Oblivion:Glitches

The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995

(Redirected from Oblivion:Cheats)
Jump to: navigation, search
This article may not conform to our site's higher standard of quality.
This is a heavily-edited article and it is not always possible to ensure changes are of the highest quality. Please bear this in mind when relying on information contained herein.
For more information, please see this article's talk page.

Oblivion

Every game has its share of glitches, and Oblivion isn't an exception. From ones that crash your game to the famed infinite money glitches, Oblivion has it all.

[ submit a glitch ]

Contents

Exploitable Glitches

Glitches that can result in a player advantage of some form.

Clear the Stolen Flag on Apparel

In addition to standard ways of clearing the stolen flag on items, there is a glitch that can be exploited for wearable items, as long as you have more than one of the item. In the case of Armor, all pieces should be fully repaired so they have identical statistics.

  • If you have one non-stolen and one stolen item, alternately equipping the two items repeatedly will clear the stolen flag.
  • If you have two stolen items, equipping one item makes the second one appear legitimate. Dropping this item, then dropping the other, still marked stolen, will clear the stolen flag on both.

Duplication Glitches

Duplicate Items Using Arrows

Note: This has been corrected by the Oblivion 1.2 patch.

This glitch allows the player to produce multiple copies of an item in their inventory. It works by bypassing the normal amount-detection when dropping items, thus making it possible to drop more of an item than the player actually possesses. Normally the game chooses the amount of items by either dropping a single one, if the player has less than three of it, or explicitly asking "How Many", if they have three or more. However, if one attempts to unequip an equipped stack of arrows at a time when this is not possible (in the middle of an attack), then the number of arrows will "stick" and dropping an item immediately afterwards will cause the game to drop exactly that amount of the item, even if the player possesses less.

Step-by-Step Guide

This assumes that you wish to duplicate a single item. Using the glitch on an entire stack of one item will work as well, but entails some complications; see below under "Exact Calculations".

  1. You need an instance of a droppable item (i.e. non-quest item) and a stack of arrows in your inventory.
  2. Equip the arrows.
  3. Perform an attack, such as:
    • Throwing a punch.
    • Swinging a blunt or blade weapon.
    • Firing a staff.
    • Casting a spell.
    • Drawing an arrow on a bow.
  4. While the attack is still in motion, quickly enter the journal.
  5. Attempt to unequip the arrows (not drop, unequip). You should get a message that "You cannot change weapons while attacking". (Otherwise go back to Step 2 and try again.)
  6. Drop the item you wish to duplicate from your inventory.
  7. Either leave the journal or repeat steps 5 and 6 for other items you wish to duplicate.

Once you leave the journal, as many duplicates of the item will be dropped into the world as there are arrows in the equipped stack.

Exact Calculations

If this glitch is used on a stack of items, things become slightly more complex. The game will still drop as many items into the world as there are equipped arrows, but they will be grouped in stacks and, depending on the circumstances, a smaller stack may remain in the inventory.

Most of the stacks will contain as many copies of the item as were in the player's inventory (including any equipped copy), but unless the amount of arrows was an exact multiple of that number, the last stack dropped will contain a smaller number, namely the remainder needed to fill the exact number of arrows. The content of the last stack, whether it is smaller or identical to the others, is what will be removed from the player's inventory. Thus the process in the Step-by-Step Guide is really a special case with stacks of size 1.

If the last stack is not a smaller remainder, all copies of the item will be removed from the player's inventory immediately, even if one of the is equipped at the time and should be unequipped first. This can be exploited as well, to gain permanent effects from enchanted items.

Examples:

Amount of arrows equipped: 50
Items in Inventory: 60 Daedra hearts
Items dropped: 1 × 50 Daedra hearts
Left in Inventory: 10 Daedra hearts (=60-50)
(Note that no duplication takes place. This is the same as dropping an item normally and answering "50" to the question "How Many".)

Arrows: 50
Items: 1 Ring of Perfection
Dropped: 50 × 1 Ring of Perfection
Left: nothing (=1-1)

Arrows: 50
Items: 10 potions
Dropped: 5 × 10 potions
Left: nothing (=10-10)

Arrows: 50
Items: 6 Hammers
Dropped: 8 × 6 Hammers + 1 × 2 Hammers (=50)
Left: 4 Hammers (=6-2)

Notes
  • Instead of trying to unequip the arrows, you can also attempt to equip a different stack of arrows, which has the same effect.
  • Weapons and Armor need to be at 100% health or less to be duplicated. Items at 125% health (i.e. items repaired after you have the expert level Armorer perk) will not duplicate. One way to reduce an item's health to exactly 100% is to ask a smith to repair all of your equipment for you (using the "Repair All" option): even items at 125% health will be "repaired" to 100% health.
  • A video of this trick is available.
  • If the quantity of cloned items is very large (over 100) the game is very likely to freeze and not recover. It is safer to use a smaller number of arrows and simply repeat the cloning multiple times - or duplicate a stack, as described under "Exact Calculations".
  • Good items to clone are those that are expensive but lightweight. Examples: Varla Stones (1000 gold, weight 1), Poisoned Apples (300 gold, weight 0), filled Grand Soul Gems (500 gold, weight 0.5).
  • Duplicating a lot of Sigil Stones may cause massive lag. (Because they flash and glow, so a lot of them at once will make the game lag a lot.) Also when you drop them inside they tend to disappear.
  • Lockpicks will also cause the game to lag. Duplicating just 10 makes the game skip a few frames. Try to duplicate Lockpicks in stacks for best results.
  • Black Soul Gems have a unique reaction to the duplication trick. When you duplicate them, they tend to flip out and take off, bouncing off what they hit; try this indoors.
  • This trick can be used to duplicate paint brushes, which can be later used with the floating paint brushes glitch.
  • Cloning will only work with some enchanted items. Enchanted rings that have been cloned include the Ring of Khajiiti, the Ring of Sunfire, and the Jewel of the Rumare
  • Items that can not be cloned include Nirnroot.
  • Sometimes if an item will not clone, sell it to a shop, buy it back again then try again. This usually works.

Duplicate Items Using Scrolls

This duplication glitch will still work even after installing the version 1.2 patch (or on the PS3 version, which comes with the version 1.2 patch installed).

  1. Acquire two or more copies of the same scroll. The number of identical scrolls that you have will determine the number of duplicate items you create.
  2. Open your inventory.
  3. Highlight the stack of scrolls and select them once.
  4. Highlight (but do not equip) an item (either single or a stack) that you wish to duplicate, and drop it.
  5. Close your inventory and on the floor will be multiple copies of the item that you dropped.

Acquiring a large number of identical scrolls can be difficult. However, as long as you can find two identical scrolls to start with, you can initially use the exploit repeatedly to duplicate scrolls. Once you have a large number of duplicated scrolls, you can then start duplicating other items.

If you try to duplicate a stack of items, duplication works as detailed above for duplicating with arrows. In other words, duplication of stacks of items works best if the number of scrolls is an exact multiple of the number of to-be-duplicated items in your stack. So 33 scrolls can be used to duplicate 11 rings (creating 3 "items" on the ground, each containing a stack of 11 rings). Or 1000 scrolls can be used to duplicate 100 potions (creating 10 "items" on the ground, each with 100 potions). Using stacks can be much more effective when duplicating large numbers of items, in particular because it reduces the number of individual items on the ground, preventing game lag problems.

Most of the notes provided above for duplication with arrows also apply to duplication with scrolls.

Duplicate Items using the Skull of Corruption

Items can be duplicated if you possess both the Skull of Corruption and either the Staff of Worms or the Risen Flesh Greater Power (a reward for the Shivering Isles quest Ghosts of the Hill of Suicides). This technique may require multiple tries, because multiple steps need to be completed in the time before the reanimation effect expires:

  1. Place the item you wish to duplicate onto the corpse of a dead NPC.
  2. Reanimate the corpse using the Staff of Worms or the power.
  3. Use the Skull of Corruption on the reanimated body and kill the corrupt copy before the original person dies.
  4. Immediatly save and reload.
  5. As soon as you reload, access the clone's inventory to retrieve your items.
  • WARNING: In the clone's inventory, there may be items indentified as "<missing name>". Do not, under any circumstances take these items. They serve no purpose, and dropping them will cause your game to crash.
  • Any items you duplicate this way will lose their scripts. Examples include the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal, which will not turn you into the Gray Fox, and the Crusader's Relics, which can be worn regardless of Infamy (however wearing them will not grant you the powers and abilities that it normally does).
  • If you duplicate Nirnroot this way, the copies will not stack with the originals, making it possible to create a potion with all four effects of Nirnroot. The copied Nirnroot will also not be taken by Sinderion during the Seeking Your Roots quest.
  • This trick will duplicate all items except for Umbra, the Oghma Infinium, Wabbajack, and the Skull of Corruption.

Easy Arena Win

It is possible to fall through the wall in the arena, which prevents your opponent from being able to damage you, but still allows you to attack him. From the opening of the entry tunnel (e.g., where the gate drops at the beginning of a match), look back down the tunnel. On your left, between the rim of the tunnel and the wall, you should see a slight bank in the wall. First jump backwards into the wall so you are standing on the slant, facing the gate. Repeatedly jump forcing yourself back against the wall and as you do this turn to face the slant making sure you stay on top of it. You will now fall through the wall. As you fall through the wall you should notice a ledge that sticks out of the normal game boundaries right where the stairs up the tunnel start. Try to land on this ledge. Don’t worry if you miss the first couple of tries, you will simply spawn back in the arena with no damage.

Once you are on the ledge your opponent will walk down the tunnel and try to hit you but won't be able to through the wall and will repeatedly run into it. You on the other hand will be able to hit your opponent through the wall using either your sword, magic or arrows. Once you have disposed of the enemy simply drop off the edge and spawn back in the arena.

This appears to be the only wall in the arena where you can do this (the other three slanted walls by the tunnels don't work.)

Frostcrag Spire Glitch

If you have purchased the Wizard's Tower official plug-in, this exploit allows you to access a test cell that contains valuable loot. The interior test cell is identified in the construction set as TestBrumaHouseMid; if you are on the PC, this cell can be accessed much more easily using console commands. This exploit allows Xbox 360 users to access the cell. This glitch has also been referred to as the "Wizards Tower Glitch" and "Access BrumaTesterHouse-Mid and Wilderness Glitch".

Before starting, you probably want to maximize your character's carrying ability: minimize the amount of extra equipment you are carrying, and gather as many Feather or Fortify Strength potions, enchantments, or spells as possible. The procedure is:

  1. Head to Frostcrag Spire,and clear out all of your stuff from the storage area. Once this is deleted, the items can not be recovered. Create a save while your character is standing in the Living Area of the tower; standing in the section of the Alchemy garden with oblivion plants (bloodgrass, harrada) has been found to be the most reliable location.
  2. Delete the plugin file. To do this on Xbox 360, go to the system blade in the dashboard, open the memory menu, then delete or move the Wizard's Tower file (you will be able to download it again for free later).
  3. Load up the saved game, ignoring the warning about missing content.
  4. You will find yourself in the TesterBrumaHouseMid area. If your original save was in the correct spot, you can skip the following step. Otherwise you will find yourself falling and unable to easily move. You want to move yourself towards the fire that can be seen to the south.
    • This step can be tricky. It has been reported that turning towards the fire, drawing a sword, and swinging while trying to move in the direction of the fire will cause you to move towards it.
  5. Wait for the game to drop you outside the level (which will teleport you to the house). This house has the same layout as typical Bruma houses, for example Arnora Auria's or Helvius Cecia's house.
  6. Head out the door and you will find yourself looking at a circle of houses around one of the Bruma fires. Most of these houses you cannot enter, but there are 3 you can, the one you came through, and the other one labeled the same (except with a trespassing red sign). The third house leads you to an unlit Sigillum Sanguis.
  7. Enter the third house. Equip a Torch or cast a Nighteye spell and make your way up to the Sigil Stone. This is the tricky part, to get the Sigil Stone, you must jump out to it and activate it, but be careful, the drop hurts. The recoil and damage from the jump can be avoided if you enter the door right before hitting the ground.
  8. When you activate it, you hear the familiar sounds but no animation of activating a Sigil Stone. When it gives you the Sigil Stone, check your inventory, you'll see every type of Sigil Stone available at your level (i.e., a level 17+ character will receive one copy of each transcendent Sigil Stone).
    • You will gain one Fame point for each Sigil Stone added to your inventory.
    • Repeatedly entering and exiting the house will cause more and more Sigil Stones to be added to your inventory; you are only limited by your carrying capacity.
  9. Cast feather spells or potions to be able to move, because you are probably over encumbered.
  10. Outside, near the rock and the Bruma Fire, there is an Enchanted Mace, Mace of Doom. It only weighs 5, but carries a huge charge and a devastating fire spell.

See Exterior Test Cells for more information on what can be found in this test world. When you are finished here, fast travel to anywhere.

Once you are finished, re-download the plugin and put all your stuff back. Note that if you load a savegame where you had items stored in the tower before re-downloading the plugin the items in the tower will be removed from that savegame forever if you then save over it.

Infinite Money Glitches

Glitches which you can use to get infinite amounts of gold.

Infinite Money - Dorian

Note: This has been corrected by the Oblivion 1.1.511 patch.

This glitch specifically occurs with the NPC Dorian, who lives in the Talos Plaza District in the Imperial City. If you kill him, you can repeatedly loot his corpse for gold, and the gold never disappears from his body. You can keep doing this until eventually after a few days his body disappears. (If you clear the hard drive cache on the Xbox, by holding A as the game boots, his body will no longer be there). When collecting the gold, do not select "Take All" or the game may freeze.

The amount of gold that he initially has is random. To increase the amount of gold on his corpse, you can spend time bribing him before killing him. Repeatedly bribe him until his disposition has reached its maximum. To add even more gold, attack him then yield, and start over again.

If you are a stealth-oriented character or are just quick with a blade, weapon or spell, you can quickly kill Dorian without alerting the guards. If you are not able to kill him quickly, it is best to first corner him so he can not run away. A good place to do this is the upstairs room in his house. First unlock and open the upstairs doors, then go back downstairs, find Dorian, and hit him once. With him chasing you, run upstairs to his room, close the door, and stand in front of it so he can not run away. Kill him and loot his corpse for the gold. By this time, the guards will have been alerted, so be sure to drop any stolen goods you are carrying before the Imperial Officer shows up. Choose to pay your bounty, using the gold you just looted from Dorian. Once you've finished settling the tab, return to Dorian's house, retrieve your stolen goods, and start looting Dorian's gold.

The post-patch version of this glitch has two different methods. The first method is to paralyze Dorian and loot his body while he is paralyzed. The second method is to damage his fatigue until he falls down; you can then loot his body.

Infinite Money - Kvatch

Note: This has been corrected by the Oblivion 1.1.511 patch.

This exploit allows you to sell a weapon repeatedly to a merchant, receiving gold each time but without giving up the weapon. To do it you must first equip any weapon (you actually have to have it equipped so you can see it) and then mount a horse. Go to Kvatch and talk to Batul gra-Sharob, the female Orc merchant found outside there, without dismounting from your horse. (The other Kvatch merchant, Sigrid, will only work for this if your mercantile skill is 50.) Sell the merchant the weapon that you previously equipped. A message saying "this item cannot be unequipped" will come up but you will still get the gold for it. Rinse and repeat! The merchants have 200 gold each but if you are a master mercantile you can get 700 or 1200 if you invest on the shop. This only works with weapons, and you must be on a horse.

Infinite Money - Vampirism

Note: This has been corrected by the Oblivion 1.1.511 patch.

At the end of the Vampire Cure quest, Janus Hassildor gives you a cash reward. However, the Reward topic does not disappear, and you can repeatedly talk to him about a reward; he will give you more gold each time. This glitch occurs whether you have already used your own vampire cure potion or not. The amount of the cash reward is level-dependent, see Reward; the reward amount can change if you level up after completing the quest.

Permanent Bound Items

Bound items are zero-weight items of daedric quality. Several glitches exist that can be used to create permanent versions of various bound items. These permanent items are particularly useful because zero-weight items can be placed into an NPC's inventory using reverse pickpocketing. Most NPCs will then equip the item, even if they already have a similar item equipped (because daedric items are considered to be better quality than most other items). Note that NPCs cannot equip themselves with weapons/armor that's been repaired over 100% (if you are careful, you can actually stop at 103%) so you would need to create a custom spell to disintegrate weapon/armor on SELF to lower the rating to or below 100%.

Unlike other so called "Zero-weight" items e.g. Quest item Umbra etc, these bound weapons actually weigh nothing thus, you could swing a bound Claymore as fast as you can and only fatigue you will use is from your movement; running, jumping etc. (Tested with all skills and attributes maxed at 100; while carrying no other items or armor, it did not consume fatigue at all whatsoever.) Since one could create as many bound weapons as he/she would like; they can also be used as if they were "one time use" enchanted weapons. e.g. Carrying 10 bound swords with same enchanted effect without ever soultrapping to recharge them. One should note that however, doing so takes the fun out of the game; of finding the ideal weapon (weight/damage) based on your character.

During the Dark Brotherhood Quests, some targets that wear armor and a helm can be assassinated using this bound armor cheat (When a zero weight Mages hood with damage health 5 points cannot be used). Also giving the enemy an enchanted weapon with Chameleon can be used to help you flee the scene.

Unlike zero weight quest items however, being jailed while being equipped with them will not leave you with its enchantments bound.

Another important factor to consider when using the bound weapon/armor glitch is that no matter what you use to enchant them with, their cost will always remain zero. e.g. Bound sword enchanted with transcendent sigil stones that should have a value of at least 7000; the moment you sell/give it to a merchant, the item disappears. (you cannot buy them back.)

Repair Method

Cast a Bound Armor spell, let the armor get damaged, and then repair it. (If you are expert level in Armorer there is no need to damage the armor; just immediately repair to over 101%.) After repair, the bound items can be removed from your inventory. Drop them on the ground and wait for the spell timer to expire or cast Dispel on yourself. You now have permanent bound items. This works for Bound Weapons as well.

Runestone Method

Runestones will provide you with a bound weapon and a bound piece of armor. Before activating the runestone, cast a Bound Weapon spell and/or cast a Bound Armor spell on yourself (for armor it must be the same type of armor as that provided by the runestone). When you activate the runestone, you will end up with duplicate bound items. Drop the unequipped bound items on the ground and wait for the spell timer to expire, then pick them back up.

Spell Method

If you know two different Bound Weapon effects, you can make a custom spell that combines the two effects, so that when you cast the spell, you are simultaneously equipped with two different bound weapons. The spell duration can be very short (5 seconds or less). Cast the spell on yourself, at which point the game will try to equip the weapons in alphabetical order; the effect that is second in order will fail. Therefore, the first bound weapon will end up in your hand and the second one will be in your inventory. Before the spell expires, enter your inventory and drop the second weapon. Once the spell expires, pick it back up.

Permanent Enchantments

The enchantments associated with certain magic items can end up being permanently bestowed upon your character, even after the item has been unequipped. Using the glitches detailed here, the effect is truly permanent: there is no way other than Console commands to get rid of it. There may be undesired side effects from having permanent effects.

Using these glitches with Chameleon, Light, Night-Eye, and Detect Life enchantments is not recommended.

Permanent Effects from Quest Items

When any quest items (i.e., items that normally cannot be dropped from your inventory) that are equipped are forcibly removed from your inventory, the game removes the item but does not remove the item's magical effects. Therefore, you end up with a permanent magical effect. This will work with any enchanted quest item. Items that are recommended include:

The Gray Cowl of Nocturnal can also be exploited in the same manner, but this is not recommended (you will end up with the Gray Fox's bounty and Infamy permanently).

When you have the item equipped, you then need to complete any one of the following actions. In each of these cases, the item is removed from your inventory:

When the quest items are later returned, they cannot be equipped ("You cannot equip this enchanted item right now.") or dropped ("You cannot remove Quest items from your inventory."), but their effects remain.

The same bug can occur on the Bands of the Chosen from Paradise if you cast a Bound Gauntlets spell. You will be stuck with the 50% Weakness to Fire and cannot open the sealed door.

Permanent Effects from Duplicated Items

The same glitch will occur with any enchanted item if you use one of the duplication glitches.

  1. Duplicate two identical copies of the enchanted item.
  2. Equip one, then try to duplicate the non-equipped one.
  3. The duplication will forcibly remove the equipped copy of the item, too, and you will be left with the item's enchantment as a permanent effect.

This can be done with multiple different enchanted items, as long as each item has a different name.

Pickpocket Unconscious Essential NPCs

When an Essential NPC is knocked unconscious, if you click on their body quickly, the moment they regain consciousness, you have access to their inventory (pickpocket). You can pickpocket any un-equipped item, or place zero-weight items there. They never "catch" you, although you may get a bounty for other reasons. You can exploit this by placing enchanted zero-weight items to assist them later, or take something that they might normally catch you taking. You can also pickpocket them this way, even if you've already been "caught" pickpocketing them that day already. It doesn't matter if you knock them out yourself, or if they're knocked out by some other means.

Permanently Clone Yourself

Using the Skull of Corruption it is possible to create a permanent clone of yourself. Clones usually disappear after the 30 second time limit but there is a way to make a clone of yourself last forever.

  1. Go to a cave that you do not mind never entering again with the Skull. This cave should have an NPC near the start. Capstone Cave, west of Bruma is ideal.
  2. Kill all NPCs in the cave except for the NPC at the start. The NPC at the start should not detect you as you do this. 100% Chameleon is greatly helpful.
  3. Move all the dropped weapons into containers, onto the bodies, or just hang on to them.
  4. Drop the Skull by the NPC at the start and initiate combat.
  5. Disarm or disintegrate his weapon. Having no other choice, he should pick up the Skull and blast you with it. (If the NPC is casting spells at you rather than picking up the Skull, simply Silence him.)
  6. Kill the NPC quickly.
  7. Pick up and drop the Skull. The reason for this is to ensure that the skull does not get cleared out when the cave respawns.
  8. Run out of the cave. Your clone should follow you out. When he does, he will be permanent until you re-enter the cave.
  • Because you cannot re-enter the cave, you cannot have your clone and the Skull of Corruption at the same time.
  • You are free to kill your clone and his body will not disappear. This makes him the ideal warrior to lead around with the Staff of Worms.
  • If you want to loot your clone, simply save and reload in the same area as him.
  • There is another method if you have access to a spellmaker and have high level Mysticism.
    1. Create a spell that has 100% Reflect Spell on touch.
    2. Go to a cave with a killable follower.
    3. Clear out the cave and move all weapons to the dead bodies.
    4. Tell your follower to wait a as far as he can from the door while still keeping it in sight.
    5. Cast your reflect spell on him.
    6. Back up to the door and fire the Skull of Corruption at him.
    7. Drop the Skull of Corruption before the blast hits your follower.
    8. Kill your follower.
    9. Run out of the cave before the Corruption effect wears off.

Problematic Glitches

Significant problems that can affect game play but not result in a player advantage.

Ahdarji's Heirloom glitch

There are several major glitches during the Ahdarji's Heirloom quests. One of the more significant is triggered if you have previously completed Sanguine's daedric quest. See the quest's bug description for more details and possible fixes.

Caught in the Hunt Glitch

Note: This has been corrected by the Oblivion 1.1.511 patch.

There is a major glitch during the Caught in the Hunt quest which can cause your game to freeze. See the quest page for details.

Clavicus Vile Glitch

Note: This has been corrected by the Oblivion 1.1.511 patch.

There is a major glitch during Clavicus Vile's Daedric quest that causes the game to crash when you try to finish the quest. See the quest page for details.

Lost Quest Items

Most items that are critical for completing quests are tagged as quest items and therefore remain permanently in your inventory: you cannot drop them, put them in a chest, or sell them. However, there are a couple known ways to lose quest items.

  • If you go to jail and break out of jail, quest items are not returned to you when you open the Evidence Chest. You can recover any quest items by going to jail again and this time serving your sentence.
  • Falcar's Black Soul Gems for the Cheydinhal Recommendation quest can be used as regular grand soul gems. If filled with a soul, they can be used to create an enchanted item or recharge a weapon, at which point they will disappear. See the quest page for more details on this bug.

Unexpected Voyage Crash

The game will crash if you do the quest An Unexpected Voyage while The Elven Maiden quest is also active. See the quest page for details.

The Ultimate Heist

At the end of the The Ultimate Heist quest, it is possible to become permanently stuck in "cutscene mode" after watching the countess of Anvil and the Gray Fox conversation, if you have the wrong Thieves Guild rank when you do this quest.

You will end up with the wrong guild rank if you complete any other Thieves Guild advancement quests between the Arrow of Extrication quest and the end of the Ultimate Heist. This is only possible if you trigger a glitch that allows you to do the Thieves Guild quests out of order, in particular by exploring the Temple of The Ancestor Moths prior to starting the quest Turning a Blind Eye.

See the quest page for details.

Minor Glitches

Minor problems that do not affect gameplay to a great deal.

Drink More than Four Potions

It is possible to drink more than four potions at once, if the potions have a Drain effect (i.e., Ale, Cheap Wine, Mead):

  1. From your inventory, drink four Drain potions.
  2. Quickly close your journal and reopen it.
  3. Drink up to four more Drain potions.

The key to this exploit seems to be the message that appears on your screen when you drink a potion with a Drain effect (e.g., 'Your personality is being drained'); until that message disappears the game does not fully register that the potions have been drunk. As long as you re-enter the inventory before the message disappears, you can drink more potions. All the potions do take effect: all are listed on the active effects page, and attributes are correctly altered. It is possible to have some of the potions be normal (useful, non-drain) potions, but so far no way has been found to use this exploit to drink more than four normal potions at once.

A different glitch can appear if you create a potion with more than one effect. When the effect with the shortest duration runs out, you can drink another potion, even though the other effects from that potion remain effective. With sufficiently good alchemy apparatus, a 1 second duration "poison" effect such as Burden can be added to most potions, enabling new potions to be consumed after just one second but without causing any permanent damage.

Floating Paint Brushes

Paint brushes will float in the place where you drop them. If you collect enough, you will be able to jump on them and use them to scale walls, towers and reach high places. Note that this trick can be used to "Escape from" or "Get into" places you're not supposed to, much like the "Accessing Places" section below. With enough paint brushes and enough patience, you can presumably escape from or get into any place where there's open sky above you.

  • PC Only This bug is fixed by the Unofficial Oblivion Patch.
  • On the GOTY edition for PS3, this glitch has been corrected. [verification needed -- Why would this minor issue be different on PS3 than other platforms?]

The same effect has occasionally been known to happen with other items.

Paintbrush Jars

A paintbrush jar placed on its side behaves strangely. If you put one down normally and tilt it so that the top rim is touching the surface upon which the jar is resting, the jar starts a never-ending pendulum-type motion (it only stops if you leave the cell). It is nearly impossible to place jars upside down.

Permeable Walls

In many places it is possible to walk through walls or fall through cracks between floor and wall. Often you will fall until reaching the bottom of the cell at which point you will suddenly reappear in your previous position. In some cases however you will remain at the base of the cell unable to return. The only fix is to reload an earlier game. This can also affect objects; in particular, staves are often observed to fall through floors.

When that happens, if you're using a PC, use the Console command tcl to remove all movement restrictions and get out of that location or grab the item that fell through the crack. After you are on safe terrain again, use tcl again to restore normal movement.

Skill Level is Frozen

Note: This has been corrected by the Oblivion 1.1.511 patch.

There is a glitch with Free Skill Boosts that causes the skill that received the boost to become temporarily frozen at the new, boosted level. This glitch is most obvious with large skill boosts (e.g., from reading the Oghma Infinium, completing the A Shadow Over Hackdirt quest, or from watching Branwen and Saliith train in the Arena District). The progress bar next to the skill level is stuck at zero, even when the skill is used repeatedly. Eventually, the skill will start to go up again, but it can take quite a while. More details on this bug are provided on the Free Skill Boosts page.

Graphical/Display Glitches

Minor problems that primarily consist of items being displayed incorrectly.

Broken Candles

Xbox 360 photo of some broken candles
Xbox 360 photo of some broken candles

Installing any of the 1.2.xxx patches introduces a graphical glitch when displaying certain candlesticks. The candlesticks will appear as large gold-yellow triangles containing a gray-black exclamation point (only part of the exclamation point may be visible). The glitch does not directly alter gameplay other than being annoying and making it difficult to see.

The specific item that triggers this glitch is a candlestick identified as CandlestickFloor01DarkFake. The mesh file for the candlestick has an incorrect path. Prior to the 1.2.xxx patch, the game engine would look in the general Clutter path for any missing mesh files and would find it there; with the patch, the game no longer searches to find the missing file and instead displays its error symbol, namely a yellow diamond with a black exclamation point. This one type of candlestick is the only object in unmodified Oblivion that has this problem. Other than test areas only accessible with Console commands, the only problem candlesticks that can be found are: four in Eugal Belette's basement in Chorrol, two in Fort Hastrel, one in Fort Roebeck and two in Fort Redman.

Bethesda Softworks silently patched this bug in Shivering Isles (which replaces the master file Oblivion.esm) by deleting the entire CandlestickFloor01DarkFake object definition and all reference instances of it in the gameworld (strangely, instead of simply correcting the mesh file path.)

On the Xbox 360 and PS3 there is no way to fix to this glitch, other than by installing Shivering Isles.

Floating Landscape

There are many rocks or plants that seem to float above the ground or mushrooms that float a little way from their tree. Several hundred of these are fixed by the Unofficial Oblivion Patch.

Items Disappearing from Containers

Sometimes items appear to disappear from containers if you have already put a lot of items into that container. This is merely a display bug, however: if you start removing other items from the container the missing item(s) will reappear. Also, if you "Take All" items the missing items will still be added to your inventory. Saving the game while in the same zone as the container then reloading the save will often make all the missing items reappear; leaving the room, or looking in other containers after reloading, will break the container again.

This glitch seems to be caused by an error in the recorded number of items stored in the container. It looks like that number sometimes becomes less than the actual number of items stored. This causes the most recently added items to not be listed in the container's inventory. Often, if you add another item to the container, a previous missing one will appear, but instead the new item disappears.

Storing items that you will not be using at equal to or less than 100% health will reduce the likelihood of items disappearing. Armor repaired to 125 can quickly fill up a container.

Night Sky Underwater

In several of the deeper rivers and lakes, especially around Bravil, it is possible to look up and see the night sky when underwater.

Rain Through Roofs

Rain will fall through covered areas outdoors as if the cover was not there. This renders pointless some of the beggars' AI that causes them to stand under shelter when the weather is wet.

See Clearly Underwater

Swimming with one's head just underwater results in a perfectly clear view of the terrain beneath the water level instead of the usual murk.

Spasm Glitch

Various items in the game can become stretched and highly distorted, at which point the items may begin violently shaking and twisting. Some of these occurrences are random, but it is also possible to intentionally trigger this behavior:

  • Drag a body into an open doorway, then close the door. Single doors can cause moderate spasms; double doors are more likely to stretch the body and produce more extreme behavior. The door must be one that swings open and closed, not a loading door.
  • Attack an NPC as he/she is passing through a loading door. After the NPC activates the door, his/her body starts to fade. At that moment, cast a Paralyze spell (or attack with a weapon with a Paralyze enchantment), then kill the paralyzed NPC. The corpse will melt on the ground and can be stretched great distances.

Audio Glitches

Any glitches with the dialogue in the game

Let me do that one again

After completing the Thieves Guild quest Misdirection, asking about rumors will cause some female elven NPCs to say "wait a minute let me do that one again" between two renditions of "I heard that thieves broke into the Arcane University, the Imperial Legion Compound, and the Temple, all on the same night!". Evidently the audio was not edited correctly. Affected NPCs include Thamriel and Palonirya — specifically all female elves who are members of the Imperial City faction but are not beggars or in the Thieves Guild. [1] [2]

Repeated Dialogue

Following the quest A Rat Problem, one of Quill-Weave's possible greetings is:

What do you want, you... you... rat?

The audio restarts after the second "you" and replays an identical recording of the dialogue.

Spriggan Dialogue

Spriggans. "Nature's guardians" my foot! Mean things. They'll curse you, or they might call a bear to tear you apart.

When a male Redguard delivers this line, he stumbles slightly at "bear" and then repeats the whole line.

Inconsistencies

Minor problems that primarily consist of inconsistencies, i.e. facts that are incorrect or in disagreement with each other.

False Information about Recharging Items

The book Arcana Restored can be found in various places, for example, Southern Books in Leyawiin. It states that it is possible to recharge magical items at Mana Fountains if you have the book and a gold nugget in your inventory. However, this does not work in Oblivion. This book is a carryover from Battlespire and Morrowind, but the associated scripts were not carried over into Oblivion.

Redwave is not Leveled

The Redwave sword that you receive for completing The Ghost Ship of Anvil quest has seven different versions; the version you receive depends on your level when you complete the quest. The uniqueness of this sword, however, is that every version of Redwave has the same statistics.

Worthless Fortify Alchemy Enchantments

Several unique items claim to have a Fortify Alchemy effect. However, this effect does not have any advantages since the potions that the player makes while wearing these items have the same potency as they would if you were not wearing them. The effect does arguably provide a disadvantage to the player, because leveling your player's alchemy skill becomes more difficult.

With the Wizard's Tower official plug-in, there is a structure called the "Altar of Alchemy" which provides a +15 Fortify Alchemy effect that does work. However, other Fortify Alchemy effects remain ineffective.

Accessing Places

Minor problems that primarily involve getting into or out of places that you normally should or should not be able to get into.

Climbing Into Cities

From atop a Wilderness hilltop, cities can be seen to contain homes, shops, churches and castles. By climbing over the wall into the city these can be discovered to be low-resolution props. The walls of homes and shops can be passed through, and buildings, doors, and gates are transparent from within. A good place to try this is to enter Cheydinhal from its southwest corner, where a hill rises nearly to the height of the walls. Two levels of paintbrushes are all that is required to gain the battlements and access the interior of the city.

Climbing out of Cities

In the same way it is possible to enter cities without using the gate, it is possible to exit them. It is even possible to do this without the Floating Paint Brushes glitch.

Anvil

  1. Jump on the roof of the Abandoned House.
  2. Jump onto the roof of Silgor Brodus' House.
  3. Follow the chain of roofs: Pinarus Inventius' House then Newheim the Portly's.
  4. Jump out of the city

Bruma

  1. Climb onto the roof of Olav's Tap and Tack.
  2. From there jump along the roofs over the houses of Brotch Calus, J'Ghasta, and Helvius Cecias.
  3. From the the chimney of Helvius Cecias' house you can jump onto the battlements.
  4. From the battlements you can then either walk about a bit, or jump out of the city

Cheydinhal

  1. Get onto the balcony outside Riverview.
  2. Jump on the railing around the balcony and then onto the roof.
  3. Jump out of the city

Chorrol

  1. Jump on the low rock wall on the north side of the Fighters Guild.
  2. Jump onto the wooden target then the overhang and the main roof.
  3. From the chimney, jump onto the roof of the Mages Guild.
  4. Get as close as possible to the chapel and jump onto it.
  5. Head around to the north side of the chapel then jump onto the city wall and out.

Leyawiin

  1. Get onto the short wall to the east of the Five Claws Lodge.
  2. Jump onto the low roof of the lodge then get to the highest point.
  3. Jump onto the city wall and out.

Entering the Imperial City Invasion Prior to Light the Dragonfires

By using enough paint brushes with the Floating Paint Brushes glitch, you can climb onto the rooftops around the Temple of the One (or onto the temple itself) in the Imperial City, and jump onto the temple (you will fall through the roof). Do not go through the main door when you are inside. Instead, you will find a door that is partly underground a few steps ahead of it; go into that one. You will find yourself in the invasion of the Imperial City that occurs during Light the Dragonfires. There is no use for this glitch, as none of the quest NPCs are with you, not even Mehrunes Dagon is there. Also, it is impossible to escape the Temple District and you cannot go back to where you came from, so it is highly recommended that you save before attempting this glitch. On the Xbox 360, during the Kvatch quest where Martin follows you, this can be used to get the main quest achievement very early but it is not wise to save afterward as it blocks the rest of the main quest achievements for that player.

Non-Glitches

These are things that look like glitches but aren't.

Loot Bags

A loot bag will appear in a cell when too many items are dropped on the ground in order to prevent the game from crashing due to the number of item slots being exhausted. They always appear in the dead center of a cell and anything dropped in that cell thereafter will appear in the bag.

Retrieved from "http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Glitches"
Sponsored Links
Your Ad Here
Personal tools