So I thought I could get some nice modded armor for my female character. After all, modded armors are often better in quality than vanilla ones, right....? And I went to browse the clothing and armor section of the Nexus' Oblvion section.

My reaction:

Damn it! I want to dress to kill, not dress to thrill! And I want reasonably lore-friendly outfits, not fetish wear. If it's armor, it should protect rather than expose my most vulnerable parts. If it's clothing, there's a little more leeway to be creative but it should at least be practical. The image of finding some rat intestine in my navel after a fight, complete with its contents leaking out, is unpleasant to say the least. A hardended adventurer might not be bothered overmuch by it, but at the same time she wouldn't dress to invite it.

It appears, however, that 99% of the modded armors were made by people who care neither about roleplaying nor about world integrity. And the handful of armor and clothing mods I found that were different, well, they were one-piece outfits, which won't do if I want to enchant all my stuff.

Granted, some of the modded outfits are *really* well-made. A few are works of art in the best sense. Still, that doesn't make them more fitting to use for exploring a dangerous and dirty world. In spite of their artistic merit, even the best of them are unsuited to anything but a civilized environment.


After what seems like days of research, I finally came across a set of items that fit my character with one exception. By mixing and matching I could come close to what wanted:

(Apparently, I'm not allowed to post images so I'll have to post this as a link. Why the heck can't I post images, BTW? Not even one?)
http://www.ieldra.eu/oblivion/Nuala2016_13.jpg

Just in case someone had similar difficulties and likes these items, here are the sources:

*Cuirass: Blood Leather Cuirass (Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul by dev_akm)
*Hood: Carla's Hood of Night (Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul by dev_akm)
*Short skirt and leg wrappings: Adventuress Wrapped Skirt (Chapel Shop by VictoriaG)
*Overskirt: Dark Skirt (Caine's Outfit by leomorg). Uses the tail slot so I can wear it over the other one.
*Bangles: Blade Dancer Bangles (Chapel Shop by VictoriaG)
*Rapier: Ritmo Taglierina (Rapier Set by throttlekitty)
*Dagger: Chrome Dagger (Offhand) (Chapel Shop by VictoriaG)

Now for the question: while I'm content with the overall impression, I don't really like the cuirass. I want something more civilized-looking, less like a bandit who made her own armor. The problem (see rant above): It can have short sleeves (in fact, I'd prefer three-quarter-sleeves to full ones), but it absolutely must not have any sort of cleavage, bared midriffs or shoulders, and it should not look significantly less substantial than this one. I've tried retextured vanilla shirts, but they make her look vulnerable, so I'd probably want something with a noticeable thickness to it. Or at least somewhat billowy. At the same time, I don't want metal armor. This character is a mage and a thief. Also, main part of Caine's outfit doesn't work because it's again an item covering several locations.

Can anyone help me? I understand FCOM (which I have installed) has a lot of modded lore-friendly stuff, but those items I have discovered fit mostly warriors. Or don't look civilized enough.

Have you considered Fran's armors, or the stuff from Waalx? I think most of it is just mashups and recolors of vanilla armor, though. You might also find some bits and pieces you like in http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/44678/?, or any of the additions by http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/users/1427818/?. They pretty much do away with boobplate and replace them with female-shaped versions of male armor, thus making some of the default female armor a little bit different. http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/44046/? for Robert's female might have something for you, too.

I also like http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/44529/?. http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/45241/? has different versions ranging from unrealistic to practical. http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/45791/? might have some bits and pieces for you, too.

Thank you for the suggestions. Some of those look as if they could work. Hmm...what I'd really like is the upper part of the Shrouded Armor as a separate piece, but as usual, all the armors I like are one-piece outfits.

As for Fran's armors, I have them installed but if I ran into one yet, it was a warrior-type armor I didn't want. Is there a list of things FCOM adds? OOO has a wiki, but of the other FCOM components I have no idea what to expect.

Yeah, I gave up on modded armors/cloths for the exact reasons you mention. I finally found a nice high res replacer for the vanilla textures and went with that rather than trying to change them to something different.

http://www.waalx.com/RealSwordsForum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=249 has some of the best outfits I've ever seen.

The shirt and gauntlets shown http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/496888743051822757/DE888D4E27C34E51D2B472D48621D7A3A77D58F6/ are from WAC.