Transmutation: Break the Economy?

[CyrusAmell]

Did I just stumble on a way to get rich fast?

 

I aquired a spell called transmute from a book at a cave filled with bandits just a little north of Whiterun. Said spell will turn an iron ore into a silver ore and then a silver ore into a gold ore. A skilled mage at lvl 17 can turn 14 iron ores into 14 gold ores in about a minute give or take. That means if you buy a piece of iron ore at 5 gold and turn it into a gold ore you have increased its base value to 50. Then turn two gold ores into a gold bar which has a base value of 100 and turn one into two gold rings with a value of 75 each respectively using blacksmithing. In the end, you turned 5 gold into a value at 75 that can be sold at 50 gold with little hassle I believe. Note that almost every smith and general store sells iron ore lumps so you can fast travel to a number of smiths and quickly aquire a lot of ore or strip mine a cave for iron ore for more profit.

 

This method will shoot up your Alteration skill for the transmutation, your Blacksmithing when you make the rings, and your Speech if you sell each ring individually rather than in a batch (note: Still unknown if selling individually means greater speech gain). You can even level up your Enchanting skill by upgrading the rings with a petty enchant which can also increase the profit for each individual sale.

 

While this has the potential to aid someone in aquiring vast stores of gold coins, it can also lead to disaster because of how leveling works. The ideal method would be to level up your offensive perks and skills and then go all out with this. It is thus advisable that you just buy iron ore whenver possible and store it untill you want to upgrade your Alteration magic skill, then store those gold ores untill you want to train up your Blacksmithing skill and so on. This method overtakes the standard blacksmithing "quick leveling method" of just making iron daggers - no leather required and greater profit.

 

Did I just break the economy? Perhaps not, I don't think a warrior or rogue can exploit this as effectively as a mage can.

 

For the location of the book it is the River camp, filled with poachers and in a cave near a slaughtered mamoth.

Edited November 16, 2011 by CyrusAmell

[draconix]

I do not know if you broke the economy or not, but I am going to start occupying your front lawn just in case.

[James009]

I do not know if you broke the economy or not, but I am going to start occupying your front lawn just in case.

THAT is epic, lol.

 

Anyways, sounds like an easy way to get money quick. However, you could also just sit there and chop wood and make a decent amount... or alchemy... or selling things. I don't think it's too overbalanced (vs. time).

[natelovesyou]

This is where the Spell Tome for it is found.

[Sanbru]

Yeah, I found this spell too. Pretty neat.

[dikr]

I do not know if you broke the economy or not, but I am going to start occupying your front lawn just in case.

 

;D

 

Epic reply is epic.

[Tetsuru]

If you then smith the gold you can make more then the shop keepers in whiterun can buy before they run out of gold.

[vorius]

Couple of things...

 

Firstly - that's a lot of damned work! Acquiring the goods, doing all the spell casting and then finally the smelting and optional blacksmithing... sounds very tedious and boring. So I would expect to be paid well if I spent my time in the game doing that!

 

Secondly, the profit you mentioned is actually pretty lousy. I can make better profits off pure alchemy - buying ingredients from a store owner, creating a potion, and selling it back to the same guy. I dont even have to leave the store! a lot less work, and more money.

 

In both cases though, shipowners carry very limited amount of product - what's the most iron ore you've seen sold? 15? Then you have to travel around Skyrim looking for more resources, spending a lot of precious time.

 

You know what's a lot easier? Enter nearest dungeon,. hack n slash a few hobos and carry out all their loot. 100% profit, and less effort! Plus its more fun - not tedious labor! Dungeon crawling makes ridiculous coin in the game. I have barrels and chests in my house full of loot I cant get rid of because I keep draining the shopowners of all their money and have to wait till they get more.

[Merkvah]

I still haven't found a merchant with more than 500 gold anyway... so the chest in my quarters at the College of Winterhold has thousands of gold worth of items (dragon bones, dragon scales, tons of other crap) that I just can't sell. Hopefully that changes later in the game, as i'm only level 14, but I've currently got tons of stuff I can't offload.

[Vagrant0]

I still haven't found a merchant with more than 500 gold anyway... so the chest in my quarters at the College of Winterhold has thousands of gold worth of items (dragon bones, dragon scales, tons of other crap) that I just can't sell. Hopefully that changes later in the game, as i'm only level 14, but I've currently got tons of stuff I can't offload.

Sadly, even at about level 45ish, most shops only have about 1k gold on hand. At that point you are often just buying soulgems and gear with new enchantments just to give them enough money to sell half the stuff you've been holding onto.