Okay... This is probably known but, this is a pretty simple yet time consuming way of duplicating your favorite arrows.

Get someplace with stone floors and walls and bandits. (or any enemy you like that has an archer) Kill everyone except the archer. Pull out your bow and your favorite arrows... And fire one at the chest of the archer. It may take two shots but the enemy will actually pull out one of em and equip it. (not really animated tho...lol. Too bad, i say) Now, the arrows need to be better than the ones theyre using for them to equip them. After they equip em, they will obviously be firing your favorite arrows.

Now all you have to do is back up to a wall and dodge the arrows. As i said before, try to make the wall you back up to a stone wall with stone floors. (it makes picking up the arrows much easier) after about 15 or so dodged arrows have accumulated on the ground start to pick em up. I believe 20 is the max before they start to vanish. I would suggest you have a healing spell available because you will get hit. Trust me. Ive dodged and collected 1300 ebony arrows and i still get hit from time to time. (i did it with ebony because i didnt know daedric arrows exsisted. Lol.. Im workin on them as i type)

im at silent moons camp<--- a good place to do this. Get the archer in the middle area with the forge, and stand by that table right across from the from the doorway to the forge.

Try to dodge the arrow, then get right back in the same place before they fire again. It helps the arrows to not scatter everywhere. Also, a good tactic to use is to watch the arm of the archer. You will see the arm move as they release the arrow. That is a great time to start your dodge. Hopefully your reflexes are good. Eventually youll be excellent at it.

I know there are other ways to duplicate arrows...
Console commands: <--- cough-cheating-cough
Pickpocketing solitude archers <--- for those good chars... Thats not the best option..
-just pickpocket the archer, steal their arrows, give them one of your favorite ones, then sit back as they fire your arrows into the target. Collect them as much as you want.

I dont do that cause i dont want to pickpocket anyone... Not yet anyway. Plus im 200 hours in and havent even been to solitude. Lol.

----wait a minute... Maybe if you just give them the arrows theyll be smart enough to switch to the better ones and you wont even have to steal theirs... Can someone see if that works??? Im curious.

Hope this helps atleast one person. Thanks for readin.

Thanks man , gonna try this out !

Lol, I did this to get more in oblivion before I found out the scroll glitch.

Np bro. Have fun. It gets boring but... Think of all the arrows youll have.. Lol. No more worrying about conserving when you have a 1000 of em. Lol.

Dont forget to save often... You dont want to know how many times i collected 50 then died tryin to collect more... Ugh... Facepalm.

Same here... Lol. I loved the dupe glitch.. I still remember the first item i did it with just to see if it actually worked. A pair of crappy pants... Its was awesome watching 25 or more drop looking like a snake. Lol. Good times..

Couldn't you just give yourself arrows via the console? Unless you're on a console that is.

I'm gonna have to try this. I'm not really an Archer-type, but I do carry a bow and top-end arrows.

OP mentioned that console command is cheating whereas this method is an "exploit".

i collect deaqdric arrows even though i have no intention of ever using them. same for flawless diamonds, deadra hearts, and pearls.

Lol. I use the jewels for making jewelry. All my super high end enchanted jewlery has been forged by me. Even though i have about 10 gold diamond necklaces and countless other looted jewelry, i make my own when i want to put an enchantment on it... I guess i dont like using used items. Lol.

I found one pearl so far in 200+ hours... To bad its an alchemy ingredient and not a jewel to create jewelry with. Lame...

If you would drop better quality arrows on the ground near an archer, wouldn't they pick that up? Just a thought ofcourse.

I tried that before.. They dont pick it up for some reason.

Also, you remember that guy that wanted to follow you to the eldergleam tree? Well when we were trqveling there he somehow aquired a bow.. I have no idea where he got it... (all i know is that i stopped to deal with a bear and the next thing i know he has an ancient nord bow on his back. Or was it falmer? Whatever. Anyway, he had the bow but no arrows... So i dropped ebony arrows on the floor...( at least 6 so they are in a quiver) and nothing... He just walked around. Moron.... Lol

I have a better suggestion for arrow multiplication. Find a guard that uses to train his archery skill by shooting at the targets. There are a few of them in Solitude in the castle, and there are some in Whiterun's palace. Stalk this NPC until you have a chance to nick his arrows from him and replace them with 1 expensive arrow of your choice. At the very least, you will be able to replace his arrows while he's asleep.

Next time he's practicing archery, stand next to the target and leisurely pluck your treasures out of the target.


This is much simpler than taking care that you don't kill a hostile archer when you're feeding him with the arrows of your choice, and you don't have to dodge your treasures afterwards. Also, you can then come back any day and still get more arrows - I've given the guards in Solitude their ebony arrows like months ago and they still have them; you can't say that for the hostile archers.

I haven't tried the guards (and there's one also outside of Mistveil Keep in Riften), but I did try the archer (who is actually the pick-pocket trainer, go figure) in the Ragged Flagon Cistern. I placed one daedric arrow on him, but he did not have any other arrows to take. The next day I found him plugging away at the target as fast as a sewing machine. A sewing machine full of steel arrows. He doesn't use the daedric one. I'll try again using the console command to removeallitems first.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I've found draugr deathlords will equip superior arrows, even if it's the last thing they do!

Or you could just give Lydia or whoever your follower of choice is 1 daedric arrow. Then every enemy you kill will have 3 or 4 arrows in them when you loot their bodies.

Unless you got the appropriate perk, you can't take the weapons that they have equipped. Wait until they've put their arrows away (for instance, when they sleep), and you can harvest your daedric arrows even in the Thieves Guild.

I just tried it myself down there, and the only one who's problematic is the Morag Tong guy, because he refused so far to put the steel arrows away. Cynic Endell is already shooting ebony arrows at the target dummy.

I do not have any daedric arrows, so I'm doing this with ebony arrows. Should be the same for all better arrow types though.

I'm still using iron arrows and I buy as many better arrows as I can each time I go to a merchant (arrows and houses are all I ever spend money on...)

One day I'll run out of iron ones and start using, I don't know, elven?

WIth 100 archery and 100 sneak most things die with no more than 2 shots so I'll probably never run out of arrows....

I guess you didnt read too far into it.. I suggest this as well in my original post. I also asked someone to try and confirm my theory about just giving a guard in solitude the arrows and not stealing his own, if he would switch to the better ones without having to steal anything.

Which perk is that?

The last two perks in the pickpocket constelation.. Or skill tree. Lol. Ones for equipped weapons and one is for equipped items. Two extremely awesome perks for a thief char, imo. Probably not too necessary tho, seein as you can just back stab them and then theres no need to make them weaponless... Lol.

So, I replaced all of the Thieves arrows with ebony arrows now (no, it didn't take me so long - I did some misc quests and an alchemy session in between). Ravyn went to bed at some point and for sleeping, they put their weapons and arrows away.

The problem I have with these guys is that they aren't training archery often enough, but that's of course also true for city guards.


Now, daedric arrows... I just turned lvl 50 and I haven't seen a single daedric arrow yet. I do know that Karliah has some and that I could take them from her, when I finally feel like meeting Mercer Frey for our conjoined mission and keep following this questline again - but then they're marked as "stolen", and I have my doubts that NPCs are eager to use "stolen" stuff. Hm... you can probably whitewash them with the help of a fence?

I found my daedric arrows on the table outside fellglow keep. I was lvl 52 i think. I had no idea they existed, so seeing them was a superawesome suprise... But then i got sad cause i wasted time on ebony arrows.. Lol. I guess its not really wasted... Now i am even less worried about conserving my 1300 ebonys.

it is much eaiser to give one dadric arrow to a floower and have them use their bow and everytime you kill some one that they hit with an arrow they will have a dadric arrow in thier inventory when you loot them it works real well.

Better way to get arrows.

Buy from shop, save, kill vendor, load game. He will have more arrows.

I did this to get glass arrows earlier.

OP said 'tip' on an arrow thread. Nice.