Speech

The skill of persuasion can be used to get better prices from merchants and persuade others to do as you ask. "Heard about you and your honeyed words..."

- Guard

Speech is a skill in and is one of the six skills that falls under The Thief play-style. This skill is a combination of both Speechcraft and Mercantile skills of previous Elder Scrolls and replaces them. Speech may also help with quests by unlocking special dialogue interactions, including Intimidate, Mock, Brawl and more.

Governing Guardian Stone: The Thief

Usefulness and function
Speech directly affects the prices paid when buying from and selling to merchants, even without the assorted perks. At 0 speech, merchants sell items for 3 times their base price, and buy for a third of their base price. At 100 speech, merchants will buy items for twice their base price and sell them for half as much. Alternatively, Speech can be used to persuade people into doing things or divulging crucial information. Bribes made are also governed by Speech.

Types of Speech
Persuade

Intimidate

Brawl

Bribe

Perks
The following are the perks that become available to select as the skill is leveled up:

†The way Investor seems to work is that the 500 gold ends up in the shopkeeper's personal inventory rather than the store inventory, also, it seems like any gold in the shopkeeper's personal inventory is added to the store gold when calculating how much they can buy. This means two things:
 * 1) can be pickpocketed from them. This means the store will not have 500  when their inventory refreshes. Stealing from them does not lower their disposition.
 * 2) can be reverse-pickpocketed onto them to increase the investment effect. Also, placing gold is much easier than taking it. This can create shopkeepers with a very high amount of gold.

Prices
Prices are computed by the following:


 * sell price factor = (3.3 - 1.3 * skill/100) / ((1 + Haggling %) * (1 + Allure %) * (1 + Fortify Barter from potion) * (1 + the sum of Fortify Barter from equipment + Fortify Barter from Blessing of Zenithar))


 * buy price factor = (3.3 - 1.3 * skill/100) * (1 / (1 + Haggling %)) * (1 / (1 + Allure %)) * (1 - Fortify Barter from potion) * (1 - the sum of Fortify Barter from equipment - Fortify Barter from Blessing of Zenithar)


 * sell price = value / sell price factor
 * buy price = value * buy price factor

Skills over 100 have no effect.
 * At 0 skill and no perks the price factor is 3.3
 * At 100 skill and no perks the price factor is 2
 * At 100 skill and all perks the price factor is 1.42857.

Leveling
The speech skill increase depends on the base value of the item traded or the difficulty of the bribe or persuasion. When selling items, it is not actually required to receive any gold, only that the transaction takes place. The skill increase only occurs once per transaction. In order to optimize leveling, expensive items in groups of 6 or more should be sold individually, rather than all at once.

Books and quests
The following are a list of books that increase the Speech Skill. For a list of locations, see the individual book article:
 * Biography of the Wolf Queen
 * 2920, Second Seed, v.5
 * A Dance in Fire, v.6
 * A Dance in Fire, v.7
 * The Buying Game
 * Oghma Infinium - raises other Thief-based skills if the "Path of Shadow" is selected.

The following miscellaneous quests increases the Speech Skill:
 * Steal the Staff of Arcane Authority for Malur Seloth in Winterhold.
 * Collect a Mammoth Tusk for Ysolda from Whiterun.
 * Jumping from Bard's Leap Summit at Lost Valley Redoubt south of Roriksted and surviving raises Speech when the Bard's Ghost at the bottom is spoken to again.
 * Retrieve Finn's Lute for Inge Six Fingers at the Bard's College in Solitude. This also increases the Light Armor, Sneak, Lockpicking, Pickpocket, and Alchemy skills.

Trainers

 * Revyn Sadri (Common): Sadri's Used Wares, east Windhelm
 * Dro'marash (Adept): Khajiit Caravans
 * Ogmund (Expert): Markarth
 * Giraud Gemane (up to 90 - Master): Bards College, Solitude
 * Azzadal of the Bards College increases the Speech skill by one after being spoken to twice.
 * Ronthil (Adept) Castle Volkihar
 * Talsgar the Wanderer (Common), random encounter

Method One
At the Black-Briar Meadery in Riften, the Dragonborn can, through a Persuasion check, enter an infinite dialogue loop with Ungrien regarding Maven Black-Briar. Once at the Meadery, speak to Ungrien and ask him to tell you what he thinks about Maven Black-Briar. Then, choose the Persuade option "Come on, get the truth off your chest". '''This is no longer possible with the new update. It will make the dialogue disappear after one try. Fixed as of Patch 1.9.'''

Method Two
Members of the Thieves Guild have the option to bribe guards when minor crimes are committed. Repeatedly committing small crimes, such as trespassing or pickpocketing, and bribing guards to look the other way can help level Speech quickly. spent bribing a guard can be pickpocketed back with a high enough pickpocket skill.

Method Three
During the Dark Brotherhood quest, "Recipe For Disaster", Anton Virane can be intimidated repeatedly to level Speech. A detailed guide for executing this method: Not affected by patch 1.9
 * 1) Begin Talking with him. After you say "For the Dark Brotherhood, that can be easily arranged. (Intimidate)",
 * 2) He will respond "The Dark Brotherhood?".
 * 3) Immediately exit the conversation.
 * 4) Begin to talk to him again and quickly skip through most of the conversation.
 * 5) Exit the conversation at the same time as before.
 * 6) Repeat

Method Four
Go to Dawnstar and access Ahkari Merchant chest (see page for details) put all your gold into the chest, go back to Ahkari and sell her your items to get your gold back, head back to the chest and retrieve your sold items rinse and repeat.

Method Five
Similar to Method Two, After getting so far into the Thieves Guild one can commit a minor crime, such as failed pickpocketing. Once you've committed the crime, go up to a guard, and initiate the "Wait, I know you." Dialogue. Then you should have the option to Persuading them to overlook it. NOTE: This will not remove the bounty, it will just stop the conversation peacefully, while subtly improving your speech skill. This can then be done to all of the guards in a hold (DO NOT REPEAT ON THE SAME GUARD, this can cause the option to go away, although if the guards are cycled through with the dialogue, it works just fine.) This is especially useful at medium-high levels, as you don't have to pay anything, or sell anything, and the risk is practically 0.

Method Six
During the Dampened Spirits quest, the Dragonborn can loop a conversation with Sabjorn to quickly level speech. Guide:

1. Start conversation with Sabjorn (must be during the quest).

2. When presented the fact that you won't be paid until the job is done, choose the intimidate option.

3. Immediately exit the converation when he begins his sentence (PC = Esc or Tab).

4. Repeat as needed.

Not affected by patch 1.9

Items
Some items increase the Speech skill. These include:
 * Amulet of Dibella
 * Amulet of Articulation
 * Masque of Clavicus Vile
 * Potion of Glibness (+20 for 60 sec)