1,200 Hours Played; What you NEED to know in Oblivion.

The game's character creation and scaling are not intuitive, this guide gives the basics and a nice template for enjoying the game fully without having to do a bunch of research. Wont be more than a 10 min read, and will save you hours of headache.

1/2, The Must-Know

Note: This guide is for the original TES IV: Oblivion. The leveling system is drastically reworked in the 2025 Remaster release. I stand by what I've said here for Vanilla Oblivion, but this guide will be of very little use to players preparing for Remastered.

First major choice is your race. Pick what you like most, but if you want to be optimal i'd recommend Breton for the magic resist. Each race has its strengths, and all weaknesses can be overcome.

Second major choice is your birthsign; I pick The Thief, The Warrior, or The Mage in most circumstances. Any birthsign with permanent gains (The Lady, The Steed, etc.) is worthwhile, so definitely consider your options. Avoid birthsigns that give the once-per-day greater powers.

This is the single best piece of advice I can give you: Endurance is King. If your endurance stays low, your character will eventually become unplayable. Your HP per level up is based on current END, so the earlier you raise it, the better. I choose to invest in it with these easy, early choices, but raising your END through early gameplay is really what counts.

Third choice is your class, which is the most backwards part. UESP has the details if you want them (see: Efficient Leveling), but we'll just cut to my conclusions.

Keeping it simple, here is the template for a solid, fun build of any type. You'll level at a decent pace, and be able to increase your main stats significantly each level up.

CUSTOM CLASS:
Specialization: Player preference, no bad options here.
Main Stats:
1. Willpower for all spellcasting builds, or...
2. END/STR/SPD/LCK based on preference.
Major Skills:
1. Mercantile
2. Security
3. Restoration
4. Blunt or Blade, whichever you plan to use less often
5. Block.
6. A skill you will never use, if one exists. If not, Speechcraft or Athletics.
7. A magic you plan to rarely or never use. The gameplay part of this guide will assume Mysticism was chosen.

"That doesn't make sense, all of my attacks are minor skills"
I wholeheartedly agree, but if you put your main stuff in your major skills, you'll level too quickly, and your stats will be bad. Early game is easy even with low skills, and they'll catch up in no time.

The core idea of this guide is that you'll be leveling your minor skills the most to contribute to more attribute increases per level up. Doing this can make leveling up very slow, and so I've chosen Resto, Security, Block, and Merc to speed it back up without counteracting the gains. I recommend these, though you can replace them with skills you use often to level up faster, or ones you use less often to level up slower. You can also simply swap to whichever weapon you chose as a major skill to speed up leveling. Just keep in mind that faster levels, on average, come with worse Attribute gains.

Now you're ready to go, but if you want some early game pointers, stick around.

2/2 The Should-Know

This is just going to be a few general gameplay pointers for consistent and satisfying character progression. Obviously how you play is 100% up to you; I'm stating these things as facts because to me, they are. I implore you to ignore anything that doesn't suit your style.

All builds:
-Leveling END early is a must, and the easiest way to do it is to wear heavy armor until you reach a comfortable amount of END (60-100). Alternatively, you can get more END per level up by picking up and repairing all armor that opponents drop, gaining skill in Armorer.
-Spam "Heal Minor Wounds" (you begin with this spell) during downtime/travel; Restoration levels up absurdly slow, and this will help keep it relevant.
-To increase your magicka pool, spam a low-cost conjuration spell to gain 10 skill-ups. Next time you level, you'll get 5 INT guaranteed. Conjure levels fast, so this is a reliable way to get quick INT.
-NEVER pick conjuration as a major skill, especially if you plan to summon minions. Spend the 5 min or so that it takes to get conjuration up to 25 by spamming Bound Boots if summons are needed for your playstyle. It levels far too quickly to justify being a major skill.
-Trainers are a great way to keep skills up to par. Just be careful of training major skills, as these training sessions will count towards a level-up.

Melee Builds only:
-Consider choosing The Warrior birthsign for a strong early-game boost to your main attributes.
-Pick END on every level up until it is at least 80. It should also be your first attribute to 100. Pick STR always or very often. Pick Speed, INT, or WIL depending on need/preference. Only pick AGI when it is low.
-If you want as much STR as possible, you can get quick Hand-to-Hand skill-ups by punching a few creatures to death each level.

Caster Builds only:
-Consider choosing The Mage as a birthsign, as this gives a strong early game magicka pool with no drawback.
-You may pick Destruction over Restoration as a major skill if you want most/all of your damage to come from spells, but you'll have to work quite hard to keep Restoration relevant if you do this, and likely rely on potions for healing early on.
-Pick END on every level up until it is at least 70. Pick WIL and INT very often. Pick Speed or STR based on need/preference. Only pick AGI when it is low.
-Use low-cost self-targeted alteration spells during downtime/travel to get skill-ups towards your WIL. Protect is an easy one to get early and low MP cost.
-Destruction skill-ups are based on # of hits, not damage dealt. If your good spells start to feel too expensive, go back to using more low-cost spells for a time to skill-up.

Archer Builds only:
-Heavily consider choosing The Thief as a birthsign.
-Pick END on every level-up until it is at least 65. Pick AGI and Speed very often. Pick INT/WIL/STR as needed.
-Oblivion marksmanship is much more run-and-gun than one might expect going into it, as enemies have loads of HP in this game. I recommend unlocking Enchanting (Mage's Guild) to have the most fun with this playstyle. If you're keen on being a stealth archer, Chameleon will be a crucial stat on gear, as remaining undetected is very difficult in Oblivion.
-Conjuration is a very good skill to level up. When indoors with little running room, your skeleton buddy will be a useful tank. However, Do NOT pick conjuration as a major skill.

Atronach Birthsign Builds only:
-Atronach is a popular birthsign, so I figured I'd include this. Consider picking Breton or High Elf, as being born under the Atronach compliments them well. Pick END/INT/STR pretty much every level up. Pick Speed as preferred and AGI only when it is low. WIL is a dead stat.
-Potions are your best friend, and often only choice in emergencies.
-Spell absorption and spell reflect are stacking effects, so using items with either stat can get your character closer to full immunity to magic.
-Use low-cost spells to get more skill-ups out of your limited magicka pool. Custom Spellmaking can make this process even easier.

On Luck: I am ignoring Luck because it can only level up by 1 per level, and as such gives little benefit outside of the initial choices to gain big chunks of Luck. If you wish to have high Luck, you should choose it as a major attribute (+5) and choose the Thief birthsign (+10). If you wish to have max Luck, I recommend choosing it every level 2-36 so that you can truly enjoy the benefit while maxing your other attributes.
On Personality: Todd and the team ignored Personality so i will too. If you get it insanely high there are unique effects, like guards forgiving your petty crimes, but most of personality's benefits can be attained quicker through Illusion spells (including the guard pardons).

And that's the guide! A bit longer than expected, honestly.
-Wreckening

[sniper]

I played for 15 hours and i am still lvl 2.Is that fine?

[(N☆G) Jackal ★JJ★]

Remaster hype indeed. (:

[Wreckening]

Remaster hype

[mkzt]

all of you tards whining in the comments dont HAVE to follow this guide, maybe people want to try minmaxing on the highest difficulty

[dragonxbard]

There is no right or wrong way to play an RPG.

[Juunås42]

Nice guide but I still prefer fixing leveling with a mod. Examples:

[olist]
[*] Realistic Leveling [www.nexusmods.com]
[*] Galerion Natural Leveling [www.nexusmods.com]
[*] Oblivion XP [www.nexusmods.com]
[*] Ultimate Leveling [www.nexusmods.com] -- can be configured to work like Oblivion XP or Realistic Leveling
[*] All +5 Attribute Modifiers [www.nexusmods.com] -- this is the simplest one but it can make your character overpowered!

Pick 1 of these and use LOOT to sort your load order. I also like Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul [www.nexusmods.com] but I don't recommend using it for your first playthrough!

[Leukemia Luke]

Honestly good guide for min/maxers who are on their second playthrough. For beginners just turn the difficulty slider to like 25%-45% and play the game how you want.

[pSyCOolMaN7iAclK]

taking the thief perk can give you 10 points to luck an auto save back up. you have to delete autosave. ess and then rename the autosave. bak to autosave.ess and your game should load into a safer point hopefully.

[Uber]

Thanking you for this guide 3 years later. Going to play this again as I've forgotten the story (so I get to play it again! ) and this is a good guide for avoiding the pitfalls of over or underlevelling.

[Bradley]

or you can just level up something that is out of your specialty 5 times to get the biggest boot to attributes.