Well I knew nothing about the elder scrolls until a friend told me to buy fallout 3, so I bought it and it came with oblivion GOTY. I played fallout for months got bored and started playing oblivion, absolutely loved it of course, I adventured into forums to get some knowledge of the game and what character to make, everyone was real helpful and I went for a dark elf and I decided to power level 5/5/5 every attribute. I only ever reached level 22 and had real high attributes , i never did many quests as I was told that the gear you find caps at 25 or around that so I wanted to get the gear at it's best, so I never did KOTR or SI. I spent hours and hours in that house where those characters keep re spawning. I did complete the mages quests so I could enchant weapons. I had about 90 hours on this character. I'm on xbox.


Well what I'm getting at is I actually got bored of the game and never played it again. If I remember right what stopped me from playing was after power leveling for 50 hours run into some goblins and I still struggled to kill them, I always make two handed sword warriors, and after all that effort to make a real strong character I couldn't even kill some goblins on default difficulty. I never lower the difficulty else it sort of makes it pointless. I'm not saying I want to kill everything with one hit but atleast not have to find some rock to jump on so I
don't die. I had a good enchanted weapon cAnt remember the stats as it was too long ago.

After completing new Vegas, and coming into the forum and seeing you guys still discussing all your favourite things I really feel like playing again, but what I don't want to do is what I did last time where playing it became a chore instead of having fun.
But my worry is after building such a strong character last time and still struggling to kill things, what chance do I stand to get by if I just make a character to have fun without micro managing every single skill?

I would love to make an archer but from what I remember trying to kill something wAs even harder...
Sorry about the long and random post.

Thanks to the extreme leveling and level scaling the trick to making a powerful character in Oblivion is not in having high attributes. It's in having high skills and a low level.

The extreme version of this is called "underleveling" and it means picking major skills that you will never use and then using your minor skills. That can get a bit dull though so I'd suggest semi-underleveling instead. Pick 3 major skills that you will use a lot and 4 skills you never use.

For example, if you'd want to play a sneaky archer you could pick:
1. Marksman (used a lot)
2. Sneak (used a lot)
3. Illusion (used a lot)
4. Hand-to-hand (never used)
5. Heavy Armor (never used)
6. Mysticism (never used)
7. Speechcraft (never used)

If you specialize in Stealth and pick Wood Elf as your race the character will hit level 18 by the time you've maxed out the 3 skills you are using. With a Dark Elf you'd hit level 20. You can then power train the "never use" skills to reach level 25 (should be easy to do with Mysticism and Speechcraft), if you want.

You can then use certain minor skills to make yourself even stronger. For example Alchemy and Conjuration are both easy to train even as minor skills and they would be a big help. Alchemy is generally considered essential for any archer (poisons) and Conjuration can be devastating at low levels. I have a level 6 character who can summon a Clannfear. At his level the Clannfear can kill any enemy in 1 or 2 hits and it's so fast they can't even run away.

I'm roleplaying and efficiently leveling (as in 5/5/1 with the 1 in luck), along with 3 never used major skills.
Not to mention I always travel around with a CM partner stronger than my character.
So far it's been challenging even at 50% difficulty, most enemies take around 5-8 hits to kill (90 blunt skill), and I'm pretty happy.
The combat is realistic and roleplaying just adds so much.

You should try the 3-4 major skills that you never use as Dragatus mentioned, high skills at a low level is what I'm aiming for although I think I failed miserably at it. (I may ding to 27-ish...)
Although at lv1-5 you may want to bump the slider a bit higher than 50% or else you'll destroy everything if your base skill stats start out high enough.
Mine were very low as I was a heavy armor / blunt wielding wood elf.

seriously... ive put 800 hours into oblivion and have never ever cared for levels, skills, attributes etc.. certainly not this 5/5/5 nonsense..

none of that matters when things level with you.

Just play the game and just ignore those pesky statistics... focus on immersion and you will enjoy it a lot more.

ALCHEMY

well there's always the difficulty slider that you can turn down.... They're fixing the awful leveling in Skyrim though

Pick the majors you plan to use. Go have fun. You'll be fine, and will be able to dish it out.

Were the goblins that killed you Warlords by any chance? Because they're tough bastards.

While you're still getting the levels, those hard-to-kill Goblins are a big benefit. Most skills improve based on the count of times you use them, so an enemy that takes a lot of beating on raises whatever skill you're beating with. The fact that most Goblins don't dish out too much damage means you can stay there with them.

The annoying ones are the Shamans. They can usually summon something that does do some damage, so you need to stop that ASAP (or cast Silence on them) so the fact that the Tribal Goblins only have one is a big plus.

All I can say is, roleplaying. It breathes so much life into Oblivion.

Don't try to level efficiently, do what you want and don't worry about it too much.

Problem solved.

No point in power-leveling. Enjoy the game and your skills will grow organically.

On the PC, one can get leveling mods to fix this, but on consoles, just restrain yourself.

After all, what is the fun in killing enemies in that one house where they keep respawning.

As some one mentioned, roleplay. You'll find the game much more enjoyable.

Im parroting what so many above me have already said. Make your own character type that you enjoy and role play the crap out of it. Its mad fun. Im playing 'Angry Bastard', a dunmer, Class: Sociopath. He has Blade, sneak, illusion, heavy armour and some other stuff.. The point is he wanders about killing things at will with a sword all day in the name of some Quest, then at night he strips down to just his black hood and his +3 Blue shoes of sneak and stabs his unwary employer while they sleep. Its way more fun than bothering with maxing out stats and efficiency.... Poor AB does a loooot of jail time though... and seems to have developed some bizarre skin affliction after being bitten by a vampire where only the T-zone of his face ages.

Find the gameplay type you like and get into it. Mine revolves around theft, murder, betrayal and random acts of cruelty.

I don't think the levelling system is screwed since it is the same as the previous game (havent played daggerfall that much to comment.) You can level with +5 bonuses on each needed attribute but it would make a pretty boring game. Or, as the honorable dude mentions, you can choose skills which have nothing to do with your character and summon a Xivilai at level 4. You can also customize by getting rid of skills you don't need and reach a high level quickly; for example there are two stealth skills, if I remembe rightly, that do not favour a governing attribute ideal for a rogue/thief. Personally, with my obsession with magic in all fantasy realms, I still picked Illusion despite being governed by Personality: I just made her a bit of a haggler also.

The sure way to ruin these games though, in my opinion, is to focus too much on builds and classes, or study the levelling system intensely. You are not playing a pen and paper game, the action is fast and you'll find you've done everything in three days. I find this was particularly true in Multiplayer servers: you are not playing pacman you are playing an RPG.

Having said all that, levelled enemies make the game hard. This world is less forgiving than Morrowind, when a Xivilai summons a Clannfear, runs at you with a hammer and all your Xivilai can do is put up his dukes and spar.

First of all let me say the multiquote button is a godsend :celebration: .
Secondly thank everyone for helping me out and making me realise how badly i want to spend the next months playing this game, too bad i have to share some of my time with the wife :banghead:.


Nice reply, just so you know i made my character exactly as the example you gave me, though i have found myself using mysticism in caves ( detect life ). Favoured attributes END and AGI. About 20 hours in and level 5 really enjoying it, not been to kvatch yet, my character is adamant in getting access to the arcane university so im busy doing the mages guild quests but keep getting distracted along the way, one of the problems is my bosmer his name is [censored]y is an alcoholic and keeps passing out, he ended up in jail last time in chorrol for streaking and thinking it would be funny to punch a guard in the face.



Yeah everyone keeps saying that, i think ive over done it though as im only level 5 and my alchemy is level 50+.



Cant wait! Though im glad its not out yet ( people are gonna find my address and come and stick red hot needles in my eyes for saying that) but that way it gives me a chance to finally try and complete this game, i even downloaded all the dlc that i didnt have, frostcrap spire, mehunes razor, thieves den, etc.





Yes they were



I suppose that makes sense as i am struggling to level marksman as everything dies with 1-4 arrows at this moment in time, though i did bump into an ogre and i think he took about 30 arrows :/




Do you know what ive never roleplayed but im trying hard with little things like sleeping at night times, sitting down somewhere where theres some alchemy equipment and making potions, sitting down in bars and drinking, taking off armor and getting into more comfortable clothes when hes chillin in mages guild and i have to it is adding to the experience.



Exactly what im doing



Yeap i am trying to roleplay its hard cos im so used to just powering through games you know, like fallout new vegas, even though i did over 100 hours on it i was just smashing through quest after quest after quest non stop really, and not stopping to enjoy the game for what it is. As ive said im not doing anything anyone tells me, i only do what i what to do and at the moment its getting recommendations for the university, after that make some potions and go from there. Though i stop and look around everywhere and take it all in, im 20 hours into the game and i only have 1 recommendation so far and thats the only quest ive done. Sorry apart from the rumare fish one, cos i remembered he ggave you a good ring so i did that too. So yeah taking it easy and trying to get inmersed.



lol sounds like youve got yourself a real fun character there, i think i saw a thread with angry bastard on it, ill have to check it out.



Well you lost me with the xivilai stuff as ive not encountered one yet and cant remember if i did a year ago when i last played its been so long, but u are right, i was noting all the skills i had on a piece of paper lol and like i said in my original post it literally became a chore instead of playing it for fun, i think thats what ruined my experience too not just the situation with the npcs, now u said that i do remember thinking " hmmm do i really want to spend the next 3 hours in that house killing scamps to get my +5 in agility ...nah" and started playing it less and less until i stopped altogether, im liking it more now than i did when i first played it!

I dont know what it was, i had in my head if i didnt get 5/5/5 my life would end lol so i just couldn't stop and instead just stopped playing the game.

I'm glad I was helpful. It's no big deal if you find yourself sometimes using Mysticism, though you might want to look in getting a Detect Life enchantment.

Power leveling is a massive waste of time. Just play the game. If you can't kill something, get better equipment.