I have gone into the game enough to want to have a change. I have trolled thru' settings and mods which change the game to a more hard-core game. Frankly I don't run with that kind of mod. It seems to me to simply change the game to a higher difficulty. (e.g.: to lower the power of perks or the effects of spells etc.) What I wanted was to begin with a mostly random skilled char, just like when a human being is born and he doesn't know what particualr skill or talent he will have which will make him or her shine in one or two areas. I wanted to be surprized and challenged by a completely different character. So I experimented with the following.

*** Right now, if a Moderator is reading this, I do hope that the method I use does not compromize me re. the rules of this forum. I do NOT advocate the use of cheats (unlimited gold, God-like, etc.) for I believe they simply ruin any game and make pointless the intentions of the programers. I am showing only two basic cheats which are already available on many sites simply in order to be able to create a character of one's own random choosing at the start of the game. I do hope you will not censor me.

Here goes:

There are 10 Races and a total of 18 Skills. Of those skills, each character has 1 Main Skill of 25 points, 5 Secondary Skills each of 20 points and 12 other Skills, each of 15 points.

RACES: 1: Argonian. 2: Breton. 3: Dark Elf. 4: High Elf. 5: Imperial. 6: Khajit. 7: Nord. 8: Orc. 9: Redguard. 10: Wood Elf.

SKILLS: 1: Smithing. 2: Heavy Armor. 3: Block. 4: Two-Handed. 5: One-Handed. 6: Archery. 7: Light Armor. 8: Sneak. 9: Lockpicking. 10: Pickpocket. 11: Speech. 12: Alchemy. 13: Illusion. 14: Conjuration. 15: Destruction. 16: Restoration. 17: Alteration. 18: Enchanting.

1. Cut out 18 paper squares, each about, say, 3 quarters of an inch sided.

2. Write on them the numbers from 1 to 18. Then fold each, dropping only the papers from 1 to 10 into a container.

3. For your Race character, close your eyes and pick one from the container. That's the race you are now born into, just like in RL. You didn't know what you would be, did you and after all, this game will be your "Virtual Reality Adventure", won't it? (Of course, you don't need to be overly fanatical, so if you simply HATE a particular race, don't put it in. Why punish yourself? I don't like the Argonians or theKhajits so I excluded them from my experiment.)

4. Put that number back into the container along with all the rest.(11 to 18). All 18 numbers are now in the container.

5. Pick your Main Skill now. Keep that number out of the container.

6. Now choose the next 5 for your Secondary Skills, taking notes accordingly. The rest are your 15 points skills.

7. I think it's better if you already have some worthwhile experience ingame. However, for someone who is starting, choose whichever character you want, simply to get you through the Helgen introduction, until you are outside the cave and ready to run to Riverwood. For others, go back, if you can, to a save when you are outside the cave. (Actually, you can do all this in the cave as well.)

This is where you will use a couple of basic cheats, (which can be found on several sites) to create your random character. I hope I am allowed to show these two cheats in the forum.

Click on the tilde: ~ to get you into the cheat window.

The first cheat, to get you into the char. creation window is: /showracemenu

When that comes up, choose whichever race you picked from the container.

Then you begin altering your skills by typing in: /player.setAV **** ** (The **** is the name of the skill. The ** is the amount of points you give it, 15 or 20 or 25 acc. to what you chose from the container. There is a space between /player.setAV and ****. There is a space between **** and ** )

2 small problems will occur. The first is : Two skills names need to be altered. Archery becomes marksman; Speech becomes speechcraft. .The second problem will be: You have to type the two-handed skill and any other two worded skill (light-armor, etc) as one word before it will work. (twohanded, lightarmor, etc.).

When you have finished, come out of the cheat mode, and check all your skills. Obviously if you missed one, just go back in and complete it. You may rise a level automatically and you may also find you have a couple extra perks. Enjoy.

You should now have your very own unexpectedly different character to challenge you, the difference being that he or she will likely have a set of skills which may well be opposites in many ways.I originally had played a Dark Elf, maxed Destruction, Archery and Two-Handed asap and had a ball. Then I tried this way to start over and got an Orc, Sneak 25pts., and 20 pts to Block, Pickpocket, Lockpicking Alteration and Destruction. That's quite a different mixed bag for an Orc but the beauty of it is it has contradictory skills re. the traditional Orc race (which maxes in HvyArmor, Smithing,2HD,1HD,Block andEnchanting).

So it's a different challenge to take your new char. successfully through Skyrim with some skills you would not normally choose. Obviously, if you wish to add further challenges, such as "No Fast Travel", "No Stealing", etc., that's up to you.

If anyone can expand on this or correct it or make it better, please do so. It will help us all. This is just a personal, very simple experiment.

I like this idea a lot, actually. I think I'll try something like this on my next playthrough.

@NickTheZombie said:

I like this idea a lot, actually. I think I'll try something like this on my next playthrough.

Archery and Speech can be altered, you just have to call it marksman and speechcraft(respectively). Remember, most of the console commands are the same ones used from Oblivion, so you have to use their Oblivion names.

@Aus_azn said:

@NickTheZombie said:

I like this idea a lot, actually. I think I'll try something like this on my next playthrough.

"close your eyes and pick one from the container. That's the race you are now born into, just like in RL."

This line made me lol hard.

Why would a mod give a shit if you use a mod? I didn't know they were mod mods.

@Scooper said:

"close your eyes and pick one from the container. That's the race you are now born into, just like in RL."

This line made me lol hard.

That's how it happened for me, man.

I am about 85 hours in and barely touched the main quest . thinking about re-rolling and going with alight armor or robe with Conjuring Spells either 1h or 2h , have not decided yet . might throw some Destruction in there as well . But i.m still on the fence

Two skills cannot (so far) be altered. They are Archery and Speech.

For Archery the console keyword is marksman, and for speech it's speechcraft.

@Scooper said:

"close your eyes and pick one from the container. That's the race you are now born into, just like in RL."

This line made me lol hard.

:(. . . The child has died. . .

I already did, 6 times. All characters combined it amounts to well over a 100 hours of playing. But now i have a 2 handed Nord warrior dude, and I'll be damned if i don't complete the entire game this time.

@Fishow73 said:

Archery and Speech can be altered, you just have to call it marksman and speechcraft(respectively). Remember, most of the console commands are the same ones used from Oblivion, so you have to use their Oblivion names.

Thank you for pointing this out. I have edited the post. :)