History Gamebreaker / TheElderScrolls

* A simple, rare alteration spell, Transmute, can easily be this. It's almost impossible to find in shops, but it is guaranteed to be found in Halted Stream Camp, a bandit lair in walking distance of Whiterun, on a table in plain view. The spell does two things: when cast, it will turn a single piece of iron ore into silver, or a piece of silver ore into gold. Two castings of the spell will turn a lump of iron ore, the most commonly found ore in the game, that has multiple mines spread through Skyrim, into one of the most expensive. And crafting jewelry requires no levels in Smithing whatsoever. An adept level spell, it has a high Magicka cost (nearly 100), but with high Magicka regen (or just by waiting an hour after each use, which restores it for free), you can spam it repeatedly, and an adept in Alteration can cast it at lower cost. Turn the gold ore into ingots, then jewelry, enchant them, and you have some high grade ShopFodder to sell. This allows you to raise Smithing, Speech, and Enchanting easily (enchanted rings and necklaces sell quite well). It's practically money for nothing. The best part? Halted Stream Camp, the best place to find it, is AN IRON MINE. There are 16 iron veins inside, so you can pull 48 gold ore in just one run. And you won't even need to bring your own pickaxe, they can be found all over. Just one more reason to use your spells. The only downside is that the spell will prioritize turning silver to gold before turning iron to silver. Some gemstones can only be crafted into silver jewelry, and sell for more than basic gold jewelry + the gemstone separately (plus it gives more Smithing XP), and it takes 2 silver ore to make 1 silver ingot. If you want to maximize your profits (and XP gain), you'll need to repeatedly go into your inventory and either drop the silver ore on the ground or store it in a container, which can get annoying. Even more so when NPCs who notice you dropping something [[StopHelpingMe will often try to return it to you]].

* A simple, rare alteration spell, Transmute, can easily be this. It's almost impossible to find in shops, but it is guaranteed to be found in Halted Stream Camp, a bandit lair in walking distance of Whiterun, on a table in plain view. The spell does two things: when cast, it will turn a single piece of iron ore into silver, or a piece of silver ore into gold. Two castings of the spell will turn a lump of iron ore, the most commonly found ore in the game, that has multiple mines spread through Skyrim, into one of the most expensive. And crafting jewelry requires no levels in Smithing whatsoever. An adept level spell, it has a high Magicka cost (nearly 100), but with high Magicka regen (or just by waiting an hour after each use, which restores it for free), you can spam it repeatedly, and an adept in Alteration can cast it at lower cost. Turn the gold ore into ingots, then jewelry, enchant them, and you have some high grade ShopFodder to sell. This allows you to raise Smithing, Speech, and Enchanting easily (enchanted rings and necklaces sell quite well). It's practically money for nothing. The best part? Halted Stream Camp, the best place to find it, is AN IRON MINE. There are 16 iron veins inside, so you can pull 48 gold ore in just one run. And you won't even need to bring your own pickaxe, they can be found all over. Just one more reason to use your spells.

* Spells in ''Arena'' and ''Daggerfall'' are formed with incremental formulas: for example, Spell Damage is [X + Y(per level)]. The player can make a nuke spell with damage of [1 + 15(per level)], meaning that if the player is level 6, the nuke will do 90 damage per shot (enough to kill anything that breathes), yet still have a reasonable casting cost. This applies to all kinds of spells, allowing the player to get 100% Spell Absorption or Reflection for a fairly long duration at a pretty low level, and only gets stronger and stronger as the game goes on.

* All magic classes eventually become this at [[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards higher levels]] due to the way that spells scale. A custom 1 + 19 damage spell will do 20 damage at level 1, only enough to kill rats and goblins. At level 21, however, it will do ''400'' damage, in a game where the three most powerful enemies (including the final boss) have 500-750 hit points. And that's far from the most powerful custom spell that can be created. [[MagicKnight Battlemages]] have it especially easy because of their discount to offensive spells, giving them access to insanely powerful magic much earlier in the game.

* Getting loans from a bank. Banks give out loans to a maximum of [Player Level x 50,000] gold, with no collateral required up front. There are 43 provinces, and each one is completely independent of each other, and only 3 are actually essential to the plot. Take out a loan from some banks out in the boondocks when you're level 3, and go off and buy yourself a house in your home province. You'll never feel the repercussions, and even if you did return to the boondocks, the guards will never arrest you for it. It's almost literally MoneyForNothing. This says nothing of what you can do if you decide to take out the loans at level 10 instead...
* The Unlock spell doesn't check lock strength when the player is in an outdoor area, so you can cast a 1% Chance Unlock spell and it'll always work on any door if you're outdoors. Combine that with how shoplifting is possible by just walking into a shop after hours, and [[KleptomaniacHero you can rob the entire city blind]]. All shops restock every day. This makes it easy to make hundreds of thousands of gold in only a few real life hours of work.

* The player can craft five pieces of armor which each have the "Chameleon 20%" enchantment. Since spell effects stack, equipping them all results in the player being completely invisible. The way the game is coded makes it so that enemies can't intentionally attack the player no matter what, making the player almost immortal[[note]]To be clear, 100% Chameleon makes the player completely invisible to the AI - regardless of whether they're standing there, or even beating on someone. The player is, however, still "visible" to scripts - so scripted attacks, such as the red crystal during the Thieves Guild quest "Turn a Blind Eye" can still attack you, and "forced" interactions that involve [=NPCs=] running up to you, to engage in conversation, will still work; but as soon as things are handed off to the AI, the NPC will immediately lose track of you. While, overall, this results in making the ''entire game'' trivial, it can also result in amusing glitches, in the case of a quest that requires an NPC to attack you, like another Thieves Guild quest, "Boots of Springheel Jak". This results in Jakben to enter into an infinite loop of scripted confrontation, and immediately losing sight of you - including relevant dialogue and unsheathing/sheathing his weapon[[/note]]. This leads to the game actually becoming slightly overwhelming, as certain NPC interactions disregard the player's undetectable state, making for some very odd inconsistencies. If the player considers BribingYourWayToVictory, then they can purchase an add-on which allows them to obtain this armor ''at level 1''.

* The most basic Conjuration necromancy spell, Raise Zombie, can easily be used to raise your conjuration to level 50 by the end of Bleak Falls 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 re-kill to boost your 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]].)

* Arcane Archer adds new arrows which do elemental damage in an explosion around them. As if archery wasn't powerful enough. The strength scales with your level, doing 100 points of damage at level 20.

* The Goldenhills Plantation is a playerhome that comes with 38 plots to grow alchemy ingredients, larger than any other ''Hearthfire'' homestead in the Anniversary Edition. The quest to unlock the farmhouse can be done at level 1 fresh out of Helgen, and afterwards you can immediately do any Alchemy power leveling scheme you can think off since you can just sit in bed and let your plants grow back. It's also incredible for earning risk free money after completing another quest to upgrade the farmhouse with a Steward, farm animals, and windmill to get huge piles of gold based on the value of the plants you placed.

* Arcane Accessories adds new spells and robes that can be purchased. Elemental Flare is a novice destruction spell that acts like fireball. It provides longer range, higher damage, and an AoE effect all for far cheaper than even firebolt. It can stagger enemies if dual cast with the Impact perk. The Elemental series of spells in general are far more powerful than any other destruction spells in the game, because they interact with Augmented Flames, Frost and Shock perks (similar to the Chaos Enchantment), as well as Aspect of Terror, Intense Flames, Deep Freeze and Disintegrate. With all perks Elemental Flare can out-damage Ignite, and Elemental Blast becomes the most damaging spell in the game, doing double the damage of Incinerate or Thunderbolt for half the cost.

* In a similarly vein to the Alchemy abuses, due to a bug, combining a targeted Soul Trap effect with a different effect "On Self" via Spellmaking causes the latter effect to become permanent if you cast it and don't hit anything with the Soul Trap portion. For example, create a spell combing targeted Soul Trap with Fortify Intelligence on self, then cast it so the Soul Trap doesn't hit anything and the Fortify Intelligence buff becomes permanent. With some time, money, and similar additional spells, you can enhance all of your attributes well past the typical {{Cap}}s, become essentially invulnerable to harm, and create an army of permanent summoned creatures. The rest of the game will be a breeze.

* If you don't use an Unofficial Patch, due to a bug, Casting a targeted Soul Trap at nothing while casting a different effect on yourself on the same spell, the effects of the second one are permanent. For example, create a spell that's both targeted Soul Trap & Fortify Intelligence on self, and cast it on the ground, and the Intelligence buff stays permanently. With some time, and more spells of its ilk, you can become a charismatic, all-knowing PhysicalGod for the rest of the game.

* If you don't use an Unofficial Patch, due to a bug, Casting a targeted Soul Trap at nothing while casting a different effect on yourself on the same spell, the effects of the second one are permanent. For example, create a spell that's both targeted Soul Trap & Fortify Intelligence on self, and cast it on the ground, and the Intelligence buff stays permanently. With some time, and more spells of it's ilk, you can become a charismatic, all-knowing PhysicalGod for the rest of the game.

** The Ignite spell, one of two spells gotten by wearing the Ahzidal's Ring of Arcana from a Dragonborn DLC Quest, has the potential to outclass most, if not all other Destruction Spells when optimized. It deals 4 damage per second for 15 seconds, up to 42 when dualcasting (it's also compatible with the Impact perk) with both "Augmented Flames" perk and the aforementioned "Aspect of Terror" perk. This is already solid on it's own, but what takes it to gamebreaking levels is the fact that the damage-over-time effect can ''stack'' with multiple casts. Between the split-second charge time and the pittance of magicka it takes to cast (one of the cheapest among Destruction spells), the Dragonborn can effectively melt the health of nearly any enemy. The only downside is that the quest to get the ring that allows its use is very expensive and time-consuming.

** This can be amplified to ridiculous degrees with fortify restoration potions. They not only amplify your ability to cast restoration spells they also temporarily boost the enchantments on your equipment. This becomes truly game breaking when you use fortify restoration potions and then create fortify restoration potions with alchemy boosting armor. You will then be able to create potions that multiply your enchanting and smithing skills literally hundreds of times over.

** This can be amplified to ridiculous degrees with fortify restoration potions. They not only amplify your ability to cast restoration spells they also temporarily boost the enchantments on your equipment. This becomes truly game breaking when you use fortify restoration potions and then create fortify restoration potions with alchemy boosting armor. You will create potions that multiply your enchanting and smithing skills literally hundreds of times.

* Bloodchill Manor is hone to the only Staff Enchanter in the game that's bugged to give tons of Enchanting experience when you craft a staff using it. Bring a least 10 staffs and Heart Stones to it and you can 100 Enchanting easy.

* Spells in ''Arena'' and ''Daggerfall'' are formed with incremental formulas: for example, Spell Damage is [X + Y(per level)]. The player can make a nuke spell with damage of [1 + 15(per level)], meaning that if the player is level 6, the nuke will do 90 damage per shot (enough to kill anything that breathes), yet still have a reasonable casting cost. This only gets more and more powerful as the player gains levels.

* You can easily create a custom version of the [[AttackReflector Reflect]] spell to give you 100% spell reflection as early as level SIX. It's a little costly, but if you increase the duration you can easily run around dungeons while watching enemies with magic attacks kill themselves trying to attack you. If you need more Magicka, you can do the same with Spell Absorption.

* Both games also include the Atronach birthsign. At the cost of being unable to naturally regenerate Magicka, the birthsign gives a large boost to your maximum Magicka and gives you a 50% chance to absorb incoming spells. The absorption both negates any damage from the spell as well as recharges your Magicka. While this alone is fairly powerful, combining it with other means of spell absorption or resistance can make it an outright game-breaker. A good example from either game is a Breton (natural 50% Resist Magicka) taking the Atronach birthsign to become the ultimate MageKiller.

* The player is given the [=SpellMaker=] ability immediately after joining the Mage's Guild. Spells are formed with incremental formulas: for example, Spell Damage is [X + Y(per level)]. The player can make a nuke spell with damage of [1 + 15(per level)], meaning that if the player is level 6, the nuke will do 90 damage per shot (enough to kill anything that breathes), yet still have a reasonable casting cost.

* Dragonhide is an alteration spell that boosts your armor to 80% damage reduction. Doesn’t sound so good, since armor can easily do the same thing. What the game doesn’t tell you is that, it ‘’stacks’’, resulting in an effective 96% damage reduction. Add Miraak’s gear and the atronach stone/alteration perks, and have fun being effectively immortal.