The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been out for over a decade, but fans still enjoy playing it just as much as they did on day one. Its recent arrival on PS5 and Xbox Series X (combined with the agonising wait for TES 6) has even enticed new players to give it a try. With an ever-expanding player base comes the need to revisit questions many long-time players may know the answer to. How to increase carry weight in Skyrim is one such question. It might seem simple, but in a game as vast as Skyrim there’s many ways to tackle the problem. Some more simple than others.
How To Increase Carry Weight in Skyrim
Before we get into exactly how to increase carry weight in Skyrim, we need to talk about why it’s necessary.
In the game, there’s absolutely tonnes of items and loot to find. This means effectively managing your inventory is crucial in Skyrim. If you don’t, you’ll end up over-encumbered. And that makes you drastically slower and much less effective in combat. To avoid being over-encumbered, you have to keep your inventory within the carry weight limit. This limit is visible at the bottom of Items screen. And thankfully, it can be increased – meaning you can carry more stuff!
This is how to increase carry weight in Skyrim. The quickest method is to find and use The Steed Stone to increase carry weight by 100 points. It is located northwest of Solitude. Another easy option is to level up Stamina – this increases carry weight by 5 per level. There are also unique perks, armor and enchantments that increase carry weight in Skyrim. These are detailed below.
Enchantments
The Fortify Carry Weight enchantment can be applied to amulets, boots, gauntlets, and rings. These items, when equipped, increase the user’s carry weight relative to their enchanting skill.
Perks
The “Extra Pockets” Pickpocket perk increases carry weight by 100 (or 50 if Survival Mode is enabled). There are also perks that help you to carry/manage particular items. “Unhindered”, a Light Armor perk, makes Light Armor weigh nothing. “Conditioning” a Heavy Armor perk, does the same for Heavy Armor.
Armor
Certain unique armor/apparel bestows carry weight benefits on the wearer. Blackguard’s Armor adds 50, the Dragon Priest Volsung’s mask adds 20, Guild Master’s Armor adds 50, Thieves Guild Armor adds 20 or 35, the Locket of Saint Jiub adds 50, and Deathbrand Boots add 10 for every piece of Deathbrand Armor worn up to a maximum of 40.
Other ways to increase carry weight in Skyrim
There are a few other tricks to boost carry capacity in Skyrim.
Consume a Fortify Carry Weight potion to temporarily increase carry capacity by an amount dependent on the strength of the potion.
You can also give Spouses and Followers items to carry. They can help spread the load to reduce the burden on you. Be careful, though, they can become over-encumbered, too.
Another option is to use the Werewolf Beast Form, which increases carry weight to 1,900.
Finally, PC players can “cheat” to increase their carry weight by using a console command. Pressing the ‘~’ key on American English keyboards or the ‘`’ key on British English keyboards brings up the console screen. Here, you can enter ‘player.ModAV Carryweight <#>’ to increase carry capacity by the specified ‘#’ value.
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