So, I've been playing for nearly 200 hours and my character is level 60.

When playing Oblivion I was always plesently surprised by rewarding nature of exploration, i.e. finding the Fin Gleam and it's location etc.. But as of yet I have not found a single unique item hiding within Skyrim's vast wilderness and this is a huge dissapointment. Yes I've uncovered plenty of items in dungeons, caves and forts etc.. But nothing from out and about.

Maybe I'm just unlucky, maybe people have found plenty of unique items hiding out there, I'm not one to use the Elder Scrolls Wiki as I feel that takes away from the joy of exploring but has anybody found anything interesting on their travels in the province that is Skyrim?

There is none.

False.

Predators grace? That is like fingleam, a base item with a special enchantment combination, pretty well hidden.

-Red Eagle
-Battle axe of fiery soultraps
-Notched Pickaxe
-The Longhammer
-Windshear

Yes
Too many to list
Maybe not as many as MW but more than Oblivion

edit: sorry, you said specifically not indungeons, didn't read carefully enough

Oblivion rewarded exploration? huh, i never noticed.

Me neither. Once you hit level 20 finding a full set of Glass or Daedric was as simple as clearing a Bandit or Marauder fort. Same with finding 1 weapon.

There needs to be uniqe items that are placed in random location when you start a game. Like hundreds+ or thousand+ of possible locations, with a bunch of items randomly placed or something. Give a reason to explore.

Windshear FTW

I might be wrong but aren't named items quest related?

Battle Axe of Fiery Soultraps? Isn't that just a normal Steel Battle Axe enchanted with both fire and soultrap spells?

I imagine the OP ment something like a unique looking, named weapon, NOT quest related, hidden in a tomb under a waterfall, behind a secret door etc.

Fingleam wasn't quest related. The only item that is directly quest related on my list is Red Eagle. The others are not specified the location of at all.

I had to hug a rock wall to get to Predators grace. Also it is setting beside a low level chest. Many people would miss its appearance. It is also the only already enchanted item with 100% muffle.

There are many other items also. The problem though is the usefulness. The strongest items are ones you can make your self. So if you do find something it is usually just a collectible. Like Rundi's Dagger.


It is a unique enchantment. It has fire damage and soul trap on 1 enchantment. In other words if you have extra effect, you could have fire damage with soultrap and frost damage on a single weapon.

I completely agree. And the fact that even Fallout 3 had more "unique" loot. This game most of the so called "special" weapons you find? Copy and pasted versions, they aren't unique at all. For example I'll quote a couple from ChemicalSpectre:

Steel Battleaxe of Fiery Souls (just a SB with Fire, and Soul trap.. something you can make) not unique at all
Red Eagle's Fury is not special, Bane is.. but that's still 2 enchantments you can do yourself.

To me a "unique" and "special" Weapon is more like Keening, Nightingale Blade, etc. Something that you can't just randomly find looting places. Mind you they might not have "special enchants" but they look unique and I'd rather have that with some copy paste effects > all those weapons stated.

That's what truly disappoints me about this game.. they didn't try to truly make unique weapons. And you have 2 go through the Thieves Guild just to get the 2 best swords in the game! (Definately a great way to reward exploration right there, not)

Not always and Fiery Soultrap allows you to disenchant the item and then add Fire Damage and Soultrap to another weapon as a single enchantment, very useful, but all these things appear in dungeons etc
Like the OP said there don't seem to be any unique items hidden in the wilderness

I do agree there should be much more unique appearance items not tied to quests. Like many of the artifacts in Morrowind. Dragonbone Mail? In an underwater cave that leads to a Dwemer ruin on an island so small I can't even see it on my map. Tied to no quests.

And the fiery soultrap is a unique enchant, just clarifying.

Fallout 3 rewarded the explorer who reads youtube and finds a sniper rifle in a tree. There must be things like this in SKyrim too, I just haven't found them yet except the scaled loot in the chests.

I must also agree with you. An enchanted iron greatsword is not unique. I'm part of the camp that doesn't care at all about the enchantments. I care about the look. Whenever I read someone saying, "But you can't find that combo of enchantments on other iron daggers" I think of Sandal. ENCHANTMENT! Give me some real uniques, quest related or not. I mean there are 0 unique 2h swords! (Ebony blade is 1h, still). Bring me a Chrysamere or Ice Blade of the Monarch.

But that's what I miss most about F3/NV. You would just be exploring the wasteland and come across a place and be like "Hmm, interesting name.. maybe it has interesting loot?". Go inside and more then half the time find something truly unique.

This game they make you go through some redonkulous dungeons sometimes only to get to the end and get a Chest with some Gold, maybe some potions, and if you're lucky 1 weapon/armor. Really? I just went through hell for like 60-70 gold and some random BS? That's what I don't like. They try and keep you in questlines or dungeons forever to not even truly reward you for it. (because most the time the loot is randomized)

IDK you just had way more sense of accomplishment getting special weapons in the Fallout series compared to this game. I'll even admit Oblivion was way better at it then Skyrim. There's still weapons I'm just now discovering/learning about having not played it in a long, long time. That I was so shocked I didn't already find them in the hundreds of hours playing the game.

(Ebony Blade, Thornblade or w/e it's called, and there's another one I just can't think of it) I didn't even know these existed til 1 of my friends recently showed me on his character. So whoever said TES4 doesn't reward random exploration, complete and utter BS.

That made me think about something. In Skyrim the strongest weapons are the ones you can make your self...

In FO3 and New Vegas many of the Strongest weapons are UNIQUE weapons not related to quests....Many well hidden.

COS Silencer Rifle, Paladin Toaster, Knock-Knock, Ratslayer, Avenger, etc.

8 hours of play and found trollbane

i find it still funny that morons think items like red eagle blade or the others listed are uniques and feel rewarded when they find them. just proves that the series is going downhill since these morons are the target audience of leveledthesda because they are well easy to milk morons which will still like such horribly and clueless copy and pasted "uniques". really sad for the series indeed.

Even when an item is unique, it's always leveled, which kills it right then and there for me. The beauty about truly unique items is, it doesn't really matter how good the stats are, if it's an eccentricity, most players are just going to keep it as a memento. Morrowind understood this well.

All of the Thane weapons should have been totally unique.

Any weapon that is "Named" Should have been unique. (Pale Blade, Red Eagle's Fury/Bane, Okin, Eduj, etc)

Many more "Unique" Items needed to be unassociated with factions. The Thane weapons would have been sufficient.

"Personalized" Weapons and armor, with unique, predetermined enchantment sets (These can actually be leveled without ruining it). Good examples of the type of enchantments I'm thinking of, are the Battleaxe of Fiery Souls, Nightingale Armor, and Predetor's Grace. These don't need to be unique models most of the time. (Morrowind used these a lot, especially for the Ashlanders)

It almost boggles the mind that a game which uses only around half of the capacity of the choke-point media format (Xbox360) uses such gratuitous use of copypasta.

That's how I prefer it, and that's how I'd expect a human game master to do. He wouldn't allow someone to become overpowered for his level. Only thing, I would prefer a huge list of "random names" that named these items, so that it would be hard to find the "same item" in two successive gameplays.

Nobody mentioned butterfly in a jar? Pretty unique to me

Need someone to do a mod like was in DA2, witch would levelup your Equipment when you level up.

Ahhh... The good old days when I found Chrysamere, during my exploration of Vvardenfell. I hope if there's an DLC that it adds some of the uniqe weapons of the previous games : Ice Blade of the Monarch, Chrysamere, Dawnfang and Duskfang, ect..

If you do not "complete" the Companions questline, Okin and Eduj are unique, no other weapons use the textures.

Well technically there are: Nord Hero weapons. But I understand your post (in a way)

Okin and Eduj svck anyway.

Any weapon with "Frost Damage" svcks in this game