Character Build: The Engineer

Magic? Gods? Who needs them?
What is a god against the overwhelming power of space and time?

NOTE: This build requires several mods, some of them for the build itself, some of them for powerful artifacts and other equipment, some of them to balance things, and one of them to avoid breaking character for roleplayers during a modded quest. I'll categorize them in the mods section in case someone wants to use just parts of the build.

This is a build I've been meaning to make for a while, a young nord, distrusting of gods and magic after growing up in the shadow of the College of Winterhold, and who is obsessed with the Dwemer and their own ways to bend reality to their will. The main focus of this character is the use of lockpicking perks from Vokrii to disable animunculi, or even force them to do your bidding, and the new Smithing perks from The Timelost Dwemer to craft your own automatons and other wonders. Also, this is by no means an optimized build, the main focus is sticking to the theme even if the perks and equipment aren't the best in terms of numbers.

MODS

Absolutely Required:

The Timelost Dwemer (Despite not using the new race this mod adds, this build uses several mechanics and items from this mod)
Vokrii - Minimalistic Perks of Skyrim
Andromeda - Unique Standing Stones of Skyrim (Not exactly required, but the modded Steed stone fits more the explorer vibes, and the vanilla one makes two perks we'll be taking redundant)

Required for items:

Dwemer Goggles (Help the look and have some cool uses)
The Tools of Kagrenac (Part of the endgame equipment)
Reliquary of Myth (Mostly for the Aetherial Shield)
Cloaks of Skyrim (For the look and an extra enchantable piece)
Immersive Armors (For some good looking armor before you can craft something better)
Dwemer Researcher Armor and Outfit (The main armor you'll be using)

Required for quests:

Project AHO
The Forgotten City
The Tools of Kagrenac + Enter the College of Winterhold without joining (The second one is not needed if you don't mind breaking character and cast a spell to enter the college)

Not required but highly suggested:

Simply Balanced (Use it to decrease lockpicking experience gain. Trust me, you'll get too much too soon if you don't)
Lock Overhaul (Use it to prevent yourself from being able to attempt lockpicking locks above your skill level)
Dwemer Storage Cube - A Portable Home Enhanced Edition (A home you can access anywhere comes in handy when you do this much crafting. Just try to avoid using it in combat, that's cheating)
Skyrim Unborn Reborn (Any alternate start mod that allows you to start in Winterhold is fine, but SUR gives you the choice to NOT being the Dragonborn, as well as starting with no spells and setting how much time is left before dragons start appearing)
Security Overhaul SKSE - Lock Variations (You'll be staring at locks a lot, some variation is good)
Skyrim Immersive Creatures (More animunculi for you to fight and take over)
Any combat mod of your choice to make things harder and more interesting

CHARACTER

Born and raised in Winterhold by a very traditional Nord family, the engineer always lived in the shadow of the College, her resentment towards it and mages as a whole growing each year as she saw the pitiful state the town was constantly in. She also grew up naïve and trusting of anyone who is not a mage, specially races who are less magically inclined and can appreciate the art of smithing such as Nords and Orcs.

Living in such a small town, the engineer took any chance to receive news about the rest of the province, talking with travelers and reading any books she could find. One day, one of said travelers showed her a book that would change her life: The Aetherium Wars. She became fascinated with the Dwemer, wondering if this "Aetherium" could be a mean to surpass those mages in the College, or even the gods themselves, who did nothing when half of Winterhold was lost.

After her parents died of old age, she started working as the town's blacksmith, saving money and equipment for the day she'd leave to find the legendary forge. First stop, Windhelm, to maybe get some decent equipment and a carriage ride.

RACE: The Engineer is a Nord, mostly for roleplay reasons. If you don't care much about roleplay any race is fine, but the endgame equipment is enchanted taking into account that the character already has some frost resistance.

GENDER: Female

AGE: 20

PERSONALITY: Cold and logical but unbearably curious. She generally tries to be an overall good person, but she's not above causing some damage and committing some crimes to achieve her goals. She's also very naive but she'll distrust anything a mage, aedra or daedra says.

STATS: 0/1/1 Until you enchant your final equipment, after that all on Health

STANDING STONE: The Steed. With Andromeda, you'll get 50 extra carry weight, as well as higher movement speed and stamina regeneration out of combat. You'll also automatically discover nearby landmarks.

MAJOR SKILLS:

Lockpicking: Your main form of attack against animunculi, and a great way to ensure you'll get more loot to buy more crafting materials
Smithing: You'll need this to craft powerful animunculi and other devices
Enchanting: Not only useful to make your equipment stronger, but also essential for the crafting of animunculi.

MINOR SKILLS:

Light Armor and Heavy Armor: Not optimal, but I'm a bit tired of all Dwemer-themed build being only heavy armor. You'll be using mostly light armor, but you'll also use Wraithguard in the late game, so there's no point to most "Light/Heavy armor only" perks and the Engineer will be taking them up to the ones that allow you to ignore weight.
Block and One Handed: You'll be using one-handed weapons and a shield, but you won't specialize in any weapon type, you can use hammers, swords, daggers, pretty much anything.
Speech: Having worked as a blacksmith for a couple years, makes sense she'd learn how to get better prices.

PERKS

IMPORTANT PERKS:

Lockdown: Will allow you to stop hostile animunculi from fighting and reduce them to 1 health. You should get this as soon as you can.
Hotwire: Allows you to force a locked down animunculi to fight for you.
Dwarven Smithing/Magecrafter: The main perk to build your own animunculi and more. NOTE: It also has Enchanting level requirements. To build everything you need, you have to max this out and get your Smithing and Enchanting skills to 100.

THE TOOLS FOR THE JOB

Since the Engineer doesn't use magic of any kind and is light on flashy perks, half of the interesting stuff for this build comes from the equipment you'll build. It won't be much at first, but it will grant the engineer godlike powers when she reaches the peak of smithing and enchanting.

NOTE: Always be on the lookout for dwarven oil, fire/frost/void salts, daedra hearts and soul gems. You'll need a lot later on. Also pick up as much dwarven metal as you can carry.

STARTING EQUIPMENT:

Any one-handed weapon
Any shield
Any light armor
A copy of "The Aetherium Wars"

Get or give yourself those items with the console at the start. If you're using Skyrim unbound you should be able to start with everything except the book.

EARLY EQUIPMENT:

Any Dwarven one-handed weapon with a Soul Trap enchantment
Dwarven Shield
Dwemer Researcher Armor and Amulet
Dwemer Boots and Gauntlets
Dwemer Goggles
Lesser Atronach Cube

The Engineer would probably hear of Calcelmo and visit his excavation, finding his notes for the construction of Dwemer Goggles, which grant a variety of vision-based powers. The Lesser Atronach Cube she'll craft with her magecrafting knowledge will give her the upper hand against mages. Also, a Soul Trap enchantment is vital for making strong gear and crafting animunculi.

MID EQUIPMENT:

Any Dwarven one-handed weapon with a Soul Trap enchantment
Any Dwarven one-handed weapon with a Shock Damage enchantment
Aetherial Shield
Dwemer Researcher Armor with a Smithing enchantment
Dwemer Researcher Amulet with a Shock Resistance enchantment
Dwemer Boots with a Shock Resistance enchantment
Dwemer Gauntlets with a Fortify One-Handed enchantment
Gold Earrings with a Waterbreathing enchantment
Ring with a Fire Resistance enchantment
Cloak with a Stamina Regeneration enchantment
Dwemer Goggles
Greater Atronach Cube
Advanced Warp Core

After lots of exploration and experimentation, the Engineer is starting to see her full potential unfold. Her array of enchanted tools makes her resistant to most things a dwemer researcher should worry about and efficient in fighting mages with her shocking weapon. Not only that, but her aetherium research is already giving her limited power over time and space, using her Aetherial Shield to temporarily remove her enemies from this plane and causing great damage when they return (Thanks to Reliquary of Myth) and her Warp Core to teleport short distances, creating a blast of force on the landing point.

FINAL EQUIPMENT:

Energy Collection Tool: Any Dwarven one-handed weapon with a Soul Trap + Stamina Drain enchantment
Electrothermal Blade: Any Dwarven one-handed weapon with a Shock Damage + Fire Damage enchantment
Keening
Sunder
Aetherial Shield
Cuirass of the Engineer: Dwemer Researcher Armor with a Smithing + Stamina enchantment
Anti-Static Amulet: Dwemer Researcher Amulet with a Shock Resistance + Magic Resistance enchantment
Grounded Boots: Dwemer Boots with a Shock Resistance + Stamina Regeneration enchantment
Wraithguard
Cryobubble Device: Gold Earrings with a Waterbreathing + Fire Resistance enchantment
Thermoenergy Redirector: Ring with a Fire Resistance + One-Handed enchantment
Enerfiber Cloak: Cloak with a Stamina Regeneration + Stamina enchantment
Barrier Sustainment Device: Circlet with Magicka + Magicka Regen enchantment
Dwemer Goggles
Timelost Atronach Cube
Chromatic Warp Core
Chronokinetic Stabilizer
Null Core
Temporal Reversal Module
Tesseract Cube

The final, godlike form of the Engineer, equipped for every situation and wielding not only the Tools of Kagrenac, but also Dwemer devices that give her total dominion over Time and Space. Keening and Sunder are two excellent weapons that can only be wielded while wearing Wraithguard, a gauntlet that also uses the wearer's magicka to create a near impenetrable barrier, sustained thanks to the Barrier Sustainment Device. The improved Warp Core grants the Engineer a powerful gravity bomb to push everyone away, while the Null Core allows her to slowly deplete all magicka around her. And furthermore, the Engineer has learnt how to fold space into itself to create a tesseract cube, able to hold an infinite amount of matter. But the Engineer's dominion over Time is even more impressive, able to return from near death thanks to her Temporal reverse module or devastate her enemies with End Time, a power granted by her Chronokinetic Stabilizer that allows her to rapidly age everyone around her. NOTE: Some of the Cores and Modules can only be crafted at the Aetherium Forge and some only after you have 100 in both Smithing and Enchanting

ANIMUNCULI

The Engineer starts off rather weak, but luckily she'll quickly learn to build an army of mechanical servants to do her bidding or serve as cannon fodder.

Some tips about animunculi:

Primed animunculi are heavy, so it's best to keep a few stored and only bring one or two with you. Of course, that precaution is for people who don't have a Tesseract Cube

If one of your machines is destroyed, it will take some resources to repair it at a forge. If you store it back before it's destroyed, you can repair it fully at a forge for no extra cost.

Know what you'll need. Experiment with animunculi to see which situations they fit best and bring the correct ones if you know you'll be in a similar situation. Don't bring the big guys if you know you'll be exploring a ruin full of small spaces.

There's too many to list and describe, so I'll be describing the Engineer's favorites for every stage of the game.

EARLY ANIMUNCULI:

Repair Spider
Flayer

The Repair Spider is essential for the Engineer. Due to her adversion to magic, she won't be using her repair automaton spell, making the Repair Spider one of the only ways of repairing. Flayers are weak but come in packs of three, making for great distractions.

MID ANIMUNCULI:

Gynoids
Strider
Witchslayer

The Engineer loves how customizable Gynoids are, possibly keeping a regular one at home for house protection and a storm/flamesword one on her team. Striders are perfect against big opponents, stealing their health while tanking their attacks, and the Witchslayer, as the name implies, is excellent at chasing down magic users.

FINAL ANIMUNCULI:

Tempest/Draikana
Deathwing
Colossus

At this point, the Engineer is just creating machines to surpass living beings. The Tempest and Draikana, masters of shock and fire to rival great mages. The Deathwing, an almost perfect recreation of the dragons who once ruled this land, and a Colossus, a machine even bigger than the mighty giants. With these machines at her side, the only reason the Engineer still fights is to avoid boredom. NOTE: Some of the late game animunculi can only be crafted at the Aetherium Forge and the Colossus can only be crafted there after you have 100 in both Smithing and Enchanting

ROLEPLAYING

INTERACTIONS:

The Engineer will start off usually friendly to most non-mages, often accepting small quests and helping out others when she finds the time to. But as the game progresses and her power grows, she'll become more and more distant, even forgetting promises she made and caring less and less about everyone else's safety. When it comes to mages, she'll be cold from the start. The only exception is other Dwemer researchers. She'll be friendly with all of them regardless of their use of magic... as long as they don't stand in her way.

FOLLOWERS:

None of the vanilla followers really suit her, but Lucien might work with her, as long as she meets him before becoming too obsessed. There's also one follower that can be obtained during Project AHO that would be perfect for her.

LIMITATIONS:

The Engineer will NEVER use magic, receive a shrine's blessing (Except the one inside the Dwemer Storage Cube Home if you have it) or assist any mage in anything not related to the dwemer. She will also not use scrolls nor staves, unless they're of Dwemer origin.

SUGGESTIONS:

Remember, the Engineer is a researcher, not a fighter. There's no shame in running between a Colossus' legs, grab the item you came for, and run to the exit leaving your automatons behind. Getting into a corner and hiding behind your shield while waiting for help is also a valid strategy. At least until she becomes godlike and the need for such tricks is made obsolete.

GAMEPLAY

EARLY TACTICS:

Lock them down!: By approaching and activating an automaton, you can take them out of the battle with your lockdown ability.
Block and Lock: If you try to lockdown animunculi right away, they might get a hit in before you can do that. Block first, lockdown when they're recovering
Reconnaissance: Your Dwemer Goggles can give you important info on the enemy
Distraction Flayers: Throw them to the floor and apply the next tactic
The Engineer's Family Technique: RUN!

MID TACTICS:

Forced 1v1: Make all of your enemies ethereal with your Aetherial Shield except one
Right behind you: Use the power of your Warp Core to teleport behind an enemy, cutting off their escape from your automatons
Disengage: You can use your Warp Core to stagger enemies around you, allowing an escape
Mine now!: After locking down an automaton, you can hotwire it to make it fight for you. Remember, you can control only one this way

FINAL TACTICS:

Master of Machines: With your perfect skills in lockpicking, you can hotwire even Centurions and Colossi
Out of my way, bugs: Use your Gravity Bomb when surrounded by too many annoyances and let your mechanic slaves take care of them as they get back up
Calmness: No need to run away anymore, your Temporal Reversal Module will take care of any miscalculation
Ultimate humiliation: Drain the energies of mages around you with your Null Core only to have Tempests and Draikanas, superior versions of those worthless spellcasters, take them out
Army: You have infinite space in your tesseract. Why not carry around a few dozens Flayers? Or 10 Colossi?
The Last Solution: If everything else fails, just End Time

QUESTS

LOST TO THE AGES: You should start this quest as soon as available. The Engineer's first goal is to secure the forge, if it still exists. Important to get the Aetherial Shield and most of the Final Equipment and animunculi.

UNFATHOMABLE DEPTHS: If the Engineer visits Riften and is approached by someone talking about some Dwemer ruins, she'll definitely listen. The Ancient Knowledge power is great to level up Smithing faster.

ARNIEL'S ENDEAVOR: Despite her hatred of the College, the Engineer is interested to learn what Arniel knows about the Dwemer. This quest will give you an unpowered Keening that you'll need later.

THE FORGOTTEN CITY: A mysterious city left behind by the Dwemer. Do I need to say more?

PROJECT AHO: The Engineer is naïve enough to believe the lie that starts this quest. Won't spoil more, but believe me, it's worth it.

THE TOOLS OF KAGRENAC: The Engineer will get a chance to restore Keening and find the other two tools! You'll need the warp core to get some stuff during this quest. Also, you'll need a way to get into Blackreach.

And any other quest that will take you to a dwemer ruin.

Quests to avoid are the main quest, anything related to Dawnguard, any Daedric quest and any of the guilds. While it's tempting to get stuff like the Skeleton Key or the Star of Azura, the Engineer's personality wouldn't allow her to even start those quests.

CLOSING WORDS

Thanks for reading my first build. I've wanted to write one for a while and it feels good to have actually done it!

El. Psy. Kagrenac.

Skyrim Character Building

Character Build: The Engineer

Replies