How, exactly, DO you level smithing if not through making items?

Do you only make items you need, and sell spare ingots?
When did you plan on making gear for yourself?

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You'll never get smithing above 30 because you cannot make anything you need.
So you have to grind to make better armor.

Problem is, once you have accepted that smithing is a grind, that you have to SERIOUSLY TRY TO ROLEPLAY to not view as a grind -- how much and how often do you grind smithing?
As often as you can to be done with the grinding once and for all?

Or do you make silly little personal rules for when you can and cannot smith?
"When I'm level 30, I'll grind smithing and unlock ebony and make some ebony gear. At level 35, I'll improve it."...

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What about enchanting?
At level 30 with my conjurer-archer, I had so many soul-gems that I literally HAD to throw some away.
SO I grinded enchantments on other loot I had.
I had so many soul-gems my enchantment went from 29-ish (lots of random books) to 70 -- over 150 soul-gems.
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How do I level my bows?
In the wilds.
Because it's more fun than grinding.

How do I level smithing?
By grinding, because it takes shorter time to simple be "done with it" than to spread the making of useless items out over many hours.
You don't make items that you need on the forge -- 99% of the items are ones you do NOT need.

I have never abused smithing.
Meaning, I never made gear to boost alchemy, to boost enchanting, to boost smithing.

I just use the best potion or enchantment I can make on its own.
Too much micromanaging and gaming the system for my taste.

But if people want to do it, Im all for letting them do it.
No-one is forcing me to abuse it, so I shouldnt force them to play my way either.

The problem is this keeps happening even if you don't want to. Like just normally taking up enchanting, sneak , illusion, or max conjuration.


Should someone really have to steer away from using crafting at all? Thats kind of crappy.

AFAIK, bracers don't allow equally profitable enchantments. If you have some (empowered) petty soul gems, you can enchant those daggers to do 15 or more stamina damage, without any real investment in boosting enchanting ability. Once you do so, you get a weapon worth 500 or more gold, netting you enough money to turn around and buy at least enough material (soul gems, ingots, strips) to build 2 more just like it. And the "long bow of draining" you need to disenchant to do this trick is often available the same place you'd buy the iron ingots, at a rather low price.
I'm also pretty sure that you get more smithing skill out of making as many iron daggers as you can find metal for, then using any remaining leather for bracers. As such, I typically end up making a mix of both, but only when I'd be visiting a smith & enchanter anyhow. Selling the stuff later is a bit of a pain (especially if the smith isn't wealthy), but it gives me a nice reserve of high value, low weight items. Once I have enough of those that I know I can clean out every (weapon purchasing) merchant in the next town, I can simply ignore the "need" to pick weapons and armor of the people I kill, because it would serve no point.

I don't understand why people are so concerned on how other people play a single player game.

I dont understand this thread.

Some are saying people cry that other people exploit their smithing/enchanting.

Yet its the people that "exploit" their smithing/enchanting that come here and cry that the game is too easy.

How do you NOT exploit it?????

You exploit it by using it the only way it can be used, and using the READILY AVAILABE resources to enhance your abilities.

It's not like "fortify smithing" is a rare dwarven artifact that you find in an enchanted chest behind a hidden door, guarded by ten magically enhanced dwarven centurions.

You find it randomly off a bandit at level 5.

HOW do you lot operate in real life??
Would you NOT use the readily available resources to perform a task at hand better than you could without it?

Do you not find the best tools for the job, and then do the job with the best tools -- rather than using bad tools and doing a bad job?
Is the game all about doing a bad job at saving the world, or a good job saving the world?

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Are you supposed to IGNORE the CLEARLY available enhance smithing gear and potions that you've found 10 of in the game by level 15, and just pretend to roleplay an idiot?

Are you supposed to make your own rules and be your own dungeon master?
That is too much freedom.
When I have to make my own rules for how the game works and what exists in the world, out of character, the spell is broken on my part.
I need for that which exists in the game world to exist in the game world, and for that which does not exist in the game world to not exist in the game world.
To ignore smithing gear, is like ignoring the fact that there are dragons in the world.

Installing a mod is a solution, but like 85% of the other players, I'm on a console.

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As for the non-argument that is the difficulty-slider:

Why do I have to turn the difficulty slider UP -- when people who want an easy time just can slide the slider DOWN to Novice?

Why can't enchanting, smithing and alchemy simply NOT be fortify-able abilities, and then upped to 100 by the devs in console and tested versus ingame artifacts, which NEVER should be useless compared to self-crafted gear?
A near-artifact (level scaled) was already useless when I got it at level 28 -- compared to a spell that I learned at level ~8; Bound Bow.
But I digress...

Why isn't the entire game balanced for adept, all obvious skill boosts taken into account?

By balanced I mean that the player CAN be as effective with ONE specific skill as with another.

There is simply not any reason what so ever for any physical damage character to NOT take enchantment and smithing, is there?
Or rather:
IF I go for two-handed, heavy armor... as a pure tank...
Which other skills should I take as a non-diplomatic brute force non-spellcaster non-thief character?

Will I benefit as much from restoration as I will from smithing?
Will I benefit as much from alteration (with a shallow-mana pool -- unless I sacrifice health for mana) as I will enchantment?
Of course, in this latter example, I will be told to craft 0 cost alteration gear -- and not intentionally gimp my character. But once again, enchantment is needed.
Enchantment is also needed to spice up the gear you crafted.

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Are ther ANY logical skills OTHER than smithing and enchanting that can fit a chaotic tank with heavy armor two-handed weapons??

Pfft. Wearing armor? Way to abuse and exploit the game to lower the damage enemies do to you. Cheater.

I find it to be pretty funny that people spend hours and hours making the best gear possible, then come here to the forum to complain that they have the best gear possible.

I leveled my Smithing using "readily available materials"... ie, the stuff I found while adventuring.

Not by camping the Whiterun Smith and doing "Wait 24 hours" repeatedly.

Yeah, I did it in little bursts, saving up mats in a chest in my house, and then crafting a pile of junk every few levels. But I could just as easily have done it every time I came back from a dungeon trip.

Only bought extra materials a few times - like a bar or two of Quicksilver when I was at Elven level and wanted to make/improve my Elven Sword. Because in all my wanderings, I'd not run into Quicksilver veins yet.

How fast did my Smithing improve? Well, I generally got to make the various Light Armor types a handful of levels after I saw them start appearing in loot. And I didn't hit 100 Smithing until level 48.

And no - I didn't make myself a perfect set of +Smith gear. I did use the handful of potions that I'd found "in the wild" and the two pieces of gear (+22 Ebony gauntlets, +20 necklace).

So at level 48, I was able to improve the Daedric Sword I'd found in a chest to "Legendary" status.... about 100-105 damage. My Dawnbreaker was 95 damage. (This is with 1-handed skill bonuses and +1-hand damage gear).

No, I didn't find Smithing overpowered. Of course, I didn't go out of my way to make it overpowered.

(As for leveling enchanting.... yeah, I've got buckets of charged stones, since my main sword always has 1-second soul trap on it. Never know when you'll need to charge something. And I did Disenchant everything I found, in case I ever decided to use the skill. That got it into the mid 40's, I think. But without perks, it's pretty useless. Enchanted gear I find in dungeons is always stronger. Now that my main char is over 50 and done with the MQ and the Civil War, I may just level it for kicks. But while I was playing the game seriously, I never put perks into it.... there always seemed more important spots. :shrug:)

You find it funny because you don't seem to understand what most people complain about.

Anyway to put it simply...

I wanted crafting to take some effort to level. I cannot have effort/reward with the current system. It's 0 effort and substantial reward. It's like having to kill 1000 low level bandits to level up your character. So i have 3 options:

1)Not use it and pretend crafting does not exist.
2)Use it but put 100 self-imposed restrictions (create a whole system for myself) which mess with my immersion and still are not effective enough, while discarding the excess materials i find and pretending that i never found them or that the vendors do not sell them.
3)Use it and "break" the game.

PS: As for those who think that they need to camp and buy materials to break the game - surprise - they don't.
There is TONS of iron outdoors a stroll in the mountains and being observative will convince you. "Few" hours of exploring are enough to raise smithing to 100.

I work on 100 smithing and pickpocketing on every playthrough, but I'm not a "god" because I do not use alchemy/enchanting. I also don't max them out immediately. I start the thieves guild for money fences and as I do any quests, whenever I'm in whiterun I level smithing while I'm there. Usually I can max both of them by around 25-30. I play on adept and I still get my ass handed to me by some enemies, mostly 2H, mages (oh god, mages...really need to get spellbreaker), and dragons. I don't feel like a god at all in my ebony armor. I can make Daedric armor, but ebony mail is too sick to stop wearing (H)

I like the fast leveling tbh. If i wanted to grind, I'd go play runescape, World of Warcraft, etc. In here, i don't want to take 5 years to max something out. It's in the game, it is YOUR choice whether you "abuse" it or not.

"Breaking" the game is not only being a god. It's also rendering all the loot useless since you have the best possible resulting, of course, in imminent boredom.

You keep saying the same stupid thing: "it is my choice whether to abuse it". I wonder if you think about the things you post or just downright paste them and act like a tape recorder.
No the ones who want a crafting skill with a curve and effort/reward DO NOT have a choice since there is not one.

I just don't see this "100 self imposed restrictions" thing. I don't play that way - well, I mean besides the "self imposed restriction" of choosing what style of character I want to play and what skills they'll use.

I just play as seems "natural". But since my "natural" and your "natural" are such worlds apart, we end up with different game experiences.

Like I said - using stuff I found in the wild (and I like mining and carrying around pickaxes enough that I named my WoW guild after mining), it took me until level 48 to hit 100. And that's spending levels 46-48 doing a concerted "Ok, lets go out and hit lots of the mines I've already discovered to get more iron" push to get from Glass to Dragonscale.


Then again - like I've said in other threads, I'm not a "natural" powergamer. Games that require min/maxing, I have to search out guides and then force myself to play that way - it's not my normal playstyle.

But hey, it works for me.... I was able to play Skyrim on Adept with my first character, and feel challenged from level 10 to 50. Never felt like I had to "self gimp", or that I was a god, or that I had to "play like my character was a brain-damaged idiot" (to paraphrase some of the things I've seen in other "OMG, I powergamed and the game is easy! RAARRRR!" threads).

I also like to mine. A small 4-5 hours random exploring session outdoors is enough to gather 100 iron ore or more. If you go into a mine you will get even more. I wish i could, but how can i level it up "naturally" like that? If i do it naturally i will have daedric until 10.

4-5 hours looking for ore is a "small random exploring session"?

Jesus.

Shrug. I like the fact that smithing is easy to level, because it helps me maintain the aesthetics of the game. I don't want my archer to run around in Elven or glass armor, I want leather or scaled. So I kill the occasional deer, bear, or saber cat and make a few leather bracers, and then improve my armor. So my upgraded Scaled armor is on par with the best standard armor I could wear at this level, and my character looks the way I want her to.

The fact that the system can be abused by combining smithing with potions and etc is a bit of a problem, but I don't really care since I don't do it. Obviously, the easy fix for this is to limit Smithing (and every other skill, really) to 100 regardless of bonuses. I wouldn't be shocked if Bethesda did this in a patch down the road, and certainly it wouldn't be hard to mod this in.

Huh? 4-5 hours looking for ore? Where did you get that? I said:

Whats the option to "grinding" for smithing? Here's my ideas - I think they could be done in a mod, and they certainly can be done via player willpower.

- Elimnate XP for crafting "obsolete" items. For example, once you reach smithing 30, you get no XP for crafting iron & weapons and armor ; you need to move on to gear that requires the Steel Smithing perk (nclusive anything above Steel Smithing - Elven, Dwarven, etc). Once you reach 50, steel no longer cuts it; you need to craft items that require the Elven or Dwarven (or better) perks to earn XP through crafting. This drives up the price of grinding to where its like not sustainable at higher levels, and so requires training.

- Make smith training more available, but require payment via (common, non-craftable, rarely purchasable) items (such as specific bandit armor variations that aren't craft-able, specific animal hides, various ores and gems) rather than cash, so that the player has to go out and gather the items rather than sitting around cash farming the forge / enchanting table. And since training is limited to 5 per level, you'll fairly quickly need to stop training and go level some how if you want to advance Smithing any further.

Yeah, it would still be quite possible to have 100 Smithing when you level to the high teens, but doing so would actually be an ACCOMPLISHMENT, not the result of a pathetic grind.

I don't see what the problem is. If you don't want to power-level smithing, don't make 50 iron daggers every chance you get. It's simple. If you want to power-level smithing and have the best gear at relatively low level, then make 50 daggers every chance you can. I think Bethesda purposely did this in order to appease people who like to power-level and become godlike in their games. Every TES game has had an "exploit" of some sort. If it's really just an oversight that would be extremely hard to believe. But yeah, those who want to take their time leveling smithing, it's easy to do, just pay for training and only smith gear at appropriate times, and don't make a bunch of iron daggers or leather bracers and you'll be fine. Problem solved.

Most people must just be cheating on PC and using the console for this. That requires a TON of Grand Soul Gems. Dirty cheaters :flamethrower:

so what if some people power level, it doesn't affect anyone, you're worried cause someone decides to make lots of daggers, its like you want people to get tickets on their own race tracks, nerfing threads are lame and stupid, if you want a low skill, don't use it and it will stay low, but if someone wants a higher skill they get to use it and make it higher, its a core game mechanic to be able to raise skills by using them..i don't see anyone turning into a "God" by level 20, and if they did, who cares but i think most of this is just exaggerating cause you want the game nerfed for other people,...bethesda games aren't nerfed, you get to play how you want and become a "God" if you choose, thats one of the appeals about bethesda games, stick with World of Warcraft if you like nerfed games, they nerf a lot cause of complainers like you but its a multiplayer game, bethesda games are single player so if i choose to become powerful it doesn't affect anyone.

Cheaters? Nah. Between clearing out tombs and buying from merchants you can have hundreds of Soul Gems in fairly short order. Even better are Conjuror forts, I've hauled out a couple of dozen Soul Gems from a single one before. You also don't need Grand Gems to enchant stuff, although you will want them for your end gear since the magnitude of the enchantment is proportional to the size of the soul.

I'll put it simple: If you're level 20 and dressed in epic daedric armor, you are "abusing" Smithing.
Abusing...funny how you can "abuse" a feature implemented in the game by the devs and is not part of some glitch or cheat.

I don't disagree with any of that.
I don't recall saying anything about smithing not being a grind. Your reply actually has pretty much no correlation to what I said.
It's just people that complain about it being OP when they just got done making daggers for hours on end and they have 100 smithing at level 10-15 that's annoying.
Really. Other than that no one cares what people choose to do in their game.