I did a little experiment with restoration grinding

[What Zit Tooya]

I started about half way through level 37 of restoration. I taped down my key for casting and after 45 minutes of constant casting (I was there to accept the level 50 message) I got to level 57 (just a sliver away from 58). I deliberately disabled vsync and turned down all settings to as low as I could make them and I got a more or less stable 640 fps. The reason this is important is because oblivion game logic is in some way tied to frames per second. Using a custom made fortify athletics, magnitude 3 for 1 second, it seemed to last just under a second. If I had to guess I'd say that in game speed was increased by a factor of 1.2 to 1.5(1.5 would be pushing it) and it seems like this is capped around 300fps or so. Anyways the reason I'm posting this is just for reference for anyone looking to grind restoration. Even if you were to constantly run around spamming restoration spells it will take a long while to master restoration. I'm guessing the devs thought that people would use restoration magic more frequently but considering that at around level 30 of restoration it costs upwards of 500 magicka to get 250 health from Heal Major Wounds I would think most people wouldn't rely on it for health in or out of combat save for long treks between fights. It kind of bums me out because I do enjoy working for character progression in rpgs to a point but I may just wind up using the console. Anyways hope you found this helpful, if dismaying.

P.S. I did this in the abandoned shack in the imperial city waterfront because it has easy access and I figured it would get me near optimal fps.

I forgot to mention restoration is a minor skill. Thanks for the reminder about the exp gain from that, Rodent.

[The Flying Rodent]

Interesting observation about FPS effecting game speed! I've noticed this in the past with Morrowind in particular when it came to swinging weapons: Weapons swung faster if there was 'less to look at' [i.e. if there was less visual processing to be done resulting in a higher FPS], which meant that more often and not, weapons swung a lot faster if the camera was aimed at the ground in first person mode. So if one was using say a Dagger, it was more beneficial to go into first person mode and point the camera at the ground when repeatedly stabbing something.

I also noticed this in Oblivion with regards to spellcasting: Spells in general were cast faster in First person mode rather than Third person, probably again due to the increased FPS in first person from a lower amount of visual processing. I never bothered to quantify it though: Very scientific of you to do so! :)

With regards to skill increases:

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Increasing_Skills

The way the Oblivion skill levelling system works is that each skill level requires a certain amount of 'experience points' to be gained. The amount of 'experience points' required to level a skill at a particular value [say from 30 to 31] is the same for all skills, EXCEPT if a skill is from a character's Combat/Magic/Stealth Specialisation [in which case only 75% experience is required per level], A Major Skill [60% experience required per level], or Both [60% of 75% = 45% experience per level]. This is why Major and/or Specialised skills level faster than others.

In addition to that: Certain actions are required to level certain skills, and each action may level a skill at a different rate. The table in the link, 'Acquiring Certain Skills', lists the actions required and skill points/action given. For magic skills, increases in general require spells to be cast 'at a valid target', which basically means 'any spell cast on self', excluding Destruction [which can ONLY be increased by hitting opponents with spells].

Looking at the values for each school's 'skill points given per cast': Conjuration is 6, Alteration is 4, Illusion and Mysticism are 3, Destruction is 1.2, and Restoration is lucky last with 0.6. This means that to get the same skill increase for 1 Conjuration spell cast [6 points per cast], requires 10 Restoration spell casts [0.6 points per cast].

I imagine that this was the developers' intention, given that Restoration spells are universally useful to any character [healing is useful to everybody!], and that ANY character starts out with the spell Heal Minor Wounds. Similar for Destruction: Everybody starts with, and can cast, Flare, and so the skill points granted per cast for Destruction are lower than schools with typically more Magicka-Intensive spells that are harder to acquire, such as Conjuration.

Of course, as soon as a player has access various spells and to a Custom Spellmaker, this all can be quickly turned on its' head. In the original game, gaining access to Custom Spellmaking required significant effort to achieve [i.e. all 7 mages guild recommendations]. So the spell cost-skewing was probably a little more justified.

Given the Wizard's Tower DLC plugin available now, it's not too difficult to get access to a Custom Altar within the first few levels, make a Summon Skeleton for 1 second spell, and grind Conjuration to 100 in a comparitively short space of time [even if its a non-specialised Minor skill!]. The same cannot done with Restoration.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=873311868

At the beginning of this year, I made a 'Max Difficulty Character Guide' outlining a method to level and play a Stealthy Mage on Maximum Difficulty in Vanilla Oblivion. In the process of trialling out possible characters and methods up to the task, I also ran into the Restoration grinding hurdle. The only way I found to level Restoration at a reasonable rate, short of taping a key down or resorting to the console, was to get regular training [i.e. 5 points per level] up to 100.

In order to fit this in with everything else, this basically required periodic visits to trainers in between levels, so this style of play was not conducive to getting lost in exploration for hours at a time. I felt it justified at Maximum Difficulty though, when an 'anything goes' style of play usually leads to winding up dead. Mercantile and Athletics were two other skills that I found naturally level slowly, so in the guide I recommended the same thing be done with these skills as well.

But yeah: It is a little dismaying that Restoration naturally levels so slowly in Oblivion. May I suggest periodic training as an option, if you're not into modding, key taping or console hacking.

[What Zit Tooya]

I'll have to edit to mention I have restoration as a minor skill. Forgot that effects exp gain. I kind of have a stigma associated with trainers being that they cost a decent some of money (though comparatively little by the time you start grinding out skills for the sake of leveling) and it just feels like a shortcut. Though yeah I'll have to do that. I was already doing that with armorer because I'd really like to repair all the enchanted gear I'm using at this point >.>

[The Flying Rodent]

Fair enough. Then yeah, I'm not surprised it took you a long time.

Training is 'less' of a shortcut in Oblivion and Skyrim than it was in Morrowind, when trainers had 3 skills each and you could train everything until it was all 100 or you ran out of money. There is a limit of 5 skill gains per level from training. So say Restoration is 60, you can only train it to 65 maximum before levelling up. In addition: Each trainer only trains one skill, and only to a certain level.

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Trainers

An 'Advanced Trainer' will train Restoration up to 70. From there, you must gain a recommendation and location of the Master Trainer for that skill [which you can do from the advanced trainer once their designated skill hits 70 and you talk to them about 'Training']. Restoration Trainers typically hang out in Chapels. If you don't want spoilers from looking at the link, may I suggest looking there.

With regards to Armorer: There is a funny little hack you can do. If you boost a skill artifically with a Fortify Skill effect, MOST of the time the character will not gain the perks associated with the skill boost. HOWEVER, a character WILL gain the perks from boosting Armorer.

So you can make a Fortify Armorer 100 points for 1 second spell, and have a magic unbreakable hammer, thus removing the need to train it other than to gain Endurance points. :)