Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Starter Crafting Guide

There are 3 main crafting skills in Skyrim all of which have their own benefits and purpose, this Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Crafting Guide will give you the basic information you need to get your crafting up and running. Feel free to leave any advice in comment and I’ll add it to the thread and credit your name.

The 3 main crafting skills are Alchemy, Smithing and Enchanting. To begin with you will want to focus on your Alchemy as it is one of the cheapest to level up and offers some of the largest returns. If you following our Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Character Creation Guide you would have gathered plenty of ingredients at the start, if you haven’t take a quick look at it and it will show a few places where you can get some ingredients. Collect as many as you can, buy all ingredients worth under 10g each at the start then simply head to an Alchemy station and begin making your potions. The more potions you make, the more ingredient uses you’ll discover, allowing you to make potions on purpose instead of fluke. Make sure to sell all your potions as it’s enough to buy your horse and house within an hour or two of playing.

Smithing is the main focus of crafting, using it you can create and improve weapons and armor, using many different materials. If you followed our character creation guide you would have found a quest at Halted Stream Camp, the dungeon here as 5-6 Iron Nodes and some other ore. It respawns at a reliable rate so just rest outside if you want to collect a lot of it. The other materials are found naturally when exploring, make sure to collect all animal hides you can find and never pass up collecting gems as making jewelery is big money.

Enchanting is pretty basic, all you need to do is find Enchanted items and then deconstruct them to learn the Enchant for yourself. You’re rewarded a lot of Enchanted items on your travels so it’s not very difficult to collect a few types at the start. Everything you need to being your crafting can be found in Whiterun so make sure you just hoard materials until then.

That’s it for the beginners crafting guide, check back soon for a more in-depth look at each craft and how to maximize the benefits.

Check out our Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Walkthrough Guide for all our guides, including Housing, Trainers, Horses, and Treasure Maps. We’ve also got a Tips and Tricks article that tells you how to get Free Skill Training, how to get rare artifacts and more!

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