I decided to turn the xbox on last night and start playing Oblivion again, along with the SI and KotN expansions. I really enjoyed the opening scenes and was flooded with memories of a few years ago. I loved creating my Nord and set about leaving the sewers. I planned carefully as I did, saved before leaving and then stepped out into one of my all time favourite game worlds.

I immediately headed for the Imperial City, hoping I would have enough time to get to the shops before they close. Lucky I did. Before I knew it, I was kitted out in a full set of iron armour, wielding an Iron Claymore. Then I saw a familiar icon - the level up icon. Then it hit me...

Oblivion's levelling system has a way of destroying the game for me. Unlike Skyrim, if you plan on having a good health/fatigue level at higher levels, you need to plan for them. And then it happened. I found myself turning the game off and just sitting there, faced with a problem.

Before Skyrim came out, I put up with the levelling system in Oblivion as it was all I could do. Now though, with the option to put Skyrim in the disc drive and play in a way I prefer, I fear I may never be able to play Skyrim again.

I was wondering if anyone else had this problem, and if so did you find a way to over come it?

Well, you could build a character who will never level at all. Just make all major skills "never-use."

For a melee fighter, just make your majors something like Illusion, Destruction, Alteration, Mysticism, Conjuration, Speechcraft, and Acrobatics. Then give your character a starting boost with the Warrior birthsign, Strength and Endurance as primary attributes, and Combat specialization, which will set your melee skills high enough to be useful.

You'll still be able to level up when you want to, by jumping (for acrobatics) and by using the speechcraft mini-game, but your character will be effectively capped at a low level, and leveling is entirely your choice.

I have a similar problem, but not with the leveling system. I just prefer Skyrim's gameplay in general. With Oblivion, I just choose/create a custom class with all the major skills I use the most, and it always works out for me. I don't think you can avoid planning your character though.