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Oblivion:Patched Glitches

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This article contains glitches that have been fixed by official patches.

Exploitable Glitches

These are glitches that can result in a player advantage of some form. It does not include various ways to take advantage of intentional game features, because such exploits are not glitches.

Duplicate Items Using Arrows

This glitch allows the player to produce multiple copies of an item in their inventory. It works by bypassing the normal amount-detection when dropping items, thus making it possible to drop more of an item than the player actually possesses. Normally the game chooses the amount of items by either dropping a single one, if the player has less than three of it, or explicitly asking "How Many", if they have three or more. However, if one attempts to unequip an equipped stack of arrows at a time when this is not possible (in the middle of an attack), then the number of arrows will "stick" and dropping an item immediately afterwards will cause the game to drop exactly that amount of the item, even if the player possesses less.

Step-by-Step Guide

This assumes that you wish to duplicate a single item. Using the glitch on an entire stack of one item will work as well, but entails some complications; see below under "Exact Calculations".

  1. You need an instance of a droppable item (i.e. non-quest item) and a stack of arrows in your inventory.
  2. Equip the arrows.
  3. Perform an attack, such as:
    • Throwing a punch.
    • Swinging a blunt or blade weapon.
    • Firing a staff.
    • Casting a spell.
    • Drawing an arrow on a bow.
  4. While the attack is still in motion, quickly enter the journal.
  5. Attempt to unequip the arrows (not drop, unequip). You should get a message that "You cannot change weapons while attacking". (Otherwise go back to Step 2 and try again.)
  6. Drop the item you wish to duplicate from your inventory.
  7. Either leave the journal or repeat steps 5 and 6 for other items you wish to duplicate.

Once you leave the journal, as many duplicates of the item will be dropped into the world as there are arrows in the equipped stack.

Exact Calculations

If this glitch is used on a stack of items, things become slightly more complex. The game will still drop as many items into the world as there are equipped arrows, but they will be grouped in stacks and, depending on the circumstances, a smaller stack may remain in the inventory.

Most of the stacks will contain as many copies of the item as were in the player's inventory (including any equipped copy), but unless the amount of arrows was an exact multiple of that number, the last stack dropped will contain a smaller number, namely the remainder needed to fill the exact number of arrows. The content of the last stack, whether it is smaller or identical to the others, is what will be removed from the player's inventory. Thus the process in the Step-by-Step Guide is really a special case with stacks of size 1.

If the last stack is not a smaller remainder, all copies of the item will be removed from the player's inventory immediately, even if one of them is equipped at the time and should be unequipped first. This can be exploited as well, to gain permanent effects from enchanted items.

While complicated, if you can figure it out, you may find that duplicating multiple copies can be beneficial. The game will lag if there are many items in the cell at one time, often causing the game to freeze up if you duplicate too many. Dropping these items in stacks will help avoid that.

Examples:

Amount of arrows equipped: 50
Items in Inventory: 60 Daedra hearts
Items dropped: 1 × 50 Daedra hearts
Left in Inventory: 10 Daedra hearts (=60-50)
(Note that no duplication takes place. This is the same as dropping an item normally and answering "50" to the question "How Many".)

Arrows: 50
Items: 1 Ring of Perfection
Dropped: 50 × 1 Ring of Perfection
Left: nothing (=1-1)

Arrows: 50
Items: 10 potions
Dropped: 5 × 10 potions
Left: nothing (=10-10)

Arrows: 50
Items: 6 Hammers
Dropped: 8 × 6 Hammers + 1 × 2 Hammers (=50)
Left: 4 Hammers (=6-2)

Notes
  • Copies of a piece of clothing, armor, or jewelry obtained through duplication can not be equipped at the same time, however, copies obtained through normal means can.
  • Instead of trying to unequip the arrows, you can also attempt to equip a different stack of arrows, which has the same effect.
  • Weapons and Armor need to be at 100% health or less to be duplicated. Items at 125% health (i.e. items repaired after you have the expert level Armorer perk) will not duplicate. One way to reduce an item's health to exactly 100% is to ask a smith to repair all of your equipment for you (using the "Repair All" option): even items at 125% health will be "repaired" to 100% health.
  • A video of this trick is available.
  • If the quantity of cloned items is very large (over 100) the game is very likely to freeze and not recover. It is safer to use a smaller number of arrows and simply repeat the cloning multiple times - or duplicate a stack, as described under "Exact Calculations".
  • Good items to clone are those that are expensive but lightweight. Examples: Varla Stones (1000 gold, weight 1), Poisoned Apples (300 gold, weight 0), filled Grand Soul Gems (500 gold, weight 0.5), and Flawless Diamonds (100 gold, 0.1 weight).
  • Duplicating a lot of Sigil Stones may cause massive lag. (Because they flash and glow, so a lot of them at once will make the game lag a lot.) Also when you drop them inside they tend to disappear.
  • Lockpicks will also cause the game to lag. Duplicating just 10 makes the game skip a few frames. Try to duplicate Lockpicks in stacks for best results.
  • Black Soul Gems have a unique reaction to the duplication trick. When you duplicate them, they tend to flip out and take off, bouncing off what they hit; try this indoors.
  • This trick can be used to duplicate paint brushes, which can be later used with the floating paint brushes glitch.
  • Cloning will only work with some enchanted items. Enchanted rings that have been cloned include the Ring of Khajiiti, the Ring of Sunfire, and the Jewel of the Rumare
  • Items that can not be cloned include Nirnroot.
  • Sometimes if an item will not clone, sell it to a shop, buy it back again then try again. This usually works.

Infinite Money Glitches

Glitches which you can use to get infinite amounts of gold.

Infinite Money - Dorian

This glitch specifically occurs with the NPC Dorian, who lives in the Talos Plaza District in the Imperial City. If you kill him, you can repeatedly loot his corpse for gold, and the gold never disappears from his body. You can keep doing this until eventually after a few days his body disappears. (If you clear the hard drive cache on the Xbox, by holding A as the game boots, his body will no longer be there). It would be better to Paralyze him or drain his fatigue to make him fall. You could then pickpocket him and only get 40 bounty for each spell cast. When collecting the gold, do not select "Take All" or the game may freeze.

The amount of gold that he initially has is random. To increase the amount of gold on his corpse, you can spend time bribing him before killing him. Repeatedly bribe him until his disposition has reached its maximum. To add even more gold, attack him then yield, and start over again.

If you are a stealth-oriented character or are just quick with a blade, weapon or spell, you can quickly kill Dorian without alerting the guards. If you are not able to kill him quickly, it is best to first corner him so he can not run away. A good place to do this is the upstairs room in his house. First unlock and open the upstairs doors, then go back downstairs, find Dorian, and hit him once. With him chasing you, run upstairs to his room, close the door, and stand in front of it so he can not run away. Kill him and loot his corpse for the gold. By this time, the guards will have been alerted, so be sure to drop any stolen goods you are carrying before the Imperial Officer shows up. Choose to pay your bounty, using the gold you just looted from Dorian. Once you've finished settling the tab, return to Dorian's house, retrieve your stolen goods, and start looting Dorian's gold.

Infinite Money - Kvatch

This exploit allows you to sell a weapon repeatedly to a merchant, receiving gold each time but without giving up the weapon. To do it you must first equip any weapon (you actually have to have it equipped so you can see it) and then mount a horse. Go to Kvatch and talk to Batul gra-Sharob, the female Orc merchant found outside there, without dismounting from your horse. (The other Kvatch merchant, Sigrid, will only work for this if your mercantile skill is 50.) Sell the merchant the weapon that you previously equipped. A message saying "this item cannot be unequipped" will come up but you will still get the gold for it. Rinse and repeat! The merchants have 200 gold each but if you are a master mercantile you can get 700 or 1200 if you invest on the shop. This only works with weapons, and you must be on a horse.

Infinite Money - Vampirism

At the end of the Vampire Cure quest, Janus Hassildor gives you a cash reward. However, the Reward topic does not disappear, and you can repeatedly talk to him about a reward; he will give you more gold each time. This glitch occurs whether you have already used your own vampire cure potion or not. The amount of the cash reward is level-dependent, see Reward; the reward amount can change if you level up after completing the quest.

Problematic Glitches

Significant problems that can prevent further gameplay but not result in a player advantage.

Caught in the Hunt Glitch

There is a major glitch during the Caught in the Hunt quest which can cause your game to freeze.

See the quest page for details.

Clavicus Vile Glitch

There is a major glitch during Clavicus Vile's Daedric quest that causes the game to crash when you try to finish the quest.

See the quest page for details.

Reference Bug

If you have installed the Shivering Isles expansion but have not installed the latest patch, playing the game for enough hours will inevitably trigger the Reference Bug — even if you have never entered the Shivering Isles or used any of the expansion content.

The fundamental symptom of this bug is that recently enchanted items and new custom spells disappear after loading a saved game. However, make sure that the items have truly disappeared and are not simply hidden by the Items Disappearing from Containers glitch. Many other symptoms are possible, as detailed on the Reference Bug article. If you continue playing with this bug your game saves will become increasingly corrupt, to the point where the game may no longer be playable.

Minor Glitches

Minor problems that do not affect gameplay to a great deal.

Skill Level is Frozen

There is a glitch with Free Skill Boosts that causes the skill that received the boost to become temporarily frozen at the new, boosted level. This glitch is most obvious with large skill boosts (e.g., from reading the Oghma Infinium, completing the A Shadow Over Hackdirt quest, or from watching Branwen and Saliith train in the Arena District). The progress bar next to the skill level is stuck at zero, even when the skill is used repeatedly. Eventually, the skill will start to go up again, but it can take quite a while. More details on this bug are provided on the Free Skill Boosts page.

There is a temporary freeze when using a weapon while swinging the skill level bar won't move until after the player is done swinging. This does no harm to the actual game, although this does cause you to skip a couple levels at a time, but getting the skill high enough (like at 25, 50, 75, and 100) the game will still recognize that you are leveling in that skill and the notification box will still appear telling you, you are now an Expert (just an example).

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