Grey Prince's Training reward bad for leveling?

[Peaceful Joe]

So I completed the "Origin of the Grey Prince" quest for that orc in the arena and got the permanent skill upgrades for blade, block, and athletics. However, I noticed that my skill progress for each of them is permanently upgraded rather than adding a green arrow number, resulting in me potentially losing out on future leveling.

Can anyone confirm if these permanent skill upgrades wont mess up my leveling. I noticed that other active effects add a green number to a skill and the real number is not affected. But the Grey prince training reward has no green arrow. I hope that makes sense.

[Gumpo]

Its my understanding that if there is a green arrow, that indicates a modifier is being applied by something temporarily, and it will cap your stat/skill that much under the maximum of 100. However if there is no arrow, it is considered a natural level, and should be fine.
I could be wrong though.

[Peaceful Joe]

Originally posted by Gumpo:

Its my understanding that if there is a green arrow, that indicates a modifier is being applied by something temporarily, and it will cap your stat/skill that much under the maximum of 100. However if there is no arrow, it is considered a natural level, and should be fine.
I could be wrong though.

So, I had 56 in blade before getting the reward from the Grey Prince. That is also reflected in the circular progress bar. After I get the skill upgrade from the grey prince, my blade skill shows 59, even on the circular progress bar. My leveling progress did not increase when getting thee reward. That seems to me that would mess up my leveling potential since I lost points of progression towards a level permanently.

[SadPlatty©]

So for that - if I recall correctly it does not actually count towards your overall level-up, so if any where main skills then it could ultimately hinder you anywhere from 3 to 9 points overall (which if you had all 3 as main skills, that is basically a level up lost).

The up-side however, is because this is a direct skill up, if you had 100 in those skills before, it would then actually push them to 103.

So weirdly, stuff like that (and thus finishing the arena for those doing the quest) are best reserved for "end game".

This ofcourse if you are trying to "max level" your character in the old game anyway; with the new level system, it's less of a hit to the overall level.

Edit : No - I am wrong, you always lose 9 now as all skills count toward the level, so low level characters can indeed miss a level-up by doing this too soon (in the new game).

[Yagger]

Originally posted by Peaceful Joe:

Originally posted by Gumpo:

Its my understanding that if there is a green arrow, that indicates a modifier is being applied by something temporarily, and it will cap your stat/skill that much under the maximum of 100. However if there is no arrow, it is considered a natural level, and should be fine.
I could be wrong though.

So, I had 56 in blade before getting the reward from the Grey Prince. That is also reflected in the circular progress bar. After I get the skill upgrade from the grey prince, my blade skill shows 59, even on the circular progress bar. My leveling progress did not increase when getting thee reward. That seems to me that would mess up my leveling potential since I lost points of progression towards a level permanently.

sounds like a good thing, you want more skill ups without hitting a level up

[Peaceful Joe]

Originally posted by Yagger:

Originally posted by Peaceful Joe:

So, I had 56 in blade before getting the reward from the Grey Prince. That is also reflected in the circular progress bar. After I get the skill upgrade from the grey prince, my blade skill shows 59, even on the circular progress bar. My leveling progress did not increase when getting thee reward. That seems to me that would mess up my leveling potential since I lost points of progression towards a level permanently.

sounds like a good thing, you want more skill ups without hitting a level up

But it's bad for reaching max level. I most likely will never reach level cap anyways, but I want the option to do so to remain open. Accepting Grey Prince's training reward seems like it will mess up leveling progress.

[SadPlatty©]

Originally posted by Peaceful Joe:

Originally posted by Yagger:

sounds like a good thing, you want more skill ups without hitting a level up

But it's bad for reaching max level. I most likely will never reach level cap anyways, but I want the option to do so to remain open. Accepting Grey Prince's training reward seems like it will mess up leveling progress.

To be fair - level cap in Oblivion is sortof a meme.

For example, one trick Oldrim players picked up was using "drain" magic to put themselves below 100 after reaching the cap, as you can then re-level; the best part of this method being that you can also get to over 100 in each stat (and the game gives you the buffs of doing so also).

For example - "Drain Acrobatics 100 on Self" sounds silly as a spell, but each jump is a level in Acrobatics until like, rank 10.

Even more crazily - you can sorta copy Skyrim's "reset the skill level" by using "Destroy <skill> on self" and literally be back at a lower level, resulting in infinite player levels in theory (unless I don't understand Destroy - I am not an expert, just an enthusiast)

[Peaceful Joe]

Originally posted by SadPlatty©:

Originally posted by Peaceful Joe:

But it's bad for reaching max level. I most likely will never reach level cap anyways, but I want the option to do so to remain open. Accepting Grey Prince's training reward seems like it will mess up leveling progress.

To be fair - level cap in Oblivion is sortof a meme.

For example, one trick Oldrim players picked up was using "drain" magic to put themselves below 100 after reaching the cap, as you can then re-level; the best part of this method being that you can also get to over 100 in each stat (and the game gives you the buffs of doing so also).

For example - "Drain Acrobatics 100 on Self" sounds silly as a spell, but each jump is a level in Acrobatics until like, rank 10.

Even more crazily - you can sorta copy Skyrim's "reset the skill level" by using "Destroy <skill> on self" and literally be back at a lower level, resulting in infinite player levels in theory (unless I don't understand Destroy - I am not an expert, just an enthusiast)

Interesting. So, what you saying is that I could use a similar method (without console command or mods) to effectively negate the lost leveling progress I would incur if I were to accept the Grey Prince's training? If so, should just accept his reward and become arena champion now or is it still better to wait later?

[SadPlatty©]

Originally posted by Peaceful Joe:

Interesting. So, what you saying is that I could use a similar method (without console command or mods) to effectively negate the lost leveling progress I would incur if I were to accept the Grey Prince's training? If so, should just accept his reward and become arena champion now or is it still better to wait later?

Sorry for belated reply - yeah, it works similar-ish to the console. The idea behind "Destroying your own stats is" :
- You use "Destroy blade 100" on yourself to go from 100 to 0 blade skill
- You then use a blade to rank that skill up again, as the game will treat this as naturally ranking skills, as you are gaining XP again using them
- After you are satisfied, you would then use a potion or spell (or I think preying at the church might work) to restore the destroyed stat (so it won't be red anymore)

That would then re-add the 100 onto whatever you gained - allowing you to both surpass 100 in the skill and continue leveling up as though you didn't cap out.

Or to put it another way - I would say do it now. Unless you plan to raise every stat to 100 - you won't really lose anything. Even a character at 100 in every skill can still level via the above trick.

Only thing is, you need to level Destruction to use the "Destroy stat" magic skills.