I've put hundreds of hours into Oblivion, and I wanted to share some of the things I learned about making and developing a character. While I love roleplaying games, I never bother when I'm playing a one-player video game at home. I just min/max to get the most efficient character in all ways.
First I'll start with race. All races are equal in the sense that they have a maximum of 100 in every stat -- only the special abilities and graphic models make them different. And the two most useful special abilities are the 50% magic resistance that Bretons get or the 100 bonus mana that High Elves get. Usually I would go with the Breton, and then easily enchant my clothes to make up the remaining 50% magic resistance, making me immune to magic. I would also choose the High Elf, but only if I'm using the Atronach birthsign, which I'll cover below.
Now lets move onto birthsign. My two favourites are The Mage and The Atronach. While all signs have useful powers, I find these give the highest overall bonus for the least drawback (ok, stunted magicka is a damn big drawback). When making a Breton character, I would choose the Mage sign. Bonus mana, no drawback of any kind. But with a high elf character, I would take Atronach. Early on this can be hard to play, but its possible to enchant enough clothing to bring that 50% magic absorption to 100% -- suddenly you're magic immune (in spite of the high elf weakness) and the stunted magicka problem doesn't seem so bad anymore.
With a race and birthsign chosen, the next step is to choose a class. I always make a custom one, which I like to call "Dumb Asshole." Since different races have inherent skill bonuses, I make sure not to include any of those skills on my primary list. This ensures that the initial primaries are as low as possible and I can achieve more levels.
Next I'll cover skill gain. Its important to make sure that your initial levels always have an endurance-based skill gain, until you're maxed your endurance to 100. This is because it affects your health gain as you level. Magicka is a straight multiple of your intellect and can be gained later. At any given time, you should choose two stats you want to increase. One should be increases vis-a-vis the corresponding secondary skill, and the other by the corresponding primary. That leaves room for +1 luck each level, and there are certainly enough levels to max out all stats at 100 this way, getting luck to 98 or 99 at best (I've never had it to 100). If many of your primary skills cover the same stat, that's no big deal. It just means you have the extra hassle of increasing more secondary skills before you decide to level one of those primary skills that may already have its corresponding stat maxed out.
Finally, gear and enchantments. Remember those manacles that you have on in your jail cell? You should keep them. They're the only item of clothing -- not being armor or having a durability rating -- for your hands. I don't think I ever found a pair of gloves in Oblivion. That leaves you with 2 rings, a necklace, pants, shirt, shoes, and hood (or hat). Once you get to at least level 24, the sigil stones used to anchor oblivion gates will be at their highest power. I simply save the game right in front of the stone and the keep reloading it until it offers the enchantment I want. With a Breton character that would be +12 magic resist. I enchant exactly five of my eight pieces of gear this way, putting my magic resist up over 100 and making me immune. That leaves me with 3 more items I can enchant with +15 shield, for a total of 45 armor. I simply use a +40 shield spell in combat to boost that to its maximum of 85. Now with a high elf born under the atronach, I enchant 7 items with +8 magic absorption, bringing that up over 100. The final item can take a +15 shield enchant, and I have to use a +70 shield spell to make up the difference.
So there you have it. My fully developed character runs around dressed in rags (I like the starting sackcloth pants/shirt you get), wrist irons, and carrying a greatsword (personal preference).
Now for a few ways to gain skills:
Alchemy -- Go to innkeepers and alchemy vendors and buy all the cheap food/ingredients. The profit from potions outweighs the cost of the ingredients so you can just keep on fast travelling to all the cities and doing it over and over. Its also a good way to make money.
Acrobatics -- Go to Bravil. Walk in the door to Silverhome on the Water, and turn left. Go to a big brewing vat at the end of a hallway, with a small stepladder in front. When standing on those steps, you can only make a short jump before your head hits the ceiling. Just jump as fast as you can press the button until either you gain 100 skill, your thumb hurts, or your character gets a concussion. In fact, they should make your intellect drop for going that.
Any combat skill -- Go to Leyawin and talk to Rosa Gallentia, who gives you the quest Whom Gods Annoy. Once you have the staff, you can just keep hitting the imps, which just keep reappearing. After maxing out your fighting skills, you can finish the quest and lose the staff.
Destruction and Restoration -- As with combat skills above, only hit the imps with magic instead of a weapon.
Conjuration, Illusion, Mysticism, Alteration -- These schools of magic all have small, weak spells that can be spammed over and over again. Just run down your mana pool, then rest for one hour if you don't want to wait for it to regenerate. But what if you're born under the Atronach? Then you go to Leyawin and pick up the quest for Garridan's Tears. Once you're inside Frostfire Glade, you will constantly take magic damage, thereby constantly replenishing your magicka. And you can just spam your spells over and over again.
Sneak -- Talk to the count of Leyawin, and do the whole Mazoga the Orc quest line. Once you're both knights, you will be sent off to kill the leader of the Black Bow Bandits. Go alone on this quest and sneak up carefully to the outside of the Aeylid ruin. There's a sentry on top of the ruin, and you can run straight into the wall without alerting him. Just prop up your joystick to keep your character running and go do something else for awhile.
Speechcraft -- You gain this skill every time you improve someone's disposition, but once that becomes maxed you have to move on to someone new. So make sure you offend the person and get the disposition back down to zero, then yo-yo it up and down without maxing it.
Heavy/Light Armor -- Go in the sewers under the imperial city. Even a single rat will up your armor skill in a reasonable time, and you've got a convenient exit handy for running out and repairing your armor. Not that you want to keep your armor, but this is a good way to increase stamina or speed.
Block -- This works just like armor skills, except that once you reach 50 skill you no longer lose durability. Block advances much slower than armor skills though. After getting 50 skill, you may want to get yourself surrounded just to gain skill faster. The tunnels under Hackdirt are good for this; you can take on 3 guys in front while standing in a narrow hallway.
One final note: For a good early weapon, go to Chorrol and help out the Jemaine brothers. Later a thief will ask you to retrieve a stolen item, which turns out to be the Honorblade of Chorrol. This sword has the stats of a deadric weapon and weighs nothing. You can just keep it until you're a high enough level to actually start finding daedric weapons.
I hope something in this Great Wall of Text is helpful for someone out there.
Certain skills I find so tedious to train that I just buy them up at a trainer. Alchemy can make infinite cash and therefore its no big deal. You can always be sitting on a king's ransom in gold before even advancing past level 1.
First I'll start with race. All races are equal in the sense that they have a maximum of 100 in every stat -- only the special abilities and graphic models make them different. And the two most useful special abilities are the 50% magic resistance that Bretons get or the 100 bonus mana that High Elves get. Usually I would go with the Breton, and then easily enchant my clothes to make up the remaining 50% magic resistance, making me immune to magic. I would also choose the High Elf, but only if I'm using the Atronach birthsign, which I'll cover below.
Now lets move onto birthsign. My two favourites are The Mage and The Atronach. While all signs have useful powers, I find these give the highest overall bonus for the least drawback (ok, stunted magicka is a damn big drawback). When making a Breton character, I would choose the Mage sign. Bonus mana, no drawback of any kind. But with a high elf character, I would take Atronach. Early on this can be hard to play, but its possible to enchant enough clothing to bring that 50% magic absorption to 100% -- suddenly you're magic immune (in spite of the high elf weakness) and the stunted magicka problem doesn't seem so bad anymore.
With a race and birthsign chosen, the next step is to choose a class. I always make a custom one, which I like to call "Dumb Asshole." Since different races have inherent skill bonuses, I make sure not to include any of those skills on my primary list. This ensures that the initial primaries are as low as possible and I can achieve more levels.
Next I'll cover skill gain. Its important to make sure that your initial levels always have an endurance-based skill gain, until you're maxed your endurance to 100. This is because it affects your health gain as you level. Magicka is a straight multiple of your intellect and can be gained later. At any given time, you should choose two stats you want to increase. One should be increases vis-a-vis the corresponding secondary skill, and the other by the corresponding primary. That leaves room for +1 luck each level, and there are certainly enough levels to max out all stats at 100 this way, getting luck to 98 or 99 at best (I've never had it to 100). If many of your primary skills cover the same stat, that's no big deal. It just means you have the extra hassle of increasing more secondary skills before you decide to level one of those primary skills that may already have its corresponding stat maxed out.
Finally, gear and enchantments. Remember those manacles that you have on in your jail cell? You should keep them. They're the only item of clothing -- not being armor or having a durability rating -- for your hands. I don't think I ever found a pair of gloves in Oblivion. That leaves you with 2 rings, a necklace, pants, shirt, shoes, and hood (or hat). Once you get to at least level 24, the sigil stones used to anchor oblivion gates will be at their highest power. I simply save the game right in front of the stone and the keep reloading it until it offers the enchantment I want. With a Breton character that would be +12 magic resist. I enchant exactly five of my eight pieces of gear this way, putting my magic resist up over 100 and making me immune. That leaves me with 3 more items I can enchant with +15 shield, for a total of 45 armor. I simply use a +40 shield spell in combat to boost that to its maximum of 85. Now with a high elf born under the atronach, I enchant 7 items with +8 magic absorption, bringing that up over 100. The final item can take a +15 shield enchant, and I have to use a +70 shield spell to make up the difference.
So there you have it. My fully developed character runs around dressed in rags (I like the starting sackcloth pants/shirt you get), wrist irons, and carrying a greatsword (personal preference).
Now for a few ways to gain skills:
Alchemy -- Go to innkeepers and alchemy vendors and buy all the cheap food/ingredients. The profit from potions outweighs the cost of the ingredients so you can just keep on fast travelling to all the cities and doing it over and over. Its also a good way to make money.
Acrobatics -- Go to Bravil. Walk in the door to Silverhome on the Water, and turn left. Go to a big brewing vat at the end of a hallway, with a small stepladder in front. When standing on those steps, you can only make a short jump before your head hits the ceiling. Just jump as fast as you can press the button until either you gain 100 skill, your thumb hurts, or your character gets a concussion. In fact, they should make your intellect drop for going that.
Any combat skill -- Go to Leyawin and talk to Rosa Gallentia, who gives you the quest Whom Gods Annoy. Once you have the staff, you can just keep hitting the imps, which just keep reappearing. After maxing out your fighting skills, you can finish the quest and lose the staff.
Destruction and Restoration -- As with combat skills above, only hit the imps with magic instead of a weapon.
Conjuration, Illusion, Mysticism, Alteration -- These schools of magic all have small, weak spells that can be spammed over and over again. Just run down your mana pool, then rest for one hour if you don't want to wait for it to regenerate. But what if you're born under the Atronach? Then you go to Leyawin and pick up the quest for Garridan's Tears. Once you're inside Frostfire Glade, you will constantly take magic damage, thereby constantly replenishing your magicka. And you can just spam your spells over and over again.
Sneak -- Talk to the count of Leyawin, and do the whole Mazoga the Orc quest line. Once you're both knights, you will be sent off to kill the leader of the Black Bow Bandits. Go alone on this quest and sneak up carefully to the outside of the Aeylid ruin. There's a sentry on top of the ruin, and you can run straight into the wall without alerting him. Just prop up your joystick to keep your character running and go do something else for awhile.
Speechcraft -- You gain this skill every time you improve someone's disposition, but once that becomes maxed you have to move on to someone new. So make sure you offend the person and get the disposition back down to zero, then yo-yo it up and down without maxing it.
Heavy/Light Armor -- Go in the sewers under the imperial city. Even a single rat will up your armor skill in a reasonable time, and you've got a convenient exit handy for running out and repairing your armor. Not that you want to keep your armor, but this is a good way to increase stamina or speed.
Block -- This works just like armor skills, except that once you reach 50 skill you no longer lose durability. Block advances much slower than armor skills though. After getting 50 skill, you may want to get yourself surrounded just to gain skill faster. The tunnels under Hackdirt are good for this; you can take on 3 guys in front while standing in a narrow hallway.
One final note: For a good early weapon, go to Chorrol and help out the Jemaine brothers. Later a thief will ask you to retrieve a stolen item, which turns out to be the Honorblade of Chorrol. This sword has the stats of a deadric weapon and weighs nothing. You can just keep it until you're a high enough level to actually start finding daedric weapons.
I hope something in this Great Wall of Text is helpful for someone out there.
Certain skills I find so tedious to train that I just buy them up at a trainer. Alchemy can make infinite cash and therefore its no big deal. You can always be sitting on a king's ransom in gold before even advancing past level 1.
