Replaces Skyrim's leveling system with a system based on Dark Souls. Skills are no longer increased through use. Instead, you must pay gold every time you want to increase a skill.

This is a modification of Gold Is XP, by RogueRifler.

== Features ==

Normal leveling is disabled - you will no longer be able to level skills by using them. Trainers are also disabled. You are still able to gain skill points by reading books.

After waking from sleep, if you are carrying enough gold to level up one of your skills, you will be presented with a skill leveling menu. When you choose a skill on this menu, you will be told the gold cost to increase the skill by 1 point. If you choose to proceed, you will lose that amount of gold, and the skill will be incremented.

For every 10 skill points you purchase in this way, you gain a level.

(New in 1.1) Optionally add gold to the inventories of NPCs when they are killed. The amount of gold depends on the NPC's "toughness" which takes into account their max health, resistances and armour, attack speed, spellcasting ability, and boss status. It is not affected by the player's level or abilities. You can customise this feature by choosing a factor to multiply the gold by (0.1x to 5x), and by choosing a minimum affected NPC level.

== Why? ==

• A gold sink, which is sorely lacking in Vanilla Skyrim.
• Interesting choices - do you save up your gold to raise One-Handed to 51, or buy those expensive spellbooks?
• Control over which skills are raised - no more need to "grind" sneaking, or to modify gameplay to avoid leveling non-combat skills.
• Provides extra motivation for playthroughs focused on trading, thievery, or other moneymaking activities.
• When used alongside my other mod, Respawn - Soulslike Edition, allows for emulation of the Soulslike death and leveling system in Skyrim, using gold in place of "souls".
  

== Cost formula ==

The formula used to calculate the cost of leveling up is the same cubic formula that is used in Dark Souls (but using gold instead of souls). 

  C = 0.02x^3 + 3.06x^2 + 105.6x - 895

That number is then divided by 10 to get the cost for a skill point increase, since there are 10 skill point increases per level. (Note that the number of skill points per level can be changed in the MCM from the default of 10, and you can also use the normal Skyrim system instead, where higher character levels require more and more skill points).

The following table shows the cost to raise a skill by 1 point starting at the given skill level:

| Skill Level | Cost for +1 point | Cumulative Cost |
|-------------|-------------------|-----------------|
| 5           | 67 | 67              |
| 10          | 76 | 429             |
| 20          | 166| 1458            |
| 40          | 781| 10620           |
| 50          | 1239              | 20855           |
| 60          | 1813              | 36298           |
| 80          | 3359              | 87853           |
| 10          | 5514              | 176565          |

As can be seen from the table, if you level a character to 100 by leveling 10 skills all the way to 100, this will cost about 1,765,650 gold. If instead you level to 100 by raising 20 skills to 50, this will cost about 417,000 gold. While this is much cheaper, you would be sacrificing the benefits of having very high skills.

(New in 1.3) Optionally, the cost of raising skills can be multiplied by a factor between 0.05 and 10. This allows for use of the mod alongside other mods which make gold more or less difficult to come by.

(New in 1.4) If you want the number of skill points required to gain a level to increase as you level up (i.e. the usual Skyrim method), rather than remaining fixed, you can select this in the MCM. You can also vary the number of points required per level from the default of 10.

== Uninstalling ==

Gold Is Souls can be enabled and disabled by toggling "Enable mod" in the MCM, without the need to uninstall.
If you still wish to uninstall the mod, do so in the usual way by turning "Enable mod" off, saving, then removing the mod.

== Other recommended mods ==

• Respawn - Soulslike Edition (also by me) - when you are killed, respawn at a safe location (bed, campfire, player home or temple), optionally dropping your gold or equipment in a grave which you must recover without dying again.
• Smoothcam + Soulslike preset
• Better Third Person Selection - essential for third person gameplay.
• Rest By Campfire + Souls-like Bonfire Menu addon
• Souls Quick Menu RE
• Widget mod - can be set up to display carried gold in your HUD
  

== Acknowledgements ==

RogueRifler, for making Gold Is XP and allowing publication of this modified version.