New Spellsword

[Soft-Boiled Heavy]

I bought this game about two weeks ago and I've been trying to get a handle on leveling in this game because i keep getting conflicting things on how to level properly. My favorite races are Nord and Redguard and I need help on making a Spellsword build for those races.

[Taiwan Number One]

Efficient leveling is a bit tricky. UESP has a whole page on it. If you want I can load up my character and list what I have for my major/minor skills as he's sort of a spellsword.

[Soft-Boiled Heavy]

That would be appreciated. I just want to do a build where I can go through the game without lowering the difficulty, or feeling I have to grind or power game at some point.

[Taiwan Number One]

You will likely have to tweak this to fit your playstyle. My major skills are...

Armorer for Endurance. You may want to choose something else, but this always worked for me.

Hand to Hand for Strength. Fun to mess around with, but not that helpful which makes it great for EL.

Alchemy for Intelligence. Swap this for some ohter skill governed by INT if you plan to spam potions.

Alteration for Willpower.

Light Armor for Speed. Maxed out, there's no difference between light and heavy armor aside from aesthetics and HP.

Sneak for Agility. Not hard to raise.

Speechcraft for Personality.

If you have any questions, just ask.

[Soft-Boiled Heavy]

Would that work for a Redguard or Norn? I know they don't have high INT.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Well the default Spellsword class is not that bad imo, but I would still make a custom class so you can customize it.

I would probably swap Block for Alchemy, so you have a major skill to raise Intelligence.

Then I would probably swap out Alteration for either Armorer or an Agility based skill so you can have 1 skill for each attribute as a major skill.

Custom Class

Prefered Attrbutes
Endurance
Willpower or Intelligence. Intelligence is a better choice for low levels.

Specialization
Magic

Alchemy
Armorer
Blade
Heavy or Light Armor
Destruction
Illusion
Restoration

One tweak I like to make to the game using the Construction set is to change the governing attribute of Armorer from Endurance to Strength and I usually change H2H to Endurance to compensate. This change makes it alot easier to raise Strength at level up without having to whack enemies a million times to skill up. It is not necessary, it is just a suggestion.

I got the idea from Morrowind where Armorer was Strength and Spear was Endurance. It worked well imo.

Please note that using Armorer, Blade and Heavy Armor as a Nord will reduce your maximum obtainable level by 2.5 levels and as Redguard will reduce it by 1.5 levels with that setup. But by not choosing those skills you will start out weaker with much lower damage and lower defense.

Using Magic as a specialization with those magic skills will also reduce the max level.

This is only important for people trying to make a perfect character. Most characters will be over-powered long before capping your character level.

[Soft-Boiled Heavy]

What is a good sign? Mage for the extra Magicka?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Well since you are going to be either a Nord or Redguard you are going to start with low magicka, so you may want to choose one of the Mage Birthsigns to compensate.

Alternatively, although technically cheating, you can use console to give yourself Breton or High Elf Enhanced magicka.

[Night[owl]]

Originally posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten:

Well since you are going to be either a Nord or Redguard you are going to start with low magicka, so you may want to choose one of the Mage Birthsigns to compensate.

Alternatively, although technically cheating, you can use console to give yourself Breton or High Elf Enhanced magicka.

There is another option. Poster could use a mod which give fortification perks in magick for gaining level. There are several different esp file to pick between depending on how you want to use it. With main skill in magic, Chubbub, you will be at level 25 when you start (=Apprentice) in those skills. Fortification do also reduce magic cost a bit, so will have less struggle to fire off your spells. With a total of 7 schools in magic you have (7 x 25 pts) 175 pts increase, if you go all magic.


http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/43268/?

[Soft-Boiled Heavy]

Thanks for all the help. What works better for a Spellsword, Heavy Armor for leveling Endurance, or Light Armor for moving quicker and less weight?

[S-Works]

Download one of the leveling mods which makes it a lot more logic :)

[Night[owl]]

Originally posted by Chubbub:

Thanks for all the help. What works better for a Spellsword, Heavy Armor for leveling Endurance, or Light Armor for moving quicker and less weight?

You might want more increase in health and Endurance is only way to increase it in vanilla Oblivion by use of related skills.

Heavy and Light armor increases your armor rating and will reduce your efficiency in casting spell.

Casting shield spell or enchanting your gear with shield spell will let you have high magical efficiency and get increase in AR.


It is a trade off and with high defence from either physical armor or magical enchanted with shield spells, you will need less pure health to survive. Just know that there are spell which disintegrate armor as well as silence and dispell which might nullify your magical based defence. In those situation you might want to be prepared with shielding spells from pots.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally posted by Chubbub:

Thanks for all the help. What works better for a Spellsword, Heavy Armor for leveling Endurance, or Light Armor for moving quicker and less weight?

You should raise Endurance as much as possible to increase your health every level.

I usually start the game with light armor as a major skill, but use Heavy armor as a minor skill to raise Endurance every level. That way I can increase Heavy armor 10 levels every level as a minor skill without it affecting my level, so I can focus on my more important major skills

[Soft-Boiled Heavy]

Does the level of XP you gain depends on how many armor pieces you have on?

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

Originally posted by Chubbub:

Does the level of XP you gain depends on how many armor pieces you have on?

In a sense, yes. Iirc, the amount of skill you gain in Light/Heavy Armor depends on how much damage the armor absorbs for you, so wearing more armor will raise your skill faster, and wearing a mix of Light and Heavy armor will divide the damage (and thus the skill increases) between the two.

[Night[owl]]

Join both Mages Guild and Fighters Guild. That way you will have access to free gear and potions from each guild as a starting point.

You could also train your armor skill by getting hit in a controlled manner in fighters guild. I think you also will have some opportunity to get a companion at lower level to help you out, if you do some quest that might be to hard on your armor.

Make sure to improve your armorer skill as both armor and weapon degrade very fast on low level. Collect all repair hammers you find. Armorer skill is important when you want to be able to repair enchanted weapon.

When you use heavy armor you will also be moving a bit slower and in places with many enemies you will also be detected from sound of your boots.

Check your keybindings for walk/run. Walking is very slow in movement. Especially when you need to move sideways or go backwards to avoid an attack. There is one key you can use that toggle as long as you keep it pressed which is usefull for those situations.

Later with high enough acrobatics you will get a perk that make it possible to dodge. Dodge have no cost in fatigue, so it is a very efficient way to get out of danger or to move behind target.