The Knight-Errant build, please comment

[Schattenjäger]

I know you must be overwhelmed by posts like this, but I'd love to get some advice on the build I have planned for my first character. I've purchased the collector's edition, but won't be able to play it until next week when I get my new computer. Having to reroll because due to making flaws in the character creation is a pain, so I wish to be well prepared.

I should point out that I'm a roleplayer and not interested in a power build, just one that seems appropriate for the character concept and most importantly doesn't make me level too quickly.

He'll be an Imperial -- that's set in stone. The custom class will be called "Knight-Errant". To quote Wikipedia, a Knight-Errant is a figure of Medieval romantic chivalric literature. The knight-errant would typically wander the land in search of adventures to prove themselves as a knight. Many knights-errant fit the ideal of the "knight in shining armor". A knight-errant performed all his deeds in the name of a lady, and invoked her name before performing an exploit.

Birthsign: "The Lady". As mentioned above, the knight-errant performs all his deeds in the name of a lady, so this would be appropriate that way. It'll also give me a bonus in endurance and willpower, the governing attributes of four of my planned major skills. I considered choosing "The Ritual" instead, but I believe the powers granted by it can be obtained through the restoration school as well, which will be one of his major skills.

His specialization would be combat, being a melee fighter type first and foremost.

As for major skills, blades, block and heavy armor more or less goes without saying. He'll also get marksmanship to have a ranged attack (the knights templar were excellent archers), and restoration (very paladin-like ability) to care to his health. He'll also take speechcraft as all knights are well versed in etiquette, and alteration to be able to use damage shields and have a way of opening locked doors and chests (he'll by no means be a thief, but I hear I'd miss out on terribly much if unable to open locks in dungeons etc).

So to summarise:
- Alteration
- Blades
- Block
- Heavy Armor
- Marksmanship
- Restoration
- Speechcraft

I considered having both Alchemy and Armorer as major skills, but from what I hear both are easy to level up as minor skills and would have caused my character to level up too quickly.

Are there any comments on this build? Again, please keep in mind that the last thing I wish to do is level up too quickly.

Thanks for taking the time to read this

[KaaH]

To control the leveling choose skills you use on a regular basis (or can't control like atheletics) as minor's.
Furthermore take a controlable skill of any (or at least your most wanted) attributes; e.g. Illusion for Charisma, Armorer for Endurance and so on...
(this way you can "force" lvlup's)

Personally I find Strength the hardiest to control, as you must hit an enemy, so your main weapon skill should be a major (and leave at least one as minor) and therefore governs my (your) leveling.

As an aside: Wearing no armor does not count as light or heavy armor (so if you choose those as major's and don't want to lvl -> take anything off). Even if you don't powerplay you may want 5x multipler so do not take the 10th point in a major skill if you are not ready as it will lock your advancement.

[Schattenjäger]

That's very helpful, thank you.

I'm not very clear on how I'll gain for example a x5 endurance multiplier though. Can I accomplish this with only one major skill governed by endurance, or do I need more? And can leveling up minor skills governed by endurance influence the multiplier in any way?

[Frodo1]

[QUOTE=Schattenjäger]That's very helpful, thank you.

I'm not very clear on how I'll gain for example a x5 endurance multiplier though. Can I accomplish this with only one major skill governed by endurance, or do I need more? And can leveling up minor skills governed by endurance influence the multiplier in any way?[/QUOTE]

Welcome Schattenjager! You're the fellow from The Witcher forum aren't you?

Every time you level up any and all of your major skills 10 times you will level up your character. When this happens the system calculates a value between one and five that it assigns to all of your attributes. You choose any three of those attributes to include in the leveling up process. The value is based on how many times you level any of your major or minor skills during that round. You at least roughly get one attribute point for every two levels you achieve for any of the skills tied to that attribute. So, you need to level up skills based on strength 10 times if you want to get five attribute points. The importance of this is important and cumulative. You could in theory be offered a maximum of 5 or 6 attribute points if you don't use any of your minor skills. Or, you could get up to 15 attribute points if you power level 3 sets of skills in a calculated manner. This is very difficult in Oblivion though.

I want to point out that you need to focus on strength if you are going to wear heavy armor and want to carry lots of loot back to merchants.

Finally, I like your build. Like any true rpg build, you will have weaknessess that you will notice as you go along. That's just part of the rpg philosophy though. I suggest that you consider using Ebony Armor though. It is perfect for a noble knight.

[fable]

If you want better control of leveling, I can only suggest trying out one of the many leveling mods (assuming you're on the PC). The one I'm currently using, Digizen's Smooth Leveling, allows me to choose a greater number of skills before I level (up to 60), and then makes it so that any combination of skills--not just major ones--count. You can find it up on Planet Elder Scrolls.

As for your new build, I think it looks fine.