Oblivion talk:Free Skill Boosts

Why avoid boosts?

=Question from a (non-english) Player:= In the above paragraph I see, that it is bad to get those two free trainings. The problem is, that I don't understand why? I have Blade,Block and Athletic as Major-Skills and try to level efficiently. Maybe someone can add a simple calculation-example so a math-idiot like me understand this. Second Question: As I see, I can simply avoid the Gray Prince's Training by not doing this quest, but the Night Mother's Blessing can't be avoided because it is part of a quest-line. Is there any chance to do this quest(s), but avoid the negative effekt from getting this training(s) (maybe by getting skills or attributtes to Maximum before doing those quest ??).

I really would be happy for further explanation. Maybe others understand that easy, but not me. Thanks. — Unsigned comment by 87.173.155.143 (talk)

The problem is that leveling up is dependent on raising your major skills, either through practice or through training, and since the skills top at 100, there are only so many levels you can rise, before you run out of skills to advance. Once all your major skills are at 100, you can no longer rise in level.

This means that boosts which artificially set a skill higher without "advancing" it in the usual way reduce the sum total of skill advances that are possible to you and thus the maximum level you can achieve. It's a trade-off that you have to be aware of: is it more important to get high skill levels early, at the expense of reaching only a lower level, or can you do with lower skills now, so you can attain a higher level (and thus higher attributes) later? Either decision can make for good and rewarding play, but you have to know that you are making that decision, when you accept skill boosts. -- JustTheBast 10:53, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Maximum level is basically a false concept anyway, since you can always go to jail and decrease your skills if you want to gain more levels. So personally, I don't see any reason to worry about this. Shashakiro 17:44, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the NMB is the bonus reward on the Whodunnit quest. If you let someone see you murder someone else, you don't get the NMB when you complete the quest. As far as I know, anyway. Killing people by magic also, apparently, stops you getting it.

Disagreement?

comment moved from article:
"I did this and didn't miss out. My blade went all the way up to its max and my attribute did as well. What do you mean by raising your natural skills to 100? I did this with my blade skill at 90. it raised it to 93. This did not increase my level bar (red bar at the bottom of the menu) but it did increase the skill. You can increase attributes by leveling minor skills also. So my strength attribute did indeed go up to its maximum value. I don't understand what you mean by this statement. My blade skill got to master level and I know so because of the new attack I was ablr to do and because of the popup saying I reached master level blade so perhaps I was just smart and knew that the skill boost wasnt going to help my attribute and I just got the rest from my hand to hand and Blunt skills. The correct wording would be that it makes it more difficult to get to the attribute max. I guess...Actually none of the statement above makes sense." -mwhita — Unsigned comment by Mwhita (talk • contribs)

The issue is mentioned specifically with the caveat if you are trying to level efficiently, because it's only an issue if (a) you are trying to add up how many skill increases you have collected to ensure you get +5 attribute bonuses or (b) you are trying to reach your character's maximum possible level.

The most obvious effect is that if you are trying to get +5 attribute bonuses then you need to make sure not to count the free skill boosts. In your example where your blade skill increased by 3 points, you would need to make sure that your strength-related skills increased by 13 points, not 10 points, that level if you wanted to get a +5 strength bonus. Perhaps you were "just smart" or perhaps from reading this article you knew that you had to make sure to get 13 skill increases.

The more subtle effects are really an only issue for players who are really counting all their skill levels. The basic point is that in your case you have permanently missed out on 3 blade skill level ups. If you were exactly counting your strength skill ups (for example, if you had already maxed out your blunt and hand to hand skills and were counting on getting exactly 10 blade skill ups every level from now on), then missing those 3 could make a difference. Also, if blade was one one of your major skills, losing those three skill level ups will lower your character's maximum level.

If you feel like you can improve on the wording, feel free. As it stands, I don't see that there's anything inaccurate about the wording, although it doesn't perhaps explain everything in great detail. But I'm not sure whether it's worth going into great detail for issues that only a few players will really care about, when the detail probably isn't needed for those players. But that's just my opinion. --Nephele^Talk 23:55, 11 December 2007 (EST)

My little brother did the Grey Prince Quest, and got the +3 mods before I could warn him about the "base skill" and "natural skill" difference. I'll have him max either blade, block, or athletics to 100 to see if he still gets the mastery perk. I'm in the Dark Brotherhood, so I'll save and get the NMB; and do the same to see if mastery perks come even though you're getting a +2 mod.

Right now, though, I'm going to say that "Base Skill" and "Natural Skill" are the same thing to the game.. Because I'm almost positive that the skel key (+40 security) changes your mastery level.

Mike 00:28, 10 January 2008 (EST)Mike Anthony

Yes, the Skeleton Key changes your mastery level. As it states in the article under Oblivion:Free Skill Boosts#Abilities:

You receive any skill perks

I'm having a hard time here understanding why it's so hard to read the article, which seems as far as I can tell to already answer these questions. If someone could point out a sentence in the article that is wrong or misleading, I'd be happy to correct it. --Nephele^Talk 01:37, 10 January 2008 (EST)

I was talking about a part that has already been revised, sorry. The section talking about the "Natural Skill" level with the Grey Prince training and the NMB had earlier mentioned that it would keep you from actually reaching 100, and getting the master perks. I was pretty sure it was still in there last night, though. May have already been revised.

Also, for any hardcore players that want to get one level higher, it may be an idea to allow yourself to be arrested. If a major skill level is reduced, you'll be able to train it back up. I don't think any player would be crazy enough to do it, but if you want to max all of your attributes, this would be the way to do it. Mike Anthony 14:08, 10 January 2008 (EST)

So you can't get them naturally to 100. The Active Effect will effectively raise them to 100, while they will appear as green in the menu, technically only at 97, though you still get the Master Level status and perks. The only loss is in actually raising the skills, and having them naturally at 100. Any skill level ups lost can be made up with jail time. Right?

Contradicting comments

Now i'm confused. In the article it states that you get the normal attribute bonus with a free skill boost yet in this discussion it's the opposite. So just to clarify: If i get the +5 H2H from the Arena it won't count towards my strength at level up? Also,if i take the free boost, aside from counting every punch does the game inform you when you've reached another level so you can keep track of your attributes for the +5 bonus?

OK. I've found that the +5 H2H skill boost given by watching Branwen and Saliith at the Arena DOES give you 5 points towards your strength attribute at level up, but the 3 points each for Blade, Block and Athletics given to you by Agronak gro-Malog after completing the Origin of the Gray Prince quest DO NOT contribute to your attributes...

One last observation. Why are the skills given by Agronak gro-Malog after the Origin of the Gray Prince quest listed as Active Affects under your spell menu? This is obviously the reason you don't get any attribute benefit...it's not like you can unlearn them!?

The explanation given in the article is correct. Any skill raised by those bonuses listed under Skill Increases will be treated the same as if you had trained yourself. i.e. they will count for levelling and attribute modifiers. In the case of the Hand to Hand skill bonus, they will count.

Agronak gro-Malog's training is an ability that is permanently added to your character. Therefore it is visible under Active Effects, just like the Racial or Birthsign abilities are listed there. --Timenn < talk > 08:58, 30 January 2008 (EST)

"Skill increases" in stats page vs free skill boosts

Now, I'm sure that the "ability" boosts don't increase the "skill increases" number on the stats page, but what about the other boosts? Right now the number reads 1600 for me, and I need 2 + 18 + 45 + 11 + 1 + 59 = 136 more points to reach 100 in all skills. You start with 105 base + 140 major + 35 specialization + 45 racial = 325 total skill points, and I have 19 points from the two ability boosts, so that gives a total of 1600 + 136 + 325 + 19 = 2080 points, which is 20 shy of the max of 2100...and the only place I can think of where those 20 points would come from is the free skill boosts from quests. It's weird, though, since they act like normal skill increases in almost every other way... Shashakiro 17:53, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Jail Bonuses

I've been arrested many times, trust me, and I have never gotten a bonus in security or sneak. What are the chances, say, out of 100? like a 0.5?--Arch-Mage Matt 21:01, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

For every day/night you spend in prison one skill will be chosen randomly. So, I guess the chance of that being security or sneak is 2 out of 21, so around 9.5%. ^Talk Wolok gro-Barok _{Contributions} 21:07, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I guess I'm just unlucky. Thanks for the amazingly fast reply.--Arch-Mage Matt 21:12, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Can jail boosts increase security/sneak past 100? -- Moses 04:14, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I guess I'm a little late in replying, but since this does add new info to the topic, I'm going to do so.

At least on the PC, you can never get Sneak or Security bonuses due to a bug. The same bug limits the possible skill decreases to Armorer, Athletics, Blade, Block, Blunt, Hand to Hand, Heavy Armor, Alchemy, and Alteration. Decreases in Armorer are about 2.25 times more likely than decreases in Alteration, with the likelihood decreasing evenly between the two ends of the list. I've asked Krusty and Emoboy64 to confirm if the problem occurs on Xbox and PS as well or if it's PC-specific.

Clearly, this is a bug on the PC, but what's less clear is whether the chances were intended to be linear across all 21 skills or if they were supposed to be weighted away from Sneak/Security increases.

And to answer Moses, I haven't quite figured out enough to know if it would boost those skills past 100 or not (assuming that it's even possible on an Xbox or PS). I'll see if I can figure out more once we confirm if those skills can be boosted at all! – Robin Hood↝talk 09:00, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Using a Drain spell to counter GPT or NMB while leveling?

Okay, I got both the Gray Prince training and the Night Mother Blessing, and reading this now I wonder if I cost myself a level. Is it possible to use an item with e Drain effect to gain a level by training these skills while drained? Or do Drain effects work differently even if in an item?96.35.110.87 04:03, 22 September 2013 (GMT)

Oops, forgot to log in.FMPhoenixHawk (talk) 04:04, 22 September 2013 (GMT)

Spellmaking with skill bonuses

(I'm not english so excuse me if I say stupid things) I read that gaining one of those bonuses grants you the ability to do Fortify skill at the Altar of Spellmaking. I just got the bonus of "A rat problem" and of seeing the two fighters outside of the arena, so I got 2 bonuses... But I already can't do my Fortify skill (Sad face)! Did I understand wrong or I got a Bug or so? (I installed also Shivering and KOTN, don't know if it makes influence, but better to tell) 93.50.74.182 06:11, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Only those bonuses that are applied as an ability (see this section) give access to the Fortify Skill effect at the Spellmaking Altar. The two increases you got were direct modifications of your skill, without the involvement of any Fortify Skill effect, and therefore they don't make it available for custom spellmaking. -- SarthesArai ^Talk 16:08, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Free blade/block from Blades

Is this a troll? I watched these guys from the time they started in the mornign to the time they knocked off in the evening and did not get any boost in any skill. — Unsigned comment by 100.33.114.161 (talk) at 20:03 on 27 June 2018

It is most definitely accurate. Have you checked you fit the requirements to receive it? Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 20:23, 27 June 2018 (UTC)