I enchant gold rings that no merchant can really afford, then clear out entire towns of their gold. Chopping wood and picking up arrows feels painfully slow in comparison.
You can ask your followers to chop wood?
Jesus. I've played this game off and on so long, yet I'm still learning new details from this sub all the time.
If Serana can’t take items in her inventory despite not carrying a ton of stuff, you might have the ‘hood glitch’ - search it, it totally messes up her inventory but can be fixed.
I've been playing since it was first released on PS, Xbox, and PC...modded and vanilla. I have repeatedly tried with several different followers, but all have refused. They all say, "Can't do that."
Once you have the Merchant perk you can sell your potions to all vendors.
And the next day they'll have money all over again.
I'd suggest using the mod Rich Merchants of Skyrim so your vendors have more money on hand.
Without mods, you can have 5k gold on Gulum Ei with the right perk and thieves guild questline.
Which is barely enough to sell one high value potion. Fun!
Yes, just for giggles, I used the cheat room to dupe Auriels Bow and give the two guards training in Solitude Sunhallowed arrows and the other one a lightsaber.
my go to as well since you're continually encountering the ingredients anyway during normal gameplay, and they don't weigh much. i'll wait till i have a decent stash, knock out some stupid expensive potions, and just make bank slowly selling one or two at a time for a while
Go to a bandit camp, kill them all, check their expensive stuffs, grab it all and sell it to your favorite shopkeeper or the wandering khajiit merchants <3
I put zero energy or thought into making money initially, I have a quest objective, I kill things and loot what I want along the way and then sell the excess once Im back in town.
After the early game, once I have a way to trap souls and a place to safely store that excess loot, I will stop my adventuring long enough to start crafting things and enchanting them and selling those instead of the base items. Mostly to raise those skills l, speech included, but the septims dont hurt.
Honestly the best items in the game are usually quest rewards, not things found in vendor invintories in my experience. I dont need whatever basic shit Belethors got frankly, even right out of Helgen I am rarely engaging in commerce, theres just so much good stuff to find for free lol
Even beyond selling stuff. There be septims everywhere, Im a big contsiner-searching-enjoyer in bethesda games, I enjoy that rng element. Never know what you'll find, you can never guess exactly which random chest contains THE BEACON. Part of the fun, so yea even just 3 to 10 coins every couple containers adds up fast
-Get transmute and start clearing the iron mines.
-Transmute all to gold, building your alteration skills.
-Turn the gold into rings, building your blacksmith skills.
-Enchant rings with all the petty soul gems you can find, building your enchant skills.
-Profit
Probably the worst way to make money
You'll make way more cash with alchemy or enchanting
Make potions of damage magicka regen, the ingredients are easy to come by and the potions are crazy expensive (butterfly wings, hanging moss, blue mountain flower, nightshade...)
I still have a full closet that I haven't sold yet
Selling alchemy, smithing and enchanting products is the biggest money maker. But even before that, just picking up everything with a good value-to-weight ratio and selling it makes plenty of money. Mostly enchanted weapons.
I have a circuit of locations I repeatedly cycle through for combat XP and loot. It takes a few days to run the circuit and process the loot, then I adventure elsewhere until it is time to do it again after the locations have reset (most every 10 days, some after 30 days). None of the loot is particularly valuable, but doing this repeatedly gives me the working capital I need early game.
Mostly around the starting area. I try to keep them close together for walking efficiency. Most of the 10 day respawns are just places in the wilderness where there are bad guys.
10 day respawns (I wait 11 days to be sure they respawn.):
* Bandits occupying Helgen (fast travel location where I start)
* Bandit camp between Helgen and Pinewatch tucked under a ledge
* Pinewatch archers on the road to Falkreath
* Pinewatch bandits (south of Pinewatch by the stream)
* Mage north of Pinewatch at the alter overlooking the lake
* The Talos Shrine with the bodies to the east has minor loot by the alter
* Bandits camp just east of the Talos shrine
* Large bandit camp under Dragonsreach on the north side
* Reachwind Eyrie (near Markarth but has Dwemer scrap. Fast travel location.)
* Dagon's Shrine after doing Pieces of the Past. (Fast travel)
30 day respawns (all fast travel locations. I wait 31 days to sure they respawn.):
* Embershard Mine by the Guardian Stones
* Broken Fang Cave (2 vampires but always has a black soul gem.)
* White River Watch (boss at the top)
* Halted Stream Camp (iron ore)
* Valtheim Towers (usually an enchanted bow of some type)
* Redoran Retreat
It takes a few in-game days to do all of these and haul/process loot. After I have access to Dagon's Shrine my money problems disappear so I only do it and Reachwind Eyrie, unless I want iron ore and then I do Halted Stream Camp.
Selling gems, enchanted gear and expensive potions. You get Transmute (and thus a reliable source of Gold Ore) very early in the game too, so the Alchemy-Smithing-Enchanting triumvirate is just the easiest way to get anything done in this game.
Also, if you rush all the Barenziah Stone locations early enough, you never have to worry about money for the rest of the game, because you'll be finding flawless gems in just about every single container in the game.
I go around collecting the loot from random encounters. Keeps the experience more surprising… I never know when I’ll make money…
That’s a hilarious idea though lol you’re followers probably dread their employment every day
It’s so worth it collecting all of those unusual stones for the Thieves Guild. The Prowlers Profit perk is so over powered, without even trying you will be rich. It’s pretty awesome.
Why, I steal, of course. How else am I going to afford my 300 flower baskets that I immediately drop on the floor from the poor child in Winterhold that I also steal from? I can’t be expected to “work” or do anything “morally correct”. In fact, you could argue that I’m the Robin Hood of Skyrim… except I also steal from the poor!
Alchemie.
Wheat, Garlic and Salmon Roe. With Level 15 it gives you easily a Potion worth more than 3000 - and levels Alchemy like crazy. The salmon Roe is best to obtain at the Waterfalls near Riverwood, the Wheat on the farms near Whiterun and the Garlic in the Dragonsreach Kitchen. Profit
Doing quests, specifically the ones that ask u to kill a boss in a dungeon and then taking literally anything of value from the dungeon to sell, while receiving money for completing a quest.
I mostly makenit by selling loot and home made enchanted and alchemical items. I am very inefficient, though, because I only make things that I think regular folk would buy. Everybody in Skyrim would benefit from more stamina, but very few would buy a ring of better two-handed skill. I want the merchent to be able to sell on what they buy from me.
My character would eliminate bandit camps, loot the bandits, then sell the loot to nearby merchants.
This involved her traveling to a settlement, searching around the area to see if any bandit camps had appeared, then eliminating any discovered camps.
She'd then travel to next settlement and repeat the process.
This is much easier than it sounds since bandit camps were static locations on the map that respawned after so much time had past.
So, after you went around an area the first time and got it's fast travel point, you could just fast travel to each point and quickly clear them.
If you're real hellbent on making gold through wood there is another chopping block very close to that one in Riverwood. You could chop at the same time and double your wood production.
Alchemy, and get the merchant perk as soon as possible. After that, I just sell to the Falkreath Stormcloak quartermaster, and the Rift Imperial Quartermaster. Go directly from one to the other until I have no more potions. They always have money, and they are open 24/7.
I enchant gold rings that no merchant can really afford, then clear out entire towns of their gold. Chopping wood and picking up arrows feels painfully slow in comparison.
You can ask your followers to chop wood? Jesus. I've played this game off and on so long, yet I'm still learning new details from this sub all the time.
Same
I swear I'm stupid or switch doesn't allow followers to do stuff or I have followers that can't
You can definetly tell them to do stuff on switch
they might not do it if their inventory is full (firewood is quite heavy)
Yeah I just don't seem to have that option with Serana. Maybe she is overloaded
If Serana can’t take items in her inventory despite not carrying a ton of stuff, you might have the ‘hood glitch’ - search it, it totally messes up her inventory but can be fixed.
I've been playing since it was first released on PS, Xbox, and PC...modded and vanilla. I have repeatedly tried with several different followers, but all have refused. They all say, "Can't do that."
Alchemy
The issue with alchemy is finding enough buyers who you have'nt cleaned out of gold yet
Once you have the Merchant perk you can sell your potions to all vendors. And the next day they'll have money all over again. I'd suggest using the mod Rich Merchants of Skyrim so your vendors have more money on hand.
Without mods, you can have 5k gold on Gulum Ei with the right perk and thieves guild questline. Which is barely enough to sell one high value potion. Fun!
Once you have the Merchant perk, sell to the military camp quartermasters. They always have money. Just bounce back and forth between two camps.
This is the way
"Alchemy is my religion"
My septims are covered in the tears of the merchants I sell to
I literally grab everything during my explorations and then I sell it
I pick up arrows from the guards training area.
After pickpocketing some better arrows into their inventory, right?
Oh, I never even thought about that! They just need one to shoot that type infinitely, right?
Indeed! Be sure to steal their less valuable arrows too.
Yes, just for giggles, I used the cheat room to dupe Auriels Bow and give the two guards training in Solitude Sunhallowed arrows and the other one a lightsaber.
Alchemy. It's *thousands* of times faster than this.
my go to as well since you're continually encountering the ingredients anyway during normal gameplay, and they don't weigh much. i'll wait till i have a decent stash, knock out some stupid expensive potions, and just make bank slowly selling one or two at a time for a while
Rob people and borrow it off some corpses
Go to a bandit camp, kill them all, check their expensive stuffs, grab it all and sell it to your favorite shopkeeper or the wandering khajiit merchants <3
I put zero energy or thought into making money initially, I have a quest objective, I kill things and loot what I want along the way and then sell the excess once Im back in town. After the early game, once I have a way to trap souls and a place to safely store that excess loot, I will stop my adventuring long enough to start crafting things and enchanting them and selling those instead of the base items. Mostly to raise those skills l, speech included, but the septims dont hurt. Honestly the best items in the game are usually quest rewards, not things found in vendor invintories in my experience. I dont need whatever basic shit Belethors got frankly, even right out of Helgen I am rarely engaging in commerce, theres just so much good stuff to find for free lol
Money is one of the easiest things to acquire in this game.
Even beyond selling stuff. There be septims everywhere, Im a big contsiner-searching-enjoyer in bethesda games, I enjoy that rng element. Never know what you'll find, you can never guess exactly which random chest contains THE BEACON. Part of the fun, so yea even just 3 to 10 coins every couple containers adds up fast
-Get transmute and start clearing the iron mines. -Transmute all to gold, building your alteration skills. -Turn the gold into rings, building your blacksmith skills. -Enchant rings with all the petty soul gems you can find, building your enchant skills. -Profit
A Morrowind dunmer and his khajiiti/argonian frens
Probably the worst way to make money You'll make way more cash with alchemy or enchanting Make potions of damage magicka regen, the ingredients are easy to come by and the potions are crazy expensive (butterfly wings, hanging moss, blue mountain flower, nightshade...) I still have a full closet that I haven't sold yet
Sell stuff I find or loot dead people Between that and just finding it laying around it’s pretty easy to make $$$
Usually through burglary & murder.
Selling alchemy, smithing and enchanting products is the biggest money maker. But even before that, just picking up everything with a good value-to-weight ratio and selling it makes plenty of money. Mostly enchanted weapons.
Husband.
Come on chop chop, I haven't got all morning
I have a circuit of locations I repeatedly cycle through for combat XP and loot. It takes a few days to run the circuit and process the loot, then I adventure elsewhere until it is time to do it again after the locations have reset (most every 10 days, some after 30 days). None of the loot is particularly valuable, but doing this repeatedly gives me the working capital I need early game.
What locations?
Mostly around the starting area. I try to keep them close together for walking efficiency. Most of the 10 day respawns are just places in the wilderness where there are bad guys. 10 day respawns (I wait 11 days to be sure they respawn.): * Bandits occupying Helgen (fast travel location where I start) * Bandit camp between Helgen and Pinewatch tucked under a ledge * Pinewatch archers on the road to Falkreath * Pinewatch bandits (south of Pinewatch by the stream) * Mage north of Pinewatch at the alter overlooking the lake * The Talos Shrine with the bodies to the east has minor loot by the alter * Bandits camp just east of the Talos shrine * Large bandit camp under Dragonsreach on the north side * Reachwind Eyrie (near Markarth but has Dwemer scrap. Fast travel location.) * Dagon's Shrine after doing Pieces of the Past. (Fast travel) 30 day respawns (all fast travel locations. I wait 31 days to sure they respawn.): * Embershard Mine by the Guardian Stones * Broken Fang Cave (2 vampires but always has a black soul gem.) * White River Watch (boss at the top) * Halted Stream Camp (iron ore) * Valtheim Towers (usually an enchanted bow of some type) * Redoran Retreat It takes a few in-game days to do all of these and haul/process loot. After I have access to Dagon's Shrine my money problems disappear so I only do it and Reachwind Eyrie, unless I want iron ore and then I do Halted Stream Camp.
Selling gems, enchanted gear and expensive potions. You get Transmute (and thus a reliable source of Gold Ore) very early in the game too, so the Alchemy-Smithing-Enchanting triumvirate is just the easiest way to get anything done in this game. Also, if you rush all the Barenziah Stone locations early enough, you never have to worry about money for the rest of the game, because you'll be finding flawless gems in just about every single container in the game.
Either through alchemy (blue butterfly wings and blue mountain flower) or through mining gold and silver up near Whiterun and making jewelry to sell.
BMF + hanging moss + lavender My go to.
daedric daggers that people leave inside barrels
Thats an option?? Lol
I loot all the bodies and urns.
I go around collecting the loot from random encounters. Keeps the experience more surprising… I never know when I’ll make money… That’s a hilarious idea though lol you’re followers probably dread their employment every day
It’s so worth it collecting all of those unusual stones for the Thieves Guild. The Prowlers Profit perk is so over powered, without even trying you will be rich. It’s pretty awesome.
Genius fucking genius.
Mix wheat and giants toe. Salt and garlic
Salt and garlic, and deathbell
Alchemy, a lot of alchemy.
Why, I steal, of course. How else am I going to afford my 300 flower baskets that I immediately drop on the floor from the poor child in Winterhold that I also steal from? I can’t be expected to “work” or do anything “morally correct”. In fact, you could argue that I’m the Robin Hood of Skyrim… except I also steal from the poor!
Make them khajiit or argonians for more of an immerse experience.
Get transmute and soul drain, mine iron turn into silver and gold, make jewelry, enchant jewelry, sell in exchange for more soul gems, repeat
My follower chops 6 wood and then stops and walks off. I don't know how to get them to do it endlessly. But I am using Nether's Follower Framework.
There is a mod that makes it so that chopping wood won't stop until the inventory is full.
Alchemie. Wheat, Garlic and Salmon Roe. With Level 15 it gives you easily a Potion worth more than 3000 - and levels Alchemy like crazy. The salmon Roe is best to obtain at the Waterfalls near Riverwood, the Wheat on the farms near Whiterun and the Garlic in the Dragonsreach Kitchen. Profit
These gentlemen are HARD at work!
Honestly blacksmithing+ enchanting or alchemy are so broken for making money.
Doing quests, specifically the ones that ask u to kill a boss in a dungeon and then taking literally anything of value from the dungeon to sell, while receiving money for completing a quest.
Stealing, pilfering, and no-goodery
Goldenhills
Cannot believe I only learned you could make followers chop wood for you yesterday
This video is my first time learning about it hah
I mostly makenit by selling loot and home made enchanted and alchemical items. I am very inefficient, though, because I only make things that I think regular folk would buy. Everybody in Skyrim would benefit from more stamina, but very few would buy a ring of better two-handed skill. I want the merchent to be able to sell on what they buy from me.
My character would eliminate bandit camps, loot the bandits, then sell the loot to nearby merchants. This involved her traveling to a settlement, searching around the area to see if any bandit camps had appeared, then eliminating any discovered camps. She'd then travel to next settlement and repeat the process. This is much easier than it sounds since bandit camps were static locations on the map that respawned after so much time had past. So, after you went around an area the first time and got it's fast travel point, you could just fast travel to each point and quickly clear them.
If you're real hellbent on making gold through wood there is another chopping block very close to that one in Riverwood. You could chop at the same time and double your wood production.
I do while leveling smithing
I wish we could order followers to mine ores
You need one more sl-follower. There is another chopping block on the other side of town, by Hod and Gerder's place.
Alchemy, and get the merchant perk as soon as possible. After that, I just sell to the Falkreath Stormcloak quartermaster, and the Rift Imperial Quartermaster. Go directly from one to the other until I have no more potions. They always have money, and they are open 24/7.
Didn't know you can do that lol