I'm curious, say I have 2 esps: one has all the levelled lists changed so that everytime I go to the wilderness, plains etc, I will always encounter 3-5 wolves, mountain lions etc etc. The other esp simply adds an enchanted sword to the player's chest in his/her house in Bruma.

Now, the esp that just gives the enchanted weapon still has all the other things (like levelled lists) unchanged. Looking into that esp, I can see that the levelled lists are purely vanilla.

So... when I tried loading the levelled esp first (using OBMM to change the load order) the levelled lists were altered. The same thing also happens when loading that esp last.

So how does Oblivion KNOW which esp it should load? The enchanted sword still has the levelled lists purely vanilla, and when loaded last OR first the levelled lists from the other esp were active. So how does this happen? I'm guessing it's a game mechanics thing or something, but no one has been able to tell me (as of yet) HOW and WHY.

Any takers?

The second .esp doesn't have the leveled list records at all. Take a look at it in TES4Edit, it'll show you what records are present in the .esp. If the record for something doesn't exist in a plugin, then that plugin won't change that aspect of the game.

TES4Edit?

Also, I know that in my enchanted sword esp the levelled lists ARE the defaults. They exist! Why are the defaults not overrwriting the levelled list esp I created when I load it last OR first? Please explain

Just because something shows up in the CS, doesn't mean that the information for it is in the active file. It will show the information resulting from all selected files in their load order.

TES4Edit is a utility that is used to separate that information. It shows the data on a per-plugin basis.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1109727-the-question-no-one-can-answer-from-my-experience/