The art of creating and improving weapons and armor from raw materials.

"Is your armor made of... dragon bones? By the gods, what I wouldn't do for a set of that."

―Guard

Smithing is a skill in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and is one of the six skills that falls under The Warrior play-style. Smithing is the art of refining raw materials and combining them into new and/or improved pieces of armor or weaponry. It is one of the three crafting skills in Skyrim, falling under The Warrior, with parallels to Alchemy for The Thief and Enchanting for The Mage. As such it is affected by The Warrior Stone and, as with all skills, is affected by The Lover Stone.

Mechanics

Smithing is a multistage process with the number of stages depending on what items are being crafted and how raw the materials are. The process can be started at any intermediate stage if the right materials are found, but every stage requires input materials, knowledge of the recipe, and its own tool. Input materials can be found in the world or purchased from vendors. Knowledge of new recipes can be acquired only through perks but some are available automatically. The tools list below roughly outlines the end-to-end process from the most raw stages to the most refined stages.

Tools

These tools, required for various stages in the smithing process, can be found in any main city and most villages. They are also frequently found in forts and dungeons or outside mines. See the individual tool pages for more specific locations.

• Smelter - Used to change ores or scraps into ingots.
• Tanning Rack - Used to create leather/leather strips from animal hides.
• Forge and Anvil - Used to craft armor, weapons and jewelry from ingots and other materials.
• Workbench - Used to improve armor and shields with ingots or leather.
• Grindstone - Used to improve weapons with ingots or leather strips.

Racial bonuses

Nord, Redguard, and Orc characters gain a +5 boost to Smithing at the start of the game.

Leveling

The following actions raise the Smithing skill:

• Crafting an item at a Forge. Skill gain is dependant on the value of the item being crafted.^[1]
• Improving a weapon at a Grindstone. Larger skill gains based on the strength of the improvement made.
• Improving an armor or shield at a Workbench. Larger skill gains based on the strength of the improvement made.

Books

For the locations of these books, see Skill Book (Skyrim).

The following is a list of books that raise the Smithing Skill, locations can be found on the relevant book's page:

• Cherim's Heart of Anequina
• Heavy Armor Forging
• Light Armor Forging
• The Armorer's Challenge
• The Last Scabbard of Akrash
• Oghma Infinium - choosing the Path of Might increases all Warrior skills, including Smithing, by 5.

Related quests

The following Quests increase or help to increase the Smithing Skill:

• Retrieve Queen Freydis's Sword for Oengul War-Anvil in Windhelm
• Retrieve Night Falls on Sentinel for Rustleif in Dawnstar
• Retrieve The Last Scabbard of Akrash for Ghorza gra-Bagol in Markarth
• Discerning the Transmundane can award the player with five levels of every Warrior governed skill, including smithing.
• Unfathomable Depths will grant the player Ancient Knowledge which increases the rate of skill gain for Smithing by 15%

Trainers

Main article: Trainer (Skyrim)

Growth curve

The smithing skill levels according to an exponential curve. This means each level costs more than the previous one.

Perks

The following chart lists the perks that become available to the player as the skill is leveled up. In spite of the shape of the perk constellation implying otherwise, perks explicitly list their prerequisites (e.g. Daedric Smithing requires Ebony Smithing be taken first).

Improvement

The table shows what quality improvement an item will achieve based on smithing level and if the smithing perk for the item is taken or not.

Items can still be improved once they reach Legendary, but the description will not change.

Each additional quality level beyond Legendary improves Armor by 3.6 and other items (weapons, helms, boots, etc) by 1.8.

Alchemy and Enchanting can improve results significantly via the Fortify Smithing effect allowing for greater improvements at a given level than the table shows. Combining both Alchemy and Enchanting to improve one another and then combining both to improve Smithing as much as possible can be very powerful. The relevant Alchemy Tips page or Enchanting page have more information on how to get the most out of those skills.

The improvement of armor and weapons requires one smithing material per item improved. These items can be obtained by Tanning, Smelting, or other in game means of obtaining items.

Material requirements

The table shows the different kinds of weapons and armor that you can make and what you need to make them.

• Nord Hero Weapons and Ancient Nord Armor can be made after completing "The Companions" quest chain and only at the Skyforge.

Notes and tips

Bugs

Achievements

	Artificer Make a smithed item, an enchanted item, and a potion
Points	10
Trophy

See also

• See: Skill (Skyrim)
• See: Ore

References

1. ↑ 1.5 patch