WTF am I doing wrong?

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OK, I enchanted a dagger with soul trap. I figured that with the 15X damage Assassinate perk, along with Shrouded Gloves that double that, I could set the timer to 1 second, and since I'm 1-hitting everything that I sneak up on, I can just equip that dagger then. Since the only things I'll be killing with this technique are people, I acquired several (five to be precise) empty grand soul gems.

So I go to this bandit cave, kill a bandit using the aforementioned technique, I see a blue swoosh thing, and I assume that means that soul trap worked. "Great!" I think to myself. In the next room there is another bandit, and I kill him using the dagger as well, and I get the message (no appropriate sized soul gems). Don't all people have grand souls, and therefore shouldn't grand soul gems be exactly what I need? It did appear to work the first time, so do I have to "spend" that first captured soul before capturing another one? (Although from the description it says that it should fill the first gem it finds that is big enough to hold the soul, using the small ones first, and then going to the bigger ones if you don't have an appropriate sized smaller one.) Is this not done automatically?

 

Yep. You've forgotten one thing though.

There are two types of soul in the Elder Scrolls - Black and White.

Black souls can only be caught in black soul gems or the Black Star.

White can only be caught in normal soul gems, Azura's Star or due to a bug, the Black Star.

All player races are black soulled. Everything else (daedra, animals, undead etc are white).

Unless you have black soul gems or the unique equivalent, soul trapping bandits won't do a lot

 

Damn it! The reason it worked the first time is I'm pretty sure I had one empty black soul gem. Well that just about ruins this plan. The plan was to one-hit kill bandits, and since I'm especially looking for greater and grand souls, those of animals aren't going to do a whole lot, as most of them don't have grand souls, and I seriously doubt I can one-hit kill the ones that do.

And there aren't a hell of a lot of greater or grand souls in the game either. I think I'm limited to Mammoths, Giants, and (presumably) Dragons, but good luck one shot killing any of them. Or even sneaking up on a dragon for that matter. (Although I suppose I could sneak up on a giant - or possibly a mammoth - 30x damage is a lot, so maybe a one-hit kill isn't out of the realm of possibility.

 

Your only real option if you want to use bandits is to pick up the Black Star.

Spoiler

Visit Azura's Shrine and start her quest.

Spoiler

When given the choice, choose not to return the star to her, but the other guy.

 

I'm just trying to find the most cost-effective means of raising my enchanting skill. Since better soul gems give better results, I'm trying to limit my actual crafts to grand soul gems, and use the smaller ones for recharging my weapons. While it seems you get more enchanting experience for disenchanting stuff than you get from enchanting stuff, there's obviously a finite number of items you can disenchant, and so that can't be relied upon to raise your enchanting skill past the early part of the game, where just about every enchanted item you get your hands on can be disenchanted if you aren't planning on using it.

And the limiting factor is the number of soul gems you can get your hands on. Since purchasing empty soul gems that you can fill effectively doubles your supply - not to mention they cost about half what a filled gem does - this was the route I was planning on taking. I guess it's time to hunt some giants and mammoths.

 

The most cost-effective method of raising your skill is by buying the smallest (Petty) filled stones, doing weapon enchants with them on anything you happen to come across (plenty of Iron and Steel daggers from Bandits, for example) and use the excess money to buy more stones but you knew that already, didn't you?

Now, as you're clearly planning on doing some killing yourself, you might as well scour any and every petty to normal sized stones you come across (loot or merchant, doesn't matter) and go one-shot crazy on anything that you come across with that dagger of yours equipped. Greaters require rare kills such as Giants (or Scourge Overlords) and Grands are exclusive to Mammoths, or in other words: keep them empty greaters and grands stashed away at some safe place until you start your monthly Giant camp sweeps so that you don't accidentally fill them up with the 2876 mudcrab souls on your hike from Whiterun to Windhelm alongside the river bank.

Edit: The point of the above being that the value of weapon enchants doesn't care all that much about the size of the stone used, so use the smaller ones for weapons, do your "real" enchants with the largest ones and recharge your items with the ones in between.

 

As it so happened, when I checked last night, I had "Visit Azura's Shrine" sitting in my miscellaneous quest log. I just didn't know that had any correlation to the Black Star quest. So I started that last night, although I haven't returned the Black Star yet. (It was getting late and I needed to get to bed.)

Actually, I didn't. That's why I said I was using the petty soul stones to recharge my weapons, and the greater/grand soul stones for my enchants. I should have figured the size of the gem wouldn't matter that much in terms of experience gained - just like the smithing skill. Even with the latest official patch that attempted to balance the smithing skill so that smithing heaps of iron daggers and leather bracers, no longer gave the same experience as crafting better items, it is still the easiest way to raise your smithing, simply because the raw materials are so abundant.

This is good advice even after I get the Black Star, as it can only hold one soul at a time. That having been said, it also makes sense to empty that soul every time I see an arcane enchanted, as bandits aren't exactly rare finds.

I'm actually considering some investment in the Speech skill. Specifically considering "Merchant", as that would allow the sale of any type of item to any type of merchant. That would require two prerequisites, so a total of three perks. I typically have so much stuff that I can't sell all of it on one trip to town. I make my home in Riften as it is, because of the Thieves guild there that have additional merchants to sell stuff to. But with some of the potions I make selling for several hundred gold, some merchants can buy like two. But I'm underutilizing the fletcher and blacksmith down there. If I can sell anything to anyone, I can probably unload most of my potions between those guys, and the Riften Blacksmith (as opposed to just the general goods store, the Riften alchemist, and the fence that I currently use). So I would increase the amount I can sell in one trip from around 5,000 gp to 8,000 gp. Solitude would also be an excellent location to dispose of large amounts of loot.

 

If you have access to all the fences I never found unloading loot to be much of a problem. All of them buy everything and they have 4k so a couple of round trips should empty your inventory. Also after a while of doing that you will have so much gold that it loses all meaning.

 

I'm sure it will eventually - I just find it annoying having to travel from town to town just to sell my loot - I want to spend more time playing and less time selling. I'm also buying up soul stones like a fiend to level up my enchanting, and those things aren't cheap. Being able to buy and sell everything to all merchants will especially help with merchants that sell soul stones, as I can simultaneously purchase and sell much more without all the stops. Most of the major cities have court wizards that sell soul stones, and I can easily purchase 5,000 gp worth of them in one trip. Being able to then sell them 5,000 gp worth of potions is time efficient.

 

I'd say download the Soul Syphon mod, makes soul-trapping so much easier (an AOE cast and about a minute to actually kill the mobs) but I think you have it on XBOX don't you? (for shame Alders!)

 

It's not my fault - my PC is old, and I have a 4-year old who wanted a Kinnect, and he eventually wore me down. Now I can't justify the purchase of a new PC anytime soon, as Skyrim is the main focus of my gaming, so I'll just keep on using the PC I have. Then again, D3 comes out next month, and so there may be a need to purchase a new PC anyway.

 

Give over, I bet you're minted!

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

I need a translation into Yankee English!

 

Mint = place where you make money, literally. I then guess that "minted" would mean someone with a lot of money?

 

If so, then it's a case of mistaken identity. I am gainfully employed, but I got a wife and kid. Working Dad + Wife + Kid = No Money for Dad.

 

I find that most general goods stores have just about as many stones as any court wizard, and Khajiit caravan traders seem to carry especially many Grands and Greaters. But good point about being able to siphon back your gold from wizards as well.

 

Major props and major thanks for this advice. I noticed I had 17 petty/lesser soul stones in my inventory. Those were the kind that I was using to recharge me weapons. So I did some testing, and it turns out your completely right - it looks like the experience gain you get for enchanting something with a lesser/petty soul gem is nearly identical to what you get for using a greater soul gem. (I didn't test it with a grand, because I'm specifically saving those for my best enchantments.)

I took two iron daggers, but the paralysis enchantment on them both, the only difference being I used a greater soul gem on one, and a lesser soul gem on the other. While the resulting craft was more valuable with the greater soul stone, the experience awarded towards the enchanting skill seems to be identical. So it's definitely in your best interest to use your cheapest soul stones if you're just trying to up your enchanting skill.

While enchanting iron daggers you craft does seem to be a great way to level up both your smithing and enchanting skills, it doesn't seem to be nearly the money maker that alchemy is if you are purchasing your own ingredients. Even with a high speech skill, I'm only selling those daggers for around 100 gp, and that's a rough approximation of how much it costs to make one if you buy everything. Alchemy on the other hand, is a huge money maker. Since after a play through or two, you know all the common ingredients you need to make potions like slow, paralysis, and frenzy, and that those potions always sell for considerably more than you spend on ingredients, I can't see how I wouldn't include alchemy in all my future characters, even if I don't spend the perks in it. (Even with this character, the only perk I spent was the first alchemy perk.)

Also found a circlet last night that ups bow damage by 40% Woot! The armor on it is zilch, but 40% damage doubled what I had on my crafted dragonscale helm. And seeing as how I'm buying 5 levels of light armor training every time I level up (clearly, I've reached the point where money is no longer of any concern), I think I'll be OK with what armor I have. It's not like I'm getting hit much anyway.

I'm enjoying this character a lot more than my first. Missing out on the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests the first go through was a big miss, but I was roleplaying my character, and I couldn't see why a big burly fighter would have much interest in those things. It's also clear that this character is going to far surpass the level of my fighter, simply because there are going to be so many skills I end up maxing or come close to maxing.

My fighter had skills of 90+ in just 5 skills - all of the warrior skills except two handed. This guy is going to be 90+ in at least 9 skills - all 6 thief skills, plus smithing, archery, and enchanting. (For now, lockpicking is only in the 70s, but with the amount of break-ins I do, it's still increasing slowly but surely.) I need one more perk for merchant, and after that, the next three perks will all go into enchanting to get the two enchantment perk. (I'm assuming that I will have maxed enchanting by the time those perks are available to me.)

 

There are loads of locks in the dwemer museum at the castle in Markath.

 

Plus arent there training chests in the thieves guild for leveling your lockpicking?

 

Only one per level.