Character Archetypes

Most of these character archetypes are just suggestions; one of the joys of Oblivion is making a custom character and seeing how they work. Generally speaking, these characters are designed to allow you to control the speed at which you level by shifting back and forth from your Major Skills to your Minor Skills as you play. In most cases, though, your primary damage-dealing skills will be Minor Skills, which will allow you to rank them up so that you can add five points to each of your primary attributes when you level up. See our Character Creation and Leveling Up section for more details on this theory - suffice to say it's not something that everyone will agree on. If you want your character to level up more quickly, then pack his or her Major Skills with things that you're going to be using all of the time. The benefit of quicker leveling is that you'll get better equipment and magical items more quickly; the drawback is that it'll take longer to maximize your attribute scores.

Thus, in our opinion, it's best to have a couple of Major Skills that you use constantly, a couple that are used with less frequency, and a couple that are rarely used at all. This will let you level up at a modest pace, but allow you to hopefully maximize the number of points that you put into your attributes when you do level up. If this all sounds complicated, then you're not alone: Oblivion's skill and leveling system is a bit intricate, and penalizes you somewhat for leveling up too quickly. If you level up fast, the enemies that you face will get tougher and tougher, and you won't be able to increase your attributes quickly enough to keep pace in most instances.

Anyway, there isn't a "perfect build" in Oblivion - there's only what you enjoy playing. On the flipside, it is possible to create a character that's spectacularly ill-suited to your play style, but with a little work you can make something that's enjoyable and powerful at the same time.

Note About Stealth Characters

There's nothing wrong with making a stealthy character from the outset of the game, but it's worth noting that it's far easier for a warrior or a mage to obtain a good degree of proficiency in Sneak and Security (arguably the two centerpiece skills of a good thief) later in the game than it is for a stealth-oriented character to suddenly decide to start throwing spells or going toe-to-toe with a two-handed weapon.

Even characters that have been straightforward warriors for most of the game can become excellent stealth characters later on.

This is mostly due to the fact that there are an awful lot of ways in the game to add to your Sneak skill (the Ring of Khajiiti, the Dark Brotherhood light armor and robes, vampirism) and Security skill (Skeleton Key), but also due to the fact that adapting to a stealth-oriented style of gameplay requires few equipment changes beyond the ones listed above for other types of characters. Warriors can continue to wear heavy armor while they sneak around, so long as they have the Ring of Khajiiti on, and will still have a good chance of remaining undetected. Obtaining the Skeleton Key makes any lock in the game surpassable by simply hitting the auto-attempt key over and over again, since it can't break.

So if you want to play as a thief or a stealthy assassin, feel free to do so, but keep in mind that your character might have a little more versatility if you start out as a warrior or mage and then shift over to sneaking around later on.

Fast-Leveling Mage

Race: Male High Elf
Birthsign: Mage (or Apprentice for extra dangerous action!)
Specialization: Magic
Favored Attributes: Intelligence, Willpower

Major Skills

• Illusion
• Destruction
• Conjuration
• Restoration
• Security
• Mercantile
• Alchemy

You're going to be leveling up rapidly with this build, especially if you play around with Alchemy too much. Alchemy, Conjuration, and Mysticism will all cause you to gain a bunch of Intelligence when you level up, but if you want to increase both Intelligence and Willpower, be sure to constantly cast low-level Restoration or Alteration spells on yourself. Alteration is left as a minor skill to ensure that you'll be able to increase it for the purposes of extra Willpower at level-ups; just cast some Novice-level Shield spell over and over again so that you gain a few levels in it between each level, and your skillups in Restoration and Destruction should be able to get you up the rest of the way.

Be careful with Alchemy here, as going to fast with it can cause you to level too quickly. You'll gain a bunch of Intelligence at each level-up here, but making too many potions in a short period of time will make it difficult to gain Willpower when you level-up. It's best to wait until you're two or three points away from leveling, then return to your storehouse, grab all of your ingredients from your storage chest, then make a bunch of potions until you level up.