I'm Rich!! Rich!!!

[Hacksaw]

I finally built up alchemy on one of my characters. All the potions I can make are incredibly useful, but I've been avoiding it because I always found it tedious to work on the skill.

But when I really got into it, I found it wasn't so bad after all. I didn't want to buy the experimenter perks, so I did a google search for "Skyrim Ingredients" and found a link to a master list of ingredients as well as properties.

The effort of discovering all the properties took a couple hours and brought my skill from 20 to around 45. And the surplus of potions I had on hand made me a fortune. Then I just did the rounds at every alchemy shop, fast traveling to all the cities and then stopping at home to make potions. The profit from selling potions was many times the cost of buying ingredients, and just by maxing out my skill I was loaded with almost 200k gold.

So I've confirmed that alchemy is the best moneymaker in Skyrim, such that its puts all other methods to shame. But it isn't quick and easy to start. When I began buying ingredients, I had about 5000 gold and all the mercantile-related speech perks.

Looking back, the extra speech perks were a bit overboard, but I would definitely want to have 100 speech (takes a half-hour in Riften) and five perks -- just enough to get the merchant perk. That and a couple thousand gold would be enough to clean out a few alchemy shops and start in earnest. All of which is still doable in the early game.

 

[DarkEastwood]

Do you commonly use exploits? Getting a skill up naturally is fun, unlike tedious speech exploits. Also, alchemy is a blast if you still have the mystery of ingredient effects. It feels like your actually progressing.

That aside, I find enchanting to be a good money maker too.

 

[Hacksaw]

I used to make money by building blacksmithing and enchanting concurrently (I bought filled gems up to common size). But alchemy blew that away once I actually tried it.

I don't use many exploits, unless you count a rubber band around my controller. As I type this, my thief character is being beaten by five bandits while channeling healing in both hands. His armor is enchanted to bring restoration down to zero casting cost. By the time I finish watching a movie tonight, he should be at 100 restoration.

When its all said and done, I don't think there's a retardedly easy, fast way to make money in Skyrim. But alchemy is king after you build up some starting cash.

 

[DarkEastwood]

Just curious; what fun do you find in exploiting and power leveling?

 

[Hacksaw]

I get fun out the game by building a "perfect" character -- maxxed out in every way. While I love my roleplaying games, they're meant for socializing with other people. At home in front of my xbox, I pore over stats and item values.

 

[DarkEastwood]

But doesn't that destroy replay value, and character immersion? Once you reach that max, then I suppose you're done? And even then, it's not like sitting there holding your triggers down for an hour can be that fun.

 

[Thallik the Orc]

I always find it fun to smith a set of armor with my bare hands then sell it for ten times what I spent on it for supplies.

 

[TheDovahkiin]

What do I do to make money? I take other peoples things and using the Fencing perk, I sell them. The HONEST way I make money though? Kill dragons and sell the bones and scales.