Hi all! It's been a while since I last touched Oblivion and I'm looking to get back into it a little. I've played all sorts of characters before, but I've found that I enjoy archers the most.

So, I need help starting a new archer-type character. I've already created a few rangers and assassins, and I don't know about snipers (never cared much for crossbows). I very rarely use poisons or alchemy at all. Just want a plain "shoot-like-mad-until-enemy-drops-dead" character.

So, any ideas for race, skills or role-play? Any answer will be appreciated.

Bosmer is the safe bet, but it sounds like you may have been down that path before.

For RP try a forester that hunts in the wilderness, helping the farmers with West Weald bears and other nasty creatures.
Make sure you make a Drain Speed or demoralize bow, stand back and keep shooting!!

Role play some one who flies kites a lot

Male dunmer (Ashlander, if you like). Thief birthsign.

Majors: Athletics, Blade, Block, Acrobatics, Marksman, Illusion, Sneak

If you want an armor skill in majors swap out Athletics (you don't really need it) for Light Armor.

Mara

I would recommend you consider a back up for your bow. Any one of several things can work, including destruction, illusion, blade.

My char makes 90% of her kills by bow, but certainly relies on illusion to control enemies (especially crowds) and uses a restoration on-touch absorb health spell to deliver direct damage under water. If cornered, she immobilizes her foe, then opens fire with her bow. She does not run backwards. By going the magic route for back up, she doesn't need melee weapons or armor.

For the simple concept you describe, you might want to consider a blade and some armor as back up. Shoot till you get in trouble, then pull out your blade. The only problem I have with this is that if you carry a blade, you may tend to find yourself using it a lot.

I must agree, marksman based characters are very, very fun. However, in the event of being detected, you must have a backup. As Acadian mentioned, you can use Blade, Destruction, illusion, and even Restoration magic. I'll give some examples of one of my favorite builds.

Race: Breton

Sign: The Thief

Specialization: Stealth

Attributes: Agility, Intelligence

Skills: Light Armor, Marksman, Illusion, Blade, Stealth, Alchemy, Acrobatics.

It takes some training, as all marksman characters do, but when you get the skills up past the 50 mark, you become a deadly, undetectable, killer from the dark that moves with great agility, can jump to high places to get a vantage point, make enemies fight for you, or fight each other, and poison enemies to drop, slowly.

Character with marksman and blade = assassin

character with marksman and magic = Mystic Archer

Character with marksman and nothing else = dead


-Grizzly :dance:

I agree. The only real shortcoming of this build is, as Acadian states, the tendancy to fall back and rely upon your blade too much. As long as you have the discipline to only use your blade as an absolute last ditch weapon, this would be a great way to go. :thumbsup:

One way to play the blade-archer is to use blade / shield when outdoors and bow / poison when sniping within dungeons. You split it 50-50.
Over time both blade and marksman go up. It just takes longer.
Just remember to take both as majors and use training as well.

My assassin archer got both blade and marksmen over 80 after 150 hours. Not too shabby for Oblivion. lol.

it took you 150 hours just to get blade and marksman above 80?? :poke:

If you are not using poison and alchemy, I would pay very close attention to your bow and arrow quality (both). Otherwise, you will be shooting 'til they drop all day long for a single enemy.

Marksman gives more damage than Agility, so build Marksman over Agility if you have to choose between them.

Acrobatics is critical. You need to be able to hop on perches and shoot away at foes, including "jumping sniper" (i.e., shooting in midair while jumping).

I'd suggest not doing too much underground/indoors stuff until you get Marksman pretty high due to the close quarters issues. Once you get it to 75, you can do whatever you want, though. You'll be knocking down enemies frequently so it doesn't much matter at that point.

By the way, many people do not have access to "drain attribute" (speed or others). Drain Health offers permanent stopping power, though, as do poisons and other methods.

you do know drain health is temporary right? :poke:

Drain health can be very effective for a lower level character. It is not hard to enchant a bow with drain health 100 x 1 sec. Since most low level foes have less than 100 hp, if you temporarily drain their health below 0, they are permanently dead.

This type of bow loses its effectiveness at mid and higher levels as enemy hp go up. Trying to prep the target with weakness to magic to enhance the bow's effectiveness etc just gets too cumbersome (in my opinion) and there are so many better options.

To the OP-- this:


is sound advice, and both parts of it (well.... everything Acadian has to say about playing an archer is sound advice, but still....) A melee weapon back-up can be very handy, but you run the risk, if you fall back on the melee weapon too easily, of buidling up your melee skills and gimping your marksman skill to the point that it's just not as effective to use marksman, and pretty quickly, you're just playing a melee character who happens to drag a bow around with him.

I've found that one good way to combat that tendency is to use a two-handed weapon for your back up. Granted that means more weight, but there are a few advantages:

1) two handed weapons do more damage, so you'll be dealing out more damage when you need to.
2) since you'll be doing more damage and since the weapon swings more slowly, you'll be gaining less experience, so there's less chance that your melee skill will outpace your marksman skill.
3) there's no sneak attack bonus for a two-handed weapon, so your bow will still be the better choice for sneak attacks, eliminating the tendency to pass on the bow and its 3x to just sneak up a little closer to get a melee 6x.