The Guide to Requiem
Original Sources for All Information
Requiem - A Video Guide
Requiem Guide
Chapter 1:
Requiem is deleveled
The importance of understanding this can imo not be overrated, and people missunderstanding it are a constant source for the kind of question I'm trying to answer with this post. A very common occurence are people who think they understand the concept, and promptly ask, why they get their butt handed to them at bleak falls barrow. Which leads us to the first aspect of a deleveled game:
If it kicks you in the teeth for the 20th time, it's probably above your paygrade.
Confronted with this, a lot of people ask what they are supposed to do on lvl 1-5, then. The answer is: anything. Save often, try and run from a fight when you start loosing, hunt, chop wood, collect ingredients and mix potions, mine ore, craft stuff. Anything. As long as it gets you gold and/or levelups do it! Which is the second aspect of a deleveled world:
Leveling up your character does not make your enemies stronger (just you).
This, I think, is what most people trying Requiem don't fully comprehend. They are used to focusing on leveling specific skills only, so they don't get any unwanted levelups, so they can keep up with ever stronger enemies. Requiem is not at all like that. While leveling your crafting skills without learning anything to kill stuff can quickly lead to your doom in Vanilla, it doesn't change anything in Requiem, appart from your gear (and the contents of your wallet).
This also introduces the concept of training. If you do run into enemies that are just to strong for you, but want that tresure they are guarding (like a dragon stone), go somewhere else, work on that combat skill, and come back with a vengence. Or to find out, that they are still too strong, in which case: rinse and repeat the former.
But what good is training, when my weapon damage doesn't change, even though I got 10 levels in two handen? Easy:
Perks are EVERYTHING
In Requiem, the main purpose of skill levels is unlocking perks and giving you the points to get them. This is best illustrated by the heavy armor skill. You can have 100 in heavy armor, but without perks, all that does is give your armor rating a minimal increase (with a full set legendary steel plate armor I have 505 armor at (skill) level 6 and 550 at level 100). Also, I'm loosing stamina faster than I can look just by standing, and when I try to move, well, I almost don't. With perks, however (at least the right ones), you can even regenerate stamina and move at acceptable speeds. Admitedly, except for one, the perks don't change your armor rating, either, but I'll get to that later.
This teaches us (or at least me) two things:
- Don't expect to be good at something without investing perks.
-- Leveling alchemie to be able to put more points into heavy armor works!
Which leads us back to training, and the answer to the vicous circle "when I hit things, it doesn't do anything and I get exhausted, and thats why I can't level up to get the perks that I need to hit things properly without dropping my weapon". Wrong. Yes, if you failed to invest one of your first three perk points into some way to kill things, you have a hard time killing things. But, that doesn't mean you can't level up and right that wrong. Craft stuff, talk to people, sell stuff, sneak around, run around, get hit, kill goats (or other things that can't hit back). All these things advance one skill or another. And once you got that precious levelup, you can get that perk that makes you hit harder, or longer, or more often, and show those bandits who's boss. And you can. Because they are still as weak as they were when you were level one. Another advantage of doing those things is that they get you money. And money is important in Requiem. Mostly, because
Gear is (also) EVERYTHING
This is another aspect, in which Requiem massively differs from Vanilla.
As we have seen with the legendary steel plate armor, raising your heavy armor skill doesn't really change all that much. And there is only one perk that does change your armor rating (and to get that you need 100 heavy armor). This means two things:
- Unless you get that perk, your steel armor won't protect you much better on (character) level 50, then it did on level 2.
But also:
- Unless you get that perk, your ebony armor won't protect you any worse on (character) level 2, then it will on level 50. (the same goes for the steel armor, obviously...).
This means, that once you get that black piece of immortality, it WILL protect you. This also means, that if you happen to have 10k gold, and your local smith just made an ebony armor cuirass, you can get that immortality, now, at level 2. (I don't want to know how you got 10k gold without reaching at least level 5, though)
Which leads us back to the vicous circle dilemma: You don't even have to level up to massively increse your chances of bashing those bandits skulls in. Simply getting better gear will go a long way. And if you have to do stuff you will never tell your spouse to get it (we all know that kind of mod), so be it. Or you just hunt and mine a bit, but who wants to work for stuff?
Chapter 2:
In this chapter, I will try and explain how to take on bandits and other low level humanoids, maybe even draugr. However, due to lack on experience I will ignore magic completely and can only guess how exactly heavy armor and two handed weapons work, but I think that should't be too much of a problem. So:
Plan your attack and retreat
This is something often said and claimed to be neccesary by many mods, but for Requiem it is more true than any mod I've played before (and I played SkyRe on legendary with Deadly Dragons as a vampire at day on Solstheim (with Frostfall and Realistic Needs and Deseases)) The main reason for this is: if you don't, you die. And you don't even know how it happened.
The first step to making a plan is understanding the situation. What kinds of enemie do I face? Where are they? How will they try to kill me? How can I kill them. The first two of those questions you can usually answer by opening you eyes and ears. Yes, your ears. Luckily for us allmost everything in Skyrim sees it as a neccesity to constantly make one noise or another. For the third and fourth question, I put bandits in four categories (Most other enemies fit those categories, too. But this is a beginner guide, and once you're done killing bandits, you're no longer a beginner):
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light melee: Anything wearing light or no armor with no means to attack you at range (mages who only cast short range spells like flames count into this category, too). They are fast, can hit hard, and die quickly.
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heavy melee: The same as above, only with heavy armor. They are slow (significantly slower than their light counterparts), hit a bit less hard (less stamina) and take forever to kill.
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light ranged: Anything with light or no armor that can shoot at you from more than 5m (15 feet, i think). They can kill you even faster than the melee guys, unless you wear heavy armor, they die even quicker that the light melee ones, and are worthless without their ranged arsenal (mostly)
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heavy ranged: Anything with heavy armor that can shoot you from more than 5000mm. They are just as slow as the melee ones, but, unfortunately, they don't need to be, and they take just as long to die. Also, they can kill you just as fast as the light ranged guys. Fortunately, these guys are pretty rare and I never encountered more than one at once, so you can allways save them up for last.
It is also important to note, that arrow damage decreases rather drastically with range (for you and your enemies). That means an arrow, that barely scratched you at 50m (the same in yards, i think), can very likely kill you in one shot at 5. This goes, as I said, both ways. So if you shoot a guy at medium range and only take a quarter of his hp, you don't have to switch to your sword to block his charge. You can simply draw your bow, wait for him to close in, and kill him just before he hits you. This can obviously go very wrong and only works against one opponent, buts it's a nice feeling anyway.
Also, ranged enemies have an accuracy cone (if you can say that), which means their aim is dead on at close ranges, not accounting for you moving around, and rather inacurate at longer ranges (i think it gets narrower with their skill level).
With these things in mind, we can now start talking
Tactics
The first thing I allways think about are ranged enemies, and because of them, cover. Where are they now? Where will they go when I go behind this cover? How long can I stay behind that stone before the melees reach me and I have to move?
The second thing is armor. Or, more importantly who wears which kind? Because light armored bandidts are squishy. Even with no perks invested, a few slashes with a one hander, or a few arrows at medium range, and they go down. They don't neccesarily die, but yielding is more permanent in Requiem.
Another important factor is speed. If you have enough ground between you and the bandits, and you play your cards right, you can kill off the light melee faction before the heavy melee faction even gets there. You could even go so far and try to rush to the ranged guys after killing the light melees, leaving the heavys panting in the middle. But your speed is important as well. Mostly, because speed usually cost more stamina, and power attacks do as well. And power attacks are usefull.
And a quick reminder: Using a bow as a heavy armor, two handed axe melee berserker has, appart from roleplaying, absolutely no downside. If you can use the time the melees take to get to you to take out that archer, do it. And if the archer doesn't concern you too much (due to lack of existance, for example), use it to kill that furry guy with the big axe.
How to kill things
How to deal with all these guys? Not too easy, but very possible.
The most important thing is to know their strengths (so you don't die) and the second most imporant thing is knowing their weaknesses (so they die).
So, strengths first:
Unless you invest into the respective perk (which you usually can't at low levels, due to skill requirements) arrows do nothing to heavy armor. Try it once, so you can learn from that mistake.
If you stay too still for too long too close, archers will kill you. Heavy armor helps, but also makes you stay stiller for longer.
Anything with a shield will very succesfully block all your attacks, given the chance.
Anything that requires two hands to wield will kill you. Even when blocked those power attacks take a big toll. And if not blocked, you better not be there when that hammer comes down.
It is very hard to outrun guys in light or no armor, especially when you are wearing heavy armor. You can, for a short while, but they will catch up. Because you run slower with less stamina.
And the weaknesses:
low quality bows break (!) when you hit the guy who holds them. Yes. If you manage you close in fast enough, you can knock the bow, that would have killed you a split second later, right out of that archers sorry hands! (you wont be able to use it afterwards, though, so keep that in mind)
lightly armored bandits die so satisfyingly quickly when caught off guard. (like with an arrow, at close distance)
heavys are slow. Seriously. When one of those tries a power attack on you, you can dodge the attack, circle around him, and hit him as hard as you can in the back (unless, of course, you are just as slow)
archers have a hard time keeping up with zig zagging
especially for two handed weapons, there is a long time between the strike of the power attack, and the time they can do anything again. This means free, unlbocked hits for you, which means death for a lot of not so heavy bandits.