As the title says, what is the quickest way to level up? I'm 25 hours into the game and only level 13 (Mage) as opposed to my brother who is 23 (Warrior).

Do you just do the various professions, do you do the main quest, side quests? I've been wandering and doing a lot of side quests which hasn't been very effective.

Sorry about another of these threads.

I need to level up so I can grow stronger and beat a very hard quest

i hunt animals for leather, make leather armour for coin. you'll rank up weapons, blacksmith and speech

Any replies would be greatly appreciated.

Quite a quick way is smithing- keep creating leather bracers from leather and if you have some iron lying around, iron daggers.

I'm not suggesting to quicklevel though, just take your time. Levels will come.

im level 12 an probably put about the same hours in maybe a lil less. so imo your about right for leveling. i suppose it depends wot you do, the level system seems to work by you leveling up your skills so just go an level up as many skills as possible as quickly as possible. youl likely find the lower ones quicker an easier which may make you level up quicker once you get them all to around 25-30 you maybe have been concentrating on a couple of specific skills an your bro has gone for all the skills an leveled them all to mid 20's where only a few of yours maybe mid 20's-30's. i dunno tho an dunno if skill level effects how quickly you level or if you can just do all the lower skills as they level quicker which in turn will help you level quicker, or if it makes no difference if you get wot im tryin to say.

You do things that level you up?

Find a NPC that you can sneak behind forever
Go ape s.hit with a weapon on everything you see out in the wild
Kill a bunch of horkers by any means. (they are tanks with almost zero offence)
Work to buy iron and leather strips to make iron daggers via smithing
Work to buy ingredients to make potions via alchemy

Not that hard.

My problem is I can't move further with the Winterhold College unless I do this quest, so I'm in dire need to get stronger.

Or good old mudcrab armor training, heh

Where can you buy leather? Any general trader?

I've been going around buying all the flowers but I still can't level up alchemy very much. Do you buy leather or?

you can work?

Thanks for all the replies, I'll try the leather thing.

Dear god what have you been doing this whole time you've played?

You buy leather from blacksmiths.

You can get leather from general goods stores and smiths. and of course everywhere from animals (don't forget to skin and then refine the animal hides to make them usable). Larger animal pelts give bigger yield of leather- from wolf pelt you'll get one leather, but from bear you'll get four.
Go out hunting, you'll practice your magic skills then too.

Yes. You can chop wood, harvest crops and I think you can mine. Not sure how mining works, though. It seemed like you got a bunch of ore and sold it to the guy running the mine, but that is [censored] as you can just smelt it and sell it for more to a blacksmith.

IDK, but yes, you can work.

We're getting cocky are we? I was aware you could probably buy it, but as that guy said you can buy it from blacksmiths. I wasn't looking for a place where I could buy a single piece of leather, but as it seems from his response you can buy more leather at the blacksmithing. Dear god what made you this cocky?

I haven't been doing blacksmithing as I'm a mage and I wouldn't think I could use it straight away. A little logic goes a long way.

I don't think cocky is the adjective you are looking for.

You're probably right, I like obnoxious a lot better too.

I never casted a spell for the first 30 hours I played, but I still figured out that spell tomes (or whatever they're called) are how you learn new spells.

Anyways I am done being a jerk, good luck on leveling your mage

Same thing here, I've done a lot of other stuff and discovered a lot of other things but I obviously haven't been doing blacksmithing ;D

he has problem with mage quest was there did that , leveling wont help , you need better spells cos theyre static , so you just need skill in destruction or conjuration . Be level 30 but still with low spells aint much difference , to level destruction go to trainer each level and thats 5/10 of skill points , rest of it spam destruction on mobs dungeons dragons anything level destruction get better spells , or go conjuration , you with atronach and companion will be able to do those dungeons .... But harder is yet to come once you get best spells thats it , but the monster keep level and get stronger , then you have problems :/

But I need more HP