Skyrim:Skill Books
Contents
Skill Book are special books that permanently increase a skill by one point for free. There are five different books for each of the 18 skills making 90 in total. Unlike trainers, there is no limit to how many skill books you can read at one level.
- When you pick up a skill book, you automatically start to read it, and therefore you immediately obtain the skill bonus. As with all books, you can read skill books without it being considered theft—theft only occurs if you select to "Take" an owned book while reading it.
- If you want to save a skill book for later, you can ask your follower to take or steal it for you.
- Two skill points per book can be achieved if you choose the Scholar's Insight ability, obtained from The Winds of Change quest in the Dragonborn DLC.
- Generally speaking, it's more efficient to read skill books when you are at a higher level in that skill, as the time and effort it takes to increase skills at high levels is much greater. For example, leveling Archery from level 15 to level 16 can be achieved with just a few attacks, thus using a skill book at this point is a waste. In contrast, leveling Archery from level 99 to 100 takes significantly more attacks, so reading a skill book here is much more efficient.
Locations[edit]
Skill books are only available at the places listed in the following table, or as quest rewards (e.g. Hitting the Books). They are never found in random loot (They can be found in Seeker remains in Apocrypha), and they are never part of a merchant's inventory. Skill books can be easily distinguished from most other books simply by looking at their value, which is usually around 50 gold or higher. Most other books are substantially less. They can be sold to any merchants who trade in books, i.e. spell and general goods merchants.
Achievements[edit]
The achievement related to skill books is:
- Reader (20 points/Bronze) — Read 50 Skill Books
- To unlock this achievement 50 different skill books must be read, out of the 90 available.
- Books count towards this achievement even if they are read after the related skill has reached 100. In this case, no message appears on screen informing you that you have read a new skill book, but the game's counter is still increased.
- You can track your progress towards the achievement using the "Skill Books Read" statistic on the General page of your journal's General Stats.
Notes[edit]
- If you find an additional copy of a skill book that you have already read, you will not receive any skill bonus for reading the additional copy.
- They give experience, not just +1 to level. Guardian stone effect and rest bonus still applies.
- However, these bonus does not sum up for additional +1 level. In order to gain maximum experience, avoid reading when your skill is about to level up.
- Making a skill legendary does not reset skill books, so after a skill has been made legendary, the character will not receive any experience for that skill from any of its skill books that have already been read.
Bugs[edit]
- On rare occasions, reading a skill book will report the skill being leveled, but not actually increase the skill's level. Being close to leveling the skill may increase the likelihood of this happening.
- Save your game and check the skill's value before reading any books. If it doesn't increase after reading, reload the save and increase the level of the skill before reading the book.