While playing Oblivion a few years ago I realized that the Dremora are exceedingly weak and unskilled for intelligent beings that have been alive forever/unknown millenium.

The Dremora are war spirits. Their culture revolves mostly around war, and most of their time is spent training. Then I come along, some random, untrained, poorly equipped guy fresh out of prison, and I cut through a bunch of Churls. Something's wrong. They've been training and fighting for thousands of years. Surely no mortal could best a Dremora?

As you may sometimes praise the fox or hare, admiring its cunning and speed, and lamenting as the hounds tear its flesh, so do we sometimes admire our prey, and secretly applaud when it cheats our snares or eludes pursuit.

But, like all worldly things, you will in time wear, and be used up. You age, grow ugly, weak, and foolish. You are always lost, late or soon.

Sometimes the prey turns upon us and bites. It is a small thing. When wounded or weary, we fly away to restore. Sometimes a precious thing is lost, but that risk makes the chase all the sweeter.

Was your character twisted, torchered, and mutilated in the waters of oblivion even once ?

They are only ever temporarily slain, and the gate at Kvatch was guarding an occupied city, so only the lowly Dremora were put on duty guarding the fortress.

They are still immortal war spirits that have been fighting and training for thousands of years. My guy can become a master swordsman and mage in his 80 year lifespan.

But your character had the power of prophecy on his side, I think,
Wasn't the CoC protected from death the same way as Nerevarine?

Neither the CoC nor the Nerevarine were protected from being brutally murdered.

This. I died plenty of times.

Nerevarine couldn't be killed by age or disease.

And I assume the CoC was murderable until that line between him and Sheo was fully blurred.

Sources? I was never murdered. I had game saves on my side, as do most heroes foretold in these Elder Scrolls.

Don't be dense.

It was meant in seriousness! Fate echoes in our footsteps ensuring we accomplish whatever we set our minds too. Hopeless encounters successfully won. There is no stopping the PC. Nothing he/she can't do. How else could the hero become the leader of every joinable guild simultaneously? Such is the power of the Shezzarine.

The only convincing answer can be: yup. It's a significant (and widespread) inconsistency created by:

• Gameplay considerations
  
• Developers (and players!) with no grasp of or interest in quasi-realism or fantastic reality
  
• Players (and developers!) with no knowledge or relevant experience of surviving harsh conditions, outdoor living, combat, training, physical challenge...
  
• This game series and setting in particular is somewhat cartoon-ish in its approach [to this sort of thing]

The same issue (if it's an issue) applies to any large monsters as much as it does the Dremora and their would-be martial might and ferocity; all else being allowed in reality, just picture what would happen to a 6' man in steel armour and sword in close combat with, let's say, a giant or a dragon. Result: screen splatter, say goodbye. Too physically superior to fight.

I roleplay my characters (the ones who're going to fight and win against things like Dremora, anyway) as mighty heroes, within the bounds of some kind of consistent quasi-reality but assuming the potential for physical prowess above and beyond what their size and weight would otherwise allow. I also (usually) play larger-than-life, immortal heroes [in TES, I guess they learn leaping-magicks as well], which puts them on roughly even footing with immortal war spirits, before taking prophecy/mythic roles/varliance into account. You know, the parry-arrows-in-flight, sprint-all-day, turn-the-tides-of-war sort of mighty hero. Takes a while(!) to get there, of course, which is traditionally the more satisfying part [of a story]...

Most people in my experience either don't roleplay (and so a goofy cloth-clad peasant warrior can mow down war spirits without a thought), or roleplay along the same lines as my bullet points a few paragraphs up - in line with TES' somewhat silly/cartoonish [is it too controversial to say "American"?] vision of fantasy.

So basically, these characters couldn't beat the average Dremora, or the average troll or giant spider either, and one arrow would be enough to kill or maim them. But the players largely don't care, and the setting as presented by the game supports and even encourages this way of thinking. Which of course is perfectly fine.

The games are also notoriously centered around the player (as they should be). The world is set up for his convenience, time restrictions ("we must get to this point before X happens!") are always as long as the player needs. Even if he wanders to the other side of the Kingdom and putters around for a month before going back. So yes, he'll be able to take on great monstrous foes and succeed even just days after being imprisoned for an extended period of time.

In Bethesda's defence you are always some kind of prophecied hero and often the reincarnation of aspect of one god or another, so it makes sense that you learn faster then all others.

I'm not saying it isn't justified. Just that this shouldn't be surprising.

Thousands of years of training and experience

When there's an immortal spirit outside the timebound constraints of Mundus and Convention, millenia mean nothing. It is what it is, popeye-be-damned. Any change* would have drastic consequences the spirit's eternal persona. imo, They're Concepts given life, and no military strategy is foolproof.

I think the (lesser) daedra are terrifying, but they're not god-heroes (or Player Characters). At least, for consistency, I don't see peasants going head-to-head with dremora lords. Aside from lucky shots, I suppose.


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* There's that one line, that dremora have long served Dagon but not always so (Spirits of the Daedra, I think). I wonder what would convince the Dremora to turn their allegiance to Dagon, or in reverse, I wonder what would convince them to stay away until "now". On the scale of eternities and godtime.

Zooming out over multiple kalpas and creations, though--if the hints that Dagon was not always [Dagon] prove true, that kinda makes sense. That's an incredible change. Enough to upset the alignment of the plane(t)s, and all that.

I wonder why Dagon would want to destroy the mortal realm that he himself designed. Akatosh must have seriously screwed up Magnus' mind.

Return to the good ol' days before Shor screwed everything up.

It is not a certainty that LDK was Magnus. Besides, we know that he has to destroy pieces of the previous Kalpa's he saved in order to return to his previous form(?); when he has destroyed those prices, and has become LDK once more, his Sphere will cease to be reolution, destruction, change, natural disasters, et cetera.