» Tue Dec 29, 2009 2:15 pm
Just finished my first Oblivion playthrough. Used OOO 1.33. Came here via http://devnull.sweetdanger.net/ooospoilers.html. Thought I'd note some additions/corrections I noticed, and generally ramble on about my opinions, though I doubt they'll ever be added...
If a Drakefired Cuirass exists in the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary, it's hidden beyond my abilities to find.
The Drakefired Shield is in the Night Mother's tomb, only accessible once, at the end of the Dark Brotherhood questline. (It's made clear at the time that you only get one chance to search the tomb, but if you install OOO after finishing that questline, you won't have access to it).
The page lists Drakefired Gauntlets twice. I believe they appear in Shattered Scales Cave, while the Boots are found in Fort Flecia.
A Daedric Prince Shield can be found on Lord Fregor (I think it's spelt Fregor), who guards the "great" sigil stone you need to get for Martin. In addition, the Dremora Elite who guard that tower have special Dremora Elite Armor segments, though that might be part of vanilla Oblivion for all I know.
Xyval Vikyur (at the end of the main questline) wasn't wearing a Daedric Prince Helmet when I searched his body. Had the Greaves/Cuirass, though.
It seems some leaders of the new factions do not appear in the game world until you've beaten up their sub-ordinates. Went to Underpall cave to find it only guarded by reavers and little else of interest.
Ghostly weapons (obtainable by wearing the Dread Armor and killing spectral warriors/reavers, they deal additional shock damage to targets) are very hard to repair. Typically, each attempt will add 1% to them. Excellent for armory training, especially once you hit 75% skill - four such weapons spell 100 attempts at repairing. Alchemy is also a great way to boost intelligence, and allows you to convert cheap stolen goods into more valuable (and sellable!) merchandise. Restoration is probably the most useful school of magic, though it seems to gain very slowly compared to the other schools.
The two best weapons that I encountered over the course of the entire game were the Heaven's Fury Claymore and the fully upgraded Light of Dawn. The Light of Dawn requires you to kill 300 vampires to bring it up to full power. Both weapons are two-handed blades, and remain weightless quest items even when their questlines end (meaning you can't be disarmed while using them).
The Claymore damages weapons/armor 4pts, repels undead up to level 20, and dispels for 80pts on strike. It deals slightly more base damage then the LoD. Acquiring the Claymore will automatically end Molag Bal's questline (if you were on it at the time), in addition to ending the Path of Iron questline added by OOO. It's probably the better choice for using against the more powerful magic-using enemies.
The LoD lights the target for 20ft within 20ft for 1s and adds an additional 9pts fire damage to each strike. With the fire damage taken into account, it's total damage output slightly exceeds that of the Claymore. It also has the property "Destroy Vampire on Strike" that seems to do absolutely nothing at all. The Staff of Worms (acquired by clearing the Mage Guild questline) is a great way to achieve 300 vampiric kills in short order. The light affect is really more of an annoyance at times, as it doesn't last long enough to be useful, and sometimes just makes it hard to tell where your target is (they blend into the flash well, considering that the sword also sets them on fire... and often yourself, if the target has a reflection spell of some sort active). It's probably the better choice in your usual battles.
Lhotun's Wish was the best defensive item I came across. You can equip it with a two-handed weapon and still get all the benefits (enhanced block/str/magic, to memory. 10pts to the skill, 5pts to the stats. Perhaps some fatigue restoration as well).
The best forms of gem are "perfect". Black pearls grant a different geomancy spell entirely in contrast to perfect ones. The largest form of metal geomancy items are bars (copper, silver and gold). Never found a platinum bar, a large nugget was the biggest I came across.
Found two Noble Maces, one was in one of the basemants of Skingrad Castle, can't remember where the other was. Didn't see any other Noble weapons.
There is a LOT more types of "cool" heavy armor available then light. Drakefired/Blueglass is basically recoloured glass amor. Obscidion armor is the same, but it's classified as heavy. Found a few bits of "Elven Elder" armor, not sure if that's an OOO thing or not but it's one of the few sets I wasn't able to get anywhere near complete.
The richest vendor I found (+4k gold) was the orc chick hanging around the camp outside of Kvatch. She counts as a blacksmith-type trader.
Traps seem to get more powerful as you level. The "Shock" trap always outright killed me if it struck (even when I had something like +360hp), and it WILL strike you if you don't level Security (or just go get the Skellington Key....). If you manage to disarm a shock trap, the potion you'll obtain only deals 45 damage. There seems to be two other types of trap; one that hits you with over-time fire damage (shouldn't ever kill you if you had full health when it struck and have your restoration spells at the ready), and another that paralyses/silences you then deals frost damage over time (this one becomes more likely to kill you as your level goes up - eventually only potions or dispel abilities will be able to save you from it).
The potions gained from disarming such traps can be applied to your weapons (Freezing Grasp is quite a nice one to use on the tougher enemies). You can only really expect to disarm at the higher levels of Security. In the end it's far, far easier to just level Alteration - using a spell to unlock a chest will completely remove all traps, saving you from having to tap the save button every two minutes while looting. Note that if a chest is trapped, even using the correct key to open it won't save you.
The type of trap a given chest contains seems to be determined as soon as you attempt to open it. Reloading after being insta-killed by a shock trap, then trying to open the chest again, may result in a different (non-lethal) type hitting you instead. Cancelling the lock-pick attempt will not stop the trap hitting you. Can't remember seeing a trap in anything less then an average level locked chest.