The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Hints

The Hoarding Level-Ups Strategy

• 1 of 13: When using this strategy, you've got to remember to never bring up the Skills menu for any reason until you're ready to take all of your pending level-ups. Whenever you want to check your skill levels or see how many level-ups you've earned so far, quicksave before checking, then quickrestore.
• 2 of 13: If you're used to bringing up the Skills menu frequently, you'd better redefine which key brings it up. Make it something you wouldn't be likely to ever press accidentally.
• 3 of 13: The first big advantage of this method is that you can feel free to use the skill-practicing opportunities that exist in the first main quest to get your Sneak skill way high (and your One-Handed, Two-Handed, Block, and Destruction skills pretty high) with a bit of patience. If you don't take any of the level-ups you earn, you won't have to worry about increased combat difficulty.
• 4 of 13: After you finish the first two main quests, you'll have discovered several important locations (The Guardian Stones, Riverwood, Whiterun), and will have many opportunities to practice most of your skills. The non-combat skills will probably be the easiest to practice, but the combat skills shouldn't be too hard to practice if you're still level 1, since you won't be encountering any tough high-level creatures.
• 5 of 13: Another thing you'll need to do before taking all your level-ups is get lots of useful equipment, including weapons, armor, spells, and potions. You can make some superior potions, weapons, and armor after practicing up your Alchemy, Smithing, and Enchanting skills, but you'll still want to check around to see what all you can steal, buy, or earn by doing quests.
• 6 of 13: If some particular item you want requires you to do a lot of dangerous exploring or questing, be sure to take along the best equipment you've got, and have a follower with you to help with combat. You'll get less combat skill practice when a follower is with you, but it's worth it if you need to kill some tougher enemies that you can't take on alone. (Not all enemies are leveled, and not all leveled ones are total wimps even if you're still level 1.)
• 7 of 13: Another way to deal with too-tough combats is to avoid them by putting your practiced-up Sneak skill (and some Invisibility potions) to good use. You'll get less combat skill practice and loot, but it can be worth it if you manage to sneak around unseen and grab some good stuff. Also, combine sneaking with archery to take down tough enemies at a distance, or at least weaken them before they close to melee range.
• 8 of 13: Unfortunately, this level-up strategy does have some disadvantages. The most obvious one is that when you finally do take all of your level-ups, there's going to be a sudden sharp increase in combat difficulty with all leveled enemies. Hopefully, you'll be ready for it by having practiced your combat skills way up and gotten lots of good equipment. You'll also have a bunch of perk points to spend on your favorite combat skills, which should help a lot, too.
• 9 of 13: It would also be helpful to have already explored around and discovered most if not all of the world map's fast-travel locations. A lot of leveled combat takes place while roaming around outside, moving from place to place on foot.
• 10 of 13: Another disadvantage is that you can't get any primary attribute increases or perk points until you level up. You should be able to do without them during the skill-practicing phase, but you could take the first level-up or two that you earn if you just *have* to have a few more magicka points (or whatever) right away.
• 11 of 13: Yet another disadvantage is that you can't buy training from the game's skill trainers between each level-up. That's not too much of a problem, since it can take a lot of time and effort to hunt up skill trainers and raise the money for training. Still, you might want to buy five points of training in some skill that's a real pain to practice (like Speech or Destruction) right before taking all of your pending level-ups, plus right afterward (and after every other level-up you earn later).
• 12 of 13: Also, many quest rewards and items you find in containers are leveled, and you won't get very much good stuff when you're still low-level.
• 13 of 13: In summary, I would say that this is the better of the two leveling-up strategies, and would be the better choice for anyone as long as you're aware of the disadvantages and how to deal with them. Also, you'll probably want to make a regular save right before you do all your leveling up, just in case you later decide you did it too early or chose the wrong attribute increases. (Or if you ever want to try to finish the entire game while still level 1. Consider it a challenge playthru!)

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