I'm gonna start off by shaking hands with everyone on these forums. I did not know there was such a community of people giving eachother tips, advice, and other tactics. I find it amazing, and I'll definately stick around here.

Now, I've started a new character yesterday. I've mostly been training the guy with skills such as Two-Handed and Heavy Armor. But, the loot I recieved from quests, chests and other rewards isn't enough to keep my RedGuard protected. I've considered smithing, as I remembered it was extremely easy to craft daggers in the old patches. I've found myself to be crafting plenty of them, and recieving little to no XP. Is there a new ''exploit''/method to make it easier to get my smithing up to the point where I can craft myself some Ebony/Daedric Armor? I'm very busy when it comes to real life, and I don't have much time to spare for such a tedious skill. Please note I do NOT want to ruin the gameplay experience with a glitch such as the Ogma Infinium, though. I've used it so many times in my other saves that I deleted all of my non-legit level 81s ( which is more than 10.)

Anyways, tl;dr ; New way to level up smithing fast without ruining the gameplay experience?

MONEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why Daedric? That's just so...

If you have Dawnguard, I find that crafting Iron Arrows, or any arrows gives you a pretty good amount.

Whiterun is pretty good. Buy from Adrianne, then go into her store to buy from her husband, after that, go to Eorland (Skyforge Blacksmith). Buy all their Iron Ingots, Iron Ore, Leather, and Leather Strips. Have a Woodcutter Axe with you and start chopping.

Make that ore into some ingots and start making arrows. Afterwards, make some Leather Helmets and Bracers.

Other methods include making jewelry with "Transmute Mineral Ore" by making Iron into Gold and making necklaces. Another would be making Dwarven Bows.

The Arrow Smithing has given me a level of 52 in Smithing even though I'm only level 18.

There better looking armors than Daedric.

I use mods that make it look way nicer, haha. I also guess I enjoy the dark-ish look it gives you.

Ah, so you're on PC. That just makes it better for you I guess. I'm stuck on console.

I stand by my arrow smithing.

I never use Smithing, but If you have Hearthfire and Dawnguard this is the quickest way to level up Smithing:

1) make sure you have a Forge in your Home.
2) Make sure you are not married (or if you are, that she lives in a separate house)
3) Make sure you have the Aetherial Crown.
4) Store the Lover Stone in the Aetherial Crown, and set your Standing Stone to the warrior
5) Take off the Aetherial Crown and go to bed in your home
6) when you awaken put the Aetherial Crown back on.
7) go craft some stuff at your forge

the bonus this will give to your smithing experience is ridiculous, to the point I consider it game breaking.

Daedric Armor does look a bit off to me, I think the asymmetrical approach could have been done better. The weapons on the other hand... unfortunately, I'm finding, even at a decently high level, that Daedric weapons are hard to come by. The Thieves Guild Fence always has a single enchanted Daedric Bow, which would be fine and dandy but I also have to level up to improve enchanted armor and weapons... at my level it'll also be difficult to build up the necessary perks, so I may leave the crafting to the Atronach Forge, but I still need Smithing up to 60 for the enchanted things like themed armor, so I could use some advice as well.

Edit: Also, don't have any DLC, so those are out. On console as well, so no mods. x__x

Items made now give XP based on their value. If I remember correctly, the equation is:

XP = (Value x3) +25

Iron Daggers aren't giving you much XP because they aren't worth much, so you need to find something more valuable to craft. I find the easiest way to level Smithing is to make jewelry. Instead of selling the gems you get, turn them into jewelry, then sell them. It won't get you quick XP, but it will get you steady XP.

At low smithing levels, with none of the perks needed to unlock better items than iron and steel, the best way to level the skill is to make jewelry, IMO. Grab the Transmute Mineral Ore spell tome from Halted Stream Camp, and use that to turn iron ore you collect into silver or gold. The bandits in the room where the book is at can be tough for a very low level character, but you should be able to defeat them easily enough. Make sure you thoroughly mine the place after you've dispatched the enemies - there's quite a bit of iron there that you can convert to silver or gold with your new spell.

Actually, hitting up Halted Stream Camp and Embershard Mine (near Riverwood) will net you a lot of Iron Ore for the spell.

Daedric weapons won't even spawn as random loot until you've reached Level 46, and even then they're extremely rare (armor doesn't appear on the leveled loot lists until Level 48). If you like Daedric daggers, though, and you're in the Thieves Guild, complete the special reputation quests for one or more of the cities (you have to do five Radiant Thieves Guild quests for Delvin or Vex in a city before you get offered the special job in that city). When you do that, Thieves Guild caches appear in the cities; my thief character almost always finds one enchanted Daedric dagger and a bunch of gems in these caches every time she checks them.

where are the Caches located?

I have never stubled upon any...

This also works when married, at least it does for my necromage vampire.

I get Lovers Comfort + Lover Stone + Warrior Stone + Ancient Knowledge (quest reward for Unfathomable Depths)

This makes me able to get to 100 smithing with less than 250 smithed items, according to my stats page.

Also works for enchanting, only then you take Mage Stone instead of Warrior, obviously.

Personally I prefer to make jewelry, it's light, it's relatively expensive, a good trade item. Dwemer bows (only dwemer metal and iron needed) if I run out of gems.

does it? I thought lover stone overrided Lovers Comfort...

good to know, thanks

I'm still looking for all of them.

There are three in each of the four cities you do special jobs in (Markarth, Solitude, Whiterun and Windhelm), plus Riften once you do five Radiant jobs there. They're in regular barrels that have Thieves Guild shadowmarks on them, so they can be kind of hard to spot. However, when you cursor over one the message says "Thieves Cache."

I have found the following ones;

Whiterun - behind the Bannered Mare, behind Carlotta Valentia's house, in the corner of the cow pen next to House Gray-Mane (near the Gildergreen).

Windhelm - Near Niranye's house, and outside the door to Sadri's Used Wares in the Gray Quarter. Still haven't found the third one.

Riften - in the garden area at Honeyside, on the boardwalk next to the canol near Marise Aravel's house. Again, I'm still trying to find number three.

Markarth - I've only found one of them, near Vlindrel Hall (the house you can buy).

I haven't found any of the ones in Solitude yet.

do the contents respawn?

There is one to your left if you exit Hjerim.

In Markarth, right below the waterfall near the female Blacksmith.

Yes they do. I have also found Daedric arrows in them, as well as ludicrous amounts of gems (I completed No Stone Unturned as well).

I will make it a point to check those locations out the next time I visit those cities.

wow... I guess its true that the Thieves Guild is the most rewarding of them...

Solitude - Upon arriving at Solitude by Fast Travel, follow the city wall to the left. It should lead to a small area behind the Winking Skeever with a Thief Cache barrel.

I ended up delving into Dwemer ruins and then mass producing Dwarven Bows for sale. I think I went from either 40 or 50 up to 70 or so pretty quickly, then I lost interest in that character though... bummer. Another nice way is the transmute spell, just changing iron to gold for lots of jewelery.

A good Dwemer Ruin run can let you make a lot of stuff very quickly, but has one major drawback: you have to spend 2 Perks to get it to work. Now, if you're headed down the Heavy Armor tree anyway, that's fine, but Light Armor users may not like having to spend a perk on the Heavy Armor side of the tree. Still, if you're willing to give it up, making your way through a Dwemer Ruin and picking up anything you can smelt into Dwarven Ingots will get you a sizable stack of material. And the rest of the stuff needed (Steel Ingots, Iron Ingots, and Leather Strips) is very cheap when bought from Blacksmithing Vendors, so you really don't have to go hunting for them.

Also, the Thief Caches are nice because they have several potions that can't be found anywhere else. They include:

Grand Elixir of Plunder - Fortify Carry Weight and Fortify Stamina. Not what I'd call amazingly useful, but nice in a pinch. It would work better if Fortify Stamina effects also increased Carry Weight, but there's probably a mod for that.

Grand Elixir of Conflict - Fortify Light Armor, Fortify One-Handed. A nice potion for increasing both your offense and your defense in a single go, saving you a fair bit in carry weight.

Grand Elixir of Larceny - Fortify Lockpicking, Fortify Pickpocket. Not all that great, since you can't Lockpick and Pickpocket at the same time, but having a potion that can help you out in either situation does cut down on carry weight.

Grand Elixir of Keenshot - Fortify Marksman, Regenerate Stamina. Very nice for people who like to use Eagle Eye, as it increases your Bow damage, and also gives you a sizeable Stamina Regen, so you don't have to wait as long between shots to recover your Stamina.

Grand Elixir of Escape - Invisibility, Restore Health. Nice for getting out of a sticky situation, and the Invisibility effect lasts longer than a Potion of Prolonged Invisibility. The Restore Health effect is also sizable.

Note that these are the best versions of the potions; at lower levels, you'll find weaker versions.

Yeah, I think I'm around 60-ish now... and I've found a single Daedric item as random loot (a shield), otherwise just the bows in the Thieves Guild. Nice tip about the caches though, I'll seek those out more now, as a dagger is high on my "to get" list . Otherwise, as I said, the Atronach Forge is an option once I get Conjuration leveled up. Thanks for the advice!

It looks like I still need that transmutation spell, is it purchasable, or does it have to be found there? I keep forgetting to check Tolfir when my Alteration gets up around 100. Jewlery seems to be my main early target.

It's at Halted Stream Camp. The table where the Bandit Chief is at.