For those who don't know (which would be... all of you ), I'm Nemanzin. I just joined very recently. I got Oblivion for Christmas, and started playing as a Khajiit asassin. After that got tedious, I went for something bizarre: a Khajiit mage. That kind of flopped. Then, just a few days ago, I made a Breton mage. I loved it. I didn't spend very much tinme on creating him, but he looks fair enough. I'll post some screenies later. Anyway, I named him Christopher Windheart. I haven't really "started" the main quest yet (haven't gone to Kvatch), but I intend to soon. I just a few hours ago got instated into the Arcane University, and finished the first two or three quests. My staff is Soul Trap, which I found to be a bit of a twist. I discovered a technique nodoubt used by many of you; create an incredibly low-level spell and grind it to death for stat points.

I also have a few questions, if you kind folks don't mind. First, I can only ever seem to get +3 when I level up, no matter how much I grind. Why? Second, what are a few tips/tricks to making money? As in, several thousand? I've only managed to scraqe together about $250, and even that is slowly dwindling.

A bit of an introduction mixed with a question thread mized with a "New Player!" thread. It's eleven-thrity as I write this, and my brain is mush. If this comes out stupid, don't blame me. I'll probably revise it eventually. I've also been thinking about making an RP character with an extensive bio. Thoughts? Fishy Sticks to all of you kind enough to help me. (Uh-oh, am I authroized to do that?)

Welcome to the forum!

In order to get a +5 available to an attribute when you level up, you have to have raised any combo of the three governing skills 10 skill ups. More here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Leveling#Raising_Attributes

Money is tough at low levels, then gets very easy. My fave way to make it is to make and sell potions. Here's a couple more ways : Enchant cheap rings or any apparel/weapon with any effect using rat/mudcrab souls and sell for profit. Dungeon dive and sell the loot.

Roleplaying is a wonderful approach to the game since OB is a big sandbox to play in. My character roleplays extensively and we quite enjoy it.

In case you don't already realize it, don't feel you have to go to Kvatch if you don't feel like it. As you may be aware already, Oblivion is a non-linear game and you aren't required to even do the main quest at all. Myself, I view Bethesda's main quests as a kind of "introductory tour" to the gameworld and the features of the game. I do it once and then forget about it. Some people never do it.

Most of us old-time Elder Scrolls players have long ago stopped obssessing about grinding and bonus points. We tend to just play and forget all that. Personally, I think the game is much more fun when played that way. Some folks do enjoy the numbers-and-spreadsheets aspect of RPGs, though. If you are one of those the page Acadian linked you to will get you started in the right direction. Just keep in mind that getting regular +3 or +5 isn't necessary or essential. You'll do fine with whatever you get through normal play.

As Acadian says, gold is a little scarce in the beginning and easier to come by later on. By the time your character is level 30 you'll have more gold than you know what to do with. You'll be back here asking us, "How do I spend all this gold?"

I have found that selling loot from dungeon-diving is enough to earn gold for my characters. But then again, my characters rarely ever buy anything. They mostly tend to use what they find through adventuring, so maybe I'm not the one to comment. I have heard that selling the potions you make yourself is a good source of gold in the early levels. You could also try fighting in the Arena or betting on Arena matches.

Roleplaying is the key to longevity in Elder Scrolls games, in my opinion. They can be fun when played as a first-person-shooter-with-swords-and-magic but the real meat and potatoes of the game is in roleplaying. I think the Elder Scrolls games are the best platforms for computer roleplaying that has ever been invented.

I can't really place it better than Acadian and Pseron have, the real longevity about the Elder Scrolls is to Roleplay, also as was mention Us Old-Timers (gosh i feel old now xD) don't care about power leveling or getting the "Strongest" weapon among those things, gold is rather hard to come by lower levels, but don't worry about it, just sell the loot that you get during dungeon diving, once you get around the higher levels gold won't be a problem.

Just play instead of worrying, the MQ is not going anywhere and you have a huge land to explore at your own pace, is what little useless advice i can give you.

^What Pseron said !

Glad to have you here and can't wait to see Christopher Windheart. Yea, I wanna see some screen shots asap!

A few great ways to make money are:

>collect food items. Lots of them. Now make them into Restore Fatique potions and sell them. You'll have so many of these potions after...saay...15 minutes, you'll be able to turn a huge profit.

>Great place to get these food items is the 2nd floor of the Tiber Septim hotel. Look at all that unguarded food up there! Just take it, assuming you're allowing your character to be a theif. Nobody ever eats it anyways.

>>>>Join Thieve's Guild. Start selling stuff to the fences..(again this assumes you don't mind Christopher becoming a theif).

>>Lots of dungeon-diving. The name "Christopher Windheart" almost sounds so brave, like he's a knight. bosses and boss chests sometimes hold some pretty expensive loot.

Don't fast travel! Walk , run, or ride to your destinations. Youll find lots more hidden locations as you explore in real-time constantly.

I am one of them. I have only ever created one character which has been my cyrodilic friend for more than 1600 hrs, and the Amulet is still in his possession. Thanks to a console command he got rid of the quest tag and has now placed it in one of his chests in Bruma, his hometown.

Can′t give any direct pointers as others have already done so. Also, I don′t like to tell other gamers "do this and do that and you′ll succeed" because if someone did that to me I′d launch a SCUD their way asap

Other than that, welcome to Cyrodiil and these forums and have a complimentary http://images.uesp.net/c/c4/Fishystick.jpg

I know about the main quest, probably going to leave it for a fair while, at the very least. I'm sort-of roleplaying. I don't make myself have to eat, and I still run a fair bit, but I don't FT and all that game-breaking jazz. Also, I wasn't aware that +3 was considered good.


I'd rather have him a legal charcter, to be honest, but there are still lots of reagents to be found scattered about the wilderness. Plus farms. Ah, free sources of legal food...
Also, I used to FT everywhere. Now I know what I was missing, and I've stopped completely.

In the way of screenies, I'll have some later. (Most likely tomorrow)


Yay!

Everything everyone else said.... have a good time. Be careful with the grinding of skills. Just sayin. Just play. My very first character, a generic warrior, lasted until about level 20, before I created a new one, using my newfound knowledge of the game. I'm on my fifteenth character or so.... so yeah.

I didn't say it was. I said most of us don't care. We play to have fun, we play to roleplay, we play to pick flowers or try on outfits or go swimming or take screenshots (hundreds of them) or invent stories for our characters and then act them out...almost anything but filling up Excel spreadsheets with big numbers.

I use a mod that makes character leveling invisible to me. I'm playing a Warrior right now and I don't know what her Strength is. I don't know what her Health or Fatigue is. I don't even know what her level is. And I don't care. Stats are the least interesting things about roleplaying games for me.

Roleplaying isn't about stats management to me. Roleplaying isn't about combat to me. Roleplaying isn't about coming up with some rigid set of rules that every character has to obey in every game. Roleplaying to me is about knowing the character I play inside and out, knowing that character as deeply and thoroughly as I would know a lover, and playing a game in ways that make sense for that character alone. I don't say or do the same things around everybody in real life. And I don't play a game the same way with every character. I listen to the character and I react to what I hear. And the game shapes itself around that interaction.

i don't worry about efficient leveling, its a bunch of pointless and boring grinding on skills your character wouldn't use :/ for making money at low levels i spam restore restoration potions (but only if its not a major skill) and pick up every enchanted thing i can find, scrolls weapons ect. The best weight to value ratio that i consistently find is potions and poisins that necro and conjurers drop, and thier staffs are also like 10 pounds and can be worth a pretty penny.

I still don't know how you all can not fast travel, it would take a half hour just to get to the town you want to go to lol

Thanks for the help, everyone. I look forward to the day I become a part of the community, appearing in nearly every thread like you guys do. And, eventually, giving out a fishy stick or two. I look forward to the day Christopher is as well-known as Lothran or Buffy. But for now, as you've all advised me, I'm off to have fun. Thanks again.

But isn′t the lack of it what some complain about regarding Skyrim?

I agree that listening to the character is important and what is truly roleplay for me as well. In Lothran′s early years I let him try out everything basically but we have since narrowed what he does down. For example, as many here knows he spends all his winters in Bruma and the Jeralls. In his early years he could be anywhere, but now... A winter not spent in Bruma is a winter not worth having!

I'm just...wow!
Actually this is the reason why I love playing Skyrim, I don't have to worry about the stats, I can just Roleplay. I can do the same thing in Oblivion but after a while I can easily end up weaker than the enemies, nothing lowering the difficulty bar does not fix, since I really don't want to be stabbing something for several minutes, actually I always wondered why people were obsessed with higher difficulty in TES games all you do is stab things for several minutes straight....

Makes a difference, don't it?


AHEM!.....

Yeah... sorry 'bout that. Trying to get a good one. Should be up pretty soon.

A known problem from the day Oblivion was first released, and spawned numerous mods to change that. I agree, Skyrim does it better, and so does Morrowind.

When I get a '5" to add to a new level skill that's good, enjoyable, but I rarely take the time to do the things neccesary to get more '5's; I just don't care enough.

The game has always been generous with the talents a hero will aquire. There can be some awkward moments when you're weaker than the newly leveled bad guys, but there are many solutions. The game is generous, generous, generous. Most complaints do not center around weakness but being master of everything.

It is not difficult to become skilled in those areas you wish to be skilled in. Some of the trainers are tricky, and some of the skills harder to grow than others, but overall, there is nothing really to worry about as you go about Oblivion.

You can be almost completely thoughtless and become successful at Oblivion; I don't understand people who complain about number crunching or skill grinding. I didn't even know what those really were in my first 5 plays and never realized I was defficient- and these were 400 hour + games.

I hope the OP enjoys the game as much as we do.

Morrowind doesn't do it better, instead of getting harder Morrowind gets incredibly easy as the game goes on. People [censored]ed and moaned so they made the adjustments for Oblivion, then everyone [censored]ed and moaned that OB got too hard. So now they "fixed" it again and Skyrim has the problem getting way too easy.