I have found that after following Ralof into the keep and getting my hands unbound, that he makes the ultimate target dummy. This is a work in progress, currently Lev 65 Destruction after about 4 hours into doing this.

These are the things that I have documented that makes this possible.

1. After he cuts your hand bonds, you are then free to blast him with your opening spell Flames.

2. He does not attack you back while you dual-cast Flames at him.

3. I equipped the Novice Hood (+30 Magicka) and the Novice Robes (+50% Magicka Regen) found in the picklocking room to speed things up.

4. I needed to keep him at the proper range, too close and he moves forward to progress through the opening dungeon, too far away and you can't hit him with Flames.

Not really sure why I am doing this, but after finding out that Ralof puts up with this punishment, I figured I'd honor him by doing this personal feat of strength. Will report back in once I reach level 100 Destruction using this method. Gonna finish it off this weekend.

If I left anything out and you have questions, lemme know and I'll answer them.

This has got to be the most boring skill grind ever.

Late to the party. I'm fairly certain this was discovered on 11/11/11. Welcome to the forums though.

Just seems odd that they would let this pass into the release version. But I'm happy to spend the time it takes to max it out first and get it out of the way. Perhaps they will do a hotfix/patch in the future to make Ralof and the other Imperial version guy so that they are not targetable in this fashion if this was not intended.

I only get it to about 30 before I get cheesed off and say [censored] it. If you de-equip and re-equip the novice hood with one of the hotkeys you instantly get back 30 more magicka so you don't have to wait for it to charge back up.

In the same amount of time you could be level 20+ and have many skills above 60.

You don't have to literally wait for it to charge back up, just press the select button (or whatever button you press to wait) and wait one hour. In 2 seconds you have fully recharged magicka.

I'd vote for standing in one place and letting yourself be attacked by Rats in Oblivion's tutorial as the most boring skill grind ever. At least this guy is actually doing something.

There are loads of ways to grind combat skills, none of them fun.

Some interesting news though, jumping in a forge and setting yourself aflame increases your Destruction skill slightly each time you jump up and down in one. On PS3 anyway

This is absurdly pointless, even moreso than the blacksmith iron dagger grind. Sure, your Destruction is 100, but all other skills are 20 and now mobs have leveled up with your gimp self and will wreck you hardcoe bc you grinded levels off a single skill.

Sounds about as fun as a trip to the dentist. There have been exploits in most video games since the beginning - if you want to use them its not on the company to try to prevent you from doing so.

Old news, I've tried it. Got my sneak maxed out in like half an hour once.

they don't need to "patch it" that would be a waste of time, there's other ways to grind all the skills, the game is kinda made with that in mind...you can just use the guy at the companions place, or just find a giant and get on a rock and fire away at him for a while and boost your skill, or just use the skill a lot to level it up fast, or do like i do and use everything, i also just pay faralda to raise my destruction skill every so often...someone deciding to spend an hour grinding really shouldn't bother you. its not any different than grinding any other skill, like shooting giants with tons of arrows on difficult, so trying to patch the game so you can't raise skills isn't gonna happen.

exploits don't break games , because each person decides how they want to play, so if they like doing that, its not broken for them, them doing it and someone else not liking it doesn't make it broken...so since its not broken, it doesn't need fixing.

At least I can't find a corner, crouch down, hit the button to auto-walk, and level up sneak while taking a nap...which I never actually did, but now it's no longer possible. The Flames on 'ol Ralof? Harsh dude. Harsh. He did you a solid

They don't break single player games. I recall an multiplayer online racing game I quite liked that was dead in about 18 months, and in my opinion, it was because of exploits- people just quit being cheated on, and in droves

This is very strange behavior imo. First you buy a game then you cheat.
Off course everyone plays as they like but still..

Err...you can actually still do that. It just works better in crowded areas like guard barracks.

making 1000 daggers isn't cheating any more than shooting 1000 arrows into a giant and raising that skill isn't cheating, there isn't any such thing as cheating in a single player game. cheating involves more than one person usually in a game. i'm a live and let live type of person and a video game is a form of escape and enjoyment, so if a person wants to play with unlimited arrows or unlimitged health...its a single player experience so its their game to play how they want...if it was some online multiplayer game well thats different. but single players game don't need "game police".

Powerlevelling in a single-player game just makes things overwhelmingly boring. Sure, it might give you higher-levelled items and skills earlier on, but all it really does is reduce the enjoyment of discovery and progress as you journey throughout the story.

I learnt this the hard way through the iron daggers trick :/

I must agree. Sometimes they are patched, Slayer.

Why should they care, it's not that you ruin the game for anybody except yourself.
Tips: you can also earn an million septims cutting firewood in Riverwood.

However I noticed something very strange, started an new character and followed the imperial, in the torture room the assistant was dead along with some stormcloaks.

I used frenzy on the torturer as I did not like him and wanted his hood shortly after entering, he attacked the soldier and was killed.
Now after looting him (no hood) and the rest of the room he was back up on his feet talking to the soldier.

Boring skill grinds are boring.

An difference, the iron dagger crafting is fast, making 100 iron daggers take one minute, similar to making restore fatigue potions in Oblivion, the work is gathering the materials.
Now leveling enchanting is boring as you has to go select item, select gem, select enchant, press enter, craft and confirm.

I thought this was an interesting exploit, and I used it after 1.2 and starting a new game so I wouldn't feel like it was taking forever to get back to where I was. Unfortunately, this is also monumentally stupid, as everything in the world levels up and you're stuck with your weak gear.

I ran into Bleak Falls Barrow after doing this, the final boss was a Draugr Deathlord and I was in my imperial armor. It mopped the floor with me pretty easily, even though I found a scroll of guardian circle that I used. Hitskin couldn't even save me.

If you're going to do this, I recommend focusing your crafting skills before you start the MQ so that you can actually beef up your armor a bit. This also svcks all the fun out of the game for about 12 hours of play so if you're a spreadsheet lover, have at it. Otherwise, eh, best just to play normally.

All that said, its your game so do whatever you want. This is just my opinion.

Edit: I didn't level destruction or combat skills because I simply do not have the patience for that. I leveled Sneak because on master it takes about 20 minutes to get it to 100.