Weapon and armor scaling

[The Puppet Master]

although i have been playing for some time, i found out recently that weapon also scale with level, if i got a weapon early on and still use it, will it be good? I use mace of molag bal. Also does this scaling affect armor? Thx

[Bomb Bloke]

Basic weapons and armour are the same at any level. You can improve them yourself if you have a decent level of smithing, however.

Quest rewards, and enchanted loot found in chests etc, tend to be more powerful if found at a higher level. There are exceptions, such as the Mace of Molag Bal. But say you get the Nightingale Armour at level 1 - it'll be much weaker than it would've been if you got it at level 30, and won't get stronger as you level up. It'll remain as rubbish as it was when you were level 1.

This is to encourage players to constantly switch out their gear as they level up. If you don't like it, use a mod like this one[www.nexusmods.com].

[Squirrell]

The scaling ability of special weapons like Dawnbreaker are listed on one of the wikis.

[Uncle64]

I do new weapons as long I lvl up. Dont use the named weapons.
Same goes whit Armour.
But Mace Of Molag Baal is good for little time, and Dawnbreaker.

[voehringer_nitron]

Dawnbreaker and the Mace of Molag Bal are not leveled items. Their damage/enchantments remain the same regardless of when you find them.

http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Leveled_Items

[The Puppet Master]

so daedric encanted will stay the same?

[Bomb Bloke]

Levelled items are found with varying amounts of power, depending on the level you were at when you found them.

All items stay the same as they were when you found them, unless you smith them to be more powerful. Items you have found do not change unless you change them. However, if you smith a low level item and a high level item, than the high level item is always going to be better - and you can't improve enchantments at all. Low level items will stay rubbish no matter what.

This means if you want the "best" version of every item, then you must raise your level to something like 46 before you start adventuring (not that I'm recommending that).

If an item isn't levelled, then it doesn't matter what level you find it at.

Most "generic" enchanted loot items have levelled enchantments on them, but since they're an infinite resource (unlike unique levelled quest rewards), you'll always find more and potentially get the "best" versions sooner or later.

[76561198133591931]

Originally posted by Bomb Bloke:

Basic weapons and armour are the same at any level. You can improve them yourself if you have a decent level of smithing, however.

This is erroneous information. An iron sword with a 1h skill level of 15 does 8 damage. At skill level 100, with no perks, or smithing improvements, that same iron sword does 12 damage. That's 1.5x damage. So damage does scale. Just not much. For weapons at least. Magic spells are a different story.

[Bomb Bloke]

That's not exactly true - the base damage of the weapon is the same. The skill bonus you get isn't a feature of the weapon itself. If you pick up a steel sword at level one, it'll do the same amount of damage as a steel sword you pick up at level twenty.