Crafting, who's really doing it?

[jarif]

No, I mean it's dumb because it's insanely hard and takes insanely long to get to 100 if you just craft all your armor and weapons, because I don't know about you, but I don't really use that many sets of armor and weapons. I usually only make a new set of armor when I get a new perk, and I can't get a new perk unless I keep smithing, so I wind up power leveling. The only other use I could see for smithing things is to make money, but even then you don't level too much, especially at the later levels. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that crafting skills don't really fit in with the rest of the skills. To level one-handed, you just keep doing damage with a one-handed weapon, to level smithing, you keep smithing things, and there's not too much of a purpose to smithing a ton of things, except for money. Alchemy works well, because you makes a bunch of potions, then you use them, then you can make more potions. I think Bethesda can add some kind of job where you can be a smith or an enchanter and people come and tell you to smith them things which would act as a miscellaneous quest, then they would give you money. I just feel like I'm forced to power-level if I want to get to Daedric or Dragon armor, because I don't have anything I need to craft, except a set of armor and a few weapons.

again roleplay, just like life. You must earn your way to the top. But its really satisfying especialy with Skyre. Just use console commands or a mod called Sky skill config if your on pc

 

[Remington721]

Now my trilogy works as follows: during my adventures I try to collect and buy all the ingredients that I can get (35 hours of game play = 1000 lbs of ingredients), as well as filling a lot of Soul gems, then I go to my house and craft a lot of potions, with the right tools for Alchemy, I reach level 100 and go to legendary in one session, after I am done, I go to all the markets in the game, sell all the potions and replace them with all the ingots, leather, ores that I can find, get back to my house, smith a lot of stuff, again sometime I get from level 15 to 100 and legendary it in one session, after that I go and enchant most of them using the gems I filled during my adventures, this method is granting me a lot of gold, and a lot of skills, from my point of view you can't call that level farming, because my character is considered doing all this work to get some gold for his family to have a the best quality of life

What really helps me collecting all of these is that my character can carry 600 lbs with the "Deep pocket" perk and the blessing from "The Steed Stone", and the "Green Thumb" perk which allows you to collect two plants every time you harvest is not bad at all too

Awesome , Tks for the tip's . I usually struggle to lvl , cause I buy too much of the mats and am always broke , for at least the 1'st 25 lvls.

 

[Daelon DuLac]

Now my trilogy works as follows: during my adventures I try to collect and buy all the ingredients that I can get (35 hours of game play = 1000 lbs of ingredients), as well as filling a lot of Soul gems, then I go to my house and craft a lot of potions, with the right tools for Alchemy, I reach level 100 and go to legendary in one session, after I am done, I go to all the markets in the game, sell all the potions and replace them with all the ingots, leather, ores that I can find, get back to my house, smith a lot of stuff, again sometime I get from level 15 to 100 and legendary it in one session, after that I go and enchant most of them using the gems I filled during my adventures, this method is granting me a lot of gold, and a lot of skills, from my point of view you can't call that level farming, because my character is considered doing all this work to get some gold for his family to have a the best quality of life

What really helps me collecting all of these is that my character can carry 600 lbs with the "Deep pocket" perk and the blessing from "The Steed Stone", and the "Green Thumb" perk which allows you to collect two plants every time you harvest is not bad at all too

Who has time for adventuring with all the crafting? Good grief, I get bored during a 20 minute alchemy session. There is no way I could do it so long! You have my admiration dude!

 

[Nighthiker77]

I always carry a wood axe and a pickaxe and hit halted stream early for transmute. Turning all your iron ore into gold ore before you smelt and making gold rings will keep you from being broke. I still buy all the iron ingots and some steel ingots (for arrows mostly) to get more work in.

I usually buy a few skyforge steel weapons because they are awesome early game, ok late game on master or lower, and I can get the steel smithing perk as soon as I want. Everything else I either find or make. I will buy jewelry though if I'm not enchanting.

 

[Pendalyn]

I be a crafter. Mostly potions, as I like to collect ingredients. In smithing, I purchase my iron ingots from everyone I can. I figure I can powerlevel a bit, but am limited by the cash I have on hand to buy the ingots. I don't mine much right now, that's part of my retirement plan. Any ingots/ore I find, out and about, get smelted and made into something. I'm thinking, once my smithing gets to 80 or so, I might just make all my own weapons and armor, and RP that a bit (thanks for the idea peeps).

I don't focus soley on getting to 100 smithing... the game is no fun if you just play to level IMO. Potions are easier to craft and RP than smithing items or enchanting items are, so I tend to take more 'liberties' in leveling those skills. I don't see it as 'power leveling', when you purchase the ingots as money allows (possibly skipping out on buying equip/potions I might need) and go from there. I RP it as practicing my craft.

 

[Enhance89]

I love crafting, but I definitely don't go to that extreme. I'll buy what I can and mine if there's an abundance. For example, I'm not going to go clear out some random cave with a few bandits for two veins of whatever, if I can buy 10 of those ingots from a blacksmith. And then whatever I craft/enchant/create, I sell back to vendors, and then put those profits into buying whatever else I can.

I know some people really enjoy taking aspects of this game to the extreme, but I'm not one of them. I, for example, came across a player who claimed to have never used the fast travel option.

To each his own, but time consuming processes just aren't for me. I'm going to do everything as fast as I can without exploiting or glitching the game in some way.

 

[LotusEater]

I always carry a wood axe and a pickaxe and hit halted stream early for transmute. Turning all your iron ore into gold ore before you smelt and making gold rings will keep you from being broke. I still buy all the iron ingots and some steel ingots (for arrows mostly) to get more work in.

I usually buy a few skyforge steel weapons because they are awesome early game, ok late game on master or lower, and I can get the steel smithing perk as soon as I want. Everything else I either find or make. I will buy jewelry though if I'm not enchanting.

A really good spot to mine is Kolskeggr Mine. It's just NE of Markarth if you aren't aware of it. Insane amounts of gold ore there but the Forsworn won't give it up easily. Between veins and ore laying around, you can walk out with about 45 chunks of gold ore and a couple ingots. Great for jewelry crafting. But highly dangerous. Way worse than Halted Stream.

 

[Daelon DuLac]

A really good spot to mine is Kolskeggr Mine. It's just NE of Markarth if you aren't aware of it. Insane amounts of gold ore there but the Forsworn won't give it up easily. Between veins and ore laying around, you can walk out with about 45 chunks of gold ore and a couple ingots. Great for jewelry crafting. But highly dangerous. Way worse than Halted Stream.

Absolutely. Just be sure to get the briar heart as soon as you can or he'll do major hurt on ya, then you can deal with the rest. I like Kolskeggr because it renews - sure it takes 30 days or more, but there's a ready supply of gold if you need it.

 

[LotusEater]

Absolutely. Just be sure to get the briar heart as soon as you can or he'll do major hurt on ya, then you can deal with the rest. I like Kolskeggr because it renews - sure it takes 30 days or more, but there's a ready supply of gold if you need it.

He's always in the back of the mine when I get there. I go sneak mode in there. I've been mobbed before. Never again. They will fall one by one, silently.

On a sidenote... as far as I know, all mines renew. Sometimes when you go in initially, the veins will glitch on the load and you'll have to leave and re-enter to reactivate the veins. So watch out for that if you are unaware.

 

[Daelon DuLac]

He's always in the back of the mine when I get there. I go sneak mode in there. I've been mobbed before. Never again. They will fall one by one, silently.

On a sidenote... as far as I know, all mines renew. Sometimes when you go in initially, the veins will glitch on the load and you'll have to leave and re-enter to reactivate the veins. So watch out for that if you are unaware.

I always sneak in and can usually get past the 1st guy and sometimes the three before you get to the briar heart. I think the trick is to distract them. Once I had the Throw Voice shout I could sneak in until I was under the overpass area and throw to the front and they all went running up that way. Another advantage is that it drew out the briar heart so he was easier to get to.

 

[LotusEater]

Another little trick I discovered with gathering fish is that when you are walking through the shallows, trying to get into deeper water to look underneath the surface. As soon as you drop in depth low enough to be underwater again, turn directly around and look back. There was always a group of fish there that I know I've passed up a ton of times before just trudging forward without looking back.

 

[Pendalyn]

Another little trick I discovered with gathering fish is that when you are walking through the shallows, trying to get into deeper water to look underneath the surface. As soon as you drop in depth low enough to be underwater again, turn directly around and look back. There was always a group of fish there that I know I've passed up a ton of times before just trudging forward without looking back.

don't do it often, but I've noticed the same. You can go to just about any body of water, or river, and there will be fish (the potion fish tend to be in rivers more often). I rested 3 days beside a particular part of the stream and the small group of fish respawned. To time consuming for me, but worthwhile if you are RP'in.

 

[Annageckos]

You can normally find fish where there are dragonflies. That is how I locate them.
I do love crafting, mostly alchemy. I do smithing and enchanting, but not nearly as much as alchemy. What I do is always carry a pick ax and mine ore when ever I see it and hunt. A lot. I wait til I have a ton of materials gathered up then make whatever it is I need/want to make. I will also use the transmute spell to make gold from iron and use flawless gems to level faster.

 

[WillnRoll]

Awesome , Tks for the tip's . I usually struggle to lvl , cause I buy too much of the mats and am always broke , for at least the 1'st 25 lvls.

You're welcome bro , if only you could check my cellar in Lakeview Manor, I swear to Talos I have more than 3000 ingots and 1500 lbs of ingredients abandoned, every time I clear a dungeon or ruin, I go to Whiterun and sell all the unnecessary loot, when the merchants go broke, I start to buy all their smithing items and ingredients, and keep selling all the loot that I don't need, this way, I go back home with a lot of gold carrying only the items that I need.

Edit: if you're going to follow this method, I highly recommend the perk that allows you to sell any item to any merchant.

 

[WillnRoll]

Who has time for adventuring with all the crafting? Good grief, I get bored during a 20 minute alchemy session. There is no way I could do it so long! You have my admiration dude!

I can't say I don't get bored sometimes, I have a lot of ingots and ingredients in my house begging to be crafted, but I am too lazy to do it

 

[TJ0331]

I kind of power leveled smithing to 80 besides the 10 or so levels i actually hunted for leather. That was just so I could get stahlrim armor. Now im hunting and finding ore for the last 20 levels of smithing.

 

[Ritterkreuz]

I craft like there's no tomorrow. I buy or mine Iron ore, transmute it to gold, turn that into rings and enchant away. Now that we can make thing Legendary I work on Alchemy too. Once I've created my ultimate enchanting and smithing potions I redistribute the perks elsewhere.

 

[jarif]

I craft like there's no tomorrow. I buy or mine Iron ore, transmute it to gold, turn that into rings and enchant away. Now that we can make thing Legendary I work on Alchemy too. Once I've created my ultimate enchanting and smithing potions I redistribute the perks elsewhere.

thats dedication

 

[Wildroses]

I chose to always level up smithing and enchanting, but without going too far out of my way. I play on Master, and I need a bit of extra protection.

My default attitude to crafting is to do it as the opportunity arises as it's easy cash and a nice way of working towards a level up. I never fast travel, so I pick all the ingredients I see. I genuinely enjoy alchemy, so I don't mind spending ages at a crafting table. My way of casually levelling up smithing is to keep the pelt of every creature I sell, mine all the ore veins I see while I am refusing to fast travel, and never sell any bars I find. Even if I have no use for them now, eventually I will find some armour and weapons which need them. You can get up a decent amount of smithing materials that way, giving you a nice amount of smithing XP. Casually raising enchanting is harder. I mostly end up doing it by dis-enchanting every new piece of equipment I see and never selling any empty or filled soul gems.

My approach to crafting can vary character to character though. I've had several professional alchemists and blacksmiths who actively try to grind simply because it is their job. My current character was trained as a jewellery maker, so she spends all her time making enchanted jewellery. She's actively grinding away simply because she desperately wants to make beautiful, powerful jewellery, and that takes practice. But I have been making leather armour on the side with her.

 

[shadowkitty]

My first character was an alchemist. She made all her potions, and only smithed enough to be able to enhance enchanted armour and weapons. She didn't really do any enchanting herself. Had high destruction skills as well.
Second character did not do any alchemy at all, preferring to buy potions. She did collect a s**t load of soul gems though and regularly went hunting with her Glass bow of malediction to fill them. Did a bit of smithing and enchanting but not all that interested.
Current character is collecting ingredients to start alchemy. Will be doing a bit more smiting, but not a whole heap, mainly at the dawnguard forge. No enchanting, but again collects a lot of soul gems.

All three of these characters have been stealth, high level archery, ranged attack characters.

I intend to make my next character a male warrior though so smithing will be a big thing, as well as enchanting for armour and weapons with magic resistance.