I'm not sure why you're upset about getting xp - did you want to stay low level forever? And yes, the only way to get rawhide (leather) is from killing things. it's hard to get leather from trees cause they don't have skin.
I'm not entirely sure why you think getting xp is a negative.
I understand that, and I'm somewhat of the same mindset.There's nothing stopping you from doing all the quests still...and being a higher level means you may not get gated for a while by needing to find a group for difficult quests. I'm still not sure why you feel getting xp is a bad thing.
Alternatively, you could create a rawhide scrap farming character, and leave the crafting and questing to your main. Consider it a minion!
Cloth and leather are part of the same skill. Level on the cloth, and save the leather for the gear you will equip. So far I've gotten enough just questing and killing the animals that are in the way, without having to farm specifically, to be able to outfit my leather-wearers by this method.
It also annoys me that the clothier line only benefits cloth users and not leather users.
grayssonb16_ESO wrote: »level with cloth. use the leather for your armor.