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Duplication

Duplication, or duping, is the process of creating extra copies of an item. There a few methods have been discovered over the years which achieve this.

Follower Dupe

Perhaps the most well-known duplication glitch, the follower dupe is useful for being able to dupe most items that the player drops. To perform this bug, follow these steps:

  • Bring your follower and items inside a city gate.
  • Drop your items on the ground and order your follower to pick them up.
  • Retrieve your items from your follower.
  • Exit the city gate, then return inside.
  • There may now be one or more copies of your item(s).

You can increase your odds of success if you repeat steps 2-3 multiple times before exiting the gate. Doing so will create multiple "seeds" for the item to spawn at, increasing your chances of getting a duped item. This is especially useful when you only have a few copies of the item initially. Picking up the items yourself will cause the seeds to be deleted, but new items can spawn from the same seed later if your follower picks up the items.

Once you've duped your items, you can drop all the items again and repeat the process. If you can't get this to work with a certain item, it may have an incompatible ID number, and you should try one of the other duping methods below.

This bug may have been added to the game by Dawnguard or Hearthfire (Unconfirmed).

Quicksave/Print Screen Dupe

This PC-exclusive duping method relies on lagging the game to pick up the same item multiple times before the game can update. On Legendary Edition, this can be achieved by looking at an item, pressing the quick save key, and mashing the activate key. But on Special Edition, quick saving does not generate enough lag to perform the dupe. Instead, Print Screen may be used since it is much laggier than in Legendary Edition, possibly due to saving the image as a PNG rather than a BMP. (Unconfirmed)

This method mostly only works on items that have already been placed in the world, or certain unique items. If you're having trouble performing it, your item may have an incompatible ID number, and you should try the follower dupe instead.

Dead Load Dupe

By using dead loading, you can pick up the same item multiple times during a loading screen and the copies will be transferred to the loaded save. To perform this bug, follow these steps:

  • Activate dead loading. (For more information, view the dead loading article.)
  • Look at the item so the activate prompt appears
  • Load the save that you want to receive the items
  • During the loading screen, mash the Activate button
  • If done correctly, you will have received multiple of the item

This method usually only works on items that have already been placed in the world, or certain unique items. And generally, the save you load has to be in the same cell as the item. If you're having trouble performing it, your item may have an incompatible ID number, and you should try the follower dupe instead.

Shadow Dupe

This method allows you to duplicate armor, and it involves pickpocketing your Shadow from the Shadowrend creation. Using the Perfect Touch perk from the pickpocket tree, you can steal the Shadow's armor, which should be what you're wearing. Equipping something else will refresh the Shadow's equipped armor for even more duplicates. You can also equip the Shadow's armor directly from their inventory, causing them to gain another copy immediately. It's recommended that you ragdoll/paralyze the Shadow and pick their pocket while they're getting up, as you can't fail if you pick their pocket in the getup animation.

Since this method doesn't require you to drop the armor being duped, it can be used to dupe quest items such as the Jagged Crown or Jeweled Amulet. It is also very useful for duping East Empire Pendants to quickly gain lots of money. The downside is that all the duped armor is considered stolen, but you can always launder them if that's an issue.

Item-Specific Dupes

Certain items have bugs that allow you to gain multiple copies, or have another copy located somewhere in the world.

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The Doors of Oblivion

At an unmarked altar near Sightless Pit, there is a skeleton that will gain a copy of "The Doors of Oblivion" every time you open its inventory. This was one of the earliest known methods of gold grinding, since The Doors of Oblivion is a skill book worth 50 gold each.

Dawnbreaker

Casting a particularly violent spell, such as Blizzard, next to Dawnbreaker's pedestal will cause a second copy to fly out. This can be collected like a normal item before activating the pedestal. The copy may be launched quite far by doing this, so be sure to check the entire room.

Staff of Magnus

Morokei may sometimes carry 2 copies of the Staff of Magnus. (requires investigation)

Halldir's Staff

Halldir will drop his staff as an item upon death, while you can still loot a copy from his ashes.

Blade of Woe

If you pickpocket Astrid's Blade of Woe using Misdirection before the sanctuary is attacked, you will still get the copy of it during her black sacrament. You can also achieve this without Misdirection by giving her a different weapon with higher DPS (not including enchantment strength), then entering combat with her and surrendering immediately. You should then be able to pickpocket the Blade of Woe, as she equipped the other weapon.

Diadem of the Savant

The Diadem of the Savant is supposed to be a reward for completing the Labyrinthian. However, a respawning copy can be found on a stump outside Froki's Shack.

Wuuthrad

A second copy of Wuuthrad can be stolen from Ysgramor in the Hall of Valor with a few steps.

  • Unlock your controls by reading Elder Scroll (Sun)
  • Reverse pickpocket a Glass Sword or stronger onto Ysgramor
  • Punch him until he enters combat, then surrender
  • He should have equipped the sword since his 1H skill is much higher than his 2H
  • Pickpocket Wuuthrad from Ysgramor

Bloodskal Blade

A second copy of the Bloodskal Blade is stored behind the wall to the right of the word wall in Raven Rock Mine. It can be reached by clipping through the wall. Alternatively, you could cast a particularly violent spell such as Blizzard next to the wall to knock it out. The blade can be launched a considerable distance using this method, so it may be difficult to find.

Note that the copy will not have the ability to shoot beams until the original Bloodskal Blade is obtained.

Shadowrend

The Shadow's copy of Shadowrend can be pickpocketed, either with the Misdirection perk or by picking their pocket while they have a spell equipped. Dropping this copy of Shadowrend before completing the quest will allow you to keep both copies. You can obtain both the sword and axe versions of Shadowrend by doing this.

Notes

  • NEVER try to dupe player-made potions or poisons. Consuming the original potions in the stack will mark the duplicates for deletion on the next load. But since the original potions are gone, the game will delete other references in memory. This is bad, and will most likely result in a crash.

  • When duping a player-enchanted item, the copy will not have the custom enchantment. This can be useful for "washing" enchantments off of unique items to enchant them again.