Michael Ballack

Thanks for your help, I'll be sure to tell you how far I get today or tommorow.

BravesMG

Thanks very much.

karnblack

Oh man I think I broke the game. I'm going to spoiler this just in case.

Michael Ballack

Anytime.

Blade

I know what you mean. Since I learned the paralyze and invisible spells, the game has gotten much easier. That's why I haven't pursued the chameleon stuff.

I did find the animal you speak of, but it attacks every aggressive creature/person it comes across and usually ends up getting killed. Kind of hard to keep around.

The Bus

Yeah, I didn't enchant any items. That's what got me to stop playing Morrowind. I was unbeatable.

karnblack

Even though I can't be seen I sometimes take damage, but it's not enough to be meaningful. It's so easy to bork this game, but it's still fun. I'm enjoying the storylines, and closing the Oblivion gates won't be so tedious. I just wish there was levitation to make getting to the top of the towers easier. By the way how many gates are there supposed to be in the game? Do they all go away after a certain quest or can you keep on going in to get those Sigil stones?

I have a funny story about the animal. I was on the Orc Knight quest when I fast-travelled to a location and there was the animal fighting with some NPCs including the Orc I was travelling with. It's funny to see the non-killable NPCs get knocked unconscious, but it killed the Orc and I got the "Now that the Orc is dead you will never find out her story" dialog. Needless to say I reloaded and took the long way.

I also did the fish quest, but those things are nasty. I took off one of my chamelion rings to use my waterbreathing one, and they were tearing me up. I finally figured out an easy way to kill those fish without taking any damage. I equiped my waterwalking ring and my ring that has life detection, and I walked around on the lake until I detected a fish then shot it with my bow and arrow. Fishing would be easy if you could do this in real life.

karnblack

I thought I was unbeatable in Morrowind, but I ran across that guy that wanted to die in a duel. I was juat standing there to see if he would be able to hit me. For a little while he couldn't, but then he actually started doing some damage. It took me a while to kill him since he was tough. I guess there was still a chance to get hit.

Blade

Once you do the main mission in Kvatch the gates start to pop up all over the land randomly. There are a few gates that are quest specific, but if you want to, just keep roaming the countryside and they'll keep popping up until almost near the end of the completion of the Main Quest. Despite what the characters say, very few quests in the game are truly time dependant, so you can put off finishing the main quest until you have all the sigil stones you want. FYI, the quality of stones improves as you level up, with, I think, level 17 getting the best stones (transcendant). I believe there is still a stray gate here and there afterwards, but much less common than during most of the time the main quest is active.

BravesMG

Quick update: I started a new game with all of the updated downloads and horse armor. The unlimited cash cheat at Dorian's no longer works for me. He's only got 11 pieces of gold and that's it. Really sucks, I needed cash bad.

jonw9

Apparently everybody is tired of this game?

I have a question, I finished Chorrol recomendation about fingers of the mountain, and can get into the Arcane University now, however, my quests still say I have returned the book and I am wiating for a reccomendation. Do I just ingnore this, as I can move forward, or is there something more I need to do?

The Bus

I played 150 hours in 30 days. I need to give it a long break. I'm selling it now and buying it again when it's used for $20-25 later in the year.

BravesMG

I'm only 20 hours in, 16 hours one one and 4 on a restart, and I'm already mildly tired of this. I can't imagine some of the 150-200 hours logged, it just doesn't feel like I'm advancing fast enough. I still have no idea how to enchant anything and my magic skills suck, I guess I deserve it since I rarely play RPGs. I really got into the Star Wars:KOTR series because leveling up gave you awesome new stuff to play with every time. I don't really see the point leveling up in this, since if you don't level up the right attributes, you basically get your ass kicked. There's just not enough new toys as you progress for me, but I'm still trying. Hopefully I get to the point where I know what I'm doing and it picks up again for me.

Canis Firebrand

I think there is just weirdness that happens at times.

I was doing the Fighter's guild questline, and near the beginning of it(2 or 3 missions in) I got a popup message that said I was kicked out of the Fighters guild for some reason. I went to talk to the person that the quest said to. I had to get 20 bear pelts. I did that, brought them to her and I was reinstated back in the guild. The quest was updated to "You have been reinstated in the Fighters guild after obtaining the items and talking to the woman." But, it still is a current quest, it should have gone to completed. I thought that it might when I completed the fighters guild questline, but no, it still stayed in my current quest list.

xmiyux

I'm just taking a brief break after logging so many hours myself. That and the fighters and mages guild storylies aren't very interesting. The thief and DB really hooked me but not these two so much.

Canis Firebrand

I'm taking a break since I completed the game and have all the achivements. That and my 130 hours roughly and 400 save game spots, I'm sure my xbox is breathing easier now.

I'll pick it up again down the line, definetly when new content is released, but maybe to start over with a new character type.

Miyu, I agree on the Fighters and Mage questlines. The Mage one, at least you get nice items and such. The Fighters was just very boring and no real rewards.

Before the Wizards Tower came out, the best part of completing that line was the "owning" of the Arch-Mages tower and having your own spell crafting and item enchanting altars. But, you get all that and more in the Wizards Tower.

edstein

All I need now is to finish the Fighter's Guild and the main story line quests. I don't think I'll do any of the side quests once I finish the main quest. I'll keep the game for when some new content comes out.

The Bus

Knock down the difficulty slider. For me, it was a matter of beating an enemy by carefully hitting them with spells, blocking, hiding, etc. Then waiting 5 minutes to heal, then attack again... OR... Slide down the difficulty a bit so there's still a challenge but none of the drudgery of waiting to heal and level up.

BravesMG

knocked down the difficulty about 5 hours into my first game just because I had no idea what was going on and wanted to figure out how to play the game instead of constantly worrying about dying. So I've become the fighters guild champion only because each fight took about 3 seconds. The problem for me is there's no entry point to the leveling or how to become advanced. I'll use KOTOR as an example just because it's my RPG measuring stick. I did my absolute best to level up because I wanted Level 3 Force Lightning (or whatever it was called). I knew what enemies I could win against with that power that I couldn't at my current level. There was a progression that seemed logical and interesting. I also knew what missions I would have a greater chance at being successful at and therefore how I could make more money to buy better stuff, etc.... I have zero idea what a +3 athletics does for me. Does it open new quests or allow me new powers I couldn't have had before? The only tangible increase I find from leveling up is knowing I can carry more shit if I choose strength. I know it sounds like I'm bitching, but I really enjoy the game, but I know I'm going to get too frustrated with 30+ hours only on level 6 and still not advancing my actual game knowledge.

Blade

I started playing Guild Wars: Factions. Which is fun, but not as immersive as Oblivion. That combined with all the E3 downloads is seriously cutting into my Oblivion time.

If I remember correctly, there are two parts to the Chorral recomendation. One is optional though. There's a woman outside the Chorral Mages Guild (or in a nearby tavern) who also wants the book. If you talk to her after giving the book to the Chorral Mages Guild person, she expects you to steal it and give it to her. See if your quest item says part 2 on it and that's probably it.

As long as you can get into the Arcane Univ., however, you're ready to move on to the rest of the Mages Guild quests.
It does this for the Thieves Guild too. Maybe it's supposed to be a reminder not to screw up again!

The Bus

I'll make it short and sweet... more details at GameFAQs and I think for the first two or three levels there should be more of a tutorial.

Anyway...

You have a set of Major and Minor Skills which you chose specifically when you created your character or were chosen for you simply by virtue of your character class (thief, viking, hot dog vendor, etc).

Every skill in the game is tied to one of your attributes. For example, Mercantile is tied to Personality, Blade is tied to Strength, Security is tied to Agility. So, every two times you level up a skill tied to that attribute, you get a bonus once you level up. Once you level up a major skill ten times, you can sleep and your character levels up.

So, minor and major skill levels up give you 1/2 of the attribute bonus. Major skill levels up give you 1/10 of the character level.

Your goal is to NEVER power-level. That is, work your minor skills more than your major skills. For example, let's say your main concern is that your character has very low health, is a bit weak, and needs to be a bit quicker. So you want to level up Endurance, Strength, and Speed.

Leveling up endurance 10 times (for the max x5 bonus) is easy: use restoration magic (like healing spells), or fix/repair broken armor and weapons.

Strength is easy, especially early on. Focus on fighting, but use an offensive weapon skill that is NOT your major skill. For example, say your character is good with a sword and light armor. Put on heavy armor (which levels up strength) and use your firsts or an axe to fight (which levels up strength). Once you've leveled up 10 skills that use strength, don't focus on it anymore.

For speed, wear light armor and do acrobatics which is basically jumping a lot and jumping from high places that will hurt you, but not kill you.

Do these all at once. Level up your minor skills 20 times, and your major skills ten times. Once you level up, if you leveled up ONLY the skills in three attribute groups, you will get massive bonuses and your stats (attributes) will skyrocket.

When you level up your character, you are telling the game to get harder. It gives you new enemies with better weapons, armor, and items to loot from. After about level 20, you dont get to see any new enemies and just fight more of the older ones which might show up in larger groups.

BravesMG

I appreciate the overview, that makes a little more sense. I wish that the game or the strategy guide would go over some of that. I'll see how I can do with all that, thanks.

mrmagoo

If I remember right you have a choice after you get the book to either give it to the mages guild or to that lady that always hangs around outside the guild (i dont know her name but she is always wearing a green dress and her name starts with and E its something like earana or something like that.) Anyhoo, I chose to give it to the mages guild, AFTER i did that i talked to her and she asked me to get it for her, and I kept refusing. Finally she gave up and that quest box came up and ended that quest for me. So if you have not talked to her yet AFTER giving the book to the guild, I would certainly talk to her and it should "finish' the quest for you.
Good Luck!

Blade

You level up based on your seven major skills. Everytime you increase any combination of the seven skills by a total of ten points, you gain a level.

All skills have different levels of mastery:
Novice 0-24
Apprentice 25-49
Journeyman 50-74
Expert 75-99
Master 100

This means different things for different skills. For magic related skills, as your skill level increases, spells cost fewer magicka points to cast and you can cast increasingly more powerful spells. This also affects your ability to create your own spells. Different spells are also tied to particular magic skills. All the Healing spells are related to the Restoration skill. Fire/Life/Cold/Electrical damage spells are related to your Destruction skill.

For the physical skills, like Blunt, Athletics or Blade, you get special abilities as you reach each new skill level. Like a Master of Acrobatics can jump off the surface of water, or a Master Armorer will never break a repair hammer, and an Expert Armorer can repair items to above their normal "health" level.

The idea is that you pick the skills that will most help the kind of character you want to create. Want a magic user who can also weild a sword? Get mostly magic related major skills but leave a space or two for Blade and Block. Want an axe weilding Fighter/Thief, go with Blunt, Heavy Armor, Block and some Stealth related skills.

Strength, Agility, Intelligence and the rest are your Attributes, and each of these (except Luck) supports one or more of the 30 different skills. You'll notice that when you level up, some of the attributes have +x numbers next to them. These are modifiers based on how frequently you're using a Skill related to that Attribute. For example, the Armorer skill is related to Endurance (which is related to how much health you have). So if you increase your Armorer skill by 10 points between character levels, then the next time you level up, you'll have a +5 next to the Endurance attribute.
FYI, this part isn't very intuitive, so just know that Strength x 5 = how much you can carry also adds to melee damage, Intelligence x 2 = your amount of magicka, Willpower affects how quickly your magicka regenerates, Agility affects how easily you can be knocked down by a blow or spell, Speed is self explanatory, and Personality affects how much people like you, finally, Endurance is related to your health both how much you start with and how much you gain with every level you go up.

On top of all this, Oblivion's monsters and bad people generator is level dependant. Which means that as you level up, the types of baddies you meet will be leveling up with you (or you'll get more dangerous classes of monsters like going from regular zombies to headless zombies). This means that you don't want to power level because you'll end up facing higher level monsters with lower level equipment, and I can tell you from personal experience that that is not any fun at all.

Instead, just make sure that you use your major skills when you're adventuring. But also try to make use of your other skills. Armorer is particularly important. After a fight pick up everything that needs repair and repair it. Even if you're overencumbered, just do it and then drop whatever's too heavy. Once you get magic weapons, you're going to need to want to be able to repair them yourself and you have to be at Journeyman level (50) to do that. No fun having your magic sword become useless in the middle of a fight on the second level of a 2 level dungeon!

Making money...some people like to go farming (picking up plants from the countryside) and then making potions. Another thing you can do is join the Fighters and Mage guilds and then taking and selling anything that isn't red when you try to pick it up. Selling armor and weapons becomes the most lucrative once you hit a certain level.

If you want to make your own spells or create enchanted items, you need to get all the Mage Guild recommendations and thereby gain entry to the Arcane University in the Imperial City. Once you do that, Spellmaking is just a matter of having the base spell (any fire damage spell will allow you to creat any other fire damage spell) and money and skill level (the more powerful a fire damage spell you want to create, the higher your Destruction skill has to be).

For enchanting items, you need money, an to enchant and a soul stone (with a soul in it). The soul stone governs the power or number of uses the magic item will have.

FYI, if you have a USB keyboard, connect it as it makes naming spells/items much easier.

A better way to enchant items is to close Oblivion gates. More work, but the sigil stones you get are pretty decent. Just save right before you activate the sigill stone and then you can reload and try again if you don't like what you got.

Also, I've heard that the most fun quests are the theives guild and Dark Brotherhood Quests. Just get real friendly with a beggar for the first one...for the DB, just listen to what the NPC's around you are saying.

Hope that wasn't too overwhelming and that it made sense and answered some of your questions.

Have fun, and browse over the game manual every now and then. It starts making more sense after you put some time into the game.

Blade

Nice recap. I should have checked to see if there were any responses since I had to go pick up the mail for work.

FYI, the top monsters level up with you, so they'll get more HP and damage just like you do as you go up in levels.