Highlights
- Easy cash can be made in Oblivion by creating and selling potions in bulk, using basic ingredients found in farms and gardens.
- Raise the Mercantile skill to sell goods at higher prices by creating a spell and entering dialogue with a merchant to pause time and maintain the effects.
- Expanding one’s in-game cash can be achieved by having the DLCs and accessing new merchants with more gold to offer for goods.
Money makes the world go ‘round, as the old saying goes. It’s no different in RPGs, like The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, either. After all, fat stacks of gold can be used to buy houses, bribe people, invest in shops, and the usual assortment of basic commodities as well.
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Considering how some purchasable items and estates in Oblivion can cost upwards of hundreds upon thousands of gold coins, there are likely plenty of players out there who are itching to fill up their pockets as quickly as possible. Thankfully, there are many ways to get rich quickly, whether through legitimate means or by exploiting glitches in the game.
1 Create Potions And Poisons
Selling Potions In Bulk
The Alchemy mechanic in Oblivion is rather easy to get the hang of. With two ingredients that have matching abilities, one can cook a portion of each to make either a potion or poison. Those more skilled in Alchemy will have more effects revealed, while a Master can brew a potion with a single ingredient.
Whatever one’s current skill level is, an effective way to bring in the finances is to pilfer farms and gardens for crops. Basic foods can be found in opened bags in various establishments and locations, with five portions of corn, flour, and the like ready to snag. Many of these items share the same ability in its first slot: Restore Fatigue. Mixing them together with a large supply of food can create numerous basic potions that can be sold in bulk to vendors. After that, it’s a rinse-and-repeat sort of job.
2 Fortify Mercantile
Securing Better Prices
Raising the Mercantile skill seems like a silly suggestion, yet Oblivion is notorious for its exploits, and this one can make selling goods for even higher prices seem almost effortless. First off, one must either have completed all the recommendation quests for the Mages Guild or simply have the Frostcrag Spire plug-in, to access a Spell Maker. A Fortify Skill must be purchased from a vendor as well.
After doing this, create a spell that increases the Mercantile skill by 100 points on self for a second. Casting the spell and quickly entering dialogue with a merchant will pause time, thereby preventing the effects from wearing off too early. That way, it’ll be much easier to sell things for higher prices. Even better, one can invest 500 gold (a skill normally reserved for Experts in Mercantile) so that the maximum cap for buying a player’s goods is increased notably.
3 Buy The Plug-Ins
New Merchants With Deep Pockets
Spending real money to earn more fictional in-game cash probably sounds even sillier! However, all the official add-ons are packaged alongside the Game of the Year edition of the game, which is what is sold digitally these days. Nevertheless, a trio of merchants is introduced that will sell upgrades to some of the new homes offered in the DLCs.
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Aurelinwae, Rowley Eardwulf, and Nilphas Omellian have a greater amount of gold they’re willing to offer – 2,000 each! In other words, anything significantly more expensive than a merchant’s cap will be fixed at no more than that amount. Combined with a powerful Fortify Mercantile skill mentioned earlier and an investment of 500 gold, it’ll push the maximum amount to 2,500 gold – more than double than even the most generous merchants in the base game have. Since Aurelinwae has the lowest Mercantile skill, it’s easier to get the best deals from her, even when selling terrible quest “rewards.”
4 Tell Pirates To Plunder
Offers A Regular Stream Of Income
With the Thieves Den add-on, after purchasing all the upgrades in Dunbarrow Cove, a gang of pirates will be recruited to the cause. They can be told to go out and plunder for gold, and, after a week, they’ll return with the spoils (held in the Captain’s Quarters). This amount is based on a player’s current level multiplied by 100 and capped at 2,000 gold.
While a week may seem like a while, it can either be bypassed by waiting, or by playing the game normally. A notification will reveal when the shipmates have returned with their spoils, and, once they have, they can be sent off to find more cash after a day of rest for them. This is an excellent way to increase one’s finances, especially when used in tandem with other methods.
5 Raid An Oblivion Gate
Farming Daedric Items Is Very Profitable
As tiresome as barging through Oblivion Gates can be, at level 20 and higher, the Dremora that infests its realms will start using Daedric armor and weapons. In short, though heavy, these sell for exceptionally high prices. So long as one has enough strength, or even Feather spells and enchantments to increase the overall carry space in the inventory, it’s possible to make a mint out of selling them.
A Daedric shield, for example, weighs about 24 pounds and sells for 2,500 gold. Since no other merchants have that much, barring the aforementioned DLC shopkeepers after an investment is made, focusing on these is great, as other bits are much heavier. The same goes for daggers, short swords, and bows, as they are far lighter and still fetch excellent prices – doubly so if enchanted. Considering how the realm of Oblivion is already filled with fleshy containers full of sweet loot as it is, those alongside will sell for a lovely amount.
6 Become A Vampire Hunter
Vampire Dust Fetches A Pretty Penny
“Order of the Virtuous Blood” is a quest that will be made available upon entering the Imperial City Temple District with 5 points of Fame or higher. After that, follow the objectives until the Hero finds Roland Jenseric. Spare his life and complete the quest accordingly to gain membership in the titular anti-vampire group.
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With it comes a helpful feature: sell a portion of Vampire Dust for 250 gold a piece. One can hunt locations like Fort Naso (south of Cheydinhal), Lipsand Tarn (north of Chorrol), Nornalhorst (east of Skingrad), and many other such places to strike them down, plunder their corpses for ashes, and make a generous profit. Some quests will direct the protagonist to locations where vampires live, such as Azura’s quest, involving killing her followers-turned-vampires in Gutted Mine (north of Cheydinhal).
7 Duplication Glitch
Scrolls For Profit
For those who aren’t fussed about illicit means of making cash, try the duplication glitch. Open the inventory, highlight a pile of scrolls (there must be no less than two in one’s possession) and select them. Afterward, highlight (i.e. don’t equip) another item that wants to be cloned. After dropping the item and closing an inventory, a batch of copies will appear on the floor, depending on the number of scrolls used.
While it doesn’t work on certain items – Nirnroot and damaged armor/weapons, for example – it still works even after a patch is issued. Originally, this could be done with arrows as well, yet it’s only possible to pull it off with scrolls nowadays. Either way, a fat stack of cloned items will be ready to sell!
8 Paralyze And Pickpocket Dorian
Infinite Supply Of Gold
One NPC in the game is a literal cash cow. Players will need a weak dagger coated with a Paralysis poison. After that, seek our Dorian, a Redguard from the Imperial City’s Talos Plaza District. After slashing him (do not kill him, or this won’t work, hence why a weak weapon is recommended), pickpocket his still-alive body before the effect wears off and start looting.
Oddly, swiping the gold in his pocket won’t disappear, but it will still keep adding to the player’s purse an infinite number of times. This is because he has -10 gold in his inventory, so a negative amount of money will remain present but won’t disappear when collected. Keep grabbing the coins, and then escape from the incoming guards. Alternatively, serve the jail sentence, or pay half of the fine to a Thieves Guild doyen (if a member, and are not fussed about losing a hefty amount). By this point, the economy of Cyrodiil will inevitably break, as the Hero of Kvatch will be the richest person around.
