Is there a way to make an honest living in skyrim?

[Noah_The_Warlock]

I want to be an honest hardworking citizen of skyrim, not some hero who kills things! I want to chop wood or mine for twelve hours and make a measly 20 gold, y'know? Is there any jobs like that that doesn't deplete the resources in a mine, or field?

[Witchery]

Hmm... I don't know how you'd do a job like that (cook, alchemist, miner, woodcutter, hunter, etc.) without depleting resources. That is kind of the job description.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

Olaf is a simple man...

[Noah_The_Warlock]

Well, I will definitely watch that series.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

Yeah. It's pretty interesting. He doesn't stick perfectly to the no killing thing before the end, but he comes pretty close to playing Skyrim as a sim type game.

[Noah_The_Warlock]

Yes, that was entertaining. I will follow the rules more strictly when I do something like this.

[philfredobob]

yeah there is, i personally dont find it very exciting, but its there

you can chop wood and sell it for eternity, you can run around mountains in search of Ore Veins, you can hunt down alchemy ingredients in deep forests then make potions and sell them

and of course, when you do these things, you have to run from every fight

[Hawthorn]

Alchemy and smithing are probably the most interesting ways of making money without dungeon delving. I have had characters who wandered the wilds of Skyrim harvesting plants and mining ores to smith. Alchemists can be fun for this, travelling from one region to another to experiment with the local flora. You could roleplay a student at the College of Winterhold or just be a freelance alchemist. It would be hard to avoid getting into a fight though. You might hire a follower to act as a bodyguard if you don't imagine your character being up to defending themselves!

It isn't a fast-paced life though and from a gaming perspective it can get a little dull after a while. My current char is a Dunmer hunter, but I pretty much suck at hunting. Those darn deer run so fast! I'm starting to imagine her as a witchhunter type; she's an old-school Dunmer who hates necromancers and vampires. If while out hunting she just 'happens' to run across a vampire lair, well...

[CBR JGWRR]

Illusion spells are useful for any non violent build - pacify spells to make oponents non hostile, muffle/invisibility to make yourself undetectable to all except dragons (although invisibility requires huge amounts of magicka) and fury spells to get enemies to fight each other.

Is perk intensive, and requires level 100 to make it work on daedra, dwemer machines and undead though.

[SuperNull]

It's tedious but you can become richer then god with Alchemy, Enchanting and Speechcraft. This is without cheating, stealing or killing.

The more powerful the potion, the more it will sell for.
You can create potions that boost enchanting.
You can create enchantments that boost alchemy.

Make a print of the alchemy effects list for easy reference
Stat small by picking all the flowers around the towns you can reach by wagon and only buy ingredients cheaper then 5 gold at first.
Prioritize discovering effects over making money.

Eventually you will be able to buy out the whole inventory of alchemy merchant for the price of one or two potions.

[swordsister]

Mixwater mill is perfect for such lifestyle. There's this abandoned workerhouse where you can use as playerhouse, which you can also modify via console, but if you don't wish to bother with the console, there are still some containers you can use for storage. Provided you don't wander off for too long ofcourse. All of them respawn as far as i know.

You can make a decent living as a woodcutter, it pays far better than you may think. It's possible to earn up to 1.5 k septims each day by working 10-12 hours and still have time to sleep & eat. Even better, once you save up to 1000 gold you can buy a horse from Wîndhelm and use it for safe traveling, as long as you do not level up dramatically, most of the crippers spawning between Whiterun-Windhelm route will be easy to speed ride pass by horse.

The inn of Kynesgrove is also a decent spot for food shopping and etc. The trick is getting a horse early on so you don't have to fight critters, random encounters etc.

Alchemy is a good way of making decent money if you go mixing blue butterfly wings and blue mountain flowers rapidly, but then it becomes ridiculously easy, since it's one of the most expensive potions in the game..

Oh and after some time, things might get rather dull. I used to play Irish radio podcasts to help with the mood. It kinda fits the atmosphere. Scandinawian folk might just do too...I dunno. It's your call.

So yeah it's a good roleplay, i used to do it a lot months ago. I kinda recomment it, certainly not everyone's favourite dish but I personally found it quite enjoyable.

[Yaije]

Illusion spells are useful for any non violent build - pacify spells to make oponents non hostile, muffle/invisibility to make yourself undetectable to all except dragons (although invisibility requires huge amounts of magicka) and fury spells to get enemies to fight each other.

Is perk intensive, and requires level 100 to make it work on daedra, dwemer machines and undead though.

Far as I'm aware, dragons of skyrim or anything else has extrasensory capabilities to detect a non-visible target that generates no sound.


On topic: The mundane jobs I know of are participating in a farmer's harvest, chopping wood, gathering ingredients in the field, fishing (waaaaaaaay harder than it sounds sometimes), and then the early radiant quests for every faction except the dark brotherhood.

Spoiler:

delivering goods across skyrim, various pickpocket transfers, brawling in town, etc

[Unionhack]

Set the difficulty of the game up to Master to make the world a more realisitcally dangerous place, then go off and try to make a living like that. I'd reccomend the way of the smith or the way of the alchemist. Those are always fun!

Also fun is to join the imperial legion or the stormcloaks at master difficulty and equip yourself in the standard uniform, fighting the battles like a real footsoldier. I don't know if that's the kid of living you're looking for, but I'd reccomend it.

[HatofMadness]

Olaf is a simple man...

This is great!

[CBR JGWRR]

Olaf is a simple man...

I'm on 32-36 and the worst part is when Cabbages the viligance dies...

[HatofMadness]

Olaf is a simple man...

I'm on 32-36 and the worst part is when Cabbages the viligance dies...

I know, that was so sad!

[Da_BossMaN69]

Why would anyone do this?

I mean personally the whole reason I play is to go around exploring/killing things of all kinds. It's what makes the game fun, I appreciate the intricacy of the gameworld and it's characters, but I prefer the combat aspect more.

That being said there's enough pacifism in the game as there is. For every 2 hours or so, there's another hour of me doing 'chores'.

Selling all of the equipment I've stocked up through dungeons/battles. Go back to get whatever I left over, go to different vendors because they run out of money, etc. Transmuting iron ores to gold/silver, so I can sell off the gems I find at higher prices, etc.

It's a long process itself, and it gets annoying real soon, an hour straight is more than enough for me. I couldn't have the attention span for this, and I think more than 4/5 of skyrim players would agree with me.

[HatofMadness]

1st off, Kids was a great movie.

2nd, people play the games there's way. It expands Skyrim's possibilities. Idk about you, but I find it pretty easy to do the same thing over and over again each play through...It just offers variety ^_^

[Noah_The_Warlock]

I started my own little olaf (his name and appearance is much different). I have no goals, so this will be hard to such with. Also playing vanilla skyrim, as I always do... No internet for xbox . Already making a good living, though woodcutting does take forever, so I hunt alot to spice things up. Amassed a small sum of 600, not bad. It is alot of fun, I highly recommend it if skyrim has gotten boring.

[Shadowscale]

Run crazily into dungeons taking all loot while evading enemies and running the heck out when you are done!?

[Alnevar Odai]

Play on Master. You will encourage yourself to play a relatively simple life. Dont take initial armor and weapons. Join a questline and do the Radiant Quests. That will keep you busy forever and some are simple, others make sense to the character that you are RPing. Companions, dont join the circle and you can keep doing simple jobs. College, deliver/ collect gems, clear the wells, find Tolfdir's crap...etc. Thieves guild, do the jobs for V and D.

DB, the War, the Bards, and bounty quests are hard to do RP jobs. DB RP quests are repetitive and are late within the story.

You WILL get bored unless you give your character some quirks. My favorite is a khajiit that eats every fish he comes across... even river betty.

[Dohva.]

I like all the suggestions posted here...good luck! Something small but my elf decided she quite likes baking. She bakes sweets and bread in batches depending on how much ingredients she stores, then sells them. Not a huge profit but rather productive. I think she made around 200 gold selling her last batch of sweets.

[Noah_The_Warlock]

No offense, but your elf is missing the sweet grandmother look that comes with the thought of baking.

[Dohva.]

The sweetness is in the pie, baby.

[Noah_The_Warlock]

Ha, I guess thats where it belongs.