Oblivion Mods

[SwissMercenary]

Any thoughts on the +5/+5/+5 vs. +5/+5/+1 leveling schemes? Can you reach all 100's either way?

I'd personally rather just install a "Attributes either +1 if unused or +4 if used" mod, and not worry about metagaming myself to have the Character of Ultimate Power.

[roguebanshee]

Any thoughts on the +5/+5/+5 vs. +5/+5/+1 leveling schemes? Can you reach all 100's either way?

You'll probably end up feeling more like an accountant than an adventurer unless one of your main reasons to play is to get a maxed out character.

And you definately do not need a maxed character to take on the toughest challenges in the game.

[Alram]

Most definitely it is not critical to go the +5 to attributes levelling scheme. It all depends how you like to play. For myself I usually micromanage +5s until I get my important attributes maxed (or close to maxed), and then I just play without thinking too much about it. Also the goal of the game is not neccessarily to get all attributes to 100. One can most definitely complete all the quests without having a maxed out character. I personally have a tendency to make lots of different types of characters, and I have never finished everything with each one. In WoW we called it Altitis, in Oblivion I call it role playing.

[Rhydderch Hael]

Truth be told, the bold purpose for gunning for the +5's isn't to build a "100 everything" uber character down the line, but to make the character survivable in the critical Level 5-15 range. If you do not pay attention to your leveling scheme early on in the game, you'll find yourself leveling up too fast. The danger in that is your attributes (especially when it concerns health, mana pool, and the dealing of damage) may not be up to snuff when some particularly fast and nasty creatures start patrolling the roads.

You'll know what I'm talking about after your very first troll or a mountain lion hands you your head.

Things will get easier when you get access to enchanted weapons and gear (via the University or better and better Sigil Stones from gates). Once you have some decent kit to go with the early training, focusing on your favorite skills will yield you results.

[Mithrandir]

Honestly, I don't have fun playing RPGs unless I am trying to make the best character possible along the way (although the "best character possible" designation can change depending upon my mood).

[SwissMercenary]

Honestly, I don't have fun playing RPGs unless I am trying to make the best character possible along the way (although the "best character possible" designation can change depending upon my mood).

So install a mod similar to what's outlined, and save yourself the headache. Frankly, I can't see the attribute leveling system in Oblivion to be anything more then a very unfun relic from Morrowind.

[Mithrandir]

The fun lies in exploiting the rules to their fullest potential, not installing a mod to do everything for me.

[kandrathe]

The fun lies in exploiting the rules to their fullest potential, not installing a mod to do everything for me.

I always find the fun is in that it is a...
ROLE...
PLAYING...
GAME...

Sorry, I don't mean to vent on you. Please don't think I am. I'm just making an observation about the way that recent games have been consumed. Not sipped slowly and savored, but gulped and drunk with complaints about the empty jug.

But, in many a game recently, I've noticed that the objective of Play, or Playing a Role, in these games is lost. It is almost this robotic grind of... Must... Reach... Maximum... Level... As... Efficiently... And... With... As... Few... Hours... Invested... As... Possible... <Beep> These types of games try to provide the thinest of veneers to reality, so how hard is it to "pretend" to be the character? And, just react as the character would. "It is night time. I need to find a place to sleep." It is not "Wait, if I practice my Alchemy for a few hundred more potions I will be smarter tomorrow." But, we each have bought the game and we play it our way to have fun our way. Maybe I'm getting old and want to stop to smell the coffee.

Consider chess. Now, there is the fun of speed chess, and the fun of long contemplative chess games. But, I don't see to many people sign up for either of the chess master approaches to these games either. People don't set out to master chess all at once, and if they don't get it mastered in a week then set it aside.

Anyway, that is my reflection. I think more games need to be savored a little more, and gulped a little less.

[Alram]

Truth be told, the bold purpose for gunning for the +5's isn't to build a "100 everything" uber character down the line, but to make the character survivable in the critical Level 5-15 range. If you do not pay attention to your leveling scheme early on in the game, you'll find yourself leveling up too fast. The danger in that is your attributes (especially when it concerns health, mana pool, and the dealing of damage) may not be up to snuff when some particularly fast and nasty creatures start patrolling the roads.

You'll know what I'm talking about after your very first troll or a mountain lion hands you your head.

Things will get easier when you get access to enchanted weapons and gear (via the University or better and better Sigil Stones from gates). Once you have some decent kit to go with the early training, focusing on your favorite skills will yield you results.

Everything you say here is true. I will add that I am on my 4th hand to hand character (they are all different). With Hand to Hand there are no enchanted weapons and no poisons to use, yet a powerful and interesting character can still be built. And there is an outstanding mod called, temple of the full moon, which provides excellent and very challenging tournament style combat in which you are stripped of all items prior to fighting.

edit: Temple of the Full Moon can be found here.

[Rhydderch Hael]

I always find the fun is in that it is a...
ROLE...
PLAYING...
GAME...
...It is almost this robotic grind of... Must... Reach... Maximum... Level... As... Efficiently... And... With... As... Few... Hours... Invested... As... Possible... <Beep> These types of games try to provide the thinest of veneers to reality, so how hard is it to "pretend" to be the character? And, just react as the character would. "It is night time. I need to find a place to sleep." It is not "Wait, if I practice my Alchemy for a few hundred more potions I will be smarter tomorrow." ...

Well, there's always the possibility to role-playing while power-leveling, of course. Slightly more tolerable than pulling teeth (which, of course, can be fun when it's not your teeth that you're pulling!).

Six weeks after it kneeled over and died on me, I got a replacement XBox 360 from Microsoft (in reality, took only two weeks for them to replace it— I held off on sending them the dead unit until after the holiday mail rush). I deleted my old Oblivion savegames and started anew with a female Imperial "Harbinger", a Heavy-Armor combat-oriented archer/scout.

At this early stage, her life is marked by the passage of levels: on some runs she is devoted to building her Strength and Endurance. Other level-ups are devoted to sneaking, fighting in Light Armor and performing acrobatics to build her Speed and Agility. Then there's the social mixers she does around the Imperial City: talking, cooking up potions and studying of magic to build her Intelligence, Personality, and Willpower.

When's she's socializing, she's not fighting. When she's fighting, she's not studying. It's power-leveling, but take into account that you can only power-level two or three attributes at a time, so there's no point (and more harm than help, in fact) in trying to improve every aspect of a character at the same time.

Then there's the role-playing behind all that. The girl is part agent, part assassin, and a little bit of a harlot (her birthsign is The Lover, but unfortunately the first time she ever used the Lover's Kiss was on a dog!). In terms of simple gameplay appearances, she'll break into Terenius Duronius' house in the Temple District and sneak from chest to chest, but in my mind's eye she has easily seduced the skooma-addled lackwit, gained his trust and free entry into his house, then quietly cleaned out the place while he's distracted by the curve of her red velvet gown, or some shiny piece of metal that's sitting on a table.

[Alram]

Okay, finally got my computer back and wanted to do a quick sanity check before I locked my character in. The wiki link was very helpful but I just wanted to make sure I had everything down.

*Wood Elf
*Endurance/Luck as primary attributes
*Blunt (Str), Mysticism (Int), Restoration (Will), Block (Agi), Acrobatics (Spd), Heavy Armor (End), and Speechcraft (Pers) as my major skills and planning on playing an Assassin-type character focusing on Blade, Light Armor, Sneak, Alchemy, Alteration, Illusion, Security, and Marksman.

Any thoughts on the +5/+5/+5 vs. +5/+5/+1 leveling schemes? Can you reach all 100's either way?

Hmm. Got carried away discussing the merits of +5 levelling and didn't say anything about your build.

*Endurance/Luck as primary attributes--good. If you plan on going exclusively marksman at some point you won't need the endurance so much, but it is always a good choice.

*Blunt (Str), Mysticism (Int), Restoration (Will), Block (Agi), Acrobatics (Spd), Heavy Armor (End), and Speechcraft (Pers) as my major skills and planning on playing an Assassin-type character focusing on Blade, Light Armor, Sneak, Alchemy, Alteration, Illusion, Security, and Marksman. --Looks good.

[Chesspiece_face]

*Blunt (Str), Mysticism (Int), Restoration (Will), Block (Agi), Acrobatics (Spd), Heavy Armor (End), and Speechcraft (Pers) as my major skills and planning on playing an Assassin-type character focusing on Blade, Light Armor, Sneak, Alchemy, Alteration, Illusion, Security, and Marksman. --Looks good.

1 nit. Block is actually an Endurance skill not Agility. The booklet lies.

[Rhydderch Hael]

Por ejemplo: when I rebooted my favorite character the first go 'round (Cassie-the-Assassin v2.0) the only instance where I drew +5s at level-up was the transition from Level 1 to Level 2. Within 10 hours of play, I had her up to Level 9. She got chased out of Kingscrest by a pair of trolls (had to run down mountain slopes to shake them). One day, while this Level 9 character was at the foot of the Silver Road to Bruma, a cute little kitty came running down the mountain road and began pawing at the girl. Dead in three or four hits.

I rebooted my reboot (Cassie v2.1). She hit Level 10 over 20 hours later, and I judged the girl was getting along fine the first time she was able to stand toe-to-toe with a troll and cut the muppet down, without having to run back towards a Legion patrol or make frantic use of that Weak Fireball she picked up from Adriene in Skingrad. She has yet to find her first mountain lion, though, to avenge the failure of her previous incarnation.

Role-playing? When she returned to the Waterfront after taking the Elven Maiden, she didn't wander about asking for the whereabouts of any Thieves' Guildmembers in the area. She got into her commoners' clothes, walked to the Bloated Float, took a beer into an unlit corner of the tavern deck and waited for the eyes and ears of the Guild to take notice of her.