Hi guys im just curious
If you have a companion following you around do they leech your XP & skill lvls ?
I am running around on my own atm and just wondering if its worth having a companion with me to store loot and stuff or if they will just take more away from my character than its worth ?
Also how the hell do you smelt ingots?
I have lots of ores but cant turn them into ingots, sorry probs a dumb question just frustrating me
thanks

...Not really?

I mean, if they kill things for you then you don't get experience for killing them (since you didn't), but it's not like they steal your heavy armour experience for wearing heavy armour, or your 1-h experience for whacking things with a sword. You don't get experience for anything that they do, though. I find that I keep levelling and gaining experience just fine, even with Lydia helping me out.

For your second question: Just to check, are you actually using a smelter (not a forge - there's one behind Warmaiden's in Whiterun, took me an embarrasingly long time to find it), and do you have enough pieces of ore? You need two for gold, for example, or iron and conundrum to smelt steel, etc.

Thank you very much, i guess if i find im having trouble with a certian Monster maybe ill go grab a companion but i have just found them in the past to get in my way a hell of alot lol
Ahh that might be my problem, i guess it was something liek that but thank you very much for the info, greatly appreciated mate

Well technically if your companian is doing all the fighting and killing and getting hit,you wont be gaining any skill points. You actually have to get hit and hit things for those skills to go up,so in a way,yeah they are preventing you from optimal leveling if you instead decided to do all the work yourself.

Hope that helped.