How to Get Daedric Armor and Weapons Without Smithing in Skyrim

Loot high-level boss chests at the end of dungeons. The easiest way to randomly find Daedric equipment is to reach a high enough level and start clearing out as many dungeons as you can. This involves making your way through the dungeon, fighting monsters, bypassing traps and then defeating the boss monsters at the end of the dungeon. You will eventually reach the end of the dungeon where you will find a large, prominent chest containing valuable loot - the boss chest of the dungeon. Daedric weapons and armor start appearing in the boss chests you find at the end of each dungeon; typically before you find a shortcut leading out of the dungeon you just cleared. All you need to do is roam Skyrim, find random dungeons to explore and clear them out.

• Unenchanted Daedric weapons start appearing at level 46, enchanted Daedric weapons start appearing at level 47, unenchanted Daedric armor starts appearing at level 48 and enchanted Daedric armor starts appearing at level 49.^[1]

Buy from the Dremora Merchant at higher levels. If you have the Dragonborn expansion installed, you will come across Black Books that grant you a variety of powers for you to use as you need them. The Black Book: Untold Legends can be found in Benkongerike in Solstheim, and choosing the Black Market power will give you the ability to summon a Dremora Merchant for 15 seconds that you can buy from and sell to. Once you reach level 47, the Black Merchant will begin selling enchanted and unenchanted Daedric equipment.

• The Dremora Merchant is the only merchant not affiliated to the Thieves Guild that will sell Daedric armor and weapons to you.

Buy from two of the Thieves Guild fences. Becoming a member of the Thieves Guild and progressing through the Guild’s questline will open up fences that you can sell stolen goods to while offering a variety of equipment, consumables and crafting components. Two of these fences, Tonilia and Niranye, will occasionally stock Daedric weapons that you can buy once you hit level 47.^[2]

• Tonilia can be found in the Ragged Flagon, and you can begin trading with her once you complete the quest “Taking Care of Business.”^[3] She will stock up all sorts of Daedric weaponry at random.
• Niranye can be found in the market district of Windhelm, and she becomes available to trade with after finishing the quest “Summerset Shadows.”^[4] She will usually stock Daedric bows, so archers will have a much easier time finding their weapons of choice with Niranye.

Slay Revered or Legendary Dragons. If you have the Dawnguard expansion installed, you can begin encountering Revered Dragons at level 59 and Legendary Dragons at level 78. They will be really, really hard to kill if you are not properly equipped and prepared to deal with them. This means preparing potions to restore health, restore magicka, restore stamina, resist fire, resist frost and resist magic. Wearing enchanted equipment that boosts resistances against fire, frost and magic will also help you better survive their hard-hitting blows. Also, shouts like Dragonrend and Become Ethereal are particularly useful against these types of dragons as they’ll help you better survive their nasty breath attacks and Drain Vitality shouts. The fact that you can loot Daedric equipment from their bodies, however, makes killing them a particularly nice reward for the effort required.^{[5] [6]}

• If you have trouble slaying Revered and Legendary dragons, you may find this WikiHow article on killing dragons in Skyrim very useful.