Hi all, firstly, i love the work you guys do here.

I am trying to play Oblivion again and i just cannot bring myself to play it through like it is. So i'm looking for a few mods to change a few things.

1. No spell-making, I'd like a magic system that has preset balanced spells that i can learn as i level (instead of getting rich and just buying all the good spells)

2. XP leveling system, I just prefer this method.

3. Class system that is meaningful, Rather than just "oh i've played for 100 hours and i'm master of everything"

4. Any other highly recommended Mods that you believe would be essential.


Basically i'm looking to get the game closer to a more traditional D&D style game, so the choices i make at the start of the game mean i cannot do other stuff later in the game (ie. I choose mage at the start, i cannot start hacking Daedra's heads off with a sword later on)

Also, Any good mods that add more factions to the game is a really big plus to me, it's something i found lacking in Vanilla Oblivion.

ad 2.
Oblivion XP 4.1.9

ad 4.
Duke Patricks Combat Magic, and Duke Patricks Combat archery and Duke Patricks Melee Combat as well.

Don't know about any mods that do this, but you can attack this from another angle and use my Enhanced Economy mod. It has a lot of (optional) features preventing you from becoming rich, but it also has the possibility of increasing the cost of making or buying spells. There are two individual multipliers in Enhanced Economy's ini file, spellMakeCostMult and spellBuyCostMult. Set spellMakeCostMult to 30 (unmodded value is 3), and suddenly it will cost you 10 times as much to create spells.

Oblivion XP then.

I was going to say nGCD, and probably some of tejon's other mods (there's a thread for tejon's mods here), but think they are all probably incompatible with Oblivion XP.

I don't know about other than tejon's mods doing anything in this direction, but as said above, that probably means that you must leave out Oblivion XP. As for other essential mods, I personally consider quite a few essential, mostly in the realism/immersion, or improved gameplay/UI categories, but not sure if you're interested in that...

1. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=33114 changes Conjuration so that every 10 ranks in it you gain new spells and some magic schools gain special spells at 100, but all other spells you have to buy; spell making and enchanting is disabled.
3. ROM is afaik the only mod out there that makes your decisions during character creation meaningful; I wish my CS would work so I could make such a mod myself...
4. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10763, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22163#, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12859, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35969, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12797, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23069, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3861, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20459, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5138, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7327 (the 'Desaturate' version looks imo very good), http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8574, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37596. All that are basically UI enhancements or annoyance reducers, so the don't affect actual gameplay. http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35675 is imo also a mandatory mod because it prevents your character from becoming god-like too easily. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14304 (if you're not using ROM) and http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2691 is imo also mandatory if you're not using a leveling mod (again, this mod is not needed if you use ROM). http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25616 is imo a mandatory mod if you're not using ROM because it makes wearing (heavy) armor have somewhat meaningful penalties.
Read http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Crash_Prevention and http://tescosi.com/wiki/Oblivion:Types_of_Mods#The_.22Required.22_mods.2C_strongly_recommended.21.21.21.21 to find out more about mods that enhance performance and stability.

Anything done by The Nice One, all his stuff is good. His hotkey mod is by far the best and his HUD Status Bar mod is an essential element in my game now. Also his Map Marker Overhaul mod.

Arthmoor's mods - both the original and the maintained kinds - are also excellent. There are many great names to keep an eye on, but certainly, that one is near the top of the list, for me.

edit: I'll also second ROM, regarding point #3 - apart from anything else, you must choose between Thieves' Guild, Fighters' Guild and Mages' Guild... or none of them, I suppose. Just an example.

Actually you only need to decide between the 'public' guilds which means Fighters' Guild or Mages' Guild.
Imo the combat system is lacking in ROM (but still better than in vanilla Oblivion) but if you want to play a mage there's hardly a better mod than ROM.

Heres what I use:

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1232576-complete-modded-oblivion-installation-guide/

Sorry, I didn't go into what it all changes. But all the links are there. But everything apart from the overhauls section is "essential" for me and I've played with many different overhaul combinations. Theres a few other mods I use but they aren't for everybody, like Duke Patrick's Melee Combat, I love this combat mod. And Fearsome Magicka, which makes magicka really deadly too. Both of these mods increase difficulty and make both combat and magic more dynamic experience.

Note: if you choose to go by it but use a different overhaul, you will probably need to ignore some of the compatibility patches mentioned for WAC and instead get appropriate compatibility patches for your overhaul of choice, however you can use WAC with any overhaul provided you install the compatibility patches linked there for OWC-ND, the package includes files for all other major overhauls and the load order suggestions are also relevant.

Also, you will need a race mod like Race Balancing Project or tejon's TRAP (which I prefer).

Oops. I must have been thinking of something else, or indeed, ROM + whatever else. I use so many mods, it gets a little confusing, trying to describe or explain, at times!

I find LAME does a pretty good job of taking care of spells. What I mean is that while spellmaking is available, it's certainly not needed as all of the premade spells usually cover what you'll want to make.

A class system that means that you won't be a master of everything means just setting reasonable limits. Oblivion xp is pretty configurable with the ini file. I believe you can set a level cap, and you can also set how much skill points and attribute points you get each level, so just make it so that when you reach your cap that you aren't too powerful, only a master of what you think fits.

LTD has a specialization mod that looks interesting: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18858
This mod allows you to pick 3 class advantages when making a class, so that could be interesting: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35300