First of all, please don't judge me. If you disagree with power leveling, please don't read any further.

My plan is to level up to 50 before doing the first quest. I want every quest reward, loot, etc. to be at max level throughout my playthrough.

Please don't judge me, but this is how I want my game to go.

I maxed out sneak in Helgen cave by sneaking against a wall by the bear, so that is 100. I used Ralof as a punching bag to get one handed, and two handed both to 50. my pickpocket is at 50 from pickpocketing everyone in Riverwood.

If I level up right now, I will be level 25.

Can someone tell me how this power leveling to smithing works? How is this done? Can it be done at the forge in Riverwood?

What are some other tips to increasing skills rapidly without getting involved in any quests?

For smithing, you can just make Iron Daggers or Leather Bracers. The Smith in Riverwood should sell the materials there, although I can't say I remember. I know Whiterun is great for smithing.

Just buy all the stock of required items from the vendor and make daggers until it runs out. The vendors stock replenishes every 2 game days, so just wait or sleep. Rinse and repeat.

Buy iron ore and leather. Turn leather into leather strips. Make iron daggers. It'll cost you, but you'll level smithing fast. Use Embershard Mine to mine some iron perhaps. And kill animals and collect their pelts for more leather. Umm...Speech will also level due to selling so many iron daggers...you could get alchemy up, but that will take a long time. Best to use enchanting to boost your alchemy effects, making potions you make worth more, making alchemy improve faster. Don't recall an Arcane Incanter in Riverwood though, cept for after a bit of the main quest. Magic skills aren't too difficult to increase (well destruction is), but there aren't too many in Riverwood.

Your enemies are going to level up too.

You wont have any good weapons at that point. but:

If you have money, buy as many iron ignots and leather straps as you can.

Make as many iron daggers as you can.

Wait 48 hours and repeat.

Leel 100 smithing in under an hour.

Just make irondaggers and sell them. Do that over and over again. Wait a day or two and then make more of them

You can chop wood for all the money you'll need. It would also be nice if there were another enchanting table in Riverwood (besides the one in the basemant you don't have access to yet) but I can't think of another one.

Only on pc, with a mod.

Why'd you stop at only 50 with Ralof? I realize it's a time consuming affair, but that could have easily reached 100 for your weapons; also, you could have used Destruction on him, then shot all your arrows at him for some Archery increases. If your Pickpocket's at 50, good start; save your game often, then reverse-pickpocket an easy target in Riverwood--give him a gold coin or something. Buy a few non-hostile spells from the trader, and spam everyone with those. Let a wolf bite your [censored] off repeatedly, and heal yourself. Buying and selling a lot will increase your Speech; Aside from all this, I'd say dump your updates and max out your speech in Riften with Ungrien, and/or go exploit the Oghma Infinium if you want everything in your hands ASAP.

i think items stop leveling at 46 actually. but yea, smithing is easy to level up. people say youll get owned by everything cuz you have crap gear, but HELLOOO, SMITHING. make stuff!

VERY COOL avatar picture.

I really regret stopping with Ralof when I did. Once I reached 50, I just stopped, because I was getting extremely bored with it.

I did cast flames on him until my destruction reached 35.

I exploited the bear until sneak reached 100.

Thank you EVERYONE FOR THE RECOMMENDATIONS!

Also, I realize that my enemies will also level up, so the first few kills will be difficult, but once I loot some corpses, I should have some pretty advanced weapons and armor to suit me just fine for then, until I can increase in strength.

I stopped around level 30 in the bear-dungeon with one of my characters; it had its pro's and con's. Racing to Blackreach can be a real nailbiter when you bump into some nasty trolls.
Good luck!

There is an arcane enchanter South/Southwest of Riverwood, home to an "frail old laidy". Break into her cellar and you'll find an arcane enchanter and an alchemy station.

Selling daggers - sell one at a time skill increaes with each transation, so selling 20 iron daggers at once is the same as selling 1 iron dagger.

There is a place called anise's cabin or something like that; right beside the bed, inside the cabin, there is a cellar, pick the novice lock and inside there is a alchemist thing and a enchanting table, just enchant the iron daggers and bracers you made. But beware when you leave anise will try to butt[censored] your nipbles. have fun

Is this "Anise" and her cellar part of any quests, or questlines?

Not AFAIK. I've got that lovely little mod that shows what quests dungeons, places etc. are involved with, and her place has no entry.

Her sister will also hire thugs to kill you later.

Along with the DB (even if you've never got NEAR them or that questline), random thugs, random assassins, AND Thalmor extermination squads (even if you've never got NEAR the Thalmor for any reason....) All with letters of intent. Pretty funny, overall!

you can get faendal as a follower, and exploit the follower/trainer glitch to get your archery up to his training limit.

oh, sorry i missed the part where youre not doing quests

Not sure why he couldn't do that one...it IS in Riverwood, and there is no leveled loot to be had.

As an alternative, he could use the pickpocket exploit.

Wait... what? You mean to say that when you sell a bunch of stuff at one time, it counts as just one speech transaction? I always thought differently.

Per UESP:

Gaining Skill XP (Speech)

• Trading with merchants will increase the Speech skill. The amount of skill progress gained is based on the base value of the item being bought/sold. However, if you trade multiple units of an item in one transaction, you will only gain experience equivalent to trading a single unit; for optimal leveling, sell each item one at a time, and sell expensive items.

The thugs will only come for you if you steal something from Anise's cabin. Well, why not? Let them come! Be in town where the guards can assist you, unless they decamp saying, "This ought to be good!" Hey, it will help level your armor skills, if nothing else, lol. Plus in my experience those guys have a lot of gold.

Don't forget to enchant your daggers once and if you can obtain a magic weapon to disenchant (probably from a trader).

It's an intriguing path you're taking. Good luck!

I do the same, only I stop at 20 and then hit a city.
Unfortunately you may have missed the boat on one.
Before you get faendael as a follower go in his house while he is sleeping. Wake him up, have him train you in archery, let him fall back asleep,
Pickpocket his gold. Do this while leveling up and you can get archery and pickpocket up to 40 each.
You can still do it, but I don't know how many leveling ops you will have.
Maybe if you combine it with the smithing you will be able to level up enough to get all the training.
You can also just make him a follower and take the training gold from him.
The alchemy shack is just over the mountains from Riverwood also.
You can go there, have a free house and power up alchemy also, but it will take a while finding all the ingredients.

Not gonna judge but how long did that [censored] take to accomplish?

Also I think you only need level 46 for the max rewards not 50.