im guessing youre an experienced...

[Nonbinary]

edit: hello... i noticed this thread comes up when you search about baurus guessing classes. the answer to the enigma is this: baurus completely understands how combat based skills work. he also understands how pure magic and pure stealth works. you can for example level melee skills, heavy armor, armorer and block, only stick to running, level no other skills, and get warrior class. you can also level lockpicking, bow, acrobatics and only stick to sneaking to move around and become a thief. you can stick to walking, cast fireballs and heal yourself and do alchemy, and you become mage

where baurus messes up is if you try to do something hybrid. if you do combat+magic skills, expecting to become a crusader, or a spellsword, baurus will mistake the magical skills you leveled as stealth, and instead pick you to be an archer or an acrobat. do combat+stealth, and baurus will instead assume you are a crusader or a spellsword. if you level magic+stealth, he will mix up which one of them you leveled most. if you level all three branches, he will understand the amount of combat you did right, but mix up the amount of stealth and magic you did. if you level a lot of stealth, a bit combat, and even less magic, you should become a monk, but instead you become a witchhunter. if you level a lot of magic, and equal bit of combat and stealth, you should become a nightblade, but instead become a bard. if you want your class to actually be picked appropriately, use this page: https://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=GetIsClassDefault
if baurus suggests something hybrid of any kind, find the opposite (or close to the opposite) of the magic/stealth he suggests to get the right one.

another thing to keep in mind! if you leveled combat skills *just* once or twice, and did more stealth and magic, its honestly impossible to know what baurus thinks because it confuses him a whole lot more. he will first of all completely erase either magic or stealth from what you did, replace it with combat or add a whole new idea to how much or little combat you did... and then leave the other be, or maybe even switch it around with the amount you did on the erased branch. i honestly dont know how he mixes this up, so you will just have to make a guess how much you did of either branch and pick out the class from the elderscrolls page on your own

here is how the hybrids should be understood:
if baurus suggests you to be a(n) = is what he really meant ...

warrior = warrior
thief = thief
mage = mage
knight = knight
rogue = rogue

barbarian = crusader
crusader = barbarian
agent = healer
healer = agent
acrobat = battlemage
battlemage = acrobat
assassin = witchhunter
witchhunter = assassin
pilgrim = spellsword
spellsword = pilgrim
bard = nightblade
nightblade = bard

scout = rogue
archer = crusader
sorcerer = acrobat
monk = witchhunter

the top list is without a doubt, same for the second list.
third list are classes who lacked a counter part, but should be close to what the opposite result would have been in any case

if you want baurus to guess a specific class, locate that class on the right side and then follow the playstyle of the class next to it. though it wont make any sense in practice. the most sure way to get a class is to level the skill categories the exact number listed on the site. for example, if you want baurus to guess you are a nightblade, you must level it like a bard. a bard requires 2 parts combat, 2 parts magic and 3 parts stealth. you can level hand to hand one time and athletics one time, level destruction one time and restoration one time, level lockpicking two times and acrobatics one time. when you have done that, you cannot raise any other skills until baurus assigns you the class, which will be nightblade


just to summarize what skills constitutes as combat, stealth, and magic that you can level in the tutorial:

combat: blade, blunt, hand2hand, armorer, block, heavy armor, athletics
stealth: acrobatics, light armor, security, marksman, sneak
magic: alchemy, destruction, restoration

something worth noting, being assigned a mage is actually pretty hard, if not done on purpose. you cant do any running, jumping, sneaking, lockpicking, and you have to stick to magic to kill. your gameplay will actually become very savage for a mage, in the sense that you must consume a lot of rat meat to level alchemy and allow yourself harmed to heal often (while wearing a mythic dawn robe cause its cool, or at least no armor). of course, this isnt necessary if you genuinely stick to the skills, but if you had no clue about it and also leveled athletics, sneaking, light/heavy armor and jumped too, you would have drowned out those magic skill levels to be able to become a pure mage. becoming a warrior on the other hand is much easier, because every single combat skill is available to use in the tutorial, and its often enough to drown out any lockpicking and restoration level ups. simply deciding to play like a stealthy character can, too, be enough to drown out whatever athletics you leveled and make you a pure stealth class

further down in the discussion i also raised the question if telling uriel that "the nine guide and protect us" or "im not on good terms with the gods" or "i dont know, i dont think about it" plays any role. it does not. its just oblivion trying to adopt some evil/neutral/good roleplay, but it has no effect. imo it could have had some effect, in the way that the upstanding response makes baurus think you are combat oriented, confessing you are not on good terms with the gods makes baurus believe you have a criminal past, or saying you dont think about that makes baurus assume you devote your thoughts and time to something else and live secluded from society, ie youre a mage

last note, it seems like baurus actually guessed correct in earlier versions. so the bug was introduced in some patch. i dont know how long you need to go back in versions to get baurus to guess correctly


original post:
ok so this has got to be the biggest mystery yet unexplained. i have been trying to figure this one out for so long and its still mind boggling. the part where baurus guesses your class. i have tried to go for a few classes, but this time i really tried to go for the barbarian for several plays, just to see if i could make him guess it. just for that reason only

first i made a male khajiit. he guessed me to be a crusader. then i made a male redguard. he guessed me to be an archer. tried a male imperial. guessed to be a scout. then a female nord. guessed me to be pilgrim. then a female orc. guessed me to be a knight (sir mazoga confirmed)

i have also tried to make him guess im an archer but instead guessed acrobat, witchhunter or agent despite me not jumping once or casting a flare, or not being able to level speechcraft, mercantile and illusion. but you are capable of leveling all archer skills in the tutorial. it looks like he favors classes where you level 3-4 of the skills right instead of all the skills, before that i thought barbarian would be easy to go for as all skills can be leveled too. i even made sure to level the skills in front of baurus in case he does not judge what you do inside the caves, taking the hammer with me and running around enough to level athletics at least once in his face

he also seems to ignore the classes attributes, and wont hesitate to pick a class where your race has -10 in at least one of its favored and no change in the other. but considering he does still pick different classes despite leveling the same skills, he either cares about how often you level the skills - since you would be able to level the skills you need more if your class starts on 5 - or how your starting skills just are in general, with the 15s and 10s adding an influence

but even if you pick a class that has a boost in the major skills, or pick a class that can boost them easily (hence why i tried both redguard and khajiit), he just likes to pick something entirely else that always has 2 or 3 skills off that had nothing to do with what you were doing, even as offensives. like he guesses a marksman class when you only used melee just because the marksman class also happened to use light armor and armorer. i can still see a pattern but i can never manipulate it to actually get the result i expect. baurus just continues to surprise and troll. i cant possibly abandon this old game for good until i have the answers to this great enigma. you are tearing me apart, baurus

[Valden21]

Actually, it does seem to be at least PARTIALLY based on the skills. At the start of my current playthrough, Baurus guessed that I was a Scout. I chose Nightblade. Looking back, Nightblade and Scout share 4 skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Blade, and Light Armor. It appears to me that it depends on which 4 skills you use the most often during the tutorial, and his guess will be one of the classes that use those 4 skills. I was primarily using those four specific skills throughout the tutorial, and although his guess wasn't exactly right, he was pretty close.

[Nonbinary]

Originally posted by Valden21:

Actually, it does seem to be at least PARTIALLY based on the skills. At the start of my current playthrough, Baurus guessed that I was a Scout. I chose Nightblade. Looking back, Nightblade and Scout share 4 skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Blade, and Light Armor. It appears to me that it depends on which 4 skills you use the most often during the tutorial, and his guess will be one of the classes that use those 4 skills. I was primarily using those four specific skills throughout the tutorial, and although his guess wasn't exactly right, he was pretty close.

that is how i experience it too. though if you go back to a quicksave before he gives you a class again, he will pick the exact same. so maybe the last influence comes from the race you picked

[LordiAnders]

https://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=GetIsClassDefault

[Nonbinary]

Originally posted by LordiAnders:

https://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=GetIsClassDefault

ohhh wow, i have been looking for info like this for so long. thank you so much

[Nonbinary]

Originally posted by LordiAnders:

https://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=GetIsClassDefault

there is something that still confuses me though. if magic is anything from eating ingredients and doing alchemy to casting spells, then i never did any of that on any of my characters where i tried to go for barbarian. if i needed healing then i drank potions i found or used birthsign healing. but it says you need to increase magic skills to be most of those classes i got instead. it still looks like there is another influence. could the birthsign you pick play a role too? i picked ritual a lot during the attempts to become barb

the website also specifically says you have to increase skills, so i dont think using lesser or major powers should impact it

the one where he guessed my orc to be knight has to be the most confusing. i did light armor which is stealth, which knight has no part of, and then it also assumes i did magic but i didnt. i dont think orc has any race boosts in magic if that plays a role too

ok i just checked the birthsign. i made a save before picking birthsign and picked first ritual and then warrior. both times baurus guessed me to be a warrior. but i increased lockpicking in the caves.. and warrior should be pure combat, does he really only pay attention to what you do in front of him then? i only increased blade and athletics and then armorer once, so i dont think the combat influence was too big to outweight security

another edit, i just reloaded that save and increased sneak once too, with them nearby. he still thinks im a warrior

ok this is interesting... i did a whole new game as imperial female, i leveled blade and athletics exactly 7 times and light armor exactly 3 times. not sure what i went for there, just wanted to see how that ratio would work. i picked lady as birthsign. now baurus thinks im a knight again. no magic increase, 3 stealth increase. only thing right in that suggestion is combat. you could think he maybe picked that because knight also focuses on speechcraft which imperials are good at, but then that doesnt explain why the orc female got the same when she has the worst personality in the entire game. well maybe except dremoras. they socially awkward

[////]

baurus is a dufus. he lost emperor right in front of him, so what do you expect?

[Nonbinary]

look at this: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2177344204

did i level a lot of combat? yes.. did i level stealth? never. what did i also level? destruction, restoration and alchemy. how do you get this class? 6 parts combat, 1 part stealth, 0 part magic

big however... im actually starting to think that little choice uriel gives you between what you think about the nine, actually matters.

the nine guide and protect us: combat (upstanding or respectful)
not on good terms with the gods: stealth (committed crimes)
idk, i dont think about it: magic (agnosticism)

why? because i picked, im not on good terms with the gods. i leveled all the magic i could but it still amounted maybe 30% versus combat. but picking that line made me largely much combat/little stealth focused, and stomped down whatever magic i did. fitting the barbarian


before this attempt i leveled a little stealth, a lot of combat. i picked nine guide us. baurus guessed archer. archer is also combat. and i think what tipped it even more to be half combat/half stealth class was my race, wood elf. extra skill in marksman and sneak. didnt level those though, only light armor and only wore gloves and boots

so what i understand from all this, there are a lot of influences, which i also suspected. or i wouldnt have been able to pick many different races, level the exact same skills, and get different results. those times i only leveled stealth and combat but got magic influenced classes, must have been because i picked "i dont think about it"(magic). which kinda sounds good for a barbarian. but really i should have picked either of the other two, to make it combat or stealth related

back when baurus guessed warrior, i leveled a lot combat, a little stealth, but picked nine guide us. it makes perfect sense, the more i think about it. kinda seems like an odd roleplay addition to just tell uriel what you think. but makes sense if it actually matters. the only other times you get extra dialogue choices in the tutorial is to get more information, for the sake of new players. but picking your stance on the gods does not really teach you anything, but it does tell something about what you want to be

[Nonbinary]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2177536686

yeah i think im finally getting it

i added another missing piece to the puzzle. you have to level every specialization just once for him to recognize your skills probably. i dont know how that works, doesnt even seem to be a proper recognize anyway. but this time i only leveled magic and stealth 1 time, and combat rest of the time. he should have recognized me as a knight if anything, thats 5 combat, 1 stealth and 1 magic. even more confusing is my race is breton. something feels broke in how baurus handles the info. maybe he mixes up stealth and magic. would explain why everytime i leveled combat and stealth a lot he said i was a crusader, and when i leveled combat and magic a lot he finally assumes im a barbarian. he gets the info all inverted with what specialization you combine combat with

he also looks to be a lot better at guessing stealth and magic classes

[////]

could be that devs had more grand plans for starting area, but later scrapped whatever that was.

[Nonbinary]

Originally posted by ////:

could be that devs had more grand plans for starting area, but later scrapped whatever that was.

the way i see it, if any new player who isnt too curious about all the potential classes but just want to go with what suits them best for their first playthrough, then baurus would be able to determine what that player prefers to play as through their skill use. if only he guessed it properly

its probably also meant to help new players avoid getting stuck with minor skills because they dont understand their majors or never use them, and then wondering why they never level up. maybe that used to be a problem in morrowind in the beginning. in my case when i first started playing oblivion, i was very curious about the classes but picked ones i didnt understand so i was also stuck leveling skills i didnt major and then didnt understand the main quest with the azura part, just because lvl 6 requirement. took long before i realized how you level magic skills (separately). my child brain wasnt keeping up to the game mechanics at all

[lPaladinl]

It's based on skills you leveled but a lot of classes are actually mixed classes, making it easy to fall into any of them instead of others.

Like being surprised that you were picked to be an Acrobat over an Archer is silly, they're mostly the same class. Maybe there's some RNG involved with picking a class when they overlap.

[Nonbinary]

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

It's based on skills you leveled but a lot of classes are actually mixed classes, making it easy to fall into any of them instead of others.

Like being surprised that you were picked to be an Acrobat over an Archer is silly, they're mostly the same class. Maybe there's some RNG involved with picking a class when they overlap.

i literally calculated how many percentages i did what skills to fit that wikis calculation. it says barbarians are 7 part combat, 1 part stealth, 0 part magic. so how come when i level magic and dont do any stealth that baurus says im a barbarian? and how come he says im a knight when i level stealth and no magic, when knight is supposed to be 7 part combat and 1 part magic? have ya even read this thread. i actually figured it out eventually. i figured it out that its broke. baurus judges your skillsets inverted. he mistakes stealth for being magic and magic for being stealth

[Nonbinary]

after nearly a year, i have finally gathered all information i could on what appears to be a bug on the class guessing. i have updated the original post with all the info i could gather through trials and testing, and corrected a few things from my earlier speculations. hope this helps someone achieve peace on whats up with baurus as it did to me