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Chaos wrote:

A Chronic Kleptos' Guide to Taking and Making Gold

Being the third TES game I've played, I look back fondly on my early game strategy and noticed a lot of similarities...I'M A KLEPTOMANIC...every time I start a new character in any of these games, I pretty much take everything that isn't nailed down regardless of my character's virtue or profession. Hitting Morrowind, I stole everything out of sight from the census worker and guard in the boathouse; Oblivion, I squeed with joy when I took Captain Renauld's Sword after her quick death only to howl in agony of the thought that I wouldn't be able to pawn it later. Skyrim it's even more prevalent, I always follow Ralof (not just because I'm a sworn Son of Skyrim) because of the fact that the gold I get from selling the Imperials' gear is ten fold that of fighting storm cloaks (And because I predominately use Heavy armor, which the Stormcloaks lack). So this is a guide for those that like to stockpile gold early on without even having to do any quests.

Chaos' Tips for easy living:

• Tip #1: Weight is key
  
  • I've come up with certain limits for myself on what to pick up dependent on weight (In Morrowind it was anything that had a value of five times its own weight or more, Oblivion that became 10). In Skyrim, I don't pick up anything that isn't base valued at ten times its own weight unless it's over 50 gold. This ensures that you get good prices for all that weight and maximize your value-to-max-encumbrance.
  
  
  
  Tip #2: Gold assurance
  
  • Following the previous tip, this is to warn you away from picking up all those 0.1-0.5 weighted items with wild abandon. Why? because most starting characters have little to no speechcraft skill and will make values to be pathetic. My rule is that an ingredient/food has to not only fit tip #1, but also has to have a base value over 2 gold because anything less will be worth 0 gold to most traders this early on. There are exceptions however, crops being the big one: Cabbage, Potatoes, and Wheat can all be sold to farmers for their base price (Cabbage = 2 per head, Potatoes = 1, Wheat a whopping 5 per) regardless of where the crops came from. The exception is ingredients, which I'll talk about next.
  
  
  
  Tip #3: "No, I'm not an alchemist!"
  
  • In your travels, you'll stumble upon tons of ingredients that you'd be compelled to horde or sell off quickly, but that's a waste. Taking just a few seconds to combine a couple of almost worthless roots into a concoction worth 30 or more gold. Alchemy advances pretty slowly as well, so you don't have to worry too much about it either. My limit is that any ingredient under 28 gold should be used for potion/poisons and anything above be vendored tout suite.
  
  
  
  Tip #4: For the love of Talos! shut up and get this over with!
  
  • Don't be afraid to buy a necklace, ring or helm that reduces prices early on, it'll save you a fortune in just one tour into a bandit cave. In particular, Clavicus Vile's quest (level 13 is your best bet for his great masque that boosts a whopping -20% on price. (His quest starts out of Falkreath, but I won't say anymore due to spoilers)
  
  
  
  Tip #5: Life, now at half price!
  
  • Soul trapping and enchanting items is a great way to make money effortlessly. Soul gems are easy to come by and cost very little unfilled, but simply enchanting what what you find isn't living up to the potential. What gets the highest prices are enchanted weapon and not just any old enchantment will do, you need something otherworldly to get those astronomical prices to fill you Money Tub for your nightly baths. The highest price enchantment is by far, the Banish enchant: it isn't easy to come by, but if you find it lying in a shop, take it! It will easily finance anything in no time. But seeing how this is a de facto starter guide, I'll include the runner up, who is extremely easy to come by. Turn Undead, it fetches a pretty penny on the market and is one of the most prevalent non-elemental weapon enchantment.
  
  
  
  Tip #6: Get Creative!
  
  • Don't be afraid to dive headlong into a lake, river, ocean, or pile of vomit for that elusive chest sitting at the bottom. Always check waterfalls for hidden caves, Always check animal corpses for the odd jewel or pocket change they crammed up their ass in lieu of beads, and always check burial cubby holes for the truly dead Draugr. Don't be afraid of shouting a dead body out of a hanging cage or looking into fire pits for the random ruby or other precious gem. And finally, don't forget to check broken urns, they usually contain potions or gems at the bottom that you would have missed because there was no action associated with it. (Will probably add more later as I remember them)
  
  
  
  Tip #7: Get Paranoid!
  
  • Paranoia is a great habit for TES, you always find a random gem or ingot you accidently blew out the room because you decided to run in, guns blazing, only to find the room empty because of all the explosions. Every nook and cranny has possibilities, this was extremely prevalent in Morrowind where things like Daedric armor, moon sugar, or even entire rooms could be hiding in the tiniest of spaces.
  
  
  
  Tip #8: Hunting, now an actual job with pay
  
  • Hunting is a lot more lucrative this time around, animal pelts are easy to sell or use and Skyrim is teeming with wildlife ready for the reaping. Small game like rabbits aren't really worth it as you'll take more time trying to hit them than trying to find them. Mudcrabs are easy to find and they sometimes carry gold or gems on them, but again, this is small game. Wolves and bears are the common pittles and only the snow variations have pelts worth selling rather than turning into leather straps. Horker tusks fetch okay prices and are so easy to kill that you'll be recreating the Bloodmoon Prophesy without even trying. Saber cats are the high end of the common targets, they are hard to sneak up on and can give you quite the thrashing, but they drop both pelts and ingredients as well as random minor loot.
  
  
  
  Tip #9: Real Men go Big Game Hunting
  
  • And by big game, I mean BIG game. Mammoths, Giants and Dragons are the mainstay of this category, they are the high risk, high profit targets that makes my Khajiit drool when he sees the telltale Mammoth or Dragon skull on his Compass. Mammoths: pain in the ass to kill unless you use the terrain to your advantage (i.e. high places or small puddles), ignore the meat unless you're into cooking, the real prize is the tusk; beware that you don't get cornered by multiple Mammoths into a 'pushing circle'. Dragons: Easy gold early on, bombers of terror later on; their bones and scales fetch a high price anywhere and they also have a good amount of gold on them sometimes. They do have a major weakness though, interruptions, apparently all dragons were raised with impeccable manners as they will shut up the second you shout at them, 2 and 3 word Unrelenting Force will stop a dragon from breathing fire/frost if timed properly (just as they lean back to breathe on you, whether they be on the ground or flying). This gets harder with higher level dragons as they can breath fire/frost more frequently and do bombing runs on you making them a hard target to hit with the imprecise shout. I always carry an Amulet of Talos for those occasions. Finally, Giants: They carry large sums of gold and valuable items on their persons and in their camps, but they hurt...they hurt good. While Mammoths are stupid enough to keep at bay with a small brook, the giants aren't afraid to chase you and will often do so despite the thousands of guards, bandits, and dragons chasing them. Their swings are slow and can be avoided easily and staggering them with a bash or magic is an easy way to ensure they don't go smashy smashy. There's also a rather odd "bug" with fighting more than one giant at once, every once and a while after I've killed their buddy, the other giant will simply stop fighting for quite a long time.
  
  
  
  Tip #10: Forsworn are not real people
  
  • These guys are great for those looking to make a quick septim, their armor and some of their weapons are light weight and high value. Their deer head hats weigh 2 points and have a base value of 50 gold. They also carry around a lot of ingredients and potions, always a crowd pleaser. And finally, they have been know to hang with Hagravens, whose loot can range from "make valuable potions" to "Why didn't she just kill me with this sword? It's worth more than me!"
  
  
  
  Tip #11: I don't want to play, I just wanna chop all the wood all day! ♪
  
  • Chopping wood is worth it, there are tons of inn keepers and mill workers that love the once green stuff and pay good/easy money for you to take a few seconds to make 10 gold a whack. As I stated previously about my Stormcloak love, this comes up again because of how Ralof's journey plays out. He goes to his sister who runs the mill and unlike Alvor, she stays outside the whole time within spitting distance of a chopping block with an axe in reach. I usually speed ahead of Ralof to sell off some weight and head straight to the block to chop while I wait. My average final sum from start to finish is about 210-280 gold for the dialogue up until his sister offers her help.
  
  
  
  Tip #12: If it isn't yours it's mine
  
  • There are tons of places with things to take without taking a bounty, even in a Jarl's bedroom! Pottery, clothes, food, it's all there for the taking and in plain sight. Many cities and towns have barrels scattered around filled with various foods and ingredients. Books are pretty good money makers as well for some of them boast high prices or skill increases. Gold also is just laying around in just about every wardrobe and end table in the game, rarely will you ever find one without a couple coins in them.
  
  
  
  Tip #13: It's only murder if you're caught
  
  • Skyrim has thousands of randomly generated folks wandering the roads, ready for you to plunge a blade down their throat. But instead of spewing some obvious anecdotes to you, I'll tell you who isn't worth your time. Old Orcs: They can be tough fights, but only rarely have anything of worth early on, rule-of-thumb, if you don't see anything of value being worn by them, keep moving (after you've taken the saber car pelts of course ^_^). Vigilants of Stendarr: they usually only have a low level robe on and a necklace which is usually not worth the effort to kill them.
  
  
  
  Tip #14: Support PETA, Kill the Silver Hand
  
  • Short and sweet, their silver weapons fetch good prices and are one of the best weapons to enchant for price.
  
  
  
  Tip #15: Fences? We don't need no stinking fences!
  
  • At least for the sticky fingers that kife ingots and ores, just smelt them down or turn them into jewerly for a higher price
  
  
  
  Tip #16: Fullmetal Dovakiin
  
  • In a certain bandit cave near Whiterun or just random dumb luck, you'll stumble across transmuting spell tomes which convert iron ore into silver ore and silver into gold...do I really have to spell it out for you?
  
  
  
  More in the future...