This'll be for all the classes and builds that don't revolve around a specific character. It's pretty much what it says in the title. On to my contribution:

Race: Nord
Age: Mid-30s, to early 40s
Quirks(if any): revived from a block of ice, from the Merethic era
Inspiration: Saxon warriors
Skills: One-handed (Axe), Heavy Armor, Block, Smithing
Companion(if any): Dunno yet
Bio: A raider, this Nord was frozen in an iceberg in the Sea of Ghosts. After being thawed out by Thalmor mages, he regained his sense and ran as fast as he could, before being caught by Imperials and taken to Helgen.
Goals: Remain neutral in the Civil War, get Ancient Nordic armor, Helm of Yngol and Ancient Nord weapons early on, defeat Alduin.
Play style:Move in the wilderness a lot, kill any Thalmor patrols, rob any rich merchants, generally be a VIKING! (grrr )

That reminds me of my character Hervor, who I was trying to make a as historically accurate Viking as possible, given the limitations and quirks of the game.

Her main skills were light armor, one-handed, block, and archery. She used no magic except for the starting healing spell. Her gear is mostly modded to get that Viking feel: Matherian Viking Shields for her shield, Chronicles of Steel for the sword, another mod for the mail cuirass, and a home-made one for the helmet.

Her personal quirk was that she was a bandit hunter. I used the Live Another Life mod, and chose the Left For Dead option with her. She was left for dead by orc bandits. After reviving, she went on a vengeance-driven rampage. From then on her mission in life was to slay bandits.

Oh yeah, I remember Hervor!

Damn, that is a cool shield. I'll need to look that up once I have Skryim running once more.

A 'class' I played in Skyrim that I found quite entertaining was a sort of battlemage that was focussed specifically on hitting people in the face as hard as possible (as opposed to the typical battlemage that sets people on the fire and then hits them in the face). I nicknamed it Vanguard, after the class in the Mass Effect games which uses a combination of shotguns, space magic and using aforementioned space magic to literally launching yourself at the enemy to really ruin their day. The character I played was named 'The Kid' and he basically worked as follows:

Race: Breton
Major skills: Two handed, heavy armour, alteration
Minor skills: Marksman, destruction, conjuration, smithing (smithing is non-essential, but always useful), restoration
Key spell: Highest-level 'flesh' spell available
Key weapon: BIG HAMMER!!

Pre-Combat tactics: Dual-cast the skin spell to get long-lasting extra protection. If able, snipe enemies with ranged weapon and conjure a creature to lend a hand.
Combat tactics: Trust in your armour and protection spell, go in there and don't stop swinging that hammer until the bad guys are dead. Yelling "it's hammer time!" is not proven to aid in combat, but can't hurt.

Here is another 'class' I have played a few times.

The Juggernaut
Major Skills: Heavy Armor, Two-handed, Smithing
Minor Skills: Archery
Major Attributes: Health and Stamina
Weapons: Battleaxe or Warhammer. Ideally with an Absorb Stamina effect.
Races: Orc is ideal for the berserk power.
Play style: Charge in and power attack, over and over again. Don't bother blocking or defending. Just hammer down. That is why the Absorb Stamina effect on your weapon is good. Also have plenty of stamina potions, and if you can, food like Vegetable Soup or Venison Stew, that give you a continual stamina gain. You only need one point of Stamina to power attack, so eat one of those, and you will have endless power attacks. The archery is just a backup for those times you cannot reach those pesky archers and mages.

Ah, that one's a classic, that is.

Another class I tried what I called the Whirlwind; basically takes a combat oriented-character to its most offensive-focussed extreme. They're massive glass hammers, but very fun.

Recommended races: Orc/Redguard
Major skills: One handed, light armour
Primary attribute: Stamina
Weapons: Two one-handed weapons, ideally swords for greatest attack speeds. Enchanting one with absorb health and one with absorb stamina is ideal
Recommended Shouts: Whirlwind sprint, elemental fury (if using unenchanted weapons)
Recommended equipment: Lots and lots and lots and lots of potions
Tactics: Power attack. Keep power attacking. Don't stop attacking. Gulp down stamina potions if you need them. Sprint after those damn archers because you can't block or shoot back wheredidyougetthatbownobodysaidyoucouldhaveabowputitdown! Power attack some more. Health's low, drink a potion. Sprint more. Attack that guy. And them. And them. Slashyslashyslashy attack them too. STAB ALL OF THE THINGS!!

Take a breath, and room cleared.

Aravi is mainly your Whirlwind class, but I don't use Restore X potions. Instead I use Regenerate X potions. Makes it more of a challenge.

EDIT: Oh and poisons. Poisons are very useful.

And Fleur is pretty well SubRosa's Juggernaut, except that she uses Light Armor instead of Heavy, and beefs that up with Smithing to higher defence.

Her nemesis is Frost Mages, as the 50% slow effect negates her charge. Nords actually do this better than Orcs, as they resist the frost slow-down.

The Shield Maiden (a.k.a. Captain America)

Major Skills: Light Armor, Block One-handed, Smithing
Minor Skills: Either Destruction or Archery for those ranged pests. And or Stealth to sneak in close.
Major Attributes: Health
Weapons: A One-Handed Sword
Perks: The Block perk Quick Reflexes is practically mandatory.
Standing Stone: The Steed is good here, as it removes movement penalties from armor.
Races: Any race. Altmer is probably ideal, as they are the fastet of all races.
Play style: The idea here is to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

Tactic #1: Wait for your opponent to come close, then shield bash as they attack. This breaks up their attack, and leaves them open for a counter-attack from your sword. Step back out of range of their weapon and ready your shield to block again. If you are quick, you can get them with a second backhanded attack before you do so. Rinse and repeat.

Tactic #2: Circle around your opponent, continually landing quick blows. Get behind them and stay there. Do not power attack, as that takes too long. If you move quick enough, your opponent literally cannot hit you. Even if they do keep up, you can often get three hits for every one attack they make. Watch for their attack and shield bash when they do to break it up. Watch Le Chevalier D'Eon take apart a Draugr Death Overlord this way.

Optional: Wear no armor, but still use a shield. Use the Magic Armor spells, with the Mage Armor perks. The perks still give your armor spells increased potency when using a shield.

The Distance Fighter

Major Skills: Light Armor, Two-handed, Smithing
Minor Skills: Either Destruction or Archery for those ranged pests. And or Stealth to sneak in close. Block is handy for times enemies get too close.
Major Attributes: Health
Weapons: A Two-Handed Sword or Battleaxe
Races: Any
Play style: The distance fighter uses her weapon's reach to always stay outside the range of her opponent's weapon, but just inside the range of her own. This requires a lot of movement, constantly backing and circling to keep in the 'sweet spot'. This is a good (and challenging!) glass cannon build. As it is not always possible to keep an enemy at bay, especially when you are getting the hang of the playstyle, block is good to defend yourself, bash, and counter.

Supplement with the ranged option of your choice, destruction or archery. Stealth is handy too, as two-handed weapons do x2 damage on a sneak attack. However, the extra damage perks for sneak attacks do not work with two-handers, so this is probably not one to rely too heavily upon either.

Optional: Go with no armor at all and use Mage Armor spells and perks.

Watch how Persephone deals with the two bandits at the start of this vid

I called this guy DovahKen (like Ken, Barbie’s boyfriend), but he could be known as The Peacock.

He’s an Imperial warrior, because the gods, dragons, and Imperials know that they’re Awesome.

Primary skills: One-Handed, Block, Heavy Armor, Smithing.

Secondary skills: Archery, Speech, Looking Good in All the Fine Clothing.

This build is a simple commitment to Smithing and shopping, so combat skills lag behind. As the finest bird in all Nirn The Peacock is compelled to take Smithing perks as soon as they become available, since he really must have the very best to wear. Along those lines he will only wear armor that he has made himself and clothing that he has purchased. He uses Enchanting to name his wardrobe, but the enchantments are useless. Essentially they are magical name tags. That way he won’t accidentally sell anything he’s made for himself, and he won’t (shudder) accidentally wear someone else’s clothing. This also means that worn enchantments are limited to the jewelry he can find or buy. He needs to do a lot of shopping. Also, his armor and weapons have to match. No, he cannot wear the new Dwarven armor until he has enough material to complete the sword, dagger, bow, and shield to go with it. If he has a follower, they have to match too. Not him necessarily, just their own equipment.

I recall DovahKen in Dwarven gear and Erik the Slayer in full glass stalking the wilderness in search of dragons to slay. Eventually they both had dragon scale and plate, and damn did they look silly. I played him for 49 hours Dead-Is-Dead until his game fell victim to the mess of bugs that the early patches could cause. He started off as a shallow piece of work, but he was fun!

Here’s another idea that I’ve tried (and discussed somewhere, but I don’t remember where). As soon as I saw that you could give your character two blind eyes I knew I would eventually make a zombie character. And so...


The Zombie, or Njal the Unliving

The idea: Nord warrior is cut down on the field of battle. Sovengarde calls him home. But no! He awakens in his own tomb when draugr attack during his resurrection. Shock energy makes the necromancer’s spell go awry. He sates his unnatural hunger on his dear wife’s soft flesh. She sold his armor and weapons to pay the necromancer, so he finds some gear in the tomb and shuffles out into daylight. His undeath begins.

The skills: Heavy Armor, One-handed, Block, Enchanting, Conjuration for raising dead only, some perks in Speech. A note about Speech: this one might seem odd, but it’s the opposite of the game’s description of the skill. Merchants will trade any goods with a zombie just to get his terrifying corpse-breath out of their faces.

The gear: Ancient Nord armor (self-enchanted with regenerate health and regenerate stamina), Targe of the Blooded, Helm of Yngol, Ring of Namira. He wields the ancient Nord war axe Blood Feeder, self-enchanted with Absorb Health (and Absorb Stamina when his enchanting hits the top). This is important because of the following…

The challenge (or why this is not just another fighter): The zombie is undead, so potions do not work for him. Neither do Restoration spells. He heals in battle only by absorbing health and stamina through his weapons and by feeding on fresh corpses (Ring of Namira). I used the Lord Stone to boost his defense. Also the zombie has no ranged attack. Remember his cloudy, dead eyes? He can’t see well enough to shoot. I put dragons in my zombie’s game, so he had to run when he encountered one.

Imaginary mods: Of course PC users can give their zombies a good start from the first minute, but I had to do some in-game work before I dropped my zombie in his tomb and “started” his RP. Getting the Ring of Namira is quick and easy. Ancient Nord armor can be looted from the first dragon cultist you kill in Forelhost. Get the quest, kill one guy for his armor, then get the heck out! Pick up some extra draugr axes while you’re there. Keep making stronger versions of Blood Feeder to keep up with the world as your Enchanting improves. Targe of the Blooded is tricky to get at low levels, but possible. It looks awesome with the ancient Nord armor. Plus the extra bleeding damage is what this guy is all about. He is a blood-soaked savage. The Helm of Yngol provides a tomb-robber look as well as the frost resistance that a zombie should have. On a PC I would give my zombie weakness to fire and shock (because of the shock spell that helped to animate him in the first place) along with resistance to frost, poison, and disease. On consoles we can use enchantments.

I remember Njall! You called him the unholy Santa's helper, because of the red and green enchantment on his axe!

You should try Njall again on the PC. You can make a real undead race for him, with all those resistances and weakneses. Don't forget waterbreathing too. Not because he can actually breathe water of course, but because he does not breathe at all!

I could send you the Deadwalker race I made for Persephone if you like. Of course I never made a male version of it though, so you would either have to play Njallina, or add in new textures for the males of the race.

How seasonal, Njal’s red and green are ready for a comeback! I remember he did all of the Daedric quests trying to get a soul. I doubt I’ll want to do them again, but I could see him turning to vampirism. I have a vampire Breton spellsword (Iestyn Mallory) doing the vamp side of Dawnguard on the Xbox, but if he dies I might revive Njal on the PC. Your Deadwalker Race would be great for him!


Here’s another one (two) while I can still remember them.


The Treasure Hunter

Major Skills: Block, Restoration, Light Armor

The idea here is a dungeon runner who gets in, gets the loot, and then gets back out. Mine was a Breton female, which is possibly not the best idea because they do not run very fast. However the native magic resistance is helpful. The Block Runner and Shield Charge perks are the goal, so train block at every opportunity. Brawling works well if you don’t have the patch or mods that make shield-bashing a cheat. My treasure hunter was on the PS3.

This character puts a lot of points into stamina so she can sprint past her foes. She does not stop to kill or loot the little stuff, she’s there for the boss chest and nothing else. A weapon with Turn Undead or Fear would be helpful to clobber the bad guys and get them out of the way when they tend to bunch up in corridors, but I never actually found one that worked. Hitting draugr with a Turn Undead spell while running for your life also proved to be beyond my skills, but it would be helpful for those who can manage it.

I think I used the Lord Stone for defense, Thieves Guild armor for the Cute Butt effect, and a hide shield because it looked good with the TG armor.


A similar build is The Peacenik

Major Skills: Illusion, Restoration

This fetcher is a former Thalmor bad guy who suffered a crisis of conscience over his deeds. Now he can’t hurt a thing. Seriously, this guy deals no damage. Robes and enchantments to help with spell-casting. Illusion is important for the Calm spell. My guy was an Altmer for the extra magicka, Highborn ability, and long legs. The idea is to pursue quests where the goal can be met without killing things, so there were no dragons as the stone that starts them is taken from a corpse. It made me think about dungeons in a different way, but it got boring quickly. The (much cuter) adrenaline-fueled treasure hunter eventually took his place.