I am still a little confused on how to add skill levels while still earning perks, it doesn't seem to work for me. Can someone explain a way to do this?
So to get perk points you have to level the ability up at least once through XP on a level that would reward a perk point. If you select the skill and hit Q it will tell you what levels reward a perk point. My recommendation is, for the skill you're trying to get a perk point for, set it 1 level below the lowest level that rewards a perk.
Once you get that, if you have the save tonic, set the level to 20 and then save and reload your game. This is important, because if you don't do this the game will keep your perks limited to the last level you unlocked.
NOTE: This is for secondary skills like combat and such that you cannot use the EXP cheat to force earning perks. For the primary skills like strength and agility and such, you just need to set them to level 1 and put something like 999999 for the xp. Next time it levels up it will be max level with perks.
[Edited by poster55, 2/13/2018 4:45:05 PM]