A rather bizarre bug in Skyrim has reduced a player's Speech skill to a negative value, blocking them from completing even the most basic conversation checks. While a Bethesda sandbox is often synonymous with strange glitches, what makes the experience charming rather than frustrating is that malicious bugs are few and far between in Skyrim. Compared to launch, the Skyrim of today is a smooth and stable experience, augmented by years of official fixes and unofficial patches.
That being said, a fair few exploits in Skyrim are still possible. A popular example allows players to permanently place powerful enchantments on their gear by temporarily raising their Enchanting skill via Alchemy, and then raising their Alchemy via Enchanting. Given that the stats in Skyrim are only programmed to handle small values, it's remarkably easy to achieve an integer overflow – which results in the affected stat suddenly becoming negative.
These games are must tries for those who love The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Bethesda's ambitious 2011 RPG.
While the cause of the bug remains unclear, an integer overflow is exactly what happened to NoAdministration1070's character, whose Speech skill is now inexplicably -999975. Speech in Skyrim is used largely for two things: to...
