Back to Basics - A Skyrim Character Building Contest - Skyrim Character Building

A new year means a new you, and with that comes new challenges. With that we'd like to introduce our 3rd Skyrim build contest - A contest which will challenge you like never before. So join us one and all as we go ....

Back to Basics - A Skyrim Character Building Contest.

This contest has been a long time coming, and no doubt many of you have been dying to know its theme. Well, after weeks of secrecy you may wonder no more. We were'nt kidding around when we said this contest would be a challenge. Mods have had an unquestionably significant impact on Skyrim character building, giving rise to some of the most wildly creative builds to ever grace this or any community. But now we want to determine how creative you are without the limitless gameplay options provided by mods.

With that being said there are no limits or restrictions to this contest save for one...

Your build MUST be a Vanilla build. This means no perk, standing stone, or race overhauls. It means no new weapons, no new spells, no new powers, no new anything. The only gameplay tools you're afforded are what came with the game and its DLC from the start. To clarify: We are not asking you to purge your entire load order, but your build's mechanics and functions must be accessible to someone playing Vanilla Skyrim.

Even without mods Skyrim is absolutely loaded with content and synergies to explore - So much so that I can guarantee not one contestant has come even close to doing everything. For those of you more accustomed to gameplay mods such as Enai Sainon's collection, this contest will surely thrust you into uncharted territory.

As with the previous contest you may work in teams of no more than 3 people total. Once the competition closes, a panel of judges (see below) will judge each submitted build based on the criteria below and announce the winners! Here are the prizes…

First Place - Gold

$60 Dollars in game credits for the system of your choice (Steam, PSN, Xbox)
Build video by PCOutcast for your build.
Screenshots done for the submitted build or build of the winner’s choice
Your build prominently featured on the front page
Exclusive access to the judging panel of the next contest (only if not participating in said contest)
Input into the theme of the next Skyrim character build contest
"Contest Gold" tag for the submitted build
Lifetime supply of plain vanilla ice cream.

Second Place - Silver

$30 Dollars in game credits for the system of your choice (Steam, PSN, Xbox)
Your build prominently featured on the front page
Screenshots done for either the submitted build or another build of the winners' choice
"Contest Silver" tag for the submitted build!

Third Place - Bronze

$10 Dollars in game credits for the system of your choice (Steam, PSN, Xbox)
Screenshots done for the submitted build or build of the winner’s choice
Your build prominently featured on the front page
"Contest Bronze" tag for the submitted build!

- Rules & guidelines -

You may work on your own or in a team of up to 3. (Note however the prize will be split among the team) You can come up with a team name if you like!
Only 1 build may be entered per contestant/team.
Teams may register on this thread and submit a build at any time prior to the cut off date of March 2 2020. March 15th 2020 After this date Registrations will then close and the panel will judge the entries.
Submitted builds must include a "Contest3" tag so we can find them
Winners will be announced on the 12th of March 2020! 30th of March 2020

- The Panel -

John (Teccam)
Elysium
Erinoth

- The Criteria (Please click for expanded view) -

- The Contestants -

The Long Chapper (not eligible for rewards)
Curse (not eligible for rewards)
Ponty - The Lamp Descendant
Chris Diokno - The Ace Detective
Pixel
Paladin Gelebor
Jarlivar
JScrollz & DovahBuilds(YT)
Ramses - ACHILLUS
Jiru44 - The Orc Blacksmith
DeltaFox
darksabrz
TorynCross
Maezell
nystee - The Twisted Jester
Shadon - The Lurcher
Kodaav
DiabloSaint
Skooma Smuggler
Histcarp - The Wayfaring Wanderer
asgard - The Bowdancer
legendary dragon slayer
olegbikkja - The Glenmoril Coven's Initiate
Telby - Blacklion
Alchemist - The Inventor
Monk of the Hist - The Dark Defender
DeadbeatzZz - The Wyrm
ye4torn - The Ashpit Dragon
Shainos - The Warlock of Bargains

- Resources -

Below are a few helpful suggestions to get you started should you decide to enter.

Character Building Tips & Tricks

Good luck and may the best character build win!

Hello, dear friends and welcome to my first contest build. We know that Skyrim is full of glitches and tricks, which can be used to give us the inter…

Intro I sing of Battle and Rebellion! Behold, O Akatosh, Lord of Fire and King of the Gods, The Fury of your Son Acillus who now battles on the stone…

The Inventor

Gameplay -

Teccam: 5/10 - A pure crafter is not an overly explored build (though this isn’t the first, by any stretch). For me, your use of the different sets is somewhat interesting, but there’s not enough info to really get the full mileage out of them, and it comes off as a lot to juggle -- not for the character, but for the player. Grinding nothing but speech and crafting skills does not sound particularly enjoyable.

Ely: 4/10. I hate using crafting skills as a main build focus, rather than using them to support other skills. There’s no way to level them intuitively, instead having to take a bunch of downtime from questing/playing to go and power-level. I also dislike the mechanic of zero-cost spells, especially from within an absolute tank of an armor set, which means you deal tons of damage and take none. I think there is a way to do an inventor type build, but you could’ve balanced it better.

Erinoth: (5/10) - While this is certainly a powerful character, I have few major issues with the framework you provide. First, while I understand how it is pertinent to this character, grinding any crafting skill to 100 is tedious and is not enjoyable from a gameplay perspective, much less all three. I would have liked to see “tiers” or some similar sort of progression, to make gameplay seem much more manageable.

Avg = 4.666

Presentation -

Teccam: 5/10 - Could be worse, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. For your perk spread, if you couldn’t get a screenshot with the UI removed, you could have either cropped it out, or asked someone else to grab you on from PC with the HUD disabled. The header images help to space out the build, but are fairly simple and don’t really feel relevant thematically/stylistically. It’s good that you included small art for the potions and special techniques, but the art is so inconsistent / non-uniform that it’s a bit distracting.

Ely: 4/10. There’s some names (Mark 1, Repulsor Cannon) that are a little too on the nose for the inspiration, and I’d like to see it rooted more in Skyrim/fantasy. You could’ve used some more inventive images and aligned the ones for special moves/potions better.

Erinoth: (4/10) - To be frank, I would have liked to see more effort here. The main points of interest are the white backgrounds on some images and the alignment issues seen throughout the document. We have an art group where you can reach out to others for help with these sorts of things.

Avg = 4.333

Lore -

Teccam: 3/10 - There’s just not enough here for me. There’s very little lore foundation for mechanical experts in Skyrim during the time the game is set, or really in Tamriel at all in the current age. A master artificer is one thing (which honestly is what this character really is) but it feels kind of shoehorned into Skyrim, with a fairly forced connection to Helgen as the only real lore foundation. Would have worked better as a crossroads event build if we ever have one of those.

Ely: 2/10. The origin of this build is pretty obvious and while you can translate other media’s characters into Skyrim, I don’t think you did a great job with it. There’s no effort into translating Iron Man’s story into one that makes sense in Skyrim’s world, just changing the names of people and events.

Erinoth: (2/10) - As much as I want to like the lore behind this character, there simply isn’t enough to serve as a solid foundation for the character. Where did he gain mechanical expertise? Why is he Breton, if Dwemer ruins are not prevalent in High Rock?

Avg = 2.333

Roleplay -

Teccam: 6/10 - There’s a foundation and some basic instructions to shape the character, which is more than a lot of builds have here. But there’s not much context to them. Why should your followers be women exclusively, for example? And avoiding the “wait” system feels more like a gameplay restriction than a roleplay mechanic.

Ely: 4/10. It reads less like a character build and more like an grinding tutorial and instruction set on building these armors. There is some background on roleplaying Iron Man, but not much on how to approach quests.

Erinoth: (5/10) - I liked the concepts you present here the most. A few of the rules you institute help bring life to the character, but I would have liked to see more. Rather than single sentence quips, provide a paragraph or two about why the character behaves the way he does.

Avg = 5

Score = 16.332

Likes = 7

Total Score: 23.332

Replies

Shainos March 15, 2020 at 12:35pm

Hello! That`s my contest build https://theskyforge.ning.com/groups/tes-character-building/forum/co...

Contest build: The Warlock of Bargains

Hello, dear friends and welcome to my first contest build. We know that Skyrim is full of glitches and tricks, which can be used to give us the inter…
Curse March 15, 2020 at 3:38pm

Theres still time to post your build if you havent already
Ramses the Rad March 15, 2020 at 11:04pm

I think I'm too late, but https://theskyforge.ning.com/groups/tes-character-building/forum/co...

Contest Build: ACILLUS

Intro I sing of Battle and Rebellion! Behold, O Akatosh, Lord of Fire and King of the Gods, The Fury of your Son Acillus who now battles on the stone…
- nystee > Ramses the Rad March 15, 2020 at 11:06pm
  
  We are still March 15th (at least in the US) so I don't think you are late.
  - Curse > nystee March 15, 2020 at 11:14pm
    
    We're getting pretty close to closing but what Imma do is allow those already listed to post their build during the judging week. I'm essentially allowing those who opted into the contest prior to post their build so long as they do so before the judges get done at the end of the month.
    - Ramses the Rad > Curse March 17, 2020 at 7:15am
      
      That's nice of you. Hey, the name of my build is misspelled on the board- it's without the 'H-' thanks.
TexasC4 March 15, 2020 at 11:42pm

I'll only be a few minutes over. Just waiting on my gameplay video to upload to I can link it.
DeadBeatzZz March 16, 2020 at 7:02am

Awesome! I'll just keep touching my build up.
ye4thorn March 30, 2020 at 5:05pm

I just noticed that my username got misspelled.
Curse April 15, 2020 at 12:15pm

The Inventor

Gameplay -

Teccam: 5/10 - A pure crafter is not an overly explored build (though this isn’t the first, by any stretch). For me, your use of the different sets is somewhat interesting, but there’s not enough info to really get the full mileage out of them, and it comes off as a lot to juggle -- not for the character, but for the player. Grinding nothing but speech and crafting skills does not sound particularly enjoyable.

Ely: 4/10. I hate using crafting skills as a main build focus, rather than using them to support other skills. There’s no way to level them intuitively, instead having to take a bunch of downtime from questing/playing to go and power-level. I also dislike the mechanic of zero-cost spells, especially from within an absolute tank of an armor set, which means you deal tons of damage and take none. I think there is a way to do an inventor type build, but you could’ve balanced it better.

Erinoth: (5/10) - While this is certainly a powerful character, I have few major issues with the framework you provide. First, while I understand how it is pertinent to this character, grinding any crafting skill to 100 is tedious and is not enjoyable from a gameplay perspective, much less all three. I would have liked to see “tiers” or some similar sort of progression, to make gameplay seem much more manageable.

Avg = 4.666

Presentation -

Teccam: 5/10 - Could be worse, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. For your perk spread, if you couldn’t get a screenshot with the UI removed, you could have either cropped it out, or asked someone else to grab you on from PC with the HUD disabled. The header images help to space out the build, but are fairly simple and don’t really feel relevant thematically/stylistically. It’s good that you included small art for the potions and special techniques, but the art is so inconsistent / non-uniform that it’s a bit distracting.

Ely: 4/10. There’s some names (Mark 1, Repulsor Cannon) that are a little too on the nose for the inspiration, and I’d like to see it rooted more in Skyrim/fantasy. You could’ve used some more inventive images and aligned the ones for special moves/potions better.

Erinoth: (4/10) - To be frank, I would have liked to see more effort here. The main points of interest are the white backgrounds on some images and the alignment issues seen throughout the document. We have an art group where you can reach out to others for help with these sorts of things.

Avg = 4.333

Lore -

Teccam: 3/10 - There’s just not enough here for me. There’s very little lore foundation for mechanical experts in Skyrim during the time the game is set, or really in Tamriel at all in the current age. A master artificer is one thing (which honestly is what this character really is) but it feels kind of shoehorned into Skyrim, with a fairly forced connection to Helgen as the only real lore foundation. Would have worked better as a crossroads event build if we ever have one of those.

Ely: 2/10. The origin of this build is pretty obvious and while you can translate other media’s characters into Skyrim, I don’t think you did a great job with it. There’s no effort into translating Iron Man’s story into one that makes sense in Skyrim’s world, just changing the names of people and events.

Erinoth: (2/10) - As much as I want to like the lore behind this character, there simply isn’t enough to serve as a solid foundation for the character. Where did he gain mechanical expertise? Why is he Breton, if Dwemer ruins are not prevalent in High Rock?

Avg = 2.333

Roleplay -

Teccam: 6/10 - There’s a foundation and some basic instructions to shape the character, which is more than a lot of builds have here. But there’s not much context to them. Why should your followers be women exclusively, for example? And avoiding the “wait” system feels more like a gameplay restriction than a roleplay mechanic.

Ely: 4/10. It reads less like a character build and more like an grinding tutorial and instruction set on building these armors. There is some background on roleplaying Iron Man, but not much on how to approach quests.

Erinoth: (5/10) - I liked the concepts you present here the most. A few of the rules you institute help bring life to the character, but I would have liked to see more. Rather than single sentence quips, provide a paragraph or two about why the character behaves the way he does.

Avg = 5

Score = 16.332

Likes = 7

Total Score: 23.332

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