Are fighting vs monsters help toward the next level?

[eregor2]

I'm at Kvatch portal and I'm wondering if fighting monsters exiting from the Gate bring me any exp. Edited January 1, 2012 by eregor2

[Striker879]

Anything you attack by physical means (swords, blunts or bows) will gain you experience in their respective skill. It takes physical hits on you to advance light or heavy armor (depending on what your character is wearing at the time) and successful blocks of hits to advance blocking. Some of the creatures you'll face in Oblivion use magic attacks (e.g scamps and stunted scamps) so fighting them won't advance your armor or blocking skills until they switch to physical attacks. When you use magical attacks it will advance your destruction skill and of course healing yourself advances restoration (if you visit Oblivion very often you'll gain lots of restoration experience). If you use alchemy, making healing and feather potions for yourself will advance that skill (feather to carry all the loot, healing potions for when you run short of health and magicka ... always seems to happen at the same time when you're in Oblivion).

 

I like to close a few gates early in the game for the sigil stones. They offer a handy way to make your own enchanted gear (I am addicted to my rings of strength and amulets of feather, without a doubt). The sigil stones are randomly determined at the moment you grab the stone. I save right before I grab the stone so that if I don't get something I find useful I can reload the save and try again.

Edited January 1, 2012 by Striker879

[Rennn]

What he said.

Any time you do anything it almost always improves some skill. Even eating ingredients improves your alchemy skill by a tiny amount. Running gradually increases athletics. Yes, even running. Just about the only thing that won't increase a skill is swinging your sword at a wall.

 

However, you only move towards your next level if you're advancing one of your major skills. If one of your major skills is Blade, wacking the Daedra with a sword will move you towards the next level. If a major skill is Restoration, you advance to the next level by healing a lot.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Rennn

[eregor2]

What he said.

Any time you do anything it almost always improves some skill. Even eating ingredients improves your alchemy skill by a tiny amount. Running gradually increases athletics. Yes, even running. Just about the only thing that won't increase a skill is swinging your sword at a wall.

 

However, you only move towards your next level if you're advancing one of your major skills. If one of your major skills is Blade, wacking the Daedra with a sword will move you towards the next level. If a major skill is Restoration, you advance to the next level by healing a lot.

 

thanks to Striker and you Rennn, I understand more now.

[eregor2]

I have another question, is resolving quests make you advance to the next level also or only by what you guys said upping the major skills.

[Striker879]

Completing quests doesn't do anything towards advancing your level. Some quests will give a point of fame or infamy (closing Oblivion Gates will also give you a point of fame). Having a certain amount of fame is a requirement for certain quests (some of the Daedric Shrine quests for example), and your fame + infamy total goes towards which Heaven Stones are available for you to use.

 

Advancing your character's level is a subject with many nuances and more than one 'correct' way of doing in the vanilla game. Major skills advance faster per use than minor skills. If you have major skills that you use a lot your character will level-up frequently. The monsters and badguys also level along with you. If the skills you have been advancing aren't ones useful for fighting the new monsters you can find yourself at a disadvantage for a while until your needed skills catch up. I personally tend to prefer to have major skills I don't use frequently so that my character tends to level more slowly. I have the skills planned in such a way I don't have to 'train' a skill just before leveling just so that I can max out my 5 point bonuses in the areas I want them at the time (until strength, endurance and intelligence/willpower are maxed at 100 that's where I focus). Here's a UESP Wiki article on Leveling.

[Lodur9000]

[All personal opinion->] I don't plan out my levels and it's never given me any trouble I couldn't deal with, I don't mind if the game is a little harder for a few levels. Besides, in the end it actually tends to balance itself out. Fighting tougher enemies means using fighting skills more. For example, if you're killing bandits in just three or four hits then your chosen fighting skill(s) - be it weapon, fists, bow or spell - raises more slowly per opponent because it takes less individual 'uses' of the skill to kill them. On the other hand if you're having to wail on tough enemies for a while to kill them it'll mean your fighting skill raises a lot more quickly.

 

Attributes are a matter of taste. I'm content to get by with +2 or +3 per level. It generally makes little difference except that, for me, I'm not breaking my immersion by fretting about when and where I raise a skill.

 

Some things can be tricky - Clanfears in particular are a menace to low-level characters who are not capable in combat - but smart play and liberal use of potions/scrolls can get a player through anything.

[Rennn]

Yeah, I never micromanage either. I pick my major skills carefully, but after that I just play the game. You almost always end up with a solid character as long as you actually use your major skills. I, for example, always pick Intelligence as a favored attribute even though I never use any magicka-based major skills like Destruction or Alteration simply because I pick Alchemy as a major skill and make a ton of poisons and potions to bolster my otherwise weak combat abilities.