We all know Rockmilk is the go-to spot for levelling and looting, but what other caves/forts/ruins are your go-to spots? I just recently started playing oblivion again and I need some places to explore.

My heavy armor warriors go through Ft. Alessia fairly regularly. It's a quick trip, all marauders, convenient to the IC. That's not so much for treasure though - since it's all marauders, it's a lot of weight and not that much value. Good experience though and a nice place to hunt for weapon and armor upgrades.

As a general rule, if I'm just looking for experience and treasure, I stick with monster dungeons and vampire dungeons. Monster dungeons are especially nice, since there tends to be a lot of magical treasure - maximum value and minimum weight. The two along the road to Skingrad - Greenmead and Grayrock - are both good, and conveniently located. Probably the best monster dungeon though is Kingscrest Caverns - high in the mountains behind Cheydinhal. It's huge and unique and has lots of treasure.

For vampire dungons, my favorite is Barren Cave, just off the road from the IC to Cheydinhal. It's conveniently located and has two bosses, each with their own chests. Ft. Carmala, just south of Chorrol, is another good one. It's small, so it's quick getting through it, and it's convenient to Chorrol.

A personal favorite is Infested Mine. It's a large and very cool marauder dungeon. The only problem is that it's way out in the middle of nowhere, north of Kvatch.

+1 on Vampires and Barren Cave in particular. I like Vampire loot.

I like to raid Ceyatatar (a conjurer dungeon southwest of Clavicus Vile's shrine; you can see it from there). It has a couple of boss chests, and Conjurer loot is nice - master level alchemy equipment, magic jewelry, etc. You can even get to one of the boss chests through a trapdoor in the woods without fighting through the dungeon.

Gosh there are so many and it depends what you like. UESP wiki has a full list with details here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Places

Or if you want something specific you can go to UESP wiki and type in something like 'vampire dungeons' in the search feature and it will give you a list.

Buffy adores clearing dungeons. She finds killing baddies with her bow exhilarating. Her faves are forts just cuz she likes them. Her fave inhabitants are marauders and vampires - they are tough and come in a variety (battlemages, archers, fighters).

She doesn't care a whit about loot. In fact usually the only things she picks up are gold coins and arrows. Maybe some scrolls if she needs money. Of course, being a mystic archer, she has no need for strength (or endurance or armor or melee weapons). And she doesn't care about leveling either. She hit level 20 at 400 hours and now at 600 hours she is still level 20 - she's designed to never level beyond that.

I asked for some new dungeons to loot, not a description of your digital wife.

And if you went to the link, you were easily able to find detailed descriptions of hundreds of new dungeons to loot. The description of my digital granddaughter was just a bonus. :twirl:

Ah. It's a shame I went to the trouble of answering your question.

Well.... I'll know better next time. As will everyone else here who counts Acadian as a friend.

Seconded. And thirded.

To answer the original question, I like Bandit Dungeons purely for the lower weight armor and I usually use light armor characters.

I just want to know how that assists in answering my question at all, it's nothing more than self promotion. I have nothing wrong with people who want to roleplay or whatever, but please. These forums sure aren't what they used to be.

My advice is to have some ice cream and chill. :icecream:

ps As a brand new player I'm dieing to understand why Buffy the Archer doesn't want to level beyond 20.

Straight simple answer. Leveling and looting are the most futile activities in this game.

Leveling in Oblivion is just making your enemies stronger and harder to kill. There are a few quests that have a minimum level requirement, but it's less than one or two percent of the total. This in quite unlike most games, where bosses are fixed-level opponents, and if you don't measure up, you can't win. You do want to build up a chosen set of skills, while ignoring others, but it's more a question of balance rather than just "more power!"

Looting gets you things you can use directly, or sell to buy others. Again, that's a sensible strategy for a game that has the most powerful items available for purchase or discovery, but not in Oblivion, where the best stuff is created by the player by enchanting. You quickly get to the point where you have more gold than you can spend, even if you don't haggle prices, and there's nothing to buy that's better than you can make. There are unique items to find, that combine effects in ways you can't match, but overall they're novelties, rather than enablers.

That has nothing to do with role-playing, it's the mechanics of the game, set that way to enable the open-world, non-linear environment that makes TES different from the rest.

What leads you to believe that posters here are under any obligation to freely impart information to you at all, much less that they must do so in a way that accords with your standards? Further, what leads you to believe that it's right and proper for you to lash out at someone who voluntarily offers a response simply because that response is, to you, unsatisfactory?

When you start paying salaries, then you can legitimately criticize the service freely given here. Until then, we're under no obligation to meet your exacting standards, and if you're dissatisfied with the answers you receive, that's YOUR problem - not ours. We're not here to serve you.

@ Izzo- I readily confess to the dreadfully unforgivable sin of sometimes providing a solidly on topic response (such as my endorsemant and explanation of the links I provided), then embellishing it with off topic frills. The motivation for this horrible crime is likely excessive enthusiasm and passion for my character. My primary rule when posting on this or any other forum is this: Be nice. Therefore, I will simply disengage from your thread with the wish that you have a nice day.

@ gpstr, puredragon, suzzi- Thank you, dear friends. It warms this old paladin's heart to see such kind support and indulgence of my well-intentioned quirks. I am privileged and humbled to belong to such a wonderfully supportive community here. :wavey:

@ suzzi- I see my friend ghastly has provided an excellent response to your question. :icecream:

Ghastly did answer the question real well and without spoilers (my favorite kind of answer at least until I'm desparate). However, how can Buffy get by without sleep?

I'm sure Izzo was having a really bad day so we should all forgive and forget. He's just needs more :icecream:

Oh, she sleeps all the time. She simply has four major skills that she never ever touches, and one that she only used to fine tune her top level. :twirl:

A quick guide to leveling and capping leveling, starting with the basics:

Your character gains a level when s/he gains ten major skill increases. Major skills start out at at least 25 (not counting bonuses). Since the skills max out at 100, that means that you can, at most, gain 75 skill increases for each major skill, for a total of 525 for the seven major skills. Since it requires 10 major skill increases for a level up, that means that you can level up, at most, 52 times. The odds are that it will be fewer than that, since at least some of your major skills will be specializations, which get a +5 bonus, and you'll probably gain some bonuses from race, leaving only 70, 65 or maybe only 60 points to be gained in a given skill. In practice, most characters, if played until all of their major skills are maxed, get to about level 49 or 50 (there are exploits you can use to get around that if you want, but I won't go into that here).

Since the game is leveled - that is, the opponents you face and the treasure you find depends on your character's level - there are various notable points in the game at which you open up a lot of new things. Level 20 is one of those points.

The way that you cap leveling is simply to pick some number of major skills that won't be used at all. If, for instance, you only use three major skills, then you can only get, at most, 225 skill increases (3 x 75), for, at most, 22 level ups. That's what Acadian's done with Buffy, though she started out with enough bonuses and he's fine-tuned it so that she only got 19 level ups. Now that she's level 20, there's enough stuff available in the game to make it interesting, but she's not a level 50 superhero - she's just a little slip of a level 20 Bosmer girl.

So it's not that she qualifies to level up and just doesn't sleep. She just doesn't gain the necessary skills to level up anyway. She already has all the combat and magic skills she's going to get, and they're sufficient.


You should've been here to :slap: me when I was writing that last response. I kept telling myself, "It doesn't matter - just let it go - fight fire with marshmallows...." but I just couldn't do it. But you're right.

:icecream:

Best Place to level

Robbers Glen Cave

Best Place to get loot (Level 20+ although you can go earlier and get decent items)

Crayfish Cave

Thanks Acadian, for your always useful and helpful responses. OP, I am sure you can find some useful info in the links and other responses that were provided here. Maybe take a step back and realize that people here were being friendly to you. Personally, one of my favorite looting spots is Lipsand Tarn. Partly because I love the view and the climb up there, and partly because I do love wiping out nests of vampires, and they tend to drop some cool enchanted loot.

And I am glad to hear the Buffy is still meandering around the world.

Well.. mostly they were, with one notable and shameful exception.

I have no doubt at all, in hindsight, that I should've stayed out of this and just let Acadian handle it. While I felt, and still feel, that OP's responses and behavior were unnecessarily hostile and insulting, my own weren't much better. I could try to excuse it by saying I felt it was deserved, but I wouldn't be surprised if OP might do the same.

There's a lesson there, and if I learn it enough times, I might learn it. :toughninja:

So - to that end - Izzo - I apologize for lashing out at you. I count Acadian as a friend, and he and Buffy are long-time fixtures on this board. I've come to know and appreciate both of them over the years, and it angered me to see someone take a swipe at a friend. But it was no more my place to lash out at you for failing to behave as I expected than it was yours to lash out at Acadian for failing to behave as you expected. For that, I'm sorry. I'd rather not have hostility floating around this comfortable sanctuary of a board - even - especially - my own.

And, back on topic - I also take fairly regular runs through Dasek Moor. It's south of Kvatch, just south of the road between Skingrad and Anvil. It's actually very close to the road, but it's situated in such a way that it's hard to see until you actually leave the road. It's a marauder dungeon, so there's the issue of weight, but I think it's an intriguing place and it's conveniently located, so I generally stop by at least a time or two in any playthrough. I also like Charcoal Cave - the one to the east of the road to Bravil, up by the waterfall. It's good-sized with lots of monsters and bandits, and a lot of chests. And you can't miss it. And for a different sort of challenge and some decent treasure, and just for the experience, I like to suggest that everyone go through Elenglynn. It's a really small Ayleid ruin with necromancers, located midway between Chorrol and Skingrad. The treasure's decent but mostly it's just the experience of going through it that I enjoy - it's stuffed full of traps and is, IMO, one of the most dangerous dungeons in the game.

Hats off, the tact and diplomacy shown here are a credit to you all,
On topic, I like the run from Fort Homestead to Sardavar Leed to Fort Alessia, Sardavar Leed can be disorienting at first, but if you do this, you can do anything the game throws at you.

Great idea to loot Barren Cave - loads of great stuff there... thanks!

Glad you enjoyed.

The last dungeon I raided with my character was Fingerbowl Cave, just north of Aleswell. It was a pretty decent haul. It's classified as a Necro dungeon, but there are only like 2 or 3 necromancers in there, down in the Noble crypts. The rest of the place is full of undead, but many of the chests are Necro loot chests. I scored 2 pieces of Master alchemy gear while I was down there, plus some other nice odds and ends.