Mechanics

Skyrim tracks progress through 18 skills rather than a class, and every system on our 40 mechanics pages either feeds one of those skills or spends what they produce. This guide sorts the whole bucket that way: the skill each page levels, the fastest route our pages found to 100, and the perk budget that decides how much of a tree you can actually own. It is the systems half of our Skyrim wiki; the gear half lives in the armor, weapons and items guides linked along the way.

The leveling page groups the 18 into three families: six mage skills (Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Enchanting, Illusion and Restoration), six warrior skills (Archery, Block, Heavy Armor, One-Handed, Smithing and Two-Handed) and six thief skills (Alchemy, Light Armor, Lockpicking, Pickpocket, Sneak and Speech). Every skill starts at 15 according to the skill tree page, a race adds 10 to one skill and 5 to five more, and using a skill is the only thing that raises it.

The budget every build spends

Two habits follow from that table. Trainers charge more once a skill passes 50, so the Alteration leveling page suggests saving the five paid sessions per level for the skills you cannot grind, and every leveling page repeats the same advice about books: a book adds one level whether you read it at 10 or at 95, so hold them for the 90s, where each level costs the most. The skill trainers page in our characters bucket lists every trainer by town.

Mage skills

The magic page lays out the five schools and their spell tiers, Novice at skill 0 through Apprentice at 25, Adept at 50, Expert at 75 and Master at 100, and closes with the trick that makes any school free to grind: four pieces enchanted with a 25 percent cost reduction for one school, which needs Enchanter, Corpus Enchanter and Insightful Enchanter first. The Alteration route on the table is the Telekinesis glitch, which the Alteration page says was never patched, with the spell tome sitting beside a body in the Redwater Den cell you wake up in after the skooma sample. Its companion is the Mage Armor perk page, which prices the flesh spells at 40, 60, 80 and 100 armor for Oakflesh through Ebonyflesh, Dragonhide at 80 percent physical damage ignored, and Ebonyflesh at 300 armor once all three Mage Armor ranks are taken.

The Conjuration leveling page adds the Mage Stone's 20 percent to its Soul Trap grind, and the Destruction leveling page pairs its Unbounded Storm glitch with a warning to lower the difficulty for the mages and skeletons on the way into Hob's Fall Cave. Our standalone Destruction spells ranking is where the spells themselves are costed, from Flames at 14 magicka a second to Fire Storm at 846. The Restoration leveling page unlocks Equilibrium in Labyrinthian during The Staff of Magnus, and the combat page uses the same pairing as a magicka refill, converting 25 health a second while Fast Healing pays it back, which needs Restoration at 25 or better.

Enchanting spreads across four pages. The enchanting page covers the Arcane Enchanter, soul gem sizes from Petty to Grand with human souls needing black gems, and the perk ladder from five Enchanter ranks to Extra Effect at 100, which puts two enchantments on one item; it also notes that the Black Star and Azura's Star survive being used. The armor enchantments ranking puts Fortify Healing Rate first of twenty, the weapon enchantments page singles out Fiery Soul Trap as the one enchantment that does two jobs, and the restoration loop page shows how Fortify Alchemy gear and Fortify Restoration potions feed each other, with a Ring of Pure Mixtures from Frida's Dungeon Delving quest as the surest Fortify Alchemy source and a hard stop after seven or eight cycles before the numbers break the game.

Warrior skills

Heavy Armor is the one warrior skill with a dedicated grind. The Heavy Armor leveling page starts at character creation, where an Orc begins 10 higher and an Imperial 5, then sends you to Farkas after the Companions questline so that the gold you pay him for each five-level block can be taken straight back from his follower inventory. The heavy versus light comparison is the page to read before committing perks, since the skill tree's Conditioning perk at 70 is what stops heavy armor counting against carry weight.

Smithing owns the most pages of any skill. The Smithing leveling page supplies the ring grind and the four small quests that raise the skill on completion, which the Smithing page names: Rjorn's Drum for Giraud Gemane at the Bards College, Queen Freydis' Sword for Oengul War-Anvil in Windhelm, Night Falls on Sentinel for Rustleif in Dawnstar and The Last Scabbard of Akrash for Ghorza gra-Bagol in Markarth. The same page lists the forge, grindstone, workbench, tanning rack and smelter and the blacksmiths in Riverwood, Markarth, Whiterun, Windhelm and Riften, while the crafting page sets Smithing beside Alchemy and Enchanting as the three crafting skills and walks a first Iron Helmet through three ingots and two strips.

Raw material has its own pages. The mining page lists veins by ore, corundum through silver, and notes that a vein refills seven days after you empty it. The dragon bones page tells you to sell early, because Dragonplate and Dragonscale both wait for Smithing 100, and prints every dragon recipe. The Dragonborn crafting page gates Stalhrim behind Ebony Smithing and two quests, Nordic behind Advanced Armors and Bonemold behind Steel Smithing, and the Stalhrim page names those quests: An Axe to Find, where Crescius Caerellius hands over the Ancient Nordic Pickaxe for Glover Mallory, and A New Source of Stalhrim, which starts with Deor Woodcutter in Skaal Village and ends with Ancarion's map at Northshore Landing. White Ridge Barrow carries ten deposits, the richest spot on the page. What each perk on the Smithing ladder unlocks is the whole subject of our armor guide, with the blades covered in the weapons guide.

Thief skills

Alchemy is the thief skill with real depth on our pages. The Alchemy leveling page ranks its perks, Purity at the top for stripping negative effects and five Alchemist ranks running to twice-strength potions, and adds a pickpocket trick for recovering a trainer's fee with a save beforehand. The potion recipes page explains that every ingredient has to be tasted once before the alchemy table lists what it can make, and carries the recipe table from a Blue Mountain Flower and Wheat healing potion to the Giant's Toe, Bear Claws and Hanging Moss brew it recommends for quick money. The cooking page is the odd one out: cooking is not a skill, so its five recipes, Venison Stew through Elsweyr Fondue, restore health, stamina or magicka without leveling anything.

Systems that level nothing

Dragon shouts run on dragon souls rather than skill points. The dragon shouts page maps all 20 shouts and their 60 words, each word unlocked with one soul, and names the two achievements: Words of Power for a full three-word shout and Thu'um Master for all 20. The Dawnguard shouts page adds Drain Vitality, Summon Durnehviir and Soul Tear, plus Soul Cairn Summon, which only the console can teach, and the Dragon Aspect page puts its three words on Solstheim, in the Temple of Miraak, Raven Rock Mine and Apocrypha, for a once-a-day shout. Souls come from the dragon hunting page, whose ten lairs respawn for farming and whose 20 souls earn the Dragon Hunter achievement, and the dragon souls page, which has a dragon outside the College of Winterhold return after any sleep longer than 24 hours and warns that Miraak skims most souls, roughly three kept in ten, until he is dead.

Character setup is decided before the first skill point. The character creation page starts every character at 100 health, magicka and stamina with Flames and a healing spell, and lets Galathil in the Ragged Flagon redo the face later for around 1,000 gold. The races page supplies the bonuses below, which are the only skill levels you get for free.

Status effects change how the skills feel without touching their numbers. The diseases page lists nine ailments from Ataxia to Witbane with their causes, then the cures: any Cure Disease ingredient, any shrine including Nocturnal's in the Thieves Guild, a Vigilant of Stendarr, or Hevnoraak's mask for near-total immunity. The vampire page runs Sanguinare Vampiris through its four stages over 72 hours, keeps you out of the sun between 5 am and 7 pm, opens the Vampire Lord through Harkon in Dawnguard, and cures the condition through Falion of Morthal with a black soul gem he sells for 156 gold. The werewolf page reaches the beast blood at the end of the Companions' Silver Hand quest, adds 30 seconds of beast form per human corpse eaten, and cures it later through Kodlak's Blood's Honor.

Standing and property round out the bucket. The Daedric shrines page lists the shrines that start the 15 Daedric quests, from Azura's south of Winterhold to the Altar of Molag Bal in Markarth's Abandoned House. The Thane page covers all nine holds, with Whiterun's title arriving through the main quest and Solitude's demanding property that Falk Firebeard sells for about 25,000 gold. The marriage page prices the Amulet of Mara at 200 gold from Maramal, pays out 100 gold a day from a spouse, and lists every eligible partner. Hearthfire takes three pages: the plots page for the steward's letter and the Landowner achievement, the house building page for the five steps from plot to family, and the house design page for Heljarchen Hall, Lakeview Manor and Windstad Manor at 5,000 gold each, the three wings with three rooms apiece, and the materials list from Clay to Lock Nails.

Where the 70 perks go: the capstone of every tree

With 250 perks and 70 picks, the skill tree page's tables decide the build. The capstones below are what sits at the end of each tree, and the requirement column is why a build rarely finishes more than three or four of them.

Frequently asked questions

How many perks can one character take?

One per character level, which the leveling page turns into 70 picks for a normal run and 90 once the perks tied to quests are added, against more than 250 in the trees. That is why every capstone in the table above costs a whole tree's worth of prerequisites rather than one point.

How do trainers work?

Five sessions per character level, each worth one skill level, with Adept trainers stopping at 50, Expert at 75 and Master at 90. Both tricks on our pages get the fee back: recruit Farkas and open his inventory, or save before paying an alchemist and pickpocket the gold.

Do skill books stack?

Each of a skill's five titles works once, whichever copy you read first, for one level, or two with Scholar's Insight from The Winds of Change in Dragonborn. Our skill books page in the items bucket lists where every copy sits.

Which skill do dragon souls level?

None. Souls unlock words, three per shout, and the two shout achievements count words and shouts, not skill levels.

Which grinds are glitches rather than intended play?

Three on our pages: the Telekinesis fast travel for Alteration, the Unbounded Storm fast travel for Destruction and the restoration loop for Alchemy, Enchanting and Smithing. Each page says its trick still works, and the loop page adds that pushing it past eight cycles can crash the game.

Which of these 18 trees a build should feed first is the question our builds guide answers per archetype, the standing stones page in the locations bucket covers the other stone bonuses beyond the Mage Stone, and the spell tomes that carry each school's magic are gathered on the spell books page of our items guide.