I just finished the main quest and College of Winterhold quest with a full on destruction mage Nord. Tak, you're right. The College quest was....meh...it felt like a glorified side quest, not a full on faction quest. And Drew, you're also right: there's not a lot that can stand up to dual cast firebolts when you're fully perked out with a ton of magicka. I used the Morokei mask, as well as Savros' amulet and robes and some enchanted ring I made that added something like 50 extra magicka points. I was a fireball flinging machine.

The early game was a little rough, and I died quite a bit. Once I got Lydia and started using her as a tank, things got really easy. By the end, Draugr Deathlords were the only thing that offered any challenge, and even then it was a small challenge. The Impact perk is very overpowered in my opinion...I was spamming dual cast firebolts at everything and stunning them, and my magicka pool was so deep that most everything was dead before I ran out of magicka and it had a chance to do anything. Alduin was cake.

I'm going for a dark elf assassin now. I haven't really played a stealth archer type since Morrowind. Should be fun.

Bethesda and Skyrim just won the Spike VGAs.

That was exactly the same experience that I had, although I was an ice mage. I died a lot in the early levels, but after level 20 you are almost god-like. And once you have those archmage robes you can just forget about ever running out of magicka.

The trick is to perk to 'impact' in your destruction tree as fast as possible, all extra points need to be spent on alteration to get to mage armor for your survivablity. Conjuration can be built on an as you need basis.

I tend to fight without a follower, but I always have one Artonach summoned, either Flame, or Storm dependings on the type of destruction I'm casting as it won't hurt my summon. If you stick to my build and my forumla not even the early game is difficult, although levels 1-10 you might be alittle more reliant on zombies, and possibly any staff you have as magicka can be a slight issue but not much.

I very rarely used the mage armor or wards I guess because I did have a follower. Most anything was dead before it could close into melee range with me, and I was using a lot of conjuration magic to add even another follower. I was summoning Atronachs and abusing the hell out of the Sanguine Rose, and then late game when I got the Summon Dremora Lord spell, that was all she wrote.

I suppose next time I try a mage, I'll go without a follower to try and bump the difficulty.

Never understood why they say that....:hmmm:

Back in Morrowind, the character creation process featured a series of questions. One of them was about what you would do if your sweetroll was stolen. This continued in Oblivion with an NPC bark where you can hear one telling another about how he threw his sweetroll at the enemy, as well as a character in the Shivering Isles expansion who wants a sweetroll before he will help you. Then in Fallout 3, part of the tutorial quest involves a bully trying to take your sweetroll on your 10th birthday party. The sweetroll was intended to appear in New Vegas, but was cut. The Skyrim line references the sweetroll history.

Earlier than that...the sweetroll question was in Arena and Daggerfall also

Actually the sweet roll thing stared way way back in Elder Scrolls: Arena.
edit: Found the actual question asked in Arena

• While in town the baker gives you a sweetroll. Delighted you take it into an alley to enjoy, only to be intercepted by a gang of three other kids your age. The leader demands the sweetroll, or else he and his friends will beat you and take it. Do you:

a) Drop the sweetroll and step on it, then get ready for the fight? (Warrior)
b) Give him the sweetroll now without argument, knowing that later this afternoon you will have all your friends with you and can come and take whatever he owes you? (Mage)
c) Act like you're going to give him the sweetroll but at the last minute throw it in the air, hoping that they'll pay attention to it long enough for you to get a shot in on the leader? (Thief)

It was exactly like that in Morrowind as well. :yep:

http://i.imgur.com/TqgMl.jpg

Looks like the Jihad against the Thalmor has begun.

:haha:

Skyrim is everywhere. Granted, he's probably talking about the mythological guardian of the sun, but in my mind it is Skyrim.

Just Photoshop. ;)

The S and T in 'TALOS' are copied from the above word 'INSULT', the O is from 'WHO'.