My Harrowing Journey of Trial and Error
As a longtime Elder Scrolls fanatic with over 1000 hours across Oblivion, Skyrim, and ESO, I‘ve mastered everything these phenomenal open world RPGs can throw at me. Soloed veteran Maelstrom Arena. Check. Defeated Legendary dragons using only my fists. Child‘s play. 100%‘d the infamously buggy fishing achievement. Been there, done that.
But nothing prepared me for the brutal challenge of Skyrim Anniversary Edition‘s Survival Mode.
Gone are the days of traipsing merrily through the tundra with nary a care beyond quest markers. The very land itself has become your enemy in this ruthless grounded experience. Trudging through a blizzard happy as can be? Watch your warmth meter deplete rapidly until you‘re stricken by crippling hypothermia. Exploring that Dwemer ruin took longer than expected? Don‘t be surprised when bone-tired exhaustion has you far too fatigued to draw your bow.
It took everything in my power as a gamer to adapt. Through grueling trial and error, innumerable deaths, and terrifying near misses, I endured the merciless gauntlet of Survival Mode. And from my 100+ hour playthrough, I’ve uncovered optimal strategies so you can avoid the same pain and frustration I endured early on.
In this guide, I‘ll share the essential tips I wish I knew starting out. Everything from keeping your belly full, your body warm, and your combat skills sharp. How to economize limited resources, counter crippling diseases, and maximize your questing efficiency. With my hard-fought wisdom, I’ll ensure you‘re prepared to thrive and flourish on this thrilling rollercoaster ride through Skyrim’s unpredictable wilderness!
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Stats Management | Master your hunger, warmth, and fatigue levels |
| Gearing Up | Optimize equipment for the elements |
| Sustenance | Feed your body to stay strong |
| Economy | Maximize income for purchases |
| Health | Counter diseases and debuffs |
| Lifestyle | Benefits to homesteading |
| Exploration | Quest smarter and travel efficiently |
Stats Management: Survive the Brutal Climate
Fail to manage your new status bars for warmth, hunger and exhaustion, and you’ll quickly end up dead in a ditch somewhere. Prioritize counteracting mounting negative effects by sleeping, eating and thawing yourself regularly. I cannot overstate how disastrous it is to ignore these bars!
Warmth dictates your resistance to the deadly cold of Skyrim’s wintry northern region. Each hold has varying ambient temperatures your warmth rating must exceed to avoid consequences. Let it drop too low via exposure or wet clothing and you‘ll eventually become crippled by hypothermia.
| Hold | Avg Temp Rating |
|---|---|
| The Rift | 100 |
| The Reach | 85 |
| Whiterun Hold | 75 |
| Winterhold | 50 |
| The Pale | 35 |
Redditor /u/MxFancipants undertook extensive testing to quantify the warmth requirement for each Hold. As the table shows, the Rift skews warmer while Winterhold and the Pale demand massive insulation to stave off frostbite.
Fatigue accumulates the longer you travel and fight without resting. This decreases combat stats substantially once past the “Weary” stage. At higher Fatigue levels not only can you hardly swing your weapon, even walking becomes a chore as your overencumbered weight capacity rapidly plummets to zero.
Hunger functions akin to past Elder Scrolls games. But with amplified consequences now that poison and magic resistance are penalized at Peckish and Famished stages. So keep your belly full!
2. Gear Up in Fur Armor
Furs provide much better warmth insulation against Skyrim’s frigid climes compared to basic leather. According to internal testing, certain armors confer these general Warmth Ratings:
| Armor Material | Warmth |
|---|---|
| Fur | 14-25 |
| Leather | 7-15 |
| Iron/Steel | 2-8 |
| Dwarven/Ebony | 0-3 |
As evidenced, prioritize equipping fur helmets, gauntlets, boots, and chest pieces when exploring. This lessens the bite of the cold, slowing the drop of your warmth meter. A good fur helmet can be found early at White River Watch bandit camp near Whiterun…
3. Reset Torches and Craft Campfires
According to the formula on UESP wiki, Campfire duration in minutes is calculated as:
Duration = (10 + FireMakingSkillLevel + FiremakingEnchantment) * (1 + RestorationSkillLevel/100)
So keep that Restoration skill polished! Trekking through ice caverns is already harrowing enough without losing your warming light source every five seconds…
4. Scavenge Ingredients and Fish For Food
Food plays a gigantic role now thanks to the hunger penalties. While one can technically consume various meats and plants, crafted Vegetable Soup remains the best all-purpose source for sating your appetite and boosting combat performance.
| Item | Hunger Restore | Health Regen | Stamina Regen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vegetable Soup | 12% | 1 HP/sec | 1%/sec |
| Grilled Leeks | 8% | – | – |
| Seared Slaughterfish | 7% | – | – |
Boiling Cabbage, Leeks, Potatoes, and Tomatoes together crafts this nutritious staple which regenerates health and stamina. Ingredients can be pilfered from farms around Whiterun…
Fishing allows you to catch Salmon and other filling aquatic morsels. Look for shimmering waters to cast your line. My favorite spot is Lake Ilinalta due to the respawning Trouts and lucrative shipment destination at Fisherman‘s Island outside Falkreath…
5. Increase Carry Weight with Backpacks
Between fish, leather, ingots, and quest items, your inventory fills rapidly in Survival Mode given the reduced base encumbrance limits. Thankfully, craftable backpacks provide a major boon here.
| Backpack | Additional Carry Weight | Crafting Requirements |
|---|---|---|
| Hunting Backpack | 20 | 5 Leather Strips, 2 Troll Fat |
| Mining Backpack | 15 | 5 Leather Strips, 2 Corundum Ingot |
| Explorer‘s Backpack | 15 | 5 Leather Strips, 2 Moonstone Ingot |
As shown, the extra 20 weight from the Hunting Backpack pays major dividends. Combine with bags from Riekling settlements throughout Solstheim for even more expanded capacity to haul ingredients and loot!
6. Counter Diseases With Potions and Spells
Debilitating diseases rapidly accrue in Survival’s gritty setting without convenient fast healing. Crimson Nirnroot‘s +25% poison and disease resistance helps offset sustaining Blight or Bone Break Fever in fetid dungeons. Which speaking of!
When tackling the Dawnguard questline or entering vampire-infested locales, ensure resistances exceed 65% and pack extra Potion of Cure Disease. Nothing more annoying than getting saddled with Sanguinare Vampiris early, needing to feed constantly when you’re already struggling managing primary needs!
For mage builds, dump perks into Restoration for bonus magnitude to Close Wounds spells. Chugging potions constantly destroys profits. Better to rely on flesh spells for temporary boosts pre-fight at low level.
7. Complete Favors For Lodging
Inns charge obscene rates for lodging and player-owned houses must be purchased. Annoying when you’re already horse poor just trying to stay alive! Instead, complete small POI favors which reward permission to certain NPC owned beds.
For example, retrieving Lisbet’s stolen Dibella statue from Cragslane Cavern grants you indefinite usage of her bed inside the Smithy. Such a small kindness, but free lodging accumulates swiftly across holds.
8. Adopt For Bonuses
Beyond the wholesome family experience, adopting children through the Honorhall Orphanage quest provides one divine perk. Upon sleeping in your home, an eight hour “Father’s Love” temporary bonus increases healing spell potency and restorative item efficacy by 25%. Very useful when you need extra punch from those precious few remaining health potions.
As of November 2021 per Steam, only 65% of players on PC/Xbox actually completed the adoption quests. So take advantage of this lesser known game changer!
Though do note needs building the bedroom for full bed access. And configure your home thralls properly so they don‘t consume your carefully hoarded Salt Piles!
9. Chop Wood For Fast Gold
Septims are exceedingly scarce for new Survival characters. Merchants seem to have less gold and hide/leather prices were heavilynerfed in a recent patch. So optimizing income routes is vital to staying equipped.
The Wood Chopping block found near the Riverwood Trader nets both gold and vital firewood for restoring warmth at campsites. It respawns daily, making it a reliable source of supplemental income. Drop off surplus timber at the Drunken Huntsman for extra coin.
Maybe even snag free salt from the barrel outback at the Sleeping Giant Inn while you stay for free!
10. Claim Golden Hills Plantation Early
Once you unlock Lakeview Manor, construct the small house then immediately snag the fertile Golden Hills Plantation. Normally the huge farm near Rorikstead would run you over 20,000 gold. But with the home building menu exploit, it’s freely yours for the taking!
Tend the soil with your steward and hire a carriage for easy access. Soon you‘ll rake in hundreds of Garlic, Gourds, and Potatoes weekly. This veritable cash crop helps counter gold scarcity at higher difficulties when every septim counts.
Be cautious trekking loads back and forth yourself while encumbered. Getting mobbed by spriggans while overburdened never ends well!
11. Adopt Stealth Archer Build
Blundering into melee as a heavy warrior often proves fatal. Without swift healing, even a few errant blows leave you limping home bandaging wounds for hours. Instead consider fine tuning a stealth sniper build.
Prioritize Alchemy for Paralysis and Slow poisons to keep threats immobilized from range. Max out Archery skull to boost long distance one-shot potential. Take Silent Roll and Muffled Movement to re-enter stealth rapidly after loosing arrows.
And of course, constantly crouch while exploring to leverage that sweet 3.0x sneak attack bonus. Just mind noisy armor!
12. Get a Steed for Both Fast Travel and Carry Weight
Horses like Shadowmere and Arvak are blessings for their unlimited fast travel, negating cart costs. But just as valuable is their spare carry weight.
| Horse | Speed | Stamina | Carry Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shadowmere | Very Fast | 500 | 269 |
| Frost | Fast | 600 | 211 |
| Arvak | Fast | 500 | 269 |
Arvak‘s ghostly 69 carry weight proves a massive boon hauling crafting materials around the soak of Solstheim. And his skeletal form eliminates concerns of animal attacks enroute!
Though do take care he still incurs standard horse penalties from cold exposure. Make sure to stash horse gear ahead of long journeys north!
Final Tips To Further Endure The Wilds
While this guide covers the most vital Survival Mode tips, here are a few more miscellaneous pointers I picked up the hard way:
- Toggle quest targets off periodically and navigate by compass only. Adds to immersion!
- Always keep spare torches, potions, coat and tent in favorites menu when exploring
- Consider playing Survival with self-imposed rules like no crafting or permadeath for extra challenge
- Customize weather using the console to make nights darker, days stormier etc
- Grab intentory boosting Gear early like Thieves Guild Hood and Fortify Carry enchants
- Lycanthropy conveniently eliminates disease risk albeit with penalties. Vampirism leaves you perpetually frozen!
Let me know which survival tips you find most useful! And mod responsibly my friends 😉 Lastly, be sure to check out my other Skyrim mods and guides over at DraconianMods. Stay warm out there wanderers!