Playing an Adventurer Blacksmith?

  • Welcome to Skyrim Forums! Register now to participate using the 'Sign Up' button on the right. You may now register with your Facebook or Steam account!

sticky runes

Well-Known Member
Warning: Long post

I'm wondering if any of you guys have had a go at playing a character who focuses a lot on smithing.

With my current character, I wanted to unlock the arcane smith perk as soon as possible so I could temper enchanted items.

Smithing is very time consuming and expensive compared to alchemy, as the materials are more expansive than ingredients, different types of ore are harder to discover in the wild than flowers and mushrooms, and the items required for smithing are heavier than alchemy ingredients, so that means a lot of running back and forth to keep space in your inventory or else slogging along while being encumbered. And it also seems than selling your weapons and armour is not as profitable as selling potions.

Any way, I've found a method that works for me. What I tend to do is clear out a dungeon or bandit lair and strip off all the bodies of slain enemies. This is so I can use their weapons and armour at the nearest grinding stone and workbench. Obviously, carrying all those heavy items is going to over-encumber me, so I will drop the excess items on the floor and come back for them later after I've made space in my inventory.

The enemy bodies will disappear after a while, along with any items they had on them when they died. But loot that I have taken from them and dropped on the floor will remain there forever, so I can come back and pick it up, take it to the nearest town, temper the items and sell them to a blacksmith to make space and a bit of money, then go back until I've taken every weapon and piece of armor from the dungeon or bandit lair, before moving on to the next quest. I also take a follower with me, so he or she can carry extra items for me.

This is a tedious and time consuming process, but it does let me feel that I am focusing my character's career on his smithing skills, rather than just clearing one dungeon and moving on to the next quest.

As for choosing which smithing perks to unlock, I'd say make this decision based on what sort of quest you choose next. My character did the quest Missing in Action quite early, which required me to kill all the Thalmor in Northwatch Keep. This meant I had access to a lot of elven armour, so of course I chose the elven smithing perk rather than the dwarven smithing perk (I haven't done any dwemer dungeons yet, but if you choose to do Dwemer dungeons early, then it would make sense to unlock Dwarven smithing)

Or if you're playing as an orc, you would likely want to unlock orc smithing, and access orichalcum ore in one of the orc strongholds.

Any way, revisiting dungeons to horde items for smithing has become my new thing to do in Skyrim. It has meant taking up fast travel again (some people find fast travel off-putting for their role play) but when it comes to going back and forth between towns and dungeons I've already cleared, then I would rather not have to make that journey on foot every time!

Just thought I'd share this with you all and see if any of you have done anything similar.
 

JoeReese

Well-Known Member
Ah, the good old days, before portable containers...
 
Nchuand-zel provides enough Dwemer items to smelt hundreds of ingots each visit (go with a follower and wear Carry enchanted items) It respawns quickly, so will get your Smithing up very easily.
 

DrunkenMage

Intoxicated Arch-Mage
I once focused on a character who was entirely crafting focused. Only perked smithing, enchanting, alchemy & speech.

Was interesting for awhile, creating godly artifacts and giving them to people by dropping them and people come up and ask if they can have it... (Or sometimes they knife each other over it and I quickly walk away) from what I can remember it was a build I had read about.
 
I'm playing that right now. I do love a good role playing character. What my person is doing now is focusing on smithing and alchemy. I am not picking up potions in the dungeons, but either purchasing or creating them. My character will not do enchanting, but will Smith or upgrade and magic weapons he finds. It is interesting at this point. I haven't done the dropping and going back thing. I think I may try that. It's a good idea!

Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk
 
Warning: Long post

I'm wondering if any of you guys have had a go at playing a character who focuses a lot on smithing.

With my current character, I wanted to unlock the arcane smith perk as soon as possible so I could temper enchanted items.

Smithing is very time consuming and expensive compared to alchemy, as the materials are more expansive than ingredients, different types of ore are harder to discover in the wild than flowers and mushrooms, and the items required for smithing are heavier than alchemy ingredients, so that means a lot of running back and forth to keep space in your inventory or else slogging along while being encumbered. And it also seems than selling your weapons and armour is not as profitable as selling potions.

Any way, I've found a method that works for me. What I tend to do is clear out a dungeon or bandit lair and strip off all the bodies of slain enemies. This is so I can use their weapons and armour at the nearest grinding stone and workbench. Obviously, carrying all those heavy items is going to over-encumber me, so I will drop the excess items on the floor and come back for them later after I've made space in my inventory.

The enemy bodies will disappear after a while, along with any items they had on them when they died. But loot that I have taken from them and dropped on the floor will remain there forever, so I can come back and pick it up, take it to the nearest town, temper the items and sell them to a blacksmith to make space and a bit of money, then go back until I've taken every weapon and piece of armor from the dungeon or bandit lair, before moving on to the next quest. I also take a follower with me, so he or she can carry extra items for me.

This is a tedious and time consuming process, but it does let me feel that I am focusing my character's career on his smithing skills, rather than just clearing one dungeon and moving on to the next quest.

As for choosing which smithing perks to unlock, I'd say make this decision based on what sort of quest you choose next. My character did the quest Missing in Action quite early, which required me to kill all the Thalmor in Northwatch Keep. This meant I had access to a lot of elven armour, so of course I chose the elven smithing perk rather than the dwarven smithing perk (I haven't done any dwemer dungeons yet, but if you choose to do Dwemer dungeons early, then it would make sense to unlock Dwarven smithing)

Or if you're playing as an orc, you would likely want to unlock orc smithing, and access orichalcum ore in one of the orc strongholds.

Any way, revisiting dungeons to horde items for smithing has become my new thing to do in Skyrim. It has meant taking up fast travel again (some people find fast travel off-putting for their role play) but when it comes to going back and forth between towns and dungeons I've already cleared, then I would rather not have to make that journey on foot every time!

Just thought I'd share this with you all and see if any of you have done anything similar.
First of all, I always save up enough gold to buy Breezehome in whiterun at the start of the game. It is the cheapest house at only 5000 septims. 6800 including all the upgrades. Any items you store in any containers of your owned houses will never disappear. This alone will solve the problem of your character being encumbered with too much weight.
I max out the alchemy skill first, and select all its perks, since the biggest profit is made by maxing it out. As I am doing all the buying and selling to max it out, respectively, the speech skill also increases, and when my speech gets up to 50, I get the first rank of haggle, the allure perk, and the merchant perk so I can buy and sell any type of item to any type of merchant. As soon as this is done, and I start making a substantial profit at alchemy, I will start buying grand soul gems for the end result enchantments of my gear, as well as lots of petty, lesser, and common soul gems ahead of time to have them on hand to max out the enchanting skill (about 250 will be needed to max out the enchanting skill). I also buy the materials for and create leather bracers to use to max out the enchanting skill (again, about 250 will be needed). When I run out of carry weight, as stated above, I just stash the items in any container in Breezehome. When both alchemy and enchanting are maxed out with all their perks selected, I will start with enchanting a helmet, gauntlets, a ring, and a necklace, each with 25 percent fortify alchemy enchantment. I wear this gear, which will allow me to create a 30 percent enchanting potion. You will need to create at least 2 or more, depending on how quick you are with selecting enchantments. Drink these potions, and this will allow you to enchant a helmet, gauntlets, ring, and necklace with 28 percent fortify alchemy. Wear this gear, and again, create a few 32 percent fortify enchanting potions. You can wear a falmer helmet and a circlet at the same time, so for the last step, drink the 32 percent enchanting potions, which will allow you to create gauntlets, a ring, and a necklace, with 29 percent fortify alchemy and smithing, a circlet and falmer helmet at 29 percent fortify alchemy, and armor with 29 percent fortify smithing. Wear this gear, which will allow you to create 37 percent fortify enchanting potions, and 147 percent fortify smithing potions. As far as I know, this is the cap as far as how high the fortify smithing and enchanting potions can be jacked up to. If you improve any equipment at a blacksmith, wear the necklace, armor, gauntlets, and ring, and drink your created fortify smithing potion beforehand, which will allow you to create some very badass equipment as the end result. When I was finished doing this with a daedric greatsword on one of my previous characters, it alone had a value of 15000 septims.
 

Latest posts

Top