what ramifications come from that choice. No hard feelings, I just wanted to point out the source (as I noticed my original summary made it sound like I personally asked Pete Hines to confirm this). --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 22:13, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

No problem at all:)Also, just before you make your choice on race and everything there is an autosave.RIM 22:19, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

You are talking about a video which shows the tutorial. I haven't seen anything like that on YouTube. Can you write here where can I find it? Blackjohnbird 17:15, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

No, we don't allow links to leaked footage. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 17:58, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

OK. So I guess I'll have to wait until it comes out! Blackjohnbird 18:09, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Nope, you can follow whichever character you want and then choose whichever faction you desire later. The choices have implications on your interactions in Riverwood, though. I think befriending Hadvar has more advantages in the long run. 134.176.247.178 15:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)Tim

Birthsigns

The page says that birthsigns are not in - granted, they are not in character creation, but if memory serves there are stones dotted around the world that, similar to the Doomstones in Oblivion, confer bonuses onto your character and these serve to replace birthsigns this time. Should this be mentioned?

Yes probably as a note but not a part of character creation though, thanks for pointing that out.RIM 16:31, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Age

I can't select my character's age, like I did in Oblivion?

The 'complexion' slider (face section?) (un-)wrinkles your face. --79.194.31.68 14:33, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Appearance

I wonder if there is a way to change some aspects of your character's appearance after the tutorial just like in fable. Blackjohnbird 12:00, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

So far no, but there are lots of different clothes and helmets that can make you look very different, especially the dragon priest masks or dark brotherhood hoods.RIM 20:27, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

OK thank you. Blackjohnbird 14:50, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, yes, you can. Tested on the xbox 360. Its a tricky process. First, load the character you are trying to edit. Secondly, from that save game, load the first autosave the game makes after you get off the carriage. Now, here's how this works. Certain aspects of the character being edited MUST match exactly. For example, you must have the same facial "types" as the base character. So mouth type, nose type, your exact preset must be the same as well as the "weight" and eye type are examples. Skin tone must also match. Colors as well. Eye shadows, lip color, hair color, etc. And if your character has facial hair, or none, that must also match. BUT, however, you can modify facial extremities in this way. So while this bug is a bit limited, it does allow you to change up your characters appearance a bit, such as moving around his facial features and proportions. I have experimented with this bug and if not done perfectly will simply fail. You can appear to ADD warpaint to your character, but strangely if you add a scar he didn't have, it will fail. Anyway, once you've made all the changes, it's important NOT to "finish" that character. Do not even enter the name character screen or your screwed. Right after you've made your changes, pause and select load. Load the character you loaded at the start of all this. If the glitch was succesful, he will be altered.

This can be a bit tricky. To get the hang of this bug, try this. Create a new character, and write down all of the exact colors, facial "types or shapes", and preset you used. For the sake of simplicity, remove all colors like eye shadow and lip colors to the far left of the slider, get rid of facial hair as well. Now, get through the tutorial until you get your bounds cut. Save. Now, from here, load the default "Nord Prisoner" autosave and remake the same damn character, but give him some bright red warpaint. Change nothing else, now load that character you had just previously made five minutes ago right from the character editor without "finishing" the character. If you did the glitch correctly, you'll see the warpaint added.

This bug has limited uses due to how many things have to "match", but it would allow you to adjust proportions like how big your chin is, distance of your eyes from your eyebrows, length of your nose, etc. But it is proof that you CAN edit a character in game without the console. The game seems to keep the default face you used, however, as becoming a vampire will reset it to your original face that was made when you first made that character. Likewise, trnsfroming into a werewolf and back will also reset it.

Bug behaves strangely, as it appears to actually overwrite EVERY save that character is on. Even ones not used for the bug. My dark elf's every autosave had been affected. I had discovered this bug totally by accident, and sought to find a way to PERMENANTLY alter my character and expand upon the exploit if possible, but have found no further way. If you want to reset your changes without becoming a werewolf or vampire, simply change storage devices to an external device with a backup save of that character you edited. Load it, then remove that device (flash drive), then load the character from your main storage device and all the saves will be overwritten again to the original face. Strange how it works. If anyone can expand on this bug, practice with it and learn more about it, please email me at SKATEZOMBIE777@AOL.COM if you have any new uses or questions. Thanx!

Bugs

I just started up a new save file as a Nord, and my active effect of 50% resistance to frost is missing, has anyone else had this problem? 69.250.157.253 19:13, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it's a passive effect, meaning that you have it without acting. Though that doesn't help answer your question. --93.232.180.134 20:25, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

There's a bug where that may not show after first starting the game. It may only affect Nords, I'm not sure. No big deal - just save and quit, it should return after exiting out of Skyrim and restarting it.

No acvtive effects showing

I know its happening to me too i guess now it doesnt show on purpose and you just have it — Unsigned comment by 114.77.54.58 (talk) at 22:00 on 4 December 2011

Still a passive effect (see above) even if it says otherwise onscreen. My "Resistance to magic" shows up though, so it may be a special thing. Which race are you playing? PC, PS3 or XBox? --Ulkomaalainen 06:28, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Correction

"If however you're planning to get a character as maxed out in his statistics as possible, it may be a strategically interesting decision to choose a race adverse to your preferred gameplay. While this will make play harder in the beginning, your "skills of choice" will grow anyway (e.g. Sneak for a stealth based character) whereas you will have less to spend via training and/or skill farming for the ones you do not use regularly in your playstyle."

• I removed this for obvious reasons. ANY character with ANY race and ANY playstyle can MAX ALL STATISTICS. No advantage to choosing 'less-used' skills like Oblivion. There is no such thing as power-levelling in Skyrim. Rath101 08:25, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I think we may heave reached a compromise now. If you're maxing, you will get the same result, but with less effort. However, there is another point referring to normal gameplay: each "experience" in a skill already at 100 is wasted. So if you're getting a skill up to 100, you might have been better off if you started lower in that skill and have the 10 extra points (diminishing while your skill level grows) in another skill you occasionally use - but not enough to reach the 100 without spamming.

Also, while you are correct that any player CAN max all stats, it would be wrong to say that any playstyle WILL do so. A character which never uses Two-Handed weapons will never reach 100 (of course he also would not need to reach 100 except for extra perks due to extra level ups). So I think for the normal player, there is a difference and a benefit to choosing non used skills for your race. Of course, the same normal player probably would not make a strategic decision like that while character creating. --Ulkomaalainen 07:34, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I would like to point out that it's much harder to level something like sneak when your race has no sneak starting bonus. Sneak only levels when it's successful, and a low sneak level means it'll be successful less often. A khajiit assassin will not only have more success at sneak from the start, he will level sneak (and thus level up) much more quickly than any other race. Similiarly, an argonian will probably never encounter a lock he doesn't have the lockpicks for, while an imperial or a breton will go through lockpicks quickly and may end up having to defer to master locks at the beginning of the game. I cannot find any merit in the idea to counter-select race for the preferred playstyle. Even when the goal is to make the game plain harder, there are more elegant ways to achieve this. --PJF

i maxed out and put perks into making me magic resistent and unlimited magic with crazy armor stats and even on master difficulty everything is pretty easy now but this took about 40 hours of my time before i actually really got into the guilds and main quest — Unsigned comment by 74.84.111.194 (talk) on 20 April 2012

Appearance element examples?

Would this page benefit from screenshots of discreet choices such as the variety of feathers/jewelry/beards? If not, would a textual description? 95.206.5.208 17:00, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Clarification / Added Example Edit to Main Page

I took the liberty of clearing up some confusing wording and gave an example, as well as added a small note on the use of Standing Stones. I will add the section that I changed, in case anyone feels the need to turn it back, as well as the new text for anyone to compare to for ease. Feel free to make changes as seen fit:

Old Information:

• If however you're planning to get a character to max out his statistics with as little effort as possible, it may be a strategically interesting decision to choose a race adverse to your preferred gameplay. While this will make play harder in the beginning, your "skills of choice" will grow anyway (e.g. Sneak for a stealth based character) whereas you will have less to spend via training and/or skill farming for the ones you do not use regularly in your playstyle. While this will not give direct in-game benefits to your character, you will have to work less as a player to reach that point.

New Information:

• If however you're planning to get a character to max out your statistics with as little effort as possible, it may be a strategically wise decision to choose a race adverse to your preferred gameplay. While this will make play harder in the beginning, your "skills of choice" will grow anyway (e.g. Sneak for a stealth based character). In other words, if you choose to play mostly as a Mage, an Altmer (Or High Elf) will be the best choice. However, as using Magic constantly will already be happening due to the preferred style of gameplay, using a different race, such as an Orc, will grant a significantly better "bonus" to the Warrior-based Skills, so that when Magic does not quite fit the situation, you have another means to fall back on. In this way, your Mage-based Skills will increase due to constant use and your Warrior-based Skills will not be completely wasted. This can be further benefited by using various Standing Stones. For the example given of an Orc Mage, using The Warrior Stone may be advised at first, since starting Magicka is relatively low. In this way, since the player will constantly be using Magic, their Mage-based Skills will increase normally while those few instances where weapons must be used, those will increase faster. A good Standing Stone to use for all beginners is The Lover Stone, which grants the player the ability to learn ALL skills 15% faster.

Edit at: 9:43 PM Jan 2nd, 2012 (CST).

I've removed this, mainly because it's dumb. I added a section on skill synergy however. If you want to max out your stats, your starting attributes don't factor into it, as the increase from 15 to 25 in a skill gives you something like 10% of a level at level 50. If you want to reach a high level very quickly, you ideally find a play style that levels multiple skills quickly. Alternatively, you just switch to being an assassin when you were a heavy warrior before, or something like that. --PJF

Hyperbole much?

"For players who do not mind adjusting settings, the Khajiit is more or less meaningless. For hardcore players who enjoy the game as dark as it can get and on the Master Difficulty, a Khajiit is almost necessary."

Did someone working in marketing or politics do the racial write-ups? :P 95.206.19.208 12:41, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I have been "ninja'd" or my browser was displaying an old version, but this has already been changed now. I apologise for the inconvenience. 95.206.19.208 12:45, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

The racial descriptions do seem a bit... biased. I was going to revert a recent one that looked over the top (starting skills don't make Orcs deal "vast amounts of damage" or "easily outclass [Nords and Redguards]"), but then I noticed that they're all sort of written that way. Well, except the Redguards. They get kinda dumped on. Vardis 03:17, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I went ahead and rewrote them to be very brief and to-the-point since they were too long, hyperbolic, and contained some erroneous information (namely the idea that Orcs do more damage because of weight).206.76.160.254 00:52, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Spoilers

I am not sure the char creation page should contain the partial spoiler (that the dragon is out to destroy the physical world) as its one of the first things a new player would see, and as a new player, might not want to know that information yet?

Also a stealth character can easily defeat a dragon --- almost all sneak thieves learn early on to use a bow in some situations. With a good bow, even though a dragon can spot stealth from 10000 miles away 100% of the time, a rogue can hold his own against them, they hover and breathe over and over until nearly dead, then you melee or range them the rest of the way. Its easy to avoid the breath and get 1 or 2 hits in per breath attack.

Otherwise it is pretty good. Someone might want to add that enchanting is very important for almost any build as it is very difficult to find good enchanted gear in game. One of the first things one might do is make or buy a soul stealing weapon to start learning enchanting. May also point out that some things that do not make sense in a role-playing game can greatly benefit a player anyway, for example a "knight" (or whatever "do-gooder" player style) might still want to learn to pick pockets... just so he can haul around the extra weight from that perk, allowing him to haul back that set of daedric plate armor he just found so he can sell his valuable ebony set rather than leave it on the floor... there are 2 or 3 perks that make the game easier in general even when they do not fit a character's RP concept, another one is the merchant perk to sell loot to anyone, to sell potions and enchanted items to anyone who has some coins to rapidly fill your wallet. These have to be balanced against the number of perks the player has to spend, of course, and may or may not be worth it. Jonnin 14:25, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

The spoiler mentioned above is huge. I am a brand new player, and I essentially consider my game experience ruined thanks to this HUGE spoiler in one of the very first pages a new game owner would visit. Please remove it, today. Hal900x 19:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC) Hal900x

If you look at the main page, it does state that there are many spoilers. However, I do not see why any plot information should be included on this page at all, and the statement that Hal just removed did not look suitable to be on the page, as it looked like a sarcastic/humorous sentence. --Velyanthe 20:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

"You may lose your levels on any perk"

The last note is very cryptic. What does it mean 'you may lose your levels in any perk'? How does this happen? =p

Imperial Head Glitch

Ive noticed something with some Imperials, including my own character, yet i cant find an answer wherever i search. After making an imperial male and giving him a caesar hairstyle, i notice that while moving in 3rd person sometimes shows his head as entirely bald. It only lasts for a moment or so, but ive never noticed this with other races. Ive also seen Lucan Valerius outdoors and 'bald' for a few moments. Is this a race glitch? Or just that specific short hairstyle that causes this?

Section "Class Design"

This section is well written as of now, but I have certain suggestions - which I do not want to change without discussion precisely because it is well written. Maybe someone has input on them?

• "Most likely you're choosing this race because you've already chosen what play style you go for" - I doubt it in this form. Many players will not so much think about play style but about which race looks cool, especially in the beginning. Furthermore, this is an introductory page, where in game ideas should be taught rather than assumed.
• "terrible" idea. - Okay, this is just the wording, maybe I'll change it. Make it less dramatic.
• "Stealth means not using summons" - I strongly disagree. This has been my prime dungeon clearing technique during the early-to-mid stages of my first character (when I gimped my fighting skills by sneaking and lockpicking too much). If handled correctly, they synergize nearly perfectly indoors. Just sneak up to the entrance of an enemy filled part, cast a summon before your enemies and retreat (sneaking) as fast as you can to the last room. If done well, your enemies will not find you after finishing the summon (if they do), you can repeat this and clear entire dungeons without striking a single blow and without getting hit a single time.
• I think the whole "Health vs Stamina vs Magicka" issue could use at the same time more space/in depth consideration - or less, since it does not directly affect character creation.
• Also, since most of the level ups come from skill usage as we all know, there's usually not much direct "planning" of which skill gets improved - players will normally not level archery and destruction, just because they will most probably stick with one of these in normal game play. This is unless someone is farming a skill artificially, which could be mentioned, especially mentioning the danger of gimping (not only by spamming actions, also during normal game play)
• Maybe there could be another paragraph (best with a heading of its own) about other ideas of building not directly going for "best gameplay" (I'm thinking of the now removed note of "minimal effort maximizing all skills" idea and maybe similar ones).

But thanks anyway to whoever wrote that section. --Ulkomaalainen 13:23, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

changing appearance glitch

When I first started Skyrim, not knowing what I could do, I simply accepted the grubby stock High Elf and started the game. Once I maxed out my skills (level 81), I got sick of how strange my character looked and using 'showracemenu' in the console, tweaked his looks. He remained a male High Elf, no name change, but as soon as I exited the menu, I noticed that most of my skills reverted to their starting values. Some did not, and more importantly, my Level 81 and all the perks did not reset.

Being in possession of the Oghma Infinium and knowing how to not destroy it, I re-leveled my character back to 100 in everything, causing him to progress from Level 81 to Level 108! Each level increase added another health/magicka/stamina upgrade and a perk. Pretty sweet!

Still, I can't help but think that this should not have happened. I just wanted to give my character a beard, muscles, and de-uglify him some, not turn him into a super-elf. Does this happen all the time, or did I encounter a particularly unusual glitch? 134.176.247.178 15:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)Tim

This is not a glitch at all. This command is going to mess up some skills and character attributes due to the fact each race has bonuses to specific skills. Thuraya Salaris 15:38, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Archery/Destruction

The article says that combining Archery and Destruction is a bad idea, due to both being ranged skills, but that's not true. Destruction can be used at range, but it's also used, probably more commonly, in melee. What do the others think? 98.209.18.176 15:56, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

That makes sense, though the rest of the points in that paragraph do illustrate the similarities between the two. One-handed and two-handed might've made better examples, but the one that's there is good enough. The wording could probably be toned down slightly, though. On a side note, you should always feel free to edit an article if you see something isn't true or could be better worded. It's usually faster than asking for an opinion. If someone doesn't agree with your edits, then you can discuss it on the talk page. – Robin Hood↝talk 07:53, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

showracemenu

I can use it to just change appearance WITHOUT losing racial bonuses, perk bonuses, equipment bonuses, etc (and I have total OCD with this, so I do it very regularly). Unless I'm the only one lucky enough to have this, the article should be updated. (I was thinking, maybe in the 1.6 patch they pre-emptively added "support" for the Dawnguard NPC who changes appearances?) 90.206.126.156 18:27, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Justification for having your player name stay "Prisoner"

So I messed up when creating my second character, a Khajiit mage, and exited out of the name section without changing his name. I thought that they would give you a chance to change that after the tutorial starting mission like they did in Oblivion but they didn't. So I decided to justify it instead of starting over and here's what I came up with.

Your character opens the game in a wagon being led to their death. Whether they are a native Nord or a foreigner to Skyrim they have no backstory. Lets assume for a second that their entire conscious experience is what we see, something happened that caused them to lose their memory prior to waking up in that wagon, maybe they took a blow to the head when they were captured and it caused amnesia, choose whatever reason you like. The point being that they wake up in a potentially foreign land with no memory of who they are or where they came from. All they know is that they're a prisoner being led to their death for a crime they may or may not be guilty of. After the events at Helgen your character sets out to see what they can make of themselves ultimately becoming a hero that was almost executed as a Prisoner. It does make more sense to side with the Stormcloaks and rebel against the empire that almost executed you in this case, which is what I did, but that choice is yours and justifications can be made as you like. SneakyPenguin77 (talk) 17:40, 1 October 2012 (GMT)

This discussion would be much better suited for the forums. ⇠eshe^talk 18:18, 1 October 2012 (GMT)

Request

Feel free to say this is stupid and won't happen, but can someone with the know how make a link that shows a enlarged more detailed picture of each eye color in Character Creation for the base game? Wrath425 (talk) 23:27, 10 November 2013 (GMT)