The Skyrim guide for the Skilled Player

Overview

There’s always something to learn, right? I started this guide since I wanted to have something to consult when ingame and don’t want to Alt+tab or write all this on paper. So, scroll down and uncover more or less known things on Skyrim! Also, comment to add more!

General

• 1) Your horse can climb up mountains that you couldn’t on foot.
• 2) You can fast travel while over encumbered with a horse.
• 3) Mines and Dungeons respawn every month (30 in game days). A method that may be used to replenish ore veins faster is if the Dragonborn comes back to a depleted ore vein after a week, and the ore vein appears replenished but no dialogue for mining appears, find a house/cave/mine nearby, enter it, exit it (if already in a mine, exit it and re-enter it) then go back to the ore vein and the dialogue for mining will appear.
• 5) Shops and Merchants restock their gold and supplies every 48hours in game.
• 6) Want to empty a soul gem? Simply drop it on the ground and pick it back up.
• 7) Chopping Wood is a good way to make a little extra coin early in the game if you need it.
• 8) Leveling up will restore all Health, Magica and Stamina. sometimes it is worth waiting to level up until you are in a fight and your stats are running low, it will save some potions.
• 10) You can often hop around on steeps slopes to climb mountains. Often this is a little exploit-y as it allows you to reach areas early, but sometimes it’s intended, such as the secret pickaxe at the very peak on the Throat of the World.
• 11) A dragon claw will unlock a specific nordic door. The bottom of the claw will show the answer to the door.
• 12) The armor cap is 567. Anything higher does nothing. Each piece of armor (anything with an armor rating) provides a hidden AR bonus of +25. The actual armor cap is 667. When you put on a chest piece, you’re wearing a single piece of armor, thus the cap (the displayed AR you need to be at maximum damage reduction) is now 642. If you’re also wearing boots, then you’ll need to get to 617. Add in some gauntlets and you only need 592. Finally, with the last piece of armor, you’re left with 567. Doesn’t have to match, you could be wearing a leather helmet, chitin heavy armor, iron boots and hide bracers. As long as you have four pieces of armor on, your cap is 567. If (another example) you were wearing steel armor, boots, and gauntlets but had a circlet (so you can see your face) or a mage hood you’d need 592 displayed to be at the cap.
• 13) Don’t randomly drop items on the ground. The game remembers its location using memory and this adds to the lag. Always store your trash somewhere. Use a dead body if you must.
• 14) Whiterun is the best place to grab a quick bite if your character is a vampire. The guard barracks always has at least one person sleeping within, day or night.
• 15) Dragons do not appear until you complete “Dragon Rising”
• 16) Give your follower healing potions. S/he will use them when hurt.
• 17) Always carry Hawkfeathers for any disease you should getin your adventures. These are a better choice than Cure disease potions, since they are lighter and cheaper. If you don’t have them and you got something, look to the skies; if you can shoot down a hawk, you’re good to go.
• 18) Try to avoid arrows in the knee
• 19) Dungeons and chests scale to your level. If you only level single damage abilities the game is pretty easy. Mages only need destruction and followers. Coming back to chests gives good loot if you leave them to higher levels. You could play as level 1 khajiit with no armor and go through several quests without problem. Claws have bonus attack and make level one enemies easy to beat but don’t give XP. Leveling gives better gear but also harder enemies.
• 20) Cooking is over powered. There’s no point in putting points in stamina. Also Potion of regen stamina is much better and stronger than using potions to restore X points of stamina.
• 21) You can increase your carryweight increasing your stamina when leveling up. If over encumbered you can put things in skeletons and carry a lootable bone.
• 22) Let’s say you have 100 Orcish Armors you just smithed and you want to sell em: that’s a massive weight right? Take the Steed Stone, wear it and you’re good to go. Every one of them won’t count for the Weight.

Quests

• 1) Completing “Bonds of Matrimony” as early as possible leads to a variety of benefits including: Lover’s Comfort = leveling 15% faster, 100 gold a day, an extra house/storage/bed (usually)
• 2) Complete the Companions Quest line and you can get most of the companions as followers and get them to train you for free. ( Ask them to train you, it will still cost you money and then ask to trade with them, take back your money). Also a similiar thing could be this: When you get to Riverwood talk to Faendal and do his quest. Do what he says and he will teach you archery. Level it up 5 times then trade things with him and take his gold.
  Actually, “followers-trainers” free skill exploit wont work on Unofficial Skyrim Patch. But I have a good method to overcome this inconvenience: Paralysis. Spell or Poison. Paralyzed NPC will be completely vulnerable to pickpocketing, allowing you to take any item even if you have a 0% chance of stealing it. Still wont work with USP followers-trainers though. But work with non followers. (Thanks to Жора )
• 3) There is an undocumented/unlogged quest that involves a dive at Bard’s Leap Summit, located in the mountains of The Reach. After reaching the cliff top, follow the stone bridge to overlook the waterfall. Then jump off the diving area and land in a small pool (the shout Become Ethereal or a horse is good insurance here). Upon leaving the pool, the Dragonborn will be met by the ghost of the bard Azzadal, who will tell his tale of an unsuccessful attempt to make the dive. Be sure to speak to him.
• 4) Trying to level up the Ebony Blade by killing trusted friends? You need only kill one, not ten… Take the Ritual Standing Stone just east of Whiterun or cast Dead Thrall on the selected target repeatedly, and cut ’em down when they rise.

Skills, Perks and Crafting

• 1)Alchemy is a really good way to make money, even if you don’t put any perks into it.
• 2) Using “Detect Life” in the middle of Whiterun is a very fast was to level up your Alteration skill.
• 3) You earn “Detect Life” from completing “Infiltration”.
• 4) You can use “Courage” on an friendly NPC without reprocussions. This can help you level up your Illusion skill.
• 5) You can use “Soul Trap” on anything you killed to level your conjuration skill.
• 6) Going to Dwemer Ruins can be very profitable and beneficial to your smithing and enchanting skills. Pick up Bent Dwemer Scrap Metal, Large Dwemer Metal Plate. Small Dwemer Metal Plate. Smelt these Misc. items into Dwarven metal ingots at a furnace. Get some Iron Ingots to make some Dwarven Bows. The enemies in the Dwarven Ruins will usually carry a filled soul gem. You can use these to enchant the bows you just made. You need to have your smithing to 30 and have the “Dwarven Smiting” perk before you can do this.
• 7)(Needs Aetherium Crown) if you got Lover Stone’s power in Aetherium Crown with either thief, mage or warrior stone’s power and lover’s comfort you will gain 50% faster exp on skills you want to train. Just be sure to unequip the crown before sleeping with your spouse.
• 8) To power level restoration, stand in the icy wind area in the backyard area of the Greybeards, take damage, and heal yourself.
• 9) Giving gold to a beggar will put a blessing on you that increases your speech skill by 10.
• 10) During the quest “out of balance” (given to you by Drevis Neloran at the College of Winterhold) you will be given tuning gloves. Upon cleansing the first well you will have a great increase in magic regeneration(even while casting) for 2 hours. This is a great time to use any magic exploits to reach 100 (soul trap on dead body, muffle, detect life, etc). Especially early in game. Coupled with mages robes and you have near unlimited use.
• 11) The speed at which your skills level up is generally based on how much damage you do / how much the crafted item costs / how much magicka it took to cast. Crafting those 25 gold Health potions won’t get you anywhere! You need to make expensive potions, craft expensive jewelry, cast the most expensive skills, and use high damage weapons.
• 12) You can equip the pickaxe to mine faster. The color of the ore indicates the gems.
• 13) Banish daedra enchantment is worth the most money so buy it if you can afford it
• 14) Sell only one item at once if you have many expensive items stacked otherwise it doesn’t count towards speech.
• 15) You don’t have to spend time catching butterflies and picking flowers to get easy alchemy money. You can buy all the inexpensive ingredients merchants sell. Save the game. Kill the merchant. Reload the game. There will be a new set of items for sale! You can also wait 42 hours or fast travel to different cities’ alchemists. Alchemy is easy money and can provide powerful bonuses to any other skill in the game.
• 16) Poisons are powerful; the effects stack if you hit multiple times with lingering damage health! Paralysis poison is over powered. Slow poisons make being an archer easy. Weakness to magic poisons are great for mages. Add them to favorites for faster use.
• 17) You can hit ‘y’ when prompted to hit yes or no. Useful for when you’re smithing 10,000 iron daggers. Sorry, that iron dagger thing doesn’t work anymore as explained on this section point 11
• 18) You can level up enchanting by using a Soultrap-weapon (e.g. The Mace of Molag Bal) and ‘The Black Star’ and refilling the weapon after every kill (most effective with human souls as refilling with grand souls gives the most XP). This way you can level enchanting in combat without spending resources. ( Thanks to FelixJanko )
• 19) Spamming the Muffle[elderscrolls.wikia.com] spell for like 30 mins will likely get you to 100 Illusion so you can use the invisibility spell along with muffle and be a ghost: unheard and unseen. During the spam you could use the Novice Hood[elderscrolls.wikia.com] found in Helgen, along with the Novice Robes of Illusion[elderscrolls.wikia.com] and some rings and necklaces of fortify/regenerate magicka to help you spam Muffle more. I’m adding a video found on youtube that explains all this. ( Thanks to TehFrostyGuy for the tip and all credits to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqBvMiHaFWNm7DYK6VoAmiw for the video)
• 20) Alteration fast leveling: Complete Black Book: Filament and Filigree (Quest)[elderscrolls.wikia.com] (Requires Dragonborn DLC). You will be able to choose from three powers at the end (like most of them), one of them is called Secret of Arcana[elderscrolls.wikia.com]. This power will make spells cost no Magicka for 30 seconds. Pick that one. Next find/buy the spell Telekinesis. Use Secret of Arcana and then use Telekinesis on a random bucket or something (dual cast if you can). Keep holding the buttons down, as your magicka won’t drain even after SOA wears off. (As this note says[www.uesp.net] every spell that costs magicka per second can be used, which makes this tip useful for not only Alteration) This can bring your alteration up to 100 in about 10 minutes. Bonus points if you do the aetherium crown thing as in point 7 of this section. (Thanks to Dishwasher )
• 21) If creating a sneak character, there’s something you can do to get Pickpocketing + Alchemy up, as well as level up quickly. Go to Arcadia’s Cauldron[elderscrolls.wikia.com] in Whiterun. Ask her to train in Alchemy. Only train once. Go behind her and sneak to pickpocket your gold back. Arcadia has terrible sneak detection, so you become fully hidden behind her back within a second. Quicksave before pickpocketing. Continue to train Alchemy and pickpocketing your gold back, quicksaving between each cycle. Invest in the Pickpocketing tree to make it easier to pickpocket gold. Soon you’ll have 100 Pickpocket, 75 Alchemy, and have gained +20 levels if starting at level 1. (Thanks to Drakenson )
• 22) To train Alchemy faster, gather (you can find locations of each ingredient clicking on the link):
  • Garlic[elderscrolls.wikia.com]
  • Nordic Barnacles[elderscrolls.wikia.com]
  • Salmon Roe[elderscrolls.wikia.com] (Requires Heartfire)

  Salmon Roe can be found by catching salmon jumping waterfalls. The White River between Riverwood and Whiterun has a lot of small waterfall rapids. You can either catch each one manually or use the shout Animal Allegiance[elderscrolls.wikia.com]: this will cause all of the salmon to either die and/or excrete salmon roe into the water. The roe and dead salmon (which give roe and meat) can be easily picked up when they float to the surface. This recipe of Salmon Roe, Garlic and Nordic Barnacles can make one of the most expensive potions in the game, greatly adding to your Alchemy level. Even at higher levels, this recipe can level up the Alchemy skill within 4-5 potions. (Thanks to Drakenson )

Enemies

• 1) Mammoths and Giants can’t walk on rocky terrain or walk in ponds and water
• 2) You can instantly kill Forsworn Briarhearts by pickpocketing their heart. (LOL)
• 3) Don’t kill the chickens. Everyone loves them enough to kill for vengeance.
• 4) You can kill anyone without consequence if you make them frenzy and attack you first.
• 5) You can use all 3 words of the Bend Will[elderscrolls.wikia.com] shout as a longer lasting Dragonrend[elderscrolls.wikia.com] along with making the dragon passive and easy to kill. (Thanks to Cuchillo )
  Also, about Bend Will[elderscrolls.wikia.com]: Unlike most shouts, its three words have different effects.
  • The first word can be used to purge the All-Maker Stones on Solstheim during the quest “Cleansing the Stones”.
  • The second word allows the will of people and animals to be controlled. It makes them temporary allies to the Dragonborn.
  • The third word allows the will of dragons to be controlled. This grants the ability to ride them.

  Undead are immune to the effects of all three words of Bend Will, being staggered instead.

• 6) Place runes on draugr tombs and they will explode, even if the draugr hasn’t come out of the tomb. Upon being hurt, however they will leave it. Useful for dealing with draugr before triggering their spawn. (Thanks to LAG )

Locations

• 1) Using Unrelenting Force on the large globe hanging over the Silent City in Blackreach will summon a dragon to attack you.
• 2) In Dragonsreach, there is a map upstairs on a table marking Stormcloaks and Imperial territories, including Hold capitals, forts and a few other settlements. If you click on those flags, it adds the location to your map.
• 3) Roaming around Whiterun there’s a lot of blue mountain flowers, wheat and blue butterflies. That’s a very expensive combination to use in alchemy.
• 4) You can use shouts in town and towns people will tell you were to find more.
• 5) Quite useful at low level is the Staff of Storm Atronach: you can get it at level 1 in The Midden[elderscrolls.wikia.com] by using the Atronach Forge[elderscrolls.wikia.com] (needs: void salts, broom, orichalchium ingot and a greater soul gem – all of the ingredients can be found at the college of winterhold). By getting this Staff you basically are able to cast an expert level conjuration spell at level 1 without spending magicka. ( Thanks to FelixJanko )

Weapons, Magic and Shouts

• 1) The “Clear Skies” shout has a great many uses. Using a single word of it stuns all enemies around you just as though you “FUS” ‘d them (on a 5 second cool down!), and using all three words at night time will guarantee an Aurora in the sky! It also, of course, stops any weather. Tired of it snowing in Winterhold 24/7!? Clear Skies!
• 2) Be mindful what Race you are fighting. Dunmer are very resistant to Fire, Nords to Frost, and Argonians to Poison.
• 3) The Illusion perk “Silent Casting” also makes all your Shouts silent.
• 4) Using the Slow Time shout, you can catch hostile arrows out of the air.
• 5) The “Become Ethereal” Shout has a great use for mage characters. Normally, Master rank spells take a while to charge up and leave you very vulnerable. Thankfully, “Become Ethereal” makes you safely able to cast the Master spell of your choice.
• 6) Ward spells work wonders for blocking Dragon breath. Even the weakest Ward will block a Legendary Dragon’s breath, no problem. An extra note on this one: Spell Breaker (Peryite’s quest reward) creates a ward when you block with it. So it also blocks spells, dragon breath and enemy shouts. Crazily enough, you can simply hide behind trees. Trees are very strong in Skyrim. If you hide behind it, a dragon’s flamethrower shouldn’t be able to reach you.
• 7) Everything outdoors is pretty easy. Find a steep ledge or rock and attack the creature with magick or arrows. Lightning is instant hit, has long range and needs no distance calculation.
• 8) At level 40 Pickpocket there is a perk that lets you reverse pickpocket and give people poisons. They will use them and either die or run out. Or use frenzy poison to make non killable NPCs attack you. You can fight them forever and gain XP.
• 9) Hit twice ‘r’ to sheath then yield bow so you don’t waste an arrow if it’s drawn.
• 10) At level 100 enchanting, with all 5 levels of the enchanter perk unlocked, the insightful enchanter perk, and using a grand soul gem filled with a grand soul, an item can be enchanted to reduce <school of magic> cost by 25%. The fortify <school of magic> enchantment (which reduces the cost of casting a spell) can be enchanted on head gear (helmets, circlets, hoods), neck gear (amulets, necklaces), rings, and chest gear (robes, armor, shirts, etc.). With an amulet, a helmet, a ring, and a robe all enchanted with the fortify <school of magic> with the aforementioned perks and leveling will produce four different items of clothing that each reduce the cost of casting a spell within that school of magic by 25%. Since the bonus stacks, the cost of casting a spell within that school of magicka is reduced by 100%. Throw in the Extra Effect perk in Enchanting, you can add another The fortify <school of magic> enchantment to the same items, and so reduce the cost of two different schools of magic at once. ( Thanks to reddog34 )
• 11) Weapon enchantments benefit from Destruction, so if you have 100% reduced destruction magicka consumption then enchanted wepons with burn/shock/freeze won’t consume souls. Staffs are also affected, but they require their own magic school of the enchantment, such as a staff of conjure frost atronach would require fortify conjuration. ( Thanks to reddog34 and LAG )

Exploit (Well…)

• 1) Pickpocket someone who shoots target dummies with arrows, and take the arrows they were using (usually iron or steel). Then, give them one of the arrow type you want more of. They will now shoot that type of arrow instead of the one they were shooting before. Simply collect the arrows as they hit the target dummy to get as many arrows as desired.
• 2) Followers can be commanded to pick up items off the ground or from unlocked container that would otherwise exceed their carry capacity and continue to move normally. In this way, followers can carry an infinite amount of loot. The infinite follower carrying exploit can glitch, and some followers after picking up an item will not equip a weapon when the Dragonborn does. This may occasionally fix itself. If not, the player must sift through the followers inventory and discard any unnecessary items.
• 3) When a suitably equipped follower is soul-trapping, all the empty soul gems of the same size may be filled from a single kill. This does not happen every time.
• 4) To clear the stolen tag of an stolen item, put it in a befrended NPCs container(dresser, chest e.t.c) And make follower loot the container. (Thanks to TheT0r )
• 5) For a character to level up all skills simultaneously, it is possible to activate both the Lover Stone and all three Guardian Stones. When wearing the Aetherial Crown, activate the Lover Stone. Travel to the Guardian Stones, and activate one of the stones. Now, bind the crown to a hotkey to make unequipping and equipping it easier. Go the next stone, and activate it, pressing the hotkey as soon as the dialogue is accepted. Repeat for the last stone. You should now be getting bonuses from all 4 stones, in the Active Effects menu. It will also now be possible to equip a different helm without losing bonuses. The bonuses will not be lost if the crown is reequipped. However, the crown will still have to be equipped. The rested bonus exploit can be employed giving a character a grand total of 50% XP boost across all skills. ( Thanks to reddog34 )

Conclusion

I’d like to say thanks to many all over the internet, link my sources and some other little things.

• Leveling Exploits[www.uesp.net]
• How to make money efficiently[gaming.stackexchange.com]
• How to become a Werewolf. Pro’s and Con’s[www.uesp.net]
• How to become a Vampire. Pro’s and Con’s[www.uesp.net]

Source(s):
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