Oblivion- Am I doing it wrong?

[omega 616]

snip

Just some random tips, as I am not a great class builder.

1) You know that sewer exit were it asks you "are you sire you want to carry on with this class or make last minute changes"? Save just as your nose is poking through that gate. Any mess ups and you don't have to do the very first bit again and can just get on with making a new guy.

2) As soon as your eyes get used to being out of the sewer teleport/quick travel to the Arena and become a combatant, you should rip through all of them easily. This gets you decent money (you can sell all the weapons stored there and the money you get from winning) and a decent first weapon. On the last fight talk to the champion who will give you a quest, do the quest ... trust me.

3) At level 10 look up how to get the skeleton key, it is an unbreakable lock pick that raises the skill by 50 points. It turns lock picking into a joke AKA saves you loads of cash and finds you nice loot.

4) Do every side quest before the main quest. As soon as you finish the main quest all 50 oblivion gates shut, meaning you just lost 50 100% chances for the best heavy gear in the game.

 

[StBishop]

Also, Oblivion's leveling system is fucked. If you can get a mod to make it like the Morrowind leveling system where enemies don't level with you, so, you know, you actually "level up."

If your not on PC then every level or two just slide the difficulty slider down a notch or two to simulate a decent leveling system.

That's my advice.

You're literally the first person to admit (that I've seen) that the Oblivion levelling system is the worst thing out.

I now want to play Morrowind because until now I was unaware that it's levelling system was different to Oblivion.

Well done good sir.

OT: No idea, I'm fucking horrible at Oblivion because I didn't take the time to learn any more about the levelling system after I discovered that Murder fish could kill me with about 5 hits.

 

[szs0061]

get illusion, invisibility spell is slightly gamebreaking also mysticism is great for steal because detedt life is awesome, vamps make great stealth chars once you get that option

 

[szs0061]

they arent called "murder fish" for nothing

 

[madwarper]

So I upgraded Endurance (42), Willpower (32), and Strength (47).

You did something wrong. You should always be getting +5 in the attributes you want to increase. Otherwise, you'll be getting to a high level and have suboptimal attributes while your enemies will more than likely overpower you.

Spoiler

When you first arrive at a level, you should pick 3 attributes you want to get +5 in.
Then, look at the skills that are governed by those attributes.
From them, you're going to want to get 10 skill increases in each of them, 20 from skills that aren't your major skills and 10 from your major skills.

Looking at your custom class, you might want to try to get Endurance, Speed and something else for level 1 to level 2.

So, perhaps you'd want to try to get 2 Athletics, 8 Block, 2 Armorer, 10 Sword and 8 Acrobatics.
*Important* You always want to get the 20 skills increases in the skills that aren't major skills first, because after you get the 10th skill increase in your major skills, it'll stop counting any and all skill increases for attribute increases.

Basically, the major skills that you choose for your character are the skills that are going to be your strongest and easier to level up. The skills that you didn't put as your major or minor skills will be your weakest and will be harder to level up. Minor skills fall in-between those two previous skill levels. When you level up, you base stats level up based on your skills that you increased to reach the new level.

In Morrowind, there were "7 major skills and 7 minor skills. However, in Oblivion, there are only "7 major skills", all other skills can be called "minor", but don't affect your level experience.

But, Yes. Skills that are your major skills, as well as those that fall under your specialization require less exp to level than other skills.

Skills that fall under neither the Specialization or major skills require 100% exp.
Skills that fall under the Specialization, but not major skills require 75% exp.
Skills that do not fall under Specialization, but do fall under major skills require 60% exp.
Skills that fall under both Specialization and major skill requires 45% exp.

 

[XzarTheMad]

A good combination I've found is a warrior-mage hybrid.

Race: Dark Elf/Nord - Dark Elf has amazing resistance to Fire, and can summon a ghost to help deal with most early enemies. Nords have high health, a powerful daily shield ability and a very powerful frost touch spell that kills most early enemies in one strike. Nords also have decent resist against frost attacks, making certain spellcasters and monsters easier.

Sign: Lady or Thief. The Lady is good because of the added health through Endurance, and additional early mana regen through willpower. The Thief is good because of its additional 10 to luck, which affects every single stat and ability in the game in a positive direction (and effectively grants you 10 levels worth of luck increases in a single move), and for the agility which reduces the likelihood of you getting staggered by enemy attacks, which is very nice for early levels.

Major Attributes: Strength, Intelligence - Strength for additional loot-carrying and additional weapon damage, intelligence for higher initial magicka reserves, making spellcasting more viable.

Skills:
Blunt/Blade - Whichever you prefer, but there are more rare and powerful swords than maces or axes.
Heavy Armor - Your strength permits it, and it lends you much better protection, meaning that touch spells become a more viable option.
Block - Unless you're going for two-handed, block is a must. Makes your shield last longer, absorb more damage and increases the likelihood of staggering enemies upon blocking.
Destruction - Damage output to compliment your melee attacks.
Alteration - Shield yourself, feather spells, unlocking doors and chests, elemental shields (grants protection from an element AND a boost to armor class), water breathing and walking. One of the most versatile spell schools in the game. Eliminated the need for security if you train it enough.
Armorer - Keeping your equipment in good shape saves a LOT of money, and ensures that you continually train your endurance (for additional health) while having a tip-top damage output and defence.
Illusion - Not a primary skill of the build, but it can serve two purposes. First, it'll make the likelihood of accidentally leveling too fast smaller, and it has some pretty decent spells, like Paralyze, Invisibility and charmeleon for when you need a bit of strategy.
Merchantile - This skill increases at a dreadful pace, making accidental leveling less likely. Also, getting a good price for your stuff means more money for custom spells and enchantments.
Mysticism - One reason: Soul Trap. Mysticism is kind of a redundant skill with Mark/Recall being removed, but soul trap is a wonderful spell for when you get magical weapons, and will help you make good magical gear for yourself. Certain spells, like absorb and reflect can work well, by turning enemy attacks and spells back at them, but they're unreliable in the long run.

The reason we've left out Restoration and Alchemy is this: Restoration increases incredibly fast, and it shares the attribute of willpower with Alteration and Destruction. Leaving one, especially one you use a lot and is easy to train, means that you will be almost ensured of getting that elusive +5 attribute increase per level up. Same with Alchemy, only you will need to purposefully grind this. By collecting food and making fatigue potions, you can control how many points in alchemy you want (remember, for a +5 you need 10 points in the related skills), and you can sell the potion for far more, in the long run, than you could the ingredients. Eventually, making potions actually becomes a viable and useful means of extending yourself, such as making powerful health, mana and feather potions.

With a game like Oblivion it's important to know what kind of character you're going for. With a bit of playtime and experience you'll soon learn what skills are useful, and what skills aren't. The above is a good, versatile frontline sword-n-sorcery type adventurer, but is not worth a lot in terms of stealth gameplay. Still, I've successfully completed 90% of the game (even the thieves guild) with this character.

For all the touting that Morrowind is the superior game (and in many respects, it's true), Oblivion is only really flawed with its leveling system. Sure, people like to nitpick about things like voice actors, but these are superficial complaints to "justify" them not liking something that's popular. Because, y'know, having an opinion and sticking to it by the value of your own integrity is overrated. Clearly the game is not your cup of tea because they only had 17 voice actors (that's including Shivering isles, 13 without), not because it just didn't strike a chord with you.

Give the game a chance, play around and explore for a bit. With any luck, you'll see the depth of the world beneath the superficial Tolkien exterior, and have as much fun with it as I have.

 

[The Heik]

So I just got the Oblivion 5th anniversary edition so I could play through it before Skyrim and I can't decide whether I suck, a made a bad decision, or if this is how difficult the game normally is. Can anybody give me some advice? I'm closing the first Oblivion gate and I keep getting destroyed by the scamp things.

Dark Elf
The Thief birthsign
Custom Class- Athletics, Blade, Block, Heavy Armor, Alteration, Restoration, Speechcraft
Level 1 (about the level up, wanted advice first)
Strength-45
Intelligence- 40
Willpower- 30
Agility- 55
Speed- 60
Endurance- 40
Personality- 30
Luck- 60
17 Defense w/ armor equipped

In the build category:
Not bad, but I would have swapped out the heavy armor for light armor, as it weighs less and provides better stealth options, and when your light armor skill goes up you get bonuses to armor. besides your stats are all about movement, and heavy armor impedes that.

Also athletics is not necessary, you level up that skill simply by running and swimming (and trust me you'll be doing that a LOT). Same for Speechcraft, as money usually covers for any mood changing you need to do. I'd take sneak instead and armorer options instead

Otherwise you're golden

In the advice category:
Before you go to the first Oblivion gate I suggest you go through the cities and countryside for a little while first to try some of the sides missions. It'll let you practice your skills and get you cashflow and dosh to upgrade your character with. Also don't be afraid to use the wait function whenever you feel you're running low on supplies, as it will heal you when enemies aren't near.

And finally buy health potions whenever you can, because it can save your "life" in tight fights.

Well good luck in your travels of Cyrodil, and may the Nine favour you!

 

[Nieroshai]

Level up or lower the difficulty. Don't worry, the game doesn't punish you for toning down the difficulty. To be honest though, the main quest is one of the harder sections of the game and rightfully so, so it's bound to be harder.

 

[Tharwen]

Oblivion has really weird difficulty swings. I've never passed the first gate on middle-of-the-bar difficulty, so I recommend lowering it.

 

[GeneralKrunk]

go buy an ice spell and mash the magic button like theirs no tomorrow, scamps are all fiery after all.

 

[kyogen]

Slide the difficulty down until you're used to the game. Rethink the logic of some of your attributes. Don't worry about creating the perfect character the first time out.

 

[Riddle78]

The following is how I play. It allows you to easily dispatch any enemy that isn't immune to poison effortlessly,and deal with everything else in a fun and handy manner.

Race: I preffer Redguard. However,you can use whichever race you want.
Birthsign: I preffer The Thief. However,any Birthsign that augments stealth is good.
Class: ALWAYS go custom. IMO,the default classes suck ROYAL balls. My setup is as follows:

Spec: Magic
Fave attributes: Intelligence (You can use Willpower if you want),Speed
Mysticism
Sneak
Alchemy
Destruction
Acrobatics (get it up to level 50 ASAP,dodge rolling is VERY useful with this class!)

The last two skills are always changing. That setup is a sneaky,poisonous (literaly!) mage. No armour or weapon skills are required;sneak in,poison,sneak out. Failing that,hit them with all sorts of spells. Now...I have Mysticism there for the express purpose of using Telekenesis in a combat posture. I'm running the Supreme Magicka mod,which completely retools the magic in Oblivion. It requires the Oblivion Script Extender (Just google it) and Supreme Magicka can be downloaded at tesnexus.com. Supreme Magicka does a lot,but most noticable,allows you to use Telekenesis to pull or throw enemies. This will make combat more fluid and dynamic,and more entertaining. Like throwing an enemy into a lava lake.

Now,this build is used with a modded game. If you don't use Supreme Magicka,disregard my build. However,I still reccomend using a stealthy,poison happy class,with Destruction magic thrown in. This will allow you to effectively combat any enemy in the game in a fun and simple manner.

Of course,this requires you to start a whole newe character.

Enemies immune to poison: Undead (includes vampires),Argonians,Atronachs. In the Shivering Isles,Skinned Hounds are also immune.

Happy playing!

 

[ChupathingyX]

The Oblivion gates in Oblivion were bullshit, you're not doing anything wrong Bethesda were the ones who screwed up by forcing you to go into those damn things.

Anyone here remember the "Allies for Bruma" quest? Yeah it was optional but it is one of the worst quests I've ever done.

Personally I advise you go for a thief/assassin/archer class, they're much easier to use and safer. Also don't worry about speechcraft, it's practically useless.

 

[Altorin]

Athletics does not need to be a primary skill. If you are having trouble killing stuff switch it out for destruction.
Also if you are having problems check out gamefaqs.

while it's true athletics doesn't need to be a primary skill, it's also the only feasible way to get it upto the higher levels as its raise is so ridiculously slow if it isn't favored/majored

getting 100 Athletics when it's Majored/Favored takes about 10 hours of solid swimming. Nonfavored/Minor, it takes about 35 hours of swimming or 70 hours of running

 

[Saelune]

I recomend lowering the difficulty just the slightest bit. Give you enough of an advantage without nerfing it. This is something I recomend to everyone though who wants to enjoy the game in general, If you want more challange though, then feel free to increase it even.

 

[Rule Britannia]

Your race isn't really helping your character's stats. (dark elves tend to favour magic and stealth over swords and heavy armour). Restoration isn't doing you any favours either, if this is your first ever character then it's a pretty good character (mine was a khajiit magic stealth guy, deleted it 2 hours into gameplay).

Th best birthsign by far is "The Thief" regardless of whether your stealth magic or warrior it is significantly better than most of the birthsigns ( although "The Steed and the magic guy thing that gives +50 magicka is also good)

I find the best race is argonian you can make them look fucking awesome if you tone all their colours down to as dark as they can get making the argonian look red.

Clannfears or scamps are a pain in the arse yes I suggest "booking/legging" it run right past everything in the oblivion gates and only focus on getting to the central tower and shutting it down.

If you have 100 acrobatics however you can "cheat" and jump across the lava making oblivion gates a billion times less hassle. (bring health potions and other shit)

I'm currently playing a character that is mostly warrior but uses alteration and conjuration and is actually very successful.

DEAR GOD I LET OUT MY INNER-NERD WITH THAT POST