Great low level magic weapon, Bolar’s Oathblade!

Many of you may already know about Bolar’s Oathblade but if not you may want to consider getting it quickly.  Having a great magic weapon at low level is always nice and this one may help you stay alive.  The weapon is located in a place called Bloated Man’s Grotto Southwest of Whiterun which will keep you fairly close to the main quest chain and with a little planning you should be able to snag the weapon without too much dying.  Follow the road west from Whiterun past the Western Watch Tower and watch for paths leading south into the mountains.  It will show up on your compass as a cave.

How to get it
Getting the blade at low level requires planning.  Bloated Man’s Groto is filled with bears, sabre cats and spriggans that will own you at low level. Before entering the groto get a follower such as Faendal from Riverwood and be prepared to fight two sabre cats right away.  There is no way to avoid taking them on unless you have invisibility potions but I would recommend finding a way to kill them so that you can secure your escape route for the return trip.

They key to getting the sword is the layout of the grotto itself.  There is an island of rock and trees in the center of the grotto with a path to the left and to the right.  Both of these paths will lead you to the sword which is at the extreme back end of the grotto but they will both take you past a series of bears and spriggans.  After killing the sabre cats take the left path.  It will not be long before you encounter a couple of wolves and a spriggan.  Before getting to this encounter start exploring the sides of the grotto for places to climb.  If you are forced to fight the spriggan do it with ranged weapons from a position above.

If you explore this area you will find a spot where you can climb the center island of rock.  Once you are on top of the rock island in the center of the gr0tto you will be able to find a path up over the top and down the other side to the blade. Once on top of the rocks you can either use your sneak skills to drop in and grab the sword or snipe all the baddies from your perch.  Either way you decide to go this strategy will allow you to get a good weapon early on and gain some experience from a position of great advantage.

I have been able to get the sword killing only the two sabre cats.  Make sure you tell your follower to wait near the area where the sabre cats are or he/she will attempt to follow you as you climb the rocks and will just end up getting killed in the grotto.

Podcast: Skyrim Off The Record – Episode 13 is out!

Not a single post from the Nerd this week but we DO have a new episode of Skyrim off the Record!

This week we chat about what to do when you’ve done it all! We discuss some of the latest Bethesda gossip and Lou presents The Falmer in The Elder Scroll. We give you our mod of the week and off to your emails to answer some of your questions! Its another great week here so get ready to SLAY EVERYTHING!!!

Find it on iTunes or visit the web site.

Don’t forget to hit their facebook page as well!

Skyrim Tip: Get more of the good arrows!

Get a few ebony or even deadric arrows and travel to Solitude. Find the soldiers taking shooting practice in Castle Dour and wait until nightfall. The guards will return to their barracks and when they do, you sneak in and take all of their steel arrows using your pickpocket skills. Replace their steel arrows with only one ebony arrow each and then get the hell out of there.

Now, simply wait until morning and when they start shooting again they will shoot nothing but ebony or deadric arrows. Hang around the courtyard and take the arrows as they fire them…they never run out! These guys will should about 30 arrows an hour all day long so anytime you need a refill stop by for archery practice.

Skyrim Tip: Dealing with Trolls at low level

You need a plan cuz the trolls will kick your ass every time at low level! This is the strategy that works for me and I am a bow focused sneaky guy.

You need to create some paralysis poison. Find or buy canis root and swamp fungal pods. Mix these together and you get paralysis poison. With low level alchemy skill you may only get three seconds of effect but anything helps.

When you see that troll coming dose your bow and hit him. In the time it takes for him to fall over and recover you can pump many more arrows into him. If you have to, dose the weapon again and rinse and repeat till you are collecting the fat! This strategy works great with a bow but could also work with any melee weapon you can apply poison to. This could make all the difference in the world on the first trip up the 7000 stairs.

Skyrim Tip for xbox and PS3: Fast Sneak Levels

Find the White River Watch bandit camp just east of White Run. Just inside the cave entrance you will find a bandit named Ulfr who is blind. When you enter the cave he will mistake you for a guy named Rodulf…play along! Position yourself directly behind Ulfr with your back to the wall and go into sneak mode. How get a rubber band and band your thumb stick so that you are continously walking backward in stealth mode against the wall. Leave the controler on the couch and go get a sandwich.

You will level up sneak to 100 before you know it!

Role Playing Tips: Building a psychological profile

The profile is a simple rating system that assists in character development. I am a long time role playing geek having played my first game of D&D with the first edition back in late 70′s or early 80′s…time escapes me.

In college I started a game group focused on a classic pencil and paper game called Top Secret. As you can imagine from the name, Top Secret was an espionage game and while it was not perfect, it had a great system for psychological profile and I have used it over and over again.

The Valkyrie Sessions: Part 2 – The Arcane Archer

In a previous post I wrote a piece about my latest character-build, Valkyrie.  To recap, Valkyrie is a Wood Elf Archer.  My progression as an archer has been really interesting and he has slowly transformed into, what I call, an Arcane Archer.  In this post I would like to share the details of my build and my progression so that you too might try out this extremely effective and fun character type for yourself.

Skyrim: Beating Quest Clutter

We all have things that we are not good at and one of the most important things we can do in life is recognize and embrace this fact.  If you can admit to yourself that you suck at something you can find ways to deal with it head on and it does not have to be a negative factor in your life.  This is called “being honest with yourself”.  Well, I admit that I am not the best multi-tasker in the world and if you suck at juggling multiple tasks or objectives, Skyrim can be a frustrating world.  So what can you do to beat Quest Clutter?

Skyrim Resources: The Alchemy Helper

Whenever I find helpful resources I love to share them. Here is one that I have been using since the game came out. The Alchemy Helper is an online application to help you make sense of all Skyrim’s extensive alchemy potions, ingredients and recipes.

I am not exactly sure how they did it but this application was available just days after the game launched. It’s quite simple, you enter the name of an ingredient you find in the game world and it will show you all of its properties and the potions you can make with it. The potion list is groups by the number of effects the mixture produces. You can click on the effects button to see either one, two or three effect combinations.

The Valkyrie sessions: Part 1 – Play Rules

I have decided to begin a fresh play-through of Skyrim.  This time around I am setting some rules for myself which I hope to follow strictly.  I am not one of these guys putting a complete ban on fast travel however I do plan to set some limits on myself just to see how things turn out.