Alchemy can produce more than just potions inThe Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. Players can also use this crafting method to createpoisonsthat deal extra damage or cause harmful effects that are very similar to magic spells and enchantments.
The advantage of poisons over these other effects inSkyrimis the fact that poisons, just like potions, are much easier to come by. Players don’t need to reach a minimum skill in Alchemy to brew poisons of any type, they just need the right set of ingredients. The disadvantage is how players must reapply poison after each hit, but creative players can come up with all kinds of uses for poisons.
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Poison Brewing And Types
Brewing poisons works the same way as brewing potions. Players must find an Alchemy table, combine two ingredients, and if they both have an identical effect then players can craft a poison from them. The only difference is that poisons cause harmful effects while potions cause helpful effects. Players can combine extra ingredients to cause multiple effects, but try toavoid combining helpful and harmful effectsin the same brew.
The list of ingredients is far too long to go over, but here arethe poison effects players can find or craftinSkyrim:
Just like potions, some ingredients are extra effective when players use them to create certain poisons. For instance, Crimson Nirnroot makes Damage Health and Damage Stamina poisonsthree times as effective, and Slow poisons made with Large Antlers last six times as long.
How To Apply Poisons
Poisons are listed in the “Potions” section of the player’s inventory. To apply a poison to a weapon, simply select it from the list using the same button for equipping a weapon or drinking a potion. The game will ask to confirm whether players want to poison the currently equipped right-hand weapon. If players have no right-hand weapon, trying to use a poison will fail.
Players can only apply one poison to a weapon at a time, but they can apply poison to every weapon in their inventory by swapping them into their right-hand equipment slot. An applied poison will never wear off with time, but it will only apply its effect to the next successful attack. Players must apply a new poison after each strike to keep getting a poison’s effect.
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Players can poison ranged weaponsalong with melee weapons. The poison affects the weapon rather than the arrows, so players can swap between arrow types with no problem, but ranged weapons lose the poison effect after the first time players shoot, even if they miss. By contrast, players can swing melee weapons as much as they like and will only lose the poison after hitting an enemy.
Unfortunately, poison effectsdon’t scale with sneak attack bonuses. When players strike from a hidden position,Skyrimmultiplies the weapon’s base damage by the sneak attack multiplier, and then adds any damage from poisons or enchantments on top.
Players can see when a weapon has a poison active by checking the weapons in their inventory. A poisoned weapon has a green icon of a snake coiled around an arrow in the upper-left corner of its description box.
How To Use Poison To Assassinate
One interesting way to kill NPCs and get away with it is to use poisons.The Pickpocket perk treefeatures a perk called Poisoned. It requires 40 Pickpocket skill and the perks Light Fingers and Night Thief.
When players with Poisoned try to plant a poison on an NPC, the poison willapply its effects to the characterinstead of entering their inventory. Assuming players don’t get caught (and the usual risks of pickpocketing apply), they can kill characters in broad daylight, paralyze actual pickpocket targets to avoid getting caught, and even cause riots using the frenzy effect.
Something to note is that NPCs will “drink” each poison in the order players give them, at least until they run out of Health and die. This means players can hand over their entire stock of Damage Health poisons and then collect all the unneeded ones off the body. One last benefit is that planting items, including poisons, isn’t considered a criminal action even if players get caught.
Applying poisons during combat requires a lot of micromanaging, but some effects (like adding Weakness to Frost to a weapon that deals Frost damage) are worth the effort. However, even players who avoid using poisons in combat can put them to great use by poisoning NPCs and getting up to all kinds of trouble in towns and cities.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimis available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
