How do you level your Character? (Powerlevel or Natural)

[Travalanche]

Eh... this is a tough one, I tend to do a bit of both. I let the combat skills level naturally but for the harder to raise skills like Alteration or Illusion I tend to pay for training. And when it comes to Conjuration I just stand on a rock and let mudcrabs surround me while I repeatedly cast bound sword lol!

So yeah it depends, I'm guilty of power leveling but I do it in moderation and after using the Oghma glitch once I never touched it again as it kind of breaks the game.

[DikaSmausha]

No offense to anyone, but I know more people power level their characters.

[Br3admax]

Why would anyone lie about this? The people at UESP don't represent most people of the Elder Scroll fanbase, more of us being RP oriented. Give us some credit.

[House of the Wolf]

[&@%!], I power level. I don't see anything wrong with it, for me. I see it as training for a world that wants nothing more than to kill me--I want to be my very best at all the necessary skills, whatever they may be. The only skills I never really power level are 1H and Archery, simply because of the amount of reps I get with them anyhow.

[Raynil dralas]

I generally like to level naturally in most aspects, I did power level illusion by spamming muffle on my nightblade build but thats only because Invisibility is pretty essential to the build and I wanted it sooner rather than later.

I also buy all ingredients from vendors and make every potion I can and sell them back whenever im in town but i try not to do the town loop or anything.

[FORKFARM]

Ive done both. I started with power leveling everything -- but I got bored of never being in danger. I found more often than not I felt over-powered and it took the thrill away. The last 3 characters have been RP characters and just leveled naturally -- I've got more enjoyment out of them than the first power leveled ones.

[DikaSmausha]

Why would anyone lie about this? The people at UESP don't represent most people of the Elder Scroll fanbase, more of us being RP oriented. Give us some credit.

I understand that, and I know that there isn't many votes yet, but I know it should be a little closer.

[Mauin]

Or it depends on the character and we're withholding our vote because there is no option to vote for "Depends on the character."

I only added my vote to power-leveling because there is no option for "Depends on the character."
If there was an option for that, that's where my vote would have gone.

[Ice]

I added that for you, and also since I think a lot of people might take this option.

EDIT: Oh, I didn't know adding a poll option would reset the poll

[BetaB17]

Well it depends on the skill. I smth not for xp but cash, I multi task on many skills so I have little worries. Only skills I powered were alt, ill, and conj magic. Really I tend to play handicaps alot for training and a challenge. And since I only use one character, I expect to get plenty of hours

[Jabberdave]

I gather what I use through the course of adventuring. When I'm home, I will spend some time at the crafting tables using what I've found along the way. If I have plenty of leather, I'll make leather armor even though I don't wear it. Smithing is a trade that my character takes seriously. So is enchanting. He works at it when items are available to improve his skill at the trade.

I don't know if that is considered power leveling. I don't consider it to be. I just consider it part of the game.....or, more importantly, part of my character's life. Some characters take crafting far more seriously than others. My Orc, for example, feels that the ability to smith to extreme levels is a badge of honor.

[Mr.Argonian]

I mostly level naturally. But sometimes I power level. Like when my smthing is at 28 and I want elven armour, I power level. Or I'm three levels off from 100 conjuration and I want dead thrall. And I tend to always power level illusion, because it never levels as fast as my other skills, no matter how much I use it.

[PhanttoM]

I powerlevel mainly because I've done the natural way of leveling to death by now, and because I'm tired of the low-level combat.

I think possibly the first 800 hours worth of characters were done naturally, and I say that because I just passed the 1600 hour mark according to steam. (Number may be inflated due to websurfing from within the game + leaving the game on while doing some daily chores)

I want to play against hordes of high level enemies - In particular I want Draugr Death Lords who can do ragdoll unrelenting force shouts, to be very common enemies.


*Edit - found a typo, they nag me :p *

[MaKo]

I mostly level naturally. But sometimes I power level. Like when my smthing is at 28 and I want elven armour, I power level. Or I'm three levels off from 100 conjuration and I want dead thrall.

Pretty much same to me. I mainly let the skills go up naturally, as in Skyrim it is not neccessary and I don't really like power leveling - I did it too much in Oblivion. I buy training time to time, more or less, if I happen to meet a suitable trainer.

Smithing & Enchanting: it is just nearly impossible to me to sell plain gems, gold or silver ore or ingots, or soul gems. I usually first melt ores to bars, then I combine them with gems to jewelry, and then I enchant them to give them a name (simple "x", marking for loot in inventory) and to spent a soul gem. My characters tend to be part time jewelry traders, as they can be easily carried with the character and most merchants buy them. Makes it easier to maintain gold balance after higher level training.

I don't usually need high Smithing or Enchanting skills quickly, so that progress is usually enough to me. The only exception is high level Enchanting, as the effects are near to maximum and I just need Extra Effect, which occasionally makes me power level the last Enchanting levels.

Alchemy: no matter which kind of character I am playing, I tend to use lots of potions and poisons. There is seldomly any need to power level.

And I tend to always power level illusion, because it never levels as fast as my other skills, no matter how much I use it.

I use Muffle to increase my sneaking (most of my characters sneak to be able to get the first shot, to decide how the fights are done). It is even easier, when I get Invisibility. It is quite strange, how little experience the mind control spells (Fear, Calm, Frenzy) give you...

[Redguard_Master]

I did natural, mostly. For my critical skills like smithing I did spam the crap out of iron daggers (back when you could do that). I also spammed alteration to level buff when 1.9 came out. But for the most part I let if flow naturally.

[BunBun299]

I power level a lot. If I'm wandering around a town, I'll constantly cast Illusion or Alteration spells. If I come to a chest or locked door that I have a key to, I'll give the key to my follower and pick the lock. I'll conjurer an atronach just so I can kill it with weapons or spells.

Most of my favorite heroes have to train very hard to become great heroes. Thats all I'm doing. Working hard to become the best hero I can for Skyrim.

[tornadokirby]

I just let my character level skills naturally.

[dzio]

Always naturally. I've tried several different character types and while for some of them early/mid-game can be somewhat challenging (especially low level mages), it's always smooth sailing from level 30 or so. Why would I want to make things easier?

My current character is a lev34 Dunmer assassin/conjurer/archer. I just killed a Blood Dargon in 4 shots (initial sneak attack with a bound sword and my fire enchanted ebony dagger + 3 arrows from a bound bow). Sure, a Blood Dragon is not exactly the toughest thing around so if I'd power-levelled, I could have one-shot it with some monster-bow from the next mountaintop over, but where's the fun in that?

[Alarra]

Mostly naturally. With Alarra, whatever I used just got leveled, and when it got to 100 I'd switch up my playstyle a bit (for example, more magic than swords) just to try something new. I didn't consider smithing/enchanting tons of leather armor "level grinding" because I was primarily doing it to make cash and it fit with the roleplay in my mind. I only started power leveling toward the end when I'd completed basically every quest; I chose to get my character to lv 81 and all 100s on skills, otherwise it wouldn't feel "complete" to me. I had to grind the last 10 levels or so of restoration and illusion, and a bunch of alchemy. The rest just worked with whatever I played. I think it maybe took me somewhere around 415 hrs to max everything?

[SonicSceptile]

I train normally for most of my skills, the only exception being that I abuse Faendal's Archery training early on to get myself up about five or so levels. Saves me time training archery, plus I can use the slow time from the get go, which is going to make RPing a ninja badass so much easier.

[Linkuya]

Voted Naturally, as I feel it's nicest to take things easy and enjoy the game at your own pace.

[SuperNull]

What I ended up doing is using a mod (Train 99 Times Per Level) to remove training restrictions but refrain from using any exploits to get free training.
To train all the unused skills to 90 requires something like a million. This money I gather from normal gameplay.

Doing this makes it so that (A) it take a lot longer for money to become useless and (B) there is no need for senseless grinding.

[mewmew34]

For the most part I level naturally, but I do kind of "spam" a couple things. I'll save up all the jewelry I find or make, and then when I have lots of jewelry and lots of filled soul gems I'll go enchant everything. This playthrough especially, as I really wanted to have the perk to put two enchantments on an item before I started using a mod to dress my husband and get him out of his beggars rags. I don't go out of my way to really grind anything else. Maybe smithing, but I do it more for the money than the leveling. Save up all the pelts and ore, then make stuff with them when I get a good stock. I don't tend to buy out merchants when I do that, though, just use items I earned from fighting and mining.

[urthdigger]

I generally prefer doing it naturally, but at the same time it's not always really feasible, especially with enchanting and to a lesser extent smithing. Actually, I think I'll give my thoughts on this in terms of the three crafting methods, as those are really the main ones that can be "powertrained" anyway.

Enchanting... enchanting really needs to be powertrained, no way around it really. Soul gems are fairly rare to come across, and the manner in which they're placed makes it clear they're of some significance (typically displayed on tables in rooms, or found in boss chests), and they cannot be found in a natural manner (Ok, minus Blackreach... and the mines there only have a CHANCE at soul gems). I think I recall the soul cairn having a number of things to make getting and filling soul gems easier... but is going there specifically to gather soul gems any less powertraining than buying them from folks?

Smithing is a close second, being possible to train naturally, albeit over a long period of time. Ore can be found naturally via deposits in mines and caves, and the same areas also tend to have loose samples here and there. However, unless you're happy with going up to 100 on iron only, you're going to have a hard time. Though, the transmutation spell can be useful to slowly change all that iron into gold and train it somewhat quickly (Especially if you have the Prowler's Profit perk from the thieves guild).

Alchemy... this is one skill that I often PREFER to train naturally. While it can be trained "easily" by going back and forth between shops, selling goods to acquire more ingredients, I often find that while I get a lot of variety in my ingredients, I rarely have a large quantity of any one ingredient. Which means I find out which one offers me the highest value, and then I'm only able to make one or two potions before I need to find the next highest value. Collecting them naturally, on the other hand, tends to give me tons of single ingredients depending on where I've been adventuring... and with the Green Thumb perk I get even more. Much less annoying to find the highest value potion I can make and then go "Oh ok, I can make 100 of these. Sweet."

[udubdawgs]

training your skills against lower-level opponents is not power-leveling, lol.

changing difficulty levels while training is exploitation, for sure, but, not power-leveling unless one is purposefully manipulating the in-game mechanics.

training in-game through skill use is as natural a way to play the game as possible.