Hello all. I've made a few posts here already. My Forest Home thread is fairly new. I'm looking to get the most I can out of Oblivion, and to have it be very challenging from start to finish. I'll put down what I'm looking for, as well as a bit of my gaming background in list form. I imagine it's easier to look at a list than a big wall of newbie text Any help/advice would be very much appreciated...

- I have the GOTY edition on the PS3.
- I have many, many years of rpg, mmorpg and 1st person shooter gaming experience.
- I get bored as soon as things get too easy.
- I LOVED Fallout 3. I did every quest in Fallout 3 on a single character. I played on the highest difficulty level all the way through. It got waaaay too easy for me however.
- The harder the game is the more I like it, provided I can actually finish the game and do the quest. Making it so difficult as to be literally impossible kinda defeats the purpose of playing.
- I want to make a "powerful" character, but I also want to hamstring my character so I will always be challenged.
- I WANT AS FEW SPOILERS AS POSSIBLE!!! I really screwed up with Fallout 3 by reading way too much of the wiki and too much of the forums. I've been skimming these forums but I've also really tried to avoid absorbing too much.
- I have just started and have gotten through the newbie dungeon on the highest difficulty.
- I plan to play on the highest difficulty from start to finish. I did check out this section of the Wiki for a bit of info on that... http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:The_Hardest_Difficulty_Strategy_Guide
- I LOVE to role play as much as I can. To that end I did check out this section for tips... http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Roleplaying
- I'd like to play a mage character, but am hoping to make them a bit of a glass cannon mage. Make things go boom or die trying
- I'm open to any class ideas, hybrid or otherwise. I don't want an unbeatable godlike character.
- For a Fallout 3 reference, I designed my character to not have ANY combat related perks. It still became too easy eventually.

Some issues I'm particulary concerned about...

- Should I stop leveling at a certain point? I don't totally understand the leveling system, but what I'd like to achieve is a point where the toughest creatures/NPCs/enemies will spawn, and at the same time I won't be too powerful. From what little I've read I'm guessing I should stop leveling around 15 to 20???

- It sounds like it would be a bit broken if I tried to make a Mage character that focuses on Chameleon or Invisibility and Summoning. Is that accurate? In the vein of a glass cannon mage how would it be to focus on invisibility or chameleon (I don't actually know what chameleon does) plus Destruction? I would imagine I could eventually become powerful enough to wipe out one enemy but have to use some trickness to take on multiple enemies. This is the kind of scenario I'm looking for.

- If going the glass cannon mage would be a good route, how would a Breton with the Apprentice sign be? I'm interested in the Apprentice sign because I read it gives you access to the Weakness to Magic when you make spells. It also sounds like you can acheive that without the Apprentice sign, by doing the appropriate quests. I very much like the idea of create my own spells and "Spell Stacking." I understand Spell Stacking can be quite powerful, but again I'm hoping I can temper my overall power with a "glass cannon" type of character.

- I'm fully willing to invest heavily in social skills, or social spells if it'll add to the overall quality of the role playing experience. If it will just making getting info overly easy I'd rather avoid that kind of thing.

- As opposed to a glass cannon style mage, I'd probably really enjoy some kind of hybrid type character. Perhaps a mage style assassin who specializes in poisons and destruction magic? I'm not sure if something like that is viable.

- Should I avoid conjuring altogether? I like conjuring the skeletons, but I don't want to just become invisible, conjure a Balrog (any kind of powerful summoned creature) and wipe out anything.

So that's where I am. I played Fallout 3 for nearly a year. I loved it, but it just became too easy. I want to make Oblivion hard as all heck, but still develop a powerful (yet totally challenging) character. To top it all of I want to do this without spoiling the game with the Wiki and the forums. This is a tall order, I know, and maybe it's not possible. I would really really appreciate some help here, because I don't see being able to build my character to my strict standards without spoiling all the quest and mystery of the game. I don't expect anyone to answer this long ass post point for point. Just any advice on any of my questions or the situation as a whole would be great! So.... HELP, PLEASE!!! I could really use it

alright. chameleon is partial invisibility, but you can still use things like doors etc. while invisibility, no one can see you, but you cant use anything.

if youre going glass cannon, wear no armor. conjuring is good as a distraction, just dont use anything too powerful. also, glass cannon, i would suggest, atronach altmer

do you have SI? if so, try that. not right off the bat, mind you, but around lvl 20 or so.

What is an SI?

As for the sign atronach... will I still be able to replenish my magika often enough to make it my main form of attack?

si, shivering isles, and with atronach, you need potions

If it's part of the Game of the Year edition then yes I do have it.

it should be

Knowledge is power so acquire it the fun way - through experience.. Stop reading already and go play. I don't think you'll stumble on the perfect character that will make highest difficulty too easy. Past level 25 or so characters tend to lose power compared to the monsters because your damage potential is maxxed but health (yours and theirs) keeps increasing with level. Oblivion is a skill based game so level alone does nothin' for your power.

Mara

Wow, hello and welcome to the forums!

Long list of stuff there, but I am a mage character so I can help you out.

Mages go into different sort of styles -- be it Glass Cannon's like you say (Destruction-focused, High Magicka, low Health), Sorcerors (summoners in metal armour) or Battlemages (use weapons as much as magic).

There are others, too and you really need to experiment to find which style is best. Try starting out as Breton, Built-in Mage class and Atronach.
Difficulty wise? Put the slider on 3/4 way to end, you'll make it through levels 4-5 but after that start getting whupped.

Shivering Isles can be quite difficult, as the enemies there are brutal. You should enjoy the challenge though.

Check out my thread here : http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1112755-anatomy-of-a-mage/.

Make sure you play as much as possible. To get to making spells, go around to all city's (except Kvatch, you'll learn why) Mage Guilds and do their reccomendations. Once you have them you can go to the Arcane University and go to the Praxographical Centre to make spells or the Chironasium to Enchant.

Conjuration is good but don’t worry about summoning anything too strong for now; skeletons, scamps and even clanfear runts wont do much damage. When you get to Dremora and Zombies it’s different.

Also, if you may want to look at playing “Dead is Dead”. It isn’t a game mode but no doubt you have read about it on the forums. Basically it’s a belief that if your character dies you do not revert to a happier save, but start all over again. Coupled with the atronach, high difficulty and maybe running into some Firey Gates of Oblivion (do the Main Quest, one about Jauffre and Martin) you should break a sweat every time you fight.

If you have any other queries, try smaller, separate threads, I tend to post in pretty much everything, hope you enjoy the game! bliviongate:

If you want to make the game truly difficult, play "dead is dead" (no reloading when you die, unless you died due to a game glitch), turn the difficulty slider all the way to the right, stick with your jail clothes, only use the starter spells, and don't loot anything. Evar.

That'd probably fall under "so difficult as to be literally impossible" however. Still, those can give you an idea about how to increase the challenge yourself.



I'd argue that all mages are pretty much glass cannons. Oblivion magic can be very overpowered, especially once you learn how to create the really effective custom spells. Wearing armour reduces your spell effectiveness, so it's common to just wear robes or plain clothes instead so your spells hit with their full effect; it's mainly noticeable with Illusion spells, like a Demoralize up to level 10. If you're wearing armour, your spell effectiveness will be more like 90% instead of 100%, which means if you cast that spell on something that's level 10, it probably won't take. It'll also reduce damage caused, but that can be harder to notice, especially with custom spells and multiple hits.

And instead of wearing armour, a mage will usually enchant their outfit with, and cast, Shield or elemental Shield spells to provide protection. Spell Absorption and Reflect and Resist spells also help reduce damage. At some point, you'll probably want to monitor the use of those spells, to prevent the godly character that will often result.



When you get ten increases to your Major skills, you'll level up. The only way to control leveling without mods is to pick 7 skills you'll only use until a certain level. Once all Major skills are maxed, you'll stop leveling, and normally that happens between 50-65 IIRC.

Leveling to around 30 is pretty good, that ensures that all possible enemies will have appeared (many don't appear until you reach a certain level), and, if you care about the quality of quest rewards, the best levels should be available. The world levels up with you too, so for the most part, you won't be running around one-shotting everything. Mudcrabs, probably, but find yourself some goblin warlords and try it.



Summon + Invisibility is just one of several tricks to surviving encounters, so no, it's not something that'd be "broken." Doing it all the time, yeah, it could get boring, but when things are about to go terribly, horribly wrong, it can save your life.

Just play around with all the different schools and see which spells you prefer to use. For example, there's a lot more to Illusion than Invisibility and Chameleon, and with Conjuration, you can turn away the undead (like to thin a crowd to a more manageable size), or conjure specific creatures for specific fights. There'll be lots of reasons to use most of the available spells, so try them all and see how they'll fit into your playstyle.

Same with fighting a single enemy versus multiple enemies -- there are different tricks to controlling crowds and utilizing AoE.



Breton would be a good choice for the Apprentice sign, due to their natural resistance to magicka, and enchantments can be made and found to compensate for the other 50% weakness. You can buy the spell though, so Atronach would be a good choice just for the extra magicka bonus, and learning how to cope with magicka not regenerating would probably be an acceptable challenge. In fact, a lot of people prefer that sign (I'm not one of them, Mage is fine for me).



Meh, Speechcraft really doesn't provide much benefit overall. There are times when you'll need to increase someone's disposition towards you in order to retrieve information for a quest, but that can be achieved with a Charm spell. If you want to be chatty, you can without worrying about that skill, because it only applies when you do the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWW0YY6OYTM (the link shows a video of how the minigame works, so don't click if you don't wanna know yet). Also, increasing a vendor's disposition will let you haggle with them more, for better deals. Your Mercantile skill will increase on its own as you buy and sell goods, and it's another skill that isn't necessary to work on. Past Journeyman level (which isn't too difficult to reach just by selling stuff), the perks just give the merchants more gold for you to take, and by the time they're activated, you won't usually need them much.


Oh yes, definitely. There are 21 skills to use, and it's completely up to you how you use them. There are several default builds that can give you an idea of the possibilities, but keep in mind that just because a skill isn't a Major doesn't mean you can't use it. Part of the appeal of TES is the ability to create a wide variety of characters -- and roleplaying will have a big impact on that, because your character will probably only use certain skills anyway.



Totally up to you. Most summoned creatures are tough, but you'll only be able to conjure them for well under a minute (a custom 2-minute spell costs an outrageous amount of magicka), so they simply won't be around long enough to tear up the place. However, increasing the difficulty increases their strength too, so although you'll be taking more damage and dealing less, they'll be right in line with the enemies in that respect.

Also, conjuring critters doesn't mean you have to go invisible too. There are several reason why a summon can be useful, like if you're indoors and you want something big to block exits and prevent runners from escaping, or a runner has escaped and you want something that can catch them and continue the fight while you can catch up. Clannfears are great for that. It's also another way to fight multiple enemies -- while you're dealing with the guys over here, your atronach can be fighting the ones in that corner over there. It's also amusing to watch melee fighters try to fight a wraith, because their weapons usually won't cause any damage, so the wraith can continue softening them up for you.

Regarding http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Shivering:Shivering_Isles -- the basic PS3 Oblivion game will include http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Knights_of_the_Nine, while Game of the Year will also have SI, the only expansion. The rest of the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Official_Plug-ins isn't available on the PS3, since development was finished well before the PS3 was released. Both of those can be done at any time you want, and KotN is especially good to do early on for goodly characters (paladins, crusaders and the like).

SI is also leveled with you, so you can enter it at any time, just like the rest of Cyrodiil (although you'll need to do a few things initially to gain access to the whole island). And as mentioned, the creatures there are a bit tougher than what you meet in Cyrodiil.

Also, the most important thing to remember is that Oblivion is meant to be experienced, not beaten. There's no "Game Over" screen, you just keep playing until you decide to stop. There are lots of things to do, and there's even a 100% completion page at the UESP, but if you're into roleplaying, you'll probably want to experiment with several different kinds of characters who'll each do certain parts of the game, or come up with really good reasons to do some of the things that contradict each other, like the Dark Brotherhood and KotN.

Chameleon is different than partial invisibility. Simply put, Chameleon determines the ease/range which you can be detected. That's why you can do various actions with Chameleon but not with Invisibility.

However, if you want to keep things difficult and challenging, simply do not follow those spells.

Same with other ideas. If you want challenge, you make the choice. The game isn't going to change to counter your selections, after all, so you'll have to choose how to play.

That said, you'll have to take some time to anolyze the ins and outs of the game by actually playing it extensively. Guides, wikis, and individual posters can offer their own advice, but that's subjective to their own play style (not to mention, at least on PC, the mods they have installed, which are also their choice, of course).

Illusion is an enormously powerful school of magic, particularly in synergy with both Destruction and Restoration schools, and somewhat with Conjuration. However, Conjuration by itself is not actually all that powerful even when you summon higher level creatures. After all, if you meet a group of 3-5 enemies who all want you dead and you summon 1 creature, not all of the enemies will fight the summons... and they all may even ignore the summons and come for you (just as you know to go for a summoner rather than their summons, right?) In addition, many summoned creatures (all the zombie line, for example) are very, very slow, and many enemies easily outmanuever them (usually running right past them to attack you, anyway, at least as long as the environment allows it). You'll do the same thing when facing such enemies, so it makes sense, after all. Obviously, turning invisible and/or having a high (very high) Sneak can counter this, too. It's up to you, though.

Destruction is nowhere near as powerful as it may seem, at least not by itself (as far as individual spells, that is) or compared to other schools. However, if you begin stacking spells properly and/or synergizing it with schools such as Restoration and Illusion, you'll be virtually immortal. Again, though, it's up to you how to play and you don't have to do what it takes to get that type of effect. Also, spell stacking can be (and often is) done incorrectly, so it takes experimentation, anolysis, and practice.

If you want a "glass cannon" but don't want to resort to using lots of Invisibility (or 100% Chameleon, which will really take any challenge at all away, for sure) then you'll want to consider how to get out of certain situations. Perhaps a high Acrobatics so that you can jump on perches out of reach and blast stuff from there (or summon things, if they live long enough for the enemies in question). Perhaps a high Sneak... or perhaps a high Alchemy and potion use to counteract the weakness you have.

There are lots of possibilities, so if one set of choices seems too easy for you, make different choices and see what happens.

Great summaries for the chum masta. I have an Atronach birthsign. Your magicka will not regenerate on its own. There are several ways of getting it up (so to speak), I usually rely on potions to restore my magicka. This is usually the most sure way. The bonus of this birthsign, is that I must be careful as to what spell I use, as that precious magicka dwindles quite fast. I don't use healing spells so much, as it costs too much. So I resort to potions for this as well. One thing that I might point out is that at Master Alchemist, your potions will be far more powerful than anything in the game, so you might want to limit yourself to healing potions that the game provides, either by purchasing them or finding them in random loot. There are other ways to regain full magicka, but you will find out, as you toodle around.

Wow!!!! So much great info here.... Many, many thanks all!

Dead is Dead :huh: That might be too much for me. One of the reasons I wanted "cheat" a little and ask a few character creation questions here, is that I have a very difficult time letting go of a character I like. I get invested in the character and I have a hard time switching to something else. I like the idea of Dead is Dead, but I'm not sure I could follow it in practice. This game has so many interesting combos, that maybe I play my main at the hardest difficulty and try several Dead is Dead characters at a lower difficulty level.

I'm playing a Breton/Mage/Mage Sign character right now on the highest difficulty level... it pretty damn hard Basically, my skeleton is the only thing keeping me alive. A single wolf kicked my ass so hard I was literally embarrassed. That's good! It's what I'm looking for, but I don't see how I could progress very far doing Dead is Dead at this difficulty level.

I tried out the Atronach sign a bit. I just don't like it. I can see how it would help to make a very powerful character, but I just enjoy casting little spells over and over. Maybe the novelty will wear off soon, but casting Detect Life over and over is kinda fun. I'm so vulnerable at the highest difficulty level that I don't think I need to add to that vulnerability with the Apprentice sign. Here's a question though...

Will I be unable to cast certain high level spell, or custom spells, as a Breton with the Mage sign? Will I simply not have a big enough Magica pool to cast the Super-Atomic-Fireball-From-Hell type of spell?

AiTenshi... I like your idea of using Destruction magic for damage and perhaps a combo of Sneak and Acrobatics to avoid damage. How would a character that focused on Destruction, Sneak, Acrobatics, Athletics and Speed work out? I'm not sure what else I'd concentrate on. Any ideas for a character like this? Running as fast as possible seems like a good idea at this difficulty level. I'm running a lot already

At this point I don't think I want to pursue a melee based character. So far I'm really enjoy the ranged combat, ie. spells and the bow, but the melee combat is a bit too chaotic for me. Perhaps I'll get into that latter.

I don't think I'm satisfied with my Breton/Mage/Mage sign guy, only because it seems a little too generic. I think some sort of physicality needs to be added to my play style here.

As for roleplaying... I've been doing that for years. Whatever character I end up with soon have a personality, disposition and background.

Oh, one more thing... I played a good guy through and through in Fallout 3. I don't think I want to play an "evil" character. It's just not my thing. A mischievious theiving character I could probably get behind however Is specializing in Security worthwhile, or would I be better of with a magic specialization that would give me similar powers of... entry?

Anyway, Oblivion is great, and this forum is great. I think I'll be around for quite some time

As you increase your skills in magic (leveling up your skills), the magicka cost for your spells will decrease. So those high-level spells could well be in reach, by the time you get better at casting spells.

There are a few tricks. The way leveling works, you can use a skill governed by Intelligence that isn't a Major skill, and get bigger multipliers to Int when you level up, which will give you a bigger magicka pool. For instance, don't make Alchemy a Major, but brew lots of potions, and you'll increase your Int by a lot more when you do level up.

One thing you can brew is Fortify Magicka potions. Anything with Fortify Magicka will increase the pool, allowing you to cast bigger spells. Enchanting some FM onto your gear also helps. If you do any of the main quest, you'll eventually have Oblivion gates to close. To close them, you remove the Sigil stone from the top of the biggest tower -- and that Sigil can be used to enchant items, including a nice boost to your magicka, especially at later levels.

You can also make custom spells that cost less magicka by working over longer periods of time. It won't be a :nuke: spell, but it'll still do a big amount of damage.



Alteration has a spell to open locks, and if you're already casting Shield spells, that school will level well enough to use better Open spells. You'll need to make your own Open Very Hard spell however, because that one can't be purchased (and as long as you've bought the simplest spell, Open Very Easy, you'll be able to make your own stronger spells).

Another alternative is to do a quest at level 10 for an unbreakable key. Since you don't want spoilers, I'll just say this -- when you see statues out in the wilderness, check them out.

With respect to speed in-game, it's important to remember that your character's speed is based on both the Speed attribute AND Athletics skill. It's also worth noting that enemy speed seems to be based in part on character speed in some way (but there doesn't seem to be anyone who has discovered the specific formula/relationship even on UESP wiki). Lastly, the Feather effect does more than just decrease encumbrance; it also causes you to move quicker/more freely.

As for your suggested focus, I would add something besides just Destruction. Illusion synergizes great with Destruction and Restoration, but it may make things too easy for you. Restoration is also a good choice (Absorb is very nasty). The Weakness spells are in Destruction and you want those, of course, especially Weakness to Magicka (need 50 skill). Remember that Athletics is almost impossible to control for levelling purposes, and Acrobatics is very difficult to control because you often need to jump to places (which means it can level when you don't want it to level). You may also want to consider what Destruction area you prefer. Elemental spells are flashy but expensive. Direct Damage spells are potent but expensive. Drain spells are much cheaper but temporary unless the enemy dies while they are in effect.

NOTE: Restoration's Absorb spells work on enemies as either Drain or Damage, so they function as Destruction effects even though they are in Restoration.

You may want to read up on the general mechanics of magic on UESP wiki. In Elder Scrolls, magic generally works from a low level, multiple cast sort of stance (as opposed to a single, "nuke" effect). You can create and cast single huge spells, of course, but the actual effect is very likely to be far less than if you created smaller spells and cast them repeatedly. You can see this reflected by the magicka costs of the spells, as well as the actual effect, by comparing the two general types.

As far as casting and having magicka, it really isn't an issue, but that assumes that you understand how to work the magic system to make it work for your character. For example, I think that many people with Atronach birthsign worry about restoring magicka and use potions, or perhaps drain magic from something. However, if you create spells with the intent of chain casting, such an approach really doesn't matter much. Specifically, you use Fortify Intelligence and Fortify Magicka to temporarily increase your pool, and tack on the desired effects at the end, keeping the entire cost of the spell within half of the grand total increase from the fortify effects. For example, if you wanted to make a maximum chain effect in this way, you would be able to cast up to a 150 magicka cost spell (Fortify Intelligence 100 = 200 magicka, Fortify Magicka 100 = 100 for a total of 300 boost). The reason this works is because you have a temp boost pool of 300, the spell you're casting costs 150 and takes half the pool with 150 remaining, and then the next cast repeats the process (+300, spell cost 150, etc). As you long as keep casting, you go down to 150, and once you stop, you'll drop to zero and have to recharge. Once you need to recharge (i.e., stop casting a chain), an Atronach birthsign character would be forced to use potions of some other means, but only at that time. Other birthsigns do not have the problem, of course. You can also do this with less than max (and often will to save on total cost). For example, you can do Fortify Intelligence 50 (100 boost) and Fortify Magicka 100 (100 boost) for a total of 200, and have a cap for spell cost at 100 rather than 150. All of this assumes wearing no armor so that you have max spell effectiveness, of course.

One final note... you can also chain fortify effects to build a huge (temporary) pool of magicka. However, this is very inefficient and the actual effect you get from the single cast will be far less than if you had spammed spells instead. You may get a "wow, cool" effect, but actual gameplay is much more effective by chaining spells and continually casting.

On that note, I guess I should also add the somewhat obvious point that chaining isn't restricted to offensive spells. For example, you can chain spells that fortify strength so that you can carry more stuff (as long as you keep casting, obviously).

Breton = easy mode regardless of the difficulty setting. IOW Breton is the super race. No worries about your magicka pool/sign. Any race can acquire as much magicka as needed to become a super mage.

Mara

I guess that any race can actually be a super mage... magic is far more powerful than any other ability in Elder Scrolls, but given the lore and settings, it should be that way. :foodndrink:

OK, I didn't have a clue what this meant. After looking at the Wiki on Leveling here... http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Leveling .... I am even more confused

So... In order to create a "perfect" character you need to control your leveling up, somehow, by leveling a "minor" skill that is associated with each attribute to 10, BEFORE you level any of your main skills to 10. <--- is this correct? I'm not exactly sure what that even means. Could someone please provide an explanation of this for us dummies, please.

As I said earlier, I do wish to create a "powerful" character, while keeping the game challenging at the same time. So far the highest difficulty level has been EXTREMELY challenging for me. I imagine that's all part of the learning curve though.

Here's my main question... If I just go about leveling randomly will I still, eventually, be able to hit 100 in all my attributes? If the answer is "yes" I can just ignore the whole effecient leveling thing correct? Eventually, if you keep leveling, how ever inefficiently, you'll still hit 100 in everything right?

You might have to resign yourself to wasting one or two or even more chars untill you get the hang of efficient leveling, I had to

Let's see if I can break this down in a concrete example

Breton

Majors are armorer, heavy armor, athletics, blunt, illusion, mysticism, speechcraft the last three of which she is not likely to ever use, they are just ballast to stop her from leveling too high

She recently ran through a level using only three skills, marksman, alteration and athletics

Athletics is the major, the other two are minor

She spent that level hunting down marauders with a bow and arrow

Now she has majors in heavy armor and armorer, she didn't use those skills for that level

She used a shield spell for protection instead, and simply used a replacement bow for when that got too worn out

She just kept stashing all the armor she collected from fallen marauders away

By the time athletics had gotten ten increases she had already had more than that for marksman

She started the level practing her alteration for 10 increases

So, at the end she had +5 to go in to willpower, speed and agility

Next level get another 10 for alteration

Practice whacking a conjured skeleton to get 10 with a blade (like alteration blade is a minor]

Then I built the armorer skill [a major] 10 increases by repairing my loot in one long session to get to the next level

For that level I get +5 for willpower, strength and endurance

So it goes....

By the way, her first master skill is conjuring, but that's a minor

Yes-- you're correct.

Basically:

The best bonus you can get to any attribute at level-up is +5. In order to get a +5, you have to have gotten at least 10 increases in skills associated with that attribute. You get to apply three attribute bonuses at each level up, so the best you can do is three +5's. In order to get three +5's, you have to have gotten at least 10 skill increases in skills associated with three different attributes, for at least 30 total skill increases. But since as soon as you get 10 major skill increases, you level up, you have to get at least 20 of the necessary increases in minor skills instead of majors.

And since, just in the course of playing the game, you'll also get skill increases in attributes for which you're not going to take a bonus, you almost always need more than 30 skill increases to get those three +5's, which just means that many more minor skill increases you need to get.

As a simple example-- you decide that, at this level, you want to get bonuses for strength, endurance and intelligence. Your character has blade as a major skill. You go out and get 10 blade increases, which will give you a +5 for strength and BLAMMO-- you've got 10 major skill increases and you level up, before you even get a chance to get the skill increases you need for bonuses in endurance and intelligence.

So, instead, you go train armorer, which is a minor skill, and get 5 endurance skill increases that way. You let a rat beat on your heavy armor for a while (heavy armor is also a minor) and repair your gear from time to time, and, that way, end up getting 10 skill increases for endurance skills. Then you go harvest a farm or two and make a bunch of potions and get six alchemy increases (minor skill, intelligence), then spam Minor Life Detection (mysticissm, also a minor skill) to get four skill increases in that, and there are your 10 intelligence skill increases. Then you go out and get your 10 blade increases for your strength bonus, and when you level up, you get +5's for all three-- endurance, intelligence and strength.

Now-- obviously-- the problem with that is that it's tedious to stand around and let a rat attack you to get heavy armor and armorer increases, or to spam spells to get intelligence increases, or what-have-you. So the better way to do it is to try to set your character up so that he can just go do whatever it is that he does, and along the way he just ends up getting lots and lots of minor skill increases before he gets the 10 major skill increases that'll level him up.

The problem with that is that it's fairly complex and specific to the character and to your play style. It really requires quite a bit of experience and trial and error to figure out what builds work best for which characters, and even then it's an inexact science. After years of playing and dozens of characters and a conscious effort to build characters who level slowly and naturally and with good bonuses, I've gotten to the point that it works slightly more often than it doesn't. And that's about it.


And yes-- in spite of all of the above advice, you can just level naturally and still reach 100 in all of your attributes. You'll almost certainly have to switch to some previously unused skills to make it, since when the skill tops out, you can't use it for attribute bonuses any more (for instance, to max out strength, you're almost certainly going to have to switch to a different melee attack somewhere along the way, since your main melee weapon will tend to max out before strength will).

It should be noted though that attributes really aren't as important in the game as skills are. Skills are what you really need to focus on.

IMO it's one of those "yes, but" answers.

[edit] And unfortunately, I'm not awake enough to find the right words. What I'd typed almost completely contradicted what gpstr said, which would have made a confusing element of the game even harder to understand.

Basically, increasing attributes to 100 is important too, because they're the basis of a strong character. For instance, skills governed by Endurance can be important for your character, but you also need high Endurance in the first place for more health and fatigue.

Like with his example of training up Strength, Endurance, and Intelligence -- if you level up and get to increase Strength a lot, you'll be able to carry more and your hits will do more damage. That's good. But if you find that you're often only getting a +1 or +2 for Endurance, the governed skills might be doing okay, but your health won't be very high. And that's bad. Same with Intelligence -- if you're increasing it because your character needs a bigger magicka pool, but don't get to increase it very much, your character won't have much magicka.

Yeah, it's definitely not an exact science. To a certain extent, you can increase skills a lot and their governing attributes will increase by a suitable amount too, but if you want a really strong character, you can achieve that by being at least a little mindful of which skills are being increased, when, and by how much.

It's the basic reason why the default builds aren't preferred to custom builds by most players. Most default builds includes all three skills that are governed by the same attribute, sometimes twice IIRC (like all 3 Strength skills and all 3 Endurance skills). When that's the case, you'll never be able to increase the related attribute by more than +3. Generally the character turns out okay, but not great, because no matter how high those skills get, the governing attributes will be limited because you'll never be able to get a +4 or +5 for them.

I'd have to disagree a bit with the assertion that you can get to 100 without planning for it. There are mathematical limits that come into play and if you do not consider them, you will almost certainly not get to 100. Note that the effort to maz a character is part of the allure of max difficulty setting. Play techniques that may work on normal or less than max difficulty may not work on max due to the 6 times damage against you and 1/6th damage that you do. Overcoming this handicap requires strategically building and developing your character so they survive, and even excel, just as they do on normal (or lower) difficulty.

In fact, there is one important point about Attributes, specifically Luck, that was not mentioned yet. Luck can only be raised 1 point at level up time, unlike the other 7 stats that can be raised by 1-5 pts. Therefore, to get to 100 Luck requires planning. This is also why the two general methods of leveling are 5-5-5 or 5-5-1 (with the latter being the method where 1 pt is placed into Luck). Obviously, if you start with 50 Luck, you need 50 levels to get to 100. You can work other requirements for other builds (for example, if you start with 55 Luck due to a focus on that attribute during custom class creation, you can get to 100 Luck in 45 levels).

Consider the math. Major skills start at a minimum of 25, and usually at least a couple of them will be 5-10 pts higher. Let's just say that you make a class build with majors all at 25. 7 skills, 25 each, max 100 possible for each skill... that means 75 pts per skill to get to 100 (at which point it cannot be leveled, and in fact it is removed as an option when you attempt to level up). 75 pts per skill times 7 skills = 525 pts MAX that you have to play with in order to level your attributes to 100. Of course, 10 pts per level per major skill is a level up, so max level ups in this case would be 52 (52.5, actually, but you can't raise half a level). A "maxed" character in this example would be level 53 with attributes all at 100 (and any skills not at 100 once the attributes are maxed can be developed to 100 at your leisure, of course).

I have played many characters over the years and tweaked all sorts of different builds to see what seems to work best. Of course, this also varies somewhat with playstyle, but there are still some basic guidelines that will pretty much always apply.

I would recommend using a build where your major skills are ones that you will not normally use, but that you can choose to use them when you wish to do so. This allows you the best control for leveling and maximizing your character's potential.

Let's go back to the issue of a skill such as Athletics. I stated that it is nearly impossible to control and you replied that you were confused by that statement. Well, Athletics levels as you run or swim (swimming is a tad bit faster leveling it). Unless you plan on walking everyplace and avoiding swimming, you cannot control the leveling of Athletics. Same with Acrobatics to a slightly (very slightly) lesser extent - unless you avoid jumping, you will not be able to control Acrobatics' leveling.

In contrast, you can easily control a skill like Alchemy (just for example). Why? Because all you have to do is not make potions or eat any ingredients. Simple! Same with other areas of magic - just don't use them and they don't level, so you stay in control. Same with the two armor skills; they won't level if you don't wear the appropriate armor, after all. Etc.

In addition, note that the actual number of "uses" that is needed for a level increase for any skill varies with each skill. For example, Alchemy doesn't require many uses to level even if you do not specialize in magic or focus on it for a custom class. In contrast, Athletics takes longer, and really slows down after about 25-50. Mercantile is also quite slow. There are others, of course.

Note that none of this means that you need to do nothing but check skill leveling. You can still do other stuff, especially after minor skills go up a few levels to perhaps Apprentice level (25). Think of it this way... many RPGs have you watching XP for a level up, even grinding to get a new level (and the associated perks: health, magic, energy, items, etc). However, you usually don't watch the XP constantly; only when you begin getting close to another level or need a new level "boost." TES isn't too much different in that you will be able to just check progression from time to time. Perhaps the main difference is that you will probably want to plan on what skills you'll use each level at the beginning of the level (after leveling up), and you may change what you wish to use on different levels depending on what you are doing (quests) or what you want to find (items) or what skills you feel are too weak at that point (progression).

Hope all this helps, anyway.

This does help AiTenshi1, many thanks! It also brings up more questions however...

- What happens when you raise a Minor Skill more than 10 points before you raise a Major Skill to 10 at any given level?
- Should I be trying to raise alll my Major skills by 9 every level, except for one which I should raise to 10?
- Should I be trying to raise all my Minor skills every level by 10?
- Do I have to have a Major Skill in every Attribute catagory, or do I just need to make sure I don't have a non-controllable Major Skill in any Attribute catagory?

I can see the picture but I still haven't connected all the dots

A lot of great advice here.....I'll make my bit quick.

1. Never use Illusion magic. Not if you want a challenge. Once you have Invisibility, and/or Command spells (even for 1 second's duration) then you have become a GOD and the game has lost all challenge. Period.
2. "Dead is Dead" is scary, but fun and challenging.
3. Conjuration (Summoning) can be fun..........if you like spectator sports. :yawn: I suggest instead to have a good time that you stay in the fight, and get your hands dirty .
3. Like you, I play good but mischievous Thief/Mage. I find sniping with a Bow to be a fun pastime, and it only weakens most foes before the face-to-face (especially at high levels). If you go down the Alchemy path (interesting and Extremely useful, but sometimes a wee bit tedious) then you can drop most badguys with 1 shot (2 on occasion); :shrug: and thus you might consider it too easy.
4. Blaze through the Mage Guild quests as soon as possible, then have fun customizing your spells and your enchantments. :goodjob:

Nothing except it will still be a plus 5 to your atribute. I heard somewhere it can carry over to the next level but I never remember seeing it happen




Every single skill increase in the majors counts one towards the total ten that raises your level so you simply can't do that





You can only pick three atributes to increase so you only need to raise two minor skills




That's optional

You can have an uncontolable skill in the majors so long as you can control the rest of them

ie athletics or mercantile simply because you can get two minors up to ten before the major reaches ten if you hustle



is probably the easiest simplest way to do it overall, at least untill you understand how to work the system

A lot of people hate it, but to some of us it's part of the charm of the game