Easy

Always pick up a paintbrush. Very worthwhile.

Daryl

no doubt. Nothing is worse than having my Painter/Thief/Mage set up his booth on the streets where he paints goofy caricature pictures of tourists for 2GP, only to find that he's out of paintbrushes

Cshot

I believe Easy was being serious about the paintbrushes

Daryl

I was just having some (lightly attempted) fun with it. I understand people use the floating paintbrushes as steps and all that

The Bus

I have to admit that Thieving is far less satisfying in Oblivion. When you can make more money just taking stuff from the guild you're with, it doesn't make much sense to steal.

But, for DAC:
If you need to steal to make a quick buck, hit up shops after about 2AM. The best ones are the Jewelry Shop in the Imperial City and the book shop.

As always, pack some scrolls, items, or potions with "Feather" (or learn this Alteration-based spell). Having another 50 pts or so means you can carry another thousand in gold at least.

Items by Weight.
If you're in it for the capital, there's a very easy way to determine what to pick up and what to drop, if you're someone that doesn't like traveling endlessly between a dungeon and a town to sell what you've found. At the beginning of the game, anything worth less than 10 gold ($) per feather (lb.) shouldn't be picked up unless you can sell it very soon.

Some example items, not exact:

Silver plate. 5 gold, 1 feather = $5/lb. An OK item only if you're still level 1.
Armored boots. 100 gold, 10 feather = $10/lb. A bit better
Glass Boots. 800 gold, 8 feather = $100/lb. One of the best items to find commonly (once you're in that level).
Scroll of Fire Spell, 80 gold, 0.1 feather. Looks crappy but math tells us it's $800/lb.
Jewelry, especially enchanted jewelry, will often reach $1000s per lb.

Daedric weapons? Except for the dagger pretty worthless. Sure they're 2000 gold a piece, but they weigh a lot. You're better off carrying a lot of potions and selling those.

edstein

I finally finished the cure vampirism quest and got rid of my taste for blood. I found it to be a real hassle traveling at night all the time. The bonuses are nice but, I like the convenience of moving around on my own time.

Blade

The Prior horse mentioned earlier is loaned to you during the first mission or two when doing the main quest. If you want a horse, just start the main quest and you'll have one fairly soon.

Blade

I pick up anything worth a good number of gp. When inventory gets full, I start discarding things on a weight to value basis...the heavier it is, it goes, especially if it means I'll be able to carry more items whose value will add up to more than the single heavy item. As you progress through the game, you'll need to start taking into consideration the resell caps. Vendors have a per item cap that ranges from about 10gp to a max of 1200gp (this can be increased by 500gp when you can get your Mercantilism skill up to 100...fortify skill spells work for this). So if you find a deadric curiass for 4000gp and a deadric greaves for 2000, and you only have room for one, taking the greaves is a no brainer since you won't get more for either one and the greaves weigh probably a third of the curiass. Even if the greaves were only worth 1000gp, they're still a better bet as you can carry three of them, sell them seperately, and make even more.

Blade

The damage you do is based on the type of attack and the level of your sneak skill:
Found this through google:

Novice:
When undetected in Sneak mode, one-handed and hand-to-hand attacks deal 4x damage, bow attacks deal 2x damage.
Apprentice:
When undetected in Sneak mode, one-handed and hand-to-hand attacks deal 6x damage, bow attacks deal 3x damage.
Journeyman:
No penalty to detection chance when wearing boots.
Expert:
No penalty to detection chance for moving while in Sneak mode.
Master:
Opponent is considered to have no armor when struck while undetected and in Sneak mode.

Perhaps you were using a two handed sword?

Arrows...might try looking for bandits in camps in the countryside. Lately, for me at least, quiet a few of them have been archers. You already tried the shops? Also, when you hit level 12, you should start seeing Glass level arrows. That should make the Silver and Dwarven arrows more common too.

Blade

Yes, but not by a lot. The higher magicka req. of the more powerful spells means you either have to wait to cast, or waste magicka restore potions or w. crystals.

Best way to check is to just count how many castings it takes to go up a level. There is a sort of diminishing returns that can be offset by using higher level spells, but, as I mentioned, the higher magicka cost kind of outweighs the benefit.

Becareful about powerleveling though. The monsters/people you fight are tied in various ways to your character level. If you level up quickly without getting the better weapons/items/armor/spells you'd have gotten if leveling normally, you can find yourself having a lot of trouble defeating the bad guys all of a sudden. FYI, increasing your non-major skills has no effect on your character level.

Blade

Just did a search on this. Very funny and interesting!

Thanks!

Blade

FYI, the different feather spells stack, so if you have the spells or find scrolls, you can do Ease Burden (50, 4minutes), Lighten Load (75, 5min), Pack Mule (150, 5min.) for a total increase of 275 in carrying capacity.

There's also a Beast of Burden which gives you 250 for 6 minutes, but you have to be at 100 in alteration to cast it.

Feather scrolls are nice, but fast travel far enough and they'll wear off and you're stuck if you don't have more scrolls. If you're in town, it should be ok to drop stuff and just come back for it, but I wouldn't drop anything you planned to keep.

fujishig

Yeah, the glass helm is kinda goofy looking, and the constant night eye effect can get annoying, but hey, it's easy to find at an extremely early level, and it allows you to breathe underwater...

xmiyux

I enjoy thieving to round out the gold to buy houses, spells, etc. Also you need to fence 1k worth of stuff in the thieves guild storyline which gets you a particularly useful item when you complete it. The thieves reward has been the handiest thing in the game for me so far with its crime-free ability, intrinsic feather, and intrinsic detect life.

jonw9

I guess I just need to find better places to steal from. I was looking into stealing for the potential upgrades. I guess I could find the jewelery store and make some money.

What is the deal with woll-o-wisps? Am I going to see them everywhere now? I was on the road to Kvatch and came across Fyrelight cave. I had to kill1 of them to get a chest with 12 gold, then went to another entrance and there were 2 more, I killed 1, but the other chased me back to town, killing everything in its path. How am I supposed to kill them? I can use my arrows, but that only works when sneaking.

Along the same lines, do caves regenerate? Do enemies return and chests refill?

jonw9

Is the the or somethng else?

Blade

Wisps are a bitch. You need magical weapons (some say silver works good, but it didn't do that much when I tried), but I think ranged magic spells are much better. And you need to keep moving because they'll drain your health to heal themselves.

They are somewhat level dependent though, so once you level up a few more times you'll start seeing different monsters. If you're really desperate, reload a saved game from before you see the wisp. This may generate a different monster.

As for the caves/enemies/chests...yes to all except for boss creatures, and there aren't quite as many enemies the second time around. Chests not only refil, but I think the locked ones refill with stuff that's equivalent to your current level. This is based on my own experience with going back to a dungeon that I first visited when I started the game, and returned to at around 125 hours of gameplay, so your mileage may vary.

Blade

No, and not really a spoiler, more like a weird glitch in the game:

jonw9

I found some frost arrows, to go with my fire bow. I can kill them in 3-4 shots, if they don't spot my sneak. It is just when they gang up on me that sucks. I got through the cave (nothing worth the struggle ) because 1 wisp followed me out and back to town.

Michael Ballack

I rented this game from BB this week after getting my 360. It's fun, but a little overwhelming. It's defintely "perty" but I think I'm used to KOTR's interface, way of leveling up, and way to equip yourself with weapons and armor. Once things for sure, 5 day rentals isn't enough to do much. I should become a part of some service like gamefly or something. I have 2 days left on the rental and I've only acheived 4 out of 50 acheivements. Good times.

edstein

Try the Arena in the main city. You move through that one pretty quick because you don't have to go get stuff for people. Just fighting.

Michael Ballack

I reached Brawler status but then I got to a point where I had to fight 2 guys. Too powerful for me, but I'm going to try again today after I buy some more spells. I used the unlimited money bug since I'm not going to have long to play it in the first place.

BravesMG

Ok I'll finally crack, I've tried avoid that bug to be fair, but I really need some coin. Is there an easy explanation as to how to do that I could find?

xmiyux

In the arena poisoning your weapon remains king. Paralyzing, draining health, etc. tears up - until you get to the Argonian. Then picks up after that.

Michael Ballack

I'm not sure how to link it, but it's in page 11 or 12 of the original thread. Just use the search function for oblivion and read the locked thread.