Tips on character creation

This is a basic(and when i say basic, i mean basic) guide in order to get a person started with a relatively fun or easy to use class in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Basic Statistic info

Health, Fatigue, and Magicka:

I'm just gonna give a basic run down of these stats. Health is basically what you'd expect; it is the thing that determines how many more hits you can take before you keel over, keep in mind that this does not regenerate over time unless you wait(using the t button and waiting for a set ingame time), drink a health potion, or cast a healing spell. Magicka is equally in that it determines what degree of spell can be cast and how often. It regenerates slowly unless you choose the atronach birthsign(unless you are strictly a no magic weilding warrior i don't suggest getting this) which stunts your magicka to where it doesn't regenerate. You may also use potions or the wells near some ruins in the game world as well as waiting in order to regenerate magicka. Finally there is fatigue, fatigue determines how hard you hit in combat and how far away you are from passing out through over exertion(don't worry it doesn't happen that often). To put it in lay man's terms, one can think of fatigue as how much strength you can put into a swing and as you use it the less and less you can put your max strength into your blows.

Stats:

-Strength:
Strength is a very important attribute for a more melee combat based buld as it not only increases your maximum carry weight, but it also increases the raw damage you do with melee attacks. It also is a part of what determines your maximum fatigue. You can increase strength early on by taking on the warrior birthsign(don't worry I'll explain what these are later). Also, when you hit a strength level of 70 or higher, npc's will greet you sometimes by saying "Look at the muscles on you".
(I'll leave it to you on how to take that)

-Endurance
Endurance is probably THE most imporatant attribute for most characters, save for some specialized builds. Endurance determines the amount of health gained when one level's up and helps in how much fatigue you have. Basicaly you can calculate how much health you'll gain by adding your current endurance plus ten points. And your base health is calculated by your base endurance times two. You can get an early bonus to this stat by taking the warrior or lady birthsign.
(I suggest leveling this to 100 as soon as possible, to maximize the amount of health gained per level)

-Willpower
Willpower is basically what determines how fast you regenerate magicka, or the lifeblood of spell casters, and it also helps determine how much fatigue you have. Unless you really really need the fatigue or magicka regen, you can hold off on trying to level up this statistic. You can get an early bonus to this statistic by taking the lady birthsign.

-Agility
Agility determines how resistant to stagger(how many times the enemy can stun you with blows), how much damage you do with bows, and it helps to determine how much fatigue you have. This skill is very good to have if you want to build yourself as a ranged assassin or sneaky type build. You can get an early bonus to this by taking the thief birthsign.

-Intelligence
Intelligence is basically what you dump points into if you need more magicka to cast spells. For a mage or magic type build, I would suggest leveling this stat, but otherwise don't worry about rushing it to 100 as intelligence provides a flat increase to magicka, rather than an amount per level.
(Keep in mind that by being more proficient with spellcasting, one can drastically reduce the magicka requirement needed to cast spells)

-Speed
Speed helps to determine how fast your character moves at max speed, and also helps determine how far you can jump. Do not underestimate the usefullness of speed however, as it can help you to dodge, outrun, or simply maneuver your way through difficult enemies or areas. Of particular note, speed can be used in tandum with the athletics and acrobatics skills in order to circumvent certain areas of the game.

-Personality
Personality effects how good you are at the speechcraft minigame and helps to achieve a high base disposition from npc's. Keep in mind that personality helps to scale the effectiveness of illusion spells. This is one of those stats where it is situationally helpful, however it still remains rather limited. Sure, it can help you earn currency early on, as well as be more proficient with illusion spells, but it is much better to focus on Willpower, intelligence, or endurance first.

-Luck
Luck is one of those dodgy stats that even after a while of playing the game, that I find little information about the skill. I know it helps provide a small bonus to every skill you have, and effects betting in the arena, and that it reduces the chances that one contracts diseases, however; it would seem that luck is more or less a skill that can be safely overlooked.

Skill info

Combat skills:

-Armorer
Determines effectiveness when repairing equipment. At apprentice level, hammers last twice as long. At journeyman, you can repair enchanted gear. At expert, you can repair gear to 125%, increasing effectiveness. At master, repair hammers never break.

-Athletics
Increases movement speed and how fast your fatigue regenerates while running. This skill is considered one of the slowest to level up, but it certainly comes in handy if you find yourself bogged down by heavy armor. At it's highest level, the athletics skill will completely nullify the fatigue regeneration penatly while moving

-Hand to hand
Hand to hand is one of those skills(for me at least) that you level when you want to have a bit of fun. In combat, hand to hand does both fatigue and health damage, which is unique to all other forms of physical offensive attack. Strength helps to improve the power of these attacks. Once you hit the apprentice level(25) of this skill, you can preform a standing(not moving) power attaxk that does three times normal damage. At Journeyman(50) level you gain the ability to hit creatures that could otherwise not be hurt by physical attacks and cause enemies to recoil(short stun) while blocking. At expert level(75) you gain the ability to do a backwards power attack for 2.5 times the damage with a 5% chance to disarm the enemy, and you gain a chance to knockback(short stun) enemies while blocking. At master(100) level, you gain a forward power attack that does 2.5 times normal damage and has a 5% change to paralyze the enemy(this ignore paralyze resist), and gains a 5% chance to disarm your enemy while blocking.

-Blade
Blade determines your effectiveness with blade type weapons like swords. Increasing strength will allow you to do more damage with blades. At apprentice level you gain a standing power attack for three times damage. At journeyman level you gain a left and right power attack that does 2.5 times damage and has a 5% chance to disarm. At expert level you gain the ability to do a backwards power attack that does 2.5 times damage and has a chance to knockdown(Knock them to the ground) enemies. At master level you gain a forward power attack that does 2.5 time damage and has a 5% chance to paralyze.

-Blunt
Blunt determines how effective you are when using blunt(maces and axes) weapons. Increasing strength will allow you to do more damage with these weapons. At apprentice level you gain a standing power attack for three times damage. At journeyman level you gain a left and right power attack that does 2.5 times damage and has a 5% chance to disarm. At expert level you gain the ability to do a backwards power attack that does 2.5 times damage and has a chance to knockdown(Knock them to the ground) enemies. At master level you gain a forward power attack that does 2.5 time damage and has a 5% chance to paralyze.

-Block
Determines effectiveness of shields. At apprentice, you are no longer fatigued for blocking. At journeyman, shields/swords no longer are damaged by blocking and blocking with hand to hand recoils the opponents. At expert, you gain a 25% chance to do a knockback(short stun) while blocking. At master, while blocking and knocking back, you gain a 5% chance to disarm enemies.

-Heavy Armor
Determines effectiveness with heavy armor. At apprentice level it gets damaged at a normal rate. At journeyman it gets damaged at 50% rate. At expert level, your worn heavy armor only weighs 50%. At master level, worn heavy armor weighs nothing.

Magic Skills:

-Alchemy
Helps to brew better potions. DO NOT THINK THIS SKILL IS USELESS(caps for cool kids). It allows you to brew really useful(or expensive and good to sell) potions. Each level will reveal an unknown effect on an ingrediant and at the master level you can brew with just one ingredient.

-Alteration
Determines ability to cast Alteration spells. The more you train in this skill, spells will become more powerful and less costly to cast. Each level of proficiency within the skill will allow the use of higher level spells. Alteration spells typically consist of magical armor, feathering your carry weight, or even water breathing/walking.

-Conjuration
Determines ability to cast Conjuration spells. The more you train in this skill, spells will become more powerful and less costly to cast. Each level of proficiency within the skill will allow the use of higher level spells. This particular magic type can be easily abused, essentially providing you an endless stream of npc's to take and deal damage for you while you dig through a chest.

-Destruction
Basically determines your ability to cast destruction spells. The more you train in this skill, spells will become more powerful and less costly to cast. Each level of proficiency within the skill will allow the use of higher level spells. These are damage spells.

-Illusion
Determines ability to cast illusion spells. The more you train in this skill, spells will become more powerful and less costly to cast. Each level of proficiency within the skill will allow the use of higher level spells. Invisibility, and partial invisibility are really nice.

-Mysticism
Determines ability to cast Mysticism spells. The more you train in this skill, spells will become more powerful and less costly to cast. Each level of proficiency within the skill will allow the use of higher level spells. Soul trap is provided from this tree.

-Restoration
Determines ability to cast Restoration spells. The more you train in this skill, spells will become more powerful and less costly to cast. Each level of proficiency within the skill will allow the use of higher level spells. Healing is always nice to have on backup.

Stealth Skills:

-Acrobatics
Increases jump height. At apprentice level, you can attack while falling. At Joruneyman level you can dodge by pressing jump and block. At expert level you lose 50% less fatigue when jumping. At master level yo can water jump

-Light armor
Determins effectiveness with light armor. At apprentice level it gets damaged at a normal rate. At journeyman it gets damaged at 50% rate. At expert level worn light armor weighs nothing. At master level you gain a 50% bonus to light armor protection

-Marksman
Marksman determines your effectiveness with bows and arrows. At apprentice level you stop being fatigued while holding back an arrow. At journeyman level you can zoom in by pressing the block button. At expert level you gain the ability to knock down enemies with arrows. At master level you gain a 5% chance to paralyze enemies with arrows

-Mercantile
Helps get better deals when haggling. At apprentice level you can sell damaged equipment with no penalty. At journeyman level you can sell any goods to any merchant type. At expert level you can invest 500 gold into the store. At master level you can sell at a 100/100 ratio for goods and all merchants gain 500 gold for bartering

-Security
Determines effectiveness at picking locks and increases success of autopick lock. When you break a lockpick. At apprentice level one tumbler wont fall. At journeyman level, two tumblers won't fall. At expert level 3 tumblers won't fall. At master level all tumblers wont fall.

-Sneak
Determines your effectiveness when sneaking. While sneaking, at apprentice level, you get a 6x damage for one handed and hand to hand attacks, and 3x damage for bows. At journeyman level your boot's weight no longer effects detection. At expert level, running no longer effects detection. At master level, sneak attacks ignore armor.

-Speechcraft
Helps in persuading nps's to like you. At apprentice level you gain the ability to freely rotate the slider on the persuasion minigame once, and increases by one per each proficiency level.

Race Info

(Races w/ Bonuses and suggestions. Keep in mind that races help early on and can be considered for min/maxing, but otherwise it isn't super pivitol in character creation.)

-Altmer/High Elf
Altmer are a very good starting race to go for when considering making a mainly spellcasting type build. They start off with the highest amount of base magicka of all races. Be wary though of their weakness to elemental magic types, making combat versus mages fairly difficult. Male High elves have a standard 40 in the stats; willpower, agility, endurance, and personality with a lower 30 in strength and speed, and a higher stat of 50 in intelligence. Female High elves, have a standard 40 in willpower, speed, agility, and personality with a lower 30 in strength and endurance, and a higher 50 to intelligence. They gain a +10 bonus to the skills, alteration, destruction, and mysticism and a +5 bonus to alchemy, conuration, and illusion. They also gain a bonus of 75% disease resistance.

-Argonians(One of my two favorite starting races)
Argonian males are a great start if you're looking to make a rouge or thief type build, with a +10 bonus to agility and speed but with a -10 to willpower, endurance, and personality. Argonian females are a good start for magic wielders as they start with a +10 bonus to intelligence but with a -10 to endurance and personality. They have the ability to indefinately breathe underwater and are immune to poison(This is op to me) as well as having a 75% resistance to disease. They gain a +10 to athletics and lockpicking, and a +5 to alchemy, blade, hand to hand, illusion, and mysticism. This is one of my favorite starting classes simply because of the poison resistances... once again, personal thing, but i also do like the bonuses to skills for a warrior/paladin type build.

-Bosmer/Wood elves
Wood elves are good if you want a mobile, sneaky, ranged scout or assassin. Males come with a -10 to personality, willpower, and strength, but with a +10 to both agility and speed. Females come with a -10 to endurance, willpower, and strength, but with a +10 to both agility and speed. They have an innate 75% resistance to disease and a racial ability that allows you to basically mind control a beast type enemy into helping you. They gain a +10 to alchemy marksman and sneak, and a +5 to acrobatics, alteration, and light armor.

-Bretons(My favorite race in oblivion)
Bretons can be molded to fit most combat styles and grant a hefty 50% magic resist, but they fit a more defenesive and utility based mage most effectively. Breton males have a -10 to agility, speed, and endurance, but with a +10 to intelligence and willpower. They gain a +10 bonus to conuration, mysticism, and restoration, and they gain a +5 to alchemy, alteration, and illusion. They also gain a bonus 50 magicka and a 50% physical damage resist spell once a day.

-Dunmer/Dark elves
Honestly, I think these guys are the most balanced starting stats of all the other race. They can make it into any or all combat roles wether it be mage, thief, or warrior, or blend them together. Male Dark elves have a -10 to personality and willpower, but with a +10 to speed. Females dark elves have a -10 to willpower and endurance but with a +10 to speed. They gain a +10 in blade and destruction and a +5 in athletics, blunt, light armor, marksman, and mysticism. They also have a nice 75% resistance to fire. They may also summon a ghost(immune to normal weapons) to help them fight.

-Imperials
The popular kids, but seriously, they have a similarly balanced starting point to the Dark elves. They can do well in many combat roles like before but leaning more to the warrior side. Imperial males have a -10 in willpower and agility but with a +10 in personality. Imperial females have a -10 in agility and speed but with, a +10 in personality. They gain a +10 to heavy armor, mercantile, and speechcraft, and with a +5 in blade, blunt, and hand to hand. They also gain the ability to charm an npc so they will like you more, and absorb 100 points of fatigue(this cripples most opponents)

-Khajiit(Spelling this is hard)
Khajiit are incredably well geared for a stealthy assassin type build. Khajiit males have a -10 in endurance and willpower, but with a +10 to agility. Khajiit females have a -10 in willpower and strength but with a +10 in agility. They have a +10 in acrobatics and hand to hand with a +5 to athletics, blade, light armor, security, and sneak. They also have a power that allows them to fear an enemy, making them easy kills, and a free night eye(trust me, this is nice)

-Nords
They are incredibly strong warriors with a heavy focus on melee combat, and they make great paladins. Nord males have a -10 to intelligence and willpower but with a +10 to strength. Nord females have a -10 to intelligence and personality. They gain a +10 to blade, blunt, and heavy armor and a +5 to armorer, block, and restoration. Nords have an innate 50% resistance to cold, and a 30% resistance to physical damage.

-Orcs
Orcs are a very interesting race, as they have very strangely allocated starting stats, truthfully ive never really done an orc build, but they seem to make very good spellblade type caracters. Male orcs have a -10 to intelligence, speed, and personality, and a -5 to agility, but with a +10 to willpower and endurance and a +5 to stength. Female orcs have a -15 to personality, a -10 to speed, and a -5 to agility, but with a +10 to endurance and a +5 to stength, and willpower. They have a +10 to armorer, blunt, block, and heavy armor, with a +5 to hand to hand. They also have a 25% resist to magic and beserk which gives bonus health, fatigue, and strength, with a penalty to agility.

-Redguard
A very balanced warrior class with innately high blade skill. Male redguards start with a -10 to intelligence, willpower, and personality but with a +10 to strength and endurance. Female reguards start with a -10 to intelligence and willpower, with a +10 to endurance. They start with a +10 to athletics, blade, and blunt, and a +5 to heavy armor, light armor, and mercantile. They also have an innate 75% resistance to poison and disease as well as a spell that increases health, agility, endurance, speed, and strength.

Birthsigns

Simple suggestions on birthsign choice. On a personal note, I believe that the signs that grant bonus stats(particularly in endurance) are more worwhile that the other birthsigns, but all can be considered viable.

Birthsigns:

-Apprentice
This sign will grant you a huge 100 bonus to magicka but with a whopping 100% weakness to magicka... ouch. I would suggest this sign if you had a breton mage, or spellcaster and you are ready to dodge other mages in combat. I suggest getting your hands on any magic resist/reflect equipment asap.

-Atronach
This sign gives you an enourmous 150 bonus to magicka, and a nice 50% spell absorbtion, but prevents it from regenerating naturally. This can be a good sign for a battlemage that shies away from magic, or a warrior specifically geared for fighting mages.

-Lady
This sign is my favorite sign to take for a battlemage/spellsword type build. This sign grants +10 to endurance and willpower. It helps to cover some of the innate weaknesses that come with some races.

-Lord
A huge 90 point heal spell but with a 25% weakness to fire. All in all, not bad, but there are other options. I would take this sign if i knew i would be getting hit hard often, but in that case i might as well buff my restoration.

-Lover
This gives a nice 10 sec paralyze at the cost of 120pts of fatigue. Its good if you are a rouge, and got cornered or overwhelmed, or to just secure a kill easily... once per day.

-Mage
A simple 50 bonus to magicka. It's good for all mage type builds if you dont want to have the 100% weakness to magicka.

-Ritual
This sign gives an enourmous 200pt heal and a relatively high level turn undead. It's useful if you expect to fight undead alot, and are expecting to take alot of damage, but i might as well just boost restoration.

-Serpent
This sign grants a nasty damage health poison to you enemy that cures poison on you and sipels negative spell effects at the cost of 100pts of fatigue. It's nice to have in combat, especially against poison or debuff type enemies, but it seems a bit situational to me.

-Moonshadow
This sign is great for theifs or assassins. It grants a long lasting 60sec invisibility on caster, allowing free movement without alerting anyone. Keep in mind if you open a door, or pick up something, or even attempt to attack, the invisibility immediately breaks. If you want a perma invisibility, might as well just level illusion.

-Steed
The steed gives you a nice +20 bonus to speed, which is nice if you're playing as a scout or highly mobile fighter/skirmisher.

-Thief
The thief gives a +10 bonus to speed, luck, and agility. This is a must have for an assassin build.

-Tower
This sign gives the ability to open an average lock on target and reflect 5% damage once per day. It's an okay sign, but there are others that provide better effects.

-Warrior
This sign provides a +10 to strength and endurance. This is a NEED for pure warrior builds.

Overall Class Building Summary

Class Tips:

Alright, so you just got the chance to put together your own class or pick from the long list of pre-made classes.(as an early disclaimer, this is based entirely on my experience with oblivion, so take it how you will) At this point, you need a few basic tips as to how to mold you character. To start off, it's a good idea to gain a relative idea of what kind of playstyle you want to have, whether it be spellcasting, heavy warrior, or sneaky assassin, or even a blend of the two(In my experience, I've found that a blend of two types helps to cover the weaknesses of a specific specialization). You start out looking at the three specializations for each class, combat, magic, or stealth. The specialization you choose will effect how quickly the skills that the specialization governs level up. For example: combat controls how fast heavy armor, hand to hand, blade, block, blunt, armorer, and athletics skills level, magic controls how fast alchemy, alteration, conjuration, destruction, mysticism, illusion, and restoration levels, and stealth controls how fast sneak, security, marksman, light armor, speechcraft, mercantile, and acrobatics levels. Truthfully, i don't find any specialization superior, to another, it really just depends on the playstyle you want to have and what skills you want to level quickest. If i were to make a suggestion, i would say to choose the specialization that the majority of your major skills consist of.
Next you choose the two stats that will recieve a +5 bonus for your class. Personally, i typically play a spellblade/battlemage, and i end up taking willpower/intelligence, and endurance(like i said, very important stat) but really, the stats you choose here are what will benefit your class you create the most, like strength for melee, endurance for tankier builds, intelligence for mages, agility for assassins and so on.
Finally we come down to the seven major skills that you will level most predominantly and in order to increase your character's level. Unless you have a very specialized build, I would suggest taking skills that blend two of the three types of skills i mentioned in the skills info tab, and to manipulate them to your liking. All in all, a balanced and well thought out class made to cover it's own weaknesses will prevail.

[muninn]

░▄ ▀▄▄▀▄░░░░░░░░░ This is Toby.
░█░░░░░░░░▀▄░░░░░░▄░Toby wants to take over Steam.
█░░▀░░▀░░░░░▀▄▄░░█░█He needs your help.
█░▄░█▀░▄░░░░░░░▀▀░░█Copy/paste Toby to help him.
█░░▀▀▀▀░░░░░░░░░░░░█If not, he will use the Legendary Artifact's power. On you.
█░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░█
█░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░█
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[jhaelen]

Yeah, basically what mephistopheles said. I learned this the hard way: leveled way too quickly and soon reached a point where I had no other choice than to quit because enemies became unbeatable.

[JoeMcSlug]

Thanks SO much! Supper helpful!

[armywannabe]

*Doesn't recommend atronach sign for spellcasters*
*Doesn't understand spell absorbtion*

[mephistopheles]

This allows for extremely efficient builds, because instead of one or two attributes gaining 5 points upon level up, you can get all 3 with just one level.

As you can see, the character creation in this game goes DIRECTLY AGAINST what you would want. It's negligent game design, and it's clear no one at Bethesda knew what they were doing... the leveling system is completely backwards!

Pick easy MAJOR skills to level, and make sure they have nothing to do with the actual skills you want, and make sure they have nothing to do with the governing attributes you want to increase.

Thanks for reading!
(page 3 of 3)

[mephistopheles]

This is determined by what GOVERNING ATTRIBUTE your skills have. Heavy armor's governing attribute is endurance, therefore you get the large bonus upon character leveling for endurance when you level heavy armor. Same goes for every other skill.

With this out of the way, here's my main point. Pick the skills you want to excel at for your MINOR skills. This will allow you to train these skills without adding to your character leveling experience (because only leveling MAJOR skills add to this XP bar). This will let you get a +5 into every single attribute you want to focus on when you sleep and character level. You can bust out some blade levels, and some destruction levels without being forced to character level.
(page 2 of 3)

[mephistopheles]

Actually, because of how the level up system works in this game, whatever skills you want to use for your character should be MINOR skills, and you should be picking easy-to-level skills for your MAJOR skills, that have nothing to do with your character. Here's why:

Leveling and acquiring skills points in Oblivion is inherently flawed and broken. When you gain a skill level, you are given a small amount of your character level experience. Based on whatever skills you advance before you reach your next character level, is what will determine what +5's you will get to place on your attributes (strength, endurance, willpower, etc.). If you advance your heavy armor skill all the way to a new character level, then you sleep you will be given the option to add 5 points to your endurance stat. If you leveled heavy armor and athletics a few times, then you'll get +5 option for endurance, and also a few points to add onto your speed stat.
(page 1 of 3)

[the-cheshirecat]

I would argue that only the non-stat based signs are worth taking. The stats are nice at the start, sure, but you can level up the most important ones quickly and you'll miss taking the opportunity to have a permanent extra power or raw magicka points.
The Atronach sign might be the best in the game for a non-mage and even for a magic casting character it's amazing as the extra MP allows you to cast ridiculous amounts of magic. Sure you don't regen naturally, but with a few welkynd stones or potions on hand that's never an issue.

[Old King Log]

Not a new player but being able to see the race stats was nice. Great job!

[discombob2k]

Atronach as a mage build isn't a complete waste. Suck up hostile magic and use it to fuel your own. If running low against non mages chug potions. They arent in short supply.