Don't know about anyone else, but with every Oblivion character I play, I always level my Strength, Endurance, and Luck first, 5 points per level for each (minus Luck of course).

Well, I chose an Imperial who gets bonuses in Hand To Hand, Blunt AND Blade, but I didn't choose a Warrior based Class on purpose. I'm a Thief based character instead.

WELL, leveling up your three Strength attributes around level 6 takes FOREVER! Not to mention that my Strength started out at 40 and is now at 60. It's gonna take me to Level 14 before I get my Strength to 100 this way. Ugh. Meaning that my three Strength attributes will then be in the mid sixties once I'm done, lol. :laugh:

Have you guys ever ran into stuff that takes FOREVER based on how you like to play the game?

Some skills level more easy than others.....


TO easy (level 100 in 1 hour)
Mysticism
Restoration
Alteration
Illusion.
These can be trained SO easy and so fast... it's practically cheating... (only 8 cast spells for 1 level, others somewhat more time needed (20 per level)
still you avarage coffeebreak will do wonders...

Also TO easy (but need more active use)
Alchemy (you'd be surprised how many level's you rank on just the loot of a quick city-foot-raid)
Athletics & Acrobatics (I dont even seem to notice any difference, they level almost the same to me... auto run on (faster) and jump for even faster traveling.. just normal gaming and it goes quick.
Sneak (can be leveled on automatic, but just doing dungeons while on sneak-mode will level you fast already!)

Quite easy (but will take at least a little more time)
Block (easy to level, but slower to level.. you need to get hit.. and for that you need to be in combat)
Conjuration (it levels fast but it's casts are slower (you cant just keep c pressed) as an result you need to watch this over and will need to wait for your mana to recharge..
Light armor & heavy armour (will level a little slower than athletics&acrobratics will, still I find they level to fast..)
Speechcraft (levels quite fast, but will require a lot of active clicking... so prepare to have a sore wrist;))
Security (just your normaly breaking and entering will level you fast...
Armorer (easy if you keep your mind to it.. always carry on you some repairhammers, and repair ALL broken gear every fight.. (even the gear of fallen enemies that you might toss away after that to save weight..)

About right :
Destruction
Blade
Blunt
Hand-to-hand
Marksmanship
(all these require actual fighting and are only in real fights trainable.. and it will require quite a lot of hits to level. Even while you will use this in your normal play, it is much slower to level than the above skills, especially if you want to level all of them.. you will find yourself forced to wait with leveling up for a while every time..)

WAY to hard :
Mercentile : whitout training near impossible to level

so if I had my way :
Mysticism
Restoration
Alteration
Illusion.
would be made a lot harder to level (by a factor 15)

Alchemy
Athletics
Acrobatics
Sneak
would be made a lot harder tp level (by a factor 10)

Block
Light armor
heavy armour
Conjuration
Speechcraft
Security
Armorer
would be made a lot harder tp level (by a factor 5)

Mercentile
would be mad a lot easier (by a factor 10)

That would about balance it out.

Agreed, bra. Some Skills I certainly have noticed that level quickly. I'm not going for a magic character, but Restoration used to svck, lol.

Gheeeze my stealth character has only 62 strength at level 22 and he's pretty happy with that.His endurance I stopped leveling at 80 about 5 levels ago and I haven't even considered touching luck yet.
His intelligence is less than 75,about the only thing he has going for him is that he is fast and agile.

At level up he rarely gets more than a plus 2 or 3 and he's doing very well for himself.
Skills are far more important than attributes in this game.
My advice is to just play the game and not worry about it.
From my experience things just have a way of working out,sometimes you are a little weak but you catch back up quick enough.

Besides,since you usually take strength,endurance and luck,wouldn't it be more fun to try something differant.

Perfect leveling my friend +5+5+1.
it allows for much better leveling (and believe me you gonna need every bit of power at those 30+ levels when full enchanted glass-cannon bandits apear..)

My starting value's :
(male-altmer, +5endurance +5 strenght, sign of the mage)

Level 1
50 luck
35 strenght
45 endurance
30 speed
40 agility
50 intelligence
40 willpower
40 Speechcraft

Level 11 (what I am now)
60 Luck (10*1)
80 strenght (9*5)
95 Endurance (10*5)
35 speed (1*5)
40 agility
50 intelligence
40 willpower
40 Speechcraft

Level 21 (close to what you are now)
70 Luck (10*1)
100 Strenght (4*5)
100 Endurance (1*5)
60 speed (6*5)
90 Agility (10*5)
50 intelligence
40 willpower
40 Speechcraft

Level 31 (thats when the game gets tough)
80 Luck (10*1)
100 Strenght
100 Endurance
100 Speed (8*5)
100 Agility (2*5)
100 intelligence (10*5)
40 willpower
40 Speechcraft
-> as you can see ALL the important stats are at 100, and 80 luck will do +40 to all skills so I will have pretty much maximum impact from this point on)

Level 43 (all but luck maxed out)
92 Luck (12*1)
100 Strenght
100 Endurance
100 Speed
100 Agility
100 intelligence
100 willpower
100 Speechcraft

Level 51 (all maxed out, though the game becomes unplayable by this level..)

Skills are important but do no forget that :

*Every point added to endurance will PERMANENTLY increase you health PER LEVELUP.
so I max out health-gain to +10 per level at level 12.

you have only endurance, so only +8 health per level up.
so my health will when I hit 22, already be 22 higher than yours, and even if you would start to make up for the gap now., the gap would still widen up to 26 permanent health difference.

my luck of 60, already adds +30 to every skill I have.. (since most already are around 60.. in fact I fight at near optimal efficiency already!)

Endgame permament effect :
*luck has no effect once all skills are at 100, so it's a skill thats more important till that time. (2 luck has the effect of +1 to ALL 14 skills, but since leveling a skill beyond 100 has no effect...)
*endurance has a PERMANENT health-boost effect, is is THE most important skill to get at 100 as fast as you can.. as it will permanently cause you to have lower health if you don't.
the other stats all effect to some extend.
strenght and agility mostly influence your normal attack power.
while willpower and intelligence influence your magic attack power.
(but as long as you have at least 1 of these 4 at max soon, you'll be fine)
Speed and Speechcraft have little to none influence.. ok, speed makes you faster but we have horses and teleportation anyway... and it does not weaken you in a fight.

Use a leveling mod, e.g. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13879, which adjust your attributes to your skills and changes your health according to your endurance retro-actively so you don't have to increase endurance for as much as possible in the early levels.
Or use http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2691 to make leveling less tiresome.

It's amazing, how many people try to "Max-Out" a character. I was one of those once. It wasn't until I came to this forum, I changed my ways. People like glargg and Acadian, changed my way of thinking and playing the game. I enjoy it much better now. Here is my current, level 39, Altmer / Apprentice stats, with no enchantments.

HTH - 174
MAG - 400
FAT - 243

STR - 45
INT - 100
WIL - 100
AGL - 68
SPD - 50
END - 30
PES - 40
LUK - 93

Stats w/ 5 pieces of clothing and jewelry, that give +24 Magicka ea. It could be 6, but she looks better in the fancy black dress, plus it shows off amulets. No Sigil stones yet. That may change later, but not needed. The other stat effects are from the Mundane Ring, Scales of Pit Justice ( no real impact, just felt obligated to hold on to them for RPing reasons, and the Necro's Amulet.

HLT - 124
MAG - 682
FAT - 211

STR - 22
INT - 116
WIL - 114
AGL - 70
SPD - 50
END - 5
PES - 38
LUK - 93

Major skills are all magic except 1, I opt for Blade in lieu of Alchemy. All, but Blade (33), are at 100, including Alchemy. The rest of the Minor skills range from 5 - 45. As far as I'm concerned, she is capped. Although she could go up another few levels, but blade is almost never used. When it is used, even with a Blade skill in the 30s and Strength in the 20s. Her enchanted dagger can kill an Ogre in less than 4 seconds. An avg enemy goes down in 1.5 seconds.

Granted she is a pure mage, and mages are absolute powerhouses. There is no need for max stats. Focusing on her magic skills, as majors, she leveled at an alarming rate. I know the OP is focused on another build. I just wanted to comment on the maxing thing.

I really like to use attributes and skills to help define my character so I intentionally limit some of them. This makes focusing on the ones that are important for my character easier as well.

Buffy has never added a single point to endurance, strength or luck. Nor has she ever struck anything with fist, blade or blunt. She's pretty good with bow and magic though. This package pretty clearly defines her as a glass cannon, which is what I was striving for.

I normally level at about 20 hours of play per level, so if something takes forever, I don't mind a bit. At 750 hours, her mercantile skill is in the low 50's. She's so weak that she doesn't carry much loot to sell. Even selling arrows one at a time takes a long time to increase mercantile. As I said though, there is no problem and we don't mind a bit. She is not exactly known for her financial acumen.

And as many know, I cap Buffy at level 20 (in her case this is done by simply having a few 'never touch major skills'). This means quite a few less levels to reach our attribute goals which works nicely when combined with ignoring several attributes.