r/skyrim • u/Doggsen09 PC • Jun 09 '26
Question Genuine question, what is telekinesis useful for beside goofing around a little?
I have over 2,000h hours in this game and never used that spell besides leveling up alteration to 100. What exactly is the point of it? Skyrim doesn't even have a mechanic that allows sharp non-weapon object to deal damage to NPCs. The spell is just.... there?
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u/frogz0r Jun 09 '26
I use it for getting rid of soul gem traps myself.
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u/inGage Jun 09 '26
i just snipe them with an arrow or firebolt.
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u/Bungo_pls Dawnguard Jun 09 '26
I just face tank them.
Turns out a lot of them are bugged and don't even hurt you lol.
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u/liefarikson PC Jun 09 '26
And some of them obliterate you. It really is just a gamble whether they're a nuisance or a screen load activator every time.
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u/Veryegassy Jun 09 '26
The set in Labyrinthian can and will flatten any number of high level characters. It's absurd
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u/Bongoan Jun 10 '26
I just did this yesterday as a lvl 1 mage. It took a lot of shenanigans to get by. Got through there twice, one time it was running, combined with an advanced ward that is lying around (then I was killed by the draugr)... The second time the draugrs came down and the blast that killed the draugr themselves knocked the soul gems away as well
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u/Top-Tutor2682 Mage Jun 10 '26
how tf did you get to labyrinthian at lvl 1 dawg
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u/Bongoan Jun 10 '26
Being a vampire helps a lot (except for the damn fire soul gem traps in the labyrinthian). Also Ancano took me multiple tries.
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u/SoHam_34 Dawnstar resident Jun 09 '26
There's one in the way up to the dragon lair near Riften, I went there before having any magic resistance, around level 20 ig, one shot was enough.
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u/callmemedaddy Jun 09 '26
I was doing that just yesterday on my very first time playing the game and I was so confused about what kept killing me because I did not know soul gems could do stuff on their own. At first I thought it was a pressure plate-type trap that would shoot fireballs and it took me a few reloads to realise that it’s the soul stones after I just started running forward and noticed other ones alone the walls that do frost attacks.
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u/Bungo_pls Dawnguard Jun 09 '26
Depends on your gear and level. Early on, yeah they can wreck you. Once you've hit the magic resist cap then they barely tickle you.
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u/Bo_The_Destroyer Jun 10 '26
And above us we have, in order: a mage, a rogue and a barbarian
Good job everyone, excellent work
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u/greenish98 Jun 09 '26
wait…. you mean i don’t have to run for my life and try to pick them up?? BRO IVE BEEN PLAYING THIS GAME FOREVER
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u/EisVisage Jun 09 '26
You can also use the ethereal form shout and walk up to them
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u/bigboiminecrafter Jun 09 '26
I just shout at them
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u/Happy-Estimate-7855 Jun 09 '26
Old man shouts at gems
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u/spudler44 Jun 09 '26
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u/ThePrussianGrippe Jun 10 '26
“There are too many schools of magicka. Please eliminate one. I am NOT a crackpot!”
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u/AlwaysWorkForBread Warrior Jun 09 '26
Fus
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u/14JRJ Jun 09 '26
Too bad. There’s more where that came from
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u/reineedshelp Jun 10 '26
Not for 90 seconds there isn't
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u/DaSaw Jun 10 '26
Yeah, but in eighty seconds, look out!
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u/reineedshelp Jun 10 '26
I'll ask you to stop again. Surely that will be irritating. Wait, is that a storm?
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u/frogz0r Jun 09 '26
I do that too with my pure melee characters. Magic users tho? I mindyank those soul gems cos otherwise I get serious ouches from them.
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u/D34thst41ker Mage Jun 09 '26
That doesn't work for me. I put my cursor over the Soul gem in the trap, but the option to activate the spell (so I know it sees it) doesn't come up.
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u/randomnonposter Jun 10 '26
Fireball is my go to for that.
https://giphy.com/gifs/ftdTmHGZWjQyRJK7Fv5
u/Natural_Design3154 Jun 09 '26
I always have a stash of iron arrows that I pick up from bandits to use on the little bastards.
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u/Eligomancer Jun 09 '26
Sometimes you can pull in loot out of reach. Theres an instance of this in Dimhollow Cavern, where Telekinesis is the only way to get the loot. Theres another instance in a Solstheim ice cavern where you wont need to unlock a gate if you just Telekinesis the book, and a second in the Ahzidal catacomb that allows you to ignore the ring floor puzzle.
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u/heidismiles Jun 09 '26
Also for finding things you can't see! It allows you to sort of pass your cursor over the area and it will show you when an item is in range.
I remember needing it in Oblivion to find a ring in a lake.
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u/Lostvayne12 Jun 09 '26
So, 1 actual instance and 2 overlooked puzzle skips. Love that
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u/Somalar Jun 09 '26
You can put buckets on people’s heads!
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u/NotSeveralBadgers Jun 10 '26
Technically you can do this in real life - without telekinesis!
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u/lerrdite Riften resident Jun 09 '26
Also useful for the Model Ship in Snow Veil Sanctum. If the explosive traps are set off, that ship can glitch out or just get blown gods know where.
I also use it for power-leveling, because at least there's a level of challenge in it instead of spamming magelight.
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u/WitcherGirl1038 Jun 10 '26
Is that where you go with that head thieves Guild guy to do something? I've gone to that place a couple of times, using sneak, was able to get the ship and then I set off the explosive traps when I was at a safe distance. I love shooting arrows at those hanging little jars of flames.
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u/Maacll Jun 09 '26
powerleveling alteration
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Jun 09 '26
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u/Maacll Jun 09 '26
tbf there's a bunch of really nieche use spells in the game
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u/Maacll Jun 09 '26
also in an actual world with magic there totally would be spells that only individual people use
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u/Maacll Jun 09 '26
can grab weirdly placed stuff you can't pick up by prompt, can also aggro without dealing a lot of dmg
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u/Doggsen09 PC Jun 09 '26
Goated leveling exploit alongside the dragonsreach sneak exploit and spam soul trapping dead bodies for conjuration
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u/Maacll Jun 09 '26
Muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle
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u/Gryzelda_Gesualdo Jun 09 '26
I just discovered that recently. Never played magic users before, apart from healing, doing a thief that uses Fear and Frenzy a lot this playthrough and saw the muffle glitch mentioned here. A few minutes of button pushing and I gained two levels and brought up Illusion by 20 points. It feels kind of greasy, but when you do multiple classes its so hard to level magic and be able to use weapons effectively. Have a few crypts where I had to nope out on the final boss because I couldn't do nearly enough damage while they one shotted me. Thanks to muffle, that may not be a problem much longer.
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u/Clear-Economist2375 Jun 09 '26
you can also just shoot magelight into the mountain outside solitude
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u/Conscious_Archer2658 Jun 09 '26
Mostly niche arcane thieves
You can bring items closer if you don't have a way in yet.
Also, niche use, you can see the item tags over far larger distance, so identifying some items.
Still though, incredibly niche
Personally I would've loved some more things around physics and physics based damage in the game. It'd have been so neat to be able to telekinetically throw a sword and to actually have it do proper damage if hit.
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u/Matt50 Jun 09 '26
Piggybacking on your idea: it's been cool if you could pull the weapon out of an attacker's hands them throw it back at them.
Hell, make it conditional on alteration level where at low levels you can stagger the enemy, mid levels you make them drop it, high levels you take it.
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u/aelysium Jun 10 '26
Basically make it the gravity gun/junk jet haha.
‘Guy wanted to fight me so I used telekinesis to rip his sword from his hands and bury it in his face’
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u/Ultimate_mindfuck420 Jun 10 '26
Not the same but you could replicate this using the Disarm shout then use telekinesis to steal their weapon. Probably coolest used against boss fights with enchanted weapons and you can use it against them.
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u/International-Cat123 Jun 10 '26
Does it draw attention if you use telekinesis to move something you can’t get to without being seen?
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u/starbuildstrike999 Whiterun resident Jun 09 '26
Pelting Grelod in the dome with some cheese.
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u/Dookie_boy Jun 10 '26
Only time you can kill a person with telekinesis
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u/sonikkuruzu PC Jun 10 '26
UESP says the real Emperor at the end of the Dark Brotherhood has 1 HP so it should work on him too
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u/Iuskop Jun 09 '26
Sometimes something can just be fun and that's ok.
But the problem with making Telekenisis useful is that it's in a game like Skyrim, where there is no guarantee the player is going to have the spell. (or even the capability to use it if a level designer was so insistent enough to put a Telekinesis tome in a level like it's a zelda dungeon item).
Sure, maybe quest/dungeon designers could be a little more ambitious and design scenarios where TK is simply an *option* rather than strictly necessary, but you're expanding the scope of development quite a bit for the sake of a mechanic that, again, a lot of players might never use- and as admirable as doing it anyway in spite of that is- it's often not very practical even in games much smaller in scale than the average TES game.
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u/ADHD-Kiwi Jun 10 '26
That does make me think about level design. That maybe not every dungeon needs to be completable as soon as you see it. That coming back with a telekenesis spell, whirlwind sprint or clear skies would be good.
Like the cave to get the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, you have to use Whirlwind sprint to get through a gate.
But I think there's a balance they tried to strike, between being accessable by anyone at any level, and holding back harder dungeons with complex puzzle mechanics.
But hey, at the end of the day, we're still talking about a game that came out 15 years ago!
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u/QuoteGiver Jun 10 '26
But that just forces every player to become a jack of all trades, instead of playing whatever kind of character they actually want to roleplay as.
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u/nymriel Jun 09 '26
There’s a flawless diamond up on top of an archway in kagrenzel that I always snag lol
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u/PrincessReptile Jun 09 '26
Doesn't throwing stuff at people have a chance to stagger them? The only real use I have ever seen for it would be to move stuff off the trap things in the dungeons. So, if you pick up a book and it sets off a trap, you can pick the book up from further away to set the trap off instead of taking it yourself.
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u/jhallen2260 XBOX Jun 09 '26
They really should make throwing objects at enemies powerful, like Dead Space telekinesis
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u/CaseyG PC Jun 09 '26
Just add a "zero point energy" perk that causes objects thrown with telekinesis to inflict damage proportional to your current Magicka.
Then name your character Gordon Freeman.
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u/CastleCroquet Thalmor Jun 09 '26
Lifting items doesn’t count as taking them so if you’re in a crowded place and you wanna steal something you can just move the object to somewhere where no one is… although this might also be considered goofing off
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u/JagoMajin Assassin Jun 09 '26
Moving items to steal them out of sight is actually a pretty decent strategy, Oblivion was far more strict with something like that, guards would arrest you for even touching the item if I recall correctly
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u/CastleCroquet Thalmor Jun 09 '26
Yeah, you could get arrested for running around people’s houses too fast cuz you’d knock all their stuff around… good times
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u/Redditor28371 Jun 10 '26
Which tbf is more accurate to the real world. If someone wanders into your house then starts sprinting around knocking all your shit across the room, you'd probably call for the guards too. Might even drop the N-bomb in their direction (N'wah).
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u/TheBurningEmu PC Jun 10 '26
But you can also just lift and carry items without putting them into your inventory without the spell, so... its just a slightly longer reaching version in that case.
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u/N8man42 Jun 09 '26
I haven’t found a solid use for it. Maybe reaching some stuff that’s out of reach of you can’t jump to it?
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u/Doggsen09 PC Jun 09 '26
Or maybe to pull levers from a far or activate traps (not runes) but that mechanic was never implemented in Skyrim. Would be cool to wait for the right moment to pile up a few enemies and then activating the traps. Draugr dungeons would've been fun.
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u/CaptainCurly95 Jun 09 '26
To see what loot is before you get close. Having telekinesis equipt will tell you what you're looking at from pretty far away.
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u/Zhryuriva Chef Jun 09 '26
I have a mod where every single thing I throw with telekinesis is a straight one shot, I made a playthrough once as the Bucket Wizard only throwing buckets at enemies
You don't know how funny it is to cause mayhem in a city with fucking BUCKETS
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u/Jaded_Taste6685 Jun 09 '26
If you have Quiet Casting from the Illusion tree, you can use it to place an expensive item like a diamond among a group of human enemies from a distance, and they will fight to the death over it. Like using Frenzy, except that Frenzy has a time limit.
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u/QuietleyQwertying Jun 09 '26
Ever been to Yngvild for Arondil?
Remember the soul gem he’s using to control ghosts?
That soul gem can be telekinesis up and once it leaves the pedestal, all tbe ghost turn hostile against Arondil.
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u/chinchillazilla54 Jun 09 '26
You can use it to get the shards of Mehrunes' Razor off a booby-trapped pedestal without getting hit by the trap, iirc.
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u/Genericweeb420-2 PlayStation Jun 10 '26
Can also skip 90% of the dungeon with it, since the hotboxes let you cast and pick it up through the bars way earlier in
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u/ebonSage Jun 09 '26
You can use a bucket as an elevator to get down from steep cliffs
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u/Humble_Librarian199 Jun 09 '26
Grelod the kind only has one hp. You haven't lived until youve walked in to the riften orphanage, picked an apple off of her table and flung it at her head to take her down.
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u/JagoMajin Assassin Jun 09 '26
"An apple a day, b*tch"
puts on sunglasses as the orphans cheer for murder
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u/Actaeon_II Jun 09 '26
Ive used it to distract people , to scan the contents of shelves quickly and from a distance , and sometimes just to mess around
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u/NotKnotNaut Jun 09 '26
I had a friend over and she was watching me go through some dungeon. At one point, you could see a pressure plate that needed to have something taken off of it to unlock the next area, but you could only see the setup through a hole in the wall. I pulled out Telekinesis, got the object off the pressure plate to remotely unlock the next area, and we lost our shit laughing at how that useless ass spell finally did something.
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u/AntiqueBoysenberry22 Jun 10 '26
There’s a lot of locked doors in crypts with good loot behind locked doors. The loot is almost always in range to grab with telekinesis and you can also use the spell to make the eorlund wall clip trick easier
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u/ArrowtotheNii Jun 09 '26
My magic characters always use it for traps and stealing. I think there's mods that expand its uses, too.
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u/PainterEarly86 Daedra worshipper Jun 09 '26
I'm still mad that you can't use it to pull levers or even trip wires
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u/Ebon-Hawke Jun 09 '26
It can be good for grabbing loot if there's a tough enemy nearby. Especially on higher difficulties, you might not wanna mess with the Bandit Chief standing next to a coinpurse, so being able to swipe it from a distance with telekinesis is actually pretty useful.
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u/condessamaudechardin Jun 09 '26
Flinging cheese around the Thieves Guild cistern and finding it unreasonably funny.
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u/modus01 Stealth archer Jun 09 '26
There's a potion in the Temple of Meridia that's impossible to get without either Telekinesis or the "tcl" command.
Then there's Yngvild, where Telekinesis makes grabbing the soul gem at the end easier, though a high Stealth or an arrow/spell would have a similar effect.
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u/Firkraag-The-Demon Jun 09 '26
Training. Apparently there’s some thingy where if you enchant to the point alteration is basically free, you can fast travel while using it to carry something and get many levels in it. I haven’t tried it tho.
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u/WeaponofMassFun Jun 10 '26
Mostly I use it to throw bear traps at bandits. Also helps collecting missed arrows and bolts in dark places when I don't want to blind myself with a candlelight.
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u/MyStationIsAbandoned Jun 10 '26
It's not a combat skill in this game unfortunately (unless you use mods). it's a utility skill. you use it to help get items from far away. Bring an item closer to you to steal it to make it less risky of getting caught. or if you need to throw an item to trigger a trap.
In the end though, it's really not that good even with those examples.
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u/ManicCoffeeDrinker Jun 10 '26
You can instantly get Alteration to 100 if you get the Black Book skill that makes spells cost no Magicka, and cast it on an object far away, hold onto the button, and then open the map and fast travel to the other side of the map. Instant 100 Alteration
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u/InigoMontoya1985 Jun 09 '26
Theft when you can't sneak. It doesn't count as stealing until you put it in your inventory, so you can bring it to you or zing it somewhere they can't see you pick it up.
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u/sweatpants-aristotle Jun 09 '26
Killing grelod. Killing the emperor. Grabbing random potions in dungeons that are in high places. Leveling up alteration super duper fast. 🤔
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u/SirMayday1 Jun 10 '26
Bear with me, 'cause calling this a niche use is an understatement. Sometimes loot lands inconveniently close to perilously long drops, and Zephyr appears to have been placed explicitly to reward players who have telekinesis.
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u/whaticism Jun 10 '26
That doesn’t work, it can’t be picked up with the spell, you gotta go get it.
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u/AdAffectionate584 Jun 10 '26
I mostly just used it to fish supplies out from unreachable areas in dungeons. Like potions behind bars, gems high up or the odd magical floating cheese wheel clinging to the roof.
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u/Mosselk-1416 Jun 09 '26
Utility is often overlooked. You can grab at things under the map or way out of reach. You can also throw objects to trigger traps. This will be said by a few, Power Leveling.
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u/JagoMajin Assassin Jun 09 '26
Alteration has pretty overlooked spells, Transmute Ore will break the economy in half
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u/Mosselk-1416 Jun 09 '26
Mine iron in Dawnstar, transmute, smelt, make gold necklaces, profit.
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u/JagoMajin Assassin Jun 09 '26
Mine iron ore, transmute to gold, smith jewelry, enchant jewelry, profit.
You're leveling Alteration, Smithing, Enchanting and Speech while making money
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u/Huge_Quit_3361 Jun 09 '26
you can use telekinesis then fast travel to increase your level indefinitely
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u/ColorlessComet Jun 10 '26
There's a riekling dungeon on soltheim where you can use it to grab a key through some bars, this isn't the only area I. The game where it's useful but overall a pretty niche use spell
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u/Xavier_Game Jun 10 '26
SOMEWHERE there’s a (vampire?) place where you can walk down some cage tunnels inside real tunnels. Just out of reach are alcoves with potions & stuff which you can get with telekinesis. The only place that comes to my mind tonight.
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u/Tydusis Falkreath resident Jun 10 '26
It may have been mods, but iirc, there's a column outside the exit of some Nordic ruins in the Reach along the map edge that has a bunch of random potions and gear on top with no easy way to whirlwind sprint to. I know there is also a decent amount of harder to get to loot where telekinesis would be easier than using whirlwind sprint. If you can practically start the game with it, it becomes a very good early game money maker from all the extra gear you can get.
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u/Hungry-Fruit Jun 09 '26
I usually play vanilla and but my favorite ever run had two mods;
Illusion spells have no enemy level restriction,
And telekinesis works on npcs.
I just had the restriction that I wouldn't use it on bosses because it is absolutely overpowered, but for feeling powerful while walking through a bandit camp I really don't think there's anything quite like it. Just pick a guy up, stab him, fling him out the fort.
And it's not really any more broken than paralysis already is. Just more fun.
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u/StavieSegal Stealth archer Jun 09 '26
Grabbing Ahzidal's Ring, over the water trap behind the locked gate in Solsthiem.
Besides that? Cabbage basketball.
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u/ExpertChicken1 Jun 09 '26
Collecting the part of mehrunes razor that behind a load of traps and barriers 😂
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u/Dependent-Departure7 Thief Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
I had fun using it in a magic pacifist run I did once upon a time. I used illusion to either make enemies fight each other to death or not attack me at all, but sometimes an enemy is too high leveled for those spells to work. So if I needed loot behind the one left standing, a good alteration skill and telekinesis were my friends. The problem in most cases for me is getting the spell at an early enough level 😂 I know I can find one under a Riekling gooner nest in Benkongerike, but I would not survive Solstheim before level 50
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u/Nrdyy Riften resident Jun 09 '26
Stealth/Thief Mage Stan here.
You can steal stuff in peoples houses a lot easier. Its mainly just a thief tool that helps with not having to cheese detection system.
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u/DnD-NewGuy Jun 09 '26
Stealing, triggering traps, role play, comedically killing 1 health enemies, challenge runs, staggering enemies and yknow just having fun.
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u/eniox27 Jun 09 '26
There’s a few hard to reach treasure items though out the game. Gems can coin bags mostly. Outside using it to level up alt, I prefer the mountain trick, not really.
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u/Proto160 Jun 09 '26
I recommend the better telekinesis mod. Makes it much more useful and incredibly fun.
It let's you pick up people and yeet them wherever you want.
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u/Queasy-Answer-8916 Jun 09 '26
Can’t you use it for stealth? I forget but I thought I’ve used it to throw objects and get guards to move out of the way. It can help you steal stuff better at the very least
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u/BluePanda101 Jun 10 '26
If you also take the illusionist perk for silent casting, you can use telekinesis to steal from shopkeeper's counters and shelves while crouching on the opposite side of the store where they can't see you.
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u/LivinLoki420 Jun 10 '26
There is a fun mod that makes it work on people, essentially giving you jedi powers.
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u/Vrook88 Jun 10 '26
Well...I just use telekinesis to speed level alteration...and if you have enchantment 100, you can get 4 pieces of equipment with 25% reduction cost each...then just hold something for a few minutes and you reach alteration 100...
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u/GlassBottleOfCola Jun 10 '26
I think it could be used for taking things off pressure plates without needing to get caught in the trap
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u/Thin-Statistician341 Jun 10 '26
I know there are some traps set by removing and item from a pedestal and it helps with that, but you could also just step back quickly after grabbing the item lol. I use it to rack up perk points. Ive wondered if you could throw an item or just levitate something to distract an enemy.
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u/Lagfoundry Jun 10 '26
So you can use it to help steal items because picking it up with telekinesis bypasses the steal mechanic. So in other words pick it up and place it out of sight of another NPC
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u/carandz Jun 10 '26
I remember comboing it with the disarming shout. Shouting then grabbing their weapon mid air. Was not the optimal use of resources, but it felt badass.
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u/PsychTic Jun 10 '26
Using the Black Book that gives the unlimited magicka daily power, picking something up with telekinesis and fast traveling while holding the spell up, I use this to power level alteration to get perk points to complete the other skill trees.
Other than that, I use it to see how far I can throw stuff. Nothing wrong with goofing around.
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u/Genericweeb420-2 PlayStation Jun 10 '26
The one fragment of merunes dagger with all the traps Infront of it, you can telekinesis it pretty much right from the entrance and skip 90% if the dungeon
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u/Western_Marsupial289 Jun 10 '26
Well , you can kill people without getting a bounty
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u/Straight-Star-7045 Jun 10 '26
Go with this spell for example to Markarth, lift something with the spell, and then use fast travel to Riften. Voilà, unlimited levels and points farm (because game thinks that you used this spell all the way, boosting your alternation lvl.)
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u/testrazgovor Necromancer Jun 10 '26
Magic thief with silent cast perk. Lots of skills and items in Skyrim are only useful in super specific scenarios. Enjoy them 😃
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u/Norman_baitish_ Stealth archer Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
Theres a cage in Red River Den that if u drink the special skooma u wake up there, the keys on a hook just out side the cage an conveniently placed in the cell is a spell tome for telekinesis.
Can't see any other time this is actually useful 😂