Necromage exploit is so good it breaks the entire game

[DragonbornVet]

I just realized on my current playthrough that if you become a vampire and then do the Necromage quest, that perk stacks with literally everything. I'm level 22 with a basic destruction build and I'm one-shotting dragons. This can't be intentional.

Like, I knew the perk existed but I never actually sat down and did the math on how much damage it adds when you're casting spells on undead while being undead yourself. Combined with the right perks in the destruction tree it's absolutely ridiculous. I turned off Legendary difficulty because it stopped mattering.

Has anyone else noticed this or am I just now discovering something everyone's known about for 15 years? Because if this is common knowledge I feel like a complete idiot lol.

 

[EbonyWarrior]

Yeah that's been a known thing for ages, but honestly you're not an idiot - most casual players never stumble onto it because you have to actually commit to the vampire route and then finish that specific quest, which a lot of people don't do. It's one of those weird balance oversights that Bethesda never patched out.

The stacking is wild though. You get the 25% boost to all magic damage while undead, then Necromage adds another 25% on top of that specifically against undead enemies, and since you count as undead it applies to yourself too. Throw in Augmented Frost or whatever destruction perks you're running and yeah, one-shotting at level 22 tracks. I've seen people push it even further with the right gear enchantments.

Tbh if you're finding it too trivial now you could always just not use destruction spells against undead for the rest of the playthrough, or bump the difficulty back up. Some people embrace the jank and lean into it as a fun power fantasy moment. Others restart because they feel like they've broken their own game. Both are valid - depends what you want from the run.