Skyrim Tips and Tricks - Video Games, Walkthroughs, Guides, News, Tips, Cheats

Here are a lot of useful Elder Scrolls: V Skyrim hints, tips and tricks. We tried our best to keep this spoiler free, (Minor spoilers are marked). After you are done reading these tips, make sure you check out our main Skyrim section for even more guides, as well as other Skyrim content.

Save often - This may be obvious, but it needs to be mentioned. You have unlimited save slots, use them. With Skyrim, you never know what will happen, so be prepared and have a few different save files ready.
Using the autosave feature when "waiting" is also useful for quickly saving your progress. Though keep in mind autosaves are not always reliable.
What not to sell while you adventure - Don't sell armor and weapons with magical effects (Example effect: Target takes X points of damage to Health and Stamina), you can disenchant them (and learn how to enchant those effects on other gear).
Early in the game, if you need to find an "Arcane Enchanter" (which lets you disenchant weapons and armor) there is one on the first floor of Dragonsreach.

Pick up all the soul gems you find, as they are used when enchanting gear. Spells and enchantments that trap your enemies' souls are used to fill soul gems, so be on the look out for those, as well. Also don't sell ingredients and materials, you can use them for alchemy, smithing, etc.

Where to sell weapons, items, loot, etc. in Skyrim - Early in the game, it may be a little confusing as to where you can sell all of your hard earned loot. A good place for a new character to sell their loot is in Riverwood.
When you enter Riverwood for the first time, the second building to your right is "Riverwood Trader". Another general goods trader can be found in Whiterun.
Once you arrive at Whiterun, run straight and follow the road all the way past the first 2 buildings on your right (Warmaiden's and Breezehome). The third building you will see is Belethor's General Goods.
Merchants Restock - Merchants restock their gold after approximately 48 hours.

Storing items in your home - Items can be stored safely in containers in your home.
More inventory space - When you increase your stamina you also increase your maximum carry capacity by 5.
Follower Commands & Storage - Your follower can carry an unlimited number and weight of stuff, but only if you tell them to pick them up in command mode. You can skip the dialog and go straight to command mode by pointing your reticle/cursor at your follower from far enough away that the "talk" option doesn't appear, and holding the 'use' button.
With these two tips combined, you can go through a dwemer ruin, point at Lydia (or whoever), hold 'use', point at a heavy metal object, press 'use', and she'll pick it up.You can also command them to "take all" from a chest with your items and they will pick up all the items inside the chest.
Note that this marks the items as stolen. You can sell stolen items two ways in Skyrim: 1. After completing the second Thieves guild quest, you gain access to a fence who will buy your stolen items. 2. You can also grab the 'Fence' perk in the Speech tree. This perk allows you to sell stolen goods to any merchant you have invested in.
Keep the following items for quests - (1) gold ore, (2) flawless saphires, (1) black-briar mead, (1) flawless ruby, (1) silver ingot, (1) deathbell flower, (1) vampire dust, (1) mammoth tusk

Don't rush - Don't rush. It's amazing what you find by not rushing, forget about the main quest for awhile and just explore.
There is more content in Skyrim than in Oblivion (Including a radiant quest system which is capable of generating an infinite amount of quests) so the amount of side quests and things to discover is staggering. Also, exploring is useful because it unlocks fast travel locations on your map.
Useful spell for new characters - The clairvoyance spell is extremely useful if you are just starting out, you can buy the spell from Farengar Secret-Fire, the Wizard in Dragonreach, Whiterun, or you can pick up the spellbook for it in Embershard Mine located between the three Guardian Stones and Riverwood.
Just walk towards Riverwood from the Guardian Stones and you will see a pickaxe and hammer icon on your "radar", and enter. The spell book is on a table behind a locked door. Use the spell book then when you cast it, a purple trail will show you how to get to your current objective. If you have no quest objectives set, it will even lead you to the map marker you set on the map.
Sprinting Buttons - Xbox = LB, PC = Alt, PS3 = L2, you can also sprint on a horse.
Zooming in and out with the third person camera - The camera can actually be zoomed in and out. Push and hold the right analog stick in and then push / pull the left analog stick to move in / out the camera. On PC hold F and move the mouse up and down to zoom in and out.
Free Holding Items - Instead of pressing A (Or whatever the use button is on your platform) to pick an item up, you can hold A to move an item within the world environment.

Inspecting Items in your inventory - Sometimes you may need to inspect items in your inventory for a quest, or for any other reason, to do so, first select the item, then click the right thumbstick on the PS3 / Xbox 360, or press C on the PC.
Multiple Weapons / Spells on Quick Select - When you are within the quick select menu, you can assign multiple weapons/spells if you hold lef or right on the D-Pad. (Xbox 360, PS3) On PC you can just hotkey it to a number.
Hotkeying on PC - You can hotkey weapons and spells to the 1 - 8 keys. First make the item a Favorite. Open the Favorite menu ingame (Q), highlight the item you wish to hotkey and press the hotkey (1-8) you want to use. You can also rebind all of your keys in the control menu on all three platforms. (Xbox 360, PC, PS3)
Shield Bash - While holding block, hit attack to shield bash your enemy. Note that this greatly drains your stamina.
Stock up on health potions - Early on, health potions are very useful (And are more powerful than your starting healing spells), so having an abundance of them for tough and unexpected fights is essential to your survival.
Why are my stats red? To cure your stats use a potion of cure disease or pray to a shrine. If you can't find a shrine, there is one in the Temple of Kynareth which is located in Whiterun. ( If the NPCs are asking you about your health ("feeling sick?" or "You feeling alright?") that means you have a disease.

Don't Neglect Combat Skills - Be careful when leveling non-combat skills too early in the game, I had a thief character who spent his time pickpockting everyone in town and then every time I left I would get one-shotted by sabres and other big animals.
Instant rejuvenation - Waiting (or resting) will fill up your Magika/Health/Stamina bars instantly.
More experience points - Resting in a bed will give you rested status, allowing for bonus XP gain, resting in your own bed (inside your house) will give you a well rested status allowing for even more bonus XP.
Reviving Creatures - You can revive every living creature except dragons with the Reanimate spells in the Conjuration tree.
Summoned Creatures - Don't underestimate the usefulness of summoned creatures. Even if they only do a little bit of damage, at least it's their health being thrown away and not yours.
This is a great way to kill off tough enemies that you normally wouldn't be able to at a lower level, as they can pull the aggro while you get to safety. Beware that some enemies are able to steal your summoned creature from you.
Atronach Immunity - Atronachs are completely immune to spells of their own type, so if you are mainly a fire spell user, the best atronach to use is the fire one, as you can use your spells without needing to worry about damaging your minion.

Looting Dragon Priests - Dragon Priests can be looted for their masks. The masks look badass, have high armor statistics, and give crazy useful enchantments. Some give high damage boosts, more carrying capacity, and underwater breathing. Dragon Priests are a total pain in the ass to kill, but their masks are very, very worth it.
Knowledge is power - Try reading every book you see, the bigger the value of it, the more likely it has a free skill up or a quest inside waiting for you. If you don't want to look for them yourself, check out our skill book locations guide to find the skill books which raise your skills.
Keep Sprinting - If you want to keep sprinting don't let your stamina run out fully as it takes a few seconds to start regenerating.
Tracking Side-Quests on the Map - If you just check Miscellaneous on your quest tracker, it will not track your side quests on the map. What you have to do is first make sure Miscellaneous is selected (an arrow will appear next to the text).
Then go right and also select the side quests you want to track. A little arrow should show up when you are tracking that particular side quest. After this the side quest will show up on your world and local maps.
Light armor benefits - There are some good reasons to prefer light armors.
- 50% faster stamina regen perk
- 10% attack avoidance perk
- 10 points to get everything useful while heavy is 12 points with 2 arguably useless perks (50% damage from falls and fist fighting) needed to unlock lightweight perk

- Less weight in your inventory

As for heavy armor, it has a higher armor rating and 50% less stagger skill.
Dragon Bones and Dragon Scales - If you are wondering whether dragonbones or dragon scales are useful later in the game, you can use them to create dragon armor with 100 in the smithing skill. But since dragons are infinite, you can sell both until you are ready to craft the dragon armor.

Dragon fighting tips -

Green

bronze

metallic

white

Is an enemy kicking your ass? Sometimes you just have to run away. The best way to deal with an enemy you can't handle is to come back later when you are stronger. Attacking tougher enemies like polar bears at low levels is a death sentence.
Skyrim Storyline and the previous games - If you are wondering whether you have to play the earlier Elder Scrolls games to understand the story in Skyrim, the answer is no. Skyrim picks up 200 years after the events of Oblivion, and it tells a completely different story.
Don't lower the difficulty right away - Although you may be tempted, the default difficulty of "Adept" is perfect for most people. Some fights are supposed to be hard, so don't expect to win them all.
This game was designed to be hard, so switching the difficulty to something lower than adept without giving it a few shots first (leveling, doing some other quests first), could potentially ruin the game for you.
Save before you create your character - You may have noticed that you're forced to watch about 5 minutes of the intro before actually being able to access the character creation screen.
To skip this in future (for new characters), create a save when the guardsman is calling out names. Make sure you do this before he says "You, step forward", as at this point the game will enter a cinematic and you will not be able to access the save game menu.

Try out different races and keep your changes - Ever created an "okay" Breton and wanted to see if you could do better with a different race but didn't want to lose your changes? You wont!
If you make changes to a preset on say, a Breton, so long as you do not change the preset of that Breton, you can go to the race screen and select another race. You can then make a face for that race and so on and so forth. Scrolling back down to the Breton will show your custom face.
Put that weapon away - Wielding a weapon in a town can be deemed as hostile.
Don't kill that chicken - Even killing a chicken could cause a town to turn hostile against you, so watch what you do, and who you do it in front of.
Don't neglect magicka - In Skyrim magicka can be used at the same time as a weapon, and it can also be dual wielded. For those who want to major in any kind of magicka skill, it is recommended to stick to using one-handed weapons, so that if you run out of magicka, you can swing that trusty axe with your other hand.
Shield Tips - Avoid using a shield for your first few levels. Blocking increases your block skill, obviously, but every time you block, you get no experience in the skill of the armor you're wearing. A good tactic to increase armor rating early on is to have the healing starter spell in your left hand, and your weapon of choice in your right. You can always equip a shield later.

Mage College - If you are playing a mage character, make sure you check out the Mage College in Winterhold. Just be ready for a very challenging quest chain.
You can complete the chain at a very low level (I completed it at level 9, starting at like level 4), but it gets extremely challenging towards the end, so beware. Also check out our Skyrim Mage Guide for an in-depth look at playing as a mage.
When do dragons start spawning? (MINOR SPOILERS) They only start spawning once you've talked to the Jarl of Whiterun as part of the main quest and fulfill a quest from his mage (the Gold Claw quest I mentioned above).
The next main quest will have you battling a dragon, and from then on dragons can and will spawn from time to time.
Two-handed weapons still viable - Since Dragon Shouts fufill all your occasional magic needs ("Man, some fire damage would be good right now") the only thing you'll need magic for is healing when the potions run out. Burning my entire starting mana pool of 100 is enough to bring me to 1/2 - 3/4 at a little under 200 HP max.
Is the smithing skill useful? Should you level it? Besides making weapons and armor, using the smithing skill you can improve weapons and armor you already have.
You can also get the arcane smith perk allows you to enhace unique and legendary weapons.

The only time smithing is 100% useless is when you are a pure mage and wear robes, since you can't improve cloth or your hands.

Starting out with smithing - People who can usually be found around smithing equipment can help you get started with the smithing skill. They will show you how to use each type of equipment (except for the forge), and even let you keep the equipment you make.
Again, a great way to start off a smithing character. The earliest you can do this is in Riverwood (I forget the guy who runs their smith).
Skyrim Smithing Tips - You can find ingots in lots of places or mine for materials.
Leveling Smithing Faster - Making Iron daggers and Leather Bracers is a quick way to level up early smithing, use them for enchanting skill ups or sell them to a vendor for speech skill ups.
Mining Points - Look at a wall or ground that looks different and then approach. The option to mine will appear. Remember that you need a pickaxe for this to work.
(Note: You don't have to equip the pickaxe, just have it in your inventory and interact with the material.)
Finding a pickaxe - There is a mine with a pickaxe right in between the three Guardian Stones and Riverwood. Just walk towards Riverwood from the Guardian Stones and you will see a pickaxe and hammer icon on your "radar", and enter.
Beware - there are some bandits inside, but you can use this mine for iron ore once you've cleared it out. This is a great location to hit if you plan on picking up the smithing skill.
Where to find mining points - Dungeons / Caves / etc. have mining points, and so do mountains, just climb around and you'll find some veins. Check out our ore locations guide to find some ores.
Leather comes from animal hides - Just click on a tanning rack and select your hide and bam, you have leather.

Click on the forge to make new weapons, and use grindstones to improve your weapons. Also use the workbench to improve your armor.
Where to buy Spells in Skyrim - If you are looking to buy some new spells early in the game, there are good spells in Whiterun, Dragon Search. There is an alchemist there that sells all kinds of spells. The catch is you have do a story mission there first.

Having a hard time out there? Get a follower (companion) - In Skyrim followers are more usable than ever before in the Elder Scrolls series. One of the first followers you get is in Whiterun (Lydia), use her to complete quests you can't on your own.
Followers can also carry some things for you, giving you that much needed extra space in your inventory. Make sure you check out our followers / companions guide to find a follower suited to your playstyle and to learn more about followers.
Equipping your followers - When you trade armor to your followers they automatically equip it if its better then what they currently have.
Follower Houses - You can take keys from some of your followers to have access to their house.
Lost your follower? If you went too far ahead of your follower (for example, on your horse) in order for them to catch up to you, you can use the "wait" command for a few in game hours. After you do, your follower will appear next to you.
Fire, Ice or Lightning, which Magicka does the most damage? Fire does the most raw damage, Ice and Lightning do the same amount of damage, but Ice drains stamina, and Lightning drains magicka.

Tips for stealth, archer, thief and assassin characters in Skyrim

- Daggers have a 6x damage multiplier on sneak attacks, so if you are going for a melee assassin, daggers are the way to go.

- Overall best stealth weapons: Daggers.

- Khajiits and Argonians are great stealth characters but other races can also be effective.

- Pick up a bow pretty early on, and learn how to use it. Don't forget you can use sprint to run away from enemies, hide, then pick them off in stealth mode.

- When attacking with bow from far away try to sneak before attacking to do double damage. (This works even if you are not playing a stealthy character, as long as the enemies are not aware of your presence)

- Try to aim for the head with the bow, it may take some time to get the aiming right with the drop off, but once you get the hang of it, stealth headshots can kill enemies very quickly.

- Dark Brotherhood and Thieves guilds will be a good place to start for stealth characters.

- To join the Thieves Guild, go to Riften (located at the south east of the map, take a carriage from Whiterun) and talk to Brynjolf between 8 am and 8 pm in the market place.

- Avoid big and flashy destruction spells.

- Stick to illusion spells because that's where you find cloaking type spells.

- Stick to stealth perks and skills such as Sneak, Archery, Lockpicking...and even perks like Alchemy will be of great benefit.

- Make sure you ask your nearest innkeepers about rumors. If you need help finding more innkeepers, check out our innkeeeper locations page.

- A good way of raising your sneak skill is to perform sneak attacks.
Easier lockpicking - Hold a torch up to an object before you start lockpicking, it makes it easier. It's even mentioned in one of the in-game books, something along the lines of heat up a lock before picking it. I suppose a fire spell might be substituted as well, though I'm not sure.
Leveling Alteration - A good way to level up alteration and rake in some gold coin is by buying/mining iron ore and using the transmute spell to silver and then gold, smelting into bars crafting into jewelry and selling them to vendors.
Horse boat trick - You can dismount a horse in the water and then mount it again to have regular speed.
Can you lose your horse? Horses in Skyrim can't disappear permanently. If you lose track of your horse and need to get it back, all you have to do is fast travel anywhere and your horse will be there when you arrive.
If you fast travel to a city, your horse can be found in a stable outside of the city or a location close by to the city if it doesn't have a stable. One way you can lose your horse though is if it dies. If your horse runs away and then gets in a fight and dies, fast traveling won't bring it back.
Horses are great climbers - The horses in Skyrim are expert climbers, they can climb up mountains that you can't on foot. (Maybe they were mountain goats in another life?) You can mash jump to climb even steeper mountains and cliffs, but watch your step! As mentioned before, if your horse dies, it's gone for good.
Fast travel while over encumbered - You can fast travel while over encumbered while on a horse.
Wagon to a new city - Every major city stables has a wagon which you can use to fastravel to other cities you've never been to.
New dragon shout words - To discover new dragon shout words talk to the Argenier the Greybeard leader in the High Hrothgar and he will give you a small side quest and direct you to a new world wall one a time.

Displaying your hard earned armor, weapons and items in your home - Drop the item out of your inventory, then hold down A (Xbox 360) (Or whatever button Use is on your platform), so that instead of looting the item, you can move it around and place it anywhere you want.
Respawning enemies - It takes 3-5 game days to repopulate areas that you previously cleared.
Spell Creation...where is it? Unfortunately spell creation was not included in Skyrim unlike the previous Elder Scrolls games.
Silence - Using Unrelenting force will stop any enemy casting/channeling.
Dual Wielding in Skyrim - Dual wielding is great depending how you play. If you want to use it effectively, buy a lot of potions (stamina and health) and smith some great armor for yourself because you won't be able to block.
Then get your alteration up and cast a stoneflesh, which adds +60 to Armor Rating, before each fight. Dual wielding works well, but only if done right. Also note that dual wielding potentially doubles melee damage output...but prevents any kind of blocking.
Level and Perk cap in Skyrim - There is no fixed "maximum level" (i.e level 50) for you attain. However, if you were to raise all of your skills to 100, this would - eventually - take you to around level 80. As you're only able to choose one perk each time you level up, and there are well over 200 skill-based perks, don't fixate on obtaining every single one.
How to not overlevel early - To avoid overlevelling early on, do not take a blessing from the guardian stones you find on the road to Riverwood after the tutorial. It's best to level slowly at first, so that you can discover some areas at a slightly lower level. These areas will then be "locked" at a lower level so that, when you return later, they can be used as "easy" training zones.

Respecing your perks / skills in Skyrim / Skyrim Respec (Updated) - The Dragonborn DLC has added the ability to respec to Skyrim. After you complete the main quest chain, the game will allow you to reset your perk points for specific skills (or all of them if you want).
Also, after the story is finished, players will gain access to the Black Book: Walking Dreams which when read will allow the player to return to a place where you can reset your perk points as often as you like at the cost of a Dragon Soul.
Yield - If you are being attacked by the guards you can yield by sheathing your weapon, they will stop attacking and try to arrest you instead.
Daedric Shrine Locations -

You get the Ebony Mail.

You get Spellbreaker Shield.

You get Mace of Molag Bal.

You get Masque of Clavicus Vile or the -Rueful Axe

- Hircine's quest is started by talking to the werewolf Sinding in Falkreath Barracks.

You get Savior's Hide or the Ring of Hircine.

- Malacanth's shrine is at the orc camp Largashbur

- Hermaeus Mora's shrine is to the far north of Winterhold at Septimus Signus's outpost

Training skills - In previous Elder Scrolls games like Oblivion, you could cast the same spell over and over and it would level. You cannot do this in Skyrim. To level your magic skills in Skyrim, you must use those skills in a situation where they're actually useful. So for example, casting Firebolt on the ground wont do anything, but casting it on an enemy will.
Leveling too fast? If it feels like you are leveling too fast, don't worry, it slows down a lot after level 10.
Buying houses - To buy houses in Skyrim, you talk to the Stewart of the head of the town. This goes for every town. Check out our buying houses locations page to find them.
Decorating license - Most items that you put inside your home will stay there, so you can safely decorate it however you like
Save your gold - Many times spending gold on equipment and items is worthless since you find plenty while exploring dungeons and killing random enemies. Instead save up your gold and buy things like training, a horse, a house, etc.
If you find yourself with an abundance of gold, the first thing you should buy is a house so you can store your items.
Buying your very first house (*MINOR SPOILERS*) - After you've defeated the dragon at the little tower out in the middle of nowhere near Whiterun, where the guards standing nearby say "Hey, you're the dragonborn, that guy from legend" and "never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself", immediately go talk to the Jarl at...
Dragonreach in Whiterun, and he'll give you the title of Thane and offer you a house to buy for 5000 in the city. The house is conveniently close to the fast-travel spot to Whitehall.
Skill Book Locations - Check out our Skill Book Locations Guide to find them all.

Buying a dog in Skyrim - You can buy a dog from a breeder outside Markath for a small price.
How to get a town to stop hating you - Go to the capital of the hold you are currently in. A guard will likely arrest you. If they don't, talk to one. Pay off your debt or serve your sentence and you should be cleared.
Retrieve your items - After serving time in jail / paying off the bounty you can go back inside the jail and retrieve your stolen items. They are usually in chests some where, marked as Prisoner Evidence.
How many quests are in Skyrim? The radiant quest system is capable of generating an infinite amount of quests.
How to become a werewolf in Skyrim - Companion Quest-line starting in Whiterun. Look for the Jorrovakr.
Finding new Thu'ums - Go by random townspeople and show off some Shouts (don't attack them). If they've never seen it before, they'll exclaim their surprise or something.
Some time after you arrive in any major city, a courier will give you a letter from an anonymous person giving you a misc. quest towards a word wall. You can also talk to Arangeir, after completing his tasks he can point you to more word walls. Some words can only be learned through the main quest.
Torches on the wall - You can pull torches off the walls in caves to use them. This is also useful when you are trying to sneak around without being detected. Removing the light sources will allow you to get around without being detected.
Followers light the way - If you give your followers a torch and they will use it when it's dark! Just remember to take the torches away from them or have them wait somewhere when you are trying to sneak, as the light will make sneaking a lot less effective.
Burning Oil - If you see oil on the ground there is usually a lamp you can knock on the ground to set the oil on fire.
Unexplored Map Markers - You can look at a rulers battlemap (located in keeps) and get map markers that reveal locations on your map if you click on each little flag.
Follower Commands - You can quickly issue a command to your followers by looking at them and holding A.
Power Attacks - Power attacks might stagger your opponent, preventing them from immediately counteracting, but only if they are not blocking.
For non-archer characters - Tired of seeing that quiver on your back, and not your weapon? Just go into your inventory and unequip any quivers you may have.
Move it - Follower in the way? Sometimes a follower will block your path and won't budge. Talk to them, and then select "I need you to do something", then tell them to move out of the way by clicking (or hitting the use button) on the ground somewhere.
Fighting Strong Mages - If you are completely outmatched against a mage (as in, an enemy that uses ONLY magic), try to get behind cover. If you can stay behind cover long enough while the enemy is casting magic at you, their magicka will eventually drain, and you can then use a weapon/spell that drains magicka to finish them off while they sit there, helpless.
Fighting Strong Melee Warriors - If you are a mage or archer who is outmatched by a melee-only enemy, you can use the terrain to your advantage. If you see a cliff, jump on top of it and your enemy usually won't be able to follow you, giving you precious time to deal damage while avoiding the enemy. You can easily take down giants and mammoths this way with the spells you start off with if you have enough patience and skill at kiting.
Melee Characters Tip - If you pick up an "Absorb Stamina" weapon enchantment, you can enchant a weapon and move the slider all the way to the left so it only gives you 1 stamina per hit. This makes it so you can unleash an endless stream of power attacks as long as you manage to hit your target, because power attacks only require 1 stamina to be performed. At 100 enchanting with a grand soul, you will get 3,929 charges. Tip by heliotrooper.
Area of effect - Shooting a fireball directly at a mage with a active ward will render the fireball harmless, but a fireball to the ground close to the mage ignores the ward and does full damage.
Blessings - Giving gold to a beggar will put a blessing on you that increases your speech skill by 10.
Free Magic Resist - You can get a free +15% Magic Resist. Dinya Balu at the temple of Mara in Riften gives a quest which, upon completion, gives you an extra 15% magic resist.

Guardian Stones -
The Warrior Stone - Combat skills increase 20% faster.
The Thief Stone - Stealth skills increase 20% faster.
The Mage Stone - Magic skills improve 20% faster.
The Lover Stone - All skills improve 15% faster.
The Apprentice Stone - Recover Magicka twice as fast; twice as vulnerable to magic.
The Atronach Stone - 50 extra points of Magicka, 50% Absorb spells, -50% Magicka regen.
The Lady Stone - Regenerate Health and Stamina 25% Faster.
The Lord Stone - 50 points of damage resistance, 25% magic resistance.
The Ritual Stone - Raises all the dead around you to fight for you once per day.
The Serpent Stone - Paralyze the target for 5 seconds, and do 25 points of damage once per day.
The Shadow Stone - Invisibility for 60 seconds once per day.
The Steed Stone - Carry weight +100, no movement penalty from armor.
The Tower Stone - Unlock any expert level lock (or lower) once per day.
Great merchant to sell to - Grelka appears in Riften after joining the thieves guild. She has over 3300 gold and will buy everything you want to sell.
PC version with an Xbox 360 controller - If you are playing Skyrim on the PC, consider picking up a wired 360 controller. Unlike the previous Elder Scrolls games, Skyrim works really well with the controller and has an interface designed specifically for it. Even if you are a die hard keyboard and mouse fan, it is highly recommended giving the 360 controller a try with your PC version of Skyrim.
Note - It has come to my attention that having a controller plugged in while playing Skyrim on the PC actually lowers your FPS if you are using the keyboard and mouse. So maybe my tip isn't that good after all, if you are having frame rate issues with your PC version of Skyrim, try unplugging your controller and using the keyboard and mouse to play.
Hiding your UI when taking screenshots (PC) - To hide your UI while taking screenshots type in tm in console (~), then type it again to bring it back.

Don't forget check out the main Skyrim section for guides, locations and more.