Oblivion:Efficient Leveling

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Efficient Leveling is a possible gameplay strategy that focuses on maximizing the attribute bonuses that you gain each time you level up. It includes both the "+5/+5/+5" strategy (obtaining +5 bonuses for each of three attributes) and the "+5/+5/+1" strategy (+5 bonuses for each of two attributes, and a +1 bonus for Luck).

Contents 1 What's wrong with leveling normally? 2 What is Efficient Leveling? 3 Why Level Efficiently? 4 Efficiently Wasting Skill Points 5 Getting +5 to Attributes 6 Leveling +5/+5/+5 vs +5/+5/+1 7 Avoiding Over Leveling 7.1 Overcoming the Leveling Problem 8 Class Design 9 Balancing Playing the Game with Training Skills 10 General Tips 11 See also

[edit] What's wrong with leveling normally?

When you level up, you may increase three attributes at a time. The more you increase an attribute's governed skills, the more attribute points you will gain when you level up. If you increase an attribute's governed skills by a total of:

• 0 skill increases, then you will get one point for picking that attribute
• 1-4 skill increases, then you will get two points for that attribute
• 5-7 skill increases, then you get three points for that attribute
• 8-9 skill increases, then you get four points
• 10+ skill increases, then you get five points for your selected attribute

If you level normally, you will typically only be able to increase your attributes by two or three points per level. This article describes how you can ensure that you receive the maximum attribute increases every level, i.e., five attribute points for each of three attributes each time you level up.

Obtaining maximum attribute increases throughout the game makes your character more powerful at every level. High attributes give your character more health, magicka, and fatigue; you can do more damage with weapons. The specific benefits of increasing each attribute are detailed on that attribute's page. Furthermore, late in the game, your major skills will all reach 100 at which point you will be unable to level up any further. If you level efficiently, all of your attributes will end up reaching the maximum values of 100; if you level normally, you will not be able to get all of your attributes to 100.

[edit] What is Efficient Leveling?

There are two key concepts to efficient leveling:

1. Raise attributes by +5 instead of lower bonuses
2. Don't raise skill points by more than is required (over leveling)

With efficient leveling it is possible to get a character with 100 in all attributes around level 36 or so (depending on your birth sign)

We call this style "efficient" because you do not "waste" anything:

• If you raise an attribute by 3 you have "wasted" the opportunity to raise it by 5
• If you gain more than 10 skill points related to one attribute you have "wasted" the opportunity to use those to raise other attributes
• If during leveling up you have more than 3 attribute multipliers of any kind (2 if you are leveling Luck), you have "wasted" those related skill points.

[edit] Why Level Efficiently?

Efficient leveling is not required to play, enjoy, or beat the game. People who enjoy efficient leveling do so because they feel that they are getting the most out of their character, or because it provides a needed edge on harder settings.

Efficient leveling generally requires "managing your skills". This means keeping track of your skill point gains, and "training" skills (for example picking locks for an hour straight). If this doesn't sound enjoyable to you, you probably won't enjoy efficient leveling.

[edit] Efficiently Wasting Skill Points

Please note that you can gain some skill points without using its modifiers and still level efficiently. The main focus of Efficient Leveling is getting two/three +5 attribute modifiers each level, not getting only two/three +5 modifiers with no unused modifiers on any other attributes. If you want to level efficiently take this in consideration or you will end up trying to raise only the required skills to get the +5 modifier, which is very hard to achieve and very game breaking.

The number of skill increases that you can safely "waste" can readily be calculated. You need 10 skill increases to get a +5 attribute bonus modifier. This means that if you start at level 1 with, let's say, 25 points in Strength you need at least 150 skill increases to get Strength to 100 efficiently (75 Strength bonuses are necessary to get from 25 to 100; with 10 skill increases for a +5 bonus, you need 75*10/5=150 skill increases). All attributes (except luck) have 3 associated skills. If those skills all start at level 25, you have 225 available skill increases associated with each attribute (75*3=225). Since you only need to reserve 150 skill increases for attribute bonuses, you have an extra 75 skill increases that you can "waste" without ruining your chances of leveling efficiently. In general, you will have more than 75 "wastable" skill increases: most attributes start at values larger than 25, and most skills start at values below 25.

This is great news, because you can, for instance, stop worrying about the uncontrollable leveling of Athletics, and rely on Acrobatics and Light Armor alone to raise your Speed attribute. (Disabling your jump button can ensure that you do not level Acrobatics accidentally).

The drawback of "wasting" skill points however, is that lower skills are easier to level up. If you've wasted a lot of points in Light Armor for example, you've lost the opportunity to quickly and easily level up Speed at lower levels. Waste your skill increases only when it can't be helped, or when the benefits outweigh the loss. Picking a locked chest in a dungeon for example--the treasure in there might come in handy and is worth the waste of one point of Security.

A good rule of thumb is, at any level, if any two of the skills governed by an attribute have lower values than that attribute, you can still level it efficiently.

[edit] Getting +5 to Attributes

When we raise an attribute we always want to get a +5 modifier. To do this, we need to have gained at least 10 skill points associated with this attribute. To avoid over leveling (see below) we want to avoid gaining 11 or more. Remember, any combination of major and minor skills can be used to total your 10 skill points for an attribute.

Once you gain your 10th major skill point you will receive a message indicating you need to rest to gain your level. Any skill gains after this point will have no effect on your attribute bonus and will, instead, affect the attribute bonuses that will come with the next experience level. Accordingly, the last skill point you gain to achieve your +5 multiplier should be a major skill. For example, if you are raising your endurance by training heavy armor and block, and heavy armor is a major skill, you should gain points in block first.

[edit] Leveling +5/+5/+5 vs +5/+5/+1

There are two major strategies for raising attributes efficiently.

The +5/+5/+5 strategy focuses on getting the highest attribute point gains possible each level increase. This will result in a more powerful character than other approaches, in the short term. This strategy is the fastest way to obtain a character with 100 in all attributes except luck. This approach requires that you gain 20 minor skill points, and 10 major skill points, in the three attributes you want to raise.

The +5/+5/+1 strategy focuses on raising Luck. The luck attribute is unique in that you can only raise it by at most 1 point per level. By raising luck every level, it is possible to get 100 luck by level 51 (46 with the +5 luck from a custom class primary attribute selection, 41 with the thief birthsign, 36 with both). The reasoning for this is that you need to gain 50 luck, which requires 50 level gains past level 1 resulting in level 51. However if you choose both the thief birthsign and the +5 luck, you will still only be able to max all your attributes by a minimum of level 40 due to the other stats maxing out after luck maxes out. This strategy is the fastest way to achieve a character with 100 in all attributes. This approach requires you gain 10 minor skill points, and 10 major skill points, in the two attributes you want to raise.

[edit] Avoiding Over Leveling

There are a few key concepts to avoiding over leveling:

• Decide in advance what attributes you want to raise this level.
• Avoid training skills unless they support the attribute you want to raise.
• Avoid gaining more than 10 points in skills that support each attribute.
• Create a new save file each time you level up in case you accidentally do over level.

When you level up if you notice that you have +2 or higher modifiers in attributes you are not raising, you have over leveled.

[edit] Overcoming the Leveling Problem

Choose your 7 major skills. It is strongly suggested that you choose at least one skill from each of the main skill-governing attributes: Strength, Endurance, Intelligence, Agility, Speed, and Willpower. Players who wish to increase Personality may also want to choose one personality-governed skill. Remember that Luck does not govern any skills.

(In the following examples bold skills indicate major skill choices for these examples.)

Example 1: +5 modifiers to Strength, Endurance and Intelligence on the next level up

Strength -----> Hand to Hand +3 levels / Blade +4 levels / Blunt +3 levels (3+4+3=10 skill levels resulting in a +5 modifier to Strength)

Endurance ----> Armorer +2 levels / Block +4 levels / Heavy Armor +4 levels (2+4+4=10 skill levels resulting in a +5 modifier to Endurance)

Intelligence -> Mysticism +5 levels / Conjuration +3 levels / Alchemy +2 levels (5+3+2=10 skill levels resulting in a +5 modifier to Intelligence)

• 5+3+2=10 major skills leveled.

• The key is to end your level up with a Major Skill increase, and you'll have a +5/+5/+5 level up. Example 2 illustrates the importance of this.

Example 2: Coming up short.

Strength -----> Hand to Hand +3 levels / Blade +4 levels / Blunt +3 levels (3+4+3=10 skill levels resulting in a +5 modifier to Strength)

Endurance ----> Armorer +2 levels / Block +4 levels / Heavy Armor +4 levels (2+4+4=10 skill levels resulting in a +5 modifier to Endurance)

Intelligence -> Mysticism +4 levels / Conjuration +3 levels / Alchemy +2 levels(3+2+4=9 skill levels, with only 1 more in Mysticism to go before the next level.)

• 3+2+4= 9 major skills leveled.

• In this example, we see that one more major skill level increase will result in a level up that looks, for the most part, like the setup in Example 1. But, if the skill level increases from the 3 major skills hits 10 before ALL the leveled skills for each attribute add up to 10, you will end up short of the requirements for a +5 modifier in one attribute and be stuck with a +5/+5/+4 level up.

Example 3: Checking your progress.

Strength -----> Hand to Hand +3 levels / Blade +2 levels / Blunt +1 level (3+2+1=6 skill levels +3 to Strength)

Endurance ----> Armorer +2 levels / Block +3 levels / Heavy Armor +2 levels (2+3+2=7 skill levels +3 to Endurance)

Intelligence -> Mysticism +4 levels / Conjuration +1 level / Alchemy +1 level (4+1+1=6 skill levels +3 to Intelligence)

• 3+2+4=9 major skills leveled, 1 more till level up.

• At this point, focus entirely on levelling your minor skills in each attribute until the goal of 10 is met. THEN level one of your major skills to hit the level up. This example illustrates the importance of checking your progress through each level to avoid falling short of the +5/+5/+5 level up requirements. The skill diary mod can be useful to keep track of where you are in any given level.

[edit] Class Design

It's a little easier to level efficiently with a custom class, though you can level efficiently with most classes:

• Choose major skills you will not level accidentally to avoid over leveling. For example, passive skills like athletics can go up when you least intend it. Skills like restoration you may need to use to get yourself out of a sticky situation. Ironically, you will have the most control over your leveling if your major skills are skills you don't depend on using regularly.
• Choose one major skill for each attribute. This will help ensure that regardless of what attribute you're raising, there is a corresponding major skill for you to level with.
• Luck is a good choice for one of your two favored attributes. Since you can only increase luck by at most 1 each level, this will help you reach 100 in all attributes 5 levels earlier.
• Endurance is a good choice for one of your two favored attributes. Your hit point gain each level is based on your endurance. For this reason, it's efficient to get your endurance to 100 as soon as possible to gain the most hit points. Having endurance as a class skill gets you there one level earlier. It also helps with extra hit points as you level since the +10% of Endurance to hit points are fixed and are not retroactive (although the base score of 2 x Endurance IS retroactive).
• If you want your character to reach the highest level possible, for maximum skill points and health, then you may wish to take major skills which do not receive a bonus from your race or focus. This is because starting these skills higher means that they can get fewer advancements in total. See here for more on maximum character level.

[edit] Balancing Playing the Game with Training Skills

You could spend all your time practicing skills and never play the game. It's possible to find a balance between the two.

Here's a good strategy that combines playing the game with efficient leveling:

• Keep track of your skill points whenever you level, so you always know what skills you've trained since you last leveled.
• When you're just about to level, stop adventuring, choose which attributes you want to raise and practice secondary skills until you have enough points for that delicious +5 bonus
• Finish off your last skill point to level
• Or, vice-versa. Train hard at the start of the level and then go adventuring for those major skill points.

This approach tends to lead to over leveling of skills, but is close to optimal, and lets you start "playing the game" right away.

[edit] General Tips

• Using a Character Creation Tool can be very helpful in selecting a solid character configuration and determining a full leveling plan to maximum your character's potency.
• The page on Increasing Skills provides tips on how to train skills in order to maximize your attribute bonuses.
• As you level up, opponents become more difficult to defeat. You should include combat skills in your leveling up strategy or you will find it difficult to defeat opponents when you are at higher levels, as they will be better at combat, while you will not be. Training Endurance-related skills helps to maximize your character's health.
• If you want to keep your enemies weak, you can continue raising your skills at level one without resting to level up. Alternately, you can naturally keep your enemies weak and not raise your level by focusing almost entirely on minor skills. In fact, you can have a power-house level 1 character, able to destroy anything that is encountered with a 100 skill in all minor skills and still be only 1st level. While counterintuitive, this kind of leveling will produce more powerful characters than focusing entirely on major skills. You will need a paper and pencil for this method of course, or you'll quickly lose track of which skills you've leveled already, and which ones you're working on now.
• If you write down all your skill values when you level you'll always be able to predict what your attribute bonus will be when you rest. The skill diary mod is useful if you lose track of where you are in any given level.
• Always train your minor skills first, and then work on the major skill you need for the level up. This prevents being forced to take +3 or +4 bonuses because you accidentally leveled up your tenth major skill before you intended to.
• Most skill increases are based on the number of times you use the skill, not on how great an effect it has. For example, repeatedly casting 5 pt spells has the same skill increase effect as casting the same number of 200 pt spells, therefore, train using low-cost spells so that you can cast them more times before having to recharge your magicka.
• Train "passive" skills like athletics and acrobatics on low levels, as you should use the advantage of being able to gain +5 to speed much easier than later on in the game, since two out of three skills for this attribute are trained more or less passively (and as a heavy armor-character you really don't want to wear light armor just because you missed to raise speed on earlier levels).
• If you have not maxed out an attribute, but you have maxed out the skills for it, (and are not playing as a lawful character) then you can allow yourself to be arrested and go to jail, which will lower your skills and give you another chance to raise those last few attributes higher.
• An easy way to check up on your skills is to use the console. First type in setdebugtext 10 and then toggle it on/off by entering tdt. The screen that is shown is fairly self-explanatory, and extremely useful.

[edit] See also

• Leveling
• Under Leveling
• Increasing Skills
• Increasing Attributes