If I play the game naturally not focusing on attribute bonuses will I eventually get underpowered? I am level 8 and I think I am getting a little weaker. Also for the attribute bonuses, do I just have to get 10 skill-ups to get the 5 bonus? Ex. 10 heavy armor skillups for +5 endurance bonus? And do minor skills count?

I can't really give you an advice regarding the first part, but for the attribute bonuses, from UESP:



So, basically yes. You can however, get 5 skill points in Armorer and 5 in Heavy Armor to get +5 Endurance bonus. It just has to sum up 10, so you can have any combination of skills governed by that attribute, as long as you get 10 skill points in the end (e.g. 3-Block+3Armorer+4HeavyArmor, or 7HeavyArmor+3Block). I think you get the idea. If you still have doubts, check out UESP! It's a great website, with lots of explanation and advice.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Leveling

Hope I helped !

Level-based creatures gain +5 for their best attributes every time you level--so, yes. There are ways around this, such as weapons/armor/items and potions/spells that raise attributes temporarily, but bear in mind that your opponents often have these, too. Everybody has their own solution to dealing (or not dealing) with this. I can only offer mine: keep your character's leveling low, and just keep raising skills. Always get +5 multipliers available before you sleep. And use enchant to produce good items for your use, and that of your companions.

If you then find the game too easy, which isn't likely, but still--adjust. Raise the difficulty level, or level up a few times without high multipliers. Frankly, I admit to finding Morrowind's use of leveled creatures only in a few areas much more suitable.

Your basic question has been ably answered. One thing I like to do is to ignore attrubutes that are not key to my character. I find that not only helps focus my character but makes improving the important attributes easier.

My character is a quite specialized mystic archer who has maxed agility, intelligence and willpower.

The rest of her attributes are not important:
Luck - don't care.
Personality - don't care.
Speed - thanks to illusion, she doesn't run, so speed is not important.
Endurance - she doesn't get hit, so hitpoints are unimportant. She is a glass cannon.
Strength - she won't touch a melee weapon and doesn't care about lugging loot around.

Obviously, for differing characters, which attibutes are important can vary widely.

If you play naturally with a most-used-skills as majors build, then yes - you'll tend to get underpowered. And it will be most obvious starting at about level 8. The levels from about 8 to 12 can be murder on an underpowered character, just because all sorts of surprisingly tough things start showing up - trolls, mountain lions, black bears, headless zombies, will o'the wisps....

It's possible to get around it with enchantments and/or alchemy, to buff the character. All sorts of things help - shield, elemental shields, fortify attributes, fortify skills, elemental damage, damage, absorb or drain health and so on. The two most common ways to avoid it in the first place are to efficiently level - that is, to keep track of skill increases and work to get as many +5s as possible at each level up - or to play most-used-skills as minors and level up slowly enough that important skills have plenty of time to increase on their own. That's the build I posted on your other thread. The problem though is that both of those approaches have to be done pretty much from the beginning.

If all else fails, you can just turn down the difficulty a bit. Once you get past about level 12, if you take advantage of some alchemy/enchantment buffs and get some decent attribute increases, it'll start to level out again.

I think this is the best advice of all. The efficient-leveling advice is good, but following it, one will eventually end up with a sort of "vanilla" god-like character.

The Oblivion leveling system, while frustrating at times, is actually working as intended. The idea is that different characters will have different strengths and weaknesses, and that the game will get harder as one goes along, presenting greater challenges to be overcome.

The game does actually give us everything we need to succeed. Pure warriors are able to start with high Endurance, and quickly increase it to massive levels. Stealthy characters build upon speed, luck, and sneakiness. Mages acquire nearly game-breaking Illusion spells as they arrive at Journeyman level. And everybody gains from Alchemy (the ultimate secret for virtually all builds.)

Yes - this is true, but I find it a bit limiting. The game does indeed provide everything a character needs to survive the tougher levels, even with a most-used-skills as majors build and no attention to leveling, but that "everything" pretty much consists of alchemy, illusion and enchantments. And the difficulty bar.

I rib Zak for playing Zakarius Svedlin the Imperial Atronach Alchemist over and over, but I understand why he does it. That's the build that functions best with the vanilla leveling system (not necessarily being an Imperial named Zakarius Svedlin - you know what I mean). But I want to play.... Lud gro-Dalum the freelance Orc adventurer, who travels the world mostly bare-chested, only grudgingly putting on a fur cuirass if he goes into the mountains, who has no interest at all in the Mages Guild or any of the schools thereof and who thus relies entirely on remarkable weapon skills. Or Mindi the Bosmer Barbarina, who floats through the world, not paying much attention to much of anything beyond whatever catches her eye at the moment and who rarely seeks out fights, but defends herself (and her friends) with jaw-dropping violence when necessary. Or.... so forth. Since I loathe efficient leveling and just want to play the game and lose myself in the character, pretty much the only way I can play those characters the way I want to play them is to very deliberately and precisely metagame the build. Because otherwise, they're going to end up Alchemists or I'm going to have to fiddle with the difficulty bar, and I'm just not all that interested in either one.

But yes - pretty much any character can be played within the confines of the vanilla leveling system with a judicious application of alchemy, enchantments, magic (and particularly illusion) and the difficulty bar.

I've heard levels 8-13 or something around there are the hardest, you'll be ok eventually.

I agree fully with you. I was just pointing out that the vanilla leveling system is not "broken" as some people seem to feel it is; it works as intended. The problems you mentioned are the result of imbalance between the available skills and attributes, not with the leveling system itself.

I like to play offbeat characters, so I gave up on the vanilla system a long time ago, and installed the "Realistic Leveling" mod. It eliminates the whole sleep-to-level-up thing (it all happens in the background, and advancement in all of your skills contribute to attribute increases.) It's not perfect, but it removes one more source of meta-gaming, and allows for better immersion.

I played a lot of characters under the vanilla system, though; it doesn't have to be the grind that some people make of it (unless you want it to be, of course!)

Guess what Im going to say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzhcK9NFUVk