so i have read about effective leveling now and some other useful tips about being at level one for a while to keep a character's enemys at a point where you can dominate them. me playing morrowind as an imperial and coming to play oblivion with the same character i find was effective for me to play and bash my way through enemy's with ease. so i have decided to try a wood elf character i have played before as one got to about lvl 14 with it and ended up being very weak. now i was quite skilled lvl 70 marksman i was topping most of my major skills but i know that i did something wrong because yes my health and fatigue were nothing compared to my imperial fighter. now i don't like the sound of the effective leveling or whatever you call it only because i like to be able to play out the game as i slowly walk and explore all the citys and complete quests thats why the imperial 100 master in blade worked for me but the marksman really got fun for me when i could zoom in it made the sneaking aspect of keeping so much more distance on the opponent i just wished i could create a stonger character without feeling like i'm holding back on playing the game just to "get by" if anyone has made a wood elf succesfully and remembers or knows the attributes skills and overall build could you give me a few pointers to making a stronger bosmer?

i have an idea of where i want to go with my character and I'll list this so you can show me what would be good or bad about the choices

major skills class specialization - stealth and endurance birth sign - thief

- Armorer
- Alchemy + 10 race*
- light armor + 5 race*
- marksman + 10 race*
- sneak + 10 race*
- security
- mecantile

The way Oblivion handles leveling is somewhat counter-intuitive
Having all three skills associated with an attribute as majors makes it very hard to get decent increases to that attribute. In your case this will lead to Agility (which is important for an Archer) being low.

To keep your health up you will want to raise Endurance quickly as well, To that end I prefer to leave Armorer as a minor and repair all my loot before selling it (regardless of the Mercantile perk that makes this unnecessary)

Fatigue is the sum of Strength, Endurance, Agility and Willpower so If you are raising Endurance and Agility your Fatigue will increase nicely as well.

Race doesn't really matter in the long run. The build and progression are much more important because, ultimately, all characters can be maxed if they are built and progressed properly.

I would not put Alchemy, Sneak, or Marksman as majors because they are very easy to level, especially the first two. Similarly, you may have to remove any light armor you are wearing to avoid leveling when you don't want to do so, but at least you can control that more easily. In addition, the general rule of thumb is to have one skill from each attribute as a major for even distribution and progression, so you don't want both Marksman, Sneak and Security as majors. Choose one of those three for a major (I'd choose Security, myself).

Efficient leveling is closer to roleplaying, but that's not for everyone. For example, in real life, you need to plan out a course of action to achieve various goals, and planning/training skills in TES is quite similar to this process. If you avoid putting frequently used skills as majors, you shouldn't have any problems playing the game as well as controlling level progression. This may be somewhat counterintuitive at first glance, but it's just how the game mechanics simulate life development.

There's really no need to hold back at level 1, though, at least as long as you have a good build and follow good progression. In fact, it can be argued that holding back actually undermines your character because equipment is also leveled (e.g., decent alchemy equipment, bows, armor, etc cannot be obtained until you raise levels).

ok i think i see what you are saying and i think this would work better by reading what you told me here
i picked skill i found i can control fairly well with the way i want to play and i know how i can lvl these up when i need to.
just one question about leveling now lets say i start off and just lvl up/train +10 in a minor skill and that gives me the +5 bonus to its governing attribute on my next lvl up. now with the +5 coming from the minor skill does this mean that my next goal is to plan what major skill to use to lvl and gain the bonus from leveling that up as well after using it to level the previous time.

block - endurance
L.armor - speed
H2H - strength
conjuration - intelligence
speechcraft - personality
marksman - agility
alteration - will power

First, some broad advice on creating a stronger character without mucking about with efficient leveling or feeling like you have to "hold back" to give yourself time to increase skills:

The key is to use major skills that increase slowly, can be controlled or that you don't use at all. Major skills are the important ones, since it's increases in major skills that lead to you leveling up. If you increase your major skills too quickly, you level up too quickly and you end up facing opponents who are far tougher than you are.

If you have a set of major skills that increase very slowly or that you don't use at all, then that gives you plenty of time at each level to increase your important survival skills, and if the build is set up well, you won't even have to pay any attention to them-- you'll just play the game, your important skills will increase and, now and then, you'll level up.

Unfortunately though, it's not just as simple as picking a bunch of slow-moving skills that you won't use much, since some of the important survival skills increase slowly. Major skills increase more quickly than minors, and specialization majors increase quickest of all. While that's often a problem, it's sometimes necessary, and that's especially true with an archer, since Marksman is one of the slowest increasing skills in the entire game.

So-- just to make it as an archer, you pretty much need to take Marksman as a major and make your specialization Stealth. It just won't increase fast enough to keep pace with the opposition otherwise. But with a Stealth specialization, that means that any other Stealth skills you pick as majors will also increase quickly, and you don't necessarily want that, since all that'll do is make you level quickly.

In your build, I'd drop Security to a minor right off the bat, for just that reason. It's a stealth skill and increases quite quickly all by itself, even as a minor. And it's really not a particularly useful skill anyway, since you can beat the lockpicking mini-game yourself if you figure it out, no matter what your character's skill level is.

I'd be wary of sneak. It also increases relatively quickly, and should be fine as a minor. You can leave it a major, but if you do, it can lead to leveling too quickly.

Mercantile is probably okay. It's also a Stealth skill, but it's the single slowest increasing skill in the entire game. Even as a spec major, it's dreadfully slow, so it's almost always a good choice.

Light armor is iffy. If you end up in a lot of melee fights, it'll increase quickly and is really better as a minor. But if you're playing as a fairly pure archer, you won't get hit much (since you'll be killing things from a distance) so you won't get much for armor skill increases, and it'll be fine. So that just comes down to play style.

Beyond stealth skills-- Alchemy is a VERY dangerous major. Many people will tell you flatly to never pick it, which isn't quite true, but you really have to be careful with it if you do pick it. It increases very quickly and, if you harvest farms and such and make a lot of potions, you can get a pile of skill increases in a single round of potion-making. Next thing you know, you're level 6 and all you can do well is make potions, which is certainly a useful skill, but isn't going to keep you alive by itself. Personally, I never make it a major, but there are people who do and get away with it, just by being very careful with it.

My Bosmer Hunter build (almost pure archer) is:

Sign of The Warrior
Stealth specialization
Athletics (Acrobatics could also work, though it's a Stealth skill, which is why I went with Athletics)
Blunt (Blade of course could also work)
Armorer
Marksman
Restoration
Mysticism
Destruction

The last two-- Mysticism and Destruction-- he doesn't use at all. That's a good part of how he slows his leveling. Since he only has five major skills he actually uses, and only one (Marksman) that's a specialization, he levels up fairly slowly naturally. That gives him plenty of time to increase his skills at each level. He wears a combination of heavy and light armor, in part because heavy armor provides more protection and in part because heavy armor experience adds to endurance bonuses, and endurance is important early in the game. As the game progresses, he'll probably switch to more light armor, and eventually to little or no armor, replacing it with elemental shield-enchanted clothing.

thanks for the help i think a bit of thought out planning and i'll be all good thanks for the help : )

My bosmer archer worked quite well

But I suplemented her development with armor training

The kind you where build up your armor skills by allowing yourself to be attacked by a weak enemy. ie rat, mudcrab, slaughterfish and respond by doing nothing but practicing restoration

The RP rationale would be that it's nescessary to toughen up to that kind of abuse but only in managed dosages

At any rate that should be a string of +5 for End as you level up

i played a bosmer archer without effective lvling and choose majors i used alot. It was a bit though in mid game but no real trouble.
What else do you use to fight besides bow? You need something vs enemies that get or could get close. You can use strong poisons, illusion mind control or meele. Try to get a detect life item asap to make sure you always get that sneak advantage

blade would be my back up when i was had my last "faulty" character i kept a dagger for my back up and with alchemy as a major i was trying to master it for poisons. my imperial is master alchemist and i know how effective poison can be with a master alchemy kit and 100 in the skill i made some long lasting health drain poison that could take down most targets in a few doses. i mainly would use a poison arrow sneak attack and if that won't kill it then lay a few arrows into it and hope the poison works fast enough. if it gets serious with multiple enemys cornering me i whip out the blade and slash them up.

The leveling in oblivion is a major pain to many, but for me its not so much enemies raising with you.
Rather that if you pick a role to play you find after a bit you need another skill / spell just to get on in the game. which may run contary to your roles skill set... but thats another issue.
As to the main solution to effective leveling take the skills you like for your character, and then set the difficulty level to suit how frustrated you feel.
I know this sounds knarky I dislike being given this advice too, but after so many years of playing it holds true as the best advice.
And is one that I have to remind myself of often, and Bethesda made a very accomadating shift in difficulty.
On very easy just strolling and exploring is quite restfull, after facing hordes of health sponges on normal.

I don't know about marksman for me its difficult to level because I always get 1 shot kills in sneakmode. Guess I should turn up difficulty and stop sneaking?

I will place my character build below. I play on max difficulty with this build using Martigen's Monster Mod plus Francesco's (and several other things, too). No problems at all. I can develop her as primarily a mage or primarily an archer, and eventually she will be maxed in both (and other stuff, too, but I don't use melee). I normally specialize in Magic, not Stealth, but she can also specialize in Stealth (I'm doing that right now with my current play, actually).


Majors:

Blunt
Heavy Armor
Alteration
Mysticism
Light Armor
Security
Speechcraft


Marksman is easy to level if you (a) have at least 25 Acrobatics (so get it to 25 in levels 1-5) and (B) use the lower quality bows and arrows, especially the lower quality arrows. Jump on a nice perch and shoot away at any enemy. No problem. Higher Acrobatics is even nicer. First goal is Marksman 25 (not too tough, of course) next is 50 (primary goal) and finally 75 (takes longer, but not too long compared to some skills like Restoration or Athletics, for example). After 75, it's irrelevant; not much difference between knocking something down (frequently) at 75 or paralyzing them at 100, after all. By the time she's in the upper teen levels, she's very, very powerful and deadly.

Note that I normally do not do Kvatch until level 17+ so as to get the max quality sigil stones right from the first gate.

Also note that playing on max difficulty means that attack skills like Marksman are actually easier to level because you do less damage and thus must hit more times to defeat foes. However, there's this little issue of not being able to be hit due to the damage that foes do to you, especially since my characters do not wear any armor at all (except when training those skills, and they only do that in controlled conditions).

I should add that I have (extensively) tried builds where I put attack skills such as Marksman and Destruction as majors. Those builds were far more difficult for me to play than this one, though. It's counterintuitive, but this is what works for me.

There are three ways around the leveling in Oblivion.
1. Efficient leveling. (going for the +5)
2. Underleveling. (sleeping only when you want to so the enemies do not outpace you while you continue to raise skills)
3. Lower the difficulty slider.

I suggest that you try all three methods and see what works for you. Each of them has their own merits and disadvantages.

4. Carefully designing your build so that once that is done you can play however you want and not worry about levelling (as long as you can get +3s to desired attributes on level up you know your build is doing OK)
5. Mods (PC only)

It all depends how a person wishes to play the game. Most characters I play are kept deliberately low for role play reasons, so the underlevel level idea is actually a tried and true method. A character in the mid range level (16-23) is, in fact, more powerful than the enemies they fight against in the game.

It makes more sense to underlevel than take a character up to level 53. All the player is doing is give more hit points to the enemies. Lol.

The main reason people die in combat is a poor understanding of spellmaking, enchantment, combat techniques, and use of hot keys. It has very little to do with level problems.

One way that you may try I would only suggest it after a couple of playthroughs is to build your character as what you want from the begining on a pc version using the console commands.
Just fix your skills and stats as they would be if this was your build at what a characters potential would be, set a level.
Everytime you level up set things back to what they where at the start, just don't use any other skill apart from majors to stop it from leveling.

I know this is cheating in a sense, but if you dislike silly rpg leveling, and love role playing and rpg story telling. This is one of the ways that is available in oblivion on pc.
Don't knock this idea I have never tried it myself, but after many, many, many nights playing it occured to me it was possible to do.

Just put each level's training points into an Endurance skill. That will assure you of at least +3 Endurance raises which is good enough for a ranged killer.

A simple way to get better Endurance raises, and thus more health, is to have Armorer as a minor skill. Repair everything you come across. At the END of each level, before you sleep, go to a trainer and spend five training points on it. This will get you a minimum of +3 to Endurance every level which should be enough for a ranged killer. It'll also get your Armorer skill to 50 by lvl 5 or 6 when you'll be wanting to start using magic gear. Of course you can also do this with Armorer as a major skil but it'll level you more quickly than you perhaps want to.

Other possibiliies: skill up Block (a minor skill) 10 points each level by holding block against a mud crab or rat. Or just train block each level. Or heavy armor.

This.

I personally don't enjoy scrounging about for a pittance when there are vast fortunes to be made at the higher levels. My characters always level up fairly rapidly.

Having said that, I also need to say that they are very mortal. If they die in the game, I will never load that character again.

Having said that, I also need to say that I play on default difficulty and fighting is sometimes a challenge and sometimes not.

Severus Snape died at level 50 with over 700 hours of gameplay.
Sarrah died at around level 45 after more than 500 hours of gameplay
Angel is still alive and kicking at level 39 with over 200 hours. (currently retired)

Miku is level 14 after 42 hours of gameplay. Despite her Altmer vulnerabilities, she has already cleared out Kvatch, bought a home, and begun her climb up the Mages Guild hierarchy.

I would personally go against selecting Speechcraft as a Major. Personality is a kind of useless skill, in my opinion, but if you are RPing, then whatever floats your boat.

I would recommend lowering the difficulty to just below normal, first off. While it does weaken enemies a tad, you can also use it to learn the nuances of each type of enemy you will eventually be fighting on higher difficulties.

If you have Conjuration as a major, I would say use Summons to the best of your ability. It helps an archer to have at least one other person fighting up close for them, know what I mean?

And get some nice enchanted bows straight off. Do you have Shivering Isles?

If your on PC you can fix oblivions leveling system... Realistic leveling is the name of a mod that will accomplish that.

Even simpler you can just use the console (on pc) to give yourself attribute increases without worrying about 'efficient leveling'... Just make a rule if you get 5s or 4s or 3s (or mix)...

Depends on your level. At lower levels, one-shots are more common, but that'll change in the teens. Increasing the difficulty and not sneaking are good for training the skill, along with using iron bows and arrows even after better items are available.

When you're not just training though, you'll want to keep sneaking, because eventually that sneak bonus will only be the initial damage. By then, you'll want to know how to use all of the archer tricks.