Riding the Creep Train
- 1 of 21: The following hints are a step-by-step process for building up your character into a very skilled, high-level one early in the game without having to partake in even one quest or combat! These hints contain some minor spoilers, but none related to any actual quests or the main plotline.
- 2 of 21: First, create any character you feel like creating. The beauty of the Creep Train strategy is that it works great for any type of character at all!
- 3 of 21: As soon as you finish the character creation process, steal all the stuff from the Census and Excise Office (and optionally from the nearby warehouse) and sell $800 worth of it to Arrille. Then find a place to drop any cheap and/or heavy stuff that you can't immediately use or sell. (Tips on stealing those items are in the Character Creation Tips.)
- 4 of 21: Use the silt strider service to get to Balmora, then buy a Potion of Marking from Nalcarya of White Haven in her shop, and at least one master's lockpick from Nileno Dorvayn in the Hlaalu Council Manor (both buildings are in the NW section of town).
- 5 of 21: After selling off any moon sugar you may have picked up in Seyda Neen's warehouse to Ajira and/or Ra'Virr, use the Balmora Mages Guild teleportation service to get to Caldera.
- 6 of 21: In Caldera, go find the Creeper in Ghorak Manor and drink your Potion of Marking while standing near enough to talk to him. That sets up your Creep Train "station."
- 7 of 21: Start your long and wildly successful career of selling things to the Creeper by selling him any skooma and limeware platters you may have picked up in Seyda Neen, and then go upstairs and steal the valuable orc armor from one of the crates near Duma gro-Lag and sell the Creeper as much of that as you can. Drop any remaining items you want to sell him on the floor for the future. (Remember, he gets more money every 24 hours.)
- 8 of 21: Now for a way to get straight back to the Creeper whenever you want. Exit Ghorak Manor and find Verick Gemain's shop nearby. Buy the Amulet of Recall from him and set it up in some slot on your Quick Keys menu where it can stay. Using it from now on will teleport you straight to the Creeper's side, which is very useful right after a major looting expedition or whenever you want to quickly return to civilization from some remote wilderness area or dungeon.
- 9 of 21: Before you leave Caldera, stop by the Governor's Hall and buy the Telekinesis spell from Llaros Uvayn. There's no rush on getting it, but it's good to have it as early as possible (especially if your Mysticism skill is high enough to use it frequently to help you steal stuff).
- 10 of 21: Now for some major (and easy) looting! Use the Mages Guild teleporter to get to Vivec. Leave the Foreign Quarter canton and walk south to the Temple canton (or use the gondolas to get there faster). Once you're there, enter the Hall of Justice and find a door that leads to the Ordinator Barracks.
- 11 of 21: Inside the barracks are several chests with valuable Indoril armor in them that have very weak locks on them. Use a lockpick to open up the ones that can be opened while standing where no one can see you. (TIP: If your Security skill is way low, be sure to use the master's lockpicks you bought in Balmora, and only when you have a full fatigue bar.)
- 12 of 21: You should be able to get at least one Indoril helm, plus some boots, gauntlets, and pauldrons. If your best armor skill is Medium Armor, put on one of each of those items. All the rest are duplicates that you can sell to the Creeper. (WARNING: Remember not to talk to Ordinators while wearing an Indoril helm or cuirass.)
- 13 of 21: If all that overloads you, you can either use your Amulet of Recall to zap to the Creeper and drop it on the floor near him, or you can drop enough cheap stuff to allow you to move. Either way, your next stop is the plaza of the Redoran canton in Vivec City. Yes, you're going to raid the Great House Redoran lower vault of all its goodies!
- 14 of 21: Once the vault is secure, gather all of the stuff together in one spot (carrying it there a bit at a time), then pick it all up at once and use your Amulet of Recall. Now you've got some *real* Creep Train selling power! You probably also have some good armor and weapons that you can start using.
- 15 of 21: Drop enough stuff so you can move, then go buy a bunch of armorer's hammers from Hodlismod in the nearby armorer's shop and use them to repair all the pre-damaged equipment that you got from the vault. This makes the equipment sell for more money, and your Armorer skill will increase several times as you do this. (Thankfully, the hammers are cheap, and you're well on your way to being super-rich!)
- 16 of 21: When everything's repaired, sell what you can to the Creeper if his money has restocked yet (see link below to find out how to sell him things that are worth more than $5,000), then you'll be ready to start on the main phase of the Creep Train strategy.
- 17 of 21: Use the money you've made so far to buy yourself some training from the two trainers who are in Shenk's Shovel (after admiring/bribing their dispositions up to 100, of course). The guy on the ground floor trains Long Blade, Blunt Weapon, and Axe (all of which increase your Strength multiplier on level-ups), and the Khajiit in a room upstairs trains in Sneak, Acrobatics, and Athletics (all of which are very useful skills for everyone).
- 18 of 21: After training twelve times in any skill or combination of skills, 24 hours will have passed (2 for each skill training session), and you can go sell some of the loot you've stockpiled to the Creeper and the other merchants since their money supplies will have renewed. Then you can train 12 more times, then sell stuff again, then train again, and so on until you've got the most powerful character possible (or until you get sick of the tedium -- whichever comes first).
- 19 of 21: NOTE: Don't forget to rest and level up every now and then, when you know your attribute multipliers will be high. It's especially useful to increase your Strength attribute now so you can carry more loot at one time. Also, remember that every time you rest, there's a chance that a Dark Brotherhood guy will appear and attack (if you've got Tribunal or the Game of the Year edition), and you can raid him of his valuable armor and sell it to the Creeper.
- 20 of 21: TIP: When the local trainers aren't any good to you anymore, just use the Mages Guild teleportation service to get to other cities chock full of trainers.
- 21 of 21: And there you have it: the "Creep Train" method of making a powerful character very early in the game. Now you can start on some serious questing, do some more exploring and looting of other areas, or whatever you feel like doing. It's all out there waiting for you!
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