So starting from level 15, approximately how many soul gems would be needed to reach level 100?

Soul Gems do not increase Enchanting, nor does filling them up. Only using them to make enchantments or to re-charge enchantments do they count to leveling.

As for how many re-charges do you need to increase Enchanting to 100? A bunch. My Level 44 character who only uses Enchanted Weapons is no where close to the max, at level 72 in Enchanting.

Better to use the small ones on crafted iron dagger or junk weapons you loot, fortify them with turn undead, absorb health, paralyze worth 700, or best banish worth 1400, this way you earn serious money leveling up.

I think I got to about level 42 without using any soul gems. Just disenchant whatever magic junk you find and you'll get a nice boost. Eventually you'll need to level enchanting by actually enchanting stuff but for my mage that's just not needed right now. I mean, who needs enchanted gear when you can have 2 Dremora Lords + Vorstag at your side. Walk in, summon, read a book and walk out. Pure bliss. Sorry, probably only the first half of this post was really relevant.

You'll need LOTS. I just managed to ding 100 myself last night. I recommend that you get a weapon with soul trap effect, rather than casting the spell each time. Best way to skill up is soul trapping all the draugr you can find and then enchant all the weapons you loot (selling them becomes difficult since they end up each being worth what one merchant can buy). I used great and common gems to enchant, and the lesser and petty to keep my weapons charged, while holding on to grand for my own personal enchanting.

PS: the enchant perks lie about how much better each one works. I typically got only an extra point or two of damage rather than the 25% promised. And the two enchants per item perk at 100 skill doesn't mention that you take a few points penalty on each (instead of the +28 each on smithing or alchemy, I get a pair of +25's - and that's after using a potion good for an extra 30% boost). I haven't checked what I get for weapon skills, yet.

it takes a lot but don't waste good gems leveling. You get the same amount of experience from enchanting something using a petty gem as you do a grand. So if you are going to spam out something just to level just use petty.

To do this i took all my iron ore that i collected and transmuted it to gold. Then spammed out gold rings (this helped me level smithing to 100). Then i just spam enchanted the 200 or so gold ring with whatever enchantment gave them the highet value (forgot which)

in the end some cheap iron ore got me a nice amount of $$ from selling enchanted gold rings plus my smithing and enchanting were at 100

It took me about 350. Of course, it's highly variable based on such factors as rested/wellrested/loverscomfort bonusses, mage stone, how much disenchanting you do...


No, it does 28 (at 100skill+25%potion with perks). if you got 25's that's because your potion ran out before you locked in the enchant. The timer keeps ticking even when you're entering your item's name.

I put banish on the iron daggers I made to level smithing. It took a bunch, I'm afraid I have no idea how many. I just bought every soul gem in sight whenever I went to a merchant and equipped a soul trap weapon.

as it has been stated, use petty and lesser gems on everything to make their value improve also.But also you can disenchant items and get experience towards leveling up (but only one time per enchantment) if you do this early it will give you more options for enchanting other items.And if yourather not wait, pay for enchamtment training.

Try going to Riverwood, the trader there has 10k gold.
That guy has been a big help in getting my speech to 100 (and making my character a millionaire).

I hit 95 last night. I took the long walk from Riften to Whiterun "trolling" for wolves, bears, spiders, trolls, and pretty much anything that would attack. I'm working on archery and enchanting.

the trader in Riverwood doesn't have 10K gold in my game.

The larger soul gems with a matching soul in them seem to increase enchanting faster than the smaller ones.
I think at higher skill levels I could still increase my enchanting by one point with 3 greater souls, whereas with the petty ones it would take about 10 or more enchantings.

Who, where, when??? I need to know who that is. All the merchants i know of have topped out at 1000...most are 750 or 500. (i dont take speech perks tho) but still....

He does in all my games. I'm on the 360 if that makes any difference.


It's the trader in the first town you visit after you escape Helgen at the start of the game (that is if you followed the guy who led you out).
You've probably done the retrieve the golden claw quest for him.

Hang on, I've just checked uesp.
The Riverwood trader having 10k is apparantly a bug that occurs when you invest in his shop (instead of giving him 500 gold extra it gives him 10k extra)

I sure hope Beth hasn't patched that in 1.4

The Riverhold guy did get that 10k with my first play-through.

But I tried it again recently with a new character and it didn't work. They must have "fixed" it with the patch, and only give him the standard 500 gold extra now. They fix the one thing that we don't want fixed, lol.

Damnit, we haven't got 1.4 for the 360 yet but unless it has some really good fixes as well, this means I'm probably gonna deny the patch for a while

Lol thanks for the replies guys but none of you except mark really answered my question, I know how enchanting works and I didnt want alternate ways of leveling lol I simply wanted to know how many gems would be required so i could have a general idea of how many to save up while adventuring.

But thanks Mark 350 isnt that bad!

If I said you needed 30,000 soulgems, would you actually keep count while picking them up during your play?

I'm not worried about money. When you've got enough money to bring down the economy of Skyrim you don't care. Heck I've had this occur...."Item is worth 750 at vendor. Vendor only has 500. Still sell?" Yes because the damned thing weighs 20 lbs. Take it! Consider the 250 a gift. It's not like I'll go broke. I don't even wear the "get 15% better prices" stuff anymore. I just want to sell as much crap as I can. And this means that the vendors will buy more of my enchanted iron daggers.

If a vendor doesn't have enough money and I don't feel like hauling my stuff from merchant to merchant, I just take the rest in goods.
Then I drop all that stuff and fus-ro-dah it all over the store

I got my enchanting up to 100 rather quickly by buying filled soul gems and enchanting every item I got from dungeons before selling. I pretty much just buy filled grand soul gems now and use those rather than trying to remember to cast soul trap.

The perks into enchanting are definately worth it, being able to double enchant items has been awesome.
You can easily level up your smithing by just making a million iron daggers, then you can improve them, put an enchantment on them and sell them; it's a good way to up your enchanting, smithing and speech craft all at the same time.

I have noticed something funny happened in Riften... see I sold Balimund these Smithing gauntlets I'd found along with a bunch of other crap and ended up practically giving him one at half price. Next visit? I see everything there except the smithing gauntlets (smart man), he's got more money, and he's giving me almost 75% of price???? WTF??? Balimund if you want to propose, just give me some flowers. Or are you making a bundle off those enchanted daggers?

I usually enchant the daggers with common soul gems. I save the grand soul gems for the stuff I want.

It takes approximately 200, and that's while well rested and using the Mage standing stone (I also used skill books for the last couple levels, so it's probably closer to 250). Gem size and enchantments don't matter.

Stilts! You did it, you replied to the topic without getting distracted!

Thanks, im glad to hear so few i was expecting it to be in 500s or something lol