Another life in another world

quote Scott Cee

Thoughts?

Pump lots of level bonuses into stamina and take illusion as a perking skill as well, you might need to calm some enraged people down. Playing a wandering trader would be even more awesome if they allowed you to put on one of those knapsacks scattered around.

I've been mostly ignoring illusion up until now, but then I found a buff scroll that turned town guards into total dragonslayers, so I'm training it up to get the actual spell.

This actually sounds fun. Once I'm tired with a combat - styled character, I'll test this out. It's so crazy how the little things in Skyrim make things so fun.

Skyrim > life?

I did this before, albeit didn't last very long, I think like lvl30-ish. I was an Imperial, but I had something like this planned.

I plan to retry after I get all my characters to 81. (: Which is 3... c: But they are perfect, so~ I will never delete them unlike in the past. >>;

quote Scott Cee

I tried this for a couple of hours last night. And then couldn't find the cave with the transmute spell book inside, and then got killed by the dudes in the Ratway, who I completely forgot were even there. I tried going in the secret entrance, but it doesn't activate until Brynolf opens the cistern in the first place.

I was wearing no armour, because even light armour takes away space I could be using to carry gems and ores and other bits.

I think I got to like level 10 before giving up and deleting that save.

What would be the best companion to take to make sure I don't get killed by everything?

I found that Spell Book in the Halted Stream Camp near Whiterun...try buying the Stoneflesh Spell and hiring a merc for 500 gold. (Jenassa, Stenvar, or Vorstag....most other followers need a quest to be done in order for you to hire them, which involves combat) I would say use Uthgerd as your follower but you would have to fight her to do so... You can find or buy the Heal Other Spell and constantly heal your follower.

I tried a build like this about a week ago. Though it was less a merchant and more an initially non-combatant kind of character, who I never intended to be an adventurer but ended up falling into that role anyway as I have this annoying OCD complex when it comes to training sessions and levelling up, I have to use all 5 for each level or it bugs the crap out of me. XD

It's strangely difficult, it's also very interesting trying to the Dragonborn and a non-combatant at the same time, if a little dull. Hirelings are definitely going to be your best friend if you're going for this sort of thing, Jenassa from The Drunken Huntsman in Whiterun is the reason I was able to clear Bleak Falls Barrow at all on that character. I plan on deleting him and rebooting however as apparently everyone in Skyrim has to have freakishly huge fish lips and I'm overly obsessive about my characters' appearance. >_<

Like others have said Illusion is probably your best bet, though maybe you could invest in Sneak as well. Not taking the thief route but basically making your merchant capable of sneaking into enemy camps, taking the loot you need and sneaking back out, or speccing him/her in alteration as well so you can add a layer of magic armour to protect yourself if enemies do start swinging for you or your bodyguard dies and you have to make a rather swift retreat.

In short: take any primarily non-offensive magic you can, maybe skill up your stealth abilities, invest in speech for roleplay reasons, use hirelings/followers then get bored and go back on your adventuring badass after three hours. XP