Hey,

Not sure this is the right forum, but I have a slight problem (not game breaking)... both me and my brother play Skyrim, and at the moment we both have our Smithing skill to 100 (with all the light armor perks on from steel to dragon smithing) - I have a glass bow that is now legendary, and can do 105 damage... he has a glass bow that is legendary and can only do 75 damage... how can that be?

We also both have our archery and one handed skils to the max as well...

Fortify smithing enchants?

Perking smithing for glass gives double the increase when upgrading glass weapons and armor than without perking. Using items to increase your smithing skill beyond 100 (drinking potions/wearing +smithing gear) also increases the damage of weapons beyond the generic "legendary" status damage.

Checked to make sure I wasn't using any fortify potions and it still seemed to be higher...

Dagnamit ! Could it be the 40% Bow Damage I have on my Gauntlets?

Yes.

Any +skill enchantments directly increase the stated damage on the weapon.

Are you playing on Master difficulty? Your characters sound pretty...uh...powerful.

See, I thought that didn't show unless you were using the item, not at the time you were smithing. This is good, thanks.

Haha if only I had the stomach for Master

Thats just normal damage to me nothing special. Now if he said " I have a bow thats 400 damage" then I would think he was a bit to powerful. But anything sub 150 is inline with a "normal" damage progression via standard enchants and weapon upgrades.

Does the Archery skill level affect damage?

Yes. Higher levels = higher base damage. Its skill damage scaling, something destruction magic is in dire need of.

Although for some reason, 100 skill with no perk is still a beat weaker than 20 skill with the first perk that adds 20% damage (OR it's pretty much on par)

My Deadric bow now does 141 because I used a Blacksmith's potion that gave me a +40% increase in smithing, which is at 100. I didn't know it could do that either, until it did. Happy accidents are the best kind. And, yes, the +40% damage from your gauntlets are a big factor in the damage discrepancy.

Because damage perks are weapon type specialisations skills. A character with 100 skill is a skilled layman with a weapon, where as a character with a lower skill but a specialisation perk knows how to hold the blade better, how to swing the sword better, has a better grip etc. In essence its a form of specialised training.

Think on it like this; A football player without training or coaching is not as effective at the game, as a football player with training and coaching no matter how many games they have played respectively or natural talent.