How to Feed as a Vampire Skyrim

Here’s our complete on how to feed as a Vampire Skyrim guide! Learn how to quench your thirst for blood in this alternative way to play the game.

Becoming a vampire is an extremely cool feature in Skyrim and it has its own benefits. From, gaining new magic spells to having better attributes, you can roam the world as a vampire and wreak havoc. However, if you do not want to enter the highest stage of vampirism, you need to learn how to feed as a vampire in Skyrim.

Guide Contents

To feed as a vampire in Skyrim, you must first become a vampire and then look for NPCs who are sleeping. Pickpocket them and you’ll get an option to feed on them without any issues.

That’s not all, you can use other methods to feed on NPCs if you become a vampire. This guide will not only show you how to feed as a vampire in Skyrim but also show you the benefits, drawbacks, and how you can become a vampire.

How to Become a Vampire

First things first, you need to know how to become a vampire before you can start feeding on NPCs. Becoming a vampire is quite simple as you need to either get damaged by a vampire enemy or get attacked by the Vampiric Drain spell. If you’ve successfully received damage from it, you’ll get the Sanguinare Vampiris status and you’ll start becoming a vampire.

If you want to become a full vampire and receive all the benefits and side effects, you shouldn’t feed on any NPC for at least three in-game days. That will allow you to reach the highest stage of vampirism and you’ll get the following buffs:

Vampiric Drain
Vampire’s Servant
Vampire’s Sight
Vampire’s Seduction
Embrace of Shadows

Plus, you’ll get the Champion of the Night buff as well which will allow you to enhance the effectiveness of the Illusion spells. Plus, the Nightwalker’s Footsteps allow you to easily sneak around without being heard.

However, the downside is that you’ll get the Weakness to Sunlight debuff and you will lose attributes when exposed to direct sunlight. Some of the lost attributes are slow health, stamina, and magicka regeneration. You can go on to become a vampire lord but that’s a different story.

How to Feed as a Vampire

As mentioned at the start, there are multiple ways in which you can feed on NPCs as a vampire. Depending on what the time is in the game or what situation you are in, you might want to try out the different methods to see which one works for you the best.

The easiest and most safe method is to wait for the night when the NPCs go to sleep. Once they are sleeping, you’ll want to enter their house while sneaking and go to their body. You’ll get an option to pickpocket them, so, use it and you’ll get another option to feed. Now, you’ll have successfully fed on the NPC without them ever finding out.

Another method is to get NPCs to low health and then use a powerful attack to feed on them. However, this only works if you are a vampire lord, so you cannot use it if you are a normal vampire in the early stages.

Finally, you can use your charisma skills and use the Vampire’s Seduction ability to lure NPCs and feed on them. Depending on how successful your ability is, you will either have an easy time or you’ll have to flee the area.

Keep in mind that feeding as a vampire is looked down upon in the world of Skyrim and guards will attack you as soon as you do it. Since this is an illegal act, you need to make sure that you are not seen or heard by anyone.

Why Should You Feed as a Vampire

One thing you might be wondering is why you need to feed on NPCs when you contract the vampire disease. Worry not because we’ve answered this question for you and it’ll help you decide if you want to feed on NPCs or not. First thing’s first, there are four stages of becoming a vampire.

Each stage has its own advantages and disadvantages with stage four being the strongest. If you want to progress to the next stage, you cannot feed on any NPC for at least a full in-game day.

Stage 1

Increased Resist Frost by 25%
Attributes are reduced by 15 points in the sunlight.
Weakness to Fire 25%
Gain abilities Vampire’s Sight, Vampiric Drain, Vampire’s Servant

Stage 2

Increased Resist Frost by 50%
Attributes are reduced by 30 points in the sunlight.
Weakness to Fire 50%
Gain ability Vampire’s Seduction

Stage 3

Increased Resist Frost by 75%
Attributes are reduced by 45 points in the sunlight.
Weakness to Fire 75%
Stronger versions of existing abilities
Drawback: Most NPCs will not interact with you

Stage 4

Increased Resist Frost by 100%
Attributes are reduced by 60 points in the sunlight.
Weakness to Fire 100%
Gain abilities Embrace of Shadows and upgraded Vampiric Drain and Vampire’s Servant
Drawback: You will be attacked by the citizens for being a vampire.

However, keep in mind that if you have the Dawnguard DLC, NPCs will not become hostile towards you when you are in stage 4. Instead, they will be hostile towards you if you become the vampire lord. Another thing to keep in mind is that becoming a vampire is great for stealth-based characters since it gives them tons of useful skills. However, you might feel a lot of inconveniences when using other characters.

How to Cure Vampirism

If you are tired of becoming a vampire and want to get rid of this disease, there is a way in which you can cure your character. For starters, if you just got this sickness, you can use the Cure Disease to quickly get rid of it before it progresses to the next stage. Alternatively, you can go to the temple or altars in towns to cure yourself as well.

However, if you have moved on to the next stage, you will either have to revert to Lycanthropy – which is permanent, or you need to complete the Rising at Dawn quest.

Looking for more Skyrim content? Check out these guides:

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is available to play on Steam.