I know I level a bit more slowly than the game seems designed for, if you assume that your major skills are meant to be the seven skills you use. But I thought it was a fairly subtle change, and anyway, it's about required to make the game playable past ten hours in. But now I think I'm much lower level than I'm meant to be, based on what mods and even some Oblivion quests seem to assume.

Right now my mod list includes The Lost Spires, where I started picking away at the (non-respawning) first dungeon at level 2 and have just finished it off and got the plot started at level 7; there's Vilja, whose first quest requires an ingredient that won't become available until by any means but the console about level 10 or 13; I started Frostcrag Reborn at level 2 and had to quit because any one of the several free weapons there is worth more money than my character had ever seen total; another companion I'm considering has a major quest each for levels 10, 20, 30, and 40; and even Oblivion itself has daedric shrine quests unlocked at level 20, which are the only things in the whole vanilla game I've never done.

So apparently people hit level 10 by the sewers, start all their quests at level 14, and finish with their characters at 45. I'm probably 30 hours into my level 7 character, and I've only hit level 20 once in five years of this game. I run out of stuff to do around level 17 usually. Am I doing something wrong? Is your character really high level and still going? If so, do you use some kind of overhaul, or some trick to level quickly without the game getting annoying because your skills are too low for your level? Or do you just spend lots of time in questless dungeons, so that by level 20 you aren't nearly out of quests to do yet? How long do characters last for you?

Might you explain by level 10 by the sewers?

My Imperial is level 54, my Khajiit is level 40, and my Nord is level 14. Both the Khajiit and the Nord will likely make it to 50 before I abandon them.

Edit: Also, I only play vanilla.

My current character is level 1 or 2 i don't remember. But level 15 is when i abandon characters.

You can't go by mods, which is what most of your examples are from. Mods are often worse than Oblivion with their leveling systems and requirements

If you run out of stuff to do, as in you've finished the main quest, all of the guilds, and all (or most) side quests and you find yourself at level 17, then yes, you're doing something wrong. You should easily be around level 30, if not higher.

I don't use overhauls, I don't use anything that changes the level system at all. I think you need to re-evaluate what major skills you're picking. Either pick the ones that you use the most, regardless of character build. For example, Restoration may be nice to take for the starting leveling bonus, but it's extremely slow at leveling and won't contribute very often to your overall level.

It's hard for me to really answer your question though, as my current character is level 31 and will probably be around 35-40 when I'm done, but I'm only doing the Mage's Guild quest line and I'm taking ample amount of time to hone my skills under the guise of roleplaying a scholar in the Arcane University. These days, I usually only play characters designed for brief sections of quests, a single faction questline or no affiliation with quests at all and just doing their own thing, but I usually end up stopping around level 20-25.

Dang you leave them at level 15.

Anway I leave my characters around the level 40-50 on a game like this i stick with my character till the end (Gets boring, done everything) Im including mods.

Exaggerating. What I mean is that at times, I get the feeling everyone else in the world is somehow level 10+ (or even 20+) so quickly that all quests and areas are designed just for high-level characters. Because when I came out of the sewers level 1 and set off to do some mods and daedric shrines, they were all made for someone much tougher, and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to have gone off and done for ten levels in between chargen and quests. So I'm wondering how normal people play.



Yes, that's what I meant. I've done virtually everything in one character -- twice -- and can't remember seeing a number higher than 20. That was without any real leveling mods. The reason I cite mods is because I assume people build for how they play. So if I'm not supposed to start quests until I'm level 10-20, and that's a consistent theme, then people on average must somehow always be that high level when they start doing stuff.



That is answering my question. But what are you doing to level so high if you're just doing the one faction? Standing in a training room casting spells you don't need? Visiting trainers daily? Or do you just really like doing dungeons for their own sake?

My current character is level 7, and I cannot really answer the second question, Characters are only abandoned if I get bored of them.

At what levels do you tend to get bored of them?

Well, my character is pretty much a pure mage designed to make full use of magic, as well as being really roleplay-heavy. I have all schools of magicka as my major skills, except Alteration because it svcks, and in its place I put Blunt which hardly ever gets increased and at my current level 31, it's only at level 41. Then I throw Alchemy in the mix because it's useful.

Most of them get trained pretty naturally. I use a Light spell instead of torches, so that's Illusion. I use Dispel to remove that Light spell when I don't need it, as well as to remove summoned monsters, so that's Mysticism. I almost always Conjure a monster before a fight, and I use Destruction spells almost exclusively. That said, Destruction becomes an important skill that doesn't get increased quite as much as I'd like, so I made a Weakness to Fire on Self spell to train it. Alchemy is easy if you take food off of tables and if you remember that plants respawn ingredients, or you can just buy all the ingredients from a shop for a fairly low price. And as I said, Restoration is a pain, so it's not as high as I'd like it to be, but whatever.

I do make use of trainers, but I usually just get the initial +5 and then forget that they exist. I have only done one dungeon outside the questline of the Mages Guild, which was a small sized Ayleid Ruin for the sake of collecting Welkynd Stones. I've only finished the "Information at a Price" quest, for reference as to where I'm at. And again, my character is very roleplay-heavy, so I do take time just to "study" things and level up that way. I occasionally spend a couple in-game hours practicing spells in the Practice Room or making a few potions in the Lustratorium, but it's never anything as bad as casting the same spell over and over and over. Once I get out of magicka, I typically stop and do other things.

Anywhere from 1 to 86. It's not so much the build that gets boring, but their story.

I finished the Oblivion Mq and Mages Guild simultaneously by level 10.

I recently finished the Shivering Isles expansion at a godly level 3.

Let me explain: After I leave the sewers, I go straight to weynon Priory and give the amulet to Jauffre. Then I head straight for the madness gate, once inside I start the mq do a few side quests. Due to a lack of trainers in the Isles I don't level as much.

I usually play battlemages or sorcerers. As you can see I don't use all my majors, mainly Blade, Destruction, and Alchemy. Early on the game is not difficult for me to use any other skills, and usually by the time it gets a bit difficult my objectives for that character are done.

Edit: btw imo alteration does not svck, personally I find Conjuration useless. Since I've never been in a situation were I needed to summon aid.

Lvl 53 char and 95 hours, and not planning by any means of dropping him. Besides, I've an uncapper installed, so technically I could hit lvl 100 or so, unless Oblivion/the uncapper has any hardcoded level/skill cap other than 200 (attributes' cap is 200).

Venera is currently level 26 I cant really answer the second part just yet as I am really enjoying this character and she as just entered SI to get the perfect amber light armour and when she reaches level 30 she will collect her favourite weapon Shadowrend

In my opinion, you're doing it right - not wrong.

My most recent character is currently level 3 and just coming up on the 30 hour mark. She's got two MG recommendations left (Bravil and Leyawiin) and has done a few side quests along the way (Unfriendly Competition, Paranoia, Sirens of Deception, Two Sides of the Coin, Order of the Virtuous Blood....) I play with straight vanilla leveling with a 1.5x skill mod. That is - it requires 1.5 times as much experience to get a skill increase. I play a very carefully arranged combination of lesser-used and unused skills as majors, specifically so that I can then just play the game and not pay the least bit of attention to skill increases and levels, and that all just takes care of itself. And I like to level as slowly as possible, so I can take the time to appreciate things along the way. I hate the breathless rush of leveling under the straight vanilla system.

I rarely play a character past something in the low to mid-20s. I just don't see much point - pretty much everything that's going to ever appear in the world already has, and all that happens from there on out is that a few creatures get more HP. And most characters are uber enough by then that it's dull anyway.

My current char is lvl 50 and that is usually the lvl I end the game. Then again I lvl rather fast and do most of the quests after I hit lvl 40.

My highest is 34, and I'm still going with him.
Like RoflLizard said, I only quite characters when I get bored - however this usually happens at levels one to five.

My current characters level is 16, I have been playing this game ever since it came out, the current character is level 16 and he is a Rogue Warrior ( stealthy/combat type), he is currently getting enough stolen goods to fence over 6100 gold so that he can start doing tasks for the Gray Fox himself. I don't really quest to level up all the time, I even like starting my game at level 10, I use some mods that alter these things and those would be Realistic Leveling ( i just put a slower advancement rate ) and M.O.E. - Main Quest Delayer. I usually end it with a level 20+ because at that point I believe that my character is overpowering the enemy at which point its boring to fight anything since nobody can't stand up to him. There aren't any companion mods which make things go very boring, I just go by myself and I try to survive however I find that I by myself take on for example 10 bandits.. to be quite unrealistic... so I don't really do quests much. My characters at the moment are stealthy types so their goal is to try and survive as freelance thieves, some of them do a quest or so, but some of them don't and one of my character's goal was to become a good enough thief to steal from those baddies deep within the dungeons of Cyrodiil. So if I were doing quests I would finish them all before I even became level 40 or something.
Thats why my game ends at level 20+

I started my first character last week I think. He is level 29 at the moment with about 40 hours playtime (nerdy?..yes)

At first I just played the game, around level 18 I learned more about how leveling works so since then I have practiced so that I get 5+ skills on selected.

He is a warrior standard class and I am soon done but think I can squeeze out another 10-12 levels out of him. The hard part for me is to find secondary skills to rise. I do not like sneaking, lockpicking, magics etc etc. Yet I want to rise my agility since it is necessary IMO to have an awesome melee character. So ... I am training alchemy, marksman, sneaking, restoration and the def things on shields as side skills.

So I guess one could call him a paladin

I have cheated on hand to hand combat which has given me about 6 levels so far. The thing I have done there is to spar with the npc in MY castle =) . Boring one might think.. but I have actually find it fun and it is a part of the RP now for my character =)

That's cheating? Then my Alteration-Mysticism "endless spell spam while looking at a stupid wall and meanwhile me (the "real" me) reading a book" is pretty much the same, I think

I guess one could call it clever usage of game mechanics. Although I am present all the time (I raised my block quite much too) it still feels lame to feel the urge to do it instead of going out in real combat but god it would have gone slow if I actually had lost hp while raising the skill and I like to keep the baddies for when I smash them with my hammer & shield =)

Restoration I have been a little "non-rpish" with too as I have used full mana bar, waited 1hour, used full mana bar .. repeat for a few days in oblivion time

Well, in my defense I must say that I only used that when I looked at my level-up progress bar and I see it at 70-80% or so, so I just spam spells in otder to finish levelling up.

In any case, I've noticed long ago that Restoration is slower than most (or all) magic schools to level up with that way. The fastest are Alteration and Conjuration, with Mysticism and Illusion somewhat in the middle.

Sorry for the thread hijacking op =)

And ye I agree , restoration is horrible. When I made my warrior I wanted a non-magic user.. I always do when I play a new rpg. But a while in after noticing the lack of potions and how horrible they are I picked up restoration, alchemy and the shield protection thing magic school (%block spells). I did this kinda after getting the crusader quest and knights of the nine line (did it almost immediately as I thought it was part of the main quest) so in rp i motivate it with that he got help from the gods =)

Lvl 50 and still going strong. I like my character and have no plans of retiring him. His past and present means too much to me

My current (and only character since April 2009) has three major skills that she uses and four she ignores. As a result, she leveled very slowly (400 hours) to her top design level of 20. Yup, that's 20 hours of play on average per level. At 600 hours now (and still level 20 of course) she thoroughly enjoys living her life in Cyrodiil. We see no end in sight, for elves live a very long time; just ask mirocu's dear character, Lothran.

I have been delighted with this slow and capped approach to leveling. Since my character will not touch H2H, blunt, blade, lockpicks or speechcraft, there were plenty of skills for her to choose for the 'never use' portion of her major skills selection. She is a low strength, low endurance mystic archer glass cannon.