Alexandria
"The Items menu allows you to select weapons or scrolls for each hand, equip armor and apparel, consume food and potions, or drop items when the weight of your inventory is too high.
The Magic menu allows you to select Spells, Dragon Shouts, and Powers, as well as check any active effects such as diseases.
The in-game Map will show where you are in the world, and can be used for fast travel.
The Skill menu shows the level of every one of your skills. From this menu you can choose new perks for skills and check your current progress towards reaching the next level. When you have gained enough experience the Skill menu will change to Level Up which, when selected, allows you to level up and pick an attribute to increase.
There's a Quest Journal, which shares a menu with your Options and Statistics.
You can navigate back to the central menu by moving in the opposite direction. (So press left from the Equipment menu, right from Magic, etc.)
You can favorite items and spells from the inventory and spell menus so that they appear in the favorites menu, a small menu that is easy to access during gameplay. Having a group of items and spells that you use often can save you considerable time and effort. You can also select weapons, spells, dragon shouts and other items in the favorites category to hot key for even faster selection.
[edit]Attributes
There are three attributes:
Health is the amount of damage you can take before dying.
Magicka is the energy used to cast spells.
Stamina is used to sprint and perform power attacks.
You can increase one attribute by 10 points each time you level up (e.g: you can upgrade your magicka from 100 to 110). If you increase stamina, then your maximum carry weight is also increased by 5.
Attributes will not increase unless you select them when you level up.
You cannot leave the level up menu until you have chosen an attribute to increase. In other words, you cannot "save up" attribute increases as you can with perks unless you avoid entering the level up menu.
There are several enchantments available that increase your attributes.
[edit]Combat
Hold down the attack button to charge a power attack, or charge an arrow up to full strength.
You can press the Draw weapon/Sheath weapon button to cancel firing your bow, and save the arrow.
You can equip spells to both hands to cast them simultaneously. If you have the same spell in both hands and have taken the appropriate Dual-Casting perk, the spell will be cast with greater effect.
Attacking with a weapon while hidden deals additional sneak attack damage
Pressing the attack button while blocking with a shield performs a shield bash.
You can block with a single one-handed weapon (the other hand being empty and with no spell selected), two-handed weapons, shields, or torches, (none of which are as effective as blocking with a shield) but not while dual-wielding weapons or spells, nor while wielding a spell in one hand and having the other hand empty.
Many Skill Perks add depth and strategy to battles.
Pressing the Block button while using a bow works as follows:
Pressing the Block button without the bow being drawn performs a bash with the bow.
Pressing the Block button with the bow drawn zooms in with Eagle Eye perk and slows time by either 25% or 50% with the Steady Hand perk. Without these perks, it does nothing." Smiles
