Keinu said:
Does anyone have any good tips to get around this problem? Are there any builds where it's easier to level "correct" by just playing the game? If its magic, melee or ranged/stealth doesn't matter as long as I can focus on the exploration and gameplay
I found it the easiest to level "correct" with a mage, since you can make practice spells to level up skills that lag behind.
For example, I used to make a spell called "Z_destruction_practice" that would cast Weakness to Frost 3 points on self. In a safe area (my house or my room in an inn) I would cast that spell over and over until my Destruction raised to a point where I was happy with. Roleplay wise it made sense for a young mage to practise spells before bedtime as well
I had a spell like that for every spell school.
One thing to keep in mind is that enemies gain 2 or 3 points per level in their combat skills, so as long as your damage dealing skills gain 3 points per level you'll be fine.
I built my character in such a way that she would mainly level on combat skills, and left her other skills as minors since magic skills (besides destruction and restoration) level incredibly fast even as minors.
I think my build was as follows:
1 Destruction
2 Restoration
3 Merchantile
4 Blade
5 Illusion
6 Light Armor
7 Marksman
The first two level very slow and are very useful for a mage, so they are fine as mayors.
Merchantile levels quite slow as well and I like making money, but it's up to you whether to take that one or not. You can gain several level ups in the beginning with this skill but it slows down pretty fast.
I took Blade as a backup in case I needed a weapon but I never really used it.
Illusion is a useful skill and levels pretty fast. I didn't really start using skills like "Invisibility" until I hit level 13 or 14 or so, before that it cost to much magicka for me.
Light Armor and Marksman were purely fillers and not skills I used. This way my main skills for levelling were Destruction and Restoration.
I rolled a female (male works to) Breton with The Mage as a Starsign, which was a nice and safe combination.
The first few levels I did the mage's guild quests to get acces to the arcane University. They aren't too dangerous and give you some free spells and a nice staff at the end. Making your own spells helps a lot. Damage Over Time and Heal Over Time spells cost less then damage/heal a big whack at once, even if they only last 3 or 4 seconds or so.
During the first few levels my character toyed with the idea of becoming a battle mage, donned some heavy armor and a shield, and practiced those skills by having mudcrabs attacking her. She did this every level until she had 10 points between both skills and would then go adventuring again without armor. This would give her +5 Endurance every level up which you need in the beginning. She got bored of having the snot kicked out of her by mudcrabs at around level 8 or so and gave up on armor altogether. At this point he had around 75 Endurance or so which was enough for me, but if you want you could go on a bit longer with training.
She also practised her alchemy diligently by taking all food and a set of alchemy equipment from the mage's guilds she was visiting and buying all food from shops and inns and turning them into potions. This actually made her profit and gave her a +5 Intelligence every level. You could also practice Mysticism or Conjuration for your Intelligence multiplier, but try to level your Alchemy at least a few levels every level because making your own potions is handy, if anything for the magicka restoration ones.
Every evening she practised her Destruction and Restoration and Alteration, so she would get a +5 in Willpower as well.
Again, around level 8 or 10 or so she had a very high Intelligence and Willpower, and she slacked off a bit with her studies and started levelling more naturally.
She did go back to her Battlemage fantasy every now and again at higher levels, equipped a mace and started whacking mudcrabs, but besides gaining more Strength to carry her loot, nothing really ever came out of that. (Loot gets heavier and heavier and I'm a packrat, so boosting her strength every now and again was a must)
As I said, level 8 or 10 or so on I was bored with keeping track of points and grinding skills. But at that point my skills, Intelligence and endurance were high enough that I could play comfortably. The only thing I made sure off was that my main attack skill (Destruction) gained 3 levels per level.
She did Kvatch at the beginning but left Martin there at the camp and didn't start the main quest until level 18 or so, since you get the best sigil stones at that level. Before doing the Main Quest she rose to a reasonable level in the mage's guild and did a lot of exploring, which she then continued afterwards.
The advantage of magic is that you can easily control and practice casting spells. It's fun to be creative and come up with new spells as well (3 second heal and 3 seconds invisibility is a great combo for example when you bite of more then you can chew).
Magic allows you to do damage, open locks, make people like you more, summon armor and minions, heal and buff yourself, debuff your enemies... there are far more options to deal with a situation as a mage then as any other character I found.
Anyway, this should give you some ideas on how I managed to finish the game on the 360 without any mods and without running into problems with the levelling system.
In the beginning I was quite frail so I to turned the difficulty down a bit, but once I got going I was able to slide it further and further up.
it's a bit grindy in the beginning, but it really paid off and it didn't take that long to get her to a point where I could start playing more naturally and not worry about +5 modifiers anymore.
Good luck, and have fun.