This is a series of blog posts about playing Skyrim on Master, the highest difficulty setting. At this level the only thing that changes is damage: player characters deal only half of it while receiving double the usual amount.
Considering what I was trying to do, I thought that having a follower would help. They were never seriously part of my dungeon romps back when I was playing on Adept but I figured that I might need them this time around. I wanted a mage, a conjurer specifically, thinking that the summoned creature would be beneficial.
After going through the list of followers who were conjurers, I picked Brelyna. It looked like she was the easiest to recruit, requiring just finishing Saarthal and then allowing her to test spells on you. Now, about the dungeon itself, I found out that the toughest part about Saarthal is Jyrik Gauldurson, the draugr NPC at the end who is a part of the Forbidden Legend quest line. Fortunately, he’s easy to kite. When things got too hairy I had the option to backtrack to the gate prior to his area and close it, preventing him from getting to me. This is going to sound lame, but I also found out that with the right distance you can rest for an hour to regain your health, mana and stamina then re-engage him. His health should not regenerate.
Once I had Brelyna I headed to Bleak Falls Barrow. She proved to be more than capable of handling herself, casting fire bolts and shooting lighting from her staff. When the charges on the staff were depleted she switched to a bow. She was a glass cannon, able to dish out punishment to take foes out before I could even draw my weapon but was unable to withstand a lot of damage herself. Also, the downside of having her around was that I couldn’t sneak as much as I wanted to. I had to micromanage her a bit to get past that problem. Having her around made the dungeon uneventful. I just had to make sure we weren’t dealing with multiple opponents.
After Bleak Falls Barrow I turned in my quests, first to Riverwood to return the claw then to Whiterun to deliver the Dragonstone. I knew what was going to come next: my first fight with a dragon. Will I survive and succeed or will the fight prove to be too much for me to handle?
Read More
