Trainers

Who can train you

• Nobody trains you just because of their job or class. Training only opens when a script hands the game a trainer: almost always a dialogue line you pick, whose own conditions decide who says it and when. Lots of people have a class with a training skill (lumberjacks, spellswords, Vigilants of Stendarr) and still can't train you, because no line offers it.
• The trainer's class decides the lesson: which skill it raises and how far. The line's prompt and its skill check don't: a line that still says 'Lockpicking' opens whatever skill the class teaches.
• A person's own record has no training settings: only their class counts (for someone built from a template, the class they end up with in the game). A script can swap a person's class while you talk, and Immersive Speechcraft does exactly that.
• What each class skill slot teaches in GTS, by the names the game shows: 0 One-handed, 1 Two-handed, 2 Archery, 3 Block, 4 Smithing, 5 Heavy Armor, 6 Light Armor, 7 Security (the old Pickpocket slot), 8 Hand to Hand (the old Lockpicking slot), 9 Sneak, 10 Alchemy, 11 Speech, 12 Alteration, 13 Conjuration, 14 Destruction, 15 Illusion, 16 Restoration, 17 Enchanting. So every old lockpicking trainer class now teaches Hand to Hand, and every old pickpocket class teaches Security.
• Most training lines are tied to one named person, and many also want them in the trainer factions. Some trainers only join those through a quest, so they start teaching later: the Companions' trainers when you join, Hamal and Danica Pure-Spring when their quests end, and Kuvar partway through Retaking Thirsk. If you take the road that destroys the Thieves Guild, Delvin Mallory stops training.
• Skyrim's own trainers won't teach you if they dislike you: Relationship Dialogue Overhaul blocks every line of the base game's trainer dialogue unless they're at least neutral towards you. GTS has this fixed on; no menu changes it.
• Other lines want more: guild or friend status (the College for its teachers, Orc friend for the stronghold trainers), a finished quest, the Thieves Guild being open to you, or the time of day (Caranthir Tower's teachers only between 9 and 18, and only when they're not busy).
• Immersive Speechcraft lets almost anyone teach you, through its chat option. If their best skill is at least 50, and you pass its Speech check (your Speech, plus 25 for each step of how much they like you, plus a roll of 0 to 100, must reach 100), they teach that skill for that visit with a borrowed trainer class: Journeyman from 50, Expert from 75, Master from 100. Two-handed, Block, Heavy Armor, Security, Hand to Hand, Alteration, Illusion and Enchanting have no Journeyman step, so for those the person needs 75. The mod mixes up a few skills: an alchemist at 50 to 74 really teaches Destruction (to 50), one at 75 to 99 teaches Alteration, an Alteration user at 75 to 99 teaches Alchemy, and a speaker at 50 to 74 teaches Sneak. After the menu closes you also get some Speech experience.
• Dynamic Activation Key's add-on can put a Train choice on anyone in the trainer faction when you activate them with its key held, skipping their dialogue and its conditions. GTS ships that option switched off. Setting

How far they train you

• Each trainer teaches up to their class's limit: Journeyman trainers to 50, Experts to 75, Masters to 90. The menu shows the rank: Journeyman for a limit up to 50, Expert up to 75, Master above that.
• A lesson is refused once your skill, without boosts, has reached their limit, so the last lesson takes you from one below the limit up to it. Most lines also stop being offered once you get there.
• Each lesson raises the skill by one level. Your skill-rate changes still apply to it: if your rate is below 1 (being tired, or a trait that slows that skill), the lesson only fills that share of what's left of your bar and never reaches the next level, but you still pay and it still counts towards your lessons for the level.

What a lesson costs

• The price of one lesson is 50 gold plus 10 times your current skill, times 1 while your skill is 50 or less, times 3 from 51 to 75, and times 5 from 76 to 90. The skill here is yours without boosts, before the lesson. For example: 200 gold at 15, 550 at 50, 1,580 at 51, 2,300 at 75, 3,850 at 76 and 4,500 at 89.
• Past 90 the code drops back to the cheapest rate (50 plus 10 times your skill). Only a trainer whose class limit is above 90 could reach that; the classes with a limit of 100 belong to people without training lines.
• Nothing else changes the price: not Speech, not how much they like you, not any perk. The code reads only your skill and the game settings.
• The Fast Learner trait halves the per-level part of the price, not the flat 50: 50 plus 5 times your skill, times the same 1, 3 or 5. For example: 125 gold at 15, 300 at 50, 815 at 51, 1,950 at 76 and 2,275 at 89.
• You need at least the full price on you, and you pay it in whole coins.
• The price the menu shows matches what you pay even when the skill is boosted or drained: the base game showed a price worked from your boosted skill, and Scrambled Bugs corrects that, switched on as GTS ships it. Setting
• In Solstheim and in the Telvanni towns of Path of the Telvanni (Sadrith Mora, Tel Branora, Tel Fyr, Tel Aruhn, Sheogorad) lessons are paid in drams instead of septims. The number is the same as above, but a dram is worth a third of a septim, so a lesson there costs a third as much. You need that many drams on you.
• Currency Swapper can also replace the price formula, but nothing in base GTS asks it to, so the formula above stands everywhere.

Where your gold goes

• The gold goes into the trainer's inventory, but most trainers in GTS lose it straight away: a script on them removes all the gold you hand over while the training menu is open, unless they're your spouse. So training with a follower and trading the gold back doesn't work, except with your spouse. About a quarter of the trainers (Caranthir Tower's, Fort Dawnguard's, Solstheim's and a few others) don't carry that script and keep what you pay.
• Where drams are used, the drams go to the trainer too.
• Arkvon in Caranthir Tower is a special case: his lessons are run by hidden copies of him (a Speech master and Illusion and Enchanting experts) in a back room, so the gold goes to them, not to the Arkvon you talk to.
• Talvas Fathryon's own line takes back the gold you pay him once the menu closes, unless he loves you, so it doesn't stay with him either.

How often you can train

• You can take 5 lessons per character level, in total across every trainer and skill. The menu shows how many you've used.
• The count goes back to 0 when you take a level-up (when you pick health, magicka or stamina), not when the experience bar fills.
• Nothing in base GTS changes the limit of 5 a level.
• Each lesson takes 2 hours of game time, which pass when you close the training menu. Setting

GTS's changes

• Hand to Hand Books and Trainers: Ma'jhad now teaches Hand to Hand to 75, and Chief Mauhulakh teaches it to 90 if you're an Orc friend. The old lockpicking and pickpocket lines now say Security; Vipir the Fleet teaches Security to 90, and Vex no longer trains anyone (her line asks for 200 skill).
• Fists of Fury: Gian the Fist in Riften and the Windhelm champion teach Hand to Hand to 75 once you've finished their brawling quests.
• Mods add trainers in their own lands and homes: Beyond Skyrim Bruma, Dwarfsphere, Caranthir Tower, Interesting NPCs, Stendarr Rising, Obscure's College of Winterhold, Path of the Telvanni, The Forgotten City, Hendraheim and Alternate Perspective. A patch for the Creation Club farm adds Jonquil to an old alchemy line, and Animunculi Override Training makes Calcelmo a teacher of its own hacking skill.
• Immersive Speechcraft, Relationship Dialogue Overhaul, Currency Swapper with Morrowind Uses Drams, Scrambled Bugs, Time Flies, the Fast Learner trait, Dynamic Activation Key, Trainers Gold Reclaim Fix and Animunculi Override Training each change training as described above.
• Checked and found to change nothing about training: Engine Fixes, Bug Fixes SSE, Custom Skills Framework (its own menu, for its own skills), the Character Menu stats display.
• Animunculi Override Training: if you have the Dwemer Researcher trait or have learned construct hacking, Calcelmo in Markarth offers lessons in Construct Hacking through its own menu. A lesson costs 50 gold plus 10 times your Construct Hacking level and raises it by 2. You can take up to twice your character level in lessons in all (the count never goes back to 0), and the gold you pay simply disappears. These lessons don't count towards the 5 a level.

Every trainer

89 people teach in base GTS, by skill, the furthest-teaching first. Each links to their own page; where they stand is their usual spot.

Alchemy · Alteration · Archery · Block · Conjuration · Construct Hacking · Destruction · Enchanting · Hand to Hand · Heavy Armor · Illusion · Light Armor · One-handed · Restoration · Security · Smithing · Sneak · Speech · Two-handed

Alchemy

Alteration

Archery

Block

Conjuration

Construct Hacking

Destruction

Enchanting

Hand to Hand

Heavy Armor

Illusion

Light Armor

One-handed

Restoration

Security

Smithing

Sneak

Speech

Two-handed

A lesson's price at a glance

From base GTS 118's own files: the records as the game uses them, the mods' own settings files as Jay's collection ships them, and GTS's own menu setup. Each line was read by one reader and checked by a second. A line marked Setting is a menu or settings-file option: what it says is the default. Your own add-ons can change any of this.