Oblivion:Making Money

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Contents 1 Bring Home the Gold 1.1 Getting the Most Value - Value Ratio 1.1.1 Rules of Thumb 1.1.2 Exceptions 1.2 Dungeon Diving 1.2.1 Dungeon Types 1.2.2 Additional Considerations 1.3 Quests 1.3.1 Arena 1.3.2 Black Bow Bandits 1.3.3 Fighters Guild 1.3.4 Vampire Dust 1.3.5 Whispers of Death 2 Using Skills 2.1 Alchemy 2.2 Stealing 2.3 Additional Income from Skills 3 Unloading Your Goods

Making money is an important aspect of gameplay. Whether you are a novice adventurer in need of training and supplies, or a seasoned adventurer looking for a new house, enchanting items, or making your own spells, a stable source of income is essential.

[edit] Bring Home the Gold

By far, the most common method of earning gold is to collect items of value to sell to merchants. The most straightforward way to increase your earnings is to take advantage of Feather or Fortify Strength effects (spells, potions, or enchantments) to maximize the amount that you can carry.

[edit] Getting the Most Value - Value Ratio

Eventually though, you are going to get over-encumbered and you will be forced to start dropping items and leaving even more behind. This is when an item's value ratio becomes important. In order to determine what to keep and what to drop or leave behind, you must calculate an item's value ratio using this formula:

v = p/w 

Where v is the item's value ratio, p is the item's base price, and w is the item's weight.

Or in words:

The value ratio is equal to the item's base price divided by its weight.

Using this ratio you can easily determine which items to leave and which to take back and sell. For every pound you carry to a vendor to sell, you want to get the most gold possible for it, so the higher the item's ratio, the better.

Example: You are over encumbered and must choose between a 20 pound Iron Cuirass worth 30 gold or a 5 pound Leather Cuirass worth 15 gold. Use the formula to determine which should be discarded.

• The Iron Cuirass
  • value ratio = 30 / 20 = 1.5
• The Leather Cuirass
  • value ratio = 15 / 5 = 3

The iron cuirass' value ratio is less, half in fact, so you should certainly drop it instead of the leather cuirass. Now you have room for more valuable treasure and will make more money on this loot run.

This is just an example. If you are over-encumbered it's probably time to calculate the value ratio of all the items in your inventory and drop the ones with lower ratios to maximize your income.

[edit] Rules of Thumb

In general:

• Scrolls, arrows, potions, and alchemy ingredients have high value ratios.
• Unenchanted steel and iron weapons have a low value ratio.
• Books worth more than one gold have good value ratios.
• Light armor has a better value ratio then heavy armor.
• Jewelry has an excellent value ratio.

[edit] Exceptions

• You should cap an item's value based on your merchant's available gold.
  • You should always be able to find a merchant with 1200 available gold; use the list of Merchants if you need to locate a merchant with more available gold.
  • If you have installed certain Official Mods, merchants with more available gold are added. In particular, Aurelinwae (Frostcrag Spire mod) and Rowley Eardwulf (Deepscorn Hollow) each have 2000 available gold.
  • At high Mercantile skill, two mastery perks become available that provide most merchants with 1000 additional gold.
  • The maximum amount for which you can ever sell an item is 3000 gold.
• If you are working on your mercantile skill, then you'll probably want to sell absolutely everything of value.

[edit] Dungeon Diving

Dungeon diving is the most common and most profitable method of making money, but it's also one of the most dangerous. It's pretty much what it sounds like—diving into one of the many dungeons of Cyrodiil, killing the inhabitants, and raiding their treasure chests in search of loot. Most dungeons contain a boss chest with particularly high-quality loot. Note: All dungeons will respawn in 72-73 hours of game time, as long as you do not visit the dungeon in those hours. This basically means most of the inhabitants will be back and most of the treasure chests will be filled again.

[edit] Dungeon Types

Each Dungeon contains a certain type of enemy which determines the type of loot found inside. The dungeon's type must be considered to maximize your chances of finding loot that is valuable enough to sell and/or to upgrade your own equipment.

• Bandits - Bandits mostly offer leveled light armor and blunt weapons with Bandit Bowmen offering bows and arrows. While any bandit's equipment can be enchanted, bandit ringleaders have the highest chance. This makes bandit dungeons an excellent choice for diving in especially if you use blunt weapons and/or light armor.

• Conjurers - In these dungeons you will find alchemy ingredients and apparatuses, potions, daggers, and scrolls. If your max encumbrance is relatively low then these are a decent choice if you are prepared to run down the conjurers while avoiding their summons.

• Goblins - The mines and caves inhabited by goblins are generally a bad idea if you are solely looking to make gold. They are one of the harder dungeon monsters to slay, they are minimally equipped, and their loot lists provide poor loot. There are a few exceptions: if you are looking for arrows, raid one of the tribes with archers.

• Marauders - Infiltrating an area inhabited by Marauders offers mostly heavy armor and bladed weapons. Raiding marauders solely as a source of income may not be worth it because they are harder to slay than bandits and heavy armor generally has a poor value ratio. However, if you use heavy armor and blades these are a viable choice.

• Monsters - Magically inclined creatures dwell in these dungeons along with other animals. These creatures offer rare ingredients and generally the best chance for enchanted items in treasure chests. Monster habitats are excellent choices for a treasure run.

• Necromancers - These citizens of Cyrodiil love to raise the dead and usually conjugate with them. They carry maces, staffs, and possibly enchanted clothing. Their chests mostly contain alchemy ingredients and equipment, scrolls, soul gems, and potions. If you are prepared to deal with their summoned undead and powerful ranged Destruction magic, their dwellings are a good choice.

• Planes of Oblivion - The Planes are probably the most abundant in treasure of any other place. The Daedra and Dremora which reside here give wide variety of rare alchemical ingredients, scrolls, and weapons; the chests frequently offer a nice selection of loot; Sigil Stones can only be obtained by closing Oblivion Gates. Be warned, though: they are generally the most challenging.

• Undead - While the undead haunt several places around the world, it should be noted that undead are frequently found with vampires and necromancers as well. Places containing only undead offer a fairly general spread of possible loot, including soul gems, magical attire, and jewelry. The undead themselves can carry various weapons, including staffs, and always one of three valuable ingredients. These dungeons are an okay choice for loot runs.

• Vampires - Vampire nests contain chests with a pretty general spread of loot. Vampires have a wide variety of character classes so the weapons they carry is pretty much a complete spread of all the possibilities. Most Vampires however focus on light armor. As long as you are prepared to cure diseases, or become a vampire yourself, vampire dungeons are one of the best choices for gold-making runs.

[edit] Additional Considerations

1. Your maximum encumbrance should be a factor when selecting a dungeon, unless you are also seeking better equipment for your own use. Remember the value ratio and its rules of thumb and exceptions from above.
2. Your character's level greatly impacts the quality of loot in dungeons. For example, Necromancer and Conjurer Dungeons are excellent choices at higher levels but will offer less valuable loot than dungeons with better equipped enemies (Bandits, Marauders, and Vampires) at lower levels. If you are a lower level character, remember the value of all the practice you are getting too. You may wish to consider the quests below as well.
3. Unless you have a high Armorer skill, repairing the damage to your equipment can be a drain on your income. You could stick to magically inclined dungeons like conjurers and necromancers to reduce armor damage.

[edit] Quests

There are several quests and quest arcs that can be completed for gold. Some quests are more useful to low level players because both difficulty and pay are fixed, whereas loot from dungeons and other quests are leveled. Higher level players would best use their time completing leveled quests or by quickly completing multiple quests in the same area.

[edit] Arena

The arena fights and payouts are fixed until you become grand champion. After that, you can fight your choice of one to three leveled creatures once a week. This payout is level-dependent (40-1490 gold times the number of creatures you fought).

If your character's Luck is high, betting on area fights can be a source of income.

[edit] Black Bow Bandits

After completing Knights of the White Stallion, Count Marius Caro of Leyawiin offers a reward of 100 gold for each black bow you bring him. The black bows are obtained by killing Black Bow Bandits in Rockmilk Cave, Telepe, and the first level of Undertow Cavern. The bandits respawn.

[edit] Fighters Guild

You are paid a leveled amount of gold for completing most Fighters Guild quests.

Once you complete all the quests for the fighters guild, you are promoted to Master and you will receive a cash stipend and random enchanted items each month in your Guildmaster's Chest.

[edit] Vampire Dust

After successfully completing The Order of the Virtuous Blood, Roland Jenseric will offer to buy vampire dust for 250 gold each. Note:It is possible to use the Enchanted Chest to duplicate vampire dust. Roland will buy all of the new samples without question.

[edit] Whispers of Death

Upon completion of the Dark Brotherhood quest arc you can visit the Lucky Old Lady statue in Bravil once a week to receive a name and place to take back to Arquen for a level-dependent amount of gold. You can do it every week for the remainder of the game.

[edit] Using Skills

While a variety of skills is required to dungeon dive, there are a few particular skills that can be employed to make money. While these are generally less profitable, they also carry significantly reduced risk.

[edit] Alchemy

Alchemy ingredients can be found all over Cyrodiil—from the most remote areas to inside the walls of the Imperial City. These ingredients are worth something by themselves, but combining them into potions will increase your income.

Valuable ingredients can be obtained by slaying some monsters. Ogre Teeth, Daedra Hearts, Daedra Venin and Silk, Minotaur Horn, Fire/Frost/Void Salts, and Vampire Dust are all examples. However, potions made using these ingredients are no more valuable than potions made using mundane ingredients.

Note: If you are the Arch Mage of the Mages Guild you can use the enchanted chest to replicate most ingredients. Sell these new ingredient samples for some easy gold.

Procedure to make some quick cash with alchemy:

1. Grab your highest-quality mortar and pestle (other alchemy apparatus is unnecessary, since the other items do not increase the monetary value of the potions).
2. Locate a vendor that sells alchemy ingredients and stand as close as possible to him/her.
3. Buy all the ingredients you can get for five gold or less. Do not be alarmed if you are over-encumbered.
4. Make as many potions as you can from your newly purchased ingredients. (Restore Fatigue is a common one.)
5. Sell your new potions back to the vendor.
6. Either sell your left-over ingredients or save them and locate another ingredient vendor where you can repeat this process.

Note: Carrying large quantities of ingredients around can over-encumber even the strongest of adventurers so the Value Ratio should still be applied. Making potions out of ingredients decreases your encumbrance (although there are some quirks with potion weights). For more information, see the Useful Potions Guide.

[edit] Stealing

Stealing combines sneak with security to obtain items illicitly. While you don't need to get past locks to steal items of value, items of higher value are frequently under lock-and-key. An alternative to security would be an Open spell. The Burglary guide provides tips on how to be an effective thief.

After joining the Thieves Guild you gain access to fences who will buy your stolen items. You can make a little gold from robbing a modest house, but you will make more by breaking into a shop or upper class house. A thief's timing is crucial if he/she is to be successful—the building's occupant(s) must either be away or asleep so the thief stands a good chance of remaining undetected.

Some target suggestions for the budding larcenist:

• The castles in each town.
• Red Diamond Jewelry in the Imperial City Market District. Note: The counters with jewelry respawn.
• The Gilded Carafe in the Imperial City Market District.
• The Mages Guild halls in each town. If you are a member of the Mages Guild, you won't need a fence to unload the loot. Note: The counters with alchemy apparatuses respawn.
• The Fighters Guild halls in each town. If you are a member of the Fighters Guild, you won't need a fence to unload the loot.
• Several stores and houses in the Imperial City have concealed entrances in the Sewer System that provide easy access to the basement storerooms.

[edit] Additional Income from Skills

• You can combine stealing and alchemy to steal food and other ingredients and "launder" them by turning them into potions. No fence required.

[edit] Unloading Your Goods

Now that you are laden with items you wish to sell, here are some quick tips for getting the most gold from merchants:

• Raise the disposition of the merchant as high as possible by using any combination of the following:
  • Play the persuasion mini-game.
  • Use a charm spell.
  • Purchase or sell an item worth more than 100 gold.
• Haggle as hard as possible. The better you haggle, the more gold you make selling items and the more gold you save when buying items. Important: The less skilled an NPC is at mercantile, the harder you can haggle—always use this to your advantage.
• Every merchant has a limit on each transaction, but he/she has infinite money as long as you keep each transaction under this limit. This is important to keep in mind to maximize your earnings.
• Merchants will only buy certain types of items (specified on the individual merchant pages) until you reach journeyman in mercantile. Exploit your journeyman mercantile skill perk by selling everything you can to the NPC with the lowest mercantile skill you can find.