Hi all - OK so I made the mistake of sleeping in the sewers under the city and I evidently got bitten by a vampire. At least I assume that's what happened, my character dreamed of being bitten and now I have Vampirism. I saved before I slept so I can still reverse it.

My question is whether the "benefits" are worth contracting it or not. I've read a lot of wiki info and my impression is that not being able to go out into the sunlight would be a royal pain for getting around, having to talk to specific people, etc. Should I stay infected or reload the previous save or get the cure (which also sounds like a pain).

Also a couple questions about vampirism I haven't encountered. Do the people you interact with, such as Jauffre, realize that you're infected and is the gameplay or your quests changed? For example, I'm in the middle of the Order of the Virtuous Blood quest, haven't yet killed Seridur. Also, I'm playing as a Dunmer with 100% total fire resistance (I have a 25% resistance ring), and my active effects now lists 20% weakness to fire. So do the effects stack and I have a net 80% resistance to fire now?

Thanks everyone!

Imo it is not really worth being a vampire, it's just annoying. You could always install a mod to make vampires better in some way but i will never be a vampire anyway. sooo yeah.

There aren't a ton of reasons to become a vampire outside of an RP choice IMO. You can continue doing any guild or main quest as a vampire with no issue and even the order of virtuous blood quest is unaffected. There aren't any clans or specific quests you can do that are just for vampires. Dunmer do keep the benefit of their fire resistance as a vampire, which helps offset the penalty of being in the sun. You do get 100% disease and paralysis resistance along with some new abilities based on how many days since you last fed maxing out on the 4th day. If you have the Vile Lair DLC you can use that as your vampire lair quite nicely.

You are on Xbox, right? If you get the Vile Lair, there is an easy and quick cure, so if you wanted to play as a vampire and then changed your mind, it would be easy to go back to normal, if you had the Vile Lair.

The main downside to being a vamp is the sunlight damage and the disposition penalty you get as a vamp. You can counter both of these by feeding regularly. You can also counter sunlight damage by over time healing potions and over time healing spells, so you can still run around during the day if you want to, provided you have enough magicka/restoration skill/spellmaking, or enough decent over time healing potions. Those are easy to make if you have a good alchemy skill.

Teh disposition decrease can be countered with illusion magic.

Jsut don't save while you are taking damage during the day. The save won't load properly. You need to save in doors or after dark. Same goes for auto saves, so best to turn those off.

There is also a bug that makes your face into a generic vamp face, but this can be corrected by first loading a nonvampire save (any save will do) and then loading your vampire save from the in game menu. Typically I exit the game completely before loading a save, but this is an exception.

Being a vampire will completely change the way you play the character and I would approach the question in terms of whether you want to play a vampire, rather than trying to balance the benefits and drawbacks. Balancing benefiots vs drawbacks is kind of a min-maxing approach, which is not really what Oblivion is all about IMHO.

There are significant benefits in terms of skill and attribute bonuses, but also significant drawbacks. Whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks is really more of a personal question about what your roleplaying idea is for the character.

Thanks for the input, everyone. I just realized I can cure the hemophilia by eating a mandrake root which I happen to have with me. I'll probably do that for now and maybe let myself get infected in a future reply.