Smithing (Skyrim)

"People say I'm making gold off of other people's misery, but what else would I do? Smithing is all I know. Next time one of my shields deflects a killing blow, they'll change their tune."

- Balimund

Smithing is a skill in. One of six skills falling under the The Warrior play-style, smithing is referred to as the art of refining raw materials and combining them to create or improve pieces of armor or weapons. It is one of the three crafting skills in Skyrim, falling under the Warrior, with parallels to alchemy for thieves and enchanting for mages. As such it is affected by the Warrior Stone and, as with all skills, is affected by the Lover Stone.

Mechanics
Smithing is a multistage process with the number of stages depending on what items are being crafted and how raw the materials are. The process can be started at any intermediate stage if the right materials are found, but every stage requires input materials, knowledge of the recipe, and its own tool. Input materials can be found in the world or purchased from vendors. Knowledge of new recipes can be acquired only through perks but some are available automatically. The tools list below roughly outlines the end-to-end process from the most raw stages to the most refined stages.

Smithing stations
These stations, required for various stages in the smithing process, can be found in any main city and most villages. They are also frequently found in forts and dungeons or outside mines. See the individual station pages for more specific locations.
 * Smelter - Used to change ores or Dwemer scrap metal into ingots.
 * Tanning Rack - Used to create leather from animal hides and leather strips from leather.
 * Forge and anvil - Used to craft armor, weapons and jewelry from ingots and other materials.
 * Workbench - Used to improve armor and shields with ingots or leather.
 * Grindstone - Used to improve weapons with ingots or leather strips.

Racial bonuses
Nord, Redguard, and Orc characters gain an initial five point boost to Smithing.

Leveling
The following actions raise the Smithing skill:
 * Crafting an item at a forge. Skill gain is dependent on the value of the item being crafted.
 * Improving a weapon at a grindstone. The skill gain is based on the strength of the improvement made.
 * Improving an armor or shield at a workbench. The skill gain is based on the strength of the improvement made.
 * The experience gained from smithing is based on the value of the items smithed or improved.

Books


The following is a list of books that raise the Smithing Skill, locations can be found on the relevant book's page:
 * Cherim's Heart of Anequina
 * Heavy Armor Forging
 * Light Armor Forging
 * The Armorer's Challenge
 * The Last Scabbard of Akrash
 * Oghma Infinium - choosing the Path of Might increases all Warrior skills, including Smithing, by five.

Quests
The following Quests increase or help to increase the Smithing Skill:
 * Retrieve Queen Freydis's Sword for Oengul War-Anvil in Windhelm
 * Retrieve Night Falls on Sentinel for Rustleif in Dawnstar
 * Retrieve The Last Scabbard of Akrash for Ghorza gra-Bagol in Markarth
 * Unfathomable Depths grants the "Ancient Knowledge" Active Effect, which increases the rate of skill gain for Smithing by 15%.

Growth curve
The smithing skill levels according to an exponential curve. This means each level costs proportionately more than the previous one.

Perks
The following chart lists the perks that become available to the Dragonborn as the skill is leveled up. In spite of the shape of the perk constellation implying otherwise, perks explicitly list their prerequisites (Daedric Smithing requires Ebony Smithing be taken first, and so forth).

* Dragonbone weapons can only be created if is installed. ** Bonemold armor can be created with Steel Smithing, Chitin armor can be created with Elven Smithing, Nordic armor and weapons can be created with Advanced Armors, and Stalhrim armor and weapons can be created with Ebony Smithing if is installed.

Improvement
The table shows what quality improvement an item will achieve based on smithing level and if the smithing perk for the item is taken or not.

Items can still be improved once they reach Legendary, but the description will not change.

Each additional quality level beyond Legendary improves Armor by 3.6 and other items (weapons, helms, boots, etc.) by 1.8.

Alchemy and Enchanting can improve results significantly via the Fortify Smithing effect allowing for greater improvements at a given level than the table shows. Combining both alchemy and enchanting to improve one another and then combining both to improve smithing as much as possible can be very powerful.

The improvement of armor and weapons requires one smithing material per item improved. These items can be obtained by tanning, smelting, or other means of obtaining items.

Strategies

 * Making multiple gold jewelry will level smithing up quickly.