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Yesterday I completed the slaughterfish quest. What a bummer! The fish were damn hard to beat (unitl I realized that you can still shoot an arrow underwater provided your target is close enough to be able to see the plaque on its teeth and even then it was hard). And the item I got for it was LAME. I have worked less for cooler stuff, that's for sure. And I was so [&@%!] off that I picked the dude's pocket and took back the scales. Guess what? I can't dump them!! They are a quest item! I am stuck with them forever!

One amusing thing did happen though. I had a detect life spell going to better see the fish underwater. I suddendly noticed a very fast swimming fish approaching and tried to shoot it. It wasn't a fish, it was a guard, I had gotten too close to some bridge. He had jumpped into the water to arrest me and was swimming like an olympic gold medalist. So here he was, under water, telling me that I was under arrest without so much as blowing a single air bubble. Too much...

GM

There's a lot of quests like this where the reward is either entirely useless to your class or just useless in general. The Nirnroot quest comes to mind as one of the worst work-reward ratios ever.

Also, you can get rid of your scales by using this in the console (press ~ to bring it up):

player.Removeitem 00185FE2 #

Replace # with however many scales you have.

At level 1 or 2, though, the quest is not that bad, and the reward is good for the level. I used it pretty much routinely through the early teen levels, I think. The fish are probably levelled, but the ring is not.

IMHO the ring is one of the best rewards in the game. There are many occasions where you need to go under water. The ring is also very handy when exploring rivers and lakes. I have used it a lot. Keeps the weight of water breathing potions off my inventory.

I think the quest reward is quite useful. Moreso at earlier levels.

There are lots of other water-breathing items around though also, although none as light weight. Most others are random drops. I just lucked out to get a few others after level 10. The athletics buff is pretty anemic though, as the water-skimming ring (water-walking:+20 athletics:+20 speed) puts it to shame.

I find water-walking at low levels is a much better buff, and you can even dive with it (in Morrowind you couldn't get underwater really with water walking). It is strategic because monsters and other enemies can only swim...not walk on water. With water walking, all you have to do if something is chasing you is walk out onto a lake or stream and blast away from your safe spot. If they follow you in, step on their head, then they drown. Problem solved.

BTW...water-breathing and walking buffs work in lava, too....now if only you can deal with the heat problem...

the first time i play the fish quest i found it really hard .. but after i started a new character and had to complete the quest again, i found out that it is very easy if you keep swim backwards. you hit the fish (use longsword) and swim away backwards .. then hit him again and swim away. this way i collected the 12 scales without being hit once. another adventage of this is that you dont have to search the fish after each hit .. he comes straight to you

Drain health 100 for 1s. Reliable, fast, cheap. Stronger enemies are unaffected. Weaker/wounded enemies die instantly. Fishes weren't strong enough

Good idea, Vook. I haven't experimented with spell making very much with this character, my first one. But I plan on a mage as my second and relying heavily upon spells and alchemy. I am looking forward to applying the kind of ideas I have read on these boards.

GM

I put my gold trimmed water walking boots on, and ran around on the lake, I got them all and not once did they bite me. Some of them lept out of the water when they were in front of me too, but I could hit each of the fish when they were under the water too.

The fine for necrophilia may only be 500 septims but the fine for necro-posting is much higher.

Actually the fishes are like wolves. Hit them and back up and they are gonna miss, they just got more life then a wolf but its all the same tactic.