1 - with the regen, and presuming you are at full health, do you eat stuff that just equals 5% of your health?
2 - how do you determine "7 meals" and pay for "7 days"? do you rest for 24hours, get up pay again, rinse and repeat?
3 - even the ones given at the start like healing?
4 & 5 - even poisons?
6 - how do you poison arrows? It's the bow/weapon that gets poisoned thus pointing back to my question about 4 & 5
As for leveling, you do a 3/1/1 combination for you character (order dependent on class), I'm going thinking of doing an archer class and was thinking that something more like 1/3/2 (m/h/s) would be appropriate for that kind of character. the reason being that stamina is required for the eagle eye perk eventually. Also it gives a longer sprint and carry weight.
EDIT: oh.. how many potions do you limit yourself to?
Your thoughts?
Great questions and I'm happy to answer them all.
1
Yes, I eat enough food every day to equal 5% of my health. So right now my health is at 160, so 5% of that is 8. So each day, usually at the end of the day, I will eat something that restores 8 health. Sometimes I'll just buy like a horker loaf, which restores 10 health, but I don't worry about the extra. Other times I'll purchase 2 or 3 times that equal up to restoring 8 health. Sometimes I will have eaten some things I found or killed out in the wild, and won't have to purchase as much at an inn later.
2
So at first I was literally purchasing the bed and food for each day. This got to be too tiresome so now I just wait next to a bed for 24 hours 6 times. Then I go purchase a bed and sleep for 24 hours. I then purchase enough food to account for restoring 8 health per day for the 7 days. I usually just round up and purchase slightly more than I really needed. After this I will purchase enough other items to equal the cost of the bed for the 6 days I waited. At the moment this comes out to a total expenditure of around 175g.
3
This is totally character dependent. My current character is 100% unfamiliar with magic. So since day 1 I haven't cast a single spell or used a single scroll. My previous character was allowed to use illusion magic only, so again, no healing spells. It's tough. d;-)
4 & 5
I may use poisons during combat if the weapon was poisoned before combat began. OR, if I'm able to find a place during combat where I can literally sit still for 10 seconds, then I can poison A weapon or 'arrow' (more on that in a second). I have yet to use a health potion and I'm at level 12 now. If I was able to find a place to sit still for 10 seconds I would be allowed to use one, but this situation is so rare that I choose to not even carry health potions. I did just have a fight yesterday where I was able to poison a weapon during combat. First time I managed that. I tried to poison a second but at around 8 seconds I had to move to avoid an arrow and that was that.
6
So you're correct, the game does not allow you to poison arrows. You poison the bow instead. I think this is stupid but it's Bethesda's way of make the game easier to pick up, so whatever. The way I poison arrows is I basically decide at some point that I'm doing it. What this means is those poisons are committed now.
So let me use a fight yesterday as an example. I decided just prior to the fight that I was going to use 5 frostbite potions on my arrows. I was carrying 20 arrows so that meant that 5 of them now carried the poison. I couldn't use those poisons on my mace now. It also means that I had 15 regular arrows that I could use whenever I wanted during the fight. If I chose to shoot 15 regular arrows right away, then the last 5 would HAVE to be poisoned. It takes a bit of effort to track what you're doing, but that's how it works in essence. Obviously any time during the fight I wanted to shoot a poisoned arrow I would have to pause and poison the bow. If I hadn't decided in advance to poison those arrows, then I would have to use the 'sit still for 10 seconds' rule. So the advantage is not having to do that, but the disadvantage is committing poisons to arrows permanently.
Regarding your other questions, I think the leveling formula you choose should depend on your character. My first character used some magic so the ratio was different than my current character. My current character uses a ratio of 0-2-1, so no points ever go to magic. But he doesn't ever use magic so it makes sense. As for your archer class, I think a higher percentage should go to stamina since archers tend to be built less like tanks, but that's just me. If he uses magic I think 2-1-2 would be good, or even 2-1-3.
Also, I don't limit the number of potions I'm allowed to carry because I already limit my carry weight. So generally that means I'm carrying 5 or 6 potions max, but if I wanted I could sell off armor and carry more etc.