Well, first off, hello everyone! This is my first post on these forums, although I've been lurking for a while.

I wasn't certain where to put this post, so if it's in the wrong place I apologize, but it does pertain to Oblivion, so I guess I'm good.

So Skyrim is coming out, but I don't want to wait, and I want to get a feel for the whole series of the elder scrolls. In anticipation of Skyrim, I kinda want to play a nord character through the whole series, but frankly I svck at these games. I've tried all of them, and found them all beyond challenging (who has two thumbs and died to the second rat he met in morrowind? THIS GUY!) so this is where I need your help.

I used to only make pure mage, warrior or thief characters, but now I want to get a bit of a mix, with a focus on warrior and high HP to make my life a little easier when playing these games. As well, being able to use some magic to complement my fighting (like buffs, debuff etc) and maybe a thief skill or two.

The problem is, I don't really know what the recipe for success is. Arena is so far away from any game I've ever played and seems impossibly hard, Daggerfall and Morrowind aren't much better.

So how should I build/skill/play this character for each game (including Oblivion, I never played a mixed class before)? In the earlier series if I want to use a bit of magic, do I have to use a different race like Dunmer or Breton or something? Literally, I need to know the best skills to use and ways to go about beating the main/guild quests for each game.

If I eventually get to this, I may take screenshots and do a bit of a "lets play" with them, and show people how much I blow at this game.

Bretons make the best mages, if you want a spellsword (mage/warrior combo), try one of the elven races

Getting killed by the first rat you encounter in Morrowind is actually pretty normal.

In Morrowind take the Battlemage or Crusader class and Atronach birthsign. In Oblivion take the Crusader or Spellsword class and the Mage birthsign. Nord is fine for both games.

For advice on Arena and Daggerfall consult the Past Elder Scrolls Games forum.

The following is for Oblivion only:

First off, if the game it getting too hard, move the Difficulty slider down to the easy. There is no shame in that.

Next, what I think might be vexing you is Oblivion's leveling system, which is very counter-intuitive. You would think that you would want your 7 Major Skills to be ones you always use. But if you do that, you will level up too quickly, and get very small attribute bonuses when you do. The monsters on the other hand, will be getting better bonuses as they level. So what happens is that by 10th level, you are outclassed by them. The thing to remember about Majors vs. Minors is that the only difference between them is that increasing your majors will cause you to level, and increasing your minors will not. You also get an initial bonus to the level of your Majors when you start the game. But that is not something hard to make up for in the long run. (for example, it is easy to get Alchemy from 5 to 25).

There are several ways around this, such as Efficient Leveling, Playing Minors and Majors, etc... What I typically do is take 3 skills I will want to always use, 3 I will never use, and 1 I will only sometimes use as my majors. Plus never take two or more skills based off single attribute as Majors (for example, Alteration and Destruction - both based on Willpower), unless you are never going to use one. Again, that would give you smaller bonuses when you level.

After that how you play is up to what inspires you. You said having a desire to play a mixed magic type, relying mostly on being a warrior. The basic Paladin concept works well here, with blade or blunt being their main attack. Perhaps use either a bow or destruction spells for distance attacks when needed. Use Restoration to heal yourself after every fight, and perhaps to use Fortify Strength and Endurance beforehand. Alteration is handy for opening locks, and Shield spells handy to cast on yourself before a fight. Remember again, that you do not have take all of these as majors. Alteration levels quickly, and is easy to control, so I typically make it a minor. Restoration is a slower leveler, so I often make it a major. But if I am going to be using Destruction a lot, then I make that a major instead. If I am not going to use destruction much, then I make it a minor, and put points into training it up if need be.

As far as races go, Redguards, Nords, and Orcs make for very strong warriors. You get high strength and endurance out of the gate. Orcs get a resist magic, and a berserk power. Redguards have their adrenaline rush, which is an uber-buff. If you want a more balanced approach, the Breton is a very good choice, especially looking at the long term. The reason being that they get a hefty resistance to magic, and a bonus to their magicka. In time your Breton can raise their strength and endurance to 100, and be just as physically powerful as any other race. But the others will never get that resistance and magicka bonus the Breton has.

I look at birthsigns in the same light. I try to avoid ones that give only a starting bonus to attributes, as if you play the character long enough, all your stats will be at 100 anyway. Instead go for the ones that confer special powers, like the Mage (always a solid choice for anyone who uses magic a lot, as it gives a bonus to magicka and has no downsides).

Let me say- Welcome to the forums!!

Most Oblivion characters rock at high level if you have a grasp of the levelling system. There is very little difference at the end of the game because everything is maxed anyway.
The start of the game feels different with different characters, so the choice mostly comes down to what the players likes and role play.
I love Dunmer for a multi class build, as blade, bow & magic all fits the RP of the character.

My first Nord was kind of like a Nord battlemage.
He had:
Birthsign: The warrior
Specialization: Combat
Attributes: Strength and Endurance
Skills:
1) Heavy Armor
2) Block
3) Blade
4) Armorer
5) Restoration
6) Illusion
7) Conjuration

He is the textbook example of an inefficient leveler who is not compatible with Oblivion level scaling. However, the way I played him worked out totally due to luck and my lack of knowledge on leveling. Basically, in his early levels his super high strength and endurance gave him high health and damage with his sword. Plus, since I didn't know super fast leveling was bad, I spammed his magic major skills to boost him. So basically his magic major skills ended up leveling faster than his combat ones so he always had a minion that was a few levels ahead of his enemies, or a nice paralyze spell that didn't put too much of a dent in his magicka supply. High restoration+High Heavy Armor+High Endurance also made him quite the tank. So pretty much if you want to neglect the leveling and see what happens this type of character could work. If you don't want to neglect the leveling then swap out some skills to your liking (don't take 3 skills on one attribute) and change the birthsign.

Welcome! Have a http://images.wikia.com/tesfanon/images/c/c4/Fishystick.jpg And here's some http://www.uesp.net/wiki/General:Fishy_Stick on them too!

:D

In my signature you will find a link. Click it and read it. You should then be able to build just fine.

Next if you need more help use the PM system or add me, my msn handle is metal7188@hotmail.com


I check this almost everyday.

This is a very ambitious project for someone who isn't good at this type of game.

1) There is no one best character for all four existing TES games. In Arena male dark elf spellswords ruled. In Daggerfall high elves were the uber race. Bretons are best for Oblvion and probably for Morrowind as well. Hybrid classes play well in all the games though.

2) Arena is not a skill-based game: abilities depend strictly on class, race and level. Starting attributes can vary so pay attention when creating a character and try again if you get poor starting attributes. The key to Arena is to get yourself a few good artifacts. To get more than one artifact you have to put any your character already has in for repair until you get another artifact quest.

3) It's my guess that none of this will actually prepare you for Skyrim. Every TES game is different from the last one.

Best advice I can give is this: Dying is never a problem if you a) save FREQUENTLY and B) keep a few recent backup saves around. Even if you don't die a lot, this is still good advice. I will make one prediction about Skyrim. There'll be crashes and bugs.

Mara