Oblivion talk:Under Leveling

Character Design

I'm quite new, both to the Oblivion subject, and WikiEtiquette. Besides English is not my main tongue, so i apologize if this entry seems irrelevant or otherwise inappropriate.I'm interested in the subject of efficient character design and levelling

Skills rank governs the effectiveness of a skill. Effectiveness of this rank is also, of course, affected by its leading attribute(and others i.e: luck). But at constant level and constant attribute(s), the higher skill rank, the better.

Of course any level up with less than a +5 attribute (excluding luck) would be inefficient. but it seems to me that over-skill raising is interesting path to efficiency.

For instance take the attribute agility. 3 skills may affect it: Security, Sneak, Marksman.

If you take my Custom class Wook Elf(+5 end,+5 luck,Stealth specialization), with The Thief Birth Sign. His stats regarding agility would be:

attribute agilty 20+10+10 = 40

Skill Security : 5+5 = 10 Maksman : 5+5+10 = 20 Sneak : 5+5+10 =20

Since every two skill increase in security,marksman and sneak would result in a +1 attribute raise, I have the potential for 90(security) + 80 (marksman)+ 80 (sneak) /2 ==> 125 attribute point in agility.That's a fair margin. I have plenty of room to improve my agility. so i can use the extra points on pure skill increase:

At level up when I plan to raise my agility by +5, I will raise my Security skill by +1 my Marsman skill by +7 and my sneak skill by +4. This is more than necessary, but while still garantiing my +5 attribute raise, I will have +2 in marksmanship without any level-up. So i will be more efficient than if i had raised my marksman skill by just what was enough.

How many level up do i garantee with this? I lose 2 skill points per every 10 so i can have 125-(1/5)*125 = 100 points. that's more than enough.

So i still can reach 100 in attribute Agility while having better Maksman,sneak, and security skills.

So if I don't choose marksman or sneak as major skills, in the first levels , i'll carefully over-work my skills in order to lose a little of them (1 or 2) and have a higher skill rank at the same level and attribute value. — Unsigned comment by LionelO (talk • contribs) at 15:35 on 7 June 2006 (UTC)

What if you just picked skills you don't actually plan on using as your major skills, for example if you were a fighter, and you used blade, shield, and heavy armor, but for your major skills you picked all thief/mage skills, and never used them. Wouldn't that mean you wouldn't increase your level except intentionally, even while your blades/block/heavy armor skills would increase as you use them? — Unsigned comment by 139.169.218.182 (talk) at 16:24 on 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistency

The author argues for increasing minor skills to minimize a characters level. This prevents a character from receiving any point bonuses to their attributes. Strength, intelligence, etc. will remain at their initial level. A character, who increases their major skills, will receive exponential increases (+1 to +5) to their attributes however, (if they remember to sleep after each 10 point gain in skills!).

This mitigates the danger from higher level monsters. Also the game is much more interesting, if you are ably fighting characters, who can throw more things at you.

Increase your attributes faster than you increase your level, and you can take on your foes! — Unsigned comment by Adamkane (talk • contribs) at 08:53 on 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really sure how this comment is relevant to this particular article, which actually argues for never increasing your character's level. And I'm not going to spend any time defending this article, because it describes a strategy that I personally don't think works as well as others (e.g., Efficient Leveling). But in any case, at Oblivion Talk:Character Creation#Inconsistency I've answered the same question that was asked at that talk page. There's no need to ask the same question on multiple different talk pages. --Nephele 11:52, 18 February 2007 (EST)

Under leveling at 100% difficulty

With the difficulty slider all the way to the right, under leveling early makes remarkable sense. Why, let your enemies get even better while you struggle with meager skills and trashy equipment. They already hit with 6 times their normal power and you are reduced to 1/6th of yours. Choose 7 majors that you can control as to when they level. Armorer but not Acrobatics, since the former is easy to control (don't use hammers) but the latter is not (sometimes you have to jump). Likewise, Security but not Athletics. Maybe Mysticism but not Sneak. Since you are dead meat in a melee, throw in Hand-to-Hand, Marksman and Blunt. Use a sword as a hypodermic needle for injecting poison. Get into the Arcane University early. Conjure friends to fight while you disappear. But the key is underleveling early, since the main quest can be completed at level 2.

Once you have goodies, money, spells, enchanted clothing and perks at key skills, you can level up while keeping it a fair fight.

--Kalevala 9:46, 07 March 2007 (EST)

"Sleeping Quests" section

I've just realised that you will need to sleep for many quests and I'm one level short of my optimum level so I'd like to complete all the "sleeping quests", ie quests that require you to sleep, before I level.

Many do not like to not use ANY major skills, leveling certains skills may otherwise prove burdensome, such as athletics, especially with limited training. I thought about adding a section in this articles that lists quests that require sleeping. I'll add what I know but by knowledge is limited, so please add to it. — Unsigned comment by 58.175.84.236 (talk) at 08:47 on 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It's already been done. See Oblivion:Quest Timing#Quests that Require Sleep. --Nephele^Talk 11:07, 14 July 2008 (EDT)

Leveling's a pretty raw deal, really

I added a lot of stuff in the first part (IMO, it didn't really say much anyway).

Personally, I think leveling's a pretty raw deal in this game, from a pure "increase your capacity for defeating enemies" standpoint. I've spent just over a hundred hours on this game at level 1 and I'm so overpowered it's ridiculous. Everything in dungeons/forts/ruins/wilderness dies in one hit, no questions asked, except for zombies and scamps, which take three and two, respectively. It's like being at max level in a Final Fantasy game and taking on enemies from early areas...not even slightly fair, zero challenge at all.

Is it even possible for the game to be that easy at, say, level 40? Shashakiro 03:29, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Marksman Training

I don't think that, in the context of that sentence, it ought to count as completable, even if you can technically get the quest "completed". All other 184 quests can be completed in an entirely satisfactory way at level 1--i.e. you're sent to fetch something or do something, and you do, in some way--but Marksman Training can't. Yes, technically you can make your stat page read 185, but there are only 184 quests that you can really complete.

Anyone else have an opinion on this?

Shashakiro 05:24, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

It needs to be reworded for it to actually take that meaning. But if you are saying you can complete these quests, you have to include it, because you CAN complete the quest. — Unsigned comment by Elliot (talk • contribs) at 05:27 on 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Mage Mana

Is there any way to get lots of magicka with underleveling, or do you need to increase your attributes to cast the powerful spells? — Unsigned comment by 220.239.129.57 (talk) at 05:56 on 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Magicka is determined by your Intelligence, so having a low level will give you limited Magicka. Many of the items that Fortify Magicka will be better at higher levels. Look at some other pages, such as Efficient Leveling or Magical Items. --DKong27 ^{Talk Cont} 16:32, 27 February 2011 (UTC)