Hey! Jericho is a Imperial!
The other thing that I can't play in Oblivion is a Necromancer, the lack of spells is disappointing, but you can easily pull it of with the zombie spells (it resurrects dead bodies for those that don&'t know), then with the ritual stone you can do a area of effect resurrecting and boy that area is large.
I always loved Orcs ever since I was a little kid (all the muscles, then the rugged look ,and...*drools*) but I never saw any Orcs that looked right to me.

Archers are somewhat out of my comfort zone, I mean I can still play them they feel better in Skyrim though, being able to bash someone with the bow when they come to close gives you a split second to get away, count Illusionist in too in my outside comfort zone, and also those that rely on conjuration!

In a way. When she was a child, she was given http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Shivering:Wabbajack by a stranger, and she reads it every night.

http://www.argentarchives.org/files/orcsie2AA.jpg looks right to me. http://www.wingedmammal.com/blizzcon_2011/DSC_7386.jpg, although it's only a cosplay. One thing I like about Skyrim, is that it has the best-looking female orcs in the series so far. The men otoh I think they went overboard with the lower teeth. That makes me think of something else. I think I will start a separate topic about that though, so I don't derail this one.

Wow! I love that picture. I believe I have developed a serious crush on this green-skinned humanoid. *swoons*

Ah dangit. Sorry about that. You do have an orc charcter, right? or am I getting that wrong?

I still don't know how you got the smexy in my avatar confused with an Orc, I mean I LOVE Orcs but the ones in Oblivion looks weird , But Yea I do have several Orc characters, perhaps you were thinking of my Orc Arch-Mage, who I reached 300 hours with , or maybe my Champion of Cyrodil?
Kinda of topic but I'm glad these forums are still active

Wait, what?! You can bash people with your bow?! By the Nine, I didn't know that!

Anyway, to keep this on topic, I never had much luck with pure archers in Oblivion. Everytime I hit anyone, they'd just charge straight towards me, giving me no chance to get off a second shot, and then I'd get beaten to a pulp unless I had a sword as a back-up weapon.

As I′ve only had just one character, he′s done most things. Bows and ranged magic is now his comfort zone and he rarely leaves it.
I′ve never had him a pure mage but given he′s Warlock rank I′d say he qualifies as one anyway

I dont think Ive ever played a character who didnt use at least some form of magic. I might try a 100% non magic character at some point, but I'd probably get bored. Magic just adds so much diversity that without it you're really limiting your character.

I always used to play a tank equivalent - fighter barbarian that kind of thing. Niamh represents a real change for me and I must say she is the most fulfilling RPG character I think I have ever played, even more so than the AD&D Thief that I played waaaaay back in the day.
In fact from that point of view she feels kind of retro.

I guess she's out of my confort zone in some respects but slap bang in it in terms of Mat = Old School AD&D characterisation!!

I tried a non-magic warrior once. Carrying all those potions.... was painful. (Didn't use the "wait" function.)
Tried a samurai mercenary who could only use Restoration on self. Could use enchanted found weapons and armor, but did not dabble in magic beyond Restoration in a purely defensive way. That was ok, but the whole time I was just itching for offensive magic, hating myself for putting the restriction on myself.

I did that with http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v90/subrosa_florens/oblivion/Oblivion560.jpg. She was a paladin of Trinimac, who could not cast any spells aside from her racial berserk power. I created a new birthsign for her called The Anti-Mage. It gave her a 50% magic resistance, but at a penalty of -100 magicka points. She literally had no magicka at all. Like you said, it was all about making healing potions with her.

I normally play a more light-hearted style but I've recently thought about making a horror themed install and playing a singularly unhappy http://tes.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=39801. Very unlike my usual style.

That balance sounds cool. I could totally get into that for warrior types.

Playing Oblivion without using magic would most likely destroy me! It would to me be the ultimate challenge of self-control from not throwing the computer out the window

I normally have a warrior type character with some other skills.
Mostly I had

- Blade
- Heavy armor
- Block
- armorer
- athletics
-acrobatics
- restoration

as major skills

I tried a mage once, but it ended up with me using only destruction and restoration and having difficulties to level up.
I found the other magic skills quite useless.

I also tried a marksman/light armor character and I actually liked it

Just like with anything else, a person has to have the temperament for it, I think. I used to be pretty extreme about it. My early warrior characters didn't enchant weapons, armor or clothes, didn't use pre-enchanted weapons, armor or clothes, didn't do Alchemy or use spells, scrolls, potions, Guild guides or propylon chambers. In Oblivion I added Sigil stones, Varla stones, Doom stones and fast travel (which I view as a form of magic) to the list.

Nowadays I prefer to play characters who evolve over time, in response to game events. That approach is a lot more enjoyable for me than playing a character - no matter what type - who never changes.

Yeah it can probably be done I guess. But it would feel the same as not fighting for me as both things are such big parts of the game. It would be interesting to create one character that never uses magic like your warrior and one that only uses magic.

I tried playing as agent, battlemage, knight , monk, witchhunter and nightblade. There is charm in every class and play type, you only need to find that charm.
But I prefer battlemage.Light armor,sword&shield, conjuration, destruction.

I try very hard with Arum not to use magic. The only thing he's allowed is related to one of the Knights of the Nine items- I have no problem using this as I feel this ties in with Arum's story as well. The previous owner of the item, Sir Casimir, murdered a beggar, and this is why he lost the item in the first place. Arum, back in his bad old days, murdered a beggar to gain access to the Dark Brotherhood. It all fits in. By using the item for good purposes, Arum has redeemed his past sin.

Both my other character use magic. Rayn for destruction and restoration mainly, though she dabbles in all schools. Her speciality is the bending of fire, ice and lightning to her will. You don't want to be on her bad side, she's likely to turn the elements against you!

Skarsgard can perform only one healing spell, on himself. I pretend this is because he had a Breton grandfather, so some of the magical blood passed to him.

Same, same, although Jericho uses potions for healing and stuff (which I have conveniently hotkeyed on my PS3 controller) , he was Born under the Sign of the Lord, BUT he can only cast the healing spell once because of his lack of Magika at the moment.

The problem I get trying to play a character outside my comfort zone, is that doing so moves the zone. There are so many viable builds in this game, it's hard to come up with a new challenge that actually is one. Didn't someone even manage to do the entire Main Quest without killing anyone?

I′m sure there are and I think you have a point. Eventually you can′t play outside your zone because you have already been everywhere. I think many gamers have hit that wall with TES games.

Playing without alchemy would be a serious handicap for me. I've often been hit with a nearly fatal strike and cried "oh s***" upon seeing the health bar and instinctively hit the tab button. I think the biggest steps I've taken to change my game was one game without using magicka unless it was required, and the game I'm playing now where archery is banned for player use.

Also using Tamriel Transportation Network 1.0 and have not fast travelled at all, and waiting allowed only if sitting.

I started as a battle mage with light armor and have not used the sword and shield for a long time. I am wearing a robe I have enchanted with Magika and carry a staff. I am pretty much all mage which surprises me because its exactly opposit of what I normally play. But with high sneak, shes pretty unstopable and does not suffer much damage. I'm havin a ball !!!!!