Skip to main content

Needs and Diseases

info

Original Sources for All Information​

Hunger​

Hunger primarily affects your ability to regenerate Health, the damage you deal with melee weapons and the amount you can block with your shield. To restore hunger, simply eat something. There are 6 stages of hunger:

  • Full
  • Content (You start the game at this stage)
  • Hungry
  • Very Hungry
  • Ravenous
  • Starving

Regenerating Health increases your hunger at a faster rate.

Types of Food

There are four Levels of hunger restoration for food:

  • Light Meals: Raw vegetables, raw small game, raw fish, raw seafood, cooking ingredients and milk.
  • Medium Meals: Bread, raw meat, cooked small game, cooked fish, cooked seafood, raw fruit, cooked vegetables, treats and cheese.
  • Filling Meals: Cooked large meat, simple soups & stews, small pastries and cheesebowls.
  • Hearty Meals: Complex soups and stews, large pastries.

Varied Diet

Eating the same food repeatedly in a short period will result in only receiving half of the food's ordinary Hunger benefit. To get the full amount of benefit for your food, try to eat a variety of different things. After eating a certain kind of food, you will receive its full benefit again in 30 in-game minutes.

Thirst​

Thirst primarily affects your ability to regenerate stamina, the amount of damage you can block with your amour and the length of cooldown between shouts. To restore thirst, simply drink water, soups, alcohol and other beverages. There are 6 stages of thirst:

  • Quenched
  • Refreshed
  • Thirsty
  • Very Thirsty
  • Parched
  • Severely Parched

Regenerating Stamina increases your thirst at a faster rate.

Gathering Water

You can gather water from a variety of sources using waterskins. You will be given a waterskin when you start Last Seed, but you can craft additional waterskins at a Tanning Rack.

You can get water from these sources:

  • Large bodies of water
  • Waterfalls
  • Streams
  • Clean patches of snow
  • From Wells
  • While standing in the rain
  • From innkeepers
  • From placeable rain barrels (crafted at a blacksmith's forge).

You can also collect saltwater from the sea, which can be crafted into salt piles with a cooking pot.

Fatigue​

Fatigue primarily affects your ability to regenerate Magicka, as well as your ability to cast spells, use ranged weapons, and lockpick and pickpocket. You can restore your fatigue by sleeping in any bed. If you are Severely Exhausted, you will be able to completely restore your fatigue with 12 hours of sleep. You can also temporarily relieve fatigue by drinking Canis Root Tea. There are 6 stages of fatigue:

  • Rested
  • Sharp
  • Tired
  • Very Tired
  • Exhausted
  • Severely Exhausted

Regenerating Magicka increases your fatigue at a faster rate.

Quality of Sleep

The quality of your sleep can be affected by your location and how hungry and thirsty you are. If you go to sleep hungry, thirsty or in a dangerous location you will sleep poorly, waking up sharp at best, but not completely rested.

Vitality​

Vitality is a measure of your overall wellness. You will go up or down about 1 Vitality stage per 24 hours in-game. You recover Vitality much faster when sleeping. There are 8 stages:

  • Peak Condition
  • Vigorous
  • Very Healthy
  • Healthy
  • Drained
  • Weakened
  • Ruined
  • Dying

The impacts of low Vitality are decreased effectiveness of all skills, as well as reduced movement and attack speed. At high levels of Vitality, all skills become more effective.

Unlike other needs, Vitality increases and decreases over time, not suddenly. If you don’t take care of your needs, you won't be able to get to the maximum Vitality level. If you neglect your needs completely, you could drop to very low levels of Vitality.

The fastest way to restore your Vitality is to make sure you’re not hungry and thirsty and then get some sleep. Your Vitality restores very quickly while sleeping.

The only way to reach the highest stages of Vitality (Vigorous and Peak Condition) is to actually play the game. You cannot reach these stages solely by waiting or sleeping.

If Vitality reaches 0, you will die.

Your Exposure level will also impact your Vitality, as will your cleanliness level.

Diseases​

If you consume raw meat & seafood, spoiled food or dirty water, there is a chance you may catch a disease. Diseases will now also become more severe if left untreated. Each disease will progress through 5 stages:

  • Mild
  • Moderate
  • Severe
  • Crippling
  • Deadly

Unlike Survival Mode, diseases won’t automatically progress to the next stage after a certain period. Instead, the disease may progress or regress depending on your location, level of fatigue, disease resistance and the severity of the disease. For example, if you ignore a newly-caught disease and continue adventuring, you will most likely become very sick. If you instead travel to a nearby inn and get plenty of bed rest, you may overcome the disease naturally.

Severe diseases, while debilitating, will not kill you directly. However, they will significantly impact your Vitality, which means you will have to work that much harder keeping your Primary Needs in check in order to stay alive.

Shrines and Cure Disease potions will no longer cure diseases outright. Instead, they will give you a disease resistance bonus, which can help with overcoming the disease over time. Each disease now has its own cure potion, which will cure that disease outright.

Alcohol​

As well as restoring thirst, drinking alcohol will also make you drunk. If you drink a small amount you will become relaxed, which will give you a speech bonus. As you drink more, however, you will become less effective at Speech, pickpocketing, Lockpicking, Combat, and Magic skills, and will also become tired more easily. You will also experience blurred vision and stumbling as you become drunker. If you drink too much, you will eventually pass out and will wake up hungover. Hangovers are a mild disease that lasts for about half an in-game day. Hangovers negatively impact all your skills and will also make you thirsty.

If you pass out while you aren't Focused, you will wake up in a random location (or possibly in jail).

There are 6 stages of drunkenness:

  • Sober
  • Relaxed
  • Tipsy
  • Drunk
  • Very Drunk
  • Hungover

Alcohol comes in different strengths. Ale and mead are weak alcoholic beverages, wine is moderate, while brandy and other spirits are strong.

Alcohol will also temporarily boost your warmth, but you will feel even colder when the effect wears off.

Skooma​

Drinking Skooma will now cause a high. Being high on Skooma increases your stamina regeneration, movement speed and carry capacity, and also causes distorted visuals.

There are 5 stages of Skooma High:

  • Clear-headed
  • Buzz
  • High
  • Very High
  • Delirious

Skooma comes in two strengths. Normal Skooma is weaker, while Redwater Skooma, Balmora Blue and Double-Distilled Skooma are stronger.

Skooma Withdrawal

Each time you consume Skooma you have a chance of getting addicted. The greater the high you experience, the more likely you are to be addicted.

If you become addicted, you will experience Skooma withdrawal once the high wears off. During this time, you will experience progressively worse withdrawal symptoms, and then the effects will subside slowly. Being addicted to Skooma will have a severe negative impact on your speech, and will also negatively impact your combat, magic and artisan skills. You will also become fatigued more quickly and will experience mild seizures when you reach higher withdrawal levels.

You can always drink more Skooma to temporarily relieve your withdrawal symptoms, but doing so will undo any progress you made in overcoming the addiction.

Focus​

If you are in a dangerous interior area, such as a dungeon, you will become Focused. While focused, your needs will not increase. However, when you leave the area, the changes that would have occurred to your needs will happen all at once. So, you may become very hungry, thirsty and tired when you leave a dungeon.

This mechanic was put in place so that you wouldn't have to worry about being pestered with needs management while on a dungeon crawl.

Your Vitality will not suddenly increase or decrease after losing Focus; Vitality is completely suspended while Focused. If you take the time to eat (and eventually drink and rest) following a dungeon crawl, your Vitality should remain stable.

You will also become Focused during dialogue and crafting.

Food Spoilage​

All food types will decay into a set of "old", "mouldy" and "stale" versions. Eating these food items restore less hunger, and has a chance to give you diseases. These food items will then decay further into an inedible "Decayed Food" item. Food spoilage rates will be slowed in cold environments. You can also slow food spoilage using Ground Ice Wraith Teeth, which can be crafted at a Blacksmith's forge. You will learn the recipe after helping Marise in Riften.

Vampires, Werewolves, Cannibals and Liches​

Werewolves and Cannibals can feed to lower hunger and are able to consume raw food.

Vampires can feed to restore hunger and thirst. You can also partially restore your hunger and thirst by consuming raw meat. You are resistant to the effects of alcohol and Skooma.

Liches will no longer die from lack of Vitality, and cannot restore hunger and thirst through normal means. Instead, you will receive a new spell that you can use to suck the life from your enemies to restore your needs.