100 level Vampire? spoiler alert ?

[Quahogs]

Bought the game back in July 2013 and been modding and false starting since then.  Never made it past the Greybeards but I'm finally done messing with stuff and am hopefully set up for a lonnnnng playthru.  Mostly SR/LE with REQuiem and some REGS.  So far so good nothing too wonky.

 

I'm pretty clueless about the game plot and mechanics in general.  I'm not a particulary good gamer which is realistic because my character gets smoked constantly.  So it's a true battle !    I'm currently level 9 and using REQ 1.73 with SIC.  What I'm curious about though is a foe I ran into recently:  According to the MSG console mod it's a 100 level Vampire 2300 health adorned with Ebony Regeneration armor !  Is this some kind of random spawn from REQ/SIC due to it's unleveled world or is the Vamp part of a legit plot I accidentally ran into ?    The Vamp is located outside of Morvath's lair outside of Morthal.  It had a note on it's possession written to offspring from father.   Took me over 5 minutes to kill it even using god-mode.  I have ZERO chance normally and if I kite it into Morthal the whole town will be wasted  - fun stuff !    

Edited January 16, 2015 by Quahogs

[Aiyen]

If you unleveled the world then it is not so strange. It is stuff like this that is the reason why an unleveled setup is just a bad idea. It does not take the issue of some random super spawn hunting you until the end of time into account. 

[Quahogs]

I can see where things can backfire and does limit exploring.  But I plan on following the storyline and various added world quests so hopefully a 100 level creature doesn't get in the way TOO much.  

 

Was just curious if it's a built in quest or random spawn.  Didn't think spawns carried notes but I know little about the world of Skyrim.  

[Aiyen]

Perhaps someone with experience with REQ will be able to offer more insights. It can be it is a plot specific bad guy who REQ just decided needed a boost... 

 

Just in general then my experience with unleveled lists is that this can and will happen... perhaps not level 100 but super strong enemies that are not meant to be dealt with until you are at least level 40 with enchanted gear of doom. 

[fireundubh]

In an unleveled world, you're not supposed to be the godslayer.

 

You're supposed to come up against challenges from which you will have to run away. That's part of the roleplay, part of your character's story.

Edited January 17, 2015 by fireundubh

[A_Dim_Mismatch]

In an unleveled world, you're not supposed to be the godslayer.

 

You're supposed to come up against challenges from which you will have to run away. That's part of the roleplay, part of your character's story.

I like that style, I really do, but there tends to be two problems with that:

 

1. Super-strong hostile NPCs are often lore-breaking. Why do the Forsworn not run Markarth when their demigod Briarhearts are individually strong enough to kill all the guards in any given Hold? Just as an example of what I mean in a strictly unleveled setup, Skyrim Unleashed was my first de-leveling mod, and the presence of OP Archwizards who spam ice storm and fireball in every single mage dungeon was just too hard to believe. Why do they live on the fringe of society if they're strong enough to conquer it? I really enjoyed that mod, especially its take on level scaling (I think the author got it just right, as enemies scale, but they get a head start and scale slowly, so eventually you outpace them, but not till you're level 30 or so, and if you use the Uncapper for slower progression, that can take ages). But I just couldn't buy into the strong enemies and weak allies everywhere.

 

2. On a perspective that's strictly gameplay-related, it makes playing with followers incredibly difficult, even if you're chock full of restoration magic, since they constantly fall to 0 health, get back up, and fall to 0 health again, but you can't leave them behind.

[fireundubh]

Why do the Forsworn not run Markarth when their demigod Briarhearts are individually strong enough to kill all the guards in any given Hold? Just as an example of what I mean in a strictly unleveled setup, Skyrim Unleashed was my first de-leveling mod, and the presence of OP Archwizards who spam ice storm and fireball in every single mage dungeon was just too hard to believe. Why do they live on the fringe of society if they're strong enough to conquer it?

I can't speak to any other mods since I've only played Requiem, but there are many reasons why things don't happen, even in the real world. Just because you're strong enough, or smart enough, to do something doesn't mean you can or should or want to.

 

If you're roleplaying, the demigod briarheart in the tower has a personality, motivations, dreams, aspirations, etc. He's probably more interested in ritual sacrifice and mystical power than conquest.

 

If you're roleplaying, the Forsworn are led by a man who has his own ideas about how to retake the Reach and, well, they may not be very good ones. He did get himself locked up, after all.

 

If you're roleplaying, powerful wizards live on the fringe of society because they're terribly insecure, or terribly afraid, or terribly paranoid. Maybe they really just want to be left alone, but this guy, or girl, calling himself the Dragonborn keeps invading their homes and slaughtering them. Yes, maybe you, the Dragonborn, are, in fact, a serial killer.

 

If you're roleplaying, NPCs are characters, too.

[A_Dim_Mismatch]

I can't speak to any other mods since I've only played Requiem, but there are many reasons why things don't happen, even in the real world. Just because you're strong enough, or smart enough, to do something doesn't mean you can or should or want to.

 

If you're roleplaying, the demigod briarheart in the tower has a personality, motivations, dreams, aspirations, etc. He's probably more interested in ritual sacrifice and mystical power than conquest.

 

If you're roleplaying, the Forsworn are led by a man who has his own ideas about how to retake the Reach and, well, they may not be very good ones. He did get himself locked up, after all.

 

If you're roleplaying, powerful wizards live on the fringe of society because they're terribly insecure, or terribly afraid, or terribly paranoid. Maybe they really just want to be left alone, but this guy, or girl, calling himself the Dragonborn keeps invading their homes and slaughtering them. Yes, maybe you, the Dragonborn, are, in fact, a serial killer.

 

If you're roleplaying, NPCs are characters, too.

I get that when there's a few of them, but when there's as many archwizards as there are townspeople, it goes beyond the realm of plausibility that none of them have designs on something more grandiose. That's why it makes more sense to make friendly NPCs stronger if hostile NPCs are so powerful, to balance them out. They don't go out into the wild because there's still a good chance they can die and there's no reason to risk their lives, so they keep to their towns and villages. Anything that assaults them would, by consequence of the defenders' abilities, have a high chance of dying too. A medieval kind of mutually-assured destruction keeps them separate.

 

For other hostile NPCs, even if they're strong, it never bothered me. Falmer for example, hate the surface so much that they don't go outside. That automatically makes their conquests impossible. Vampires don't conquer things because everyone who isn't a vampire would turn against them, and vampires for the most part don't care about power, they care about immortality. Or Malkoran was in the process of building an undead army in Meridia's temple. Him being strong made sense too. It's just the cases of heavily abundant superpowered NPCs (Briarheart and Archmage spam) that goes beyond what I can believe.

 

And really, the worst offenders with lore-related issues are bandits (most of whom should be terrible fighters), but unleveling mods almost always take care of them. I know Requiem hits them with the nerf bat but Requiem is a bit too drastic of an overhaul for my tastes. Actually, I'm looking for something to weaken bandits a little bit, as I'm filling up my load order for a new playthrough.