Is there hope for my non-macho pc?

Coot · Post by **Coot** » Sat May 30, 2009 11:56 am

I bought Oblivion a few weeks ago and decided to make the same kind of character I usually play, with great satisfaction, in Morrowind. He's stealth based and his major attributes are agility and willpower. His major skills are: marksman, sneak, security, mysticism, restoration, light armor, speechcraft.
His birthsign is the Mage. Race is Cute Elf which comes from a mod.

In Morrowind this kind of character would do fine whether I would do the main quest or not, even though I would try to avoid combat.
In Oblivion that's often not an option. My pc is level 15 now, but I got there mostly by improving sneak, security and speechcraft a lot. That was not very smart; I leveled too fast and so did the opposition. So now I get my butt handed to me by trolls, bears, those annying light bulbs (will o' wisps?) and pretty much anything that breathes. That means improving my skills in combat is close to impossible.

I suppose I could seek out trainers but that costs septims and (that's another thing that annoys me a bit) I can't seem to steal the fortune! I concentrated on becoming a good thief, not a fighter and now almost every door or chest that I open seems to have only cheap stuff behind or in it.

I'd rather not start over and I'm very fond of stealthy pc's in the Elder Scrolls games. I would appreciate some advice.

Drunkside · Post by **Drunkside** » Sun May 31, 2009 5:18 am

That crap happens a lot in oblivion, i suggest downloading a mod that makes the foe´s levels random. That way you might end up facing either a bear too good or a demon that dies from a mean look, but its way better that way. Also a mod that randomizes the drops and the gear of the enemies is a must, that way you wont be facing 6 bandits in glass fulls....

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Sun May 31, 2009 5:19 am

As you've found out Coot, leveling up in Oblivion is only good for increasing your opponent's power, not yours. It's different from nearly every other game in that respect, almost like they were setting a trap.

With your major skill set and playing stile preferences levelling up too fast was inevitable. Putting a skill that raises too fast like sneak and security in as a major is asking for trouble in this game.

As to a solution; I'd suggest raising destruction as quickly as possible, either by 'training', Weakness to anything for 1 second on self and casting it repeatedly, or by following the coastline and endlessly blasting mudcrabs. Learn to mix and match your spells, it can't get much sneakier than creating a spell which damages an opponent for 5 seconds and turns you invisible for six seconds! Unfortunately that's a 'game over' tactic.

The point is to raise and use skills that don't raise your levels, hone them on mudcrabs for a while first though. Hack them with a blade, bash them with an axe (they're blunt you know

) whatever, just avoid using major skills as much as possible. Yeah, I know that sucks!

The other choices are lower the difficulty slider, or start again with a character balanced for Oblivion's quirks.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun May 31, 2009 6:32 am

galraen wrote:As you've found out Coot, leveling up in Oblivion is only good for increasing your opponent's power, not yours. It's different from nearly every other game in that respect, almost like they were setting a trap.

Galraen's absolutely correct. From a player's perspective, leveling--which was perfectly done in Morrowind--has been screwed around with, and nerfed. It's as though the developers felt Morrowind wasn't "tough enough," and the only way they could think to make Oblivion tougher was to arrange so that all your opponents leveled up strength and endurance each level. Several people have gone through the entire game at level 1, winning it easily. Much more difficult the better you get.

Magic skills, never long on attack in Morrowind, have been weakened further. Which is why among the first things modders did after Oblivion came out was to create several new magic systems that made it more powerful both for the player and their foes. I personally recommend Mighty Magick, but there are numerous others that have come out since, proving very popular--among these, Mighty Magick Reborn, Supreme Magicka, and Less Annoying Magic Experience. All are worth checking out.

Put your least used skills in your majors, so that you level more slowly, and get a chance to work up those skills for better multipliers. Get a mod like Flexible Leveling, that simply lets you get those multipliers much easier--so you can quickly push up strength and endurance, and maybe destruction (as Galraen suggests) with a suitable magic revamping mod to give it power.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Sun May 31, 2009 7:41 am

I tend to play similar characters Coot, and I have found [url="http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=oblivionmods.detail&id=268"]Francesco's Leveled Creatures and Items mod[/url] to help greatly. (according to the description on the page Fable linked to, it also works with Flexible Leveling). The nice thing about Fran's is that it's modular, and most of the components are options so you can install what you want. I'm using everything, and having good luck with it.
One component of Fran's slows down leveling by 50%, which means my character is always getting between 3 and 5 for modifiers. Fran's also balances out the problem of all enemies leveling up with you.

Coot · Post by **Coot** » Sun May 31, 2009 3:13 pm

Thanks a lot for all the suggestions, guys. Oblivion has been out for quite some time and there's enough information on the net. I should've read more about the game instead of assuming I could play it like Morrowind.
I'm going to look into the mods you mentioned and try to 'salvage' my game