The Oblivion Thread vol. II

[Quillan]

It was possible in Morrowind, just not easy. I got pretty good at it, but it really involved what might be considered cheats or exploits. What you did was run over to Mournhold and buy one of the spells from the temple that had the Fortify Skill effect (you'd need a certain rank in the temple for this). Then make a bunch of trash "cast upon use" items that did Fortify Enchant for 5-10 second duration. Make some potions that boosted intelligence, drink them, while your intel is boosted make more, rinse, repeat. You could eventually get to potions that boosted your intelligence by hundreds or even thousands of points. Pile all those on before enchanting and you'd be pretty successful.

Of course, getting Azura's Star (reusable soul gem, from a daedric quest) and Soul Drinker (from a mages guild quest in Balmora) or Umbra (from Umbra) to cast Soul Trap whenever you needed it helped too.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Originally posted by snoopy369
The x800 GTO is a nice card ... but it doesn't support SM 3.0, so no HDR. If you're buying it basically just for Oblivion, go either with an nVidia card (6800 etc.) or maybe the x1300. It looks a LOT nicer with SM 3.0 ...

This is the PCI Express 256mb, for $84 minus $15 rebate

This is the AGP 256mb, for $99

This is the PCIe 512mb, for $111 minus $15 rebate

All made by Sapphire, one of the best ATI card makers, and what I have in my computer. It's not quite as good overall as the x800GTO, but it's cheaper, and has a TON of video memory for the price ... and supports SM 3.0

BTW, if you decide for the better non-HDR card, Sapphire makes a great x800 GTO(that I have) and is a good 20%-30% cheaper than ATI branded cards, for the same thing and great quality

I'm basically looking for a card that will help my pc limp through the next year or so. I have a 9800pro now and a mobo that won't take nvidia. So I don't actually mind spending more for it, I do want to see an improvement. Oh and I'm stuck with APG. (wishes the 7800GS would work in my system...the easy choice).

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Quillan

https://www.uesp.net

The write-up there currently leaves a bit to be desired, so I'll explain a little. You have to have a mortar and pestle in your inventory. Click on that to open the alchemy screen. Select one of the Add Ingredient buttons, and pick an ingredient out of your inventory. Select another Add Ingredient, and it will list all ingredients in your inventory that have matching effects to the one(s) you already have selected. Select one, click combine and you've made a potion.

Well, I mean as opposed to Morrowind. Alchemy was incredibly useful in that game.

[Solver]

Alchemy in Oblivion is just about the same. Only you can't make ridicilous exploits, there are more ingredients and possible effects, plus negative-effect potions are actually useful.

[Quillan]

It's still very useful, but a couple of things got changed to remove some of the things people did to exploit the system in Morrowind. For example, no vendors have unlimited quantities of any ingredients. You could go to the temple in Bramora, and buy unlimited quantities of saltrice and wickwheat. Then you could make Restore Health potions to your heart's content, and boost your alchemy skill to 100 in fairly short order. That doesn't happen now.

In order to really practice, you sorta have to wander the countryside collecting ingredients and making potions haphazardly to improve. You can at least sell those off for money. Poisons are the really nice thing in this one. Those are applied to your currently equipped weapon and take effect on the next opponent you hit with it. Even with an alchemy skill of 30 or so, I've been able to combine fire salts with one of the mushrooms to make what I call Bladefyre, a coating that does 4 points of fire damage for 14 second duration. There are ingredients that do shock damage, damage all attributes, and probably the other elemental types as well though I have yet to find any.

Healing potions are incredibly useful for mid-battle restoration. I make my own Cure Disease potions as a protection against vampirism, and carry a few restore attribute potions around because attribute damage doesn't go away on its own.

[Silver14]

Originally posted by nostromo
I never tried enchanting an item myself, though. I hear its nearly impossible.

I havn't had any problems makeing magic items in Oblivion. The hard part is just getting all the mage guild quests done in order to get access to the Arcane University. Their missions arn't that hard really.

I've made several magical items so far useing soul gems and the non magical equipment I had. Rings of Feather, a Helm that gives Night Eye, Amulet of Shielding, Swords that do Frost or Electric damage. You can't make items as powerfull as in Morrowind though.

I miss the Fly/Jump/Levitate spells. Especially Jump, I would put Jump on several items in Morrowind - made travel fun. Also there are not as many armor pieces to enchant as in Morrowind so you can't buff yourself as much.

[Silver14]

Originally posted by Quillan
In order to really practice, you sorta have to wander the countryside collecting ingredients and making potions haphazardly to improve.

My thief makes a habit of stealing food from storerooms or at Inns when people wern't looking, turning them into potions then selling the potions to the proprietor.

Who knew that every time you make a cheese sandwich you are improveing your alchemy skills anyway?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Some of the mods on the official forums seem very cool.

I'll probably pick up the UI mod, that shows more items on the screen. There is also some mods to have a color map instead of the ancient looking one (though I like the ancient looking one, so I may not DL that one).

Lot of mod activity going on. Seems that the XML and the TES Construction Set are very conducive to changing things around.

[Dis]

so at what point should I try making potions? So far I've only been eating ingredients. My character isn't well suited for an alchemist anywyas. I started at 5, and my alchemy is only 13 now. I'm playing a combat character- redguard crusader. So restoration and destruction will be my main spell schools.

[Quillan]

Try making potions any time. Unlike Morrowind, there is ZERO chance of failure. What your skill limits is how many alchemical effects you can tell about an ingredient (and you can only make potions from the known effects) and how many potion effects you can have on you at one time. The potions will be better if you carry around all the alchemical gear, but all you have to have is a mortar & pestle to make them.

[Solver]

I did te Dagon Shrine part of the main quest, it was awesome. Don't read if you haven't done that part, it's quite interesting. But I'd be eager to hear how everyone handled it.

Spoiler:

So I enter this Mythic Dawn shrine, and they think I'm there to join them. That Harrow guy asks me to give up all my equipment. Hmm. It seemed like a nice idea for me to go undercover, so I accepted. With nothing but a robe I followed him to the shrine itself with Camoran making a speech.

I continue to stand among the members, enjoying my undercover position. Camoran finishes, then the priest lady asks me to advance. I go up, and then she wants me to sacrifice an Argonian to complete my initiation. Oops. I'm playing a good character, and I won't kill an innocent person. So I tell the priest to shove it.

Woo hoo! They start screaming all around me, I have nothing but that accursed robe, but it's a big fight. This is why I love being a mage, having no equipment is a hindrance, but not a tragedy. I immediately summon a Zombie for a distraction, and start casting my most powerful spells at everyone who attacks me.

It's interesting how you face two distinct types of enemies. Guards and Acolytes. Acolytes are very easy to kill, 1 or max 2 spells, but have a good spell attack themselves. Guards are also very easy to kill, until the moment they cast their conjuring spells that give them equipment, when they become hard.

What saved me there was my Atronach sign - with all the bolts of lightning and everything shooting at me, I was absorbing enough magicka to keep going, shooting fire and casting a restore health spell now and then. It was a big fight but I killed everyone in the room except a few who were fleeing then.

Then I proceeded through the newly opened exit through living quarters, where I caught up with the lady priest who was fleeing. Blasted her with one more fireball and took her magic staff. From there, I just continued on, killing every acolyte and guard in the caves with my spells and new staff. I killed Harrow, who had all of my equipment, almost the last.

And there was this absolutely huge satisfaction, about me having wiped out an enemy base while being stripped of my equipment, woo hoo, go mages!

Assasins, I guess, also have a good method of handling the situation. Sacrifice the Argonian, kill the guy with your equipment to take it back, get out.

[Kassiopeia]

Haha.

Spoiler:

I didn't want to part with my uber armour and weapons and all my cash, so I just flat out refused when asked and started hacking away at everybody there and then.

I wonder if you can permanently join the Cult and suddenly turn to Daedric worship? Would you get a quest from Dagon to kill Martin? Hmmm.

[Silver14]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Some of the mods on the official forums seem very cool.

I'll probably pick up the UI mod, that shows more items on the screen.

I like that mod so far. All that scrolling down can get tedius.

Oblivion UI MOD

Heres the difference it makes for me:

No Mod



With Mod



It affects the world map size, the quest list, pretty much everything.

[Skanky Burns]

That is one mod I am certainly getting.

In a minute I'll post a before and after shot of a different sort.

[Dis]

damn, I can't believe I accidently picked up an item at an inn last night. I hate that. I wanted to talk to the inn keeper and accidently stole something right in front of her. I wish they would fix this. .

What's more annoying is they haul you off to some far away place. This is one time I'm happy for fast travel. I'd hate to travel all that way back on foot.