Best TES4: Oblivion Mods?
- Thread starter Tanis
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Not from experience (I've only played Oblivion on PS3) but I've heard Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul is meant to be a great rebalancing mod. And that game needs rebalancing, the level scaling was terrible. The guy who made it actually got hired by Obsidian.
Bartholm [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/5022/?] is quite fantastic. It uses mostly vanilla textures, but it adds another city, another arena, and a small island to explore. It's fully voice-acted as well... even if it is done poorly. I've enjoyed it quite a bit.
Martigen's Monster Mod [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/14442/?] is another great one. Adds a whole bunch of items and creatures to the game. Nice for a little more diversity.
Various mods expand the awesome guilds you could join, but weren't given any depth. These would be, Travelers [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/4387/?], Knights of the White Stallion [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/6623/?], Order of the Virtuous Blood [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/30568/?], and The Blackwood Company [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/17448/?].
Other than those... there are some others. But I can't recall their names and I'm too lazy to check on the nexus. I'd suggest the dragon mount, delivery service, Imperial Legion, and one called viking island I believe.
Just keep in mind, most of these mods have lost support years back. So if they're buggy as shit, chances are they aren't gonna get fixed.
Martigen's Monster Mod [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/14442/?] is another great one. Adds a whole bunch of items and creatures to the game. Nice for a little more diversity.
Various mods expand the awesome guilds you could join, but weren't given any depth. These would be, Travelers [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/4387/?], Knights of the White Stallion [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/6623/?], Order of the Virtuous Blood [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/30568/?], and The Blackwood Company [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/17448/?].
Other than those... there are some others. But I can't recall their names and I'm too lazy to check on the nexus. I'd suggest the dragon mount, delivery service, Imperial Legion, and one called viking island I believe.
Just keep in mind, most of these mods have lost support years back. So if they're buggy as shit, chances are they aren't gonna get fixed.
OK, from what I remember. Do note, that most of my mod knowledge for Oblibion comes from the last time I played it which was 2008-2009-ish period - I may not be aware of noteworthy developments after:
Oscuro's Overhaul Mod [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/44629/?] (commonly known as OOO) - a really large overhaul I never actually played. It's one of the BIG 3, if not the first of them when it comes to overhauls. It's complete redoing of the game and very widely liked.
Martigen Monster Mod [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/14442/?] (commonly known as MMM) - it's a big overhaul of creatures. It's another one of the big 3. It changes the creatures in Oblivion and adds a bunch more. And by "a bunch", I mean "more than a hundred". Moreover, each creature is randomized (within bounds, of course) so it's exactly the same as any other of its kind, so wolf #271 and #638 won't look and respond in exactly the same way. NOTE: I don't actually know what's the latest version because this page claims it was last updated in 2010 and I found another MMM mod with a higher version number but it wasn't as recently updated. You may need to look around for the actual latest version.
FCOM: Convergence [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/12249/?] - no, it's nothing to do with XCOM. It's actually the third of the big 3. Although it's not even that - it's a combination of some of the biggest overhauls out there - OOO and MMM are both included, as well as WarCry (never played that) and Francesco's Leveled Creatures-Items (neither did I play that). I've also heard it's not trivial to install it, but it's supposed to be rewarding.
Deadly Reflex [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/8273/?] - adds quite a bit of depth to the combat. The Skyrim combat was inspired by parts of it[footnote]OK, no hard evidence, however Skyrim did include a lot of ideas from very popular mods of previous ES games - the levelling as a really big example, so I do suspect Deadly Combat was also an inspiration[/footnote]. You get stuff like new moves, executions, excitement a lot more gore. If you're good, you can do stuff like beheading people of even slicing their wrists, and leaving them to bleed to death. Different weapons have different types of moves available, as well.
Quest Awards Levelling [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/2119/?] - I remember there were a couple of these when I was playing. There may be more now. This is the one I picked, feel free to go with any other if, needed. What these mods do is, they automatically level all quest rewards to your level after you've had them. It's really annoying (and immersion breaking) to finish a quest at, say, level 15 and get some reward claimed to be uber super awesome, and few levels later it's just some vendor trash with an unique name.
Darker Nights [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/4135/?] - pretty much what it says - it makes the nights darker. I personally really liked it.
No Psychic Guards [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/11911/?] - ESSENTIATL, in my opinion. Normally, the guards are psychic - you can stealth kill an NPC in the basement of their home without anybody hearing a thing...but a guard would run in few seconds later and try to arrest you. It's stupid and awful. Their detect radius is few zeroes overdone - this mod fixes that.
Timekeeper [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/3411/?] - it's just a clock. It tells you what (in-game) time it is. I found it really useful - it's good to know whether you have another 2 hours or 20 minutes until shops close, for example.
Bounty Reduction Over Time [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/2052/?] - another obvious one. It does what it says.
Remove Spell Level Caps [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/9455/?] - obvious again. The caps were a rather stupid idea. Higher level spells still cost a lot of mana, so chances are, you won't be able to cast them or maybe you'll be able to pull off one with your magicka pool. At any rate, I think of it more like a fix than anything.
No More Annoying Merchant Comments [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/13299/?] - as the title suggests.
Keychain [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/3409/?] and KeyChain Shivering Isles Compatibility Addon [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/10085/?] - saves you having your inventory cluttered with various keys.
Madgod powers [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/14477/?] - I found it really fun. It can also be game breaking. Though it is Oblivion, so it's not like it's anything new for it. Here is a video (note that this isn't the only power in the mod):
Smarter Mercantile Levelling [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/10947/?] - I'll just quote the mod description "There is no polite way to put this: Oblivion's system for leveling your Mercantile skill is asinine." It fixes that.
Cannibalism [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/16637/?] - it adds a new system of powers which is fuelled by, you probably guessed it, cannibalism.
Lighnting Speed [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/5347/?] - by default, the lightning in Oblivion looks more like a differently coloured fireball than actual lightning - you cast a Target type spell and it sends a projectile over that travels slowly. This mod makes it actually fast, so it looks like actual lightning.
Extended Cities [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/32248/?] - this seems to bulld on top of mods I've used. The last time I was playing Extended Imperial City, Extended Chorrol and Extended Skingrad had come out recently - the author was making them one city at the time. Seems then the author stopped, for whatever reason, and this guy picked it up. Essentially, the mods add more NPCs to the cities and I can tell you it really feels quite nice. Seeing the pub crowded after the shops closed, is really good, as having actually more people out in the streets.
Terran Vampires [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/6492/?] - It's last on the list but certainly not least. I still maintain it's one of the best user made content I've played to this date. Basically, the idea is that the vampires from Vampire the Masquerade suddenly got dumped in the Elder Scrolls universe (though the names got changed to avoid copyright problems). However, I think the mod maker was a technical genius. The mod features an entirely new vampiric system that lives side by side with the original one, it also adds new powers that are the Kindred Disciplines but it managed to do some better (at the time) than entire mods dedicated to such powers. For example, flight - few mods were around that had various implementations of levitation, to varying degrees of success but Terran Vampires managed to surpass them. The "flight" was actually an invisible platform your character was walking on in the air but it worked. Sure, Oblivion would occasionally crash but it's, after all, Oblivion - unlike other implementations of levitation which crashed it way more frequently. A full character transformation was also in the mod and werewolf mods were still wrestling with how to do this properly at the time. And so on and so forth. I really loved this mod, but unfortunately, it was abandoned in beta. I have heard the mod was picked up by other people to be finished but I have no idea what happened with that project. Frankly, the last time I checked how that went (it was just a forum topic), I wasn't impressed nor hopeful. Still, I think it's a rather brilliant mod in what it manages to do.
Oscuro's Overhaul Mod [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/44629/?] (commonly known as OOO) - a really large overhaul I never actually played. It's one of the BIG 3, if not the first of them when it comes to overhauls. It's complete redoing of the game and very widely liked.
Martigen Monster Mod [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/14442/?] (commonly known as MMM) - it's a big overhaul of creatures. It's another one of the big 3. It changes the creatures in Oblivion and adds a bunch more. And by "a bunch", I mean "more than a hundred". Moreover, each creature is randomized (within bounds, of course) so it's exactly the same as any other of its kind, so wolf #271 and #638 won't look and respond in exactly the same way. NOTE: I don't actually know what's the latest version because this page claims it was last updated in 2010 and I found another MMM mod with a higher version number but it wasn't as recently updated. You may need to look around for the actual latest version.
FCOM: Convergence [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/12249/?] - no, it's nothing to do with XCOM. It's actually the third of the big 3. Although it's not even that - it's a combination of some of the biggest overhauls out there - OOO and MMM are both included, as well as WarCry (never played that) and Francesco's Leveled Creatures-Items (neither did I play that). I've also heard it's not trivial to install it, but it's supposed to be rewarding.
Deadly Reflex [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/8273/?] - adds quite a bit of depth to the combat. The Skyrim combat was inspired by parts of it[footnote]OK, no hard evidence, however Skyrim did include a lot of ideas from very popular mods of previous ES games - the levelling as a really big example, so I do suspect Deadly Combat was also an inspiration[/footnote]. You get stuff like new moves, executions, excitement a lot more gore. If you're good, you can do stuff like beheading people of even slicing their wrists, and leaving them to bleed to death. Different weapons have different types of moves available, as well.
Quest Awards Levelling [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/2119/?] - I remember there were a couple of these when I was playing. There may be more now. This is the one I picked, feel free to go with any other if, needed. What these mods do is, they automatically level all quest rewards to your level after you've had them. It's really annoying (and immersion breaking) to finish a quest at, say, level 15 and get some reward claimed to be uber super awesome, and few levels later it's just some vendor trash with an unique name.
Darker Nights [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/4135/?] - pretty much what it says - it makes the nights darker. I personally really liked it.
No Psychic Guards [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/11911/?] - ESSENTIATL, in my opinion. Normally, the guards are psychic - you can stealth kill an NPC in the basement of their home without anybody hearing a thing...but a guard would run in few seconds later and try to arrest you. It's stupid and awful. Their detect radius is few zeroes overdone - this mod fixes that.
Timekeeper [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/3411/?] - it's just a clock. It tells you what (in-game) time it is. I found it really useful - it's good to know whether you have another 2 hours or 20 minutes until shops close, for example.
Bounty Reduction Over Time [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/2052/?] - another obvious one. It does what it says.
Remove Spell Level Caps [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/9455/?] - obvious again. The caps were a rather stupid idea. Higher level spells still cost a lot of mana, so chances are, you won't be able to cast them or maybe you'll be able to pull off one with your magicka pool. At any rate, I think of it more like a fix than anything.
No More Annoying Merchant Comments [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/13299/?] - as the title suggests.
Keychain [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/3409/?] and KeyChain Shivering Isles Compatibility Addon [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/10085/?] - saves you having your inventory cluttered with various keys.
Madgod powers [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/14477/?] - I found it really fun. It can also be game breaking. Though it is Oblivion, so it's not like it's anything new for it. Here is a video (note that this isn't the only power in the mod):
Smarter Mercantile Levelling [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/10947/?] - I'll just quote the mod description "There is no polite way to put this: Oblivion's system for leveling your Mercantile skill is asinine." It fixes that.
Cannibalism [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/16637/?] - it adds a new system of powers which is fuelled by, you probably guessed it, cannibalism.
Lighnting Speed [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/5347/?] - by default, the lightning in Oblivion looks more like a differently coloured fireball than actual lightning - you cast a Target type spell and it sends a projectile over that travels slowly. This mod makes it actually fast, so it looks like actual lightning.
Extended Cities [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/32248/?] - this seems to bulld on top of mods I've used. The last time I was playing Extended Imperial City, Extended Chorrol and Extended Skingrad had come out recently - the author was making them one city at the time. Seems then the author stopped, for whatever reason, and this guy picked it up. Essentially, the mods add more NPCs to the cities and I can tell you it really feels quite nice. Seeing the pub crowded after the shops closed, is really good, as having actually more people out in the streets.
Terran Vampires [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/6492/?] - It's last on the list but certainly not least. I still maintain it's one of the best user made content I've played to this date. Basically, the idea is that the vampires from Vampire the Masquerade suddenly got dumped in the Elder Scrolls universe (though the names got changed to avoid copyright problems). However, I think the mod maker was a technical genius. The mod features an entirely new vampiric system that lives side by side with the original one, it also adds new powers that are the Kindred Disciplines but it managed to do some better (at the time) than entire mods dedicated to such powers. For example, flight - few mods were around that had various implementations of levitation, to varying degrees of success but Terran Vampires managed to surpass them. The "flight" was actually an invisible platform your character was walking on in the air but it worked. Sure, Oblivion would occasionally crash but it's, after all, Oblivion - unlike other implementations of levitation which crashed it way more frequently. A full character transformation was also in the mod and werewolf mods were still wrestling with how to do this properly at the time. And so on and so forth. I really loved this mod, but unfortunately, it was abandoned in beta. I have heard the mod was picked up by other people to be finished but I have no idea what happened with that project. Frankly, the last time I checked how that went (it was just a forum topic), I wasn't impressed nor hopeful. Still, I think it's a rather brilliant mod in what it manages to do.
Uninstall.exe is the best mod you can get for oblivion!
No, but seriously though this flowchart might help you out a lot.
http://i.imgur.com/Mv2lSFL.jpg
No, but seriously though this flowchart might help you out a lot.
http://i.imgur.com/Mv2lSFL.jpg
I'm really surprised that nobody has suggested Nehrim yet. It's a total conversion mod that creates a completely new world and story using the Oblivion engine and art assets. Only problem is that the voice acting is all in German so if you don't speak the language you'll need subtitles on.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/nehrim-at-fates-edge
The world is BEAUTIFUL and it's not level scaled to your character. All ofthe best items are placed by hand like in Morrowind, not randomly generated. All of the dungeons and world are handmade with no procedural generation. Fast travel is impossible without relatively expensive teleport items.
It's great. Highly recommend.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/nehrim-at-fates-edge
The world is BEAUTIFUL and it's not level scaled to your character. All ofthe best items are placed by hand like in Morrowind, not randomly generated. All of the dungeons and world are handmade with no procedural generation. Fast travel is impossible without relatively expensive teleport items.
It's great. Highly recommend.
I've heard about that but it was "after my time", so to say. I was trying to pick my brain to recall what it was called but I never managed to. A couple of google searches didn't find that, for some reason, so I decided to leave it out on hoping somebody else to mention it. Thanks, for that, I'll try to remember it this time.Sight Unseen said:
I'd say its basically compulsory to actually properly enjoy Oblivion. There's just so much silliness in the base game with respect to levelling that it gets outright frustrating.Knight Captain Kerr said:
Makes the game almost infinitely better.
Ivellon [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/13714/?], hands down. Leave your Night Eye spells at home and explore a pitch-black, haunted dungeon with an involving story and a lot of surprises.
Hoarfrost Castle [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/14714/?] is also worth a download. A beautiful, complex castle can be yours... if you can earn it.
Hoarfrost Castle [http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/14714/?] is also worth a download. A beautiful, complex castle can be yours... if you can earn it.
Nehrim is awesome IF you don't mind German voice-acting (I love it, personally) and if you can make yourself play through the first hour (there's a dark and difficult mine to slog through and the moment you're out, your first quest is to go back inSight Unseen said:
It varies wildly. If I remember correctly, there was some kind of limit, but it's not like "you can only ever have 128 mods" but rather "when you reach that number, you have to use some advanced tools". I've never reached the limit and I believe I had something in the order of 50-60 mods.SantoUno said:
In broad terms, it would be any two (or more) mods which modify the same thing in-game. So, for example:SantoUno said:
- if you have two mods that modify the Oblivion vampirism system - they are probably not compatible
- if you have two mods that add extra buildings they won't be compatible if some of the buildings overlap
- if you have more than one version of a mod[footnote]some come in several versions that are variations of the main. For example, a levelling mod may come with a Slow, Normal, and Fast versions which just determine the rate of the levelling[/footnote] then they will clash, if active at once
- overhauls are almost assuredly non-compatible, if they target the same area - e.g., two stealth overhauls. On the other hand, if you have a stealth overhaul and a skill system overhaul, they are likely to work (well, unless the stealth overhaul makes modification to any skills). Total overhauls are, as a rule, not. However, see FCOM which is a project to make several large mods compatible with each other.
And so on. A lot of mods would say in the description if they have known clashes with other mods, or at least advise you if there are likely to be clashes with mods that also modify .
Assuming you avoid clashes, then it's more or less this. Erm, somewhat. As I mentioned, there are advanced tools you can use to work around mods and squeeze out a bit more. I can't remember how that was done, might have been by using Wrye Bash or maybe something else - I can't remember. I do recall you could actually combine mods yourself, e.g., you can combine Lightning Speed and Remove Spell Level Caps into one, which is exactly like having both. You could combine more than one - that was just an example - this technique gives you more "slots" for mods to use. You do have to be slightly careful what you combine, however, there would be several explanations on advanced modding out there - I'd suggest reading those, if you ever need to do that.SantoUno said:
One final thing, that's nonetheless important, you MUST get Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) - it allows you to determine the load order of the mods, which is a simple as having them in a list and ordering the list. However, even if some mods are compatible, sometimes you need one to be loaded before another to avoid problems.