The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

[Woot Spitum]

I bought Oblivion recently, and I was wondering what mods are worth downloading. I'm specifically looking for a mod that makes the faces look less like knuckle-dragging cavemen, but I'm interested in any other mods that would enhance the general game experience.

Aside from that, feel free to discuss anything else about the game.

[A Rainy Knight]

Keep in mind, of course, that this was something I tried out when I was bored with everything else: the Hilarity mod. Make it rain boulders, turn townspeople into invincible psychotic killers, and make lightning shoot out of the sky and zap everyone around you simultaneously.

Other than that... I can't really say. I never really got into the appearance-altering mods.

[Miss Nobody]

If you're interested in mods, you might want to check out this list : 100 Must-have Oblivion Mods (http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Caveat-Emptor/100-mods-you-should-be-playing-for-Oblivion)

[Triaxx]

Akatosh by Saiden Storm. Tons of fun, and great views.

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

If you're interested in mods, you might want to check out this list : 100 Must-have Oblivion Mods (http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Caveat-Emptor/100-mods-you-should-be-playing-for-Oblivion)
I like your avatar.

Anyway, look for the one that gives you a spell to make it rain sheep. Or the "Gift Horse" mod, that spawns a horse about a hundred feet above the target.

[Woot Spitum]

Well, I managed to get the unofficial patch, the script changer, and the mod manager, but for some reason everything else I download, including the unofficial shivering isles patch, refuse to be recognized. I hoped that getting the mod manager would make installing mods a breeze, but it has so far been oblivious to any files I download. I think the problem is files ending in .7z, but I don't know how to extract them. Any ideas?

[Lorn]

Use WinRAR to extract the files. It has a 40 day free trial, but doesn't actively stop you using it after this.

[Triaxx]

www.tugzip.com Better than WinRAR, and less hassle.

[Cubey]

I'm specifically looking for a mod that makes the faces look less like knuckle-dragging cavemen,

No can do. Welcome to Bethesda's games - were men are ugly and women are even uglier.
Don't worry, it's even worse in Fallout 3.

[Woot Spitum]

Got the Shivering Isles patch to work, now to see if I can get some actual mods to work.


No can do. Welcome to Bethesda's games - were men are ugly and women are even uglier. It's a wonder how come people didn't go extinct in Tamriel yet.

Don't worry, it's even worse in Fallout 3.

Funny, I thought Fallout 3 was a little better in that regard, especially when it came to where they started you off on faces. Oblivion seems to assume that a good start for a face is fat, aged, and big-nosed.

[Oslecamo]

Don't worry, it's even worse in Fallout 3.

At least they have an excuse in Fallout 3, where most of the population is either mutated by radiation or subject to psycopath experiments.

As for Oblivion, "a wizard did it". Anyway, considering how ugly the monsters out there are(ever seen a vampire), normal people are actually admissible to the view.

[Recaiden]

You could try this: http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=678

[Stormthorn]

No can do. Welcome to Bethesda's games - were men are ugly and women are even uglier.
Don't worry, it's even worse in Fallout 3.


You must be blind. Fallout 3 is the only Bethesda game with a few good looking females in it at all. Extra amazing since mos tof its inhabitatants are covered in grime.

Allow my to give you a comparison.

FALLOUT
http://fallout.neoseeker.com/w/i/fallout/thumb/4/4c/Lucy_West.jpg/200px-Lucy_West.jpg




OBLIVION
http://www.notmydesk.com/npc/necro.jpg





The good news is that via the power of mods you can make Oblivion women look like this:
http://www2.fileplanet.com/images/170000/176514ss_sm2.jpg


I cant. I have it for the console. But you can.

[Pyro]

Mods for Oblivion are probably the best part aspect of it because they provide near infinite replay value. I would mod the hell out of it, except my once glorious computer is getting on in the years doesn't have the power to run 50+ mods at once.

[Triaxx]

What mod is that third photo from?

[Mattarias, King.]

:smallbiggrin: I was just wishing there was an Oblivion thread, and voila! Magic.

Anyways, I just started the game myself, though I'm already a bit experienced in mods. Made my own race and everything.

...Anyways, I recommend Ren's Beauty Mod (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4431) if you want some prettier elves. The default high elves are terrifying. :smallsigh:

Also, the Unofficial Oblivion Patch (http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=1417) helps with a lot of things. Though you might need the official one first..

Operation Optimization (http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=2731) helps with lag if you're having trouble with that.

Aand.. I can't remember much else at the moment. There are some body replacers that help with the caveman thing, though I'm unsure about those, since many of them seem to be nude mods and I must say, I like wearing fancy clothes. ..And there are some NPCs that REALLY should keep their clothes on! :smalleek:

[Zanaril]

The default high elves are terrifying. :smallsigh:

I got mine looking pretty decent via extensively adjusting the face settings. :smallsmile:

[V'icternus]

Never been a fan of mods that try to "pretty up" a game... I play it how they make it. And so, when they filled their game with thousands of ugly NPC's, I just assumed I was in a world where people are generally ugly. (There are some people who look pretty decent, considering the campaign setting. I mean, uh... you know... world they live in, no baths or showers anywhere ever, you know...)

Actually, yeah, they look pretty good considering the only way they could get clean is to a) Stand in the rain, meaning they will likely be killed by the creatures that live outside, b) swim in a lake, in which case they will likely be killed by slaughterfish*, or c) wipe themselves off and live with it.

*Ever seen a slaughterfish take on an NPC that accidentally got pushed into water by the PC beign a jerk? It's horrible...


On another, unrelated note... Early level magic users suck. High-level magic users don't just break the game, they take the game, kick it, hard, swirl it around, and flush it down the toilet, before blowing up the planet the game was on.

(Raise your hand if you've ever gotten 100% Chameleon.

*Punch Guard in the face*

Guard: Huh? Must be the wind...)

Then there's Hand-to-hand combat... totally worthless. I've gotten a character to mastery with Hand-to-hand, high Strength and Endurance and whatnot, and it still sucks compared to daggers. Daggers. For a guy designed to make the best use of Hand-to-hand.
The reach sucks, the damage is bad, there's no way to enchant it, and I can't even poision a spiked ring on my finger! (That alone would make it worth it, I think).

I think my next character will be a big, two handed blunt-weapon kind of guy in heavy armour...

And, one last thing. Sheogorath's Daedric quest = pure epic awesomeness of w00t.

[Mattarias, King.]

I got mine looking pretty decent via extensively adjusting the face settings. :smallsmile:

:smallconfused: Wow, that's quite a feat. I commend you then, madam.

There should be some sort of tutorial on how to make faces pretty..

[Lorn]

On another, unrelated note... Early level magic users suck. High-level magic users don't just break the game, they take the game, kick it, hard, swirl it around, and flush it down the toilet, before blowing up the planet the game was on.
Early level magic users still have something to go for.

Get into the Arcane U ASAP. Make a spell. "Drain Health 100 points for 1 sec on target."

It'll instakill anything not magic resistant at low levels. Get it on a weapon, 56 uses with a Grand Soul.


Then there's Hand-to-hand combat... totally worthless. I've gotten a character to mastery with Hand-to-hand, high Strength and Endurance and whatnot, and it still sucks compared to daggers. Daggers. For a guy designed to make the best use of Hand-to-hand.
The reach sucks, the damage is bad, there's no way to enchant it, and I can't even poision a spiked ring on my finger! (That alone would make it worth it, I think).
Mod called Claws and Monk Gear. Basically gives H2H equipment to make it decent - gauntlets etc enchanted to do more damage on strike using script effects. Good fun.

[Somebloke]

I started playing recently. Created an Imperial Bard, made it to level 11 in a few days, got beat up by passing levelled butterfly and restarted the same character with a custom class (blade and armor skills non-major). A lot better.

[Ikialev]

Soo, Oblivion.
Played it for about 90 hours. At first it was fun, especially the Shivering isles. But then, i was getting bored, as everybody says same things, same voice, all terrain looks the same, missions, with a few exceptions are pretty the same, like go-kill/bring something-go back. At end it only made my first 1250/1250. ^

Also, I played it on xbox. So no mods, no addons, nothing. Just pure boredom.

[Triaxx]

I've been having great fun by playing with a level 1 sneak character. Got an Enchanted Katana, an unenchanted Katana, and a Black Bow and I can mow through any dungeon easily. Way more fun than it sounds.

Oh, and if you want a cool house, but don't want any of the ones on offer, or you hate going through the Mages Guild for Enchanting and Spellmaking, check out the Abecan Lighthouse.

[warty goblin]

I've been having great fun by playing with a level 1 sneak character. Got an Enchanted Katana, an unenchanted Katana, and a Black Bow and I can mow through any dungeon easily. Way more fun than it sounds.

Sneak is always fun in the early game. My problem is that it simply doesn't scale particularly well. In the early game, most enemies go down to a sneak attack or a sneak attack with a few extra hits. Either way it's hard to level your primary weapon skill particularly rapidly, which means later levels get much harder when your sneak attacks don't drop enemies anymore. I suggest using unsneaked attacks on mudcrabs and other 'outside' enemies to try to increase weapon skill leveling.

I just started a character focused on unarmed combat. I have to say, it's a lot more fun than I expected. One of my former characters used unarmed to advance Strength against weak enemies (mudcrabs), but relied mostly on weapons. Now however I don't even carry weapons, aside from a bow, and only use healing magic. I suppose I'll also use some Destruction against ghosts when I start encountering them, but other than that, I'm determined to fist-pound everything I meet.

[V'icternus]

Yeah, that's the main flaw with sneak-based characters. They end up underpowered when faced with a straight-up fight. (But that's to be expected)

It's especially hard if you can't escape. (Invisibility is good for that)

Houses are good. In my first save (Pure Breton Mage, with Mage birthsign), I owned every house I could, just because. That was also when I discovered the power behind having a ring of 35% Chameleon, and a spell of 65% Chameleon on self for 30 seconds.

[Mattarias, King.]

:smallconfused: Hm.. Is anyone familiar with custom races? I changed my race with the showracemenu command, and my stats reset. I'm not so sure that any of my skills are levelling at all. Usually Blade levels at least once during a quest full of combat..

[Zanaril]

:smallconfused: Hm.. Is anyone familiar with custom races? I changed my race with the showracemenu command, and my stats reset. I'm not so sure that any of my skills are levelling at all. Usually Blade levels at least once during a quest full of combat..

If you use showracemenu, DONT click "confirm" when you've finished, or it will reset your stats. Instead, save the game while the window is open then load that saved game, and anything you change will be there.

[Mattarias, King.]

If you use showracemenu, DONT click "confirm" when you've finished, or it will reset your stats. Instead, save the game while the window is open then load that saved game, and anything you change will be there.

:smallredface: Hoo boy. Thanks. I'll remember that from now on. I'm still level one, so no harm done, I guess.. Is showracemenu known to stop stats from being raised, or am I just not practicing enough?

..On that note, anyone know some good levelling mods? There seems to be a lot of stat micromanagement needed to get good scores from what I hear..

[V'icternus]

Honestly? Don't worry about it. Any character should be able to take on any challenge. (With several exceptions. Like Umbra. She's always lvl. 50...)
The only changes are what you can and can't do.

Like, say, a fighter's never gonna get much Magicka, and so high-end spells are a useless impossibility for you unless you want to powerplay right up to level 50+, which is frankly just annoying.
The thing is, you don't need an uber character. And, if you want one, just choose a character that'll be fun, and change the difficulty. Same game, more fun. (Unless you like challenge and power-levelling, in which case you should set the difficulty slider up, to a level where mud crabs are a threat to anyone below lvl. 10 not wearing heavy armour.)

The best way to play this game (Remember: This is opinion only. I don't literally mean "the best". Just "the best for me") is to make a character with a character concept you like, and just play with it, adjusting difficulty as needed. (There are no penalties or bonuses applied to difficulty setting, it's all about making the game easier for strugglers and harder for crazy people challenge lovers.)

It's too bad I only have it on the PS3, actually... otherwise, I'd find a mod to let me change the "Essential" status of NPC's. Some people just really deserve to die...

[Hell Puppi]

Yeah, that's the main flaw with sneak-based characters. They end up underpowered when faced with a straight-up fight. (But that's to be expected)

It's especially hard if you can't escape. (Invisibility is good for that)

Houses are good. In my first save (Pure Breton Mage, with Mage birthsign), I owned every house I could, just because. That was also when I discovered the power behind having a ring of 35% Chameleon, and a spell of 65% Chameleon on self for 30 seconds.

I just dowloaded a mod that improved arrow damage.
Sneak+ mod+ awesome bow= death to anything in game. :smallamused:

There's also some pretty neat house mods that add basements with alchemy lairs, clothing manikins (<--that word doesn't look right) and display chests.

[Woot Spitum]

I downloaded ren's mod, but for some reason I can't get it to work. Unlike the patches, the mod manager doesn't seem to detect it. Even manually placing the folder into the oblivion folder doesn't seem to work.

[Morrandir]

..On that note, anyone know some good levelling mods? There seems to be a lot of stat micromanagement needed to get good scores from what I hear..

I use not Galsiah's Character Devlopment, (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14065) and I'm pretty happy with it. It levels you up "naturally," so that, say, casting Destruction magic will increase your Willpower every few ranks. No need to sleep or do some weird out-of-character behavior to get that x5 multiplier.

Heads-up, though, it makes the tutorial dungeon VERY challenging. As an Argonian, I didn't even have enough max magicka to cast Flare.

Also,
manikins (<--that word doesn't look right)

Mannequins.

[Triaxx]

Fortunately, there's the Mage Doom stone, which lets you gain a Fort Magicka ability so your fighter will have enough to heal himself. Although depending on your play style you might be better served by Atronach.

I went with a High Elf mage, and so ended up with a huge magicka pool, unfortunately, I burn through a lot of potions and don't end up with a lot of dead foes. Magic is kind of hard to aim.

[V'icternus]

Anyone here ever played with the "Atronach" birthsign?

One of my melee-type fighters had it. Had Restoration as a major skill, too. Had to make do on potions, Spell Absorbtion and Welkynd Stones.

[ninja_penguin]

I almost always do the atronoch sign, if only for the hilarity that is spell absorption. when even those little fireballs everything throws at you is a spell, you can just eat incoming spells to fuel your expensive returning fire.

[Lorn]

Atronach may be the best sign out there.

It gives you - no matter WHAT you're playing as - a mechanical use to get Alchemy mastery by level 7 or so for restore magic potions.

Road to Kvatch from Skingrad can have well over 100 flax seeds collected in one go.

Each potion made from one of these - alchemy mastery = one ingredient/potion - will get you a fairly nice amount of gold. 50+ unless I'm mistaken.

Add in everything else you find - probably another 50+ per potion if made right, probably another 2-300 potions total. Let's say 200 more to play it safe.

200*50 = 10000
100*50 = 5000

Suddenly, you have 15000 gold. Hours work, absolute top. Could potentially be about 20000. Add in really good merchanting, maybe an extra 2500. Add in use of Thoronir, another 2500. And then add in actually using master equipment, probably another 5000-10,000. So it may be possible to make about 40,000 gold through that - I'm probably wrong in my figures, just a really rough estimate, but still. Easy to get rich VERY fast.

Plus, getting a couple of specific magic items when you're born under the Atronach gives you over 100% absorb spell. You just aren't affected by them anymore...

[Triaxx]

No, not just not effective, they are throwing Power-ups at you.

I'll have to give that a shot. Anyone find a use for the Apprentice sign? +200 is great, but the weakness seems a bit over powering, except that healing spells are twice as strong.

[Setra]

While we're on the topic of Oblivion mods, there's been one I've been looking for..

It was a pretty simple mod that allowed you to, instead of perfectly managing your stats, it just gave you a 5, 4, and 3 in whatever you increased for your first/second/third click.

I found it once but I had to reinstall oblivion and never found it again.

[Woot Spitum]

No, not just not effective, they are throwing Power-ups at you.

I'll have to give that a shot. Anyone find a use for the Apprentice sign? +200 is great, but the weakness seems a bit over powering, except that healing spells are twice as strong.I suppose being a Breton would help mitigate the weakness somewhat. I'm not sure how much though.

[Oslecamo]

I suppose being a Breton would help mitigate the weakness somewhat. I'm not sure how much though.

It doesn't help you as much as you would like. Bretons have naturally low life, and taking an extra 50% damage from spells will hurt you if you a lot.

On the other hand, with a few defensive buffs, you can moderately easily mitigate the remaining 50% penalty.

[V'icternus]

Yeah, just get a magical item that does it. (+5 Bonus awesome points if you can get the enchantment to glitch onto you permanently)

For another topic, what's your favourite damage-type to use?
Blade, Blunt, Fire, Cold, Shock, Drain Health, Damage Health, Arrows, Poison Apple of super-death, etc?

[Triaxx]

Orc has 25 MR, and good health. Not much of a wizard though. Apprentice does give instant access to weakness to magic, which is tons of fun.

[V'icternus]

Problem is, the reason you get access to it is because you are permanently inflicted with it. Forever. And you can never get rid of it.

No, not even then.

Still, if you don't plan on fighting people with magic... (Note: There isn't a main questline where this is possible.)


Main Quest: If you've played it, you'd know.
Fighters Guild: Enchanted Weapons.
Mages Guild: Duh.
Dark Brotherhood: More enchanted weapons. And mages.
Theives Guild: This one you can do without fighting too much, so that's alright. How sneaky is your Orc-with-Apprentice-birthsign, anyway?

Don't know about any others I owuld consider main questlines... But yeah, weakness to Magicka = weakness to pretty much everything you'd want to do.

[Triaxx]

Hmm... perhaps with those items for the Atronach, so you're absorbing extra magicka that can help heal...

Ah, forget the Orc. Go High Elf, Apprentice, stealth, destruction magic, and alchemy. Skyrocket Mercantile with Alchemy, get the Hands of the Atronach for lessened damage from the elemental magic, and use shield spells to cut the damage done to you. Only two guild quests involve fighting mages, Anvil and Leyawiin. Skingrad is zombies that can get burned. The other two can be handled with the easy application of an invisibility spell, and a high stealth character who can step clear after it's worn off. Anvil has battlemages to do the fighting for you, and Leyawiin is against a mage so with Sneak as a main skill and a one handed weapon...

At this point you have access to spellmaking and can take advantage of those weaknesses. Fire for two seconds, weak to magic and fire for two seconds? Or three to roll the damage from every hit? Yes, certainly possible because after this point the weakness turns into a strength.

As for the fighter's guild, enchanted weapons are only problematic if you let them hit you. By that point I can paralyze them with my magic, and then kill them with fire. Same with the Dark Brotherhood.

Thieves? I can TURN INVISIBLE. Or enchant chameleon to a set of equipment.

[V'icternus]

Now see, that's a plan. Sounds like my first mage save... "Try not to die until you're the one with the power. Then take massive vengeance of DOOM!"

Personally, Shock magic is my favourite... it looks cool, it's fast, and there's only one thing in the game immune to it.

[A Rainy Knight]

Personally, Shock magic is my favourite... it looks cool, it's fast, and there's only one thing in the game immune to it.

Not to mention that it does extra damage to the Daedra. It's pretty handy.

I also like using Frost spells with a wide radius, because they'll send forward a cloud o' pain that hits everything in its path. It's pretty much unavoidable in a tunnel.

[Ganurath]

I favor Breton with Cameron's magic ring, but a Dunmer with a Fire Resist item will work in a pinch. DOT fire with WtF X, where X is your Fire Resist - 100.

If you're immune to magic, however, you can pack these bad boys:

Left Fist: Weakness to Magicka 5 seconds, Weakness to Shock 5 seconds. Set percentile as appropriate for you magicka regeneration rate.

Right Fist: Identical to Left Fist. It just needs to be a different spell.

Finisher: As the Fists, but with some Shock damage added in. Has the weakness element so as to allow for an emergency followup.

How it works: Switch between Left Fist and Right Fist in a regular pattern until their weaknesses are high enough that Finisher can live up to the name. The WtM of one fist increase both the Weakness effects of the following fist, and both Weakness effects boost the shock damage.

[V'icternus]

The most useful spell I ever made, and I mean ever, was "Open Very Hard Lock".

Description: Open Very Hard Lock on Target

It was a life-saver in my first save. (Since then, though, I've become a master lockpick, so I don't need such spells.)

And I'm sure everyone has (or will) made a spell with weakness to every element and a hundred points of every element in damage on touch, just to be a jerk to the enemy and kill them in two hits no matter what. (Even if they have 1000 health)

The trick is to remember which part of the spell is applied first, so the weakness part is taken into account when you cast the spell, not just afterwards.

[Triaxx]

And being on touch means there's no where they can hide from you. Looking at you Rumare Slaughter Fish...

And even the one thing that's immune to shock goes down quick if you kill it with fire. Open VHL was great, until I found the Skeleton Key. Now I don't need anything except that. Though the trolls are a good reason to go and find the shadow stone.

[Mattarias, King.]

Ah, I've been doing the mage guild quests recently. Targeting with magic IS kinda hard. :\ I hear there are some mods that make spells fly faster. I think that might help..

Oh, and my favorite damage types? Fire and blade. :smallbiggrin: Delicious magical combat.

[Triaxx]

Yeah the two solutions to that are Touch spells and large AOE spells.

I love when the game hands you a spell. Here take this, it might help! Yay, water breathing... and five points of feather? Seriously? Yay, a Fireball! That does fifteen points of damage? Thanks a lot.

[Serpentine]

I made my character pretty! :biggrin:
I think I have a few mods, but I'm not sure what, exactly. I have a bunch of possible lairs, and horses. Or were the horses already in it? I dunno.
I've been vamp'd v.v I don't even know when or how it happened. I did fight a few vampires, but that was ages ago, and I didn't notice getting bitten. I did sleep in a necromancer's bed... Could that have done it?

[SilentDragoon]

All it takes is getting nicked by one vampire and three days later you're reading off a different menu. I entered and finished a decent chunk of Shivering Isles before the vampirism activated. Kinda odd how it spreads, as the only vampire I'd been fighting was using a mace.

[V'icternus]

Vampire: *Hits you in the gut with a mace, infects you* Sooo... wanna get some breakfast, or...?


Vampirism can be fun, but you might want to get the cure, anyway. Just remember, once cured, you cannot get Vamp'd again.

[Recaiden]

I made my character pretty! :biggrin:
I think I have a few mods, but I'm not sure what, exactly. I have a bunch of possible lairs, and horses. Or were the horses already in it? I dunno.
I've been vamp'd v.v I don't even know when or how it happened. I did fight a few vampires, but that was ages ago, and I didn't notice getting bitten. I did sleep in a necromancer's bed... Could that have done it?

The horses were already there. And I think it's 3 days after getting infected by fighting vampires? Or something?

[Zukhramm]

Does anyone know of any more mods fixing the level-scaling? OOO seems to ad a lot of other thigns I don't want, and the Francesco's one doesn't really seem to do what I want it to.

[Triaxx]

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page

The mod section links to several best mods for Oblivion.

[Mr._Blinky]

Does anyone know a mod that brings back the Enchant skill from Morrowind? I want to be able to make much more powerful magic items than the game currently allows, but I want to have to work for it too.

[SolkaTruesilver]

I remember the best time I ever had was trying to kill the Unicorn while playing with OOO. My god was it difficult. I had to find a freaking patrol of 8 elite guardsmen armed with silver weapons, stand on an un-reachable rock, and rain arrow as much as possible on the freaking regenerating thing...

Never have I been so proud of killing a software mod :smallbiggrin:

Is the "natural leveling" compatible with OOO?

[Heroic]

What mod is that third photo from?

You naughty naught boy! :smalltongue:

[Triaxx]

Yes, yes I am. And I like being one.