Skyrim Economy / Relative Wealth of Your PC

This is sort of a pet peeve of mine. Nearly every RPG I've ever played has a problem where it is too easy to become wealthy in the game. I've installed lots of "poverty" mods for previous games to increase merchant prices or reduce reselling prices.

If I ever reach a point where I can easily afford anything at all, there is no more point to accumulating wealth and loot, and it is perhaps time to retire that character.

How is your experience going with Skyrim so far in terms of the accumulation of wealth? Are you ridiculously wealthy? Poor as a pauper?

Do you have a high Speechcraft score? Which difficulty setting are you using?

I'm level 37, playing as a thief on master difficulty. So far I have not completed any of the faction or civil war questlines. The only faction I've joined is the thieves' guild and I only completed the first couple of quests. I only did the main quest up to



In my case, I'm finding some excellent gold sinks in the form of arrows and smithing materials. I have also paid trainers a few times, primarily for the RP purposes, in line with the concept that I need to pay someone smarter than me to teach me things from time to time.

I've pickpocketed several of the Jarls and Thanes and robbed them blind, and I also take care to retrieve every coin and valuable item I find from dungeons, etc. However, I've been spending a great deal of gold improving all my weapons and armor from time to time.

I've accumulated a cache of jewelry and dragonbones which I can sell in a pinch, but for the most part, every time I earn around 4000 - 6000 gold, I spend it all buying arrows and moonstone and quicksilver ingots to improve my Elven armor and weapons, etc. Early in the game I also spent gold to buy filled grand soul gems in order to enchant some items. At this point I no longer need to buy any soul gems.

I suppose perhaps on Master difficulty it takes a lot of arrows to bring down high level enemies? In any case, every chance I get, I buy every single arrow in town, then after visiting a dungeon or two (or encountering a dragon), I'm down to a handful of Ancient Nord or iron arrows and desperately need to buy more in case of dragon attack.

I haven't bought a house or any horses yet, either, although the house in Solitude looks very appealing.

I've found after playing for nearly 150 hours, that the economy system seems to be holding up just fine. I'm certainly not wealthy and there is a lot of reason to look forward to continuing to explore and accumulate loot. And I think finding new dragon words would be a strong motivator even if the economy system were not working so well. So far, I see no need to install a poverty mod.

I'm level 30, playing as a sorcerer on master difficulty and the time spent in game I could say that the economy is stable and I always have a need to buy something and I cannot afford. At moment speechcraft is 39 but still I am not carrying more then 5k usually, maybe because I buy skills or I was not lucky to find wealthy artefacts I don't own a wealthy sum of gold. And is much better to like see the worth of glass items they buy or sell for the prices from previous elder scrolls game. At moment only owning a house in Whiterun and only with alchemy lab feature.

And I cannot remember other games except elder scrolls that had problem with the economy, have you tried Basilisk Games, in particular book 1 and 2?

I have a level 14 thief with 15k gold (and lots of crafting materials). I bought at least 2 magical bows so far and one dagger. I'm playing on Adept and only robbed one Jarl...

Level 39, on master setting, I have 77k and 3 houses so far. I'm primarily doing the assassin archer type, w/ duel wield as a backup. Companions are for target practice, the only worthwhile buddy for me is mah sanguine rose. He listens and obeys! I'm near 50 hrs playtime.


-Carn

Are you finding that you need to spend a lot of gold to buy spell tomes?

In Oblivion, after installing a poverty mod, buying spells from merchants was perhaps the most effective gold sink. (Some of the high level spells cost over 40,000 septims.) At the same time I felt it somehow cheapens the concept of learning arcane knowledge to buy spells from merchants.

I will try a mage character next for Skyrim, but I'm planning to rely solely on spell tomes discovered in dungeons or received as quest rewards. Do you think this is feasible?

Not really, maybe expert ones will cost more but so far only what is worth alot are robes dedicated to that category of spells, yes I think you could manage to do that as so far higher spells are not that worth using if don't got a good enchanted items that lowers mana cost.

I'm level 27, 50 hours in, and I have around 15k and a home in Whiterun. I find that the economy has been holding up pretty well, but I feel I'm starting to become the richest person around, which is expected considering I'm the adventurer plundering ancient tombs and ruins for treasure. I think once I pay for some master one-handed training (which now costs me 1500+ per level), my money will come back down to 'normal'. I should also buy some new enchanted items just to disenchant them and learn their secrets.

I'm level 21 and have just been plundering dungeons as I spiral out from the Throat of World. I haven't made it to any other Hold capital / large town besides Whiterun. I bought the house there, and have been spending my gold mainly on enchanted weapons and armor in shops. Trying to build up a store of elemental resist equipment for me and companion. Right now I just finished a major spending spree and am down to about $5K from a high of around $12K. Economy seems well balanced so far.

The economy is very balanced. It's definitely one of the better balancing acts I've ever seen in an RPG, that's for sure. For awhile I was saving up every loot plunder just to afford my house, and that was very satisfying when I finally purchased it. Even at $15k now that can be diminished very quickly with some proper training and purchasing of homes in the other holds. They did a really good job with it.

Edit - I just bought some Orcish Armor, Orcish Boots, 2 grand soul gems to enchant the armor with, an Orcish Shield for my companion, and I'm back down to around $6k in gold. Great stuff.

Level 29 so far, pure mage with 15k gold. I've spent 5k for the house in Whiterun and another 1k or so for the extras, other than that just soul gems and stuff. Enchanting is profitable in the long run since I can sell any item for a lot more gold even if I enchant it with a lesser soul gem. Did 3-4 levels of training in destruction too and some books are expensive (summon dremora lord was almost 2k if I remember). Anyway, I'm only saving up for the possibility of buying more houses and maybe training (though the skills go up fast enough naturally).

The economy depends primarily on one thing really: How much do you invest related to boosting skills?

Skills at 80+ cost over 4000 gold per skill boost. Do that a few times and you'll be broke rather quick.

Beyond that, there aren't a lot of gold sinks. Sure, it costs a bit to level enchanting/blacksmithing, but as long as you stick to petty gems and iron daggers/hide bracers, it's not that bad.

I rarely have too much money though, as I like buying hard-to-level skills that I find useful.

I'm filthy rich, plain and simple. Passed level 40.

Investements? Not much… Mostly equips I thought would be nice to have and spell tomes. I've also bought 4 houses and furnished them completely. I can't buy the 5th house as for some reason there is no option to do that. Perhaps to be able to buy it I should join rebels, but I still didn't join imperial nor rebel forces. And I'm also not touching the main quest. From guilds I've solved only mage's and bard's guild completely, also I solved a a few parts of thief's and fighter's (companions) guild but not completely. I didn't enter Dark brotherhood location yet although I have an invitation after a certain quest.

My speech is 50.
Never payed for training any skill anywhere - my only skill that's now 100 is heavy armor. I tend to explore everything which means - solve all quests available (and even dumbest ones sometimes upgrade your skill) and read all books with the price 50 or more displayed while hovering a pointer over them.

Did I earn all the money by smithing/alchemy/enchanting? No. Those skills are low on me. I tend not to store all junk in my house - if I've looted an expensive item that cannot be disenchanted and I certainly won't use it anywhere - I sell it no matter the price. But since ingame traders don't have enough cash to buy just about everything you want to sell… There is a catch… If you want to get some huge pile of cash pretty easy without abusing some possible bug/glitch.


Anyway, getting rich didn't happen over night. Till I did what I did in the spoiler window, I was almost broke all the time.
I'd say the economy, besides that what's in the spoiler, is well balanced. To correct it Bethesda should probably lower the daily income there.

I'd say spouse income isn't that big of a deal, I come back from a bit of exploring and make several thousand from selling loot, a few extra hundred from the wife is nice but pales by comparison.

I'm relatively careful with my cash, and could easily go broke buying all the high level training, I prefer to increase some of the skills I'm not so good at instead.

Daniel.

I believe the economy system is a bit broken because of the so many
weapons,ingredients,apparels you find in your way. Gold is not needed in this game after you reach 20 level. You can find everything in your path through mining,looting,collecting plants and killing enemies.

Playing in adept difficulty and I am level 33 and currently i have 30k gold and i don't know how to spend it.
I have two houses fully upgraded, i crafted over 500 hundred potions and did lots of enchanting and smith to my apparels, all of them are custom and much better than the one i found in shops.
I have never bought a weapon or magic item or even armor. I have more than 15 grand gems full with grand power. I cant find a better one handed weapon than the mace of Molag bal. It does 69 damage + 30 magical damage + 24 stamina damage + fills a gem soul. I use lots paralyze potions with poison damage 45. My character is IMPERIAL with most skills in Destruction magic, alchemy-smithing-enchanter-light armor-onehanded. I rarely use gold in training and when i use its very cheap (about 500-1000 gold per level).

p.s. i have never been to solitude which i guess is the biggest city.
i haven't went to see the elders yet because i rarely use shouts,
i have done a couple quests in mage guild and a couple with companion(i stopped
where the werewolf story begins, i dont want to be werewolf)
i never needed to use mercenaries.
i dont steal or picpocket.
i dont use cheats.
After the 10th level i stopped crafting-trading for gold

Overall i spent money only to buy and upgrade two houses, 10 alchemy recipes
about a dozen gems before i found (molag bal) about 5 spell books. about 20 training points total, and some gold needed by some quests to persuade people successfully.

Sure you don't have to spend your money, if you were to train up some of your higher level skills it would soon all be gone, I've spent 10K on training for one level before now!

Daniel.

I've had more money than I've needed for most of the game, and I typically carry around 40K in cash. I just plunder dungeons and sell stuff to my fence.

Then again, I've not reached the point where I've felt filthy rich - but I suspect it wouldn't take much effort. I don't craft - as of yet - and the only thing that's expensive, really, is training and buying houses.

I prefer to skill up manually, but eventually I will start buying some of the skills I won't be using much by myself. I think that's the biggest moneysink.

Well, I'm at level 22 now, and am still finding better armor and weapons to buy. I am NOT crafting/brewing to make money though - all my crafting skills are still pretty low. So I think the economy is not broken. It doesn't force you to craft. I make just enough gold by looting (not even fencing yet), to break about even.

i think if you craft to make money the balance starts to tip.

In my case I found crafting to be an excellent money sink.

Every time I increase smithing or find a new magic item that improves my smithing, I go back and upgrade all my weapons and armor and those of my follower.

If you keep several varieties of your preferred weapon (in my case various elven daggers enchanted with different magic effects), and you purchase all the refined moonstone, quicksilver, etc. that you need from smiths (instead of mining the ore), then you end up spending thousands of septims every time you do this.

As a result, I've been consistently broke. Only upon reaching level 40 or so after 150+ hours did I begin to accumulate a bit more gold. Currently I have around 15,000 septims, but I will likely spend a great deal of this as soon as I unlock improvements for ebony and glass items.

Even "Legendary" items can be further improved as your smithing score increases.

If I play as a mage next time, I'm a bit worried that I won't have any similar money sink.

CountChocula said:

Even "Legendary" items can be further improved as your smithing score increases.

Click to expand...

You sure about that? I got my smithing up to 100 for one character and legendary was the best I could do. The dragon armors are really good at legendary level.

BillSeurer said:

You sure about that? I got my smithing up to 100 for one character and legendary was the best I could do. The dragon armors are really good at legendary level.

Click to expand...

Armour caps at something like 156 and if you get your smithing up to around 180 (with magic items) you can improve even low end armours to almost hit the cap. I believe elven armour gets close, steel plate can def hit the cap.

However, I certainly think they need to stop skill enhantments from stacking, currently it is way overpowered.