Description

Ever worried about accidentally advancing the wrong skill that contributed to your level? You don't have to anymore. Now you can gain levels by completing quests and exploring. Skills don't give experience but they are capped relatively to player's level for balancing reasons (see skill caps section below). Feel free to train Lockpicking without actually gimping yourself!

Heavily inspired by Pillars of Eternity leveling and pre 4.0.1 World of Warcraft weapon skill progression system.

Features

• Full integration with original experience system and experience bar
• You gain Skyrim's native experience points (there is no secondary XP system)
• No esp file, no scripts, no impact on performance
• Compatible with custom quests and locations
• Compatible with HUD replacers
• Highly customizable (advanced users only)
• Optional "XP from kills" feature

Leveling

The mod uses vanilla leveling formula (XP required for each level is same as in original system).

Leveling curve can be adjusted by modyfing fXPLevelUpBase and fXPLevelUpMult original game settings. Other mods editing these settings are compatible and somewhat recommended for experimenting with different values.

XP Sources

The reward values below are just default settings. The list of all available settings and supported location types can be found under articles tab.

Questing:


Exploring:


Clearing:


Killing:


Reading:

Skill Caps

Skills are trained like in vanilla game, but they are now capped relatively to player's level for balancing reasons.

All skills cap at 18 by default, the cap increases by 2 per character level, ex; Level 1 = 18 + 2, Level 5 = 18 + 10, etc.

Racial skill bonuses are added on top of base cap for each skill individually. For example the Nord race has +10 two-handed bonus, so the skill cap for two-handed at level 1 would be 30 instead of the default 20. Racial skill cap bonuses are optional and can be disabled in config file.

Default base cap values for level ranges are listed below (values in between are scaled dynamically):

+--------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| Player | 01-05 | 06-10 | 11-15 | 16-20 | 21-25 | 26-30 | 31-35 | 36-40 |
+--------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| Skills |  >20  |  >30  |  >40  |  >50  |  >60  |  >70  |  >80  |  >90  |
+--------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+

Compatibility

Minor incompatibility with mods that replace statsmenu.swf - mod authors check this article for more info
Compatible with custom quests and custom discoverable/clearable locations
Compatible with gameplay and perk overhauls

Recommended

Experience - MCM - adds Mod Configuration Menu (MCM) support, requires SkyUI
Experience Synthesis Patcher - makes your whole load order compatible with 'killing' feature, requires manual tweaking
Experience Quests Tweak - reclassifies vanilla 'None' quests to correct type to make them more compatible with this mod
No Startup Quest XP - sets type of some modded utility quests to 'None' to prevent startup XP spam
Downgrade Patcher - if you accidentally updated to Skyrim Fishing Edition
Leveling Freedom - fully customize the leveling curve via MCM menu

FAQ

Q: I'm still getting XP from skills, this mod doesn't work!
A: It requires SKSE64, please make sure you have the correct version installed.

Q: Do I need to start a new game?
A: It won't break anything if it's installed mid-game, but you will miss XP from all quests that you have already completed.
 
Q: Do I need to clean save when updating?
A: Nope, it's SKSE plugin so it can be disabled, enabled and updated in middle of playthrough without breaking your save.
 
Q: I can't level up. I get the level up notification but when I go to stats menu the level up option is not here!
A: It's core feature of Survival Mode. Leveling up is delayed till after you sleep, it's not related to this mod.

Q: All of my skill bars are orange, what to do?
A: Make sure your statsmenu.swf is compatible with current version (some UI replacers and their patches might be outdated).

Q: I changed one of related settings mid-play and my skill cap values are incorrect.
A: You need to level up or use setlevel <your_level_plus_one> then setlevel <your_original_level> to evaluate skill cap.

Q: Can you make VR version?
A: It would require reverse engineering everything from scratch, what is not something I'm willing to do.