Oblivion mods and tips

Moothead2

Moothead2

Moothead2

Soldato
Joined
23 May 2011
Posts
10,451
So i've decided i'll resist the urge to buy new games like the Witcher 2 and go back and complete the backlog of games that I have started playing and never completed. This list contains games such as Dragon Age, Fallout 3, Dead Space 2, a whole bunch of PS2/3 and Wii games and the game this topic is about, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

I've never really gotten further than past the first Oblivion gate in the past due to multiple reasons such as poor framefrate, lack of understanding of the game and just the usual distractions. I'm now wanting to play through the game but I'm not sure what mods to install and I was also looking for hints and tips such as what race to go etc from people who've already beaten the game.

Thanks.
 
Make sure you save constantly. When it auto saves and you are stuck in a silly situation you can just load back out.
 
Building oblivion - Thats the graphics side of things mostly. Worth a read even if you aren't interested since it uses some useful tools.

If you want to be a warrior there is Redguard, Norn or Orc and you should probably select 1 of the stat boosting birthsigns. Obvious choice there is The Warrior, though The Steed could be a good choice.
If you want to be a Mage, pick Dark Elf, High Elf or Breton. High Elf is a bad choice unless you really want to max your potential. Breton is the best bet as it has a 50% resistance to magick straight off the bat. Avoid Atronach like the plague, its a birthsign that needs an insane amount of dedication to make anything more than crippling. Apprentice is good but the weakness to magicka can be very dangerous (though at least offset slightly by the Bretons resistance). Mage is probably the best choice really.
If you want to be a stealth/thief char, pick Argonian, Khajit or Wood Elf. I'd say Woof Elf is your best choice though. I'd go with Steed or Thief.
The ones like Lover and Serpent tend to be very, very bad.

If you intend to use the games vanilla levelling system, don't use any pre-made class, make your own and only select 1-4 skills that you do actually use. It makes things awkward but it beats being level 10 after a few hours and getting owned.

nGCD is supposed to be a good levelling mod but I've not actually tried it. Oblivion XP is very good to just pick up and go as it makes you think about your character development more when you level up and the rest of the time you can spend it playing not screwing around worrying about your skills and accidently over-levelling.

As for other mods. Just search for 'Wrye' and you'll find a bunch of Oblivion Mod threads so just read those and see what sounds good, then go find it on TESnexus or something.
Unofficial patches are a must. Darn UI is also a must. Color Map Mod will make the map look considerably better so is also a must really.
Quest Award Leveller you might not care about but addresses the stupidity of the games reward mechanics.
Herbalism mods automatically harvests plants to stop the mind-numbing tedium you get when trying to harvest a few of them.
Most other mods mentioned (OOO, MMM, Warcry, etc) you probably shouldn't worry about if you've not really played it much.
 
Last edited:
Evilsod said:
Building oblivion - Thats the graphics side of things mostly. Worth a read even if you aren't interested since it uses some useful tools.

If you want to be a warrior there is Redguard, Norn or Orc and you should probably select 1 of the stat boosting birthsigns. Obvious choice there is The Warrior, though The Steed could be a good choice.
If you want to be a Mage, pick Dark Elf, High Elf or Breton. High Elf is a bad choice unless you really want to max your potential. Breton is the best bet as it has a 50% resistance to magick straight off the bat. Avoid Atronach like the plague, its a birthsign that needs an insane amount of dedication to make anything more than crippling. Apprentice is good but the weakness to magicka can be very dangerous (though at least offset slightly by the Bretons resistance). Mage is probably the best choice really.
If you want to be a stealth/thief char, pick Argonian, Khajit or Wood Elf. I'd say Woof Elf is your best choice though. I'd go with Steed or Thief.
The ones like Lover and Serpent tend to be very, very bad.

If you intend to use the games vanilla levelling system, don't use any pre-made class, make your own and only select 1-4 skills that you do actually use. It makes things awkward but it beats being level 10 after a few hours and getting owned.

nGCD is supposed to be a good levelling mod but I've not actually tried it. Oblivion XP is very good to just pick up and go as it makes you think about your character development more when you level up and the rest of the time you can spend it playing not screwing around worrying about your skills and accidently over-levelling.

As for other mods. Just search for 'Wrye' and you'll find a bunch of Oblivion Mod threads so just read those and see what sounds good, then go find it on TESnexus or something.
Unofficial patches are a must. Darn UI is also a must. Color Map Mod will make the map look considerably better so is also a must really.
Quest Award Leveller you might not care about but addresses the stupidity of the games reward mechanics.
Herbalism mods automatically harvests plants to stop the mind-numbing tedium you get when trying to harvest a few of them.
Most other mods mentioned (OOO, MMM, Warcry, etc) you probably shouldn't worry about if you've not really played it much.
Click to expand...

I best get started then :D. Thanks a lot :).
 
Just remember to be patient, Oblivion isn't the easiest thing to mass mod and keeping it stable, requires some reading. But once modded it can make the game amazing ;) . tes nexus is a great site to look at http://www.tesnexus.com/

I normally check the top 100 and see anything that takes your fancy after you got the main mods in, just remember to check compatibly etc.
 
LokiS said:
I normally check the top 100 and see anything that takes your fancy after you got the main mods in, just remember to check compatibly etc.
Click to expand...

This.

Check the top 100. If a mod gets popular they usually release compatability patches with other major mods. The best thing to do is go to the top 100, then change category to quests/NPC or whatever. Then you will get the top 100 of each category.

IMO, the essential mods are FCOM, MMM and DUI., but maybe not for a first playthrough.
In terms of quests, i found the following to be excellent-
Hoarfrost Castle
The Lost Spires
Kvatch rebuilt
The Heart of the Dead
Something to do with Mannimarco, where it extends the Mages Guild story quest. Can't remember.

The Better Cities mods in the Building oblivion link are almost essential once you have used them, along the ones that make the cities busier with more NPC's. ImpeREAL city is great too.

Lots of the fan made mods quest are better than Vanilla tbh, The Lost Spires and the Heart Of the Dead especially.

Don't go mad for your first playthrough though. Maybe a few balance overhauls and a few quests, but worst thing would be to go overboard and end up with a really unstable game for your first playthrough. The Building Oblivion guide by sldsmkd will give you a stable game.:)


PS. I enjoy compiling the mods more than playing the games sometimes;)
 
Pighardia said:
-snip-
Click to expand...

Seriously guys, he said he generally lost interest after the first Oblivion Gate. So basically once he liberates Kvatch.

Installing FCOM is an absolute nightmare and will take longer than the time it takes to install the game, start a new character, reach Kvatch and get bored.

Keep it simple. Unofficial patches are necessary. Darn UI is well worth it. Maybe Oblivion XP so he can focus on playing the damn game. Custom quests and overhauls aren't really necessary if you've barely experienced the normal game.
 
Evilsod said:
Seriously guys, he said he generally lost interest after the first Oblivion Gate. So basically once he liberates Kvatch.

Installing FCOM is an absolute nightmare and will take longer than the time it takes to install the game, start a new character, reach Kvatch and get bored.

Keep it simple. Unofficial patches are necessary. Darn UI is well worth it. Maybe Oblivion XP so he can focus on playing the damn game. Custom quests and overhauls aren't really necessary if you've barely experienced the normal game.
Click to expand...

Yeah, i said keep it simple for a first playthrough. You don't want to start with overhauls really first off. ( though if he lost interest then maybe using just one to spice it up a bit might be a good idea, OOO maybe). btw, doesn't FCOM have an installer?

If OP is struggling to get in to it, a few small quest mods might be a good idea, or maybe something that adds NPC's to improve immersion, as cities do seem a bit dead in vanilla which in my experience stopped me in the early parts. Something which makes the world seem more alive.
I can't remember which exactly, but something which adds some random encounters might improve it.
Plus these are easier to install because you don't really need to worry about compatability or load orders with quest/NPC mods.
 
Last edited:
Evilsod said:
nGCD is supposed to be a good levelling mod but I've not actually tried it. Oblivion XP is very good to just pick up and go as it makes you think about your character development more when you level up and the rest of the time you can spend it playing not screwing around worrying about your skills and accidently over-levelling.
Click to expand...

I've been looking for a decent levelling mod for a long time. I've read through the readme for Oblivion XP and there's a lot of numbers and formulas and such so I was wondering on a basic level, is it just more like Fallout? IE I kill things, get XP, steal things, get xp, complete missions, get xp, then level up includes choosing which stats to increase and choosing perks?

If so I might actually play Oblivion without just using the console to boost everything to 100, because the levelling system is just awful.
 
My advice would be to get an overhaul mod and every mod that is compatible with it that makes the game look more pretty. Though there is one that makes it lag like hell apparently, forgot it's name. was a thread in the gpu section a while ago.

Also bethesda do not make stable games so bare in mind no matter what mods you use it will probably crash anyway. Save often. FO3 was terrible for this particularly.
 
Swi1ch said:
I've been looking for a decent levelling mod for a long time. I've read through the readme for Oblivion XP and there's a lot of numbers and formulas and such so I was wondering on a basic level, is it just more like Fallout? IE I kill things, get XP, steal things, get xp, complete missions, get xp, then level up includes choosing which stats to increase and choosing perks?

If so I might actually play Oblivion without just using the console to boost everything to 100, because the levelling system is just awful.
Click to expand...

There really isn't that much to it. You get 2 options, either a blanket 3 points per skill increase which would make it resemble Fallout (minus the perks) or it'll cost 2/3/4 depending on whether the skill is a major skill, specialisation, or both. Skills have a hard cap at 49/74/99 so you can't go higher until you reach a certain level, but you can do so by finding a trainer. Obviously means to reach Expert and Grandmaster you'll need to find a Master Trainer and it'll cost you a pretty penny for it which can make things interesting, otherwise you can just go edit it in the config file.

Pretty sure you can also edit how much exp it takes to level up and you might be able to alter a few other things like how many 'points' you get to distribute per level and so on.

Generally though, just select your option and go with.
 
Evilsod said:
There really isn't that much to it. You get 2 options, either a blanket 3 points per skill increase which would make it resemble Fallout (minus the perks) or it'll cost 2/3/4 depending on whether the skill is a major skill, specialisation, or both. Skills have a hard cap at 49/74/99 so you can't go higher until you reach a certain level, but you can do so by finding a trainer. Obviously means to reach Expert and Grandmaster you'll need to find a Master Trainer and it'll cost you a pretty penny for it which can make things interesting, otherwise you can just go edit it in the config file.

Pretty sure you can also edit how much exp it takes to level up and you might be able to alter a few other things like how many 'points' you get to distribute per level and so on.

Generally though, just select your option and go with.
Click to expand...

Excellent. Now I won't spec myself up as a stealthy 'only fights when he has to' character that gets to level 20 in an hour and can't fight anything ever.
 
Swi1ch said:
Excellent. Now I won't spec myself up as a stealthy 'only fights when he has to' character that gets to level 20 in an hour and can't fight anything ever.
Click to expand...

Hehe. Yeah it was a very stupid system. If you choose Sneak, Marksman, Alchemy and Illusion as major skills and actually tried to use them as core skills you'd be level 10 in no time at all and wouldn't have the gear to fight anything.

Also bypasses the stupidity that was the Magic 'experience' thing, where it'd take a millennium to level up magical attributes like Restoration because a Expert level spell for 90 mana would give you the same progress as a Novice skill that costs 2 mana. Made for a fun game focusing on touch range Restoration skills to absorb health, magicka, stamina, attributes and skills from enemies.
Though the Stamina thing was little weird, it was supposed to make your enemy fall over but it rarely did. It was funny on the rare occasions where it would completely cripple an enemy though and they would literally lay on the floor for ever until you decided to kill them.

All this talk of Oblivion is giving me the urge to start a char focused on Sneak, Illusion, Blunt and Light Armour... that way I can wander up to people while Invisible and beat them round the head with a Warhammer.
 
Last edited:
I've just gone through a bunch of work redoing my Oblivion install to get it working on my laptop which only has an 8600GT. The focus on keeping resources down has been useful so i'll be revamping that install guide.

I've given up on Better Cities for now, it looks great but adds too much instability. I'm going to give nGCD a go.

Stealth characters work fine so long as you pick light armour, block and blade/blunt as primary skills. There's a few essential mods if you want to be a sneaky type. No Psychic Guards & SM Combat Hide.
 
Has anyone any experience in getting Oblivion running smoothly on Windows 7 x64??

I recently built my first rig and thought it was time to install a few classics on my new pc but after installing Oblivion It seems to crash at the same point.

After picking up the bow and shooting the barrel I exit that room and get to a point where you are approached by two rats and it's at that point it stops working and there is a constant sound loop which can only be stopped by restarting my pc.

I have googled the problem and applied the most recent patch and then the unofficial patch from the nexus forum but it still happens.

The only one I haven't tried is to move it from the program file folder on my E:/drive to a new folder.

Any input is more than welcome guys.
 
genicide said:
Has anyone any experience in getting Oblivion running smoothly on Windows 7 x64??
Click to expand...

Probably want to install OBSE, Oblivion Crash Prevention System, Streamline, Fast Exit & Oblivion Stutter Remover. Rhose rhings go a long way to stabilising the game. Before you do that delete the *.ini files from Documents\My Games\Oblivion
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom