How can I boost my health in Skyrim?

Question

I made a bit of a mistake, I think, with my Skyrim character; I boosted my MP at the expense of my HP, repeatedly, and now I find myself at level 30 and so flimsy that many magic-tossing opponents essentially 1-shot kill me.

I'd like some advice on how to fix myself here; I'm willing to grind a bit to get it done, but I'm not loaded with spare time and would like to get back in shape and back to the fun part of the game sort of quickly.

Basically, any tips for jacking up my durability would be awesome.

edit

To provide more context:

1. I'm playing on the 360; as far as I know, this precludes console tweaks.
2. My character is a bit of a mishmash; sword-mage, mainly. I'm not loaded with crafting, except that I'm a decent alchemist.

Answer 1

With the information you provided things are sketchy but some applications apply to all characters so here goes:

• You could purchase Fortify Health Potions which increase your maximum HP for a limited time and use them at the beginning of battles

• You could take the Atronach Stone perk which gives you 50% Magical Absorbtion, 50 extra Magicka, and -50% Magicka Regeneration. (use Magicka potions to offside the negative effect for now) (Located in the southernmost part of the hot-springs zone, northwest of Mistwatch and east-northeast of Darkwater Crossing.)

• You could purchase Resist Frost, Fire, Lighting potions which increase your resistance to the appropriate school of magic temporarily.

• You could purchase any peice of jewelry or armor that increases your HP

• You could activate a Shrine of Arkay which increases your health by 25 points. (convieniently found in Whiterun's Hall of the Dead (among other places) )

  Edit:

• I had forgotten when posting this that your a level 30 ish mage. You could make actual use of your retartedly over-powered paralyze spell and basically one shot everything you come across and start flaming bethesda forums as to why mages are so darn strong.

I'm sure there are more options as well, but that should be a good handfull to get you going.

Answer 2

As mentioned in the comment, I'm playing a mage-character as well where I put all my stats into Magicka up to around 400. I went for a destruction mage and decided to not use any weapons. The earlier stages of the game were tough, because mana drains really fast and the character is very fragile. Here are some tips to stay alive:

• Get a hireling.. preferably a melee character that draws fire from you.
• Use conjuration spells to summon creatures that will also distract enemies
• I invested points into the Mage-Armor and Atronach perks (Alteration). Even with just clothes as armor, the armor rating is really high.
• Put defensive scrolls to a good use.. eg. Guardian Circle is useful, especially when dealing with undead.
• Use resistance potions or potions that boost your health for x seconds.

I guess a sword-mage is harder to play than a destruction-mage, as you'll have to go close to the enemies. Maybe invest some points into light-armor skills and smithing to get a decent armor-rating. Use potions frequently (since your alchemy skill is high, you should be able to craft these yourself). Use resistance-potions, boost health and regenerate health potions until your character has the required skills (or increased HP) to survive battles without much potion usage.

Answer 3

Personally, I'd use the console to swap some MP's for HP's. If you are "Role Playing" it, you might consider that you did something like "...found an Ancient Monolith...which upon touching, granted me the ability to re-balance my very life essence..." etc. Then put your "rest hours" to something like 3 days.

It's easy to abuse the console, but eventually you will find it more interesting to keep it challenging. If you give yourself something OP, do it temporarily, and/or trade off something else of comparative value so you "keep it real" :-)

I see now that this is not a popular answer for the "hard core" out there, but I'd like to add that my answer was also based on the fact that the OP said he doesn't have a lot of time to play. I say again: Change your stats and get on with playing the game (like you can with most other RPG's).

Answer 4

Here is what I have done while playing as a mage character in case I get to this kind of problem. Perhaps you have a similar situation or possibility, and it will take a bit of grinding.

I have collected ore, raw leather, soul stones and alchemy ingredients and stashed them away at my house (well, technically Winterhold). My plan was basically this: if I ever needed to quickly gain levels, I could simply do a lot of smithing, then enchant everything, then sell everything, make some potions. Since raising enchanting / smithing / alchemy can raise your level quickly, you can "power level", and use your new levels to get more health.

Now, I don't know how well this would work at level 30, but I think if you get the Lady Stone (or whatever the stone is that allows you to get 20% faster skill gain) AND you sleep in an owned bed (or in the same bed as a spouse) to get the additional bonus for skill gain (I THINK these are cumulative), then you should be able to gain skills & levels fast.

I wouldn't consider this cheating / skipping etc, because by the time you're done, you will have smithed a lot of weapons / armor, which should make you "stronger" in a role playing game :)

Answer 5

You still can use console commands, I used them to put Morokei back in my inventory since I had lost it. You just need:

• Modio,
• a USB,
• a PC version of Skyrim or know someone who does

Then if you just follow the steps in this tutorial and you should be good to go. Another way is mentioned in this question that talks about taking a Improve Health by X Amount for X Amount of Time potion, then getting your health dangerously low so it is forced to stay higher.

Answer 6

The best way to fortify your health is through enchanting. A great place to find a piece to disenchant is during the quest Under Sarthall. You are given an opportunity to assist with research that consist of finding three gold rings. These gold rings are enchanted with fortify health. This is an early level quest with little difficulty. Since there is no reward for returning them. disenchant one to learn it and keep the rest. After that focus on fortifying your alchemy to boost fortify enchanting potions. My health is in the thousands and i also have high magika and stamina.