I see how fleshing out all three crafting skills and using the % loop setup can result in any piece of equipment killing everything on Master difficulty in one shot, bringing about world piece, curing cancer, and making Richard Simmons straight. I don't really want any part of that, as it tends to ruin TES games for me, and if I have the means to do it I won't be able to stop myself.

Given that, I am creating a warrior type Nord (or Breton, I haven't decided yet) using 1H and shield with light armor as well as archery to round out the physical damage style with some ranged skills. I also intend to use alchemy extensively, because I find that the versatility of potions allow me to adapt to any situation with the click of a button. ("Oh crap. A genital-burning fire dragon just lit up my nethers!" Pop a fire resist potion. "GAH! That Draugr just gave me the AIDS!" Cure disease.) That leaves enough points to flesh out Smithing OR Enchanting.

Which is more beneficial and/or fun for a character like this? (Your opinions are welcome, as I am well aware that "fun" is completely subjective.) I am considering the following factors:

Smithing:
- Allows for most armors to svck up more physical damage and most weapons to hit harder.
- Allows characters to get such armor and weapons quicker than they would otherwise find them as loot. (And if I am not mistaken, dragon armor never actually drops as loot?)

Enchanting:
- Allows for a greater variety of effects to be put onto armors (other than just increasing the armor rating), but if you choose to increase damage absorption through enchanting rather than smithing, it won't be as good.
- Allows for magic damage to be enchanting onto weapons instead of increased physical damage, but at a cost of being charged.
- Allows for increasing physical damage, still, via 1H/2H enchants on armor pieces.

To me, it looks as if Smithing is superior for regular damage absorption and physical damage output, but Enchanting is simply more versatile all around. It also strikes me that alchemy can temporarily replicate most enchantment effects anyway (though they would stack if you had both). Lastly, and quite possibly most importantly, having enchanting nullifies a lot of the fun of finding magic items, whereas with Smithing you can take the stuff you find and upgrade it.

I'm leaning toward Smithing. Can anyone think of anything I am not considering?

If you want the most powerful of those two then it's Enchanting.

How so? It obviously has many more effects to choose from, to be sure.

There is no problems with taking them both. It's when you slap on four +32% smithing enchantments and drink an absurd potion that fortifies smithing that you run into problems. If you don't fool around much with Alchemy you won't break your game.


The smithing skill gets picked on because it's the easiest, and most strait forward, to level too 100.

I only have smithing at the moment on my Khajiit heavy warrior and it works out well. I find smithing's biggest advantage is that you get better stuff unlocked earlier. I was barely level 10 and got my hands on some Orcish armor. So I've been rolling with that for the past few levels and have been enjoying it. Enchanting just seems too "magickey" for my liking as a warrior.

I say go smithing. Especially because with a physical character like yours it's difficult to get lots of soul gems filled. The main problem IMO with smithing on the light armour side is that it only starts being really useful past level 30. Up until then steel weapons are going to be the only worthwile thing. Also, for armour you might as well go straight for steel scaled armour. It's pretty difficult getting all the ingredients for elven armour.

With the playstyle you describe smithing would yield higher rewards.
Your weapon would hit harder (this can even be increased via your potions). Armour could also be upgraded to reach the physical mitigation cap. The lack of enchants can be filled by using resist potions and a birth stone. The main impact here though that would make the game significantly easier would be the weapon damage increase. More damage, means mobs die much, much faster, reducing your incoming damage and hence risk. Given you have plans to use alchemy health / stamina and magicka become less critical considerations.

Either way play to have fun. Kind of pointless if you don't enjoy the experience

Well, in this case I'm not going to have the points to take both anyway, even if I did trust myself to NOT do an alchemy/enchanting/smithing loop. Haha. I'm just trying to decide between the two. I'm leaning toward smithing mainly because it will allow me to upgrade all the magic stuff I find, while enchanting will just make finding a magic item pointless (as I could create something better from a mundane item instead). That, and like I said, it looks like alchemy will allow me to create potions that will mimic most enchantments anyway.

Though I just thought about it, and you can still enchant or smith without the perks, just at about 50% strength as with them. That makes the decision a little harder, because perked enchanting provides a 4x bonus over (twice the strength of enchantments and two enchantments per item) versus a 2x bonus from smithing (double strength upgrades).

First thing I made when I hit 100% enchant was a suit of leather armor with +100% smithing and alchemy.

Enchant gives you all three crafting skills while only having to put points/perks into enchant and a few into each of the others. You can not make Legendary weapons/armor(that requires the smithing perks) but you can make flawless then also enchant. And the alchemy potions you make are very powerful as well.

I guess a 100% smithing and alchemy suit WOULD effectively replicate most of the benefit of perking those two skills without breaking the game tremendously. Would only be giving up the ability to make the base items.

Putting a little more thought into this, and it might make sense to forgo them both in favor of making +Smithing and +Enchanting potions. You give up the ability to make the base gear, but you should be able to upgrade anything you find equally, and enchant the mundane items. By my calculations, you can reach 567 armor rating with Dragonscale (factoring in the shield) with unperked smithing and fully perked alchemy. Then enchanting will be good to use for "extra" effects on mundane items. The only concern then, is whether you can get Dragonscale armor via any means other than crafting it yourself.

Correct me if I am wrong about this?