Leveling Guide: How to Max Out Every Skill

Reaching maximum level without using mods or console commands.

Combat Skills

Blade, Blunt, Destruction, Hand to Hand, Marksman

Leveling up combat skills is very straightforward: you deal damage with them, you get XP. It doesn't matter whether you kill your target or not, so the more health your target has, the better it is for you. Some enemies (like Trolls) have a steady HP regen, which allows you to hit them indefinitely, especially on higher difficulties. It is a good enough way to level up ranged skills (Destruction and Marksman) since you can jump to an unreachable position and damage enemies safely.

To level your other combat skills up safely and optimally you'll need an unkillable NPC who wouldn't mind some punching. Thankfully, there are some in Oblivion.


The easiest unkillable NPC to reach are Peryite followers. Unless you've completed Peryite's quest, they're just standing there unconscious but immortal, which is perfect for our needs.



You can get your own unkillable NPC at Deepscron Hollow for about 3000 gold. Follow the questmarkers and purchase the Deepscrorn Cattle Cell. It will add a prisoner to Deepscron Cloister that you can punch as long as you wish.

Magic Skills

Alteration, Conjuration, Destructtion, Illusion, Mysticism, Restoration

These skills have been changed in the remaster: you no longer get XP for each cast, but rather for each mana point you spend. That means you are no longer required to create cheap spammable spells to level up at maximum efficiency, every spell will do. On the other hand, you no longer get XP from Touch and Target spells if there's no target, so you better spam the spells with effect on Self. They don't have to be useful; e.g. you can spam selfheal even if you're at full health and still level up your Restoration.

Dedicated grinding of these skills is extremely tedious, so you'd better hold that Cast button whenever you're questing or exploring the world to level up them passively. If you still want to grind them, hold Cast button until you're out of mana, then wait for one hour, rinse and repeat. The most optimal way would be to cast spells with effect on Touch (they have the fastest animation), you can use an immortal NPC as a target (see Combat Skills section above).

Creating a Destruction spammable with effect on Self is also possible, e. g. using Desintegrate armor effect (see Armorer Skill section below for more info).

Defense Skills

Block, Heavy Armor, Light Armor

Your defense skills increase each time you get hit. If you've blocked the attack, it's the Block skill. Otherwise it's Light and/or Heavy Armor skills (depends on what you're wearing). The plan is simple: find some weak enemies like Rats or Mudcrabs, lower the difficulty to become virtually unkillable and go afk.


A perfect place to farm these skills is Arvena Thelas' Basement in Anvil (you might know it from Fighter Guild's "A Rat Problem" quest). There are four weak friendly rats. You can make them attack you with any debuffing skill (for instance, Drain Luck, you can purchase it at Edgar's Discount Spells in the Imperial City's Market District). Once you're done, just leave the basement, the rats will not follow you and will become friendly again.

Don't forget to take off armor and jewelry with Reflect echantments, otherwise rats will kill eventually themselves. Also grab some Repair Hammers: your armor will be torn apart pretty quickly, which is a great opportunity to level your Armorer skill up as well.

Acrobatics Skill

You gain Acrobatics XP every time you jump or take fall damage. This is once again a skill that can be maxed out passively, just spam jump whenever you're exploring the world.


If you want to grind it, find a place with a very low ceiling. The idea is to hit the ceiling right after the jump to land sooner to jump again sooner. Keep in mind that the ceiling must be flat, otherwise it will push you aside. I'm showing you Bruma Fighters Guild hall as an example: if you jump on the crates on the second floor, the ceiling would be literal centimeters above you. But you can find thousands of places like this, it's not a big deal.

Athletics Skill

Athletics improves when you run, sprint or swim. If it's your major skill, I once again advise you not to grind it since it will probably be maxed out during your normal walkthrough.


Unfortunately, in the Remastered you can no longer automove into the wall, so afk grinding became harder. There are some places underwater that allow you to autoswim indefinetely though. One example is the bottom of The Bloated Float Inn in the Waterfront District of the Imperial City. Warning: it will take literal hours to max out Athletics this way.


Obviously you need a way to stay underwater for that long, unless you're playing as an argonian. One way to achieve that is to purchase Nistor's Boots from Elsynia at Best Goods and Guarantees, Leyawiin. You can also try to obtain Fin Gleam[elderscrolls.fandom.com] for free, but it's located underwater, which kinda creates a vicious circle.

Alchemy Skill

Leveling up alchemy is also extremely straightforward: you craft potions, you increase your skill. Pick up every alchemy component in sight and combine them. Purchasing every alchemy ingredient in stock is always a good idea too, since you'll earn more gold by selling potions back.


The easiest potion to make is the Restore Fatigue potion. All you need is to combine two food ingredients. Every combination will do: sweetroll + cheese, lettuce + crab meat, potato + strawberry, you name it. There's no point in combining more than two. Food can be stolen from almost every house, bought from any inn keeper, collected from any farm.

Don't forget to sell your crafted potions. You can earn a fortune this way, and also max out your mercantile skill quickly.

Armorer Skill

Also Destruction, if you haven't maxed it out yet

This method requires you to have access to the spellmaking. The classic way to achieve this is to join the Mages Guild and progess its storyline until you reach the Arcane University; there would be an Altar of Spellmaking in the Praxographical Center. Alternatively, you can apropriate Frostcrag Spire and buy your own altar.

Secondly, you'll have to purchase Corrode Armor (Sulinus Vassinus, Skingrad Mages Guild) or Disintegrate Armor (Adrienne Berene, Skingrad Mages Guild) spell.


Now you can create a spell with "Desintegrate Armor" effect on self. Set the Duration to 1 second and Magnitude to as high as your skill will allow.

Spam the skill you've created, then repear the damage back. You can level up both your Destruction and Armorer skill this way relatively quickly.

Alternative way

Complete Secrets of the Ayleids quest by delivering Umbacano the Ayleid Crown of Lindai.


At the end of the quest, the crown would be broken, and it is scripted to always be broken. You can spend your time and Repair Hammers in futile attempts to repair the crown, while still leveling your Armorer skill up.

Mercantile Skill

This skill was once again changed in the remaster: your XP scales from gold you've earned, not from the number of sales, so you don't need to sell items one by one.

This skill will most likely max out itself until midgame as selling expensive loot like daedric armor almost guarantees skill increase. If you want to level up this earlier, craft some potions for sale (see Alchemy section).

Probably the best trader to sell stuff to is Rowley Eardwulf in the Wawnet Inn (just west to the Imperial City, near the bridge). He's pretty wealthy (2500 gold), and have a mediocre mercantile skill, giving you the opportunity to haggle.

Security Skill

Non-Abuse Way

First of all, complete Nocturnal quest and get Skeleton Key (left screenshot, requires level 10). It is a nonbreakable lockpick crucial for Security farming. Secondly, clear Dunbarrow Cove (right screenshot).


Find the Training Chest in the Dunbarrow Cove and auto attempt lockpicking it until it's unlocked. Chest will lock itself again instantly. Rinse and repeat.

Abuse Way

Start lockpicking. Place your lockpick under a lifted tumbler (either a tumbler you've already unlocked or a tumbler that was disabled from the start). Spam Set Tumbler button (Space by default). Your Security skill will increase rapidly.

This way might get patched eventually.

Sneak Skill

Fast travel to the Imperial City Prison, enter The Bastion and ask Imperial Jailor to visit a prisoner. Once he unlocks the door for you, descend to the prison cells and ask Imperial Jailor to visit a prisoner again. Jailor will return to the door and you will be free to do whatever you want.


There's a prisoner in one of the cells named Claudius Arcadia. You can pickpocket him through prison bars, and he wouldn't mind it even if you fail. By spamming pickpocketing, you can increase your Sneaking skill pretty quickly.

Speechcraft Skill

Another straightforward skill. Just persuade every NPC you meet. Doesn't matter whether you succeed or fail, skill will increase regardless.


You can theoretically get from level 5 to level 100 on one NPC. Your goal is to deliberately fail the persuastion so you can always try it again. Simpliest way to do it is to use all options clockwise. Warning: if it's not your primary skill, you would have to repeat this process thousands of times!

Hardest Skills to Max Out

There is a subjective list of hardest skills to max out. If you want to reach the maximum level, you might want to pick these as your major skills. Paying the trainer NPCs and searching for learning books might also be a good idea.

1. Block. Unless you're playing a pure melee class who is blocking a lot naturally, this is probably the most tedious skill to farm. You'll have to spend more than an hour in the rat basement holding right click and adjusting your mouse position. Afk grinding of this skill is pretty much impossible.
   
2. Speechcraft. Even if you like this minigame, reaching skill level 100 requires way too much repetition. While afk grinding is technically possible, you'll need a program that will automate all the clicking, and I don't have one.
   
3. Athletics. While this skill naturally levels itself up, it will take extremely long time to reach skill level 100, especially if you rely on fast trevel or like to jump a lot. You might actually complete the game before maxing this skill out. Afk grinding is relatively hard to setup and will take hours.
   
4. Marksman, unless your playstyle includes bows. You'll need thousands of arrows and hours of hitting a dummy NPC to max this skill out. The fact that the shooting has the longest animation of all combat skills isn't helping as well. Even afk grinding (using an autoclicker) might prove quite annoying to setup.
   
5. Blades, Blunt and/or Hand-to-hand, unless your playstyle includes all of these fighting techniques. While these are easier to grind compared to Marksman, it might still take a while.

If you want to create a custom class, it's also a good idea to pick luck as your primary attribute. All other attributes can be maxed out pretty easily without class bonus.

See Also

Check out another Oblivion guide of mine:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3469315215

[Facenapalm]

It doesn't seem to work with Athletics at least. Ufortunately, I already maxed the sneak so I can't test that, will double-check it later.

[Candle Jack]

I can level sneak by automoving into wall. You don't look like you're moving but it still works.

[lillibub]

i think maybe speechcraft is changed. some npcs were increasing my skill faster than others, maybe something to do with disposition gained???

[Methos-Kyuubi777]

Just realized that you can't go below 3 on the Heal HP. Sorry, my bad. Make a Fire Spell that does 20 or 25 for 1 or 2 seconds, and heal self for 1 at 3 points. That ups your Destruction pretty quick until later stages, where you'll need to make a more powerful spell.

[Methos-Kyuubi777]

Another spam for the Destruction School skill.

Create a spell with touch animation that is a Destruction Spell, then add a low Heal HP to it. The trick is to make it where the Destruction part of the spell is what costs the highest, that will label it as a Destruction Spell, but the Heal (Heal Wound 1 point for 1 second) also makes it a Self based spell.

Spam the spell over and over, it ups your Destruction, and possibly your Restoration (Unconfirmed on the Restoration).

[KidFisto]

you can go to the rats in the basement and let them hit you for heavy armor in one of the first arena quests

[Jack'lul]

For the Armorer I also recommend creating a 1s Fortify Armorer spell (you only need to set enough magnitude to reach 100) so you can make the Hammers never break.

[parafwen]

Jesus christ, youre supposed to train skills on summons

Its like you never heard of the skeleton wars

[mitsell]

can confirm that swinging on the Peryite followers while in their unconscious state does provide great combat grinding!

[mitsell]

gonna try some of these out when i get home, seems like a nice comprehensive list, thanks!