Most Practical Oblivion Mods

[Bongu]

Please take part in being this great contribution towards the community. There are many mods out there, but this list is based on mods that make your life on oblivion, not easier, but less annoying. This list is for practical mods that you think every player must have.

 

If I or you think, and/or others agree (please say you agree with someone if you like their post) that a a mod should be included in this threads main post, I will add the mod you suggested to this part of the thread.

 

I will start it off. Of course i do not know every mod in this, or other oblivion mods hosting websites but take part in this and post what you think would be a great addition.

 

Some of these mods may require OBSE or some other plugin for OBSE, so look at this thread. Essential OBSE Plugins

 

Here we go:

 

- Keychain - Hides your keys into one single key for easy management. No longer do you have to remove any keys ever again. Toggle available.

 

or

 

-Automagic Bags - Hide more than your keys in separate bags.

 

 

- Fast Travel From Interior Cells - Cleared that dungeon and don't feel like walking all the way back through it? This can help.

 

- Decorator Assistant - The Z key is terrible for trying to decorate your home, it simply fails. This will let you place any items and lock them in place so you can also place other items around it safely. Must have for me.

 

- Dude Wheres My Horse - Did you lose Shadowmere again? Need help finding any of your mounts? Well, here you go!

 

- Quickstart - Start a new game without having to go through the whole intro dungeon. Skip to the end of the sewer!

 

- At Home Alchemy - This nifty little mod allows you to use alchemical equipment without having to carry it around with you. This is the fixed version.

 

- Real Days and Months - This might or might not be practical for everyone. But I though I would include it for those of us who aren't Oblivion lore experts.

 

- Shady Sam Enhanced Fence - Is the Thiefs guild the only ones who buy stolen goods? REALLY? NO ONE else? I doubt it. This makes it so the guy who you think would buy stolen goods, buys stolen goods. No Thiefs Guild required.

 

- Streamline - This will help with smoothing out your FPS if you have a low end system or are getting annoying stutter. It may even increase FPS while making the transition smoother. Enjoy.

 

- 100% Harvest Chance - How do you fail to pick a flower you are just going to grind down anyway? Not a cheat, this makes total sense. - added by Volbia.

 

- Spell Deletion - -Every Mage should have this. We all know you might not be using that crappy fireball spell later on. - added by Volbia

 

- Bedrolls and Tents Anyone? - Adds portable bedrolls and tents to the game. Can be bought from merchants. added by - Volbia

 

- DarNified UI - I have been using this for a long time. It is amazing. I still think about how amazing it is when i look at it. added by vvk78

 

- Display Stats - Displays hidden stats of items in your inventory.added by vvk78

 

- Teleport Everywhere - Lets you teleport from anywhere in any situation. DO NOT TELEPORT DURING A QUEST MISSION AREA. IT WILL BREAK THE QUEST/GAME.added by vvk78

 

- Chase Camera Mod - Fixes the jerky camera movements in vanilla oblivion.added by vvk78

 

- Denock Arrows - lets you cancel and arrow shot.added by vvk78

 

- Eagle Eye Realistic Archery -

This mod changes some parameters which makes archery more realistic and effective.added by vvk78

 

- Misc Tracker - tracks your fame/infamy/bounty and gives handy messages about their status changes. added by vvk78

 

- Advanced Mark and Recall - Mark locations and come back to them later.added by vvk78

 

- Weapon Charge Spell - Lets you charge your weapons using your magicka.

 

 

 

 

Now, you can add your favorite practical mods to the list. Please do so, your contribution is greatly appreciated.

 

I will add your name in the small description for each mod you list :thumbsup:

Edited February 7, 2011 by Bongu

[Bongu]

Also for you "guests" just join the site! xD

[volbia]

100% chance to harvest ingredients (normal and shivering isles) seriously I failed to pick a flower, pull out some seeds, pluck a mushroom etc etc? this mod helps keep me facepalm free.

 

clearer underwater, plenty of mods for this but whichever one you choose whether to make it less foggy or crystal clear we all know that seeing underwater is a pain.

 

spell deletion, no more looking for spell codes just to clear up our spellbook

 

bedroll mods, a favorite of mine the ability to buy a bedroll and just place it on the ground and take a nap so you can level up without traveling to some camp or to a city.

 

conceal nature, vampire mods that make it so that you can actually play as a vampire and still do quests, seriously what was bethesda thinking with that, at least in morrowind some people would talk to you.

[vvk78]

Keychain is known to be incompatible with certain mods. Though it is a great little concept, it doesn't make sense to add one more esp to your load order, just to manage all your key clutter. I suggest instead: Automagicka Bags, which can automatically sort out common stuff such as keys, ingredients, alchemical items, etc into their own bags, and also provides lots of other infinite-inventory bags to stock any type of weapons/armors/gems/items you want to store. If you want simplicity, you may want to try Bag of Holding or DS Sacks, though I prefer Automagicka Bags as it serves many purposes and does them well. Do more with less!

 

Unofficial Patches are a must, after a clean install, before trying out any new mods. If you don't install UOP, then you need Custom Race Fix, Boethia's Shrine Fix, Vampire Aging fixes.

 

DarnifiedUI (or BT Mod) is absolutely critical for even using the game on a PC. Vanilla UI sucks on a PC - I prefer DarnifiedUI. Display Stats mod will show hidden stats about any items in your inventory - now you never have to worry about missing critical info about a weapon you intend to enchant or sell. Works with DarnifiedUI, DarkUId DarN, BTmod and vanilla UI interfaces.

Realistic Leveling or Oblivion XP can help with the crummy leveling feature in the vanilla game. Quest Award Leveller makes quest rewards to be scaled to your current player level.

Teleport Everywhere is essential to avoid getting frustrated with default fast travel limitations (now you can fast-travel anywhere even if you are in the depths of a dungeon or a building interior!). Map Marker Overhaul and Elven Map Redux are highly recommended for better and immersive world-map experience.

 

CM Partners and CSR (TalkieToaster's Companion Share and Recruit) are also essential if you want companion partners to aid in your adventures.

 

Skill Specialization provides trees of abilities customized to your chosen class - makes different styles of role-playing much more enjoyable and unique. Ring of Companionship will keep your partners happily working together rather than bickering and killing at the slightest accidental swipes. Cover Yourself will ensure there will be consequences if you roam the cities and villages clad in your undergarments (or lack thereof). Script Effect Subduer removes the audible-visual script effects and improves its performance in projectile form - no more burning swords strapped to the hip!

 

ChaseCamera and FlyingCamera mods are needed to resolve jerky 3rd person camera views and to enable better screenshooting and panoramic character views. Bullet Camera is also useful for those enjoying those long-distance sniper kills.

 

PlayerSayStuff makes the player character to make funny and/or emotional comments during quests, combat, etc. Add hugely to the immersiveness. No more mute PC! You might argue it is not practical, but considering that you enemies can taunt you, don't you want to taunt them back? :laugh:

 

Denock Arrows to cancel an arrow shot, Cancel Attack to cancel a combat move, and Fast Arrows Collection to auto-retrieve fallen arrows nearby (won't fetch arrows fallen into the far distance, so the game remains immersive and you still get back most of your arrows). Eagle Eye Realistic Archery makes the vanilla archery much more effective and enjoyable. These concepts should have been built into the game by Bethesda!

 

Misc Tracker tracks your fame/infamy/bounty and gives handy messages about their status changes. It is extremely essential if you play as a thief/assassin, or even otherwise (for instance, I like these messages: "Your crime has been reported and your infamy has increased by 1", "No one dared report your crime"). :ninja:

 

Spell Deletion lets you rename/delete spells. Disenchant Items lets you remove any invalid weapon/armor enchantments (you lose the soulgem though, if I recall correctly). Enchanting Freedom Plus lets you add missing enchantments such as Paralyze, Reflect Damage, Reflect Spells.

 

RefScope to query in-game on any objects and NPCs for all reference-ID stats, NPC inventory, factions, spells, AI-Packages, etc. Also tells you whether containers are safe for storage. One of the most underrated and unrecognized mods in TESNexus. I think I have voted it for File of the Month. Conscribe is an exhaustive logging mechanism that greatly helps in debugging the game and posting the crash reports. MenuQue is like a scripting library/plugin that's needed by a few OBSE-based mods.

 

Menu Escape and A Takes All are truly essential to easily tackle through all the in-game menus with the keyboard. Use the mouse always to click through popup menus is a royal pain. Barter Gold is useful for resolving some of the bartering limitations.

 

Mark and Recall or Portals mods can be useful for quickly marking a quest/custom-abode spot and returning to it later. Map Marker Overhaul lets you add custom map markers and integrates well with DarnUI etc.

 

Imperial Furniture Renovated helps improve the gameplay by introducing movable candles, weapon racks, chests, carpets, tapestry, beds and lots more. Decorator Assistant is essential for fine-grained pickup and placement of objects. Finally, TES4 can give Sim3 a run for its money!

Edited February 6, 2011 by vvk78

[chaospearl]

I like New Roads & Bridges, which adds a couple extra paved roads around the Imperial City, including several more bridges over Lake Rumare. I don't use fast travel personally and it's annoying as hell that the ONLY way to get off (or onto) the IC island is by going round and over the western bridge near Weye. What if you're heading to\from Cheydinhal? You have to go literally 50% of the distance in the totally opposite direction, argh. The best part about NR&B is that by some miracle it manages to avoid conflicting with almost all the major mods in the area. And there are compatibility patches for the very few mods it does run across.

 

In a similar vein there is also West Roads which adds a couple of roads from Chorrol down to Skingrad and Anvil. Not quite as necessary as NR&B, but still a fabulous mod for those of us who don't fast travel and hate having to hoof it through miles of minotaur-infested mountainous wilderness just to get from one major city to another. There really ought to be a road... well, now there is.

[Bongu]

thank you all. I have added the ones i thought were most practical. some of them seemed to me too much of a matter of preference. they are still listed in the suggested posts of course. anyone else have more they want to add to the list? buuuump.

[theNiceOne]

I'm surprised you don't have my number one practical Oblivion mod, Togglable Quantity Prompt (updated), which allows you to sell one (by holding down ctrl) or all (by holding down shift) items in a stack without the annoying "how many" and "are you sure" dialogues.

 

Not exactly neutral, but some of my own mods are also made in order to make the gameplay better. You already have Display Stats on the list, but also (in alphabetical order):

 

Dynamic Map Makes the world map automatically change according to your active mods. E.g. if you have Bartholm installed, the world map will display the city (not only the map marker). Also allows you to freely zoom in/out of the world map.

 

Enhanced Hotkeys Lets you define any key on your keyboard, + mouse buttons as hotkeys, lets you assign any number of items to a single hotkey (in order to toggle between them, cast multiple spells by the tap of one button, or equip a full set of gear), lets you cast hotkeyed spells by tapping a hotkey without having to activate the spell first, etc., etc.

 

HUD Status Bars Gives you more status bars in the hud, and lets you add status bars for whatever you want (including info from other mods) by editing the ini file. Examples are bars that display your encumbrance, enemy, summon or companion stats (like level, health, fatigue, etc), amount of light falling on you when you sneak, whether player stats are damaged, etc.

 

Lightweight Potions Makes every created potion weight the same (set in the ini), to avoid the annoyance of all potions weighing a lot if you happened to use heavy ingredients for the first potion of that type/strength.

 

Map Marker Overhaul Lets you add text tags to any map markers, or add your own map markers (with unique icon and freely entered text) anywhere. Increases the number of different map markers from 12 to 31 (+ some variants), displaying Shrines, Ayleid wells, single houses, etc. Also lets you change the state of markers, so that you can see with a glance at the world map that you have already explored a cave or closed a gate. The mod does much more too, but it can all be enabled/disabled/adjusted in the ini file.

 

Quest Log Manager Gives you a new button for each current quest, where if you click on it moves the quest to a lost of hidden quests instead, making it easier to navigate your quest list since all the quests you are not interested in are hidden (but you can also look at the hidden quests list and move quests back to the current list). Also lets you toggle between chronological and alphabetical sorting of the quest list.

 

Soulgem Magic Either makes soulgems only accept soul of exact size (so you don't waste a grand soulgem with a petty soul), or lets you fill multiple smaller souls into one larger soulgem in order to fill it completely. You choose mode, and number of smaller souls needed to fill a larger soulgem, in the ini file.

 

 

To see the rest of my mods too, click here.

Edited February 11, 2011 by theNiceOne

[vvk78]

Yeah theNiceOne, I personally use many your mods, and can vouch for their usefulness and quality of effort, to enrich the game experience.

[vvk78]

Bongu

 

If you need portable Bedrolls only for your player character, then Adventures Gear is recommended, as it adds a bedroll, tent, campfire, cooking pot, and even tripwires! Perfect, if you like to frequently travel in the wilderness, like a Hunter or Ranger! It also becomes extremely useful for those who like to play with those realism mods (hunger, fatigue, etc).

 

Imperial Furniture Renovated enables movable beds, and adds a lot of features to improve the immersion.

 

DBs Take All mod seems to be an upgrade over A Takes All. I'll be trying it out soon.

 

Fast Equipping allows you to change gear sets easily - it is also an intelligent event-based system. Enhanced Hotkeys also has support for gear sets, so try that first, since it is a very good hotkey system, which is a primary practical requirement.

 

Toggle Zoom with Any Key or Binoculars can help with far-distance sniper kills. Night Vision Goggles or Toggle Shaders allow you to use unlimited Night Vision and Detect Life abilities, which are very useful for quickly cleaning up a dark dungeon.

 

TRN One of the Gang makes disguises and sneaking very realistic and practical.

Clocks of Cyrodiil adds clock-towers to cities for a bit of realism, though if I recall correctly, one of the clocktowers conflicts with a City mods (Open Cities, Better Cities or Unique Landscapes).

 

Bank of Cyrodiil lets you invest and increase you money in a bank. Stow away all that extra cash, for a rainy day!

 

Complete Gardening allows you to stick up your Green Thumb. Create your own garden! It is a must-have for Alchemists and those who want to beautify their favorite player homes with some rare herbs or cool flowers.

 

And finally, you *HAVE* to add RefScope to your list. It is one of the most practical (and under-recognized) mods ever!

[vvk78]

OBSE Elys Universal Silent Voice is also a strong contender as a practical mod. No need for modders to provide all those silent mp3's anymore.