Hi

So im on one of my play through's and decided to focus on my Orc duel wield.

Hes level 32 and done ALOT of the quest's, just a few from Civil War and a few more from main quest to do. However i am baffled as to how people are getting to level 40 and beyond, some showing 60 etc.

I am not wanting to hack or cheat on this char, hes clean and still overpowered.

So is it just through repeatable quests, or finding random npc's to kill?.

PS doing the thief's line wouldnt quite work, though im nearly done on the Dark Brotherhood.

Thanks for any input.

Levelling depends on skill increases. Which skills are you not increasing?

I'm lvl 49 on my Nord! I reached it through thorough exploration an use of every skill I have: I've got only smithing at level 100, but no skill under 30

Good points yeh.

As it is im putting everything in Blacksmithing and Enchanting and ofc one hand. Some others have naturally increased like speech and heavy armor. I suppose i could for once make an effort with skilling up Alchemy, though i dont know if id wana skill up pickpocketing

It's hard to get past level 40, since there's only enough quests for level 40 playing normally.
If you've done a lot of the main quests, you're in trouble.

The only way to get to level 50, for the trophy, is to do lots of minor quests, and keep the main quests for every so often.
And level up almost all or all the skills to force it up.

You can't play normally, that's for sure.

Beyond me how anyone gets to the max level.

I've only ever gotten past level 40 once. I got to level 50 that time. It got boring...

Go to about 70 legit, realize the game was way too easy. Used advlevel to advance up to 99 and the game is a lot more fun.
If you are going for a challenge then it really doesn't matter what you have to do to make it challenging.

The quests have almost nothing to do with your level. Leveling up depends on how much you use your basic skills. If you get them all to 100 (and transform your character into a jack-of-all-trades and make him overpowered), you'll be able to reach level 81. If you roleplay your character into following a certain profession and limit yourself to only a certain set of skills, then you'll end up at level 50 maximum. I'm talking about the ceiling here, you won't be able to level any higher unless you go the jack-of-all-trades way with your character.

For example, my character reached level 52, but I think that's really the end for her. She's got Archery, One-Handed, Sneak, Restoration, Light Armor and Lockpicking at 100, with a relatively high level for enchanting because she just happens to deplete soul gems for her weapons (and to rp setting them free again). The level is quite high exactly because she's not a pure warrior, thief or mage, but rather something between all of them, already following the jack-of-all-trades for a bit. So maybe she'll someday reach level 53 because of enchanting, but I doubt that. And I'd hate that. I don't use any of the other skills anyway, so those won't do much.