Never realized that since I never got 100 absorb but good to know. In the past I've gotten 100% Magic Resistance with the Mundane Ring as a Breton, but I don't recall the effect that happened when I prayed at an altar.

It isn't that you want Speechcraft as a major skill, it's that there's advantages to leaving Mysticism as a minor skill. 1) You can increase alchemy and conjuration freely without worrying about increasing INT early since you'll have plenty of Mysticism raises left. 2) If you're an atronach you can regain magicka by casting Remote Manipulation if both Mysticism and absorption are high. You never have to use Speechcraft - bribery and charm can substitute for it, and most people leave Personality as the last attribute to raise.

You don't have to be fanatic about using only Marksman, just be sure you get plenty of raises in it since that's your main kill skill and you want to build Agility. Also don't despair if you happen to get less than perfect 5 attribute raises. Save despair for when you forget to train Armorer before levelling up.

Mara

Alright, I think I may understand it now. Just one last question! I'm sorry! I svck lol. Just explain these in a bit more detail from your previous post:
"Wear heavy armor (except for boots, go barefoot until Sneak hits 50 or wear enchanted shoes). Train Armorer at the end of each level until it reaches 50, then put training points into heavy armor until End reaches 100."
Does this mean I should level sneak fast? Or won't that mess up the 5/5/5 build? As for armorer do you mean train it five times to get the last skill up?
"Don't use any of your major skills except marksman and mercantile."
This is what I don't understand. lol Why just marksman and mercantile? Won't that be hard considering if I only use the bow, if I get hit it will level up my heavy armor?
"Most of your attribute bonuses MUST come from raising minor skills so make sure you don't raise them so quickly you run out of skillups before your attributes are maxxed. This leaves you a lot of room to play with conjuration, alchemy, illusion, alteration and destruction."
This one I just can't quite grasp. lol

Sorry again, I'm terrible at understanding things over the internet. -.-

If you play in the style you said (sword+shield) you'll usually get a good bonus (+3 to +5) in strength and endurance if you don't make them majors, but I suggest putting block as a major anyway because at low levels you lose fatigue when you block and that's a bad thing. If you also want to train int/will you can get access to the arcane university and create spell like detect life 1 sec and fire damage 3 for 1 sec on self and train them 10 levels each time you level up, that way you'll get a +5 bonus in intelligence and willpower every time. So that way you'll be able to get at least +3/+3/+5 every level and that's good enough to get a character that kills everything pretty easily. You should max out strength, endurance, and intelligence first and then focus on agility, speed, and willpower, for speed and agility +5s you need a rubber band, a water breathing enchanted item and a pool of water with a wall at an end, just put on the water breathing thing and use the rubber band on your controller to make it so that the stick that makes you move is pulled all the way forward then you can leave for a while and check the levels every so often, do that until you level athletics 10 times and you'll get +5 in speed, then you'll need to find a place with a really short roof and then use a rubber band to make the moving stick go forward and just keep pressing the jump button, do it until you level acrobatics 10 times and you'll get +5 agility. Then to get +5 willpower you can do what I said with the "make a 3pts damage for 1 sec on self spell" just cast it over and over till you level destruction 10 times. All the other attributes are pretty useless, if you want to get 100 luck you should use +5/+5/+1 meaning you level 2 levels 10 times to get +5 in 2 attributes and put 1 point into luck because you can only level it once every level. Wow I wrote a lot.

this site can go into greater detail about leveling:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Leveling

Suppose You want to max Agility, Strength and Endurance *attributes*. BUT for some reason, you chose among your major skills: Sneak, Security and Marksman (all are Agility), Blade, Blunt and H2h (all strength).

In this case you will NEVER reach the efficient 5/5/5 leveling for your desired attributes. Why? Because to receive +5 for agility you need to level 10 agility skills. But since ALL your agility skills, once you do this, you will level up - without gaining the +5 to strength, as this only occurs when gaining 10 points in strength skill (and guess where you placed ALL of them? As majors...).

Therefore, you have to use some minor skills that benefit your desired attribute.

I think you don't quite understand how efficient levelling works. Let's go for a concrete example:

Major Skills: Acrobatics (spd), Blunt (str), Block (end), Restoration (Will), Marksman (Agi), Mysticism (int), Mercantile (per)

Let's assume you want to raise END, AGI and INT at the first level up:

You don your heavy armor, do the recommendaton quests, shooting stuff with your bow and selling off loot. You collect some ingredients and make some potions, raising your minor skill Alchemy by exactly 10 points. Let's say you've gotten 6 points of Markman and 2 points of Mercantile skill ups, so you'll level with 2 more major skill ups. Now check out your heave armor and armorer skill up. Do they add up to 10? If so you're fine and can level up as soon as you get 2 more major skilll ups. If they don't add up to 10, get hit enough that they do before you level. Mud crabs will be happy to help if need be. Now check your Agility bonus. You should have 8 points from Marksman raises and probably some from Security and maybe Sneak - just make sure they add up to 10 or more. Once you see the level up indicator go train Armorer 5 points (these points will apply to the following level's END bonus). Then sleep. You'll get +5's to AGI, END and INT.

You don't need to level Sneak fast - you don't want to - you'll need some Sneak skill ups to flesh out Agi raises. You can raise Sneak to 25 or so if you want the sneak attack bonus.

When I said to raise just Marksman and Mercantile I was referring to your major skills. If you want to use Restoration enough to get a point or two raise per level that'll work out ok. Just be sure you raise your AGI governed minor skils enough so you get your +5 to Agility.

Mara

Ahhhh okay! Thank you so much. I apologize for my lack of understanding. I'm pretty sure I have it, so I'll try it out and see what happens. I really appreciate all of your help. I'll report my progress asap. ^^ Again, thank you very much for breaking that down. ^^

People say I should get my endurance up first. So what do I do to do that? What I mean is, for an ideal powerful warrior that uses bows and magic, what three should I focus on leveling up first? Endurance/Agility/Int?

I know I keep replying to my own thread. But I haven't even made it in into the sewers yet in the beginning of the game and I've already leveled up 5 in marksman four in heavy armor and one in athletics. How am I supposed to get out of the sewers before I start leveling? Please someone reply. lol

If you're on PC I'm sure you could just use a console command to fix it.

I'm on a PS3. Otherwise I'd have skipped the beginning.

It shouldn't really hurt you much unless you make all of them majors. It's not going to kill you in the long run if you don't level just the skills you want for bonuses.

Well, I could always go to jail and max it that way couldn't I?

Okay so I'm confused. It takes 10 major skill ups to level right? I went from 25-35 in marksman and I couldn't level. Why is this so effing hard for me to understand? Jesus Christ!

You should see the level up indicator then? If so, go train Armorer then sleep. You have to sleep to actually level. (If Markman started at 25 you can't have picked stealth as your specialization. Are you sure it didn't start at 30?). You will have to write down your skill values at the beginning of each level. Otherwise you'll lose track.

You should be building Endurance through skill ups in Armorer and Heavy Armor.

Mara

PS Now that you maybe understand how to do this, be sure to remember that you don't HAVE to do it to make a good, fun character.

Yeah, I believe you're right. I think I started at 30. God I svck. Well, I appreciate all you've helped me with Mara. And everyone else too. I'll try my best at this. ^^

To keep track do this:


- grab a pen and a sheet of paper;
- write down a column with each of you major skills and what attribute they govern;
- draw a line after your last major skill and write down some of the minor skills that govern attributes you wish to increase;
- as soon as u create your character, write down what the beginning values for each of these major and minor skills are;
- everytime you increase a skill, record it next to the appropriate skill.
- when you are asked about specialization and birthsigns, bonuses will be applied and you must compute them into the appropriate skills (actually, at this moment the game formally labels what are your major skills).
- enjoy;


Given: it svckS to keep track of all this - which is why someone a few posts above said he never did (neither do I anymore). Because it takes a lot of time.

Close, but no cigar. Write down your skills at the sewer door when you've settled on a final class. You'll have to deduct any skill gains from during the tutorial. You don't have to note every skill gain when it happens, just occasionally during a level. You do have to keep a rough track on how close you are to a level up so you can make sure you have the needed minor skill gains.

If you're the kind of gamer that likes to get lost for hours in a game world this can be distracting and break immersion. I like to "surface" every 20 - 30 minutes anyway so it's not a problem for me. As for the note taking, well, I go back to the gaming days where you had to map the world out yourself on graph paper and write down all clues, etc, so tracking my char's skills is not exactly a challenge.

Mara

Seriously dude, just increase Endurance and your main attack skill early on and after that everything else is filler.

But dont u lvl up during the dungeon (after u decide on class and sign)? I know u can change all u want by the sewers door.

It's possible to qualify for a level up in the tutorial dungeon but you have to work pretty hard at it. Of course you can't actually level because there's nowhere to sleep in there.

Mara