so the idea that i've been working on for a week has actually been utterly pointless? go figure.

and why the hell isnt there some source somewhere that tells you how the game actually works? all my manual tells me is what skill boosts the races get, yeah it doesnt list their attributes. the tutorial tells you more than my manual does. and of course the wiki is nothing but lies to try and get you to waste your time doing utterly stupid stuff.

and ontop of that, i cant even get any mods to work. no matter what i do no matter how many 'mod tutorials' i read, i cant even get them to show up in the game! i couldnt even add a bunch of [censored] hats to the game. in the sims 2 and WoW all you do is put the stuff in a folder and they'll work perfectly. oh so many mods i would love to use, but not one single one of them will ever ever [censored] work. and ontop of that i cant even play the [censored] game anyway. it's like this stupid batman arkham asylum thing, it's an offline game that you cant play unless they're servers are up, which they virtually never are!

Just use the console, I don't even try to gain 5's on purpose or effectively level at all it goes against my personal idea of roleplaying.
If its luck you're after type in player. modavluck 50, if you're trying not to face level ??? creatures, just type setplayer level #.
If its just difficulty, lower the setting, thats what I do, I may moan alot and complain about getting cheated by the computer but if somethings too hard I just slide down from the normal settings.

Mods install the download to your data folder making sure the Texture and mesh files are in the data folder too.
Open oblivion intro screen, click data files, check all files run the game..

Read the read me to see where the items are, and how to get them.

Reread to see if the mods require extra files, utilities or mods.

Download BOSS, WRYE BASH / OBMM, and OBSE, to make sure you know if anything is conflicting.

i got a good question: do i have to be any specific level to go to shivering isles? like do i have to be a specific level to defeat this 'gatekeeper' thing i keep reading about?

No.

About attribute incrreases at level up, I agree it's pretty outrageous it's undocumented, but I assume they leave some stuff out so they can sell the strategy guide.

About characters, if you pick a stock class that's well suited to your race, develop useful minor skills and use all available ingame resources (alchemy, Arcane U, artifacts) you'll have a decent character. Not necessarily the "best", but decent.

Mara

i tried to get other daedric artifacts, but failed. i cant possibly do one quest bc the enemies are too strong, and another it wont let me do bc 'it requires a stronger champion' or some crap like that. not to mention those daedric shrines are nearly impossible to find, the sole reason i manaed to find two was bc i ran into one of them in an previous game by shere accident. the other one involved me running through the woods for a couple hours. i leveled twice by fighting wolves.

"stronger champion" = higher level. Sometimes you'll get a questbook entry that tells you what level you need to be. You can look these up on UESP wiki unless you prefer to stumble across them. There's something to be said for the "explore the map" approach to Oblvion (preferably with Athletics as a minor!) but I'm more of a "go do the quest" type myself.

Mara

haha, the character's dead forever. i started a new game (this one with a thief/adventurer) and guess what i did? i overwrote my save game for the main quest! so now if i do want to do it, i really do have to start all over. whenever i feel like doing it again, i will make certain to carry tons of cure disease potions, and perhaps i'll be an argonian to decrease the chances of me getting the disease. though i do admit, i enjoyed the extremely high fire resistance from being a dunmer...

^ Yuck, I've had that happen to me before too. I'll screw up my saves or whatever. And I lost an entire group of saves (basically I lost an entire character) awhile back. Annoying.

I could be wrong but I take xBlackWolfx's post to mean that he did it on purpose. If so, he most likely wanted to prevent himself from going back.

actually no i didnt do it on purpose. i didnt even realize it until when i made that post. but oddly enough i'm not all that upset about it, possibly bc my character was screwed anyway.

You can also carry a lot of Mandrake Root. Eating this will cure vampirism. It also weighs .1 pounds, as opposed to .5 for a Cure Disease potion.

And, if you have to buy it, it's a lot cheaper.

If you want high luck, try making an own class in beggining of game, then choose luck as an attribute.

Any kind of fire magic even the starting flare spell will help. Get off quick hits and retreat or get the enemies back.