Seeking advice on creating a class...

[ElricOfGrans]

I really like the world presented to us in Oblivion, but just cannot seem to create a character that I enjoy in that world. I have made dozens of characters in the few months I have been playing, but nothing seems to feel right. Perhaps part of my problem is that I have never taken a skill beyond Journeyman, but even low-level skills should be fun if I get the right combination. For reference, I use Realistic Leveling, so I do not need to worry about efficient leveling, and run Fran's/MMM, so there is a concept of low-, mid- and high-level content in my games. The Race Balancing Project also shifts things a little in terms of the balance. I run both LAME and Supreme Magicka for adjusting the magic system.

 

For Strength Skills, I have found I just do not enjoy Hand to Hand, even with SM Hand Combat turning things up a little, and I find Blunts a little slow to swing for my tastes, so I am very much settled on Blades or nothing. For Endurance Skills, I do not like Heavy Armour, but find both Block and Armorer are skills frequently used and quick to level, whether I take them as major skills or not. In Speed, I usually take Light Armour and do not mind Acrobatics; Athletics levels fast enough whether major or not (even with Realistic Fatigue stopping my from running everywhere). Agility seems to not tickle my fancy much, as I could not care less about Security, generally do not use Sneak much (my characters are always traveling outside, in broad daylight, and are law-abiding, so not much use for it), and found Marksman got tedious by level 6. I am also nonplussed by Personality Skills, as Mercantile levels fast enough and is not overly important, Speechcraft seems entirely useless, and I have found Illusion spells to be exceedingly uninteresting and never used. For Intelligence, Alchemy is useful but levels way too fast to take as a major skill (even with Realistic Leveling), Conjuration is quite useful for a magic-oriented character, but Mysticism seems pretty useless (even with LAME/SM). Finally, for Willpower, Alteration is OK, but never seems to get much use, while Destruction and Restoration are both excellent. Since this has been my observation, I have built most of my characters around Blade, Block, Light Armour, Restoration and Destruction. While this seems to create a pretty solid character, it has been getting a little samey-feeling. I am also getting a little sick of repeating the same low-level content (join the mage's guild, do the quests in each town, fill-out the world map).

 

My current character is a disaster (I made the stupid decision: `perhaps if I take only skills I *never* use I may find them actually really good'), so I am looking to go back to square one again. Has anyone any advice on creating a fun character to play? Are there any good quest mods aimed at low-level play I could use to freshen-up the early experience for this new character?

[Lanceor]

Sounds like you've tried just about everything and there's not much else we can suggest!

 

Just to throw some ideas in the air...

• An evil character - either a typical shifty thief/assassin, or maybe an infamous black knight.
  
• Maximum magicka Altmer/Atronach character
  
• A character that can get 100 in all or most skills... auto-level magic, sneak and athletics using a brick on the keyboard. The majors are be the seven that you most want to use excepting the above and the rest are levelled through training.
  
• Roleplay someone!

[k0pk3rk0]

It may not be the skills that are uninteresting. It may be how you use them. I understand your predicament but you don't always have to go with the norms. I would suggest using blade, marksman, and destruction as major skills, if they get repetitive or boring, try going to the mages guild and have a new spell made. Or you can download the Construction Set from the Elder Scrolls website and create your own.

Personally, I found being an assassin fun as hell. Marksmanship and Sneaking are my best skills normally. If you do the brotherhood missions you might take them to a liking. If you do decide to become an assassin I'd suggest having Athletics, Sneak, a chameleon or invisibility spell at your disposal, a good bow (preferably unenchanted because they cost a lot to repair and unenchanted arrows these disappear and cost too much to restock) now vast open worlds aren't a threat for assassins, you just have to know where to hide and know how high to aim to hit a distant target.

If that doesn't suit your tastes, like I said, try taking the Blade, Marksman, and Destruction skills and meshing them in one class. Make Stealth the class type to help level up Marksman. (I also believe it offers a bonus to light armor) and try staffs and other items, maybe it's not the classes, maybe it's the items you run around with. Take into consideration the items the world has at your disposal.

[ElricOfGrans]

Thanks for the responses.

 

k0pk3rk0, I think you are right: it probably is the way I use them. Normally I like to play support characters in RPGs. Load up on buffs/debuffs and let my allies drop the killing blow. However, Oblivion has led me into playing more in-your-face hero types of characters. On the other hand, unlike other RPGs, you do not need to kill to get `experience' here. Perhaps if I stop worrying about killing opponents and focus more on the kind of play-style I normally like (perhaps herd bandits into patrols) I may find a lot of those skills more interesting than I have so far. Lanceor's suggestion of an Altmer/Atronach character, or something similar, could mix quite well with that idea.

 

This gives me a very different view on things. Thank you!

[Elsarian]

Hello ElricofGlans. I don think that its about your skills so much as your plan for your character. Use the same skills that you already use for most of your characters, just do something different with that character. Like plan him out. Start an entirely new guild with him, or get a mod like Middas Magic and an companion mod, and recruit some of the most powerful people in your game. And then do some serious epic questing for epic artifacts that can either help you destroy Tamriel, or allow you to help out the world. Just make your game interesting and unique for a character. He can have the same skills every time, because believe me I know how it is seeing that I play as a warrior/mage with a build of heavy armor, blade, block, acrobatics, destruction, and restoration. But even though my characters have the same build every new game, I give them all a different importance. I hope this has helped you out in some way my friend. Good luck with the game. Once again, I hope you can get this problem resolved,

 

- Elsarian