Skills (Skyrim)

For other uses, see Skills.

Skills represent the ability of characters to perform actions in the game. There are 18 skills in total and the development of each is tracked separately. Skill points are a measure of how proficient the Dragonborn (or any other character in the world) is at these skills. Increasing them not only improves the actions performed (e.g., more points in the One-Handed skill increase the damage done in attack actions using such weapons, and a higher Lockpicking skill makes the lockpicking minigame easier) but also grants access to perks that may be learned upon leveling up. Also, when a certain level is reached in some skills, guards and other NPCs will comment on it.

By class archetype

All 18 skills can be grouped into 3 distinct categories based on the three guardian signs (shown in order, 3 of them are located ambiguously between the signs):

Raising skill level

The level of a given skill is increased as the skill is used successfully - Archery is increased when an arrow hits its target; Destruction is increased when a spell causes damage to the target; Sneak increases when the Dragonborn remains undetected in Sneak mode while in range of NPCs who otherwise could detect them, etc. Conjuration increases a little bit each time the Dragonborn summons a Bound Weapon or creature, for example an Atronach. However, most skills must be used in combat in order to gain the increase.

Some skills, specifically Lockpicking, can increase when an attempt to pick a lock is unsuccessful (when a lockpick breaks). Crafting skills (Alchemy, Enchanting and Smithing), of course, increase mostly by crafting items.

When taken from an in-character context, the idea is that "practice makes the master." Each release of a bow, swing of a sword, spell cast successfully, lock picked, etc. makes the character more "skilled" (experienced). While the impact of learning is always more visible at the beginning (i.e., less experience is needed for a skill increase when your skill level is still low), difficult actions require experts or even masters to perform them.

Another way to raise a skill is picking up and reading skill books located in the game. This can be done once per book.

Skill experience points and character level up

Increasing skills is key to the character development. When the Dragonborn reaches a pre-specified value of skill increases, they level up. However, most of the opponents in the game are tied to the Dragonborn's experience level (in other words, they also level up when you do), therefore it is advisable to employ a bit of strategy (forward-thinking) when selecting which skills to improve.

The effort required to level up a given skill increases with the current level of that skill. Generally, using a more advanced feature of a skill, such as an adept spell, advances the skill more than a novice feature or spell.

Contrary to Oblivion, it is not possible to have very skilled low level characters. Every skill increase counts for the level-ups, and the increases of skills of already high level count even more.

Temporary skill increases

The use of potions, enchanted items and some active effects can temporarily increase the level of a skill, in the sense that the enhanced skill level is used when calculating the impact. Even though the enhancements are visible in the impact (e.g., a potion is better if created while the Alchemy skill is fortified), they are disregarded when the skill requirement for learning a new perk is checked (i.e., a base skill score of 30 is needed to learn Dwarven Smithing.

See Enchanting for further information on skill and ability bonuses provided by enchanted gear.

Learning perks

Perks are cornerstones of character development, enabling some new actions (e.g., crafting a type of armors and weapons such as Dwarven), providing significant boosts to some actions (e.g., +20% damage with a type of weapons) or negating restrictions or penalties (e.g., equipped armor is considered weightless). Of course, there are more perks to choose from than points available (at least until very high levels), so which perks to pick is also a question of strategy.

Leveling skills without perks

Perks are very useful but not necessary. One example is the Lockpicking skill tree, where all perks can be avoided - the lockpicking minigame is harder without them but it is still possible to open any lock that does not require a key. In general, tactical creativity, potions, smithing and enchantments can also greatly improve effectiveness, so it is not impossible to play with very few perks - or none at all.

Skill Trainers

Main article: Trainers (Skyrim)

As in previous Elder Scrolls titles, the Dragonborn can pay certain characters for training. Each training session provides a single level up for a particular skill and the Dragonborn can train at most five times per character level. Unlike Oblivion, master trainers in Skyrim cannot advance a Dragonborn's skills beyond level 90. The cost of training grows as the Dragonborn's current skill level increases.

Legendary Skills

Legendary skills is a mechanic introduced in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with patch 1.9. Prior to this patch, the maximum level of a character was 81 without console commands (cheats). The patch allows the player to reset one or more skills, thereby the character can gain additional skill increases leading to level ups and more points that can be spent on perks.

Once a skill has reached 100, it can be made "Legendary." This resets the skill back to level 15, and refunds any Perk points that were spent in that skill tree.^[1] The dragon symbol, commonly associated with the Imperial Legion, will be displayed under the skill's name, indicating that it has been made Legendary, and a number appears beside it to track how many times this has occurred.

Legendary skills level up normally, and have no added benefits compared with non-Legendary skills. When a Legendary skill is mastered, it can be made Legendary again. This effectively removes any level cap, since the player can continue to maximize then reset skills an infinite number of times. It also allows them to level using only a small number of skills, so they can level while ignoring unwanted skills or focus on easily leveled skills for faster level gain.

Pros

• Skills outside of the preferred playstyle no longer need to be leveled to continue increasing the overall level.
• The overall level cap is removed.
• Gives the option of a perk reset like the one found in The Elder Scrolls V: Dragonborn, though crude in execution.

Cons

• The skill reverts to novice, which can be challenging if choosing to make a core skill legendary and fighting higher level enemies. It is recommended to fight lower-level enemies and/or use the minimum difficulty level to get that skill back up, and have one of the other combat skills at a high level, as an alternative to swap to against tougher monsters.
• Starting racial modifier bonuses for skills (i.e. an Orc's 25 in the Heavy Armor skill, or a Breton's 20 in Alteration skill) will not be given (again). All skills made Legendary are reset to 15.
• Players introduced to the game without the patch are unable to reset their skills towards legendary status, rendering extended level "grinding" useless.
• Having seen a skill book is not reset, so seeing the same book after reversion to novice will not increase it again.

It is generally inadvisable to make core combat skills Legendary. For instance, a character whose primary means of attack is with bows will find themselves severely handicapped by making Archery legendary, although this can be mitigated by having the very best available weapons and armor (which of course were not available when the skill was originally low level), possibly including tempering and enchantments. One should also take into account the ease of leveling various skills.

Note that when levelling weapon skills (one handed, two handed and archery), the gain is based off the weapon's base damage only, not including tempering or enchantments. A heavily tempered weapon may kill enemies faster even if your skill is low level, but at the cost of actually raising the skill slower, or requiring you to find more enemies to actually fight: so if you decide to legendary a weapon skill, you may want to keep around (for example) something like an untempered, unenchanted Dragonbone version of that weapon, for use against weaker monsters. Armor (both light and heavy, and shields for blocking) is a different matter: the skill gain is based on the amount of base damage taken, before the armor reduces it, so highly tempered and enchanted gear is most beneficial. Also, you will have the benefit of being higher level, and having more health, and better-quality items, than you did when the armor skill was originally low, so fighting an enemy such as a giant or mammoth is not necessarily guaranteed to result in death with low-level legendary armor skills, but can be a practical way to re-level them.

As for crafting skills (smithing, alchemy and enchanting), the rate of leveling is based on the base gold value of the item being made. Thus, if you legendary these skills, using equipment and potions to fortify these skills speeds up the process of regaining them. Note that you still have to go far enough to re-unlock the perks; you do not get to keep them, and cannot, for instance, re-level smithing quickly by making ebony or dragonbone items at a low smithing level. Keep a lot of gold, silver and gems around instead, since these are universal. Speech also depends on the value of items bought and sold, and merchants have a cap on their wealth. They do not, however, lose investment they have previously received, nor their Master Trader bonus, if you make speech legendary; thus, you do not have to re-unlock the Investor and Master Trader perks, although you will need Investor (Speech 70) anyway to re-unlock Fence (Speech 90).

Pickpocketing and Lockpicking both have a practical limit. Any given lock only provides experience once when picked, not a second time after it resets. There are a finite number of locks, after which the only ways to raise lockpicking is to break lockpicks or use a trainer. Note that master trainers max at level 90. Meanwhile, inventories in picked pockets also do not reset, although Thieves Guild "The Fishing Job" radiant quests will slowly supply extra gems to be pickpocketed, and there is the option of pickpocketing trainers for gold after training. Sneak is unchanged when re-levelling after legendary, compared to leveling it the first time.

High-level spells can be cast at low levels, if you have the magicka, including the use of items which reduce the magicka cost of certain schools. This often provides a good way of quick-leveling a legendary magical skill once it has hit level 100 for the first time, especially if you make a full set of enchanted gear for training that skill.

Maximum level

In order to gain all 251 perks available, a skill must be made Legendary a total of 146 times, or between 8–9 times for each skill, if starting at level 81. While there is no maximum level cap, reaching level 252 is sufficient to gain all perks. The math used to reach this answer can be seen below:

Note: DLC not accounted for

• Experience points for maxing out a skill, beginning at skill level 15: 16 + 17 + 18 + 19 + ... + 99 + 100 = 4 930
• Experience points needed to get to level 252: 12.5 * 2 522 + 62.5 * 252-75 = 809 475
• Experience points needed to max out all skills for the first time (Race bonuses included): 4 930 * 18 - 655 = 88085
• Experience points needed after all first skill trees maxed out: 809 475 - 88 085 = 721390
• Times a skill need to be made legendary to unlock all perks: 721390 / 4930 = 146.326572008
• 146.326572008 can be rounded down to 146, because the fractions essentially mean that the Dragonborn will reach level 252 when the last skill necessary to reach this point is around level 42.

Hold Guard quotes

If these following skills are at a certain level, Hold Guards will respond accordingly:

Bugs

•  PC   360   PS3   The Ranger perk may still be active after making Archery Legendary.
•  PC   XB1   PS4   When any skill becomes too high, a negative value may be displayed.

See also

• Perks

Appearances

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

References