I'm level 53 with my Nord warrior and have run out of skills to increase. I've been primarily Heavy Armor, One-Handed, Block. After I maxed One-Handed, I switched to Two-Handed to level that up. Now that I've maxed Two-Handed out, should I just re-mold my character? I've started dabbling in Sneaking and Archery, but with how long it takes to level up now, it'll take forever to invest enough perks to make those trees useful.

Does anyone have any tips for leveling in the later levels?

Archery and sneak should be a no-brainer if you've got light armour because you can just snipe baddies and hide all the time. Also good for dragons. Shouldn't take too long to level up if the levels are low.

Try levelling your enchanting and smithing if you haven't done so already.

Make sure to activate the standing stone for what you are focusing on leveling (thief, warrior, mage). That helps a lot.

I find that Archery takes a a long time to level up. Even with the warrior stone active. Sneak can be done relatively quickly, as long as you can pull off backstabs regularly.

If you are simply looking for easy skills to increase to level I would recommend Illusion magic, (cast the spell Muffle as you walk around and you will be 75 in no time), Smithing (create iron daggers over and over again) and Enchanting (disenchant every magical item you can find and create expensive magical jewelry)

Oh and conjuration will level up really quickly until you hit about 50.

Oh yeah and activate the Lover Stone for every skill to go up 15%

Soul Trap levels up Conjuration very very fast.

If you want to exploit, you can reuse Soul Trap on dead bodies and still get XP.

Using Equilibrium and Healing at the same time levels up Restoration at a decent pace (it levels up very slowly regardless).

The Bound [Weapon] will level up both Conjuration and the weapon skill at the same time when dealing damage (including the Bound Bow).

There are fast ways to level up all skills, most without exploits, check out the assorted skyrim wikis.

And you probably have enough coins to use training without much drawback.

If you have done the restoring the Thieves Guild quests go to a city that the Guild carries influence in (Solitude/Whiterun/Markath/Windhelm) and just go around pickpocketing everyone in town. Even if you get caught in the act the guards will let you off for half bounty and you will keep your stolen items to sell later. Using the thief standing stone while doing this helps also.

Start a new character... and use The Lover Stone...

Lover Stone is less than optimal for power leveling. I used that stone for most of the game since I like to dabble in all skills. But I realized there's a catch.

It doesn't stack with other leveling bonuses like from being rested or married. It seems to just cancel those bonuses outright. On the other hand those Mage/Warrior/Thief stones do stack with other leveling bonuses. So it's better just to switch them, depending on what you're trying to increase.

I agree pickpocketing levels really fast. There's no reason not to try, unless you're RPing a righteous knight and don't want to break character. Just spend a couple of hours stealing from everyone you meet. You can just stick to the easy stuff (80-90%), but you'll level up even faster if you go for the risky ones and reload if you fail. Reloading is cheezy but I'm sure most people do this when caught.

My Sneak and Archery are 57 and 46, respectively. I've dabbled with them throughout my playthrough. Enchanting and Smithing are both 100. I guess I'll start using things I never used before. Dabbled in some conjuration and stuff. It's just annoying to have to use stuff that I won't be bothering to put any perks in.

Smith the Dragonscale armor and get your light armor skill up.

You can also stand in water and spam water breathing. The tip about muffle also works really well. Circle of protection is another spell you can spam without needing combat. You're basically at the point where you have to go out of your way to skill up.

I wonder if they'll patch in support for more perks after the soft level-cap. It would entice players to continue their road to 81, at least for the DLC in the works.

@mason said:

Lover Stone is less than optimal for power leveling. I used that stone for most of the game since I like to dabble in all skills. But I realized there's a catch.

It doesn't stack with other leveling bonuses like from being rested or married. It seems to just cancel those bonuses outright. On the other hand those Mage/Warrior/Thief stones do stack with other leveling bonuses. So it's better just to switch them, depending on what you're trying to increase.

The problem is that Archery falls under The Warrior Stone. If he's trying to level both Archery and Sneak at the same time, he'll have to choose to use either The Warrior (20% Archery) or The Thief (20% Sneak). The Lover is a nice compromise between the two if you're going for both at the same time. If you don't mind having to spend double the time focusing in each one individually, Thief/Warrior Stones is the way to go.

Armor, either Light or Heavy, levels up according to the force of the hit. In other words, you'll level up more slowly if a Skeever hits you than if a mammoth hits you. The best way to level up the Armor and Block skills is to go to a giant camp and let it hit you. You have to be able to survive a giant's punch, of course, but your Armor skill will go up like crazy.

If you go to the Black-Briar Meadery in Riften, you can talk with the bartender. I don't remember his name and I'm too lazy to look it up, but you can ask him about Maven Black-Briar. If you pass a speech check (24 in Speech is required, IIRC), he'll tell you his a bitch and you'll get experience for that skill. You can repeat that ad infinitum and level up Speech to 100 in a matter of minutes. Also, remember that you can pay trainers to level up your skills without having to actually do anything. It's useful for skills that level up slowly, like Alchemy or a school of Magicka you never use.