User blog:Skkragggh/Ye Grande Olde Liste of Skyrim Tips n' Tricks

This is a dumping ground for various tips I've dug up around the web or found myself while playing. Use at your own peril; I haven't personally tested/verified them all, and some are likely to be dubious or just flat-out wrong. Also note that no console commands are mentioned. Feel free to drop me a line with additions/corrections etc. on my Talk page.
 * 1) Use a torch while lockpicking and it becomes easier.
 * 2) Shops and Merchants restock their gold and supplies every 48hours in game.
 * 3) You can command your follower to pick a lock, pick something up, or even steal and etc...
 * 4) Mammoths and Giants can't walk on rocky terrain or walk in ponds and water.
 * 5) Your horse can climb up mountains that you couldn't on foot.
 * 6) You can place baskets on peoples head and then steal their stuff without them noticing.
 * 7) You can fast travel while over encumbered with a horse.
 * 8) Giving gold to a beggar will put a blessing on you that increases your speech skill by 10.
 * 9) When you break a pick or turn the lock when it's in the wrong position, the pick will "flick" towards the correct position.
 * 10) When you increase your stamina you also increase your maximum carry capacity by 5.
 * 11) When paying tutors to upgrade skills, you can pickpocket your cash back. It drops to 50-50 chance at about 2000septims.
 * 12) Dragons stop flying if you use Ice spells on them.
 * 13) Mines and Dungeons respawn every month (30 in game days).
 * 14) The "Impact" perk in the Destruction tree will stop a dragon from breathing fire/frost. This also works with shield bash and power attacks. Just make sure youre in their face. Constantly staggering dragons makes quick work of them. Same with giants.
 * 15) Re-equiping any item with +## to Maximum Magicka on it, when your mana pool is depleted, will restore that amount.
 * 16) Arrows are now weightless (alot of people did not notice this).
 * 17) Using Lvl 3 Unrelenting Force to knock shit off of cliffs will insta-kill all non-flying enemies.
 * 18) Fire = Damage + Dots (damage over time), Frost = Damage + half of that damage to Stamina, Lightning = Damage + Half of that damage to Magicka.
 * 19) Lightning > Frost/Fire in regards to speed. (how fast it travels)
 * 20) Pickpocket someone who shoots target dummies with arrows, and take the arrows they were using (usually iron or steel). Then, give them one of the arrow type you want more of. They will now shoot that type of arrow instead of the one they were shooting before. Simply collect the arrows as they hit the target dummy to get as many arrows as desired. Note: requires the perk to pickpocket equipped weapons. Related: The easiest guy to do this with I've found is the archer inside the Thieve's Guild hideout. He seems to shoot the fastest. Much quicker than using archers in Solitude who just stand there half the time looking at each other
 * 21) DO NOT KILL THAT CHICKEN. The people will hate you if you are seen. If you are not seen, poeple will move away.
 * 22) If you go to the fav menu and press left or right on the D pad, you can hotkey the item to that left or right key if you use it frequently. Like potions especially. On PC, you chose 1 thru 8. sorry, pc gets more.
 * 23) To kill a giant with melee, run around it in circles while hacking and slashing or just stay behind it.
 * 24) If you want to be a pacifist, chose Nord. Battle cry is great. Devote training to skills like sneak and illusion. That will prevent any mishaps with enemies in the wild. Potions are ideal also. And restoration if an enemy tries to see if it can one hit you and gets close. Become a werewolf if you want to scare poeple more.
 * 25) In a dungeon, you can turn off the torches to help with sneak attacks. Hiding in the dark enemies can walk right passed you and wont see as long as you are fully in the dark
 * 26) imperials (or those with great calming skills) should invest some perk points in 1handed for damage and sneak to get 15x crit with daggers. using voice of the empire will cause most enemies to turn their back to you. take that time to sneak and knife them. this has saved me from brutal deaths by lightning blasts multiple times.
 * 27) Not only do fire spells do the most damage, they seem to also cost less than frost and shock spells.
 * 28) Atronachs are completely immune to spells of their own type, so if you are mainly a fire spell user, the best atronach to use is the fire one, as you can use your spells without needing to worry about damaging your minion.
 * 29) Your companion can carry an unlimited number and weight of stuff, but only if you tell them to pick them up in command mode.
 * 30) You can skip the dialog and go straight to command mode by pointing your cursor at your companion from far enough away that the "talk" option doesn't appear, and holding the 'use' button.
 * 31) Whirlwind Sprint can be used as a long-jump. There are some areas you can only reach this way.
 * 32) Go by random townspeople and show off some Shouts (don't attack them). If they've never seen it before, they'll exclaim their surprise or something. Some time after you arrive in any major city, a courier will give you a letter from an anonymous person giving you a misc. quest towards a word wall. You can also talk to Arngeir one of the greybeards, after completing his tasks he can point you to more word walls. Some words can only be learned through the main quest.
 * 33) Sleeping in a bed you own or a bed at an inn will give you a buff for 8 hours that increases ALL skill gains by 10%.
 * 34) unlike yourself trees are resistant to fire and ice breath of dragons. if there is a tree around hide behind it.
 * 35) If you cast various buff spells on yourself before turning into a Werewolf, you keep the buffs once you enter the form, it is a good idea to use spells like Oakskin to help reduce damage.
 * 36) if you dismount your horse while in water then mount it again, the horse will be able to run and sprint as if it was on land, due to most enemies not going into deep water this is really useful if you want to get somewhere safely
 * 37) You can get the house in Solitude and it's upgrades for free. Once you have clicked the option to buy the house, and he says "Here's your key" or w/e, quickly turn round and put your gold in the cupboard.
 * 38) Using enough lightning damage(or drain/absorb magicka) against a dragon will stop them from breathing fire/frost, but they will still do the animation(due to being out of magicka).
 * 39) If you're suffering from a disease and need to cure yourself immediately, but lack the means to do so, look to the skies. You can shoot hawks to get their feathers, which have the ability to cure disease.
 * 40) If you get yourself a wife she'll cook for you. These "homecooked meals" yield greater health than standard meals.
 * 41) When finishing the College quests you can train Restoration easily. Learn the Equilibrium spell from the book that you find in the final dungeon, then equip Equilibrium to one hand and the Novice healing spell to the other. Use Equilibrium to damage your health a little and then cast both spells simultaneously. You can hold down both spells for about 90 seconds before you should heal yourself (almost) fully, and you can train Restoration whilst running around.
 * 42) You can raise Conjuration/Destruction easily too by summoning a wolf familiar and then destroying it with any Destruction spell for 0 coin cost.
 * 43) When in doubt, manually SAVE often and quit to the dashboard/main screen. As much as we love Skyrim, the unfixed glitches such as lag and freezing errors are pretty bad sometimes.
 * 44) Dragons attacking you? Got you feeling down and out with no good magic resistance on your side? If you have the spell "Rally", go around buffing up the guards of the town who are shooting arrows and don't forget your companion (either temporary for a quest or personally chosen), they'll love you forever for buffing them!
 * 45) You can instantly kill Forsworn Briarhearts by pickpocketing their heart.
 * 46) You can jump up mountains by running back and forth while hitting the hell out of the jump button.
 * 47) You can climb steeper inclines on foot by facing downslope, moving backwards and mashing jump.
 * 48) Getting off your horse in the middle of a big attack will likely lead to the horses death.
 * 49) You can fast travel on your horse if you weigh too much.
 * 50) If you hide on a higher point than your enemy, you can just keep shooting arrows at it.
 * 51) If you want a trader to refresh their stock without having to wait for three in-game days, save while standing in close vicinity to the trader you want to refresh, kill them, and then load your previous save. Their stock will have been refreshed with new items. This can be done to your heart's leisure.
 * 52) Complete the Stones of Barenziah quest early if you never want to have to worry about money again.
 * 53) Dawnstar has a chest of wonders hidden under three rocks to the left of the mine entrance. Related: Sell your stuff to the Khajit caravans, go to the invisible chest in Dawnstar and all the stuff you sold to them will be in the chest.
 * 54) when training with vilkas at jornvaskr (companions building) if you use destruction magic against him instead of using melee weapons your destruction will increase and will not cause any hostility. so simply do this until u get too 100
 * 55) all alchemy trainers also buy/sell potions so if you train with them they now have same amount of gold you just gave them to buy your potions for.
 * 56) You can check the upgraded status of an item without having the materials to actually perform the upgrade. For example, I was using an upgraded Ebony Greatsword, and had picked up a Glass Greatsword. I wanted to see how much damage the Glass Greatsword would do, so I went to a Grindstone. I pressed A to see what the damage on the Glass Greatsword would be, and was shown the resulting damage, despite the fact that I didn't have a Refined Malachite in my inventory at the time.
 * 57) Some may wish to postpone reading skill books until later levels to achieve greater gain, e.g. levelling up from 70 to 71 is a far wider gap than from level 20 to 21. pro tip: use a companion to pick up skill books and remove it from their inventory. can be read later.
 * 58) a good trick for 360 players. When you're ready to wait, press A to wait and immediately press the guide button. You'll be able to see in the background time will go even faster than it normally does whilst waiting. 24 hours pass in 10-15 seconds.
 * 59) Always sell before you buy. Might sound obvious but a shopkeeper usually has a cap on the gold they can hold. If you buy something first then their gold might not increase. If you sell to them first, you can then buy from them to top up their gold, and then sell more in one visit.
 * 60) While in Beast Form you have a roar effect that will scare the bejeesus out of anyone nearby. You can also combine your dash and power attack as a werewolf to do a tackle move that is extremely deadly.
 * 61) The lockpicking skill gains some XP when you brake lockpicks.
 * 62) Level up conjuration by casting courage at any NPC or any person who is not attacking you.
 * 63) If you have Shadowmere, you can level up all combat skills (including Destruction) by attacking it. Shadowmere's health revives almost instantaneously, and he doesn't retaliate.
 * 64) Enchanting 'Banish' On just about any weapon makes it extremely valuable, this is from just about any soul gem as well.
 * 65) if you look your follower eye to eye when they're blocking a doorway they'll move.
 * 66) If u beaten the darkbrother hood questline in solitude 3 emperors bodyguards (name escapes me at the moment) spawn in the tower opposite side of the castle dour court yard. They are hostile but won't attack you, put the difficulty level on master and attack them with iron weapons or destruction spells or bash with shield, when there health gets low heal them with healing hands good way to max out all combat skills and restoration and block.
 * 67) If your archery skill is high enough, it begins to auto aim for you, all you have to do is have the enemy somewhere within the crosshair.
 * 68) Make a trainer follow you, use up the 5 training slots, go to trade items and get your gold back. Keep doing this each time you level up.
 * 69) Transmute Mineral Ore alteration spell, is best skill in game, easy to turn iron ore into silver, and then gold- gets your smithing up quick, then use cheap soul gems to enchant them, gets both to 100 very quickly, THEN you get to sell al that cool jewelry, its a win-win-win situation!!
 * 70) If you are over-encumbered yet close to a store, you can equip a bow, crouch and aim. You will walk slightly faster than normal walking.
 * 71) When you use the invisibility spell, it is automatically deactivated when you use something (search a body/open a door/pick up something etc.). To remedy this, use the charged version of the spell, but do not release the spell until the moment after you hit the use key. Right after you finish searching, you will only be visible for a split second before becoming invisible again. Note: This also works for using a door to access a new area.
 * 72) Help shadr in riften to access free horses. If your horse dies, just go back to the riften stables to get another one. Never buy a horse again. In fact, do this as soon as you start playing no matter what type of character you are creating.
 * 73) Save your Level Ups for when in major combat. When you level up, all of your Magicka, Health, and Stamina is replenished fully so you'll save a number of potions. I usually do this in tough dungeon or dragon battles when my health is extremely low, and it works wonders.
 * 74) In some Dwemer ruins there are pistons that shoot upwards, if you stand on them you can sometimes get to secret places.
 * 75) Use the Throw Voice shout to attract your prey to a specific spot. Once they stop moving, snipe them with your bow from a nice vantage point and get some easy kills. Or set up traps with spells and attract enemies into it. Related: Those lacking the throw voice shout, can fire an arrow at points they want enemies to investigate.
 * 76) When you level up, select Stamina to increase your carry limit by 5.
 * 77) Draugr are very simple to escape from. (regular Draugr) If you feel in danger, run back through the dungeon until you find a door, or a crevice, and hide there. They usually don't go back more than 2-3 rooms, if you sprint. Though running down a long hallway, and through some rooms is ideal.
 * 78) Dismiss your followers at their 'home' location. They can get stuck on the trip back & become lost to you.
 * 79) Use Unrelenting Force at the feet of a stuck follower to dislodge them.
 * 80) You can place arrows onto the body of a person or animal you've just killed and remove them again, simultaneously removing any 'stuck' arrows. An enemy's quiver may remain stuck, however.
 * 81) Dragon Priests are really easy to kill with a bow, arrows, shadows/darkness, and a lot of patience.
 * 82) Put the muffle enchant on your party member's boots to prevent them from throwing off your position, saves ordering them around constantly as well.
 * 83) The Unrelenting Force shout makes collecting butterfly wings, torchbugs, and the like easy. Using it on the small insects will kill them, but leave their wings etc. on the ground where they died, and you can just pick them up. In fact, you could probably do this with any shout that does damage.
 * 84) 'calm' plus stealth backstabbing is a great way to take out most monsters in a one-on-one situation (except dragons/daedras/undead and automatons - unless you have the relevant illusion perk)
 * 85) I've noticed that if you enchant a weapon with paralysis and try to sneak attack with it, the sneak attack will fail if they resist the paralysis. I think the same goes for soul trapping. This is clearly a stupid glitch. Therefore don't enchant your daggers/bows with paralysis if you're a stealth character.
 * 86) Making an iron dagger gives as much xp as any other iron items, saving you much gold and easily levelling up your smithing. It takes about 10-13 iron daggers to level up your smithing at levels 90-100. If you enchant the daggers with petty souls, they become worth 200-280, making a good return on investment.
 * 87) You can kill exposed Draugr while they're still sleeping in the coffins if you have a good enough sneak, or you can just shoot em with arrows.
 * 88) As long as they are sleeping, the ghosts in Yngvild can be fed from by a vampiric character, although I don't know if this counts as a feeding since ghosts don't have blood. Related: They can also be frenzied/calmed etc without the need of master of the mind perk...
 * 89) When trapping a smaller soul than the gem intended for, just drop it on the ground and it will empty itself. Eg. If you trapped a petty soul in a grand soulgem, just drop it on the ground and pick it up again.
 * 90) if you free Derkeethus from Darkwater Pass he can become your companion and is apparently invincible.
 * 91) Whiterun is the best place to grab a quick bite if your character is a vampire. The guard barracks always has at least one person sleeping within, day or night.
 * 92) If you fall into the water from high place you will not die
 * 93) Running as a werewolf is the fastest way of overland travel.
 * 94) if you’re in a dark place and don’t have any torches… Turn up the BRIGHTNESS! This also lets you see enemies before they see you sometimes, even if you’re not sneaking.
 * 95) You can manually equip pickaxes and "attack" rocks with them to get ores.
 * 96) You can noclip (on any console) into the Thalmor Embasy and start the main questline's 'Diplomatic Immunity' without doing any of the former quests. This is how I defeated Alduin without even starting Dragon Rising (and thus, no dragons)
 * 97) If you get the Jagged Crown before its quest, it will not be marked a quest item.
 * 98) If you get the Ebony Blade before the quest, it will be marked quest item.
 * 99) You can reach Throat of the World well before its quest by using your horse.
 * 100) Dead Thralling an enemy and the changing areas (so that a tip pops up) will restore all their armour they had on. This works for eg: Cicero and Boethiah's Champion to get multiple sets of their armour.
 * 101) sneak attacks with daggers are completely silent. so pretend there are two people next to eachother. if you sneak behind one and kill them with a dagger, the other wont notice, but if you use any other weapon, the other guy will notice no matter how good your sneak.
 * 102) You can do a silent roll move without have thing perk. To do it crouch into your sneak stance jump and hold forward and the sprint button, when you land you'll roll even though you don't have the sneak perk.
 * 103) You can easily level the pickpocket skill by reverse pickpocketing items into NPCs, then pickpocketing them back.
 * 104) When creating a new character, you can set yourself up to skip the initial cutscenes by saving the game as everyone piles out of the wagon. Since character creation starts just after, you can essentially reuse this save to make a new character whenever you want (just be sure to start a new save so you can keep using the old one to make more characters quickly).