Twokinds ARCHIVE Forums

After a bit of search,....well....okay maybe two trips to Walmart since I could not find it the first time due to a bit of a change on the cover... I finally purchased The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion


I was wondering if any experienced players have tips?

I haven't played in ages (which is a shame), but my advice is to spend some time wandering around; don't just launch yourself on the main quest right off. Be careful about leveling too fast -- the game scales very aggressively to your level (too aggressively in my opinion), so the woods are always very dangerous and you can end up over your head at the end of some dungeons (nothing like bumping into a Minotaur and some sort of wood nymph deep in a bandit hideout...I died so many times to that pair...). So if you don't keep upgrading your equipment, you're going to be in trouble. Give yourself some time to familiarize yourself with each town before you buy your first home. After the first one, the others will come more easily, but the first one always feels like a major investment.

Sage, judging by his oft out-poured praise of the game, ought to have some really good advice for you though.

Is there anyway to heal the many useless fighters that follow you on some quests?
I like to keep them alive...

Yeah, you can get spells that let you heal a target or heal on touch. You can't always save everybody (retaking the one city that's fallen to the daedra has some parts that are really nasty, so it's easy to lose people if you aren't very careful), but you can keep them alive, provided they don't go wandering off.

Do you have the PC version?

No, I have the 360 "Best Seller" edition, with the Ilses of something, and Knight of the Nine expansion

Too bad, most of Oblivions glaring problems tend to be solved by mods (like enemies becoming overpowered, for instance.)

EDIT: For tips, though, I'd say be a stealth class with marksman and blade. Marksman, because the first *real* dungeon (not the starting one, the Aylied ruin just outside that- you'll be facing it once you're done with the tutorial bit) is insanely fun when every bandit on the first level is instant killed from ranged sneak attacks.

Experiment!!! Find out what you like work with it change it if it gets boring. As for the Enemies i havnt had a problem with them. Sneak attack Crits with my Bow For the win!

Any quests I should do Asap?
I'm a level 4 Custom-Class Khajiit(Big surprise eh?)

Ha, I'm a Khajiit too. I made the mistake of creating a very strong swordfighter, then powering through all sorts of missions and stuff before leveling up too much. The result was one hit kills with my sword almost constantly, which wasn't very fun.

The PC version has a lot of mods that extend the life of the game to infinity, but since you have the 360 version...

Yeah I only recommend the PC version, mods are one of the highlights of the game that takes it far beyond what the original developers did. Yes, it is a great game out of the box- but it is an amazing game thanks to the dedicated fans but that only applies to the PC version.

But the easiest thing to play as is a thief / archer type with some magic on the side. Archer is great because as a wise man said- the best defense is distance, and a bow makes distance part of your offense and defense. Thief like abilities makes you rich and sneak attack damage owns. Also the thieves guild is probably the best guild, and one of the most fun.

Magic is important because well - after being the greatest thief, rich beyond anyones dreams (robbing the jewelry store in Imperial City can make you a rich man for a good part of the game) the world is your oyster - but your screwed when you want to have the perfect light armor and set of weapons, so you have to be a mage to learn how to enchant weapons and armor (or do oblivion gates and use the orbs you get at the end- but still - this is usually more profitable in the end). This also allows you to customize your spells- and a person with 100% Chameleon is God in a world of AI driven by sight and sound, you can do whatever you want and no one can really attack you or stop you... But that's cheap, but kinda realistic for that time period- no one can see you- makes it hard to hit you - much less know where to strike at.

Also - do not forget Alchemy- it doesnt matter what class you are- alchemy is king. You drink potions and put poison on things while in your menu- thus you can put poison on your weapon a second before you strike- or drink a healing potions just before someone preforms a killing blow to your head - keeping you alive, and drink a health regen potion so you can duke it out longer. You can make poison that kills, degenerates, even makes a mage useless (magic drain). A potion of Health Regen can be amazing- keeping it as if you are unstoppable - and most important- its the best way to get your magic back- a quick magicka potion and your back to casting "Enemies Explode!".

Potions can save your butt- they can even make you invisible (yep- both invisibility potions and chameleon potions! If you have 60% chameleon - drink a 40% potion and your totally invisible and are capable of activating items, opening things, you can even kill people. Did i mention you can actually have Paralyzing fire Ice posions? So you can cause em to hit the ground and take massive Ice and Fire damage? Another trick is to Paralyze them so you can easily hit them with a distance spell - that has a duration on it- like "20 Fire damage per second for 10 seconds" - which normally kills just about anything- that per second thing is a lot more damage than just doing 100 damage straight up in 1 second, and with that wonderful distance - you win. Sure if they are close its good to be able to do massive damage- but if you paralyze them- it doesnt matter - and you can once again increase distance- or deal with another threat.

Dont just carry one bow- they degrade with use - and sometimes its a waste to use that awesome fire bow on something immune to fire... There are magic arrows- dont waste them, and make sure if you get those awesome area effect magic arrows - you only use them on groups of ENEMIES - because you can accidentally kill innocent people with a "Arrows of Thunder Storms" or whatever.

If you dont want to use a bow- your missing out. But alchemy and magic are still important even for a fighter. Magic can help with those big groups of bad guys- heal you- or lets you fight from a distance if you must - or protect you better than your armor. Poisoning an arrow is great- but so is poisoning a claymore- hey if cutting through their torso doesnt kill them - the explosive effect from the poison should finish them off, or the paralyzing potion makes it a lot easier to beat them while they are on the ground.

Dont forget to block- never bite off more than you can chew- and if you do- have an exit plan, I always kept a storm arrow handy for groups of bad guys - 80 lighting damage to everyone in a 20 foot radius usually turns the tides fast. I also kept stocked up on paralyzing potions - because you never know when your going to run into something that you can barely fight one of- and theres 3 of em. And probably best of all- the ability to save your game anywhere- that can save you a lot of trouble, not just being cheap - but just making things less repetitive. After clearing out a room- i almost always save- because i dont want to have to kill everything over again just because i stepped on a deadly trap.

Oh right- traps- keep an eye out- you may want to have a bow and some arrows just for dealing with traps (and for knocking off cool items ontop of pillars and such).

Hope that helps- if ya have any questions ask em.

I would have gotten the cpu version, but...well, Laptop with a GMA950 can't do much.


And....wow...thanks, a lot of info ^_^


One question:
Any teleportation of any sort?


And another:
Quests/Guilds I should get into Asap?

You can quick travel by looking at your map and clicking one of the locations marked on it (only those with icons can be traveled to) and more appear as you actually travel around the world - so if you find a cool cave or ruins- you can quick travel back to it after discovering it.

Thieves guild is great, do it first probably if you are going that way- Mage's guild is a big one too-- if you do the mages guild first though before thieves- you get a funny situation- you have to steal the arch mages staff- but if you finish the mages guild- you are the arch mage... so there will be another arch mage in your bed :P XD

If you wanna be evil-- the Dark Brotherhood is the best... and very entertaining.

Oh and if you dont like traveling a long way though dungeons- find the entrance to the dungeon - and then search the area- you might find the "exit" to go into- makes it a lot faster.

Thanks, and I'll work on Mages guild first.

Mods are fantastic. My laptop barely runs Oblivion on PC, but I love being able mod the game as I want, and play mods others have made. It adds so much.