Lightning Bolt

An instant bolt of lightning – 25 shock damage to Health, half that to Magicka.

Lightning Bolt hits instantly: no arc, no travel time. It does 25 shock damage to Health and half that to Magicka, which makes it great against enemy mages – and handy against flying dragons, since you don’t need to lead your shots.

Spell details

  • School: Destruction (Apprentice)
  • Effect: A bolt of lightning that does 25 points of shock damage to Health and half that to Magicka.
  • Base Magicka cost: 51
  • Casting: Fire and Forget, aimed
  • Spell tome: Spell Tome: Lightning Bolt – value 95 gold, ID 000A26FF

More Destruction spells

Flames (Novice), Frostbite (Novice), Sparks (Novice), Fire Rune (Apprentice), Firebolt (Apprentice), Frost Rune (Apprentice), Ice Spike (Apprentice), Lightning Rune (Apprentice), Chain Lightning (Adept), Fireball (Adept), Flame Cloak (Adept), Frost Cloak (Adept), Ice Storm (Adept), Lightning Cloak (Adept), Whirlwind Cloak (Adept), Icy Spear (Expert), Incinerate (Expert), Thunderbolt (Expert), Wall of Flames (Expert), Wall of Frost (Expert), Wall of Storms (Expert), Blizzard (Master), Fire Storm (Master), Lightning Storm (Master).

Cost, effect and tome value read from the Skyrim game files (base values before skill, perks and gear).

Effect

A bolt of lightning that does 25 points of shock damage to Health and half that to Magicka.

Where to buy or find the tome

  • Faralda at the College and court wizards.
  • Enthir sells it too, at a higher price until you finish Hard Answers.
  • Chests and hostile mages.

Lore notes

Quest reward from

Characters connected to it

Enthir

Enthir is the Bosmer sorcerer at the College of Winterhold with Thieves Guild connections – a fence, spell merchant and the man with Onmund’s amulet.

Faralda

Faralda is the Altmer mage guarding the bridge to the College of Winterhold – your entrance test, Master Destruction trainer and Destruction spell tome vendor.

Where to find it

More spells from this school

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Reanimates a powerful corpse to fight for you for 60 seconds.
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Magicka 133
An exploding ball of fire – 40 damage in a 15-foot radius.
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Lightning Storm

Magicka 138 per second
Master spell: a continuous beam of lightning – 75 damage per second.
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Magicka 293
A trap rune that explodes for 50 frost damage and slows enemies.
Sources checked: Skyrim game files (Skyrim/Dawnguard/Dragonborn.esm + strings, read 2026-10-11); Elder Scrolls Fandom spell articles (tome locations)

Lightning Bolt

School
Level
Casting
Fire and Forget
Magicka cost
51
Magnitude
Duration
Dual-cast
Tome value
95 gold
Tome ID
000A26FF
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