Hey everyone, at the moment this has been my favorite way to play skyrim recently, and I've exhausted my friends on other social platforms with elder scrolls post so it's time to post on a proper forum lol.
Build overview:
This build was designed around the idea of a bosmer who sticks to the ground instead of the trees, as his height makes navigating them difficult. subsequently, he relies on heavier armor, poisons, and taking out the strongest enemy from distances as great as possible. Once cover is blown, your "battle anthem" will serve as your shield, and your spear as, well your spear. This doesn't sound very classic paladin, but the Green Pact paladin is a champion of the forest and the wilds. take only what you need, kill only who you must, and grow in touch with nature around you. investing in speech is possible, but imo should be the last tree you go into. So the idea of this build is a hybrid warrior ranger who acts as a champion of Y'ffere, while adapting the world of skyrim around him. it's a bit of a slow burn, and it's a RP heavy build. The only real objective for the build is to enter skyrim and adapt to the word around you, using your skills and knowledge of the wild to advance. this is not a particularly heavy magic build, but, using ocato's recital, you can RP that you have a prayer before battle to grant you certain protections.
45% health, 45% stamina, 10% magicka
Primary Skills: Heavy Armor, Alchemy, Sneak (spear handled through a separate campfire managed tree.)
Secondary Skills: Archery, Alteration, Restoration (handled and cast through Ocato's recital for the most part) optional one handed investment
Guilds:
The Dark Brotherhood is not and option imo. The Green Pact Paldin uses outcome theory in his justification of actions, and killing for a profit or in service of Sithis is something he'd be against.
The Thieves Guild is an option, up until it's time to be a nightingale. if you decide to lapse faith here, that's your decision, but personally I left it unfinished.
The Companions are a strong choice for this build, for while it uses some stealth, it is primarily a spear centric warrior with a hint of magic. If you follow it all the way through, he would definitely cure his Lycanthropy.
The College of Winterhold is an option, but best left until later levels. You'll need to hunt down parts of your "prayer" and while it becomes devastatingly powerful at later levels, you'll be working with a rather small magicka pool, which means you're largely left to your bow and spear for damage.
Dawnguard is definitely the first choice for quests with this build. His playstyle not being traditionally knightly makes this a better fit for him than the companions, as vampire hunting is unorthox work for unorthodox people.
Backstory: Personally, I have mine as the love child of a thalmor justiciar and a rotmeth fueled local, not a violent encounter, but not one that could be openly ackowledged. Everything about him is stereotypically wood elf, save that he's notably taller, making navigating the tree tops of valenwood difficult. As a result, he's a forest floor hunter, taking the more dangerous route of ambush and an inability to really retreat if things go sour. His only real serious advantage over the other wood elves in his village of Emporer's run is that he is a prolific swimmer, capable of outpacing anyone in the water. After a lifetime of meteocrity in the forest, he finds his calling for the hunt in the waters edge, when he impales a charging bull crocodile, a monster of an animal even for it's species. He spends the next few years developing a love for the water, building a shell from the bones of his kills, and learning the properties of alchemy from the spinners on his rare trips up to Falenesti. his catalyst for for leaving Valenwood is exile, as an elder bosmer, jealous of his success despite his disadvantage in the forests, places smashed fruit ammong his stockpile of alchemical ingredients. The Green Pact Paladin is tipped off about this by his mother, and flees up the coast into Cyrodiil's west weald. Over the course of several years he'll make his way across the forests of Cyrodiil, and surrounding Topal Bay region, out of reach of the obligation of the meat mandate, and retreats further into skyrim in search of purpose and a new life.
Essential mods:
Nemesis
Alternate Start
Animated Armoury
Combat Gameplay Overhaul
Wildcat
Immersive Armors for the Bosmer reinforced heavy armor
Hunterborn and Scrimshaw Expanded
Campfire
Frostfall
iNeed
Cloaks of skyrim
Skills of the Wild
Ordinator
Forgotten Magic Redone
Dynamic animation replacer
WIntersun Faiths of Skyrim
Immersive creatures
Apocolypse Magic of Skyrim
Archery Gameplay Overhaul
Zartars Character Behavior Overhaul
Sea of Spirits
Depths of Skyrim
Imperious
Optional mods:
Spear Skills and Perk Tree
Beyond Reach, Beyond Bruma, and Gray Cowl of Nocturnal for new areas to hunt
Size Matters first person combat animation overhaul
skyrim sewers
skyrim underground
Wounds
Skyrim Reputation
Visible Favorited Gear (I know, it's dated but it's plug and play)
Xp32 maximum skeleton
Diversity Character Overhaul
Folkvangr Overhaul for Flora
NAT
Supreme Volumatric Fog for NAT
Realistic Water 2 and appropriate patches
Paint it Blackreach (requires blackest reaches as a master)
Mod Overview:
The core of this modlist is hunterborn and frostfall. You're not a Nord, or a Snow Elf, so the harsh winter winds should feel opressive, and survival is the chief focus making it here. Skills of the wild will make those skills develop over time, without giving you every ability right away. your hud is gon, your ability to craft bone items is earned, and the growth of your character is palpable. Extremely optional, but taming forest animals to be your mount is another possibility, alothough not something I put a great deal of time exploring. Immersive Creatures will introduce the daner of tundra spiders, diverse giants, and a mountian of other animals to the world, and Sea of Spirits will do the same when you are ready to explore the icy depths. Campfire will also give you an entirely new skill tree for spears, and you can use this to continue into the idea of a more primal knightly character rather than a properly trained one, and it will allow you to free up perk points if you want to invest in one handed wepons. this Character is something of a pincushion, with heavy armor being the shell you can protect yourself with as a last resort. THe world is dangerous and your skills are spread out, so having poisons do some of the lifting for you essential until your spear is properly leveled. The Character as far as quests should develop as you feel it should, taking any quests you feel fit a knightly/ ranger character, but along the way the development from wandering around Falkreath to spending whole nights in the snow of Dawnstar and Winterhold should give you a sense of character growth and development. The second group of mods that are core to this playthrough and character are animated armory, archery gameplayoverhaul, wildcat, and CGO. The world is not neccessarily harder, bt it is dangerous. Every draw of your bow will sap your strenght, and leaning into the Bosmer philosphy of pull and release in one motion will become something of second nature. I was pretty particular of using spears for this character. Spears give this character the aggressive approach possible of a hunter with no back up that other weapons just can't. When your cover is blown this is your best friend, especially once you unlock proper poisons with multiple effects. Charging animals and advancing trolls and giants can be locked in their tracks with paralysis and the damge over time can keep their life dwindling when you need to put your attention elsewhere. The upscaled damge of wildcat synergizes well with the increased mobility of CGO, and dodging will be your shield when your armor might fail you. on the focus of being Y'fferes Champion, wintersun and apocolpyse/ Forgtten magic will give your "prayers" an answer. Pray to Y'ffere to clear the skies with devotee status, and wait out a storm in a trance, and take use of Ocato's recital to arm yourself with the gifts of nature with Forgotten magics Frost Armor, Earthbound Weapons, and Healing Touch. Skyrim reputation will have you started as a suspected poor in character thief, and with the actions you take you can improve that to being a model citizen or dive deeper into being a social pariah, but with this build you should do the former. NAT, Supreme Volumetric Fog, and Folkvangr all give Skyrim a diverse biome feel to it, effectively telling you just how far north you are, an how bone white the snow is will tell you how close death looms. Skyrim Sewers and Skyrim Underground both give you new areas to hunt, kill, and survive in, and if you're feeling particularly daring Piant in Blackreach adds enough for an adventure all it's own. Finally, Beyond reach, Beyond Skyrim Bruma, and The Grey Cowl of Nocturnal all give a huge amount of content to explore the border areas outside Skyrim. This character is a wanderer after all.
Everyone has Skyui and Ussep and I'm fairly certain both are needed but I'll list them just in case. Nemesis is able to patch all of these mods together, althought first person underwater requires you to enter with your weapon drawn.
load out and equipment:
At around mid to late game I've got bosmer reinforced armor, dragonbone bow, and dragonbone pike, and a collection of poisons. for RP purposes, only collect alchemy ingredients from animals or from stores, and buy your wood or chop it at a lumber mill where it's already been cut. for magic, Ocato's recital is critical to have magic viable. I combine Frost Armor, Healing Touch, and Earthbound weapons. you can explore magic furth later down the road, especial after taking intuitive magic from alteration, but I personally felt that a "prayer" fit the build better. being a devotee of Y'ferre will let you have clear weather upon praying, which makes travelling the north most parts of Skyrim more doable when you run out of wood, and arn't near a town where you can buy more. Rediscover the familiar feeling of hunting underwater with the glacial swimming perk in frostfalls endurance tree, and dive longer with any enchanted gear you find with waterbreathing, or learning the water breathing spell. This is a character that respects the cycle of life, however, so enchanting for me is hard no. poison is going to be the real damage dealer for this build. Your spear and your bow will be fairly minmally invested in, with heavy armor, sneak, and alchemy being your chief skills. Archery, Alteration, and Restoration are the minor skills, with the magic skills being a passive skill rather than active. since your investment in weapons is minimal, investing a few points into one handed is also very viable if you get bored, although axes felt more in theme than swords. using grip change in CGO also means you can just use it as a two handed weapon, which is what I do with a lot of builds where I want to use two hands but want a faster weapon, here I put into both though. A dagger in one hand and an axe in the other gives a feeling almsot as good as driving home the spear, with two different poisons on two differnt weapons.
This build frankly winds up very powerful late game, so if you're a bit worried by the spread out skills, don't be. This is an RP chafracter rirst, not a min max build, there are lots of those. This is a build for people who want to feel like a paladin with the focus on swords and glitz and glamour, without taking an evil path. Take life seriously with this build, you gotta eat it if you kill it. :)
Replies
Pretty well done for a first build. I would suggest adding on to gameplay, IE what certain mods do, as well as how this build fares against certain enemies. Also, the title should be Character Build: Green Pact Paladin
Thanks dude! it has a mod overview section now, with a percentage for health magic and stamina, major and minor skill focuses, along with paint in blackreach put in as well in the mods.