I find that on every single character that I use I end up grinding in some way be it spamming fireballs and enchanting useless items to exploiting skill trainers and pickpocketing the money back.

And to be honest, this method always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I feel the whole grinding mechanism possibly takes away alot out of the experience of Skyrim.

Im thinking of creating a new character that doesn't grind and just enjoy the game for what it is without having to resort to power levelling.

Can I ask if any of you kind folk out there feel the same way and have you ever played a character that rarely or never grinds?

Only two of my characters have ever power-levelled their skills. Those were the two characters I had before I started roleplaying.

I agree - grinding skills takes the fun out of the game. I find joy in the journey, not the destination, and a high-level skill just reminds me that I'm beginning to reach the end of my character's story. Taking things slowly makes the game much more enjoyable.

I do have a mod installed that allows training dummies/targets to train skills, but it does so very slowly. At most, my character will gain a few levels in one-handed during a prolonged stay in a city.

If you want to get away from grinding, then...

• Try not to think about it. Get involved in your character's story and let it happen.
• Pick a primary damage skill, and only use that skill to kill everything form the start.
• Forget trainers even exist.
• Don't worry about your skill levels and only think about perks when you actually level. Skyrim is not complex enough to spend time planning a build.
• No fast travel. This might sound like you have heard it for the thousandth time form people suggesting things to do for RPing. This has nothing to do with that, although I think you will find yourself immersed a lot deeper because of it. By walking everywhere, you will find yourself killing a lot more and thus leveling faster.

I've ground spells before, but only in the College, which seems fair enough; that is what they do there after all.

This. Especially the first one. Once you start doing quests,exploring,or whatever you'll forget about skills and before you know it they are going up quicker than expected. If you think about it all the time,it will seem like forever. Similar to watching a kettle boil.

I grind smithing on all characters. I play on legendary and it is needed or I'll be 1 shot all the time.

True, on all points

I never fast travel, except for carriage which I don't see as FT seeing as you have to pay for the service.

WIll have to put myself in the mindset of NOT power-leveling though as that is what grinding essentially is.

Is this what you do with your character(s)?

I have a habit of abandoning a character that I feel has used a Cheat or Exploit to manipulate a flaw in the Game. I deleted many characters because they reached 100 in Smithing with Seven Iron Daggers because of a Mod and a Game Patch conflicting. I am not a Saint, I enjoy having a Mod added Vendor that can actually purchase Potions from Training Alchemy.

Now... Smithing and Enchanting are damn near a "have to". I mean the only way to really get any use from them at all is to work at them. Otherwise, don't mess with them at all.

But Smithing is a real "must have" for me because all the cool armor mods require to be completely perked out in the skill to get them.

Aside form the crafting skills.

I also like to reach the armour cap with hide armour.

Ha.. I here you. But for me it's more about access to the look than functionality. However, with SkyRe installed and Mighty Deadly Dragons, I have to pay a little bit closer attention to my AR than previously.

I pick armour from how it looks because all armour reaches the cap.

I grind a lot because I don't like the early game. After the millionth time it gets dull to go over Whiterun's dungeons all over again so I just grind something easy to up my level so I can get to the fun part of the game (lv30-40). I also grind enchanting, since I know no other way to level it up - a way that doesn't take hundreds of years to do except to just put random enchantments on random equipment.