15 relatively honest ways to boost your skills

"The Party said: it must be done! The Komsomol replied: yes!" - this is roughly how we can characterize the call of Comrade Kotovsky and the subsequent reaction of the population of our blog. I simply could not miss out on this, but since I am not much of a guide writer, I decided to sit down for another translation. Meet - the legitimate and not-so-legitimate ways to level up skills in Skyrim, from the site g4tv.com.

In the vast world of [Elder Scrolls](/games?search=Elder Scrolls) 5: Skyrim, the player has access to 18 skills of varying importance. These level up as you use them. The idea is to encourage the use of specific skills - generally, the master fears nothing, and so on. This system allows you to create a completely unique character based on what you do rather than what you would like to do. If you play honestly, in the end, you should have a character that reflects your playing style. For example, if you frequently sneak around and generally try to remain unnoticed, over time, you will get better at it. But in such a complex game, the opportunity for artificial skill enhancement can be too tempting for some gamers.

In the glorious days of tabletop Dungeons and Dragons, players who exploited loopholes in the rules to create unnaturally strong characters were called “munchkins.” Munchkins were equally disliked by dungeon masters and other players. They did not cheat in the strictest sense of the word, but they still gained an advantage. The same applies to Skyrim. You can adhere to the letter of the game, but ignore its spirit and artificially increase the level of almost any of the 18 skills without any cheats. Technically, everything listed below could be considered cheating, but we are talking about a single-player game. So forget about your conscience and make use of this wonderful guide.

Before we start, it's worth mentioning one more thing: excessive skill leveling coupled with the monster leveling system can lead to some rather unpleasant surprises in the form of exceedingly difficult battles. I warned you. Keep this in mind as you read the following guide on legitimate and not-so-legitimate ways to level up skills in Skyrim.

One-Handed Weapons, Two-Handed Weapons, Stealth. These skills can be “exploited” for leveling right after arriving in Skyrim. After surviving a dragon attack at the beginning of the game and running around a bit, you'll come across a bear with your guide (Hadvar or Ralof). At that moment, the guide will stop. He cannot be killed, so you can attack him with a dagger, sword, mace, or axe as much as you like. The guy will complain, but won’t take offense, so you can level up this way as much as you want. You can also attack him from behind to level up your stealth skill at the same time. A cheap trick, but it works.

Light Armor, Heavy Armor, and Blocking. As far as I know, there are no real ways to artificially level these skills in the game, so you’ll have to increase them the traditional way – through battles, teachers, or books. But while leveling these skills, keep the following in mind: the speed of leveling depends on how much damage you take per hit, not on the number of hits you received. So it's not a great idea to level these skills by constantly getting hit by a mudcrab a million times. It’s better to become the punching bag for monsters that can hit you hard. So increase your defense as much as you can, and then get yourself in a fight with a giant. Just make sure you’re ready to take a massive amount of damage... you don’t want to die in one hit. There’s, however, another option - just give up. After all, who wants to level up a skill by getting hit? As for leveling Blocking - you can just hold down the block button and go have some tea. Seriously.

Stealth. This skill can be leveled quite easily through semi-legal means. I suggest the following: find a crowd of people in any city, crouch down, and sneak back and forth. Skyrim rewards the player with experience every time you successfully remain undetected, so the more people that do not see you, the faster the skill levels up, even if those people are friendly. You can also sneak up behind an innkeeper, press against a wall, and keep doing that until your skill reaches the required level, or you get bored. In addition, you can sneak past a bear at the very beginning of the game.

Alteration, Restoration. Here’s a little trick that shamelessly exploits the mechanics of Skyrim that allows you to use two spells at once. Take the spell “Equilibrium” (you can learn it from a mage in Whiterun) in one hand, and a healing spell in the other. Equilibrium converts health to magicka. Healing converts magicka back into health. You level up both skills at once. The numerical values of health and magicka that are restored this way are not equal, so sometimes you’ll need to rest or find items that boost one of these parameters beforehand, but you get the idea.

Smithing. I haven’t found illegal ways to level up this skill either, so those wanting to improve it will have to run around a lot. The fastest way to level up this skill is to profit from the fauna of Skyrim that are constantly attacking you. First, skin the hide. Make strips of leather. Use them to create leather armor. Sell it. Repeat. Do the same with iron and steel. Look for ingots, make daggers.

Lockpicking. I haven’t found ways to cheat the game in leveling this skill, although there’s plenty to practice on in Skyrim. There’s also the Skeleton Key, an unbreakable lockpick that you get after completing quests for the Thieves Guild. Once you have it, you just need to find enough locks. The museums in Skyrim would be a good choice, as the displays there are locked. I would recommend heading straight to the Dwarven Museum – there are plenty of the locks we need. Although I wouldn’t spend valuable perk points on leveling the lockpicking skill tree. Once you have the Skeleton Key, it becomes pointless.

Enchanting. Here’s a great way to level up this skill to max while also making some money (I’ll be honest, I borrowed this idea from Gamefaqs.com). So, 1) Buy a ton of cheap weapons. Grab daggers off corpses, buy them from vendors, and so on. 2) Go to Whiterun and buy all the filled soul gems from the wizard. 3) At his enchanting table, apply the “Banish” effect to the weapons you obtained. 4) Sell the enchanted weapons back to the wizard. 5) When he runs out of money, wait a couple of days, then start again. Soon both your skill and your money will significantly grow.

Alchemy. Another great method from Gamefaqs.com. Finding ingredients for potions can be a long task, so head to Whiterun, where two magical shops are located literally next to each other. Buy all the ingredients. Make potions. Sell them to the shops – you can make a pretty good profit from this too. Wait a couple of days for the vendors to have gold again, then repeat. Both your leveling and profit increase! If you’re completely lacking in any sense of honor, you can just steal all the necessary ingredients from the shops.

Speech. Dealing with vendors is the best way to level up this skill. It increases with each item you sell, so never sell more than one at a time. The best items to sell (guess in three tries) – daggers. Go to the blacksmith. Buy the necessary ingredients. Smith as many daggers as you can. Then sell them to the blacksmith one by one. If you want to level all the skills, you can enchant them at the same time too. Money, speech, smithing, and enchanting – all at once!

Pickpocketing. The best way to level this skill is to steal a lot. Remember: the heavier and more valuable the item, the easier it is to get caught stealing it. Here’s another way: find skill trainers - Acar in Windhelm (Specialist), Sildur in the same city (Expert), and Vipir (Master) in the Thieves Guild – and train with them. Then steal your money back from them. Truly, there’s no honor among thieves.

Archery. Before you say “hire a companion-teacher, pay him for training, and then steal the gold!”, let me tell you that after the last patch, that method doesn’t work. But there’s another one: after completing the Dark Brotherhood questline, you will receive the hellish horse Windmere. Windmere has tons of health and incredible regeneration speed, so you can safely shoot him with arrows like a hedgehog. Your loyal steed won’t think to fight back. Of course, it feels wrong to do this to animals, but it’s a great way to level up.

Illusion. Buy the spell “Muffle,” which is sold by almost any mage. Then use it multiple times. That’s it. The same trick works with “Detect Life,” but it consumes much more magicka.

Conjuration. Get the spell “Soul Trap.” Kill someone – it doesn’t matter who. A mudcrab will do. Stand over the corpse and use the spell as many times as you can. Wait an hour for your magicka to recharge, then repeat. Easy as pie.

Destruction. In this video is a great way to level up this skill. It consists of the following: in one of the first quests in the Companions guild, you need to fight one of them using weapons, but not magic. Ignore this condition, take an attacking spell in each hand and use them. The opponent won’t even pull out a weapon, but will still be considered hostile. Leveling up with no risk.

Restoration. Here’s a method that you shouldn’t try to replicate at home. Find a fire trap in a dungeon. There are usually plenty of them. Prepare a healing spell. Then step onto the plate, standing in the fire. Heal up as your health decreases. It’s important here not to get carried away and burn to death while exhausting all your magical energy.

I hope you enjoyed this guide. And I also hope that some (or better yet, all) of the tricks listed above will eventually fall victim to patches… but until then – onward, munchkins!