In order to do these character reviews I'll have to do all the little quests related to each of them first, and although I'd thought I would end up playing only minimally with this character, it's turning out to be a lot of work, soooo I thought I might as well also add a few tips about other things in Skyrim as I come to discover or think of them. So for the first random tip:
A very easy way to level up Restoration, once you have obtained the apprentice level spell Turn Lesser Undead (or any of the other turn undead spells) which can be bought from any of the court Wizards, is to go into the Hall of the Dead in Whiterun (the one in Solitude works nicely as well). Tell your follower to wait outside in the Lobby area while you go into the Catacombs by yourself. You might as well speak to the priest and obtain his miscleaneous quest to retrieve his amulet while you're at it. Once inside the Catecombs there will be three skeletons which are never very high level enemies so even your weakest turn undead spell will work against them. To 'train' your restoration ability, simply keep hitting the skeletons with turn undead. It will staggar them and make them flee and hide in corners, but it won't actually harm them so you can just keep this up all day long. Just chase them from one side of the crypt to the other repeatedly hitting them with the spell (you don't have to wait for it to wear off for it to count). The reason you want to leave your follower outside is that they will simply kill the skeletons too quickly, probably with one hit, and you need them alive to act as valid targets. Now this can be a bit tedious, and using higher level spells will level you up more quickly, but even using the weakest spell can advance you 30 levels in a short ammount of time and is still probably faster than normal training which only allows 5 sessions at a time and then you have to wait till you reach a new character level before you can train again (not to mention it can be expensive). This method is also usefull if your character is a higher level but has lagged behind in the development of Restoration, because the skeletons in the Hall of the Dead don't become stronger along with you like enemies in most locations do so your low level spells will still be effective.
And of course another thing to remember is that as long as you have magicka available, you should always heal yourself after a battle rather than just waiting for your health to naturally regenerate because you only advance your skill when casting on a valid target, which means casting healing on yourself does nothing if you're not actually hurt.
I reccommend leveling up your Restoration quickly at the very beginning of the game so you can buy the higher level spell books which allow you to heal faster and block greater spells. Plus there are some very useful Perks under Restoration, such as:
* "Respite" which is particularly good for those using weapons and heavy armor as it heals your stamina as well as your health, and can also be used to allow you to sprint indefinitely while repeatedly casting the healing spell on yourself.
* "Regeneration" is great for mages at low levels as it causes your magicka to regenerate faster which is important when you haven't got very much to begin with.
* "Avoid Death" will once a day automatically heal 250 points of health if your health drops really low, something which tends to happen all too quickly early on when one hit can take a third of your health (and when you aren't in the habit of remembering to drink a healing potion after every hit you take).
* "Ward Absorb" is indispensible if you plan to utilze ward spells at all because they tend to really drain your magicka, but this perk recharges your ward with every spell that hits it allowing you to keep it up indefinitely. It should be noted that wards are very effective against dragonbreath, even the novice level "Lesser Ward" can almost completely negate a dragon's fire or frost breath effects.
* "Necromage" is another very helpful Perk for those using magic instead of weapons because it makes all your spells stronger against Undead enemies - of which there are many. Probably the worst enemies you'll come up against are the undead Dragon Priests and Draugr Deathlords, not to mention the hoards of draugr whenever you go into Ancient Nord Ruins; Necromancers are hard enough to battle on their own but often raise zombie minions; and then there are also vampires (particularly with the Dawnguard add-on).
This does in fact tie in with the theme of Marriage since Mara the goddess of Love and Compassion is associated with Restoration. Activating a Shrine of Mara will fortify your restortation 10 points for 8 hours and your healing spells will restore 10% more. There are shrines of Mara in three cities: Solitude, in the Temple of the Divines; Riften, in the Temple of Mara; and Dawnstar, in Nightcaller Temple which is actually up the hill a little ways from the town and requires the quest Waking Nightmare to be completed first. If you build your own home with the Hearthfire add-on, you can build your own shrine of Mara in your basement, so you may want to pick up an extra Amulet of Mara in order to do this.
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