Enchanting description: Carrying capacity increased by points. Fortify Carry Weight increases the target's maximum Carry Weight, thereby increasing the total weight that can be carried. It is similar to the Feather effect in previous Elder Scrolls games. Carry More Weight with Perks, Stones, Stats, and Enchantments There are various “permanent” solutions to your carrying capacity problems as well. You can increase your carrying capacity by 100 in the Pickpocketing tree with the perk called Extra Pockets once you get Pickpocketing to level 50. Open the plugin in TES5Edit, find the NPC, change the weight and save, should be somewhere towards the bottom on the right pane. If you want to change a vanilla follower, again load skyrim.esm in TES5Edit, find the NPC, right click on it and choose 'copy as override', save it as a new file and edit the NPC weight in the new plugin file. For The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on the Xbox 360, a GameFAQs message board topic titled 'How do you carry more weight on you?'
In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, if you’re anything like me (a loot horder) then you’ll be pretty frustrated early in the game that you can’t carry very much weight in order to get all of the loot out of a dungeon that you conquer.
You’ll pout and moan every time you have to drop that Iron Sword because it puts you over the top, or every time you encounter that huge stash of Steel Armor at the end of a dungeon when you’re already at carrying capacity. Sure, you can come back, but who wants to do that?
Luckily there are several ways in the game to fix this problem, so let’s get started.
Get a Pack Mule
One of the best ways to increase your carrying capacity in the game is to have a companion follow you around. Unlike some of the previous versions, most of the companions in this game can actually hold their own and don’t die at the first signs of danger. Not only that, but they can carry just about as much as you can, so they can literally be your pack mules.
You can have a follower as early as Riverwood. Faendal and Sven will both proposition you to deliver a letter to Camilla Valerius in Riverwood Traders that will slander the other. Whichever you choose to help, either will follow you when the quest is complete. They are both trained archers, however Faendal seems to have a higher moral standing and will not like you breaking into houses.
There are also several followers in Whiterun. There is a Dark Elf mercenary named Jenassa in Whiterun that will follow you for 500 gold. There is also a Nord named Uthgerd the Unbroken in The Bannered Mare in Whiterun that will follow you for free if you beat her in a hand to hand brawl. There is another free follower named Lydia that you can gain access to once you complete the Dragonsreach quests in Whiterun up until the point where you kill your first dragon.
There are several Nords in The Companions area in Whiterun that will follow you once you start the quests for The Companions. They can be found through the building named Jorrvaskr building in Whiterun.
Carry More Weight with Perks, Stones, Stats, and Enchantments
There are various “permanent” solutions to your carrying capacity problems as well.
You can increase your carrying capacity by 100 in the Pickpocketing tree with the perk called Extra Pockets once you get Pickpocketing to level 50.
If you’re not into Pickpocketing, you can visit the Steed Stone to also increase your carrying capacity by 100, however you can only have one active stone at once.
Increasing the Stamina stat will also increase your carrying capacity, with the added bonus of being able to take more melee swings.
You can enchant your armor with the Fortify Carry Weight stat to increase your carrying capacity. Fortify Carry Weight can be added to Boots, Gloves, Amulets and Rings.
Carry More Weight with Potions
Unfortunately, there are no more Feather spells (booo!), so the only temporary solution to your weight limit is through potions. Creep Clusters, Giants Toes, Hawk Beaks, River Betty, Scaly Pholiota, and Wisp Wrappings all have the Fortify Carry Weight stat for potions.
Tricks to Carry More
You can’t fast travel being encumbered, but one trick to fix this is to get on your horse. Overload on loot, and as long as you can make it to your horse, you can fast travel to town and sell all of your goods.
Another trick is to load up all of your extra goods onto a dead body, reanimate the corpse, and then fast travel back to town. It will most likely die by the time you arrive, however the corpse will be there in town with all of your goods, so you can reanimate it again or just loot it and carry it to the store to sell.
Buy a House to Store Your Stuff
I also suggest purchasing the House in Whiterun as early as possible to store your extra loot you’re not always using so you can carry more. I always store the majority of my ingredients for potions at my house, as well as any extra potions, because they may be light, but they add up fast.
All told, the Skyrimalchemy system and all of the game’s official add-ons contain 73 different potions and poisons. So, out of that alchemical plethora, what do we think are the 10 most useful Skyrim alchemy recipes? Note that this Skyrim alchemy guide doesn’t cover the most powerful potions, but rather those which are the most likely to be useful during your travels around Skyrim.
Skyrim Alchemy Guide: The Top 10 Most Useful Potions and Poisons in Skyrim
1. Fortify Health + Restore Health
Ingredients: Blue Mountain Flower + Wheat or Blue Mountain Flower + Giant’s Toe + Wheat or Blue Mountain Flower + Giant’s Toe + Imp Stool.
Simple and easy to craft, there are several versions of this potion and they are all useful. In all likelihood, the most commonly used potion for every player are healing potions. Not only do these potions heal you, but they fortify your health on top of that, making you even tougher.
Ingredients: Jazbay Grapes + Moon Sugar + Red Mountain Flower.
More effective than a standard magicka potion; although this concoction is a bit tougher to make, it hits you with three beneficial effects all at once. It restores your magicka, speeds up your magicka regen, and fortifies your magicka amount. If you’re playing a mage and need a boost to your magicka reserves for a tough fight, this is a great potion to have on hand.
3. Regenerate Health + Invisibility
Ingredients: Luna Moth Wing + Vampire Dust.
Another relatively simple potion; this potion is excellent for getting out of a tough spot. Surrounded by enemies and on low health? Drink one of these and you can invisibly flee to safety all while your health regenerates ready for you to return to the fight.
4. Fortify Archery
Ingredients: Canis Root or Elves Ear or Juniper Berries or Spider Egg.
This simple fortification potion improves the damage of any bows or crossbows you use. While it’s obviously useful for archer builds, it might actually be of greater use to builds that don’t rely on bows. There are always times in Skyrim when you find yourself having to engage enemies at a distance and pulling out the bow you keep in your inventory just in case, even though your Archery skill is low. In such cases, try drinking one of these potions to make up for that low skill rank as much as possible.
5. Fortify Barter
Ingredients: Butterfly Wing or Dragon’s Tongue or Hagraven Claw or Tundra Cotton.
This single-effect potion is extremely useful for practically any build in Skyrim. Drink one of these every time you visit a city to sell off your loot and you’re guaranteed to get better sale prices, without needing to have a high rank in the Speech skill.
6. Fortify Carry Weight
Ingredients: Creep Cluster or Giant’s Toe or Hawk Beak or Netch Jelly or Poison Bloom or River Betty or Scaly Pholia or Trama Root or Wisp Wrappings.
Every Skyrim player knows the feeling of going over the carry limit as they rifle through a dungeon’s chests. Normally, it means either a slow and tiresome trudge back out or having to leave things behind. Or you could drink a potion of Fortify Carry Weight and bring all that excess loot out with you.
7. Fortify Smithing
Ingredients: Blisterwort or Glowing Mushroom or Sabre Cat Tooth or Spriggan Sap.
Harder to come across than the ingredients for a Fortify Barter Potion, the ingredients for this concoction are certainly worth tracking down if you plan on crafting your own equipment. This potion is especially useful at low-to-mid levels when you are still training your Smithing skill; drink one of these, and you can get even better results from using Workbenches and Grindstones, as well as improving your Smithing overall.
8. Fortify Two-Handed + Regenerate Stamina
Ingredients: Bee + Fly Amanita + Troll Fat.
This potion is perfect for dealing with dragons and other monsters who won’t go down in just a couple of swings. Not only does it boost your Two-Handed skill, but it causes your Stamina to regenerate faster, letting you make more heavy attacks than usual. This makes it one of the best Skyrim alchemy recipes for heavy close combat builds.
9. Damage Magicka + Damage Magicka Regen
Ingredients: Glow Dust + Hanging Moss.
Some mages and monsters in Skyrim can be particularly troublesome to deal with thanks to their powerful destruction spells. Hagravens, for example, are often capable of bombarding you with high-power fireballs and other blasts which can quickly eat through your health. This poison is ideal for such scenarios. Hit the frustrating mage in question with a few poisoned arrows and you should find their spell output drop considerably; making it easier for you to find an opening to leap out of cover and attack.
10. Ravage Magicka + Ravage Stamina + Ravage Health
I couldn’t leave this ruthless poison out of our Skyrim alchemy guide. It can only be created in the Dragonborn add-on, as some of the alchemy ingredients don’t appear in the base game. However, it is well worth the extra journey to Solstheim. The poison causes immediate damage to Health, Magicka, and Stamina, and is especially useful against enemies who rely on more than one.
Skyrim More Carry Weight
So that wraps up our Skyrim alchemy guide! I hope that you find these Skyrim alchemy recipes useful to you on your travels. Don’t forget to save some perks to give your potions a boost when you level up your skill.