Am I the only one that feels like the transmute spell is kind of cheating. It takes away the thrill of finding silver and gold ores out while adventuring to me. I never use it.

I don't think it's much of a cheat. The time I spend mining and transmuting doesn't seem more profitable than dungeon delving. It does raise your alteration skill to apprentice quickly, though.

I like it, it's good when you are crafting jewellery because jewellery is a mage's best friend, but they are absolutely ridiculously priced for the good looking stuff which does absolutely nothing in the first place and it's only purpose is to be enchanted.

I got confused at first, (easily done), and thought that Transmute was used to turn Iron Ore into Iron Ingots, Gold Ore into Gold Ingots, and so on. Assumed it saved you needed to find a Smelter. But when I realised I stopped using.

I love this spell , it's one of these fun magic like water walking in OB.

I don't think it's cheating, it's a pretty cool spell, like the alchemists of old who tried to turn other metals into gold. Also it's very time consuming, particularly if you have low magicka, even with high magicka it's still pretty time consuming.

Technically all Alteration magic is cheating as it's manipulating the elements isn't it ?

I restrict it to my magic users. It seems to be a pretty esoteric spell that few people even know exist, or all mages everywhere would be rich and killing each other over iron mines.

Silly Celan, the transmute spell is not a food.

??

I had a level 50 mage character who wanted another perk point. He noticed that his smithing was still at 17. So he leveled it up quickly by using transmute and making lots of jewelry. If you use actually use smithing and takes perks, there are easier ways of leveling up smithing.

Family guy joke.

I use it and feel dirty afterwards.

Ah, right over my head. XD

My greedy Altmer mage uses it. He feels like he's the only person in the world that knows how to turn iron into gold, so he's very secretive about it. His main skills are Illusion, Destruction, and Alteration, so I thought it was fitting.

I would KILL for a spell that did that.

I mean, obviously I killed quite a few people to obtain the current version of Tranmute, what's one or two more?

Why?

It's one of the best spells in the Skyrim. I have used it with a few characters who doesn't feel guilty if involved in magic. But it's a real slow way to transmute ore depending on truth that it takes more than 80 points of magicka if you aren't used to use alteration and if you aren't magic user you have only 100 points of magicka at maximum. So it's way slower than mining.

Mine lots of iron ore, take the warrior stone, a wife, and the Anchient Knowledge quest rewards.. Your smitthing will go up in no time and you'll make a tidy profit off the jewelry. And no it's not cheating. First you have find the spell, then you need the raw components, THEN you need to take the time to transmute them. It is however fun.

I use it, works great but it would be awesome to be able to then turn the gold ore into counterfeit gold coins, it could even have its own quest attached.

I was using it to make some quick cash and level up my smithing on most of my first few characters but now I am pretty much done with it. Cash isn't that hard to get even when not hoarding everything. And Smithing can be raised faster just by buying leather and making leather armor. So even though I had fun using this spell I feel like it is time to retire it.

I've said it before, if it was added by a mod, i'd consier it cheating. Though on the other hand, gold (ore) isn't that valuable in Skyrim

A gold coin is just a chunk of gold with something official stamped on it, which means it's a chunk of gold that has been certified by a governing authority to contain a certain amount of gold and no less. The gold in it isn't worth more because it's in coin form, it's just guaranteed to be worth a certain amount by whoever issued the coin.

So unless you could turn your gold into septims that are part gold and part something less valuable, but still look like they contain the same amount of gold as a "real" septim... there'd really be no point. Gold is gold, a chunk the size and weight of a septim is worth exactly a septim. There'd be no profit in it unless you had a way to cut the gold with some other metal that was far less valuable.

And it would still probably be far less profitable than taking the gold you made out of iron ore and forging jewelry with it.

Make gold coins out of 50% gold and 50% (pick your mettle) and put a fancy stamp on it and there you go. Counterfeit.

It is pretty valuable when you consider the vast quantities of iron ore available for transmution.

For example you can get at least 80 just from mining out Halted Stream Camp, Embershard Mine and Left Hand Mine. Transmute all that and head to Kolskeggr Mine and you'll have roughly 130 gold ore. 50 gold for every ore from Pavo equals a lot of mazooma for a relatively short and simple trip. Then head to Shor's Stone and the Orc stronghold next to Windhelm and mine out the ebony ore in the mines there, and sell it to the Orc blacksmith in said stronghold. You're getting around 10,000 gold for these two complete trips every time. Very easy way to attain vast amounts of gold in the early levels.


It's also a great way to level up your alteration while making money, two birds with one stone.

I always picture my battlemage being secretive about it, too. If Ulfric can't make payroll, she slips him a chest of newly cast Stormcloak coins and says "don't ask."