To clarify about leveling pts and accumulation... MAJOR sklll pts are stored as you gain them and play the game regardless of whether or not you choose to sleep and level once you reach 10 pts in a major skill. In other words, if you gain 12 major skill pts before sleeping and leveling (after you got the first 10 pts, of course) the extra 2 pts are still stored and are applied to the next level progress.

Minor skill pts are not retained this way. You could blast away and level up a minor skill to 100 in a single level if you wanted to do so.

There is extensive information about this process on UESP wiki. If it doesn't make sense, just play the game with several different builds and track how the skills and stats development occurs. You may need to see it in action. It's much easier than how it may sound in all these descriptions.

In any event, note the math (again). Skills will always start at a minimum of 5 pts, and they have a max of 100. Major skills start at a minimum of 25. There are 3 skills per attribute (excluding Luck, of course). Therefore, for any non-Luck attribute, you can easily calculate how many pts you need to get it to 100.

For example, let's look at a hypothetical build where the three Intelligence skills start at 25, 5, and 5 (I don't care which ones are which and this hypothetical build would probably have at least a boost of 5 or 10 pts on one or more skills due to race and birthsign, but this is just to illustrate the math). 25+5+5 = 35 pts, right? Max of 100 in 3 skills would be 300 pts total available pts for leveling, except that we don't start at zero, of course, so we have to adjust our max available pts accordingly. 300-35 (from the actual starting value of the 3 skills) = 165 pts max available. The question now is ... what does the Intelligence of this build actually start at? I don't know since it depends on race, but let's just say that it starts at 40. That would mean it would need 60 more pts for 100 (maxed). At 5 pts per level up, that would require 12 levels at a minimum of 10 pts per level (for the +5 on Intelligence), or 120 pts total in order to maximize Intelligence at 100 (eventually). We already calculated that we actually have a total of 165 pts available, so this means that there are an extra 45 pts that can be "wasted" as we go through our progression and seek 100 Intelligence. You could burn those points on a minor skill right at the beginning in a single level and take one of the 5 pt minor skills to 50 within that one level, or you could spend the 45 pts at your leisure over a period of several levels, even waiting until after getting Intelligence maxed at 100.


You can do the same type of calculation for each attribute and its associated three skills, of course.

This is where the real strategy lies for maxing characters. As noted previously, some skills are much easier to control and develop than others. The three skills for Intelligence are all very very easy to control and develop, for example. Therefore, even if a character starts with low intelligence and low values for the three governed skills, it's very easy to develop those skills (and add +5 modifiers to intelligence at level up) compared to pretty much any other attribute and associated skill set (i.e., all the other stats have one or more skills that are at least a bit more difficult to develop and control than the three intelligence skills). Willpower would probably be the second easiest (the magic schools are the easiest to develop and control of any of the various skills, and that's why Intelligence and Willpower are almost certainly the easiest stats to develop and control).

In other words... you will always have some pts you can waste in each set of three skills. You can save them and waste them later, or do it early on in the character's life. Obviously (I think) max difficulty encourages you to waste the extra pts early so as to develop a stronger character at the first couple of levels (and avoid dying due to sheer weakness of skills). Perhaps one good example of the issue would be your basic Flare spell. 6 pts of Fire dmg... except max difficulty changes that to 1 pt. Umm... 1 pt of dmg isn't going to do much against an awful lot of enemies, even at low level. Some enemies (Trolls, for example) just regenerate the dmg, so you effectively do zero dmg to them with this spell on max difficulty. That's not true on normal or lower difficulty so it isn't an issue, but max difficulty will require you to revise your approach if you relied on blasting things with Flare previously.

OK I think I got it, based on all the info you guys provided. Here's the build I'm thinking of. I would like to max all my Attributes, and be primarily a caster...

Race: Breton (I just like the Bretons as Mages. They look the part imho)
Birthsign: Mage (I don't want to be too much of a glass cannon with Apprentice, and I'd prefer to avoid the hassle of Atronach)
Class: Wizard (custom)
Specialization: Magic (I want to cast a lot)
Favoured Attributes: Willpower + Endurance (Not sure if this is good or not. Seems appropriate for a caster)
Major Skills
- Armorer
- Heavy Armor
- Light Armor
- Blade
- Blunt
- Marksman
- Alchemy

Those skills should all be easily controllable right? So I should be free to use any of the following skills as much as I like with out endangering an early level up...

Minor Skills
- Hand to Hand
- Block
- Athletics
- Acrobatics
- Security
- Sneak
- Mercantile
- Speechcraft
- Illusion
- Conjuration
- Mysicism
- Alteration
- Destruction
- Restoration

Kinda funny to call this class a Wizard, but his background would be something like... He was raised to be an armorer and perhaps one day a soldier. He had a proclivity towards magic however, and he set off from home to learn from a master mage, much to the anger of his parents. Somewhere on his journey he gets in trouble and ends up in jail.

I am concerned about Cane-Cliffjumper's comments about Illusion magic. Would I really become overpowered with Illusion magic if I simply avoided Chameleon and played on the Highest Difficulty?

If you ONLY rely on casting, that build may be okay. Not sure about two Strength skills and two Endurance skills as majors (why do it when you don't need to do it?) Especially Endurance... unless you are not going to max your health by focusing on maxing Endurance first, that is. If you are planning to max your health by focusing on leveling Endurance until it hits 100, I'd suggest putting Armorer as a minor and leaving Heavy Armor for the major. Not sure where your Endurance is starting at, though, so you'll want to plan how many levels it would take yourself (again, assuming you want maximum health potential). Bretons are good mages, yes, as a race (which is why you wind up running into them as Conjurers or Necromancers fairly often).

You may want to consider using a focus on Luck as one of your two focus stats. It gives you slight advantages if Luck is above 50 (or disadvantages for below 50).

As far as back story, just remember that "major" skill doesn't mean "primary focus of life" or even "prior experience." I mean, you could happen to be born as someone who had a very high constitution and was overall a very strong and healthy person, but simply are not that way psychologically or spiritually, you know?

Illusion is simply overpowered, even on max difficulty, once you get to 50 skill. It isn't only Chameleon... actually, Chameleon isn't even that great until later when you can make 100%. Invisibility is far more dangerous as a caster because it is cheap and can be added to almost any spell.

Until Illusion gets to 50 (and you get access to Invisibilty, Chameleon, Paralyze, and Silence), an Illusion casting character is still deadly versus NPCs (i.e., bandits, etc) because they can spam Frenzy spells (which get even worse once they can add Invisibility onto them after hitting 50).

The Command Humanoid/Creature spells are also powerful, and you need the latter because Frenzy doesn't work on any creatures, only on NPC human-type characters ("humanoid" is a bit misleading, imo). However, those spells are fairly expensive, too, and are somewhat buggy, in my experience (again, until I tack Invisibility onto them).

Finally, if you're more into spectator sports, or simply want to give your character a rest, you can make spells to protect summons, including (eventually) making the summons 100% chameleon.

However, keep in mind that you make the choice. You do not have to use any techniques that you feel undermine the enjoyment of the game. Or you can use them from time to time just because you feel like seeing how they work. It's up to you, after all.

Specificallly, Bretons may make good mages, but they are also very weak physically at the early levels, unlike certain other races such as Orcs or Nords. Therefore, it is understandable that the character may use techniques that may seem "cheap" in order to survive encounters. A different character might be able to take several hits, but a spellcasting Breton in no armor doesn't have the luxury, especially not on max difficulty. Strategy is "don't get hit because if you get hit, you die."

After some trial and error, I've decided that I just flat out enjoy playing my Wood Elf Archer/Thief/Warrior/Mage and my Nord Warrior far more than my spindly Breton Mage. I enjoy the melee combat and the archery quite a bit. I have my build down for the Nord, but I'm not sure how to build my Wood Elf.

I want to use as much magic as I can to essentially enhance combat and thievery, but I'd prefer to do the majority of my damage with a bow and a blade. I think I want to avoid Illusion magic. I've just read too much on how it is game breaking, and that is something I really want to avoid. The only thing I'm worried about missing out on are the Night Eye spells. Will I be able to get around this via items later in the game?

As for skills and attributes, I'd like to make this character as powerful as possible while avoiding anything gamebreaking (ie Illusion magic.) My thought, at this point, on Major and Minor skills, is to choose Major Skills that I plan on using the least. So with that in mind here's how I see my Wood Elf (please criticize, offer changes etc.) ...

Name: Slytche (just sounds elfy and cool to me)
Race: Wood Elf
Birthsign: The Thief (Steed and The Warrior looked good to me also. I liked the Luck bonus though.)
Class: Adventurer (Generic name I know, but that's how I see him. He might have the skills of a woodsman and thief, but he is out to score the big treasure and make a name for himself.)
Preferred Attributes: Endurance/Luck (Was going for as much initial Luck as possible. I didn't know where to put the other points. Is Endurance a good choice?)
Major Skills
- Blunt
- Hand to Hand
- Heavy Armor
- Security
- Speechcraft
- Destruction
- Conjuration

My thinking on this combo on Major Skills is as follows...
- I'll use Blade to up my Strength
- Armorer and Block to up my Endurance. I don't plan on using Heavy Armor with this character (mostly a role play thing.)
- Athletics, Acrobat and Light Armor will all be free to use as often as I like. *** Big Question here: I don't have to have a Major Skill in Speed, or any other Attribute, to get the +5 bonus do I?
- Sneak and Marksman for Agility. I'm hoping to bypass the need of Security by using Alteration magic (that will work right?)
- Mercantile for Personality. Another question here... Since I want to avoid Illusion magic perhaps I should make Illusion a Major Skill? I could then add Speechcraft to my list of Minors (or Security, whichever I would want to use more.) However I was considering just taking/using the Night Eye Spells. In which case I'd be better off to keep Illusion as a minor so I could cast Night Eye at will. Does that make sense?
- Alchemy and Mysticism for Intelligence.
- Alteration and Restoration for Willpower.

I was planning on doing a +5/+5/+1 combo for raising my Attributes, trying to get Luck to 100 as soon as possible. What other two Attributes should I concentrate on first? Maybe I should spread the wealth and try to raise all of them equally?

Please pick apart this template

Yes. There's a particular unique item that carries a night-eye enchantment, there are a few placed items scattered around and there are quite a few generic magic items that have the enchantment. In addition, if you do the MG recommendations and get access to the enchanting altars, constant effect night-eye can be done on pretty much anything you can wear (such as a cheap brass ring) and with a filled petty soul gem.


I pretty much like that build. I do like The Warrior with Bosmer, since it makes up for some of their penalties, but the luck bonus from The Thief is a nice thing to have, particularly early in the game. And yes-- endurance is a good preferred attribute choice-- probably the best, in just about any build.

The only thing I'd probably do differently is to use Mysticism instead of Conjuration. For me at least, it serves just as well as an unused skill (since I rely on enchantments for detect life) and it has the bonus of, since it starts at 25 as a major, giving me the ability to cast (once I buy) soul trap without having to build the skill up. That's the real difference to me-- if I'm not going to use conjuration, there's nothing I want from it, but if I'm not going to use mysticism, at least I do still want soul trap.

Other than that, aside from my personal issue with deliberately not using security and deliberately not using speechcraft, it seems fine.


Nope. Again, the reason that you want one major per attribute is that that leaves you two minors per attribute, so you have twice as many ways to gain skill increases for any given attribute. Having all three skills for a given attribute minors is just that much better, and might only be a problem because that means that another attribute is only going to have one skill that's a minor, but if it's one that you can use well to gain bonuses, that's fine.


Mostly, but not entirely. There are two problems-- first, you'll almost certainly run into locks that are higher level than whatever your current best Open spell will open, so you'll either have to just skip them, or try to open them with lockpicks instead. Second, all Open spells (even custom ones) are on-target, and on-target spells don't work underwater, so you'll always need lockpicks to open any chests or doors that are underwater.

Other than that though, yes-- Open spells will serve your needs. Those two issues though are most of the reason that I just give in and use lockpicks from the start anyway, unless I'm roleplaying a pure mage (or a dissipated formerly wealthy alcoholic Imperial who refuses to do anything that seems like manual labor).


IMO, Illusion makes a much better minor. It's fairly easy to increase any time you want, and it allows you to cast as many light/night eye spells as you might need without having to concern yourself with it. However, if you're going to rely on a night-eye enchantment and aren't going to use Illusion otherwise, it certainly would work as an unused major. I find though that even if I don't use it for anything else, I still cast light/night-eye for at least the first few levels, until I can get something enchanted to take the place of the spells.


Other than that I'd go with Alchemy and Conjuration for the minors, as noted, that's great. And Mysticism will work with Conjuration as the unused major-- that's just personal preference.

For attributes, the most important one to raise early is endurance, since the HP you gain at each level up is a percentage of your current total, so the faster you increase it, the larger increases you get at each level and the higher your max will be. Other than that, I generally end up pouring most of my early attribute bonuses into strength, intelligence and agility, just depending on what's most important for the character. Speed's a good one to take some early bonuses in too, but I usually stop bothering with speed at about 60 to 70, just because, beyond that, speed starts to get a bit unwieldy. And in third person, your character will look like an old Keystone Kops short.

Personality is the least important (other than for roleplay purposes) and willpower can be safely ignored until late in the game. Willpower increases the magicka regeneration rate, but intelligence has more of an effect on it. IIRC, you have to get your intelligence up to about 75 before willpower increases make any notable difference in regeneration.

You may want to build up Restoration for the fortify spells. You can cast them at low levels, but they get much cheaper with Restoration built up. Using fortify, you can boost stats and skills temporarily. For example, you can boost Security to100 just to pick a specific lock, especially one you cannot open with magic (i.e., an underwater lock). This is also useful because it removes the annoyance of the minigame, mostly, anyway.

Similarly, you can boost Sneak to temporarily gain sneak attack multipliers, or Marksman to temporarly gain damage. Or Strength to allow you to carry much more stuff than otherwise.

Technically, no skill is game breaking... or they all are, if you look at it from the other direction. It all depends on how one uses the skills and what they offer. For example, max Sneak is sometimes claimed to be game breaking by some, but it doesn't have to be used in a way that removes the enjoyment. People make choices... some people refuse to use certain items such as the Skeleton Key, for example, because they don't like how easy it makes certain aspects of the game. It feels game breaking to them, but after all, they can choose not to use it. Same with Alchemy or most any other skill, really. Perhaps the only exception might be Speechcraft and Mercantile, but even those might be game breaking for someone who prefers to play by interacting with lots of NPCs (especially Merc due to money being able to buy a lot of power).

Just keep playing and adjust your choices according to what seems fun.


Ugh... I had a longer edit but it didn't post.

Anyway... one final point I'll have to disagree a bit with gpstr about is Intelligence and Willpower for mages. There is no standard rule, per se. The details about the interaction between Int and Wil are on UESP wiki:

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

As you can see, the specific crossover point is when your total magicka hits 175. Before that, develop Int, after that, do Wil. However, it depends on your character abilities/build. In general, mages usually have high Int and thus a high magicka pool from the beginning, especially something like a Breton mage with +50%. In my case, my characters always have plenty of magicka, but they must focus on Willpower and get it to 70-80 ASAP. In contrast to what gpstr says, my characters can (and do) always leave Int until late in the game.

This is particularly apparent if you consider that all that is really important is to be able to chain Fortify Int/Magicka in order to chain/spam spell casting. Doing this gives a temp pool of 150, equivalent to a 75 Int and permanent pool of 150. As long as you can get the chain started, you're fine, even on max difficulty.

Another reason for me offering this input is because both Destruction and Restoration are under Willpower, and they are by far the "big guns" of combat magic as far as directly damaging enemies is concerned. If you are using them a lot (and you almost certainly will) it would be a shame to waste a ton of points for levelng because Int is easier to level, anyway, and that is not taken into account in the UESP wiki explanation.

May I suggest a name for the class that I pilfered from the Conan books, Freebooter. Conan was a Freebooter for much of his career, which is a wandering mercenary sell-sword that hired with their own equipment to perfom special duties or in the regulary calvary or foot units as needed. As for your build:

- Blunt
- Hand to Hand
- Heavy Armor
- Security --- Marksman
- Speechcraft
- Destruction
- Conjuration - or Marksman hear as Conjuration is very easy to raise as a minor.

I might suggest going ahead and putting Marksman in Majors as it goes so fast, and the best skill to train is Armorer every level for End boosts and to get it to 75 asap.

The reason you do not want Marksman as a major is because you are using it for offense and doing so will level it when you do not want to level (i.e., Marksman will be ready to push you up to next level even when you have not yet leveled other skills and thus are not yet ready to level). Same thing with Destruction; you do not want it as a major (definitely not unless you somehow plan to avoid using it as it levels very fast due to having numerous ways of using it). This is why it is good to avoid having your main offensive skills as majors, or really any skills that you plan to use a decent amount and/or that level easily. That's assuming you wish to control your leveling, of course. If you simply want to play and take whatever happens as you go, it won't matter.

I've just learned that Sneak is really really easy to level up. For kicks I leveled it up to 100. At first I thought this would be great for getting my +5 Attribute bonus in Agility, but now I'm not so sure. Do I lose the Attribute bonus from Sneak after the first time I use it to level up, or do those 100 points carry over each time I level up?

You only get attribute bonuses for skill increases you've gotten at that particular level. As soon as you get the level-up message, the skill count starts over from zero.

No carry over for attribute bonuses. This is the ONLY check on levelling minor skills. The levelling system is very flexible but truly funky. No clue why Bethesda has never put in some kind of level cap on skills, as most rpg's do.

Mara

I'm not sure what you meant by no level cap. :confused: Skills are basically capped at 100. Going beyond 100 in some way has no effect for almost any skill. The only exceptions are Acrobatics and Athletics (increase jump height and run speed past skill level 100, respectively) but even they are capped at 255 as far as any effective impact on the character.

So sure, we can boost our skills higher, but all we get is a number. There's no actual effect because of the caps in the game engine.

A "level cap" means skills can only go so high depending on the character's level. A typical cap = character level *5 +5. The ability to run minor skills to 100 even at level 1 is a huge hole in Oblvion's system. Of course that's only one of many ways to create 'super character'.

Mara

I would argue the need to raise Endurance early for a Mage-type character, since the whole point of a 'glass cannon' character is to use the 'cannon' part preemptively in order to avoid having the 'glass' part broken. To that effect, and given the fact the OP will not be using the Atronach sign, I would suggest raising INT and WIL first, both to increase magicka and its regeneration rate, and to reduce the cost of the various spells via increasing the pertinent skills.

If Luck is not to be increased each level (which is a long discussion in and of itself) then Endurance could be raised as the third attribute, however raising Speed early might prove more efficacious as one can then employ hit-and-run tactics rather than staying put and blasting away. Granted that can be a bit tricky indoors, however most enemies do not have much in the way of ranged offense so even a small amount of space can suffice with a high enough Speed.

Not sure where the "typical" came from, but I have not seen such a system (not that I can remember... old age and all ^_^ ) despite playing RPGs since the original D&D and AD&D, as well as the first PC games such as Wizardry I. Most RPGs automatically force you to level once you have your XP to the next level. Even Bethesda's Fallout 3 does it, so it's not like they ported the TES design into FO, at least.

I do not define cap as you do, though. I define cap as a max value for something. Absolute max capacity, that's all that a cap is. Oblivion has it for skills, and stats, so it has caps (for me). That's why I wasn't sure what you meant.

I don't see the ability to power level as a hole due to the fact that TES is designed to avoid the experience points used in pretty much every other RPG system ever made. However, if someone actually does that with a character, they probably are not actually "roleplaying" per se, and thus there may be a question as to why they bought a "roleplaying game." I mean, there are action fantasy games if someone wants one of those, so why make TES into such a game? (which Beth kind of did with Oblivion, unfortunately, but at least the player can avoid some of the action and simply roleplay).

In other words, I do not want some designer trying to force me to play a game as they want it played. That prevents me from roleplaying unless my playstyle happens to match the designer's.

To each their own, though.

The more I play around with the mechanics of this game the more unsure I become about how to best challenge myself. Here are some issues I'm running into...

- The Most Difficult Setting may actually be too difficult! I wouldn't have thought this, it has never been the case in any game I've played... and I've played a lot of games. The only way I can make it through with a low level character is with conjuration spamming. Arrows, melee weapons and destruction spells are a joke at this point.

- What will actually be more challenging in the long run:
a) The highest difficulty setting with a min/maxed (ie meta-build) character.
b ) The default difficulty setting with a "normal" (ie main skills as used skills) character.

- How can I tell what a mid-level difficulty setting actually does? I've tried setting the difficulty slider to 75. I assume that this puts me a doing 1/3 damage while my opponent do 3x damage. Is this correct?

- I'm still very concerned with breaking the game using Illusion magic. I've ruled out using Invisibility and Chameleon. Should I also rule out using the Charm, Frenzy, Command, Silence and Paralyze line of spells? I suppose if all of these will break the game, I'll probably just call Illusion a Major Skill on every character and just enchant items with Night Eye.

Right now I'm looking at playing at 75% on the Difficulty slider and creating a min/max character, but perhaps down the road a min/max character will be doable on the hardest difficulty setting, even with leaving Illusion Magic out of my repertoire. More veteran help please

Nothing breaks the game. All the stuff in the game is there to be used and the game is balanced accordingly. However, you can choose how to play, and that's why your choices and someone else's choices are most likely going to be different.

Take Invisibility under Illusion. You have to know how to use it to make the game very easy, plus you have to actually choose to do so. Even then, you have to work your way up to using it. You cannot do it right out of the gate. Also, Invisibility does have drawbacks (i.e., you cannot do any action or the Invisibiltiy turns off, leaving you visible... and likely vulnerable). If you use it incorrectly, it isn't going to help you, or not help you much, anyway.

So, as I hope you can see, Illusion is no more game breaking than, say, Destruction, or Restoration, or even combat skills like Marksman or Blade. After all, with Marksman at 75, you'll be knocking down the enemies repeatedly. At 100, Marksman paralyzes them repeatedly... same as the Illusion spell. Melee skills like Blade have similar power at high levels. Magic schools like Destruction have enormous damage potential. Alchemy has huge damage potential with poisons, and huge benefits with restore health/magicka, etc.

Of course, you can choose to avoid whatever you like. However, I hope you can see why no area is actually game breaking, and how any area can make the game very easy, depending on the use of the abilities within that field.

Max difficulty isn't really all that hard once you have some strategies down. All the difficulty does is change damage amounts, but ONLY for you, not for anything else. As I posted elsewhere, Conjuration is extremely weak in Oblivion compared to the other magic schools or compared to how it was/is in Morrowind. Rather than attempting to rely on a summons in Oblivion at low levels, simply lure the enemies to a guard, or have a partner (Erthor from the mage's guild quests is a good example) take care of the enemies, or at least mostly. You will be able to help, but you will also be able to stay out of the way. Again, the damage adjustment for difficulty only applies to you (both your damage being 1/6th and the enemy damage against you being x6). It doesn't apply to guards, or helpers, or anyone else in the game world fighting each other (which makes Frenzy very useful, too). You might conjure a summoned creature to help the guard or partner, of course, but you won't need to spam anything (unless you want to do so, that is).

A great way to develop your character for the first few levels is just to stay around the IC. The cave by the waterfront is full of bandits and it is quite easy to lure them outside in groups of 1-2 for the guard at the city gates to kill. You'll wind up with a dozen bodies near the stables, but oh well.

Another example is the Elven sewers. Keep a rat or two alive down there. Use the rats to develop your armor and block (usually Heavy Armor until Endurance is maxed, anyway). You can easily run back out of the sewers to heal up/recharge magicka as need be. To be clear, I mean the first part of the sewers. Don't even bother going into the next area at all, as there's no need.

All you want to do for the first several levels is train your skills and stats (and get a bit of money from loot, of course). At level 5-7, you can change from doing 5-5-5 to 5-5-1 (if you want to develop Luck, that is). You want to maximize point usage during this time, at least for skills that later develop very slowly such as Athletics.

The way I develop my characters is to focus on developing Endurance, Speed, and Willpower for the first few levels so that I can 1) work on maximizing my Endurance and thus my total health, and 2) use my initial points in Athletics and Acrobatics efficiently to develop Speed, and 3) maximize my magicka recharge rate and efficiently use my points in Destruction/Restoration. The lst point isn't as important as the first two, though, at least for me, because the magic schools are easier to develop, anyway. So, I am doing 5-5-5 for perhaps 6 levels, and putting +5 on Endurance, Speed, and Willpower. This gives me +30 on Endurance, Speed, and Willpower by level 7. Or you could back off of doing all three, perhaps doing those three until level 5 (+20 pts in those three) and then switching from Willpower to something like Intelligence or Agility from level 5 to 7 (+5 for two levels = +10 pts). Oh, I should point out that I actually have started to max Personality because Mercantile and Speechcraft level slowly, and I want to be free to use Illusion as much as I like later on (say, after level 10-15 or so).

You have to decide how you want to level and plan ahead for what you want to do late in the game, that's all. Assuming you want to maximize the character, of course... you do not literally HAVE to do this in order to simply play.

By the way, staying around the IC doesn't mean solely staying there, either. You would still go and do the mage's guild quests, and you should be finishing them by level 7 at the latest. I'd get Erthor before doing any of them that involve combat, including something like the Chorrol quest where you have wilderness travel (and thus will have encounters). Also, getting Erthor will cause you to get the weak fireball spell, and that is much more helpful than your basic flare (which is almost useless on max diffculty due to the damage changes). So, you actually go back and forth between the IC and mage's guild recommendation quests for the first several levels.

Now, I have played where I take Erthor with me and travel overland on the roads rather than using fast travel in order to do the recommendations. However, I will warn you that doing so takes a LONG, LONG time due to the many, many encounters you will have. You may want to do it to experience it, but I'll bet you won't want to do it again.

Until you get access to the AU and make your own spells, be sure to pay careful attention to the level restrictions on the spells you have/buy. If you are planning to complete the Leyawiin recommendation quest using Frenzy or Command Humanoid but the enemies are already leveled beyond what the spell you have will effect,, you'll be out of luck and things will be much more difficult. Even when you can make your own spells, you may have to start with spells that do not effect high level enemies (another restriction to schools like Illusion or Conjuration, of course). This means you'll have to keep an eye on your level and understand that your enemies are at roughly the same level or a bit higher. If you can only make a spell that effects up to level 10, you don't want to be relying on it when you are at level 11.

Thanks once again for your input AiTenshi1. I get a little nutty about my initial character creation because I don't usually like to repeat the content of game. For instance in Fallout 3 I played a single character through the whole game.

I think I get your point that none of the skills, spells, etc. really "break" the game. I'm just concerned that the game will become too easy for me after I have invested a lot of time on a single character and I have content left to play. I'd like to be challenged from beginning to end. It sounds to me that even playing on the highest difficulty there are certain character build combos that would make things too easy. I'm just trying to avoid that. Your input as well as everyone else that has added to this thread has helped me mucho

Well, TES games are not intended for single plays, so that may be a problem for you. I mean, there are a lot of character classes, races, factions, etc. In fact, in Morrowind, it isn't even possible to do everything in one play because some factions conflict with other factions. In addition, most people playing RPGs seem to enjoy replaying the game content but using different strategies to see what happens. For example, in Oblivion, the experience is very different between playing a melee fighter compared to a nuking mage caster compared to a stealth character compared to a sneaky mage caster. It's sort of how there's a big difference in wars between bombing targets from afar or shooting them from a distance compared to actually fighting them in close range or hand to hand.

As for what appears to be your primary concern, I have to repeat myself that the choice is yours. No matter what character you make or what difficulty you are on, your choices at any specific level, point in time, etc are capable of making the game too easy... or too hard, of course. Your recent post was saying that max difficulty may be too hard, so I was trying to explain how to play it strategically (as a mage caster, particularly using certain schools such as Destruction, Restoration, and/or Illusion). Obviously, the strategy for a melee fighter would be somewhat different (although at the lower levels, you'd still almost certainly be forced to lure enemies to guards, etc).

Once you develop your character a bit, you may begin to discover that the encounters are easier... perhaps even too much easier. At that point, you can make different choices, of course. You can choose to not wear any armor at all, ever, as a melee fighter (good luck surviving, though, at least without some other type of boosts/protection ). As a caster, perhaps you decide to not use certain spells that you made earlier when the character was weaker. Heck, just take the concept of protection as an example. Let's say you made some protection spells, enchanted items, or whatever at lower levels. That's understandable and commonly done. However, once you get Invisibility and can add it to various spells, what's the point in protection stuff? The enemies can't see you so they can't attack you, and there's no point at all in having protection. Of course, that's a choice, and you could also choose to go with the protection, maybe even making more powerful protection, and simply not use Invisibility. I am only pointing out that you should be thinking of what the character would do, why they'd do it, etc, because after all, that's roleplaying.

In other words, you'll be adjusting your choices throughout your play, at least if you want to keep the encounters challenging. For myself, I don't care about encounters much because an RPG is about roleplaying rather than action/combat. For example, I never do anything with the Arena. My characters have no interest, that's all.