My OBSE is running. I know this to be a fact because I have several other mods running that require it, and they run fine. Also, I don't see anything when I type getobseversion, in the console, which you said that it meant it was working.
However, it does look like realistic leveling is not running, at all. Using "sqv aaRealisticLeveling" says that it is an unknown command. Same thing with "set aaRealisticLeveling.levelMax to ##" and "set aaRealisticLeveling.sumStats to 0". Also, nothing, with RL, showed in the debug text while testing. I did get a mercantile increase while doing this, since I sold a bunch of stuff to a merchant, but nothing starting with RL was in the debug text.

I verified that the esp and the ini files are both in the data directory. I did install it correctly using OBMM. I received several prompts when installing it in OBMM. It just isn't running. I used BOSS in Wrye Bash to set the load order, so that shouldn't be a problem. I am at a complete loss, here.

Try installing it manually, instead of via OBMM. It's just three files anyway.

I did as you suggested. I removed RL, then installed it manually.

RL is now definitely running. The commands are recognized. Also, at the beginning in the console, it did say RL was initialized. That is good, so far. I wonder why the OBMM install didn't work. Very odd!

However, I am still sitting at 0% progress to level 2, so I am still not getting any leveling.

Note that if you install it manually, you will need to edit RealisticLeveling.ini by hand and replace all the tags with suitable values, otherwise it will still be misconfigured and do nothing.

I don't know why your OBMM install didn't work, but your earlier console tests suggest the the RealisticLeveling.esp was not loaded at all. This can happen if the esp is un-ticked in the OBMM list. I think things like BOSS and/or wry-bash can also fiddle with which installed modules are actually activated and loaded. Finally, I believe there is an upper limit of how many modules Oblivion can load... if you have a huge number of mods installed you could be hitting this limit.

Sorry just to clarify, if I wanted to change the leveling rate in the context of FCOM. At the moment, I feel a bit weak at my current level compared to some of the monsters that I face. In the Kvatch Oblivion gate I was forced to pull mob after mob into another cell and fight them there, I was getting 5-6 monsters at once and I would go down in seconds if I stood there to fight.

I was a little confused at the way the RL.ini works. I assume I would want to slow down my leveling rate of course, so the default is "set aaRealisticLeveling.levelMax to 65" would I want to lower this or increase this value?

And what would you recommend? I am playing a Spellsword that is a bit underpowered at the current time, a bit lost here on these settings... I would really like to avoid running another leveling mod. But if it is much simpler and more straightforward then this confusing RL.ini then I will gladly use Progress or the likes. Sorry for the minor hi-jack I could really use some advice here though, before my character becomes even more underpowered.

Thanks

I just started using RL so I don't know how it's all going to end up but I've found that the default 65 is slower than vanilla assuming you're using the default verbose level up choice. I'm using OOO which is pretty similar to FCOM in most respects and I see the difference is not so much the leveling progress but the change in the way attributes are calculated. It's a bit GCD like in that regard. Lowering the max level to 55 will really slow you down so that you'll need about 30 skill advances (regardless of major/minor) to level up. Maybe that's what you need but I'm not sure. What's your build out? Race, major, minor, sign, etc?

edit: Let me give you an example; based on my quick read that this was a GCD like interpretation of leveling, I made a Nord/Thief sign character with a stealth marksman orientation. majors: alchemy, restoration, armorer, illusion, sneak, marksman, blade. This has turned out to be a very powerful build at level 6. High agility from the marksman/sneak for bow damage, good starting blade skill from the Nord bonus and at least a usable magicka level from alchemy.

Unless you have passed level 20 or so, that is the intended behaviour when using FCOM, and not caused by the leveling mod. But you can of course use your leveling mod to work against this FCOM feature - but simply reducing the difficulty a tad is a bit simpler if you don't like that many enemies are stronger than you, with FCOM.

To slow down the speed of leveling compared to skills/attributes - thus facing weaker enemies - you should lower this value. This value is the level you will be when all skills have reached 100, so if you reduce it to 32 (extreme), your skill and attribute increase is unafected, but your level will only be half of the default level.

If you think you're underpowered, then I suggest you lower the difficulty a bit. That is the easiest. But a good alternative is to lower aaRealisticLeveling.levelMax too. How much is of course dependent on how underpowered you feel. If you are level 10 and think your skills/attributes are good for level 8, then lower aaRealisticLeveling.levelMax by 20% to 58.

Progress will not really help you much I think (though it is a mod I recommend), as it controls how fast your skills increase, but not how strong you become compared to enemies.


Another alternative, is to try out my least-popular mod http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26409 is fully compatible with RL, but it takes over the calculation of your player's health, and completely removes any dependency of Endurance on the health calculation. Instead, your health is determined by level only. This means that players choosing to specialize in non-Endurance skills will not end up with lower health and become too weak on higher levels. Level Based Health has a small ini file where you set up your starting health (at level 1), the increase per level, and an optional max health (to prevent you from becoming too strong).

The default of 65 and how it compares to vanilla depends on your playing style. If you just focus on your major skills, you will find RL leveling slower than vanilla would, but if you use a lot of minor skills, you will find RL leveling faster than vanilla would. RL's leveling and attribute advancement rate should more accurately track the actual strength of your character regardless of what playing style you have, unlike vanilla where your playing style will result in an underpowered character if you focus on major skills, or an overpowered character if you focus on minor skills.

In particular, the OOO part of FCOM was based around the idea that the world doesn't level up as you level up, instead some parts of the world are easy, and some parts are hard. If you are finding somewhere really tough as a low level character, run away and come back later when you've a bit tougher.

Note that RL grew a new setting fStatsHealthLevelBase in v1.13 that you can set add a fixed amount to your health that doesn't change with level or endurance. This allows you to do things like set fStatsHealthLevelMult = 200.0 and fStatsHealthLevelMult = 0.0 to give your character a fixed 200 health that doesn't change at all as your level and endurance goes up.