Make sure to use a potion of smithing when you go to improve the daedric gear. My potion of smithing grants me 116% bonus. You also want armor of smithing too. The best I've got for that is +22% per item worn, and four pieces total so +88% to smithing in total when I wear all four items. I keep thinking one day I'll run across some gear of peerless smithing that is +25% but I haven't seen it yet.

[Edited on January 2, 2012 at 10:13 PM. Reason : ]

1/2/2012 10:13:08 PM

i think ive got hide bracers of major smithing (17% better) ring of minor smithing (12% better) so I guess I'm only getting 29% extra

once I finally get my heavy armor up to level 70 i'll probably seek out some better apparel for smithing and take some potions too

and i kept wondering why i would become over-encumbered so easily even under the Steed Stone...turns out I had about 5 pieces of leather at a weight of 2 each

1/2/2012 10:22:40 PM

When it comes to pieces to improve smithing it's armor, ring, necklace and gauntlets/bracers I believe.

Take that ring of minor smithing and disenchant it and put real smithing on some other gear.

Other thoughts:

Improving alchemy, smithing and enchanting is an easy way to make huge money. Alchemy and enchanting ingredients can be bought on the cheap and turned into huge profits (creep cluster+giants toe+wheat FTW) http://keke.itarium.ch/uploads/alch_values.txt

I spent some time just fast traveling from Whiterun to Riften to Windfell or whatever buying all alchemy ingredients, iron ore, and filled petty and lesser soul gems available and upon returning to Whiterun made more potions and enchanted weapons than I could sell on my next two cycles, even when I added Solitude to the trade caravan route. Just be sure to hit every merchant. There are at least 3 useful ones in each of those four cities, with 4 in Whiterun and Solitude.

If you haven't found a lot of locations on the world map, buy as many empty petty and lesser soul gems as you can and go explore the map filling them. Don't actually go in to anywhere you find, just find the locations so that it gets added to your map and keep moving looking for another new one.

In the meantime you'll run into tons of good critters to fill your gems with. If you have a bow of soul trap take down deer, foxes, rabbits and the like too because they fill soul gems also. In no time you'll have tons of gems to enchant with.

I think I got to around 70k gold before I quit running the loop but I still have tons of enchanted iron daggers and 3k-5k gold a piece potions to sell.

Ice Form is by far my favorite shout, but to be honest I've bought less than half of them. Just the fire and unrelenting force and blizzard and ice form that I can think of. The other ones seem silly.

[Edited on January 2, 2012 at 10:49 PM. Reason : ]

1/2/2012 10:27:27 PM

i meant i had 50 pieces of leather at 2 weight each, not 5

i need to get my enchanting up...smithing was so easy to get to 100 with iron daggers and leather bracers...i guess enchanting and alchemy are similar...i'm only at 19 Alchemy and 45 Enchanting

my lowest is Conjuration, at 15 lol

1/2/2012 10:48:11 PM

To get your enchanting up fastest use paralyze or absorb health as your effect, and if neither of those are available yet use damage stamina or turn undead. They are some of the more valuable enchantments which determines how much that skill improves.

Also don't forget to quickly fast travel back to the Guardian Stones and get the Mage Stone blessing before you start Alchemating and Enchanting so that you get a 20% experience bonus in those skills.

Don't forget to wear gear of achemating when you go to improve that skill also. There are four pieces for it as well (helm, ring, necklace, bracers)

Other thoughts:

Lydia can be an arrow factory for you. Make sure she doesn't have a bow, and give her 1 of your most expensive arrows. She will magically produce a bow and fire whatever arrow you have given her over and over again. Afterwards just go collect the arrows from her targets and her misses.

[Edited on January 2, 2012 at 10:59 PM. Reason : ]

1/2/2012 10:52:20 PM

Use banish for enchantments - u can grind it out of the fletcher in solitude if you just keep waiting 48 hours until he has a bow with it in stock.

1/2/2012 11:34:24 PM

I hadn't disenchanted anything with Banish that I can think of but that does sound potent.

1/2/2012 11:43:41 PM

I'll be honest, my zero crafting character was about 5 times as fun as my full crafting character.

No grinding daggers, no huge fast travel loop selling and buying, no clicking every flower and butterfly while walking down the road, plus finding magic weapons and doing quests for artifacts is more awesome.

1/2/2012 11:48:27 PM

so similar to how i spammed the shit out of iron daggers and leather bracers to boost Smithing, can I continue to spam both those items, take them to an Enchanting table, and just enchant the hell out of those shitty weapons and bracers?

1/2/2012 11:48:38 PM

Indeed! Then you sell those enchanted items and buy all of the alchemical ingredients you can find and make tons of supersick potions the way you made iron daggers and enchanted them.

1/3/2012 12:28:46 AM

^^^ Your zero crafting character was gimped IMHO, so props for your difficulty level.

1/3/2012 1:19:46 AM

By going zero crafting the rest of the world doesn't level up as much, so the difficulty wasn't that different.

Although even when I did full crafting I didn't bother with the fortify smithing/enchanting loops that make the game trivial, so it was gimped compared to that I guess.

1/3/2012 1:39:03 AM

It doesn't get trivial compared to Oblivion and the 100% chameleon, or the craziness you could achieve in Morrowind with enchanting.

At the same time I don't think I'll reach the end of the game and still be a wet paper bag the way I felt I was at the end of Fallout: NV and this makes me happy.

1/3/2012 2:04:30 AM

thanks for the heads up on the skills/leveling thing. one more question, did anyone buy the house in whiterun? so far I've been stashing all my shit in a barrel in my quarters at winterhold. is the house worth it or should is there a beyer place with more workshops and labs around?

1/3/2012 4:21:50 AM

I like the Riften house the best.

Here is some info on all the ones you can get though
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/House_(Skyrim)
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Houses

1/3/2012 7:16:34 AM

Whiterun is a pretty decent house, especially for the phase of the game you're in. You're very close to the blacksmith (I do all of my smithing here) and you can fast travel to Dragonsreach for enchanting. Its a fairly central location for the quests you probably have - not that it matters with fast travel - and I like being able to just dump loot and run when I'm busy questing. I have both the Whiterun and Markarth houses and for aesthetics I like the Markarth house better - and I do most of my enchanting and alchemy there with gear that I already have on hand.

I've been getting a little into the fortify alchemy/enchanting/smithing exploit myself since I'm a perfectionist, but I'm forcing myself to a limit. I enchanted a set of fortify alchemy gear and then used that to create fortify enchanting and smithing pots, but I'm not using those enchant pots to further the alchemy gear. Too much work when I'm already 2 shotting almost every mob out there. Though, I have been recreating smithing gear with higher and higher bonus and then improving my gear when possible.

I was looking into it yesterday and the game cap is +25% bonus for each item. However, you can use an exploit to where you can wear both a Falmer Helmet and a Circlet and thus get a bigger bonus since you can wear more gear.

[Edited on January 3, 2012 at 8:26 AM. Reason : adf]

1/3/2012 8:24:56 AM

Quote :

"Something is bugged out in the Forsworn Conspiracy mission. I escaped the silver-mine with the king and now I can not do anything in Markarth without getting harrassed by guards. My bount is 3000 gold and I do not even get an option of paying it. Whenever approached they start the scripted line of I committed the murders and have to go to the mines. When I select arrest me, the dialog closes out and am back to square one. Basically to conduct any business in Markarth I have to kill every guard I encounter. "

repost from a few pages ago. Has anyone had an issue with this.

Quote :

"turn undead"

Why is this spell important. I'd just assume kill those zombies.


By the way I'm at level 38 and found that I got plenty of money and nothing to spend it on. Any suggestions?

1/3/2012 9:37:47 AM

Quote :

"Has anyone had an issue with this."

i didn't have any issues with the Forsworn Conspiracy quest other than not realizing initially i had to be arrested and go to the mine for the quest to continue lol. but for you, that's strange it bugged on ya like that. google has returned nothing?

this help at all? http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/457876-markarth-bug/

[Edited on January 3, 2012 at 11:22 AM. Reason : link]

1/3/2012 11:17:24 AM

carrying capacity, realistic or not, annoys the crap out of me since i'm a hoarder...therefore:

modav carryweight 9999

1/3/2012 11:22:52 AM

trying to power level enchanting got fucking old after 3 daggers. having to reselect enchant/gem/weapon each and every time is just too time consuming to do like 20 times.

1/3/2012 11:29:00 AM

^^ up your stamina and/or find the Steed Stone and activate it. "Gives a bonus of 100 extra carrying capacity and no movement penalty is received by armor. Armor also has 0 weight when equipped."

1/3/2012 11:36:11 AM

My fingers found a rhythm... Stockpile enough gems that you can burn through at least 80-90 daggers and you'll get a rhythm too. It's not so bad.

1/3/2012 11:40:28 AM

i made about 15 sets of leather bracers and used up all my soul gems enchanting them

i sold each of them for somewhere between 50-180 coins based on what type of soul gem, but yeah it got kind of tedious...still once i rack up on soul gems again, i'll probably do another batch

regarding the house in Whiterun, i think its invaluable early on...while you can get other houses later in the game (i only own this one), its very convenient, especially once you've upgraded it to all the deluxe stuff...complete a few quests, stop by the house, drop your books off in the bookshelf, empty your ingredients into the alchemists bag or whatever, drop your dragon bones and scales in the chest upstairs, and be on your way

and its close enough to the blacksmith forge and smelter where if you need to be temporarily over-encumbered while you smelt some ore or turn some animal pelts into leather or spam steel daggers, its not that annoying to walk over-encumbered the short distance

if the game keeps stats about which town you visit most often, i'd say for the first hour of gameplay mine would say Riverwood, then the next 30 hours definitely Whiterun (followed closely nowadays by fast travelling to the thieves guild after a numbers job and a shill job)

1/3/2012 11:41:17 AM

Even though I personally find it boring, I will say that if you're grinding enchantments you're better off doing it with weapons.

The price an enchanted item sells for is based on the power of the enchantment, number of charges for a weapon only affects it a small bit. Armor enchantments are entirely based on the soul gem and your skill, so some bracers enchanted with a petty soul gem won't be worth dick.

But the power of weapons is based on your skill and a sliding scale you set yourself, so even with a petty soul gem a weapon enchanted with max power drain health and turn undead is worth a crapload, even though a petty soul gem will only give it like 3 charges it doesn't matter because nobody will ever actually use it.

1/3/2012 12:30:13 PM

Whirlwind spirit helps a lot when you go over-encoumbered from your whiterun house to the smithy.

I only got two other gripes. Why the hell can I carry 30,000 gold coins and it does not count against my weight quota.

Two the civil war quest lines seem to linear. Should a war be more back and forth. Wish they would have included more random spontaneous civil war quests like "Imperials sacked Riften" or "Fort so-so is under siege" to make it feel like you are in a war. Instead you just march through a couple quests, embarass a chancellor or two and now the Stormcloaks have won.

1/3/2012 12:31:18 PM

lol yeah assuming they are 1 ounce gold coins (and they look like it based on size) you need literally a ton of gold to buy and upgrade the more expensive houses.

1/3/2012 12:40:06 PM

The house in Whiterun was way useful to me. That is my base. You can buy an alchemy table for it which becomes crazy useful, and there is a chest near the alchemy table in the Whiterun house where I stash all of my reagents.

1/3/2012 12:43:42 PM

Quote :

"repost from a few pages ago. Has anyone had an issue with this."

Once you escape, the guards no longer attack you, so you are free to go.
However, they will brawl with the Forsworn. If you join in and attack the guards, it will accumulate bounty as normal.

1/3/2012 12:49:24 PM

Quote :

"up your stamina and/or find the Steed Stone and activate it. "Gives a bonus of 100 extra carrying capacity and no movement penalty is received by armor. Armor also has 0 weight when equipped.""

meh, it's easier just to mod it...i mean, if gold doesn't weigh anything and quest items don't weigh anything and arrows don't weigh anything, then i might as well throw the whole system out the window and improve the enjoyment level (for myself, at least...i get that some folks will ignore the inconsistency in the game and call this cheating...or even install a mod so that it makes it harder for them)

1/3/2012 12:54:04 PM

I'm something of a hoarder too, but I have to be able to get 10 gold per lb. for me to pick it up.

I have to clean out my junk drawer in Whiterun fairly often, but it's usually only a cycle or two on the trade routes I mentioned above.

1/3/2012 12:59:54 PM

^^I'd probably mod the carry weight too if I was on PC

but since I'm on console, I'll just follow the Steed Stone

1/3/2012 1:05:13 PM

Quote :

"(followed closely nowadays by fast travelling to the thieves guild after a numbers job and a shill job) "

Speaking of...is there any point to those busy jobs? I know they say that they'll get merchants, luxury items and shit, but fuck that if I'm going to be out there busting my ass just so the rest of the guild can lounge in a cave and not have to go outside to buy shit

1/3/2012 2:35:25 PM

I dunno if theres any point to them (aside from earning coins) but i'm still putting off the Loud and Clear quest where you burn the 3 beehives

I just figure the numbers job and shill job are so easy...go into a merchant's shop and when you get 0.5 seconds of not being detected, cook the books...for the shill job do the same in somebody's house and plant an item...then fast travel to thieves guild, collect coins for both jobs, and get new ones...sometimes you'll get lucky and both jobs will be in the same town...you can do the other jobs offered, but numbers and shill seem to be the easiest...i usually do them in my daedric armor and don't even really need to sneak

but the thieves guild is also good for selling your stolen items for coin...as well as selling stolen items, buying them back to remove the "stolen tag" from them, then not risking losing them if you get arrested and want to clear your bounty

normally i wouldnt care about a bounty, but i like being able to talk to anyone without the risk of "wait...i know you"

1/3/2012 2:50:22 PM

Quote :

"However, they will brawl with the Forsworn. If you join in and attack the guards, it will accumulate bounty as normal. "

Well I do not even get an option of paying the bounty because i'm stuck in some kind of dialouge loop; that resembles my initial arrest for the Forsworn conspiracy.

1/3/2012 3:06:33 PM

Quote :

"The house in Whiterun was way useful to me. That is my base. You can buy an alchemy table for it which becomes crazy useful, and there is a chest near the alchemy table in the Whiterun house where I stash all of my reagents."

Why don't you just use the Apothecary's Satchel that is sitting right on the Alchemy Table?



On a similar note, I was using that house, but then decided to buy Honeyside. I like it because it was bigger, but it has absolutely NO storage areas downstairs, save the two armor mannequins. Breezehome is way more useful. If you need to enchant, you can always use the Arcane Enchanter in Dragonsreach. I think I am going to move all of my stuff back to Breezehome. I haven't bought any of the other houses, yet.

Anyone have experience as to a better setup?

1/3/2012 4:32:09 PM

Okay...this has bothered me for a few days, so let me say it. I don't know if it has been stated before, but IF YOU HAVE THE LOVER STONE, YOU CANNOT BECOME RESTED OR WELL RESTED.

Sorry for the emboldened caps, but I thought it was important. The other improvement stones do work, so the Thief, Mage, and Warrior stones can be used with the Rested effects.

1/3/2012 4:39:22 PM

Quote :

"Speaking of...is there any point to those busy jobs? I know they say that they'll get merchants, luxury items and shit, but fuck that if I'm going to be out there busting my ass just so the rest of the guild can lounge in a cave and not have to go outside to buy shit "

i believe you just get four new merchants, better fencing and become guildmaster at the end, with a chest that the thieves put gold into every now and then. considering how long it takes to finish all the little jobs, I don't think it's worth real effort or attention. the merchants sell nothing too special, if you want to do fencing you'd be better off investing in speech perks, gold is incredibly easy to acquire anyway and it takes too damn long to get there.

^^unmodded, i think vlindrel hall is the best. enchanting and alchemy with storage right next to you, smithing not too far away. i use one of the proudspire mods now, though.
^none of the stones stack with rest bonuses, and the lover stone is higher than the rest bonuses.

[Edited on January 3, 2012 at 4:59 PM. Reason : a]

1/3/2012 4:56:54 PM

finally getting around to this.

loading the data now.

goodnight, world.

1/3/2012 6:03:29 PM

The Thieves Guild main quest is pretty interesting, at least a lot more so than the errand-boy quests. I'm maybe half way through it.

[Edited on January 3, 2012 at 6:33 PM. Reason : it kicks off with that 'burn the beehives' quest]

1/3/2012 6:32:53 PM

I've got Lydia as my follower, and I told Delphine and Esbern to follow me for this quest, but I'm just running around with them doing sidequests with what amounts to 3 followers at once, and I don't think Delphine and Esbern can die

1/3/2012 7:21:15 PM

You can also pick up 2 dogs (one of them is another "temporary" party member) and have 2 summoned thralls if you have 100 in conjuration.

8 total party members lol.

1/3/2012 8:48:31 PM

Quote :

"Why is this spell (turn undead) important? I'd just assume kill those zombies."

I enchanted daggers with this because it produced a more expensive dagger than a lot of other enchantments I could put on it. For a while Turn Undead and Damage Stamina were the two most expensive enchantments I could put on a dagger.

Later I found Paralyze and Absorb Health to create even more valuable daggers, and someone has mentioned that Banish is another high value enchantment.

1/3/2012 10:00:18 PM

Also, it's "Just as soon"

Not "Just assume"

1/3/2012 10:12:21 PM

Now don't you go trying to tell people how to be speakin' all proper 'round these parts. The locals, they don't take kindly to that sort of thing.

1/3/2012 10:26:11 PM

I'd want people to tell me if I was screwing up some idiom I use all the time.

I probably do and there's just nobody to tell me, so I'm either influencing other people to also get it wrong or having people think I'm stupid because I don't know the correct phrase.

1/3/2012 10:33:47 PM

AndyMac, my gf wants to know whether you like mac n' cheese

1/3/2012 10:39:15 PM

I dont want to be in a 3 way with another dude

1/3/2012 10:43:29 PM

Somehow, somewhere, I managed to pick up a sword with a Banish (to Oblivion) enchant on it.

So I disenchanted it and didn't think anything of it.

Then, looking online, I read a forum where a guy recommends making some cheap weapons (daggers, for Smithing skill), and enchanting them with Banish.

Using just Petty Soul Gems, the Daggers went from being sold for 4 Septim to being sold for 850 Septim.



So I used all the iron ingots, Petty & Lesser soul gems I had, and made 17 Iron Daggers of Enchant Skill-up & Ca$h Money.

1/3/2012 11:06:23 PM

i dont know why some people seem to be obsessed with making money. i haven't sold a single dragon bone or scale, a single jewel, or piece of jewlery, or really anything...i've bought and fully purchased upgrades for the houses in whiterun, solitude, and markarth, which probably set me back in total 40+ thousand, and right now i'm sitting on over 50k. just doesn't seem to be worth it to be going on these circuits selling things when you can get more than enough for anything you could want by just completing quests and looting, and other than houses there is almost nothing i really want or need to buy

[Edited on January 3, 2012 at 11:28 PM. Reason : $$$]

1/3/2012 11:22:54 PM

^^ that's why I recommended it :-D

^ the point isn't necessarily money, but it sort of is... The more money your enchantment is worth, the more skill-up you get.

Also, if you do your enchanting power-level in the mage's college, then you can sell your enchanted daggers to the shifty dude and then rebuy tons of soul gems from all the merchants that are in the two little dormitories. Just go in there with about 300 daggers and 5000g in seed money and you'll leave with 100 enchanting.

1/3/2012 11:29:14 PM