Questions about soul gems

[tokidoki921]

I bought an empty soul gem (grand) and decided to try out soul trap. I trapped an alit and got a grand soul gem. I expected to get something smaller like a petty soul gem. Is this supposed to happen?

Also is it possible to buy smaller empty soul gems somewhere? I've only seen sellers with grand ones.

[JumbaWumba]

You had a grand soul gem, why would gem get smaller?

Best way is to hang around dolmens, or go after world bosses with groups. They drop a bunch of gems.

[tokidoki921]

I thought I had to trap a creature with a more powerful soul like in skyrim. I get it now. Thanks!

[chuqubaka]

random dungeon u get a gem for evry boss in that dungeon and also 1 as a reward for a random Q

[Drake]

You filled a grand soul gem, so obviously you got a grand soul sem. Soul gems work by level limitation not the other way, you can fill a grand gem with any monster, but you can't fill a petty soul gem with a high level monster monster.

That said, since the One Tamriel update, there are only grand soul gems in the game (you can get some small gems lying around but they are mostly relics that were forgotten by the devs), because of the unique scaling mechanics of the update any other soul sem would be non adequate (every monster is lv 50 cp160 in the game, so any gem that is not a grand gem doesn't work anymore).