[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Skybird

And yes, the bosses are males. No need to point out the obvious.

They're only bosses until this female Dovahkiin kills them.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Well, I thought about an epic weapon status for a low-end weapon versus a high-end weapon that has not received any smithing at all.

Oh, I have no doubt that with the necessary skill levels and perks you can improve a low end weapon to the point where it's just as good (or close to it) as a higher end weapon that hasn't been improved at all. And that's useful for someone who wants a reasonably good weapon but doesn't want to spend perks on smithing bumps for higher end materials.

Personally I can't resist smithing, it's the one kind of crafting that I absolutely love doing just for the hell of it, so I always end up leveling out in the skill. Then I take perks for higher grade materials when I see them becoming readily available to my character either in merchants' stocks or found items.

The new patch made it much harder to just grind out low end items for smithing level-ups, which was frustrating at first but I like it. I've got all the perks now except Daedric and Dragon and I may not take those for a while yet... I don't plan to wear or use Daedric anyway and if I take the perk for it just to improve things I want to sell I may have a hard time finding anyone with enough money to buy them.

The only weapons I've used that went beyond the "steel" level in quality are Orchish, and that's only because I've been using the Axe of Eastmarch that Ulfric gave me when I became Thane and it was Orcish, so I made an Orcish bow to match (or just kept and improved one that I found).

The armor I'm wearing, while modded in and forged myself, falls under the Steel smithing perk but has stats close to ebony since the modder wanted to make it a viable end-game set. He did include some ebony in the forging recipe, along with things like bear claws and pelts which was really cool. I'm considering making an ebony set, but I don't know. I might just stick with what I have and keep improving it as my alchemy and enchanting get better and I can bump my smithing skill bit by bit through those means.

I may make ebony weapons since the stuff is becoming readily available and the sword I got from Ulfric at the end of the CW is ebony. But it's a 1H weapon and I promised myself 2H only on this character...

OTOH I'm also thinking I might try to play this one until I've leveled out in all the skills and taken all the perks, just to see what it's like to be so relentlessly OPed. So I'll have to get those 1H and Block skills leveled up sooner or later. Also I did just stumble across an ebony shield and I'm playing much more with found or received stuff this time around. I improve them but most of my forging goes into making cool stuff for followers.

Somehow I always end up plkaying the same kind of character, doing the same kind of tactcis, perks, living in the same places. Think I am a creature of habit. Sword, dagger, bow, sneaking, ruling my gang. That'S it for me.

Same here, I'm just much happier playing a certain type of character. Even my supposed "assassin/thief" build ended up in Dragonscale armor with high end melee weapons by the end of that playthrough, altho I did use the Nightingale stuff a lot once I got it.