Oblivion:Exploitable Glitches

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Stolen Flag Glitches[edit]

Clear Stolen Flags on Items[edit]

In addition to standard ways of clearing the stolen flag on items, there is a glitch that can be exploited for wearable items, as long as you have more than one of the item. In the case of armor, all pieces should be fully repaired so they have identical statistics.

  • If you have one non-stolen and one stolen item, alternately equipping the two items repeatedly will clear the stolen flag.
  • If you have two stolen items, equipping one item will make the second one appear legitimate. Dropping this item, then dropping the other will clear the stolen flag on both.

Flag Items as Stolen[edit]

To mark most non-stolen items as stolen, you need to:

  1. Access a container with a red icon; i.e., one that would result in theft if you took an item from it.
  2. Activate the container.
  3. Switch to your inventory, and place item(s) in the container.
  4. Switch to container's inventory, and remove item(s).
  5. Switch back to your inventory, and place item(s) in the container again.
  6. Exit the container.
  7. Activate the container again, then remove the item(s) and exit the container.
  8. Check your inventory for newly stolen item(s).
  • This does not work reliably on a stack of multiple items.
  • Some items cannot be flagged as stolen.
  • If you wish to flag zero-weight items as stolen, simply reverse pickpocket an NPC, leave their inventory, then take back your items.

Duplication Glitches[edit]

Duplicate Items Using Scrolls[edit]

This duplication glitch will still work even after installing the version 1.2 patch (or on the PS3 version, which comes with it installed).

  1. Acquire two or more copies of the same scroll. The number of identical scrolls that you have will determine the number of duplicate items you can create.
  2. Open your inventory.
  3. Highlight the stack of scrolls and select them once.
  4. Highlight (but do not equip) an item (either single or a stack) that you wish to duplicate, and drop it.
  5. Close your inventory and on the floor will be multiple copies of the item that you dropped.
  • Acquiring a large number of identical scrolls can be difficult. However, as long as you can find two identical scrolls to start with, you can initially use the exploit to repeatedly duplicate scrolls. Once you have a large number of duplicated scrolls, you can then start duplicating other items. When the duped scrolls are on the ground, pick up one scroll and repeat the process. Use a max of 20 for lockpicks.
  • This is useful for duping arrows as you will need a large number of scrolls to dupe arrows. When duping arrows, it may be helpful to drop all the arrows that you want to be duped except for one. This may seem counter-intuitive but they will build up faster that way.
    • For example, with 33 scrolls and three arrows duped you will get 11 arrows on the ground, because 33/3=11. On the other hand, with one arrow duped you will get 33, because 33/1=33.
    • Just like you did with the scroll duping process describe above, pick up one arrow and repeat.
  • Duplication of stacks of items works best if the number of scrolls is an exact multiple of the number of to-be-duplicated items in your stack. So 33 scrolls can be used to duplicate 11 rings (creating 3 "items" on the ground, each containing a stack of 11 rings). 1000 scrolls can also be used to duplicate 100 potions (creating 10 "items" on the ground, each with 100 potions). Using stacks can be much more effective when duplicating large numbers of items, in particular because it reduces the number of individual items on the ground, preventing game lag problems.
  • Nirnroot, stolen items, quest items, and items repaired or damaged at all will not duplicate.
  • Prior to being patched, this glitch worked with equipped arrows rather than dropped scrolls. Intentionally or unintentionally, it now requires scrolls for duplication.

Duplicate Items using the Skull of Corruption[edit]

Items can be duplicated if you possess both the Skull of Corruption and either the Staff of Worms or the Risen Flesh Greater Power (a reward for the Shivering Isles quest Ghosts of the Hill of Suicides). This technique may require multiple tries, because multiple steps need to be completed in the time before the reanimation effect expires.

  1. Place the item you wish to duplicate onto the corpse of a dead NPC.
  2. Reanimate the corpse using the Staff of Worms or Risen Flesh.
  3. Use the Skull of Corruption on the reanimated body and kill the corrupt copy before the original dies.
  4. Immediately save and reload.
  5. As soon as you reload, access the clone's inventory to retrieve your items.
  • Warning: In the clone's inventory, there may be items identified as <missing name>. Do not under any circumstances take these items. They serve no purpose, and dropping them will cause your game to crash. If you have inadvertently picked up any of these items, the safest way to get rid of them is to put them in a corpse's inventory, or any other container.
  • Any items you duplicate this way will lose their scripts. Examples include the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal, which will not turn you into the Gray Fox, and the Crusader's Relics, which can be worn regardless of Infamy (however wearing them will not grant you the powers and abilities that the originals do).
  • If you duplicate Nirnroot this way, the copies will not stack with the originals, making it possible to create a potion with all four effects of Nirnroot. The copied Nirnroots will also not be taken by Sinderion during Seeking Your Roots. This is the same for Ayleid Statues for The Collector and Shadowbanish Wine for A Venerable Vintage.
  • This trick will duplicate most items. Notable exceptions include: Umbra, the Oghma Infinium, Wabbajack, the Skull of Corruption and the Elder Scroll from the Ultimate Heist.
  • This glitch can cause your game to crash upon opening the corpse.

Duplicate Zero-Weight Items[edit]

This glitch works only with zero-weight items.

Sneak near an NPC and pickpocket them. Next, attempt to reverse pickpocket a number of non-zero-weight items (such as arrows) onto the NPC. This will fail with the usual message explaining that only zero-weight items can be placed. Close the message and then reverse pickpocket the zero-weight item to be duplicated. Switch to the NPC's inventory and there will be as many of the zero-weight item as there were in the original non-zero-weight stack. For example, if you tried to give the NPC 100 arrows, there will be 100 of the zero-weight item. The items will not be marked as stolen, since it was the player who put them there.

This will only work if there are fewer of the items being duplicated in your inventory than the non-zero-weight items. For instance, using a stack of 20 arrows to duplicate lockpicks when you have more than 20 lockpicks will result in simply transferring 20 of the player's lockpicks into the NPCs inventory, with no increase in the number of total available lockpicks. This can be circumvented by dropping as many zero-weight items as necessary for the amount of non-zero-weight items to be greater and then proceeding to duplicate as normal.

Duplicate Respawning Items[edit]

Certain containers are set to contain -1 items of a particular object. The intention is to cause those objects to respawn when their containing cell resets even though other contents of the container might not. Due to a fault in the way the game handles such cases, however, an infinite number of the respawning item can be obtained by removing it from the container and putting it back again. After that, removing the item again adds a copy to the player's inventory without removing the copy in the container. This can be done as many times as required, but only with the item whose count is set to -1.

Affected containers and items include:

Infinite Stolen Arrows[edit]

First, remove all arrows from your inventory. Next, steal arrows from an NPC's house (examples include Floyd Nathans, who has iron arrows, and Honditar, who has steel) then repeatedly equip and unequip the stolen arrows. Each time you re-equip them, the count will increase by the number of arrows you initially stole- however, the weight will not increase, allowing you to acquire as many as you wish without becoming over-encumbered. You can then clear the stolen flag using the methods outlined above. Note that after you store the arrows in a container and then take them back out, they will have the correct weight.

  • PC Only This bug is fixed by the Unofficial Oblivion Patch.
  • When you save the game after duplicating arrows with this glitch, then load the save, the arrows may have disappeared or encumber you. [verification needed]

Equipping Items That Have Been Removed From Your Inventory[edit]

Normally, when items are removed from your inventory (e.g., going to jail, going to Henantier's Dreamworld, etc.) they are unable to be equipped for the simple reason that they are not there. However, if you have a quest item hot-keyed before it is removed, you can still use the hot-key afterwards. This makes the item suddenly appear in your inventory, equipped, and can give the player a significant advantage while playing the game, especially if the hot-keyed item is a powerful weapon.

Frostcrag Spire Glitch[edit]

If you have purchased Wizard's Tower, this exploit allows you to access a test cell that contains valuable loot. The interior test cell is identified in the construction set as TestBrumaHouseMid; if you are on the PC, this cell can be accessed much more easily using console commands. This exploit allows Xbox 360 users to access the cell. Before starting, you will probably want to maximize your character's carrying capacity. To do this, minimize the amount of extra equipment you are carrying, and gather as many Feather or Fortify Strength potions, enchantments, or spells as possible. The procedure is:

  1. Head to Frostcrag Spire, and clear out the storage area. Once you delete Wizard's Tower, the items cannot be recovered. Create a save while your character is standing in the Living Area of the tower; the section of the Alchemy garden with Oblivion plants (Bloodgrass, Harrada) has been found to be the most reliable location.
  2. Delete the plugin file. To do this, go to the system blade in the dashboard, open the memory menu, then delete or move the Wizard's Tower file (you will be able to download it again for free later).
    • If you have already purchased any upgrades, you will have to buy them again once the plug-in is reinstalled. The money you spent is lost. Unique items, such as the Pentamagic Loop, are also removed, even if stored elsewhere in the game. However, items that came from the Spire but are not exclusive to the plug-in, such as ingredients harvested from the garden, are not affected.
  3. Load up the saved game, ignoring the warning about missing content.
  4. You will find yourself in the TesterBrumaHouseMid area. If your original save was in the correct spot, you can skip the following step. Otherwise you will find yourself falling and unable to easily move. You will want to move yourself towards the fire to the south.
    • This step can be tricky. It has been reported that turning towards the fire, drawing a sword, and swinging while trying to move in the direction of the fire will cause you to move towards it.
  5. Wait for the game to drop you outside the level (which will teleport you to the house). This house has the same layout as typical Bruma houses, for example Arnora Auria's or Helvius Cecia's house.
  6. Head out the door and you will find yourself looking at a circle of houses around one of the Bruma fires. Most of these houses you cannot enter, but there are three you can: the one you came through; one labeled the same (except with a trespassing red sign); and one with an unlit Sigillum Sanguis.
  7. Enter the third house. Equip a torch or cast a Night- Eye spell and make your way up to the Sigil Stone. This is the tricky part. To get the Sigil Stone, you must jump out to it and activate it, but be careful, as the drop hurts. The recoil and damage from the jump can be avoided if you enter the door right before hitting the ground.
  8. When you activate the Sigil Stone, you will hear the familiar sounds but no animation of activating a Sigil Stone. When it gives you the Sigil Stone, every type of Sigil Stone will be added to your inventory according to your character's level (i.e., a level 17+ character will receive one copy of each Transcendent Sigil Stone), and will continue to give you more Sigil Stones until the player leaves the cell. Be careful of receiving too many stones; the game can seriously lag and may damage your save if you're carrying too much.
    • You will gain one Fame point for each Sigil Stone added to your inventory.
    • Repeatedly entering and exiting the house will cause more and more Sigil Stones to be added to your inventory; you are only limited by your carrying capacity.
  9. Cast Feather spells or use potions to be able to move, because you will probably be over-encumbered by now. Note that if you are using the Gray Cowl's Feather effect to carry the stones, the Fame you receive will go to your Gray Fox persona, and not your character.
  10. Outside, near the rock and the fire, the Mace of Doom can also be found. It only weighs 5, but carries a huge charge and a devastating fire spell.

See Exterior Test Cells for more information on what can be found in this test world. When you are finished here, fast travel to anywhere.

Once you are finished, re-download the plugin and put all your stuff back. Note that if you load a savegame where you had items stored in the tower before re-downloading the plugin the items in the tower will be removed from that savegame forever if you then save over it.

This glitch is exploitable because the developers reused the TestBrumaHouseMid cell to make the Living Area of Frostcrag Spire.

Permanent Key[edit]

This exploit allows you to open any door which can be opened with an appropriate key. To perform this, have a save next to a locked door for which you have the key (the door next to the Goblin in the tutorial is the first you can encounter without other glitches). Open the door, then when the notification tells you that you used the key, open the menu and load another save without closing the dialogue box from the key. This keeps the related flag checked, allowing you to open any key-locked door without owning the key or performing the lockpick minigame until the game is closed, even if you load another save/character, or make a new character.

Permanent Bound Items[edit]

Bound items are zero-weight items of Daedric quality. Several glitches exist that can be used to create permanent versions of various bound items. These permanent items are particularly useful because zero-weight items can be placed into an NPC's inventory using reverse pickpocketing. Most NPCs will then equip the item, even if they already have a similar item equipped (as Daedric items are considered to be better quality than most other items). Note that NPCs cannot equip themselves with weapons/armor that have been repaired over 100% (if you are careful, you can actually stop at 103%), so you would need to create a custom spell to Disintegrate Weapon/Armor on Self to lower the rating to or below 100%.

Unlike other so called "zero-weight" items (for example, quest items like Umbra), these bound weapons actually weigh nothing; thus, you can swing a bound claymore as fast as you can, and the only Fatigue drop you will experience is from running or jumping, etc. (This was tested with all skills and attributes maxed at 100; while carrying no other items or armor, it did not consume any Fatigue whatsoever.) Since you can create as many bound weapons as you like, they can also be used as if they were "one time use" enchanted weapons - for example, carrying 10 bound swords with the same enchanted effect without ever stopping to recharge them. It should be noted, however, that this does take some of the fun out of the game.

During the Dark Brotherhood quests, some targets that wear armor and a helm can be assassinated using this bound armor cheat (when a zero-weight Mage's Hood with Damage Health 5 points cannot be used). Also, giving the enemy an enchanted weapon with Chameleon can be used to help you flee the scene.

Unlike zero-weight quest items, being jailed while being equipped with permanent bound items will not leave you with its enchantments bound.

Another important factor to consider when using the bound weapon/armor glitch is that no matter what you use to enchant them with, their value will always remain zero. For example, a bound sword enchanted with Transcendent Sigil Stones should have a value of at least 7000 gold. The moment you give it to a merchant, the item also disappears and cannot be bought back.

Repair Method[edit]

Cast a Bound Armor spell, let the armor get damaged, and then repair it. (If you are an Expert in Armorer, there is no need to damage the armor; just immediately repair to over 100%.) After repair, the bound items can be removed from your inventory. Drop them on the ground and wait for the spell timer to expire or cast Dispel on yourself. You now have permanent bound items. This works for bound weapons as well.

Runestone Method[edit]

Runestones will provide you with a bound weapon and a bound piece of armor. Before activating the runestone, cast a Bound Weapon and/or Bound Armor spell on yourself (for armor it must be the same type of armor as that provided by the runestone). When you activate the runestone, you will end up with duplicate bound items. Drop the unequipped bound items on the ground and wait for the spell timer to expire, then pick them back up.

Permanent Enchantments[edit]

The enchantments associated with certain magic items can end up being permanently bestowed upon your character, even after the item has been unequipped. Using the glitches detailed here, the effect is truly permanent: there is no way other than Console commands to get rid of it. There may be undesired side effects from having permanent effects.

In particular, using these glitches with Chameleon, Light, Night-Eye, Detect Life, and Water Walking enchantments is not recommended.

Permanent Effects from Quest Items[edit]

When any quest items (i.e., items that cannot normally be dropped from your inventory) that are equipped are forcibly removed from your inventory, the game removes the item but does not remove the item's magical effects. Therefore, you will end up with a permanent magical effect. This will work with any enchanted quest item. Items for practicable exploits include:

The Gray Cowl of Nocturnal can also be exploited in the same manner, but this is not recommended (you will end up with the Gray Fox's bounty and Infamy permanently).

When you have the item equipped, you then need to complete any one of the following actions. In each of these cases, the item is removed from your inventory:

When the quest items are later returned, they cannot be equipped ("You cannot equip this enchanted item right now.") or dropped ("You cannot remove Quest items from your inventory."), but their effects remain.

The same bug can occur on the Bands of the Chosen from Paradise if you cast a Bound Gauntlets spell. You will be stuck with the 50% Weakness to Fire and cannot open the sealed door.

PC Players: To reverse this glitch, open the console and type player.dispel MagicID where MagicID is the ID of the enchantment provided by the quest item. You should then be able to wear/remove the item as normal. You may also turn quest items into regular items (if you want to avoid the glitch in the first place) by typing Setquestobject FormID 0 where FormID is the ID of the quest item. For example: player.dispel 00055AD will remove the permanent enchantment effect from the Boots of Springheel Jak, and Setquestobject 000148D4 0 will turn them into a regular item. Use the RefScope add-on to get the MagicID or FormID if you can't find it on UESP.

Permanent Effects from Duplicated Items[edit]

The same glitch will occur with any enchanted item if you use one of the duplication glitches.

  1. Duplicate two identical copies of the enchanted item.
  2. Equip one, then try to duplicate the non-equipped one.
  3. The duplication will forcibly remove the equipped copy of the item, and you will be left with the item's enchantment as a permanent effect.
  • This can be done with multiple different enchanted items, as long as each item has a different name.
  • If you equip another item at the slot where you removed the duplicated item, the effect might disappear. To avoid this, equip an item on some other part of your body right after you drop the duplicated item. The effect will be permanent. (Beware attempting this with an enchanted shield: it seems to cause the game to crash on the 360.)

The Arena Raiment is one of the best to use with this glitch. Permanently equipping either the heavy or light raiments will not only permanently buff your personality and athletics (one of only two items in the game that continues to provide benefits if fortified beyond 100), but it will also permanently give you the script that allows you to compete in the arena. This effectively allows you to wear whatever armor you want - complete with whatever enchantments you want - without getting disqualified from your matches.

Another great idea to use this with is Fortify Luck. Luck is usually a dump stat and, for most players, is usually the very last attribute they fill out. However, if you use 24 grand soul gems and permanently enchant your luck by 240 points, you can effectively max out the efficiency of nearly every skill. All weapons (blade, blunt, bow, and fists alike) will do their maximum damage, light and heavy armor alike will provide their maximum protection, and all spells - regardless of magic school - will cost the least amount of magicka to cast (a fifth of the spell's base cost). Just remember that you will need an initial investment of 24,000 gold to pay for the cost of making these enchantments, in addition to the soul gems (though unlike the soul gems themselves, you can make your money back many times over by selling the numerous items to vendors; you will get great trade prices because the fortified luck will also affect your mercantile skill).

Easily Pickpocket NPCs[edit]

If an NPC is knocked down (either from loss of Fatigue, a backwards power attack, or even paralysis), you can click on their body and access their inventory, similar to if you had killed them. You can pickpocket any un-equipped item, or place zero-weight items there. They will never "catch" you, although you may get a bounty for other reasons. You can exploit this by placing enchanted zero-weight items to assist them later, or take something that they might normally catch you taking. You can also pickpocket them this way, even if you've already been "caught" pickpocketing them that day. When an essential NPC is knocked unconscious, click on their body quickly and you will have access to their inventory the moment they regain consciousness.

Permanently Summon Dremora[edit]

If you have the Wizard's Tower plug-in active, drink the bottle of Daedric Lava Whiskey, which will spawn a Dremora Markynaz to your side. If you want, you can use the duplication glitch to create more Whiskey before drinking, allowing you to summon as many Dremora Markynaz as you wish. Once you have drunk as many bottles of Lava Whiskey as you want (or can), you can make the summoned Dremora permanent by saving the game while the Dremora are all out, uninstalling the Wizard's Tower plug-in, and re-loading the game. The timer should disappear, and the summoned Dremora will still follow you around without vanishing. If you fast travel away from where you executed the glitch and then return, the Dremora will all become permanent NPCs! They will wander around the area, their "Summoned" status is completely eliminated, and you can interact with them like any other NPC (i.e. Talk, Pickpocket).

Notes:

  • This can be done anywhere in Cyrodiil, as well as in the Shivering Isles. In the case of the latter, this will "introduce" the Dremora race to the Isles (where no permanent Dremora NPCs can normally be found) for the first time, and is the only way of permanently "importing" them without using the Console or the Construction Set.
  • The newly-created Dremora NPCs are highly aggressive towards most NPCs and Creatures, unless they happen to be members of the "Kyn" faction, or a faction that they consider as allies (e.g. "Oblivion gate Daedra" faction). The sole exception, otherwise, would be the NPC or essential Creature that first Summoned them, or someone with a high enough Personality to overrule their high Aggression. This is due to Summoned creatures and NPCs having a very high Disposition towards their original summoners. For example, if an NPC or an essential Creature were to drink the Whiskey, the Dremora would not attack them if you choose to execute the glitch on their Dremora.
  • You may create as many permanent Dremora NPCs as you wish by reinstalling the plug-in (after you save the game while the Dremora are in their "permanent" state) and performing the glitch repeatedly wherever you want the Dremora to remain.
  • Like all generic Dremora in the game, these permanent Dremora will produce Daedra Hearts upon their death, so a player can farm this ingredient as much as they wish. Since the Summoned Dremora Markynaz is always fixed at Level 19, they can be used to protect an area from recurring, non-Daedric enemies, and if created by a player at an early level, they will be among the highest-leveled NPCs in the game, even higher than Guards, prior to level 10. Their weapons can also be looted, including a possible enchanted Dremora Claymore.
  • Unlike the Golden Saints and Dark Seducers created by their own permanent summon glitch, these Dremora are truly permanent; they won't disappear if you are away from their cell for more than three days. Both the Dremora and any permanent Saints and Seducers can coexist in the same area without hostility. This is due to the latter two being registered in-game as members of the "Oblivion gate Daedra" faction, which is allied to the "Kyn" faction (which includes most of the generic Dremora NPCs in the game, including the Summoned variation of the Dremora Markynaz), and vice-versa.
  • This same technique can also be used with the Summon Bear spell provided by the Spell Tomes plug-in to produce permanent Black Bears.

Permanently Clone Yourself[edit]

Using the Skull of Corruption it is possible to create a permanent clone of yourself. Clones usually disappear after the 30 second time limit but there is a way to make a clone of yourself last forever.

Combat Method[edit]

  1. Go to a cave that you do not mind never entering again with the Skull. This cave should have an NPC near the start. Capstone Cave, west of Bruma is ideal.
  2. Kill all NPCs in the cave except for the NPC at the start. The NPC at the start should not detect you as you do this. 100% Chameleon is greatly helpful.
  3. Move all the dropped weapons into containers, onto the bodies, or just hang on to them.
  4. Drop the Skull by the NPC at the start and initiate combat.
  5. Disarm or disintegrate his weapon. Having no other choice, he should pick up the Skull and blast you with it. (If the NPC is casting spells at you rather than picking up the Skull, simply Silence him.)
  6. Quickly kill the NPC.
  7. Pick up and drop the Skull. The reason for this is to ensure that the Skull does not get cleared out when the cave respawns.
  8. Run out of the cave. Your clone should follow you out. When he does, he will be permanent until you re-enter the cave.

Spell Method[edit]

  1. Create a spell that has 100% Reflect Spell on touch.
  2. Go to a cave with a killable follower.
  3. Clear out the cave and move all weapons to the dead bodies.
  4. Tell your follower to wait as far as he can from the door while still keeping it in sight.
  5. Cast your reflect spell on him.
  6. Back up to the door and fire the Skull of Corruption at him.
  7. Drop the Skull of Corruption before the blast hits your follower.
  8. Quickly kill your follower.
  9. Run out of the cave before the Corruption effect wears off.
  • Because you cannot re-enter the cave, you cannot have your clone and the Skull of Corruption at the same time.
  • You are free to kill your clone and his body will not disappear. This makes him the ideal warrior to lead around with the Staff of Worms.
  • If you want to loot your clone, simply save and reload in the same area as him.
  • If you kill your clone, it is possible you will be kicked out of the guilds you are in.

Drink More than Four Potions[edit]

It is possible to drink more than four potions at once, if the potions have a Drain effect (i.e., Ale, Cheap Wine, or Mead will work)/

  1. From your inventory, drink four Drain potions.
  2. Quickly close your journal and reopen it.
  3. Drink up to four more Drain potions.
  • The key to this exploit seems to be the message that appears on your screen when you drink a potion with a Drain effect (e.g., 'Your personality is being drained'); until that message disappears the game does not fully register that the potions have been drunk. As long as you re-enter the inventory before the message disappears, you can drink more potions. All of the potions take effect: all are listed on the active effects page, and attributes are correctly altered. It is possible to have some of the potions be normal (useful, non-drain) potions.

Another glitch can be exploited as follows:

  1. Drink three potions with lasting effects (such as Feather potions)
  2. Drink one potion with instant effects (such as a Restore Health potion)
  3. Exit your inventory, and re-enter it
  4. Drink up to four additional potions

With this glitch, you can pop up to seven feather potions at once, which makes carrying excessive amounts of loot out of a large dungeon a suddenly easy task. Combine this with a duplication glitch, and you won't have to worry about encumbrance ever again.

A different glitch can appear if you create a potion with more than one effect. When the effect with the shortest duration runs out, you can drink another potion, even though the other effects from that potion remain effective. With sufficiently good alchemy apparatus, a 1 second duration "poison" effect such as Burden can be added to most potions, enabling new potions to be consumed after just one second but without causing any permanent damage.

Floating Paint Brushes[edit]

Paint brushes will float in the place where you drop them. If you collect enough, you will be able to jump on them and use them to scale walls, towers and reach high places. Note that this trick can be used to escape from or get into places you're not supposed to. With enough paint brushes and enough patience, you can presumably escape from or get into any place where there's open sky above you.

  • The same effect has occasionally been known to happen with other items, however it is not known what causes this. With non-paintbrush items this glitch stops occurring upon save/load.
  • PC Only This bug is fixed by the Unofficial Oblivion Patch.

Item Stacking Glitches[edit]

Hotkeyed Weapons[edit]

To use this glitch, assign a hotkey to stacked, unequipped weapons and then use the hotkey to equip one of the weapons. To repair and recharge the item, simply unequip it by any method. It will return to the stack and instantly be repaired and recharged.

There are a couple of bugs with this method, however:

  • Occasionally, identical weapons will refuse to stack, often due to having left your inventory (dropped, disarmed, etc.). You may be able to get them to re-stack by playing around with picking up, dropping, and hotkeying, or you could try selling them to a vendor and buying them back all at once.
  • Casting any Bound Weapon spell while the item is equipped will cause your game to crash.

Items Repaired Over 100%[edit]

If you have four or more identical items that have been repaired to more than 100% due to a high Armorer skill level, all but two of them can be reduced to 100% repair repeatedly, allowing you to further increase your Armorer skill as much as desired. To use this glitch, you must have an equipped item that has a health different from the others in the stack, but is otherwise identical. Normally, this will be a stack at 125% with one damaged item, but having a stack of items repaired to 110% and the equipped item at 120% will also work. Next, drop the unequipped stack as a stack and pick them back up again (if you drop them individually, this glitch will not work.). At this point, you will have the equipped item, one of the original stack at its original health, and all the remaining ones you just picked up will have been reduced to 100% health. You can now repair the 100%-health items and repeat the process as much as desired to increase your Armorer skill.

Separate Stack Removal[edit]

If a character or object removes multiple items from your inventory, only one item will be taken if it is stacked separately, and before the others in your inventory. This can be done by having one stolen item and a group of non-stolen items. This does not work with the Nirnroot given to Sinderion during Seeking Your Roots.

Examples of this glitch include:

  1. The ingredients used with the Atronach Altar in Frostcrag Spire.
  2. The items required by Melisande for her Vampire Cure.
  3. The Welkynd stones you have to give to Martina Floria to receive Illusion Training.

Unlimited Gold[edit]

This glitch occurs with Dorian who lives in the Talos Plaza District. The gold in his inventory never gets removed, allowing you to take endless riches. A patch attempted to correct the glitch upon his death, but it can still be exploited by using the Easily Pickpocket NPCs glitch on him. Bribing him beforehand increases his total available gold.