Hey all, I am just curious to know if anyone has any idea where I can train my low level character. I've got OOO 1.32 and MMM for OOO 3.1 loaded. I'm constantly getting slaughtered every time I enter a dungeon. Are there any good places to start?

Thanks!

At lower levels i just turned the difficulty way down, its nice to get rid of level scaling, but when all the baddies start off at higher levels than you, there really isnt a place to catch up to them.

So there isn't a beginner dungeon? I really don't like the idea of the difficulty slider. In fact I try to avoid it all the time.

That is one side-effect of the leveling system; when at low levels, the level proportions are waaaay skewed. After you get to about L7 or so, it eases up a bit. In the mean time, I recommend one of the leveling modifier mods packed in with OOO to reduce the amount of time needed to get skills up (as IMO, they're too long in basic OOO).

Also, did you construct your character properly? "Major Is Minor" controlled leveling doesn't work well; starting off with your "Major" skills at 0 to get the most out of leveling means you will be used to wipe the floor very often, and will always be behind. You need the boost to Apprentice level on major skills to survive the early parts of OOO.

I usually start out in Vilverin and Sideways Cave. Both are doable at Lvl 1, except the boss section in Vilverin plus you got to be careful with the boss section in Sideways Cave. Otherwise - focus on Bandits and Goblins in the beginning. Remember that the dungeons get harder the further in you come, so try them out, but be prepared to retreat. Also, watch out for the wilderness at really low levels - either be really careful or stay by the roads.

EDIT: ^^^ Heh, I use Level_Rates_Modified_x5 to slow down the skill levelling rate, as I think it goes way too fast with OOO+MMM or FCOM.

OOO also forces people to use their brain, instead of rampaging through a dungeon. Fight smarter and avoid the high level dungeons when you're just a puny-lowlevel-good-for-nothing-wannabe-adventurer!

Yes, I've built my character correctly. I've never been a fan of the whole "major is minor" thing.

Thanks Arknqt, I was looking for a response like that. I'll check out both of those dungeons. It seems to me that OOO would incorporate some areas for beginners to work their way up.

*Minor spoiler below*

OK, here's a further little startout tip: Start with Vilverin. This will get you some loot you can sell and upgrade your equipment a bit or buy spells etc., plus - buy a couple of Open Hard Lock scrolls from Shady Sam, for example. Then go to Sideways Cave. It'll be worth the cost of the scrolls and you'll have some real nice loot for a Lvl 1 char to start out with.

Thanks for the tip! I'll try that right away.

Hi all:



I fully agree with that. But it seems the beginning areas are there, just they are not listed in any place, for everyone to see, yet ...

With my current character, as Arkngt correctly points out, started fighting in Vilverin but just the first level, downwards there are ghosts/wraiths and you need more advanced weapons (>= silver weapons) to take them out ...

I've also done the Amazon cave near Skingrad at level 6 (difficulty at normal: 1/1) ... but it take a lot of effort and potions/healing ... and some retreats.

Also, I recommend Attack and Hide (by nvdrifter), since it helps a lot to starting sneaky characters ... and if you like bows and have enough marksman skill (>= 20), some of the Archers Rebalance out there are great and they helps a lot at the beginning.

Walk (do not use fast travel at first) the roads, and fight marauders/bandits ... start a few simple quests (like the Weye one) ... but watch out with the Thoronir one, at least wait until ~ level 5/7 to enter the Mausoleum, those guys are waaaay on top of you, and when you enter there, the door is closed and there is no way out! Watch out with this kind of stuff ...

The initial quests in fighter's and mage's guilds are achievable, also. And by all means (if you start with a high enough sneak, >= 30) starting of Thieves Guild also is doable ...

Hope this helps,

kindly regards,
leeus.

I was just currous is OOO soposted to make your weapons do a ton of dmg, after I installed OOO now i have one handed weapons that do 51 dmg Im a master in blade but b4 OOO avg dmg for a good wep was like 25-30 + enchantments??? Does this make me imba or do the enimies mesure up and do a ton more dmg or have alot more health????

IIRC, Fanacasecul (the ayleid ruin that looks like a pier in the Rumare) is also pretty tame, though the bandits topside may be a bit tough. There are frequent Tin-suit patrols through there, so just drag them into the fight and the bandits will be minced. It's filled with undead inside, despite the bandit sentries. Go fig...

As a rule of thumb, the dungeons around the IC are pretty easy. There are exceptions, though. As the saying now goes... Dzonot go in Dzonot cave!

I just run into what ever cave i find. I die at least 3 times per cave. Fighting Ancient Vampires at level 2 is REALLY hard, but rewarding.

All +5 Attribute Modifiers

This always makes your attributes get the +5 multiplier. It might interest you, as it makes things a heck of a lot easier early on, especially if you're like me and suck at math.

Starting out, I always wander the wilderness, killing the local wildlife until I reach a good level ('bout 7+) then start tackling the dungeons.

Running away is always a good low-level tactic too

As a rule I've got into doing first few areas in Vilverin and the cave thats on the east side of the IC Isle, with a little camp outside it, the first area is kinda low level, but the last room is a bit tough. If you head East off the IC Isle as if heading for Cheydinhal you'll find the first Fort is full of Goblins and there way easy.

Having conjuration as a major realy helps as u can summon a skeleton from the start and get a zombie from the IC.

The mine outside Chorrol is pretty low level, I think its exhausted mine or crumbling mine

I only play with OOO so with MMM aswell it might be a little different.

I appreciate the tips. I'm about to go into Vilveren. I've just disposed of the two bandits outside. As for the Sneak and Hide mod, is it balanced? Does it make it too easy for stealth characters? I certainly don't want that. I'm all about balance, challenge, and fair-play.

I've found if you run away for long enough and get far enough away most enemies lose interest and you can sneak back and find them. Depends how fast you can run

The best bit of advice I can offer, become very stealthy. The extra damage from sneak attacks is the only way my character could survive. This is still true in a lot of instances....and my characters now level 25....

*Minor spoiler below again!*

Another brilliant startout dungeon is Derelict Mine NE of Skingrad. A Goblin dungeon easily doable at Lvl 1 with two Goblin Totem Staffs and a Daedric dagger. Sell one staff and wreak havoc on Daedras and Spectrals with the other.

It has three different versions for you to choose which one is best: easier, medium and hard. I don't think it is unbalancing. It just changes the chance that an enemy has to detect the PC after a sneak attack. If you stand unseen and very still it wont detect you (depends on chance and your sneak skill) ... and depends on which enemy you had attacked. Some of them will detect you no matter what you do ... and some are more dumber, you could say

Here is an excerpt from the readme, for clarification:


Regards,
leeus.

EDIT: typos.

Good tips here for the spoilers thread.

When should one start the main quest?

I wouldn't do Kvatch before Lvl 3 or something like that, but it depends a bit on the char, equipment etc. of course.

Kill mudcrabs. Kill deer. Watch out for wolves and boars at lvl 1.

Do Vilverin but don't go past the room with the skeletons that come from the alcoves in the walls. The spectral warrior in the boss area will take you to the cleaners before about lvl 15 on default difficulty unless you have a decent shock-enchanted weapon.

Do Sideways cave but watch out for mystical imps - their area effect frost spells are nasty. If you are a mage or have been lucky enough to pick up a fire-enchanted weapon, they are allergic to fire. There is an enchanted Ayleid Meteoric Iron shortsword in the third area of Sideways cave, worth venturing in there just for that. Watch out though, there are Shadow wolves in that area. They are b*stards at low levels, avoid.

Do Fanacasecul and if you have the Myths & Legends mod installed (recommended) go to Culotte as well on the shore of Lake Rumare. There is a fire-enchanted sword in there added by the mod and as soon as you pick it up you will have a room full of zombies to test it out on.

Go for free skill upgrades - the sparring partners outside the Arena will increase your hand to hand 5 points - halfway to getting a +5 to STR at level up.

Go down into the sewers. Plenty of rats and mudcrabs, plus a few goblins, some bandits and if you're feeling brave there are vampires Beneath the Bloodworks. Also deep within the sewers is a long area with a chest of nice loot and a free Nirnroot to boot!

Derelict Mine is not a bad choice but in the last area, wait on the sidelines until the goblins have finished fighting each other. If you intervene before they are done you will be overwhelmed by about 20+ goblins at once. That said, it's a great place to collect arrows - the goblin skirmishers in there sometimes carry upwards of 100 iron or steel arrows EACH.

If I think of any more I'll let you know, but make sure you FULLY explore the sewers - it's well worth it.

BTW if you have trouble carrying loot, get Quarl's Bag of Holding. The only problem is that the latest version is not found outside the prison sewer but... yep, you guessed it! The BOSS AREA IN VILVERIN

When you know that the beast will kick your [censored].. run!

Martigen Monster Mod - how to survive at low Level..

1) If it look bigger and meaner that you ..than it most likely is

2) Use the Road guards and Ranger for Help

3) Always keep well equipped and repaired

4) Potions , Potions, Potions and Poision's

5) Use the terrain to advantage..

6) below level 3 - do not dare travel the road's yet ...Stay close to town , close to Road Guards,

7) Lure Creatures and Npc into groups of Other Creature or Npc and make them fight

8) Use Reduced Spawns, or Reduced Reduced Spawns to lower amount of creatures (this always helps)

9) Use Compaion's Mod or Travellers Mod to help you out..

10 ) Flee

What sewers are you talking about?

Wow, this topic is extremely old! I didn't know it still existed...

I suggest using Thieves Arsenal for stealthy characters because it is challenging, but you can defeat stronger enemies (you can knock them out, for example) or get valuabe loot without fighting.

That's some ways to do it too, but I just run away if I cant take it down.

Here's a tip if you use heavy armor or you just need money

1.Go to Vilverin and sell the loot to shady sam.
2.Get some unlock very hard scrolls (you only need one).
3.Murder someone.
4.Join DB.
5.On the quest to kill the pirate leader on the lowest floor there is a chest with a very hard lock, it has a pretty good item.

(its heavy armor)

never had any real tips for this but...

If you happen to have the bow shop mod, which adds a archy shop near the imperial city, they have arrows that paralyze. which are great in OOO. in trouble? just shoot and run like hell

really, vilverin, I went in there and there were like 5 bandits in that lower section of the first floor. But I did get some lock picks from the first few of them. But OP, i feel your pain, Im only level 1 so far as I just got it working correctly yesterday and havent been playing much, im using MMM as well, and some fo the MMM creatures I can handle.

Oh this is sort of Random but im using MMM for OOO, but all the MMM creatures i run into seem really weak, like I was walkin up to bruma and was attacked by three skeletons, i killed all of them in like 2 hits each.
??? is there level scaling in MMM? I didnt think so, just wondering.

I wondered which mod put that sword there. I thought it was OOO.

For carrying extra loot I use Adventurer's Spells. The Mark/Recall feature crashes my game all the time so I just use it's Magic Storage. It deposits a scroll outside the sewer exit.

My current character is Level 2 and she had to go from Anvil to the IC to fetch the Benirus guy. I did plenty of #9, I had a companion (the Rat Lady from Anvil) but she kept fleeing during every fight, so I hung around the roaming traders if I could find them in the dark (Natural Environment's Darker Nights ). In the end we joined the procession of a Pilgrim of Tiber Septim and his Dragonborne Knight escort. Unfortunately they both died outside Vindasel, but we scored some nice armor
There wasn't a whole lot of road patrols between Anvil and Skingrad, so roaming traders are pretty handy, as are Pilgrims. I had barbarians chase me outside Skingrad but a goblin came to the rescue while I ran away

But, then again I use MMM's Increased Spawn Rates and OOO's Deadly Combat. My difficulty is at 25%

I didn't realise this thread was oldish. Oh well.

hey where is that dagger, I went in there and the best thing i found was a dwarven shortsword and a silver dai-katana

I just started with FCOM and I knew that dungeons where hot but when walking from wyenon priory to kvatch on the road I met a conjurer..the first summoner I met around vilverin (at lvl1) was hard but easily killable in close combat but...the conjurer lol - 1 shot
...and I use the auto-potion mod (10%)! Not that he wasnt unkillable (mages in robe don't like swords) but you don't have much health at lvl1 lol and you can't even recover from the first shock spells he throws at you.... gonna avoid walking on roads during nighttime when you see them it's already too late lol

here's a tips for people starting in OOO difficulty...when you really need to run away..get naked !!! lol with only your starting speed you really need an edge to run away safely rofl (damn werewolves)

something else also if you intend to use the http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.ph...6&hl=burden (better burden spells)
I suggest you wait before using it until your marksman or magic skills are enough to kill an ennemy or you'll end up rooted to the ground and death will come quickly.Ennemies also benefit from it and they are most likely higher lvl than you at the start in OOO.

Thanks for the tips everyone and especially arkngt

I'm going to bump this topic. There are some useful tips here!

Heres a tip,Take every cheapness you can get,if you can catch a bandit in a fight with a guard Do so,if that pack of wolfs are fighting bandits kill off the winners,I did this and made it to lvl 9 before getting owned,It works but ya gotta know if you should move or not.

I've recently installed OB (got the GOTY this past weekend) & have OOO installed. However when I try to install the Omod of MMM the game exits apon startup. What load order should I use? OOO lower or MMM? Also to quote this poster...



When OB 1st came out I got it but my computer didn't run it very well..so I've had some experience with it and now that I have it again I've been visiting some spots I remember had some good stuff in it...@ that time I didn't have OOO (wasn't even out yet & had few mods avalible) so last night I went looking for the quest to kill the necromancer in the cave above the tavern near the IC..(don't remember the name of the place) I"ll only say that I got knocked around pretty good..I think out of everyone in the cave..and there was a crowd I killed a rat & a skeleton! The rest of the time I was skulking around trying not to get seen or killed quickly. The best part (& yeah I had a blast@ this) was when I took my boots off to help with my sneaking. I could just picture it..a stealthly character sneaking around barefoot with his boots in one hand & using his other hand to feel along the walls (using darker dungeons) Man it was great.

Anyway thought I"d ask my orginal questions & post my funny little experience.

Main

Vilverin and Sideways cave are the best bets for lower level characters of any class. Oblivion Gates are great for Warrior or Mage types. Theft is the best way to level non-combat skills for a thief character. Also, training is usually pretty cheap early on, so you should take advantage of that, especially for Major Skills that start at 25. Here's some more general tips:

- Archers and Mages should kite (run backwards while firing arrows/spells), especially against Ogres and other slow moving yet strong enemies. Also, kiting from third person view helps to make sure that you don't back yourself into a corner. There are a couple of third person crosshair mods, but you can usually figure out where to aim without the crosshair.

- Use your Sigil Stones! A 15 pt shock damage on strike is going to make a huge difference early on. If you get an enchantment you don't want, use the Sigil on an item and then sell that item.

- The free potions at Fighter's and Mage's guilds are there for a reason. Chances are that you're not going to need them later on, so you might as well make use of them at early levels.

My tips are for for blade users and stealth oriented chars (like mine)

1) Get THIS
2) Go to the Anvil Fighters Guild
3) Steal the weapons in the chest close to the top left corner of the main room.
4) Cast a spell to summon your no-damage weapon
5) Keep hitting the Goblin for an easy, and roleplaying (training in the fighters guild is immersive and it aint a cheat) way to increase your blade skill and advance in level. Then you are more pumped up for the toughness of OOO and MMM

Playing as a mage with Supreme Magicka, focusing on Destruction and Restoration, I have discovered a few things about playing with OOO.

1) Traps are your friend. An odd statement, but many of the traps (especially those resetting dart traps and swinging blade traps) can be used to quickly and effectively kill spawns far higher than your level. Just don't trigger every trap (and remember to watch out for them, they kill you quick too!), and when your in over your head, lure them into the trap. That should soften them up enough to kill, if it doesn't kill them outright. Managed to take down a Vampire Matriarch at level 2 with this, and she could 1-hit me with one of her AOE frost spells.

2) Guards (and cities) are your friend. I have two actual gameplay experiences that relate directly to this. First time, clearing out a Goblin infested mine, everything going fine, then I run into two berserkers and a Warlord. Being a practical mage, I flee, healing myself whenever I get hit. Making it to the surface, there is a helpful guard on a horse, who kindly helps me dish out some punishment on the pesky goblins. The horse died though. Next, I was just wandering from town to town, picking up recommendations, and I find a Frost Titan. Again, being the practical mage, I run, finding a guard taking on a couple bandits. The Frost Titan murders them all in one to two hits. However, he decides that I must be much tastier, so continues in his pursuit. I flee to Bruma, firing off a fireball whenever the opportunity arises. Entering the castle gates, the Frost Titan proceeds to kill 4 guards, and 5 bystanders, some of whom were warriors. However, with our combined efforts, I manage to down the Frost Titan with a fireball, and proceed to sell his very valuable loot. However, no-one seems to mind that 9 people are dead, and proceed to talk about mudcrabs.

3) Potions, poisons and scrolls are your friend. Pick up a couple potent healing potions, perhaps a paralyze poison or scroll, and use as needed.

4) Train your athletics. For obvious reasons. This is especially handy if you use KCAS (like me), so your speed will increase organically. Also, no more worrying about multipliers.

5) Have at least one healing skill. Staying alive is far more important than dealing damage. Get either Restoration or Alchemy. Deer, Wolf and Boar meat all have a restore health effect even a novice can use.

6) Have a backup weapon. I lost Alchemy as a major skill in favor of blades, so I could still do damage if I run out of Magicka or got Silenced. For melee fighters, carry at least one silver, daedric or enchanted weapon to fight ghosts, wraiths etc, even if it is a piddly silver dagger. Archers should carry a couple dozen silver arrows as well (any arrows fired by guards are silver - let them kill stuff, and take the arrows!). Its always handy to have short and long range options.

7) Stick close to cities at low levels. The dungeons are typically easier, you have a nearby place to sell your loot and an inexhaustible supply of guards to run to.

8) Read OOO documents. They tell you the locations of potential dungeons, such as the cave at the southern tip of IC isle (forgot name - there is a copy of the document in the Merchants Inn though), which has some fairly easy goblins to tackle (in the top floors), as well as some valuable and fairly good early game light armor - Dragonborne.

9) Spend, don't save. Unless you really want that Dwemer Warhammer, spend on something practical, like repair hammers, potions, scrolls, affordable armor, a new spell etc. Keeping alive is far more important than having sacks of gold.

10) Keep out of trouble with the law. If you get a bounty, pay it off. Mods like RGO help rectify this problem, but the last thing you need when you are fleeing from half a dozen Ogres is a guard trying to kill you, instead of the Ogres. The guards are the last people you need to make enemies of.

11) Do daedric shrine quests. Some are quite achievable at low levels (all are achievable at recommended levels) and can net you some pretty good, and unique, loot, which can pack quite a punch. Who doesn't want a paralyze on strike warhammer(Volendrung, reward for Malacath's quest. You may need to kill some high level guards, though you do get some Ogre buddies!)?

12) Have fun! Don't worry too much about leveling up etc, and just have some fun! In my opinion, OOO just makes Oblivion many times more exciting (and funny). A Frost Titan corpse in the middle of Bruma is funny enough, but seeing NPCs stand on it discussing goblins or mudcrabs is quite amusing, to say the least.

I guess everyone has give good answers here.

But the real answer is simple: Play realistically. Play as you would if you were out in the real world hostile world.

1. Judge your enemies before attacking. Is it a measly bandit or a maurader? are there more than one of them?
2. If he brings your health down 50% in one hit - RUN!
3. If you meet a tough enemy you know you cannot defeat, but MUST get by. Find some nearby guards on the road, get the monster`s attention then run to the guard. Run around in circles until the guard attack the monster. usually, the guard wins, you get stuff off monster. If unlucky monster wins and you must run away. If you`re REALLY lucky, the guard wins but one guard dies and you can take all his armour and stuff and sell the rest.
4. Or You can go to Weynon Priory, talk to Jeoffrey and get the assistnace he gives and also take the horse one of them offers to start you off.
5. I even went to the Arena and bet like crazy, although i lost all my cash... so maybe not that one.
6. install a Valeria/Vincente mod. these will give you additional help. It`s not a cheat because they start at the same level as you, so they only help marginally(you need to help them sometimes), but it`s better than nothing.

I'm using OOO v1.32 and I just got level 2. When I rested, I got a message when I woke up that I was now level 2. I didn't get the UI where I can add points to my primary stats like Strength and Agility. Anyone have an idea what is going on?

My guess is that you have used a a levelling mod before which still has its altered level up menu left. If so, remove levelup_menu.xml from Data\menus and you should be fine. OOO doesn't change the levelling up system, so it's not because of it.

I will check to see if that XML file is present when I get the chance. I just started playing Oblivion again after about a year layoff. I do know one of the mods I used back in 2006 slowed down the rate you gained levels. When I restarted playing last week with a brand new character, I deleted all mods in the Oblivion folder and installed a new version of OOO. OOO is currently the only mod I am using.

EDIT: Arkngt's suggestion fixed the problem. Thanks for the tip.

look in areas off to the side with crumbled rocks. Look carefully

FYI, I've added a link to this thread from the OOO Spoilers Page.

If you're following some of the suggestions in ...Delte's Thread of IMMERSION Mods..., then you are finding quite a challenge. But, that's the way we immersionists like it.

My character, Pugg, is a thief mage. For roleplaying reasons, I didn't give him any beginning skill in block or armor. And, Shield spells are few and far between.

Thus, Pugg spent the first 100 hours or so in and around Imperial City. He was smart about where he went. If it looked like he would get his butt kicked, he'd retreat and not go there. He worked on his sneak, and he found an armor trainer.

Now, at about 220 hours into the game, Pugg has raised his Light Armor skill up to a decent level. He can travel around Cyrodiil now, able to hold his own in most normal fights (there are still plenty of baddies that can kill him quick....but Pugg ain't proud. He'll run quicker than a jackrabbit with a hound after him).

My suggestion, no matter which type of character you have is: Play smart. If you find yourself getting killed, consider what you need to do in order to be better prepared next time. Do you need to improve Conjuration, so you can conjuring in some help? Do you need to improve Sneak? Armor or Block?

Maybe you should try adventuring with a campanion at low levels. I'd recommend Ruined Tail.

But, just play "smart", and your character will live (meaning, don't open boxes if you think there's a trap in them, etc.)

I know this is probably a silly question that everyone knows the answer to, but where is the "Shady Sam" guy everyone suggests selling things to and geting open lock scrolls from? Thanks!

Hi there:



Full page here

Cheers,
leandro

Thanks! I appreciate the help alot!

Ruin called Veyond near Blackenmarsh (north-northeast from Leyawin) has some crazy hot loot and there are only trolls to fight against. Staff named Molag Stava or something. 70pts of fire damage + weakness to fire!!!! With it you can beat the crap out of everyone you encounter. Found it by an accident and it has been my saviour many times. You will need lots of gem stones thought to keep it charged. I also found blunt weapon (axe of some sort) with attackvalue of 32 from a bandit near the same ruins. :|

Using MMM can be either really easy or really difficult, depending on what spawns. I've been assaulted by a lone Guard Dog near a ruin, which was pretty much a non-fight; then again I've had 5 bowmen and another bandit with an axe come out after me at the "easy" camp outside Vilverin. Following behind a Legionary road patrol seemed like a smart, safe way of reaching Skingrad, but the Conjurer and his summoned Dremora on one side and the Poison Atronach attacking from the other side of the road made short work of the guard, and me shortly thereafter.

That is the way of MMM. Some mobs are easy and then you run into one or a group that pwns you totally.

That is the main problem with OOO. There isn't a whole lot of logical placement of low level areas. In my opinion the difficulty should be lower in the immediate ring of territory around the imperial city and sort of progress harder as you go along. The thing that compounds this is the default leveling speed for OOO is horrible(this can be adjusted). And when you are low level it's hard to increase skills and level legitimately. One other solution is load MMM too, it seems sometimes MMM stuff get's put in the dungeons instead of only OOO.

But OOO is a great mod, I just think it's aimed at making godlike characters beatable. But the side affect is really bad low level fighting and practically unplayable magic characters unless you get other mods.

Stay on topic please.

What's the easiest way to speedup the leveling on an existing savegame?

Use one of the optional Level Rates Modified. x3 is faster than OOO default, x2 even faster. There is a mod giving default Oblivion level rates as well, but I don't have a link for that.

Does this work if I have the full-OOO package installed or do I have to use the lite-version?

They work with full. Another option is to use tejon's Progress, which gives complete control over the levelling rates.

OK thx. When I get back home I'll try those.

It took about 80-90 hours to get my theif/assasin up to a useful level, and that's with the huge bonuses given by the Dark Brotherhood's Shroud Armor. I'd like to play my next OOO game (which is still a few months away at the rate I'm going) with a pure warrior. I'm not sure how to pull this off without sneak attack bonuses, etc. Any tips?

Also, is there any drawback to using a faster leveling pace early in the game, then switching back to default OOO rates after about level 12?

A few tips for others, based on my experience with a stealth character:

1) Install the Thieves' Arsenal mod. Not only is this helpful for avoiding fights (by knocking out enemies), it also opens up some lethal archery combos. Grease arrows + fire damage poisons + shock enchanted bow + sneak attack multiplier = a quick way to clean out a sigil keep without getting repeatedly killed. Also, grease arrows on the spiral ramps of an Oblivion citadel are comedy gold.

2) If you don't mind being evil, join the DB. The enchanted goodies they provide are a big help to any low-level character.

3) Turn off lock picking limits. Picks are cheap, hard locks are a good training tool, and with decent reflexes you can get access to some good loot. Keep plenty of magic resistance and dispel scrolls/potions on hand for trapped chests.

4) Install the Attack and Hide mod to get rid of the psychic radar that allows angry enemies to track you around corners, through 10 rooms, out the door, and across the countryside. Use the low or medium version, and attacked enemies will remain extra vigilant. If you poke your head out into the light, they still have a good chance of spotting you.

That dungeon made me cry more than those mouse-mazes where at the end, that face screams at you.


God... I still remember those screams, and the first one with the horrible sight of the wraith coming at you... ANd then, after you've seen the horror, you hear multiple screams, not knowing whether or not it's coming at you again...


All with the light off in my room.

Here's my two cents:

First, you'll want to go through Vilverin and Sideways cave, both right next to the sewers you emerge from.

After you've gone through those two dungeons and sold all your loot, head over to Chorrol and talk to Jaufre in Weynon Priory. You'll also want to talk to all the other monks and receive the free horse from one of them.

Inside Chorrol you can head over to the Grey Mare. In here you'll find two quests: one from the Odiil father and the other from one of the Jermane brothers. Both are very straight forward quests and the Jermane quest can later lead you to a very nice shield reward.

Another nice quest happens to be to the south east of the imperial city (you can choose to do this before you go to Chorrol) at the Crestbridge Camp. Click here for the location. Instead of sneaking through the caves, just mow down the enemies as they are all fairly easy. As a bonus you'll get two very nice staffs that can be sold for a good price.

I'll add more as I go along.

Here's a list of dungeons - along with a map of their location - that are doable at the lower levels:

Crumbling Mine

Goblin Jim's Cave

Plundered Mine

Newt Cave

Redguard Valley Cave

Rock Bottom Cave

Wind Cave

Shinbone Cave

When looking for a mine to scout out, generally look for ones that are being guarded by goblins or imps. They are generally fairly good for lower levels.

Just adding my two cents (experiences from OOO1.32RC5 and 1.33), for some standard things I do when starting out a new character:


1. At Imperial City Waterfront district, there is a pirate ship on the "left" (if you face the center of the Imperial City) with 3 pirates talking. If you try to go on the ship they will turn aggressive. The female has a Silver Cutlass Blade, a good silver blade you can easily get as a Lv-1 character. There is no way you can defeat them by yourself, but there is a IC guard nearby, plus two more if you run to the nearby Temple District. Nice weapon right off the sewer!

2. Go to Leyawin (a long walk, yeah) castle to start the Mazoga(?) the Orc quest. She is a free, powerful bodyguard for a low level character (but she isn't quest essential - she can be killed so don't throw her into a horde of high-level enemies). You can take her to solve her first quest, because she will still follow you for the second Black Bow Bandit quest. Go buy a "Heal others" spell so you can keep her alive.

3. With Mazoga (don't forget the heal spell) you can tackle the first, Kvatch Oblivion gate. When you get inside ask the soldier to stay with you. He will die pretty soon and you can have his equipment. Let Mazoga do the hacking and all you do is running around, block, healing etc.

4. After the gate is done Martin will follow you. Take Martin to Weynon Priory to get Jauffre. Now don't go to Cloud Temple - instead take Martin and Jauffre around. They are both quest essential and powerful. If you want you can take them to finish Mazoga's second quest and dump her for good. You should be able to pick up pretty good items from the boss and the minions. Don't forget to visit the famous Rockmilk cave for more easy loots!

5. Now you can easily solve the mage guild recommendation quests and get access to the spell making altar. (If you have Wizard Tower plugin this comes much sooner). Make some very cheap spells so you can quickly train magic skills up to your convenience.

6. The next goal is to get Armorer to 50 so you don't have to bleed cash for magical item repair. Rockmilk cave trips are excellent for this purpose.

7. Buy a Glow Dust from Main Ingredient in IC, and take Martin and Jauffre to the Azura Shrine (you need to be level 2). With their power you can lure and kill the five Vampires one by one. Be careful that there are extremely powerful OOO creatures on the way there which can easily dispatch your party, so try to avoid encounter. Get the Azura Star reward.

8. Enchant your best weapon with the best elemental damages + soul trap you can afford. You are set for world domination! For the fun of the game please dump Martin and Jauffre, because you can handle the rest pretty easily.

I'm playing FCOM at about 60% difficulty with my warrior. Here is what worked for me.

1) Abuse alchemy. You need magicka/health potions throughout the game so get working at it early. Hit up all the local farms and taverns when you can. Eventually, it will become a steady source of profit. Once you get to the good stuff like shield, stronger poisons, invisibility, and chameleon... your life becomes a whole lot easier.

2) Use conjuration. I mean it. Even my warrior found use for conjuration provided I drink enough potions. Zombies and scamps can actually deal out a decent amount of damage. Best use of your magicka pool for a warrior imo. Eventually you can get summons like the clannfear which can really deal out good damage. They can confuse enemy AI and take damage. Most importantly... they are EXCELLENT training dummies. At a time, when almost EVERYTHING else can kill you in a few blows... I'm sure you can take on a zombie or scamp (especially since you can dispel it anytime you want).

3) Get a quest NPC companion. I had Maglir tag along with me for a while and he was VERY useful. This more than doubled my damage (I spent a lot of time retreating for heals) and distracted enemies.

4) Do the early fighter's/mage's guild quests. For the most part, a number of the early ones are reasonable even for level 1s. You get helpers for of the quests and others are just plain easy. Just make use of town guards or friendly npcs. You will gain gold and it will give you time to gain some levels.

Ok, people keep saying that the starter quests for the fighter and mages guild are 'easy', even in OOO... but... that's just not true (possibly luck of the draw?).

I can't remember what town it is, but one of the recommendation quests ends up with you going into a fort after an amulet for a crazy seer. In this fort are a ton of marauders and a warlord with the key you need to proceed. Well, as a level 12 warrior-thief vampire that guy cleaned my clock. Repeatedly. Eventually I just stole the key and went on my merry way... but the next room, where the amulet was, was filled with large black (I want to say vampiric) wolves and a gargoyle.

Took them about 3 seconds to make vamp-chow out of me.

So I reload and sneak in and steal the key (god bless you, 90 sneak)... and some idiot comes in and gets plowed by the gargoyle (seriously, the first thing I encountered after leaving the sewers is one of these, outside of a place called sideways cave. I don't know their stats but as far as I'm concerned they're unbeatable). I point, laugh, go to leave, and realize that I can't without his key.

Eventually (15 reloads later) I give up and toggle god mode.

Not doable at level 1!

edit, after playing some more: I misunderstood the changes made to the level list. My level 20 mage did another one of these quests and fought Deranged Zombies where my fiance's level 3 mage fought the 'fall down in three flares' variety. I thought all placement was static in OOO... it obviously is not. I'll leave the uneducated rant there as a lesson to do more research.

Indeed. Only the beginning Fighter's guild quests are easy... (relatively, the 3 thieves in the shop can still whack you down in a few seconds).

This particular one (Leyawin mage guild recommendation) is very, very hard.
I remember how long I fought the first 4 guys when I did it at level 2. Probably 1 hour.
Then there were 2 mage guys further in... gave up.

The reason for that is probably that custom enchanting & spell making are way too powerful. Think about all the benefits - easy magic skill level ups, spell stacking, powerful weapons... the game's difficulty slides down hill from this point on. So OOO designer(s) thought it is better to delay this a little bit.

See my tips above - come back when you have Martin and Jauffre!

Like Maltz says, OOO has designed the mage guild recommendation quest series so that a new level 1 mage wannabe can't get immediate access to the Arcane University and start making god-killing spells. I believe the recommendation from the team is that the Leyawiin recommendation quest is left until level 10. You can still do most, if not all, of the others, though. You can run into the odd bit of trouble on the Chorrol and Skingrad ones, but the others are quite possible to do at level 1. Now, getting to each of the towns at level 1, that's a different story...

Eloise

Well for starters all the immediate surrounding areas should be low level. And the really tough places should be in obscure places( for the most part). It makes the most sense anyways, as areas near the imperial city would be more regulated.

Why wouldn't a particularly strong area be able to remain on the city isle?
Seems more like any minor enemies within the caves and such on the city isle would be whiped out if they were a nuisance.

I just downloaded and installed this mod....but..
It doesn't seem to be working, with my new lvl 1 char I can go into pretty much any dungeon and find easy vanilla enemies. Is their any way to fix this?

Wrong thread, but if you didn't start an entirely new game you'll need to use Wrye Bash to update the NPC levels in the save. If you did start an entirely new game it sounds a bit weird - if so, post your question in the release thread with more info: OOO version, load order.

Hunt for nirn root along the shores and kill lots of rats and mud crabs. You'll level up at very low risk and I don't ever remember coming across anything too tough around the water, and if you do, you can easily just swim away. Potions are vital. Go make lots of potions like poisons and healing potions. Use a leveling mod that gives you big bonuses each time you level, like KSEALI leveling is very simple and gives you like 11 points every time you level up to distribute anywhere you want, plus it has retroactive health so you don't need to bother leveling endurance up right away if you don't want, but that is a good idea anyway.

Bumping this as i use fcom and am looking for some good tips and i don't want this topic to die i am making a guide out of these tips not much of a guide yet it just lists tips from people. I started a thread on this just for fcom.

This thread really helped me guys. just can someone tell me where to find the minotaur boss - the frost titan? And btw my tip make a game save (not a quick) before you exit the sewers-right at the gate if in first hour you see your character sucks reaload and do it more playable edit his skills birthsings until u find the best char for you. it really helps ifu go off like a mage get ass kicked reload make a warrior kick ass then start hating blade or blunt geting back and making spellsword.

That's a question better suited for the OOO Spoilers Thread, but there's a Frost Titan roaming outside Bruma, usually on the W side of it.

found them 2 of them kicked their asses with order of blades so i continue with OOO and get new tips for gameplay of it. 1You should try starting from the thieves giuld rewards are good and in last mission i got 2 lvls up by beating skeletons and zombies. almost no enemys you can't sneak through in the quests only in the last 1 and you will get great cash rewards and easy enemies to start off the game at the palace sewers and old way.
2Always have a bow and arrows sneak atacks on enemies reduce their health greatly when i faced vampires first time without sneaking they beaten me up but i reloaded and used sneak attacks adn survived. If your a mage always start off with Vilverin ruins. Also go to sideways cave you wil find a meteoric iron frost damage shorsword!!!! One of best weps in your level!!They have lots of Welkynd stones to recharge magicka.
3.Last one is Frost Titan is your friend!! After you complete the battle for Kvatch and unlock Cloud ruler temple walk around it till you find a frost titan. Just make shure you have enough health to survive 1 hit (second is not necessary) so get him following you and run to temple while blades will help you beat him. He sometimes makes another npc a target and u can help beating the frost titan up when he switches to you agian run like crazy and launch few spells (the ol' good firball saved my ass few times agianst these beasts).

So true. OOO bumps the difficulty up but actually made alchemy easier (lighter ingredients). You can easily carry 100 0-weight health potions and outlast any boss!

If you have some finger pain with all the click click click use the mod "Gather ye Rose Buds" for automatic ingredient collection. It is going to make things way too easy for you, though. When you reach 100 Alchemy you can mass produce hundreds and hundres of 50G potions to make money. Now I wish there is a mod for automatic alchemy ingredient conversion in cash, lol.

Some additional tips:

(1) Bow for the win! Pour training points into Marksman and get it to 100 (or above if you have the uncapper) as soon as possible. Training in OOO is 3X more expensive, but the exploit of the trainer only charge you based on your "apparent" skill level hasn't been fixed. This means that you can temporarily drain your skill down for cheap training.

(2) Get 100 Sneak. You can do it easily even in the tutorial dungeon, or the second floor of the Water Front Inn. Just keep the "W" key pressed and go do sleep. With 100 sneak you can easily grab the Daedric Boots and Winged Bow west of the Mora Shrine.

Actually useful equipment:

- Right off the sewer, you can get some free steel equipment from Azzan's office on Anvil Fighter's Guild 3F. Free fine steel longsword on top of Chorrol Fighter's Guild.

- With 100 sneak you can steal almost a whole suit of Noble Armor (comparable to Orcish armor) from Skingrad guard captin Sion (who sleeps in the building next to East Gate) - I did it at level 6 (success chances are really low, like 1 in 20). But with patience you will eventually get them all.

- Arena grand champion fight - Ebony Longsword.

- Umbra's ebony equipment is fully upgraded at lv 15 (before that you get Orcish grade only). She is one of the toughest bosses and you will need tons of potions. All she does is hacking so shield buff + reflect damage (potions, Ring of Namira, Escutcheon of Chorrol) helps a lot. Bring Martin & Jauffre and any help you can get. Even if they get hacked down they can still block Umbra's way to you.

- Charcoal cave. Amazon boss carries a really good Amulet, plus Winged Helmet. Lots of light armor equipment, too.

- Lord Volmyr's Nornalhost(?) ruin. Don't need to challenge him, as you can already pick up lots of Glass equipment from the minions. His stuff isn't actually so good, lol.

- Quest: Path of Iron (Heaven's Fury armor)

abusing alchemy is good but get some mods that help you aswell, like bag of holding. if you dont want too do that then all the guild quests are leveled so you should be able too level up and make loads of money with them (espically fighters guild)

Can someone tell me where Sideways Cave is and where this Shady Sam can be found?

Hello?

More suited for the Oblivion Cheats, Hints, Spoilers forum but Sideways Cave is the cave closest to the sewer exit you start from. Shady Sam can be found standing by the wall outside Imp City, close to the stables.

This site will answer ALL your "where is" questions and more:
UESPWiki

Greetz! Darina

OK so i found out how to make good character for begining. Get martin and jaufre start doing the umbra quest. kill the girl and get her sword (btw i did it in lvl 3 ) dont finish it until you complete all other D-lord quests cuz 0 weight best in game wep is awesome. Bad oscuro made it 2h... i always loved the shield... ok so then go to azuras shrine and get her quest done (umbra willl come in handy with those vamps). Go and start closing the gate with the azuras star and umbra youll have enough power for your enchanted items. dont forget to recharge umbra ( its quite cheap since i recharged it fully with few clanfears) when you get sigil stones use them on your best weps. join the mages giuld and make your way to arcane uni. then you can enchant your stuff if you wanna ditch umbra then do 5 sec soul trap on your wep+damage it will keep it charged for eternity (dont forget to get your armorer up to journeyman cos repairing magic stuff is a bit expensive).

I found the following on the OOO Spoilers thread #11 about to be purged and thought it'd be very useful here. It was written by Creston last May, so credit and kudos to him! These are some VERY useful tips for getting past the first few levels where OOO turns Oblivion into a "World of Pain"!

"I figured I'd write up a little "starters guide" of my own, since I've played five characters in OOO now, and have gotten the beginning down fairly pat. Note, this is written as a bit of a powerlevel guide, since that how I've played most of those characters. Right now I'm actually doing a roleplaying character, with skills setup so I can't powerlevel, and it's agony sometimes to waste so much time, but oh well. smile.gif
I get most characters to lvl 20+ and nigh immortality in a day or so.

Let's get started.

Character : Depending on what you want to do, there are a few different choices you can make with regards to character. If you want to play a magic heavy class, Breton is uberpowerful (even to the point of being broken, I'm not kidding.) High Elf does have more magicka than a Breton, but that 75% weakness to fire, frost and lightning will REALLY annoy you if you run into Mystic Imps or Goblin Shamans at levels lower than 10. I would recommend a Breton for a mage.

If you want to be more primarily a warrior, Nord, Orc or Redguard are all fine.

Birthsign : Imo, there is no better birthsign than The Apprentice, but that's just personal preference. Magicka = You Win in OOO, and getting 30 bonus points with no downside is godly. The Mage is better, with 130 extra magicka points (I believe), but gets a 100% weakness to Magic. Again, see the note about those goblin shamans. Dying from a single (almost) undodgeable lightning bolt gets old really quickly. If you REALLY want a challenge, do a High Elf with The Mage. Just don't come crying to me when Volmyr slays you at level 45 with 2 lightning bolts. smile.gif

Even as a warrior, I think that getting the extra Magicka is worth it, but otherwise The Warrior or something will do fine also.

The Atronach may seem interesting, 200 extra Magicka and 50% spell absorb, but the no magicka growth gets annoying. And it's an absolute waste in OOO, because a high willpower means a ridiculously high magicka recharge rate. At willpower 100 you recharge something to the tune of 70-80 magicka per second. Having to constantly activate Welkynd Stones or potions to recharge is irritating.

Skills : Contrary to what most people say, I don't really believe in the whole "You MUST boost a kill skill as quickly as possible." To offer proof to that effect, I played my sneaky assassin with Blade as a major skill, then after I'd created her I decided to go with bows for awhile, and manually took my bow skill from 5 to 100 with only a few points of training here and there. Sure, it takes longer to kill stuff at first, but you CAN survive without it.

There are a few handy skills to always have though :
1) Conjuration. Summoning an extra critter to take some damage for you is always helpful. Furthermore, a Scamp is actually pretty tough in OOO (it seems), and you get the awesome Clannfear at 75 conjuration, which kills all but the strongest opponents. It's also a powerlevel'able skill. (Meaning you can just stand in town and cast it over and over to boost it and gain levels if you so desire.)
2) Alteration. In OOO, the most useful magic skill, if not the most useful all around. It lets you Open Locks. It lets you Breathe Underwater. It lets you boost your AC with Shield spells. It lets you cast Feather. It lets you Summon Golems (who are crazy cool in their own right, since you can summon ONE OF EACH. Nothing like six golems trundling around to really crush those high level opponents' days.) It's powerlevel'able.
3) Sneak. I will explain later why.

The rest doesn't matter so much if you have these. Alchemy is obviously great, but I tend to avoid it because it's just broken. A potion that can restore 53 health/s for 89 seconds? Made out of a single reagent? I'd call that munchkinism.

Okay, now, here is my personal opinion on the most important thing in OOO : Being able to Run Away! I agree with the general idea that killing something fast is good. Because if you kill it before it can kill you, you survive. However, at low levels, many monsters you meet will be far stronger than you. Unless you like to reload a lot, you'll need to be able to run away.
Now, this may seem a fairly simple idea, just turn around and run, but it doesn't always work that way. Most critters are faster than you are. Most NPCs are too. Running away if you aren't faster than they are is a good way to get killed. There are a few ways to rectify that problem :

1) Boost your speed. Simple enough. Raise your athletics and acrobatics skill. How do you do this? By running a lot, and jumping a lot. The running a lot thing will come on its own. Try to avoid fast travel and you'll be speedy gonzales fairly quickly. The jumping thing is just something you need to train yourself to do. Are you going downhill somewhere? Jump. Constantly. Sure it will hurt, so cast some healing spells, or drink a potion (thereby boosting your Restoration and / or Alchemy at the same time.)
Just keep jumping. Acrobatics seems to go up based on how far you fall. (or more accurately, the seconds you are airborn.) I'm not adamantly certain about this, but it does seem to work that way. So, just jump everywhere. Running through the IC, and coming up on some stairs? Jump off them. Need to go down the hill around the IC? Jump down. (or even off the bridges. Be careful though, you need about 100 health and 50 acrobatics at minimum to survive this.)
One great booster is the road from Bruma to the IC. it's all downhill. Just jump baby!

2) Cast Feather. Feather seems to automatically boost your speed by a certain factor as well, no matter if you're almost fully encumbered or not. You can buy a feather spell from Edgar Vautrine in the IC (discount spells).
If you can't cast it, powerlevel Alteration for a few minutes (by just casting a cheap shield spell over and over) until you can. Trust me.

with either of these, you can run away. Sneak, however, is also a fairly good option, although the game handles sneaking rather awkwardly. You can attack something once and stay hidden even though you're in plain sight. And alternatively, you can sneakily shoot an arrow, run away before it hits, then cast chameleon, and the AI will STILL know where you are. Sneak is great for clearing dungeons quickly, but it's not a failsafe run away method like Feather or having a high Speed. (The Steed birthsign would be a good choice for this as well.)

Now, if you run into a battle you can't handle, just run away. If the creature follows you, run to a guard. With Feather, you should be able to outrun everything except large cats. Try to avoid those for awhile.

Your First Money

Pick up the Iron Warhammer in the training dungeon. With a bit of skill in Blunt, it will quickly do ~11 damage, which is enough to kill a slaughterfish in one blow. So go outside the starter dungeon, and start looking for clams in the water. Though there's a bit of luck involved, a black pearl will net you 225 gold or so. There are about 100 clams around the IC, with nothing more dangerous than the occasional Mature or Ancient Slaughterfish. Remember that Run Away motto? Run Away if you see these two. You CAN kill the Mature Slaughterfish at level 1 with a warhammer (requires some timing on your swings), but the Ancient typically kills you no matter what. Cast Feather and Run (Swim) Away.
You should be able to do most of the clams around the IC in an hour or so. With luck, this will net you about 1000-2000 gold (I once got five black pearls, and once got none.)
Most of the clams are near Vilverin/Sinkhole, near Fatback Cave and near the two bridges. I'd say about 85% of them will be scattered around those areas.

Use this money to buy some better equipment. If you liked working with the warhammer, the Slash and Smash sometimes sells good ones right off the bat (I once got an Elven Warhammer on the first time I visited him. *happy* )

With your better equipment, go kill some bandits in Vilverin and Sinkhole caves. A warhammer makes fairly quick work of these guys (which is why I said that you don't really NEED to worry about your kill skill that much, a warhammer will make up for the difference nicely), as well as a scamp. Destruction spells will also work. Be careful about going too deep into Vilverin, because you can get stuck having to go past spectral wolves and warriors who will own you at level 1.

With the money you've made now, you should be able to buy some training. I personally always start out with Armorer. Both because I want armorer at 50 asap (so I can fix magic items), and because it boosts your endurance, which means more HPs. Always good. The lady in the weapon shop next to the inn in the marketplace can train you.

You'll probably have levelled up to level 2 by now.

Go clean out Fort Urasek (be careful of the marauders behind the locked door, they may be a bit too tough at level 2. If so, just leave the door locked.), a little to the east of the IC, then do Fort Ash or Virtue, or even Fanasecul. A warhammer will easily take you through all of these.

If you've reached level 3 by now, buy some more equipment and go do Fatback cave. Bring a bow and a ton of arrows. It doesn't matter if you do any damage with them or not, really, just make sure to have 100 arrows or so.
Empty out Fatback cave (on the IC island, southermost point, near the big bridge), but be careful of the goblin shaman on level 3. You may need to use the traps in the hall where he's found against him, because he has a powerful lightning bolt and summons irritating zombies. A scamp will take care of him and his zombies easily enough, otherwise a few good blows with the warhammer will take him down. But he can be irritating at level 3.

In the final room, there's a goblin warlord on a ledge. Take your bow and arrows, sneak if you're capable, then keep firing arrows into him until he's dead (this can easily take 80 arrows if your skill is low.)
Do NOT go and fight him one on one, he'll slash you to ribbons in no time.
Loot the Warlord's area, including the Knight of the Dragonborn stuff. Keep the good things, and buy some upgrades if available.

Once you're level 3 or 4, it's time to head to Dzonot cave. (to the west of the IC, on the IC island, just south of the bridge to Wawnett.)

The amazons in Dzonot are tough, too tough for you at level 3 or 4, most likely. However, nobody ever said you had to fight alone. You can try to kill them with scamps (takes forever,) or just get them angry and get them to chase you. Lead them out of the cave (wait for them outside, they don't always follow you outside), then once they're outside, run to the IC entrance just to the north and east of you. The guard there will help you with the amazon. Just let the guard wail the amazon a few times so she forgets about you, then join in. Careful not to hit the guard.

The guard can kill 2 or 3 amazons before succumbing. You definitely want the guard to die, because they carry about 700 gold worth of loot. Loot all corpses, sell when necessary. Go back into Dzonot and lure some more amazons. This time you can lure them across the bridge to Wawnett Inn. When you leave Dzonot, two Imperial Legionaires always spawn near Wawnett (just across the bridge). Take the Amazons chasing you there, and the guards will deal with them. You can easily repeat this until the cave is empty, but be careful of the Raging Priestess on level 2. She summons a Storm Atronach which can REALLY hurt you. If one of the guards dies, so much the better, more loot for you to sell.

If the guards have become too weak to kill amazons for you, it's time to stop. Wait a few days (3) and go ack, the guards should have respawned.
With the loot from the amazons, buy more training and equipment, then go do some guild quests. You can also fight in the arena. At level 3 with a warhammer, you should easily be able to win about 5 or 6 matches at first.

With that gold under your belt as well, you are easily on your way to establishing enough funds to buy all the good equipment you need, as well as training etc. You should be able to do Sideways cave now, as well as the imperial sewers (vampires there, I've killed them at level 1 with a warhammer, so at level 3 they should be easily doable).

Now, if you don't mind powerlevelling, always make sure to be training a skill at all times. When you're running somewhere, be jumping. When you're running through the IC, be casting shield spells or summon spells (gotta get those good summons!). If you don't reckon you'll need your mana anytime soon in a serious fight, throw fireballs at everything that moves. Train those skills, and get those attributes up. Willpower, Int, and Endurance are easily powerlevel'able.

Start doing some quests now (you can get a VERY powerful item during your first official Dark Brotherhood contract (in a chest aboard the pirate ship), with the exception of the mage guild recommendation in Leyawiin, you should be good for at least three or so in every guild.

Once you've done that you'll probably be around level 7 or 8 or so, depending a bit on your levelling habits. Dzonot cave should have respawned, so go there and kill some more amazons. If they haven't respawned there, go to Charcoal cave (south of the IC a bit), but be careful of level 2 of that cave, that's full of Wise Mothers and the Voice of Nature herself. Probably a bit TOO tough for you at this point.
The loot from the amazons should get you more training and loot, some better spells, and it's at this point that you're really well on your way to becoming pretty 'ard. This sequence usually doesn't take me more than an hour or six or so.

After this the world dramatically opens up for you, as you should be able to follow most roads and do caves and such along the roads. At level 10 or so, either go do the Gray Prince's origins quest (in Crowhaven, you'll need to kill some vampires, not that hard,) or Nocturnal's Eye quest. (a bit harder, since the Kalpazhlan (?) Trolls are pretty tough. You can inv/sneak past them though.)
Finishing either of these quests gets you a bonus to skills, which will allow you to create a "boost skill" spell in the Arcane University. You can do the Leiawiin recommendation at around level 10 (have to clear out Fort Blueblood), which should be the last one you need at this point. Go into the IC, and if you have a grand/grand soulgem, create a Fortify Merchant skill spell, as high as you can make it. It only needs to last for 2 seconds or so. With that skill, go to every merchant in the IC and invest in their shops, so they'll have more money available for you later.

With access to the enchanting altar, there's no reason for you to really die anymore, unless you run into Volmyr or something.


Finally, of my five characters, by far my most deadly was my assassin/sneaky archer. Archery does good damage in OOO, and it's funny how you'll ram an arrow into someone while you're sneaking, and they still can't find you. At least 50% of your opponents can be taken down in 2 or 3 arrows this way.
For a really good combo, fire a sneaky arrow, then immediately follow it up with a lightning bolt. Not much survives that combo.
You can get a killer bow in the Cheydinhal Dark Sanctuary, in the archer girl's chest (very hard lock), the Dragon's Purification. It rocks. Probably the best bow you'll find for a long time. Sneak+Archery+Lightning bolt+Golems = Insane."

Guys how do i make the leveling rates faster, the day timescale shorter, and lower training cost? I'm using full version of OOO 1.33

To adjust your day timescale here is a quote from "Delte's Thread of Immersion Mods" A link to the forum is: http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=838275 (this link is to a closed thread but you can search and find the current active one if you want)

"How do you adjust timescale? It's a simple console command. Just open the console and type: set timescale to 10. Change the value to any timescale setting you desire. If you want to play in real-time mode, then use the command: set timescale to 1. Your game will then proceed at a pace equal to real time. One real minute will equal one minute in the game. (You could actually set your real clock by it.) If, for any reason, you wish to go back to vanilla timescale, then just type: set timescale to 30. Voila. You're back at default time. As I mention above, many Oblivion players, whether they use realism mods or not, choose a timescale of 10, 12, or 15. I personally use a timescale of 10 in my game."

To adjust the levelling rates you will need to reinstall OOO - during the setup process one of the questions asks which levelling you want - the default is the standard slow levelling but one option is the quicker vanilla version.

Training costs are not changeable by a simple setting when using OOO (AFAIK). There is no option during the install for changing training....maybe if you could edit the application using the construction set if you know how to do that.

Cheers!

The guide is good, except the buying items. Get Elite Blade armor from Cloud Ruler, that will help you until ebony armor.

The guide reverses "The Apprentice" and "The Mage" and their effects. Other than that, its quite detailed.

I would suggest using Race Balancing Project along with OOO for lots of fun, and Bretons have been rebalanced too!

Hey, is light armor OK for a starting char in OOO? (A sneaky assassin char, i have a mod that does better stealth and sneaking with heavy armor = fail, in fact you get a bonus for going naked. it also makes sneak attacks much stronger like they should be imo.)

1)alchemy use what ever gold you have to make the crappy restore fatigue potions sell them you will have your money back in no time and you build you intelligence = more magikca

2)birthsign i always choose the steed for warriors because i get the speed bonus it helps when im trying to get away from tough enemies and im in a tin suit

3)warriors need healing so get either restoration or alchemy, bearing that in mind nords have a high willpower.

4)the nords powers are good frost damage and shield cant go wrong for fighters.

5)keep armourer as a minor it builds fast and will kick start your endurance = more health and fatigue

hope that helps the warriors out there

Yes.



I use FCOM, with the optional archery plugin. Now, bear in mind that historically I have always played Paladin-types or general Warrior/Priest-types - heavy armor, big weapons, the occasional spell. I've also played Oblivion with OOO & FCOM with that kind of character. Having recently (ish) tried out a sneaky mage/assassin-type (by accident), I can't bring myself to go back to the tin suit type of character. Sneaking around, scouting the enemies and picking off the most dangerous one with an arrow is so much more fun than wading in waving a claymore around and getting killed.

You just have to watch out for enemy archers, but that's where Midas Magic comes in.

Eloise

would this be a good build?

stealth type,

stats would be willpower and agility

majors:
light armor
security
sneak
marksman
alteration
destruction
and restoration

birthtype = apprentice or possibly the thief?

100% Weakness to Magic seems very painful, so of those two I'd choose The Thief.

What I did:
I use the LAME mod to get some proper conjuration magic, and use that to my advantage.
Using Wolves, Scamps, and so on, I visit the arctic wolves camps. They have a decent amount of loot per kill for a low level (arctic bows are 200g! yay), and each camp has a boss (Stand on a rock while your conjured monsters serve as targets, whilst you use bow/magic to kill everyone)

I killed the mage which has Lhotun's Wish (Hidden Camp) at lv3. Pretty nice defensive staff.
The base camp has a woman with full mythril (minus helmet)

Call me crazy (or masochist) but usually my rin through OOO begins with:
- Vilverin (not all of it though)
- Sideways cave
and then the freakish part begins:

- Droznot Cave (Yeah, the amazons)
The strategy here is to make the best possible use of the first trap (a big log that stays in the middle of a hallway), you aggro one amazon, make them get stuck in the trap for a while (they ALWAYS go around it, so don't trust it too much) whack away with a long ranged melee weapon/bow/spell, and when she comes howling at you you go as fast as possible to the other side of the trap ad infinitum...

Trust me, it's VERY VERY HARD, you'll get killed a lot, but you can get from 500 to 750 septims for each amazon killed, and at level 1-3 this is some FINE money. Also, sometimes they drop flawless diamonds and rubies, which sell for big money too.
And don't forget the sexy armor

My bad, i meant the magician or w/e... the one that gives you a 100 percent magic boost with no down sides.

Woot! Found some nice loot without cheating! Pretty sure this is from OOO, but I'm not positive (I use FCOM).


In the arena district of the IC, there will be 2 people sparring (punching eachother). The woman will have a key. Wait until they both sit down on the bench to eat, sneak behind her, steal the key, and open a chest in the middle of some crates that has a very hard lock. It has some very expensive gaunts (16,000 gold or so) that are light armor and fortify hand to hand by 25, a few books, and 100 gold.

I hope this helps a few people!

To find a vendor with 16 000 gold....

Unless you've got 100 in mercantile you won't need someone with that much gold.

You could still get a pretty penny for it.

*cough* console commands

(click on merchant press console button) setbarter gold 16000

Sorry to disappoint (sort of), but those are from vanilla Oblivion. Nothing to do with OOO or any other part of FCOM.

Eloise

i have a question, im running with OOO and the difficulty slider at 50% and im playing a nord crusader at level 11 atm, what level is good to start the main quest?

Now.

Well, I did with an Altmer Spellsword. She was level 10 when she went to Kvatch, and level 12 when she left.

Eloise

Not finding too much difficulty with FCOM. I use LAME but that just means I start with a scamp spell (as a conjurer). What I did was head to Vilverin and kill everything on the first floor. The Thug Leader might give u some trouble - either bait him and use the Ayelaid trap or cast shield/spam summon/drink potions - either way, he's hard, but u can make it. Then kill the rest. At the crate u should find some heavy armor. At a corridor to the right are a few conjurers or mages. Kill them. In the room they're in, there should be plenty of Welkyn stones. These sell for almost 50 bucks a pop and there are almost a dozen of them in there on the first level. Now just go to Chorrol, join the Mage's Guild there, use persuasion on Agrathar to barter lower prices, and purchase the 600 septim Daedra summon. It's a nasty demonic looking warrior type that also has a few spells at its disposal. It might - i'm not sure about this one - require a journeyman (50) in Conjuration but that should be readily achievable by spam casting the Scamp spell to train it up. Ok. With the daedra summon u can tackle alot of stuff. I tackled Fatback cave at something like level 2. Most of the baddies there shouldn't be a problem. The default shaman and fallen ones should be dealt with by your summons alone. The shamans can conjure up a headless zombie, which is always challenging, but your deadra summon should be able to 1v1 it. Things get tough when a unique Shaman (named Bishibosh or something) is spawned. The guy can zap u with lightning that does good damage and is obviously undodgable. He also has high health. Either way, he can be dealt with. Fatback cave is also host to dead Dragonborne warriors, which means Dragonborne light armor (which is good), shields and swords. Even if you can't use 'em they fetch a pretty penny for a very reasonable weight. The last area of fatback cave is the most challenging. There's another unique Shaman that has lots of health, and tends to run around at the bottom area. His lightning spell is even nastier than Bishi's. To make matters worse, if u chase after him, you might attract the unwanted attention of the Goblin Warlord up by the ridge. He WILL come down and slaughter you. Just make sure you deal with the shaman and the warlord one at a time - even then it's pretty difficult with just ur summons. Stock up on magica potions so you can continually recast your Daedra/Scamp when they die.

At the ledge where the Warlord is, or was, are two chests protected by an average lock and a v. hard lock respectively. Go meet up with Shady Sam and purchase a Open Very Hard Lock scroll (set u back about 150 septims). Open the v. hard lock for some nice goodies. I think I got a shield or an amulet that's worth 4k+. All in all you should have earned at least 6k throughout the cave. That's good money.

Thereafter u can just train up ur conjuration or whatnot and tackle other caves/forts. If u train ur conjuration up to 75 be sure to get the next level of summons.

Note: Staying on opposite ledge means you can marksman/ranged spells the Warlord and never go 1on1 with him.

Also, during the early game I think the best birthsign doomstone power to get is the Tower, because
a) is really easy to get to - just swim over from IC Waterfront
the open hard lock once a day is invaluable - especially for those OOO placed chests

Hey today I went into sideways cave and found that chest that requires a key to open it, I couldn't see the key anywhere and I couldn't resist so I used the console to open it and found the staff Almalexia's Love. This time I would like to try and get it without cheating...so with that does anyone know where that key is?

You'll have to become a thief. It doesn't become available until very near the end of the Thieves guild quests
edit - you should have posted this in the OOO spoilers section

edit: nvm. posting in spoilers

I followed some of the suggestions here and checked out derelict mine, which proved to be much more difficult than expected. I could take a few normal goblins just fine, but the larger groups are far too difficult. When I reached the second area, I waited for the goblins to stop fighting, but even then there were at least seven still alive. There's no way I could have defeated them without lowering the difficulty slider. I'm playing a straight warrior character with full steel and a dwarven longsword at level 3. Is there something wrong with my character or should it be this difficult?

You must try to lure away one or two at a time at that level - fighting a bunch of them at the same time is suicidal. Take the upper floor fight for example. First, I'd hang back at the entrance waiting for them to fight it out. Then perhaps slowly walk forward until one or two of them notices you - take care of them, rinse and repeat. Also, use the doors - most of the times just one or two will follow through them. Plus traps are excellent to use with OOO as they do so much damage, but that's tactics you'll have use for later in the dungeon.

Consider sleeping in the bloated float.....best sleep ive had.

Also an easy beginner quest in weye, town on otherside of the imperial bridge

Bump, this is useful!!

Dunno if anyone said this yet, but I'm pretty sure all the dungeons that are on/around the Imperial Isle are untouched by OOO, meaning they will be much easier for low level characters.

WRONG! Stay away from Dzonot Cave (nr stables) for at least 15 levels!

Well, you can defeat them at level 1, if you lure them out of the cave 1 by 1 to get defeated by guards or other NPCs in the area.
But it's still pretty hard to do that.

I'm sure dzonot cave would be quite large, but it's rather small. can't believe I avoided it for so long (lvl 32, blasted through there)

Would getting a few Imperial guards following you at a low level help at all? Or are you still just too restricted due to health (or, lack of)?

I usually start the main quest at level 2-4, which adds a nice layer of challenge but isn't overly difficult, so you should be perfectly fine at level 11.

i just got OOO installed and working right and went through dzonot cave and got hanned to by amazons.
any one know of a good OOO armor mod i downloaded bob's armory and all it had was helmets

I think the problem with going later is that the spawns decimate all the guards, especially in the "Breaking the Siege" part, after you close the gate.

I'm level 6, but almost 7 now, and I'm off to Kvatch next, though I'm taking Ruin and Viconia as backup!

I tried the first Oblivion gate @ kvatch being a lvl 6 pure mage roleplayer (focused on Conjuration, alteration and restoration) and it was too tough for me to get passed the first mobs.
There were hellhounds, little clannfears and big scamps trying to take me down (in which they succeeded )

Anyone has a word of advice for me? My summons, zombie most of the time, can take a few hits and so do i but i cant handle the flow of mobs coming on to me. There are about 6 mobs at that time.

Im wondering how you are able to pass it at lvl 4 since i get wacked at lvl 6, maybe its because i focussed to much on my magic skills

My advice for Mages that are not that powerful yet, Use a Spawn Rate Reduced Reduced plugin that should lower the amount of Npcs/Creatures that you have to fight. Use Supreme Magicka Or wait x amount of days for creatures respawn and perhaps you will get something else.

I did Kvatch at lv 3 with a custom Paladin class (major in blade, blunt, restoration, destruction, block, mercantile). I brought Mazoga the Orc with me - told her to follow me so we can take out Brugo but I went all the way to Kvatch and she tagged along the whole way. Mazoga's damage potential is ordinary but she has an incredibly amount of health. She might as well be set to essential. I swear she got hit by a trap in Crumbling Mine and just shrugged it off.

Anyway, at Kvatch it was pretty easy. It was Mazoga and a few other guards holding the front line while I stayed back and blasted them with frost spells and with my lightning staff. Of course, going toe to toe with say, a Clanfear is pretty suicidial. They have tons of health and do tons of damage. And if I get swarmed i.e. they acquire me as their target for some reason, I am in grave danger. But I hang back and it'll work out.

As for the Oblivion gate, it's easy. The dremora churl are pushovers in terms of health. However, if they swarm u u r in grave danger. Of course, that's where Mazoga the Orc comes in!

Went to find Baurus and tackled the Mythic Dawn Agents without a single problem. You know, I think using Mazoga like this is sorta unfair. She doesn't do much in the way of damage but she is a helluva tank. I think i'm gonna deposit her in town or something.

Oh yeah using FCOM btw so that might be easier than plain OOO - I dunno.

1. Run a lot and lure enemies into the path of guards. Let the guards do the killing and you do the looting for better weapons and armor. Sell excess loot for potions, spells, and alchemy ingredients.

2. Archery and stealth.

3. Alchemy, alchemy, and more alchemy. To this end, the auto harvest mod is a must as it lets you gather alchemy ingredients rapidly as you wander about the Imperial city and the local area.

Good Luck

I'm doing something really wrong or (quite possiby) I just totally suck.

I handled the sewers okay, as long I stayed away from the mythic dawn assassins and let the blades handle them.

But the bandits at Vilverin sure seem strong. I haven't played a mostly mage type character before so maybe that's my problem, but is it normal for just two arrows or one hit from a war hammer to kill you? I hit the bandit bowman outside vilverin with like twenty fireballs (whatever the default destruction targeted spell is) before she went down. The first bandit inside killed me with one hit from a war hammer. This is normal?