The fights that made me run like...heck...

[majikmonkee]

Thanks to the more or less balanced leveling system of Oblivion and the fact that I usually play a warrior type character with powerful fighting skills, I can't say I very often run away from a potential fight. Sure, winning may require some dancing around the enemy to avoid getting hit and use of potions or healing spells, but usually, if something attacks me or vice versa, I finish what I started. However, there are at least two case I can think of where I ran in terror fearing for my life (and bemoaning the fact that I hadn't saved recently and death would mean extreme lost progress - I don't autosave).

 

Umbra - this happened a long time ago with my first ever character, my dunmer named Zephyroth. I'd heard rumors (on the internet, not in Cyrodiil) of the mighty Umbra sword, and it sounded too good to be true, so I boldly sought out the Bosmer Umbra, and, confident in my supreme combat skills, attempted to kill her in direct hand to hand combat. She humiliated me in short order, turning my armor into scrap metal and even knocking my sword from my hands, and I was unable to retrieve it, I was so busy fending off blows. I eventually ran like a sissy, through all the traps in the ruin, all the way back to the Imperial waterfront, where she continued to pursue me. I was sure I was saved when the guards of the waterfront confronted her, but watched in horror as she not only chopped them to ribbons, but also killed off Puny Ancus and Carwen, my two favorite waterfront NPC's. After witnessing the brutal murder of everyone dear to me in the waterfront, I resigned myself to my fate and allowed her to finish me off and force me to reload (this was before I was aware of the console and it's power to restore life). I've since learned the tricks to kill Umbra early on, but I'll never forget that first harrowing experience.

 

Uderfrykte Matron - this happened to me last night, actually. My latest character, a thief named Corrine, normally avoid combat unless absolutely necessary (even going so far as to take companions with me to make them do the dirty work). Corrine carries only a dagger and some silver arrows and wears only clothing, no armor of any sort. While trying to complete a mod quest that required passing by Dive Rock, what should suddenly come running out of nowhere but the horrifying Uderfrykte Matron, complete with frost effect (usually it just looks like a troll to me). It only took a couple hits from my ineffectual silver dagger to realize that wasn't happening, the matron was taking away about a fourth of my health with each hit. I sent Corrine running for her life, scaling down steep cliffs as fast as possible, all the while listening to the Matron grunting and growling just out of hitting range behind. After what seemed like a neverending run for survival, eventually the creature gave up the chase. It was necessary, though, because again, I hadn't saved in a long time. Poor Corrine had to cover massive lost ground due to the fact that there had been no major landmarks discovered to fast travel back to, but at least the Matron was nowhere to be seen the second time through. =P

[dcgames]

I've since learned the tricks to kill Umbra early on, but I'll never forget that first harrowing experience.

 

So share your Umbra "tricks" with us :) I may need them since I haven't even got the game yet.

[majikmonkee]

Sure. At level 1 if you simply collect 2 iron claymores (the arena bloodworks is a good place to do this for free) and have a basic ranged destruction spell, that's really all you need. Simply enter Umbra's room, and from the balcony above where she usually stands, even a non athletic character can leap out and land on the broken pillar in the middle of the room. From there, assume a stable crouching position near one of the edges and launch a spell to get her to attack you. Simply hack away with claymores till your stamina runs out then switch to attacking with the spell till your magicka runs low, and keep alternating. The first claymore will usually wear out before she dies, thus the second one. It's a pretty easy strategy, just be prepared for almost ten minutes of hacking and blasting, it's worth it though.

[darkedge42392]

Ha! I did that the first time I played Oblivion. I was greedy for the power of the Umbra sword and I quickly found out how devastating her attacks are. Three hits and I was dead. :sad: But, I've found out that waiting until you are her level (which is level 50) and going after Umbra then is satisfying. It's still a hard fight, but it's well worth it. :biggrin:

[majikmonkee]

Ha! I did that the first time I played Oblivion. I was greedy for the power of the Umbra sword and I quickly found out how devastating her attacks are. Three hits and I was dead. :sad: But, I've found out that waiting until you are her level (which is level 50) and going after Umbra then is satisfying. It's still a hard fight, but it's well worth it. :biggrin:

Wait till I'm the correct level? What a novel idea! lol I actually wasn't sure what level that would be. Not to get off my own topic, but in retrospect, I stopped taking her sword early on, because then there's no point in using any other sword in the game, which eliminates a bit of the fun for me.

[Eiries]

Friska, level 1, stumbling across Roxey Inn, the proprietor giving her a simple task: kill Raelynn the Gravefinder.

 

Okay.

 

So she waltzes into Moss Rock Cavern in her leather getup, swinging around her silver shortsword. Raelynn didn't stand a chance.

 

...Yeah.

 

First room was little rough, but she had a bow, so no biggie. But that lady's four level above you, which at 40, doesn't count for much. 1? It shows. And she's got eyes like a hawk too. Stride in her chambers, hey, two necromancers, mint. Oh, they summoned skeletons. And there's one in the corner already. Oh, it has a bow too!

 

Died quite a few times. And nothing hurts more than a fireball thrown at your back from an angry old lady while you're turning tail, fearing for your life.

 

Good times.

------

As for Umbra, I used the item duplication cheat to get a tons of restore majicka potions, then fireballed her to death from a nearby broken pillar. That was the 360 version of course. Any time I met her on the PC version she was dealt with the old fashioned way. ;)

[Kyuukei]

Recently I got the PC version of the game, with OOO up and running and everything. I did what I usually do on a fresh playthrough and first immediately went to Bruma to steal me some Black Hand Robes from J'Ghasta's house. Then, I went and killed some NPCs in the Skooma Den to gain admittance into the Dark Brotherhood and get the Blade of Woe (modded to be a Shortsword instead of a Dagger, yay! I love shortswords so). Finally, I proceed to Skingrad to get the lovably awesome Weak Fireball spell. Yay miniature explosions!! Traveled on foot most of the way, and got in a couple levelups. So I figured I'd be all set to annihilate Raelynn the Gravefinder...

 

It turns out, whoops! I wasn't. I totally wasn't.

 

Turns out, she and the other Necromancer in the room with her both had enough power to kill me pretty quick even without magic. I play a relatively squishy Breton mage, so at the time my health was quite low. Plus, she's also a Breton, and that 50% magic resistance served to very effectively negate my main strengths. I had to constantly summon and resummon Skeletons to tank her own summon and the Keeper of the Dead, which really ate up my Magicka. Her spells were sufficiently powerful to bring me down to about halfdead in one shot, so further MP was consumed rapidly by healing, and my own offensive spells really weren't doing much. Melee combat was also mostly out of the question, due to the aforementioned low HP and the fact that she had a Dwemer mace. Through careful attrition, I could get her HP fairly low, but then she'd just heal herself a few times and it began again.

 

I died several, several times. Tried all sorts of different things, without success. At one point, I decided to try going outside to see if the local guard would deal with her at all...

 

Aaaand instead of helping much, he mostly ended up lagging behind while she chased me around. She outran him quite easily, presumably due to his heavy Legion armour offsetting his level advantage over the both of us. Furthermore, I could only outrun her with my weapon sheathed, which made melee combat even less likely to work. If I recall correctly, taking her down was a matter of getting her pissed off at my skeletons long enough for me and said guard to sneak in a few swings. Even factoring that in, it still took several minutes to wear her down, and the guard really didn't do anything other than make it marginally quicker; she spent most of her melee time still trying to attack me, so evasion ensued. Much evasion ensued.

 

It really was very effective at initiating me into OOO play. Raelynn was always a walk in the park for me in boring vanilla Oblivion, so this was a very surprising and welcome change of pace. I haven't had this much fun in a singleplayer game since Metroid Prime and Super Mario Galaxy 2.

 

Conclusively: OOO is awesome.

Edited December 19, 2010 by Kyuukei

[dcgames]

What the heck is OOO? And what goodies does Raelynn the Gravefinder have (that makes it worth defeating her)?

[Kyuukei]

Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul. It changes a large amount of stuff in the game, but generally speaking it makes it harder overall, and also much more rewarding.

 

As for Raelynn, it isn't like she has anything unique. There's some jewelry in her chamberthing, and some decent treasure chests, but no unique items or anything. Mostly she's simply a unique character that adds a bit of spice to earlygame questing (the inn and cave involved in the quest are quite close to the tutorial sewer exits). I love sidequests, so I did it for personal merit, hehe.

[majikmonkee]

I've never encountered Raelynn that I know of, I'm intrigued. I seem to have overlooked many other key quests though despite playing the game on and off for a couple years now, makes it fun.

 

When I did the mage's guild questline, I tried to be a mage as much as possible. That amounted to me wearing my Black Hand robes (I'd completed DB already), and blasting everyone with my staff of paralasyse then finishing them with a single lunge from my enchanted dagger as they were falling. Not very mage-like, but close enough. lol