Efficient leveling

[Charlemagne]

I know how to level efficiently in Oblivion and have used it to good effect, however it bores me. Are the monsters really unbeatable if you level naturally (2-3 attribute increases in each level)? Has anyone played it through with natural leveling? Why would the game designers bother with character classes if it was impossible to win with them?

I'm playing Morrowind with natural leveling after giving up on efficient, of course there's a difference there that monsters don't level with you (although you do face tougher ones as you advance). I was planning to switch to natural in oblivion too, I would be grateful for opinions, especially if anyone has actually played that way, share your experiences.

[Charlemagne]

Well, my very first character when I started Oblivion (my first TES game too) was a mage. An honest, made by the designers mage-class character. I had advanced several levels and was doing the Oblivion quests, and felt pretty good, until someone came and explained to me the evils of inefficient leveling. I started reading about it and created another character which I efficiently leveled. I recall I had much more fun with the first one.

[__-__-__]

All basic classes can be played in Oblivion but it requires you to develop thier skills in a certain order to be able to fight what will appear in the world as you keep leveling.

Oh and don't let anyone tell you how to play your game.

[Comrade Gimchi]

My last few characters use no Armor. Right now I am playing a redguard archer/mage at level 39 with no armor on hard difficulty. I'm having little to know troubles. Also this is a no-mod playthrough on this Redguard archer/mage.

[Comrade Gimchi]

I did use EL on early 10-15 levels to get archery up though ><

[Charlemagne]

Yeah I guess the idea is keep an eye on EL, but don't get tied by it.

[Shiro]

I played Morrowind while natural leveling and found it reasonably easy. I'm efficient leveling in Oblivion and my god this game is hard! I have to keep the difficulty bar all the way to the left (easy) for the most part. I'm at level 18 and already have maxed out Endurance and Strength, luck is sitting at 71 and I'm currently working on my Speed and Agility. Not to say, efficient leveling is such a boring grind... I'm not enjoying this game as much as I thought I would, sadly. You have to push a bunch of quests for later because you might end up accidentally leveling up skills you're not focused on at that moment...

My next playthrough will be entirely "natural".

[__-__-__]

Originally posted by Charlemagne:

Yeah I guess the idea is keep an eye on EL, but don't get tied by it.

It is a good thing to know some tricks in this game as the enemies can get ridiculous but EL is not necessary at all. I don't use it, the closest I come is developing Armorer on any character that uses armor or a weapon (like Spellswords). If it would help, pick a class, list its skills here and I will tell you how I would play it without using EL.

[Charlemagne]

Originally posted by Sesh:

It is a good thing to know some tricks in this game as the enemies can get ridiculous but EL is not necessary at all. I don't use it, the closest I come is developing Armorer on any character that uses armor or a weapon (like Spellswords). If it would help, pick a class, list its skills here and I will tell you how I would play it without using EL.

Now you're speaking. Mage. Destruction, Alteration, Mysticism, Illusion, Restoration, Alchemy and Conjuration. All the Intelligence and Willpower skills are up in the majors and will make you level from too much use (if you play as a mage should). This means that you will usually get x2 or x3 attribute increases for these two when you level. At least, you can use all other skills with abandon (athletics, weapons, armor, acrobatics, security etc.)

[la_nague]

why dont you just use a mod that improves your atrributes based on your skill usage?

Why torture yourself?



and then while you are at it use a mod like francesco that makes the scaling of enemies much better.

[Charlemagne]

Originally posted by la_nague:

why dont you just use a mod that improves your atrributes based on your skill usage?

Why torture yourself?



and then while you are at it use a mod like francesco that makes the scaling of enemies much better.

Can you suggest a mod for the first par about attributes based on your skill usage? I searched but only found mods that claimed making leveling better but in the end you still had to EL.

[__-__-__]

Originally posted by Charlemagne:

Originally posted by Sesh:

It is a good thing to know some tricks in this game as the enemies can get ridiculous but EL is not necessary at all. I don't use it, the closest I come is developing Armorer on any character that uses armor or a weapon (like Spellswords). If it would help, pick a class, list its skills here and I will tell you how I would play it without using EL.

Now you're speaking. Mage. Destruction, Alteration, Mysticism, Illusion, Restoration, Alchemy and Conjuration. All the Intelligence and Willpower skills are up in the majors and will make you level from too much use (if you play as a mage should). This means that you will usually get x2 or x3 attribute increases for these two when you level. At least, you can use all other skills with abandon (athletics, weapons, armor, acrobatics, security etc.)

As I have said before, it is important to identify how the class fights, if you can't fight in Oblivion you can't win in Oblivion, to that respect I would ignore Mysticism, Illusion and Alchemy for a while.

Mysticism is only useful for enchanting for soul trap and it's absorb\reflect properties, detect life can be fairly helpful against vampires or just general Reconnaissance but that isn't all that helpful as most enemies have no method of invisibility nor are you likely to learn much from seeing where an enemy is through a wall beyond that an enemy is there. Telekinesis can also make getting Welkynd stones easier but I have found them to be unneeded most of the time.

Illusion can be useful later once you manage to get paralyze, silence and invisibility but those are all fairly advanced and not so readily available to low level characters, for level restrictions and lack of money as they tend to be fairly expensive as spells. Demoralize is mostly worthless, you have to make a custom spell just to keep it's effectiveness up against ever more powerful enemies. Light is also relatively pointless simply because it's never dark enough to need it.

Don't ignore the potions making side of Alchemy entirely but poisons require a weapon to have any effect, the main point here is don't get side tracked with this skill but develop it as you find ingredients. If you have the Vile Lair, or Frostcrag Spire take a moment every few days to harvest ingredients to make potions\poisons keep the ones that you feel are useful and sell the others. If you return in a few days there may be more ingredients to gather. Do not ignore the value of potions bought from stores, health potions are really helpful no matter where they are from.

From this point on I will address each skill in order from least to most important.

Restoration has offensive and defensive qualities but I find magicka spent on spells to heal in the middle of battle to be wasted as you will likely be injured to that level again and now you don't have the magicka to fight with (unless you have restore magicka potions, you should have a lot of them as a mage). I have found that the best use of Restoration is as a way to recover health lost after a battle is over. The buffs generally aren't strong enough and take too much magicka, and the only absorbtion spells worth the effort are of Health, Magicka and Fatigue but are better if you make a custom spell to have an over time effect (which will require you to stay closer than is generally advised for a mage).

Alteration has good defensive properties but feather is best used as an enchantment and burden is generally worthless, the strength of Alteration lies in it's shield spells but if you are playing as a mage effectively you shouldn't need the protection. The main thing alteration should be used for is fire\frost\shock shield as you may need protection from that sort of attack.

Destruction is the main damage dealer of a mages skills but again requires a visit to an alter to be at it's best. Just make your own spells ocasionally and this skill should take care of itself.

Conjuration is easily the most important early game skill for any magically oriented character that has access to it. Conjured creatures act as both weapon and shield for mages and can be used to greatest effect early in the game. Summoned creatures generally gain the focus of any enemy in the area the instant they are summoned. The main problem with Conjuration is that your creatures don't level while your enemies do. This means that if you summon a Xivilai to fight another yours will be at a distinct disadvantage as your enemy has a few levels your Xivilai doesn't have. Try and level in Conjuration the most the enemies you'll face won't be able to withstand the creatures you can summon but you may eventually get into a situation where you are up against some bandit, summon a lich that costs more than half your magicka, just to have it die to said bandit after only a few seconds. After this starts happening start developing Illusion in earnest, invisibility is the best defense a mage can have. Bound weapons\armor can be used as well though if you are trying to play a true mage don't emphasize them too much, the weapons can be used to deliver poisons if you have some and the armor can provide some extra defense if you need it but such items are more for Battlemages and Sorcerers. Chorrol has the most Conjuration spells available.

Items: look for shield, magicka and absorbtion echantments, also keep some weapons around if they happen to have an enchantment effect that you can't use yourself.

The best bit of advice I can give about playing a mage is this; play to your available spells. If you don't have good spells in this game it matters little what your skills are, if you are running the risk of leveling beyond the power of your spells and don't have money to buy better ones (you can't rely on item finds to get the spells you will need) don't be afriad to hold yourself back until you get them and don't level anymore than one at a time as it can be hard to tell where you should be and may find that your new spells aren't strong enough if you level too much.

I wrote all this assuming a normal level of difficulty and I can't really guarantee it will work for you but this is how I play and it works for me. If it doesn't work I apologize now for wasting your time.

[__-__-__]

If you have any questions feel free to ask them.

[Charlemagne]

Thanks for sharing these insights. But the main question remains, can one concentrate on the skills he finds most useful, as you said, gain only x2 or x3 per level in Intelligence and Willpower, and be viable? Is maxing these attributes early so important, or can mastering the skills and getting good spells and items get you through while your Int and Wil lag a little behind? According to the philosophy of EL, if you don't get these attributes to 100 ASAP (around level 12) you're dead. Leveling naturally, they would be around 70 by level 12, and would be maxing around level 23.

[__-__-__]

Good spells and items can offset any lag in the primary attributes if all you are getting is x2 or x3. In general my characters average about x3. I have gotten to level 20 and still not maxed out a single attribute though I am usually pretty close (85+).

[__-__-__]

All of what I said fits the Mage class fairly well but if you take a class one skill removed form a Mage, like a Sorcerer, alot of the strategies, tactics and use of these skills shifts by a surprising degree.