My first character is a level 60 high elf with 100 destruction, conjuration, heavy armor, smithing and enchanting. A room full of the 'most elite' type of whatever threat is around just doesn't faze him anymore. He's getting bored with his high elf existence, and asks your help to make his world more exciting!
Is there a console command, configuration entry, or mod that can pump the difficulty to 11?
PS: for details on how difficulty affects gameplay see this question.
Best Answer
With Patch 1.9, yes you can. (without mods or console commands)
Patch 1.9 adds a sixth difficulty level: Legendary. It reduces damage dealt by the player to x0.25 and increases damage taken by the player to x3.
If you want to make the game harder, focus your skill points and perks on non-combat skills: Speech, Pickpocket, Lockpicking, etc. You can also put skill points and perks on combat skills that you won't be using in combat. This will level up your character (which will make enemy level difficulty scale to your level), while at the same time, not make your character stronger for combat.
With the Dragonborn DLC installed, perks may be undone and redistributed at the cost of one dragon soul per skill tree.
At the end of the At the Summit of Apocrypha quest, you will have access to different portals (one for each skill) which allows you to clear and regain any perks in that skill tree, at the cost of one dragon soul. You remove all perks from a single skill perk tree and can use these reclaimed perks on unlocking any perks you wish, including perks taken from said perk tree. By reading the Black Book, Waking Dreams, you can return to Apocrypha and alter the skill trees whenever you wish.
Mods for turning the difficulty up can be found in my answer to the question, "How to make Skyrim more challenging at higher character levels?"
Sources:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Combat#Difficulty_Level
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Skill_Perks#Perks
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Patch#Version_1.9