hey guys new to oblivion here and i was wondering... I am running out of enchants after killing like 5 mobs in areas and i'm lvl 16. W/o the enchants it takes like 4 minutes to kill these guys. Am i doing something wrong here? Thanks.

It's normal.

Where are your spare soul gems to recharge from? If you're fighting creatures instead of NPC's you should be filling soul gems and recharging as you go. Usually there are creatures mixed in with the bandits or marauders even if it's only rats, and the conjurers and necromancers will supply summoned ones for you. Opening the inventory to do a recharge pauses the game, so just do it when you need to.

You can adjust the difficulty slider at any time to make the game easier. If an enchanted weapon runs out of Charges, it becomes a damaged weapon. You should keep all of your items in good repair between quests and dungeon crawling.

how do i fill soul gems? do i have to do a quest?

You fill soul gems with the magical effect soul trap. More info here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Soul_Trap

No, you don't have to do a quest to fill soul gems.

so i cast teh spell on the thing i'll kill then kill it and it goes into the gem?

Yes, although for an NPC, such as Bandit, Marauder, Necromancer, Conjuror etc. Soul, you need a Black Soul Gem. To obtain Black Soul Gems, look at this website to learn how: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Black_Soul_Gem

You can find a weapon in loot with a soul trap enchantment, Enchant a weapon with a Sigil Stone that has a Soul trap when strikes as an effect, or buy the spell and the training to cast it from members of the Mages Guild, and Magic Shops like Mystic Emporium or Edgar Vautrines Discount Spells. To enchant a weapon yourself, join the Mages Guild and complete the recomendations to have access to the Echanting Altars in the Arcane University. The Wizards Tower DLC is an alternative to joining the Mages Guild for a console user.

If you have any summon creature spells you can use them to recharge your weapon. You soul trap and kill them the same way you do to any other creature. This is especially useful in dungeons that have mostly npc enemies when you dont have black soul gems. As far as quests for soul trapping goes...

great community here thanks guys

There is also the Varla Stone, found in Ayleid Ruins and occasionally other locales. These are a great time saver, as one Stone recharges all weapons in your inventory to full capacity. They are, however, few and far between. I recommend hording them for special occasions, relying on filled Soul Gems for day-to-day needs.

-Decrepit-

One of the tricks many players use to keep their enchanted weapons fed is they add a one-second Soul-Trap effect of minimum magnitude and no Area of Affect on top of whatever enchantment they are adding to the weapon to improve its effectiveness. So long as you have soul gems, this keeps your weapons fed quite well.

Obviously you can only do this to self-enchanted weapons, not Sigil-enchanted or pre-enchanted, so do keep that in mind.

Also, when it comes to soul gems, if you do the quest for Azura's Shrine, you will receive the game's only reusable soul gem for the reward.

For self made enchant that is almost mandatory, a one second soultrap cost almost nothing.
Does not work with sigil stone enchants, but a dagger with soul trap 2 seconds and drain health 100 for one second is nice to finish off enemies with, name it “sacrificial dagger”.

A two seconds duration is better as self enchanted weapon does damage over one second, it the enemy dies at the end of the magic effect he is not captured.

I highly endorse adding a brief soul trap effect to weapons that you enchant at the altar. As said, the cost of doing so is very low and when combined with Azura's Star makes keeping your weapon charged up a breeze.

There has been debate over the years regarding 1 or 2 seconds for a duration on soul trap when enchanted on a weapon. 2 seconds doesn't hurt and is still pretty cheap. We use 1 second on Buffy's bow and she has been disappointed by not quite capturing a soul probably less than 10 times during the 2,448 souls she has captured. So she is quite happy with 1 second. I suppose if one wants to ensure 100% success instead of 99.9% success, the 2 seconds is perhaps better. Your mileage may vary of course.

I remember when azura was used to trap Vivec, I wondered if Dagoth Ur can be trapped but forgot to try. But I shall...

Unfortunately I find the Azura's star quite useless. I keep multiple soul gems in my inventory so I can trap multiple souls in any given trip, and the Azura's star never gets filled because my other soul gems always get filled first. I believe the order of soul gems getting filled is: small ones, large ones, black soul gems, azura's star. I've been carrying the Azura's star for months and it hasn't been used once. So the only time I get to use it is when it is the only soul gem in my inventory. But then, I can't trap multiple souls. So you see it's quite useless for me.

This is very useful with a bow as the enchanted weapon while sniping enemies at a distance that often makes casting the soul trap spell impossible.

It will become more useful as you get to higher levels, because souls of the enemies you will face will only fit the high-level gems (and will also provide more charge.)

When you have Azura's Star you get into the habit of emptying it into your weapon as soon as you capture another soul, even if you're wasting most of the charge. With a weapon doing the soul trap, you'll be recharging it as you go in most dungeons.

Having one or two other gems helps get you past the "three Marauders in a row" situations where you can't capture a soul before the charge runs out, even if it's only a Petty to re-prime the pump and get your weapon back into soul-reaping mode, but you'll find a few in containers in most cases, so don't bother buying them.

You may also want to have Soul Trap hot-keyed so you can cast it easily if your charge runs out before your victim is dead. I've started making the Soul Trap on the weapon a bit longer than one second so that it doesn't expire on the swing before they die and fail to make the capture. Three seconds seems to be the sweet spot where I just have time to cast it if the weapon discharges at exactly the wrong time.

Yes, but you'll need a soul gem of good enough quality to hold the soul. Petty soul gems for example can only hold petty souls, higher quality soul gems can hold stronger ones, and stronger souls increases the amount of charge the soul can provide. Which when recharging your weapons means that you replenish more of the weapons charge. Aside from soul gems and varla stones, there are alaso some NPCs who offer an enchantment recharge service, but of course, this costs money, and you can only do it in cities, so it's not very helpful if you need to recharge you're items during a fight.

In any case, if you're going to use enchanted weapons, I'd suggest checking the charge of the weapon regularly and recharging it when it needs it, so you're less likely to suddenly run out in the middle of a fight.

Yep, this exactly what I do. Kill someone, use Azura's Star, repair my weapon and armor. Rinse and Repeat. I keep the star and my repair hammer hot-keyed to make it easy. I typically make my magic items so they have about 40 uses or so before running dry, so bandit dungeons are usually no problem. If I do run out, I always have a few varla stones on me for emergencies. Since I like doing Ayleid Ruins, finding more is never a problem. I never use soul gems I pick up in dungeons, even the filled ones. No need to. They all get sold.

I found that with an archer who uses poison a lot, increasing the soul trap time to 6 seconds helps a great deal.

Carry umbra as a backup/finisher weapon... since all it does is soultrap and has a ton of charges!

If you never use soul gems, you never can trap NPCs' souls, since Azura's Star can't do that.

I do not see this as a problem.