History GameBreaker / TheElderScrolls

* In ''Morrowind'' and ''Oblivion'', a custom "Drain Health" spell qualifies. ''Drain Health'' reduces your opponent's health, but unlike direct damage spells, the "lost" HP is restored when the spell wears off. Its intended purpose is to lower a target's maximum HP temporarily while you use other attacks to finish them off before the spell ends, which to one with normal logic faculties sounds like a bum deal. However, if the target has less total health than what the spell drains, it will be a OneHitKO instead. It is also far cheaper in terms of Magicka cost (or Enchantment cost if enchanted onto a weapon) than other spells which deal the same mount of direct damage. (100pts of Drain Health for 1 second vs. 100pts of Fire Damage, for example.)

* Accessing a non-transformation-hostile follower's inventory in the midst of transforming (into a Vampire Lord or Werewolf) allows you to equip multiples of the same equipment piece, allowing you to stack whatever enchantments they have. This can be combined with multiples of any Amulet of the Nine Divines to get any number of ridiculous buffs, like 100% better prices, ludicrous Magicka Regeneration, increased damage blocked with shields and the most-game breaking, the power to ''completely eliminate cooldown time between shouts''. The Dragonborn can then spam, and even combine, whatever shouts they please, including any AwesomeButImpractical shouts that have been previously restricted by long cooldown times, barring the Dragon Aspect shout.

* Accessing a non-transformation-hostile follower's inventory in the midst of transforming (into a Vampire Lord or Werewolf) allows you to equip multiples of the same equipment piece, allowing you to stack whatever enchantments they have. This can be combined with multiples of any Amulet of the Nine Divines to get any number of ridiculous buffs, like 100% better prices, ludicrous Magicka Regeneration, increased damage blocked with shields and the most-game breaking, the power to ''completely eliminate cooldown time between shouts''. The Dragonborn can then spam whatever shouts they please, including any AwesomeButImpractical shouts that have been previously restricted by long cooldown times, barring the Dragon Aspect shout.

** It doesn't help that the rest of the birthsigns in Morrowind are middling at best (e.g Lady) and ''absolute garbage'' at worst (e.g Lord, Serpent and Tower), when judged by endgame potential.

* The Character Creation is far more flexible than in any other game in the series. A character can choose permanent Spell Absorption from the start of the game, as well as a bunch of other super-powered abilities, with no drawbacks if the player decides (although it'll take longer to level up if the player only stacks good attributes). Create a Mage with permanent spell absorption, [=SpellMake=] an ''[[AreaOfEffect area-affecting nuke]]'' spell, and cast it wherever you go. As long as the nuke hits you, you'll regenerate the spell points back and can ''cast it again immediately''; you can chain-nuke your way through any monster in the game. Note also that spell-casting is instantaneous, so if your fingers don't get tired, you can cast a permanent everything-destroying nuke forcefield around yourself as you explore a dungeon. (Sometimes the spell absorption breaks itself and [[HoistByHisOwnPetard you stop absorbing anything, leading to a horrifying suicide]].)
* Another example from the Character Creation (at least in the unpatched version): Choose to play as an Altmer (High Elf), create a custom class, and give yourself Critical Weakness to Paralysis. This weakness gets overridden by Altmer's natural ''immunity'' to paralysis, and as such does nothing at all - except giving you ''triple experience gain rate'' right off the bat for taking such a "crippling weakness".

* The Troll's Blood spell, which non-mages can also use through artifacts like the Lord's Mail or the Necromancer's Amulet. It regenerates health over time, but not fast enough to help in a tough fight. However, it makes dungeon crawling so much easier because you no longer have to worry about safely camping or stocking up on potions to restore your health. This is especially because it not only slowly brings your health back up, but the way the spell works you only need to camp for one or two hours to bring yourself back to full health rather than the often risky nine or so hours you'd usually need. Furthermore, its effect doesn't go away until you leave the dungeon you cast it in, even if you ''die'' in that dungeon.

* The humble starting spell flames begins at 8 damage per second, with both intense flame perks boosting it to 12 per second. What’s game breaking is that aspect of terror in the illusion tree bumps it up to 24 damage per second, with 36 dual casted and 54 against undead (among the most common enemy in the game). This makes it the single most efficient damage to mana cost destruction spell in base game, the only drawback being that it doesn’t stagger enemies.

* In order to avoid the exponential curve of improving potions from ''Morrowind'', ''Skyrim'' does not allow you to make potions or enchantments which can improve themselves (barring one exception, a unique set of enchantment-boosting armor). You can, however, make enchantments and potions which boost each other, which is almost as useful. You can ping-pong the effects back and forth between them several times. If you abuse absolutely every enchanting and alchemy boost available, you can attain up to 49% enchanting boost and 39% alchemy boost. This allows you to make weapons do up to five times the damage they normally can, give even the weakest armor enough points to reach the armor cap, and make potions that can heal absurd amounts of damage or increase your weapon skills to twice their normal level, among other extremely useful effects.

* In the unpatched version of the game, there is a glitch involving the Oghma Infinium., a RareCandy book meant to be single-use can be glitched into replicating endlessly, providing full skill and level cap within minutes. This exploit was later patched.

* When enchanting equipment to raise your skill and sell, enchant it with Waterbreathing. Why? Because the Waterbreathing enchantment has no magnitude (you either can breathe underwater or you can't, it's as simple as that). The size of the soul gem you use to apply the enchantment doesn't matter. You don't need to fill and expend a bunch of Grand Soul Gems to maximize profits; using the much cheaper and easier to fill Petty Soul Gems will have the exact same effect. Plus Waterbreathing equipment always sells for a relatively high price with merchants. Just remember to search the shops often when you start the game, because Waterbreathing is a low-level enchantment that will very quickly get crowded out by better ones as your level increases. Muffle is also good for this purpose, as it shares the same all-or-nothing property.

*** However, Soul Trap pales before the most expensive enchantment in the game: Banish Daedra. However, this enchantment can only be obtained at higher levels. Same goes for Paralysis, the secondmost expensive enchantment. With the perk that allows you to put two enchantments on one item, you can turn an investment of a few dozen gold into an iron dagger and a filled petty soul gem into a profit of several hundred gold.

* The Necromage perk is pretty decent on its face. It provides a 25% bonus/50% duration effect to any spell applied to the undead. As undead are by far the most common enemy, this is highly useful on its own. What makes it a true gamebreaker, however, is how it behaves when you become a vampire. Vampires are undead, and so are you as a vampire. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Not only does Necromage affect your spells, it also affects everything the game considers a magical effect, like bonuses from enchanted equipment, certain quest rewards, and even a few perks, so long as Necromage was chosen prior to getting those perks. With ''Dragonborn'', you can respec all your perks and immediately go for Necromage first, allowing you to enhance all your skills at the cost of a few dragon souls (not terribly hard to get by the time you can do this). Add on Vampire Lord from ''Dawnguard'' to remove the biggest weakness of being a vampire and you have a character that further breaks many of the game's already formidable abilities. Or alternatively, just cure your vampirism. You get to keep the Necromage bonus until you lose the magical effect it boosted (by removing the perk, enchanted equipment, etc.) and unless you are forced to do it by some quest, you have very little reason to do it, and you can always just become a vampire again in the rare cases it does happen. With this method, the player can gain things like 100% spell absorption in the vanilla game (with the Atronach stone and the Atronach perk), or the ability to forge even more powerful equipment with the smithing trick above.

* Paralysis poison makes the target fall on the ground, unable to fight until the effect wears off ''and'' the enemy is back on their feet (though some enemies are immuned). Obviously, carrying enough of them allows to kill your targets with almost zero effort once you manage to poison them (you just have to poison your weapon again and hit again before they become able to fight again), but such an useful poison would be hard to get for balance reasons, right? Wrong. Some of its ingredients (canis root, imp stool, swamp fungal pod) are cheap, not rare (Morthal and the surrounding swamp are full of swamp fungal pods), and acquiring enough of them stops being an issue if you own the ''Hearthfire'' DLC (each of the mentioned ingredient can be grown in a homestead). Also, even if you don't intend to use them, brewing paralysis poisons grants lots of Alchemy's experience, and they're also worth a lot of money. Even better, sometimes you don't even have to finish the enemy off as they will ragdoll upon being struck by paralysis. If the attack that paralyzed them dealt enough damage (and pushes them over a ledge) they will be in for a long fall.

''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsArena''

A number of the below examples for ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall'' trace back to the ObviousBeta nature of the game, along with the ''numerous'' balance issues therein. To note:

''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind''

''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion''

''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim''

* The game's [[AlchemyIsMagic Alchemy]] system allows you to [[PotionBrewingMechanic brew potions]] by combining at least two ingredients with the same effect. (Each ingredient has up to four possible effects.) The strength of the potion is determined by the quality of the alchemical equipment you use (mortal & pestle, alembic, retort, etc.) as well as your Intelligence attribute. Potions can be brewed which ''[[StatusBuff raise the Intelligence attribute]]''. You see the problem? By finding or purchasing large quantities of (very common and plentiful) Intelligence-boosting ingredients, using them to make a potion which increases your Intelligence, drinking the potion, making ''another'' potion, and then repeating, you can end up with an Intelligence in the ''tens of thousands''. At that point, you can create other potions of whatever you desire which will give you massive boosts over extremely long periods of time. You can, for example, boost your Agility to the point where no enemies can hit you while your attacks always land. Then make a potion of Fortify Attack which will allow you to OneHitKO anything in the game. These effects will last ''hundreds of real life hours''. This method allows {{Speed Run}}s to complete the game's main quest to occur in about ''ten minutes''. It essentially allows you to become TheSingularity.//
//
Certain effects should be avoided, however, as they may 'break the game' in a bad way. Massively fortified Strength will cause all of your weapons to break in a single hit. Massively fortified Acrobatics may cause you to become permanently stuck in the sky. A long-lasting 100% Chameleon effect will render you unable to interact with anyone in the game world. A long-lasting Levitation effect can prevent you from resting (and thus, leveling-up).

''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall''
* A number of the below examples trace back to the ObviousBeta nature of the game, along with ''numerous'' balance issues therein. To note:

* The game's [[AlchemyIsMagic Alchemy]] system allows you to [[PotionBrewingMechanic brew potions]] by combining at least two ingredients with the same effect. (Each ingredient has up to four possible effects.) The strength of the potion is determined by the quality of the alchemical equipment you use (mortal & pestle, alembic, retort, etc.) as well as your Intelligence attribute. Potions can be brewed which ''[[StatusBuff raise the Intelligence attribute]]''. You see the problem? By purchasing large quantities of Intelligence-boosting ingredients, using them to make a potion which increases your Intelligence, drinking the potion, making ''another'' potion, and then repeating, you can end up with an Intelligence in the ''tens of thousands''. At that point, you can create other potions of whatever you desire which will give you massive boosts over extremely long periods of time. You can, for example, boost your Agility to the point where no enemies can hit you while your attacks always land. Then make a potion of Fortify Attack which will allow you to OneHitKO anything in the game. These effects will last ''hundreds of real life hours''. This method allows {{Speed Run}}s to complete the game's main quest to occur in about ''ten minutes''. It essentially allows you to become TheSingularity.
** Certain effects should be avoided, however, as they may 'break the game' in a bad way. Massively fortified Strength will cause all of your weapons to break in a single hit. Massively fortified Acrobatics may cause you to become permanently stuck in the sky. A long-lasting 100% Chameleon effect will render you unable to interact with anyone in the game world. A long-lasting Levitation effect can prevent you from resting (and thus, leveling-up).

* Paralysis poison makes the target fall on the ground, unable to fight until the effect wears off ''and'' the enemy is back on their feet (though some enemies are immuned). Obviously, carrying enough of them allows to kill your targets with almost zero effort once you manage to poison them (you just have to poison your weapon again and hit again before they become able to fight again), but such an useful poison would be hard to get for balance reasons, right? Wrong. Some of its ingredients (canis root, imp stool, swamp fungal pod) are cheap, not rare (Morthal and the surrounding swamp are full of swamp fungal pods), and acquiring enough of them stops being an issue if you own the ''Hearthfire'' DLC (each of the mentioned ingredient can be grown in a homestead). Also, even if you don't intend to use them, brewing paralysis poisons grants lots of Alchemy's experience, and they're also worth a lot of money.
** Even better, sometimes you don't even have to finish the enemy off as they will ragdoll upon being struck by paralysis. If the attack that paralyzed them dealt enough damage (and pushes them over a ledge) they will be in for a long fall.

* As mentioned, the game's LevelScaling mechanic is extremely broken. If you aren't careful when leveling up (such as by MinMaxing and generally acting like a {{Munchkin}}), enemies can quickly get too strong for you to handle. However, you can avoid leveling up completely by ''never resting''. Your ''skills'' will still increase, however, leading to the world being saved from a horde of feeble monsters by a strangely competent insomniac.

* For minimal effort you can make Vegetable Soup at a cooking station. Eating it gives you a small boost to Health and Stamina regen per second for 720 seconds. While you can still be overwhelmed by groups of enemies, the regen rate boost is enough to allow you to defeat nearly any single foe in the game without much risk; the Stamina allows to continuously spam power attacks. Its four ingredients (potatoes, leeks, tomatoes, and cabbages) are found in lots of containers and sold by most food merchants, they're also very cheap; with Hearthfire, you can even get most of those ingredients for free since they can be grown in the garden of your estate.

* The Enhanced Dwarven Crossbow, available in ''Dawnguard'', is a huge game breaker for the following reasons: it's easy to get (just completing a set of six quests will make it available in a store in Fort Dawnguard), it has slightly higher base damage than a Dragonbone Bow (the most powerful regular bow in the game), and it has an innate ability to ignore 50% of enemy armor. Better yet, this is not an enchantment, so the crossbow can be enchanted on top of that. This is THE weapon to have if you're trying to create a stealthy sniper. Oh, and along the way, you'll unlock access to exploding crossbow bolts that stack fire, frost, or shock damage on top of the damage you're already doing. The only downsides are that it's louder than a bow and crossbows are slower to reload that standard bows, so a skilled archer can fire more shots (and thus do more damage) in the time it takes to reload the crossbow. (This bow vs. crossbow debate [[TruthInTelevision played out in real life]] during the
Middle Ages.)

* In the unpatched version of there game, there is a glitch involving the Oghma Infinium., a RareCandy book meant to be single-use can be glitched into replicating endlessly, providing full skill and level cap within minutes. This exploit was later patched.

* In order to avoid the the exponential curve of improving potions from ''Morrowind'', ''Skyrim'' does not allow you to make potions or enchantments which can improve themselves (barring one exception, a unique set of enchantment-boosting armor). You can, however, make enchantments and potions which boost each other, which is almost as useful. You can ping-pong the effects back and forth between them several times. If you abuse absolutely every enchanting and alchemy boost available, you can attain up to 49% enchanting boost and 39% alchemy boost. This allows you to make weapons do up to five times the damage they normally can, give even the weakest armor enough points to reach the armor cap, and make potions that can heal absurd amounts of damage or increase your weapon skills to twice their normal level, among other extremely useful effects.

** Orcs have only racial ability, but it so powerful that the developers did not need to give them another - Berserk. Take half damage, deal double damage, for 60 seconds. You can kill a LOT of enemies in 60 seconds, or one genuinely powerful enemy. As long as you are quick enough, once a dragon lands, an Orc can damage 50% of a dragon's health before it can take off, which will cause the dragon to be grounded. From there, you can finish it off without worrying about it taking off and attacking from the air. It's so overpowering that a few mods opt to {{nerf}} it by making the player take ''additional'' damage while using it instead, which is more appropriate for a [[TheBerserker berserker rage]].
** The freedom to immediately enter Orc strongholds. A player character of any other race must complete a quest before being allowed access. However, an Orc fresh off the Helgen executioner's block can stroll right in. In particular, Gloombound Mine is located within an Orc stronghold, and it has the most Ebony veins of any mine in the game. An Orc can walk right in with a pickaxe and mine every ore vein in the place, resulting in 10-15 ingots worth each trip. And the veins regularly regenerate. While you need to reach 80 in the Smithing skill tree to actually craft anything with it, the ingots are quite valuable and sell for a pretty penny. A low level Orc can make plenty of money by mining, smelting, and selling (none of which require a particular level or skill).

*** However, Soul Trap pales before the most expensive enchantment in the game: Banish Daedra. However, this enchantment can only be obtained at higher levels. Same goes for Paralysis, the second most expensive enchantment. With the perk that allows you to put two enchantments on one item, you can turn an investment of a few dozen gold into an iron dagger and a filled petty soul gem into a profit of several hundred gold.
* The most basic Conjuration necromancy spell, Raise Zombie, can easily be used to raise your conjuration to level 50 by the end of Bleak Fall Barrow. How? Cast it on a corpse, then strike the raised creature with the weapon and/or attack spell of your choice, until the creature goes hostile. The moment it does so, you get a large amount of experience in Conjuration. Why? You only get Conjuration increases if your raised zombie engages in combat against something. That something can be anything, even yourself. As long as you don't kill the zombie before it turns hostile, you'll raise both your Conjuration and your favored attack skill. And zombie raising gives a TREMENDOUS increase compared to Daedra summons. Just cast it on any basic enemy (bandit, draugr, skeever), make it turn against you, kill it, and you'll be leveling up lightning fast. The best part? Any corpse will do, even ones that were dead before you entered the level. Bleak Falls Barrow is littered with basic corpses that you can raise then rekill to boost you conjuration at lightning speed. Oh, and if you've mastered Illusion, you can just raise the creature, cast Fury on it (only possible with the perk that allows Illusion spells to affect the undead), and you'll get the increases automatically. Even if you only intend to use Bound Weapons, this trick will let you have the levels necessary to get the Bound Bow spell (most expensive, requires level 50 Conjuration) and all the perks relating to Bound Weapons by the time you clear the barrow. ([[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Plus, there's the fun of getting to kill your enemies a second time]].)

* The Enhanced Dwarven Crossbow, available in ''Dawnguard'', is a huge game breaker for the following reasons: it's easy to get (just completing a set of six quests will make it available in a store in Fort Dawnguard), it has slightly higher base damage than a Dragonbone Bow (the most powerful regular bow in the game), and it has an innate ability to ignore 50% of enemy armor. Better yet, this is not an enchantment, so the crossbow can be enchanted on top of that. This is THE weapon to have if you're trying to create a stealthy sniper. Oh, and along the way, you'll unlock access to exploding crossbow bolts that stack fire, frost, or shock damage on top of the damage you're already doing. The only downsides are that it's louder than a bow and crossbows are slower to reload that standard bows, so a skilled archer can fire more shots (and thus do more damage) in the time it takes to reload the crossbow. (This bow vs. crossbow debate [[TruthInTelevision played out in real life]] during the middle ages.)

* Auriel's Bow, one of the MacGuffin items in ''Dawnguard'', is in fact an extremely powerful bow with a few bonuses that make it supremely powerful: Firstly, it does 60 sun damage to the undead (the best enchanted weapons a player can manufacture will only be able to add at most 60 bonus damage normally, unless you use alchemy boosts). Second, when using Sunblessed arrows (all you need to make them is to take Elvish Arrows to a certain NPC), it has a powerful sunburst effect that damages groups of enemies. Third, its damage rivals Daedric and Dragonbone bows, and can be greatly improved with Smithing. At max Smithing, it exceeds even a Dwarven Crossbow or Dragonbone Bow. Fourth, and this is the most incredible, if you shoot a Sunblessed arrow at the sun with this bow, it will turn the sun into a KillSat, randomly blasting anything and everything nearby for a few minutes. Incredibly useful during battles with dragons during the day. Oh, and you get to keep the bow after the ''Dawnguard'' questline is over. It can also fire cursed arrows that do extra damage against the living and, when fired into the sun, make it night. The latter ability is almost indispensable for vampires, but can also be used to make ideal sneaking conditions.
* The Aetherium Crown, one of the three possible rewards for the sidequest "Lost To The Ages" (you can initiate this by finding the book ''The Aetherium Wars'', which is liberally scattered throughout most cities and towns in Skyrim after installing ''Dawnguard'') allows you to retain two Standing Stone Abilities. How is this a gamebreaker? You can use this to obtain the Lover Stone ability (+15% to all exp gains) and any of the three Guardian Stone abilities (+20% to Warrior, Thief, or Mage abilities). Additionally, if you put the Lover Stone on the crown, you can remove it, get a sleeping bonus, and put it back on, negating the drawback of the Lover Stone. Stacked, that allows for up to a 30% general exp increase as well as 20% in exp gains to the expertise of your choice, greatly increasing the speed of your character growth. Or, if you've already maxed your exp, if you can locate the Lord Stone and The Atronach Stone, you can use them to greatly improve your defensive capabilities. Or the Apprentice Stone and the Atronach Stone, which means you get all the strengths of both stones while at the same time negating their weaknesses (The Apprentice stone increases your Magicka regen, but makes you twice as vulnerable to magic. The Atronach Stone increases your Magicka, and gives you 50% magic attack absorption, but halves your Magicka regen. Combine the two, and your magic defense is essentially the same, but you gain magicka each time you are hit with a spell, and you get a bonus to your Magicka at the same time). Another gamebreaker related to the Aetherium Crown: some Standing Stones grant a special power with a 24h cooldown; linking one of those stones to the Aetherium Crown allow to use it, and removing the Crown then wearing it again completely clears the cooldown, so you now have a cool ability (opening locks, reanimating surrounding corpses as followers for 60 seconds, becoming invisible for 60 seconds, etc.) than doesn't consume mana and can be spammed at will.
* For Vampire Lords, most of their abilities constitute a DiscOneNuke, since their powers will eventually be overshadowed by a regular character's higher level skills. However, there is one power that is going to be useful even if your character is at high levels. It's available as soon as you have access to your second perk: Vampiric Grip. It's telekinesis that works exclusively on enemies. When you use it, enemies are suspended in midair and they take light damage. When you let go, though, they get tossed with great force in any direction you choose, even straight up. Nearly every boss room in the game has a high ceiling, so you can grab just about every enemy in the game, then throw him straight up into the air. After he lands, he'll take a significant amount of damage. No matter how strong a boss may be, he won't survive more than a few round trip tickets from the floor to the ceiling and back. While this spell burns through Magicka quickly, it only takes two to three seconds at most to send an enemy skyward, and with sufficient Magicka regen, you can repeat it at will without fear of running out of Magicka. It has already been confirmed that it can toss ''giants'' effortlessly, leaving mammoths and dragons as the only creatures not yet confirmed to be affected by this spell. Meaning that, with the exception of the two largest creatures in the game, there's nothing that this spell can't lift and throw for you. Two seconds of effort, then gravity does the rest.
* For specific/unique weapons, there's the Windshear, a scimitar obtainable towards the end of the Dark Brotherhood questline (it can be found on the Katariah, the Emperor's ship). Its enchantment causes anyone and anything hit by the sword to always stagger, meaning any [=1v1=] melee battle while using it will almost be a guaranteed win (assuming you can get up close to them and not be deterred by any ranged attacks), even against grounded Ancient Dragons.

* Conjuration and Illusion, used in conjunction, can be a tremendous game breaker. Let's review: Illusion allows you to manipulate enemy behavior (make enemies enraged, afraid, or calm) and bolster your allies. Conjuration allows you to summon creatures to aid you. Nearly maxed out, Illusion allows you to use your skills on undead, daedra, and automatons. So, you can hit your enemy with a fear spell, so that he won't try to fight, then summon a Dremora Lord or two, then use a spell to make said Dremora even stronger. Then play ''Series/TheBennyHillShow'' chase music while your dremora chase down and kill the enemy who is too scared to fight. This helps overcome the typical enemy habit of initially ignoring your summons and attacking you first, since by the time the fear spell runs out, the two summoned creatures are the greater threat.
* [[Webcomic/PennyArcade Turns out there was a reason to save all those brooms.]] In the Mages College at Winterhold, the Atronach Forge allows you to craft several items. With a broom, Void Salts, an unfilled soul gem greater level or higher, and an Orichalcum ingot or ore fragment, you can craft a Staff of Storm Atronach. In addition to being a very powerful staff, it also sells very, very well, the staff selling much better than its ingredients do. Even better, with the exception of Void Salts, you can find all of the stuff lying around, and even Void Salts will occasionally show up around alchemy workspaces and apothecary pouches. You can also use the Atronach Forge to make Void Salts with just an amethyst, any unfilled soul gem (petty is most cost effective), and salt.

** Soul Trap is another useful enchantment for this purpose, as weapons with the enchantment have an ''extraordinarily'' high price, even if enchanted with a simple Petty Soul Gem. Basically, once you find a weapon with Soul Trap, you never have to worry about gold again. Simply craft a bunch of cheap weapons, enchant them with Soul Trap, sell them for a ton of money, and spend a portion of that money to buy more soul gems, rinse and repeat. [[CaptainObvious And, of course, weapons with Soul Trap can be used to trap souls to fill those soul gems]].

* If built properly, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iOxbZu7lV0 it's possible to have a Hand To Hand build]] that allows you to punch anything to death using only GoodOldFisticuffs.

* Offensive skills, those that require you to actually be hitting something, can't typically be leveled without danger to your person. Unless you attack Shadowmere (a reward from a quest in the Dark Brotherhood chain) or Arvak (you can gain the ability to summon him in the Soul Cairn, accessed as part of the Dawnguard questline). Shadowmere has a ludicrous amount of health and a HealingFactor that makes her NighInvulnerable, making for [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential a great punching bag]] to level combat skills on. Even if you do accidentally kill her (however unlikely), she respawns in a few days. Arvak is a little less convenient for this purpose, as he has less health and lasts only 60 seconds anyways, so you constantly need to resummon him whenever he dies or despawns. However, Arvak can be acquired without joining and advancing in the Dark Brotherhood if you do not wish to do so.
* If you somehow feel that you aren't leveling Conjuration fast enough, there's a super easy way to do so: Kill anything in the game, a basic bandit, a fox, a wolf, ''anything'', and spam the ever-loving heck out of Soul Trap on its corpse. You get a decent bit of exp from each cast, and due to Soul Trap's relatively low cost, you can easily squeeze out enough experience to get you to 100 Conjuration within the hour.