Oblivion talk:Efficient Leveling

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What is Efficient?[edit]

Given the way levelling works in Oblivion, I have adopted a personal definition of "efficiency" that is based on making my characters as strong as possible at a given level. This leads to gameplay that in some respects agrees with this page, but in other respects noticeably differs.

I agree with this page in that I'm pretty obsessive about getting 5/5/5 bonuses (or 5/5/1 once I start boosting luck) and reaching 100 in attributes as quickly as possible: the only character improvement that happens when you level up is the attribute bonuses, so I think it's critical to get maximum attribute bonuses to stay competitive with the NPCs.

But, I don't believe in not "wasting" skill points. Instead I intentionally "waste" alot of skill points at early levels. So, for example, at level 1, I will increase both alchemy and conjuration from 5 to at least 25 to get them to apprentice level right away, essentially wasting 30 skill points. I want to have as many high skills at possible at low levels (especially so I can survive with the difficulty slider pushed to the left).

This strategy adds its own challenges. You need to be sure to not waste too many skill points, i.e. not delay or prevent reaching 100 in any attributes. You need to accept that increasing skills rapidly early on will require some painful skill training later in the game, since getting a skill from 95 to 100 is so much more difficult than getting it from, say, 65 to 70.

So in reading this page I'm led to wonder what does not wasting skill points buy you? How does that make characters stronger? Or is it primarily an aesthetic preference? And would those who've contributed to the page so far be open to introducing some changes, e.g., modifying the definition of "efficient" and trying to present a couple different philosophies related to skill increases?

--Nephele 23:59, 19 June 2006 (EDT)

I think it all comes down to balance and personal prefernce. Sure, not wasting any skills and doing the 5/5/1 thing every level will get you a more powerful character more quickly, but for the most part, this process can be tedious and just not very fun to play. (Being careful to walk everywhere instead of running so as to not accidentally train your Athletics, selling 100 potions one at a time to train Mercantile, constantly summoning creatures and attacking them just to raise your combat skills, just seems like busy-work when you could be having fun playing the quests and exploring the world instead. I think you need to balance out how much patience you have for repetitive tasks vs. how much you'd rather just enjoy the game and not worry about that stuff. Sure, it's good to keep it in mind, but I'd say don't go crazy over it. But hey, whatever floats your boat. You could instead do the level-as-fast-as-you-can thing and not worry about multipliers at all, if you really like a challenge. Or you could train like a machine so as to be sure that every fight later in the game will be a piece of cake. But I suspect most people will do something somewhere in the middle of this range instead. -- TheRealLurlock 00:59, 20 June 2006 (EDT)
The myth of over leveling I started leveling character totally "efficiently" and found that he was far from powerful because he was only increasing skills he needed to level up. When I started "wasting" skills increases I found I had a much more powerful and well rounded character. For example those levels where I was only trying to level up Strength, Intelligence and Endurance I couldn't use Destruction, Stealth, Security etc. So even though I had a high Magicka I couldn't cast anything because my skill wasn't high enough. When I started using all my skills but focusing on three primary skills so that when I leveled up I would have +5,+2,+2,+2,+1,+5,+5,+2,+1, I found my character more powerful as he could conjure a creature, shoot a fireball and strike with a sword. I think the magical skills can become very limited by low skills as you can't cast anything decent even though you may have high attributes. I mean there is still a lot of room for "wasted" points and you can always go to prison. Grandmaster z0b 02:59, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

I'm not really much of a believer in the 5-5-5 or the 5-5-1 character development approach. I personally prefer a hybrid approach. I select Endurance and Luck as the favored Attributes for my custom character class, because of the immediate health and skill bonuses (as well as other luck-related bonuses). These are the only two attributes which have a permanent affect on the character. The health, or hit-points, earned by Endurance bonuses are cumulative between levels, so that one is fairly obvious.

Luck has an immediate effect on all skills, but that effect becomes diminished over time because the skills themselves increase faster than luck. Each skill has a cap of 100, at which point Luck has no effect whatsoever on that particular skill (with the exceptions of Athletics and Acrobatics). Choosing Luck as a favored attribute is one of the only ways you can boost it faster than one point at a time, so it has a fairly large impact on a Level 1 character. More importantly, it allows a low-level character to use the 5-5-5 approach for a longer period of time before switching to the 5-5-1 approach.

For instance, I calculate in advance the maximum level my character can attain (including factors like Hermaeus Mora, etc.), then I use a 5-5-5 approach until he reaches a level where he must begin incrementing his Luck in order to achieve the maximum of 100 by the time he reaches his maximum attainable level.

Suppose that I've determined the maximum level my character will attain is 54. If his Luck Attribute starts at 55 when he is a Level 1 character, then he must begin incrementing the Luck Attribute at Level 9, in order to achieve a final score of 100 when he reaches Level 54. So for the first eight levels I use the 5-5-5 approach, then I switch to the 5-5-1 approach. Choosing Luck as a favored attribute not only acts as a modifier on all of his skills (as well as numerous other computations), but it also delays the time that I need to switch from the 5-5-5 approach to the 5-5-1 approach by five character levels. If I choose any other Attribute as a favored Attribute for the five point bonus, that's the only five point bonus that my character will receive. However, if I choose the Luck Attribute, he not only gets a five point bonus for Luck from the outset of the game, when it has the most impact as an Attribute, but he also has five additional levels during which he can augment OTHER Attributes by five points each -- for a total of 30 Attribute bonus points, rather than a mere five.

I always focus on Endurance as the first Attribute to develop, simply because it maximizes potential hit points -- which is necessary for the survival of any character. Then I select any other two Attributes EXCEPT Personality to develop. The Personality Attribute, Mercantile Skill, and Speechcraft Skill have very little effect on combat. In noncombat situations, they can always be artificially elevated with enchanted items, spells, or potions. When all Attributes other than Personality and Luck have reached a score of 100, I then switch to a 5-1 approach, wherein I raise Personality by 5 points and Luck by 1 point for each level attained.

I'll let you meet my friend Galadril, and he can probably show you better than I can. Please note that the following example occurs within actual game play -- that the character is not being artificially trained through repetitive actions outside of the normal course of the plot of the game.

GALADRIL IN THE SEWERS

Galadril has just been freed from prison and needs to make his way back to civilization through the sewers. There are a lot of rats down there, and he's a little out of shape because of his time in prison. The rats aren't really much of a match for him, so he decides to use them for blocking practice as much as possible before he kills them. Even though the Block skill is one of his Minor Skills, he finds that there are enough rats down there to easily raise it to 25 (Apprentice Level) by the time he exits the sewers. It's probably a good thing that he selected more difficult skills as Major Skills, since the Block skill is sort of a "gimme."

He also chooses to wear only the heavy armor that he finds in the sewers, opting to carry the light armor on his back, because he's strictly focusing on skills related to the Endurance Attribute. He realizes, of course, that by achieving a +5 Endurance bonus as a low-level character, he will maximize his potential for health (hit points) when he is a higher-level character. He figures that no matter which character class he decides to play when he exits the sewers, this is going to be a critical survival factor for him. He can save the light armor for later, when he decides to work on his Speed Attribute.

Because he's so out of shape, he's also worried about encumbrance. So he decides to focus on his Blade, Blunt, and/or Hand-to-Hand skills. He tries to avoid using any skills other than those which are governed by Endurance or Strength, even though a little birdie in his head is telling him to do silly things like Sneak up on a goblin. He'd rather just fight the ugly thing, to develop a +5 bonus toward his Strength and Endurance Attributes. No matter which character class he ultimately decides to become when he exits the sewers, these two attributes are going to be of critical importance. He might be forced to use a little Restoration occasionally, sparingly, in emergencies, but he'd rather just take a nap for an hour when the action is over.

The only exception is that he might want to pick a lock or two, so that he can get a little loot for startup capital when he exits the sewers. But as soon as he sees all of the alchemy ingredients in the sewers, he makes his first career choice: the other skill he's going to develop is alchemy. No matter which character class he decides to become when he leaves the sewers, he's going to need some easy money. The ingredients are lightweight, and once they've been converted to potions they can be sold for a tremendous profit. It's almost like a license to print money. He also figures that it won't be long before he can make better potions for his own use, almost for free, than anything he might be able to purchase. So he gathers all of the alchemy ingredients he can find, opting to leave heavier, less valuable loot behind.

Galadril is also a strong believer in education, so he decides not to develop any of his Major Skills, thereby remaining a Level 1 character when he exits the sewers. As a result, when he starts using alchemy to finance his new career, he can simultaneously earn a +5 bonus toward his Intelligence Attribute before elevating to Level 2, which will have the byproduct of substantially increasing his Magicka.

GALADRIL IN THE FREE WORLD

After being liberated from prison, Galadril travels as fast as he can to Weynon Priory. When he arrives, Jauffre offers him a position as Assistant Kingmaker. It's not really a bad job, especially considering the benefits package -- a free storage chest, some heavy armor, some light armor, some weapons, a free horse, a repair hammer, some miscellaneous salable items, and an advanced book on blocking which he decides to store in his chest and read later when it is a little harder to learn on his own. After accepting the position, he sells all of his loot from the sewers and all of the weapons Jauffre had given him, keeping only the choicest heavy and light armor for himself, as well as his alchemy ingredients.

Next he travels to nearby Chorrol and joins the Mages Guild. As a member, he's entitled to use a full set of novice alchemy equipment to create his potions with. In fact, he can take ALL of their alchemy equipment, presumably polishing and cleaning it for them, and then sell it back to the guild, keeping only one complete set for himself! With his initial startup capital -- from loot, gifts, and refurbished alchemy equipment -- he buys all of the ingredients available in the city of Chorrol, creates as many potions as he can, then sells them to the Mages Guild. He stores all of the leftover ingredients, his alchemy equipment, and his spare armor in his chest at Weynon Priory. He's just been released from prison, and he's already on his way to being a wealthy man!

He's managed to keep all of the free heavy and light armor that he wanted, but he's sold ALL of his weapons, so his next priority is to outfit himself with some decent weapons. He figures the easiest way to accomplish that is to join the Fighter's Guild, right next door. They have a lot of old-fashioned iron weapons, free for the taking, but he figures that he'll be provided with some better weapons if he starts working for them. So, after joining the guild, he rides his new horse to Cheydinhal where he's provided with a weapons cache -- a STEEL bladed weapon, blunt weapon, and bow. And, By George! All of them are weightless, as light as a Feather. He figures that the more experienced guild fighters can hold off the goblins for a while and that it's more important to use these things to save the heir to the throne.

The only weapons he decides to buy (unless he can find them for free) are an iron dagger, an iron war axe, and a silver dagger (for emergency use in case he runs into any undead creatures). His high-tech weapons are entirely weightless, so he can easily afford to carry these relatively light-weight weapons throughout his adventures.

See, Galadril figures that since Endurance and Strength are so important to a low-level character, of any given profession, that he should continue developing them for a while. He can always use his high-tech, weightless weapons in a pinch, but if he uses some low-tech practice weapons for most of his fighting, he'll have to take a lot more swings at his opponents, which will increase his Blade or Blunt skills much more rapidly. Not only that, it will allow the opponent to strike his heavy armor a lot more times, increasing his Heavy Armor skill and his Armorer Skill. (What the heck? He's already rich enough to buy as many repair hammers as he needs, and he hasn't even really started his first quest yet!) Because of his proficiency with alchemy, he can use potions to restore health during combat rather than Restoration spells. Alchemy is fairly representative of all of the other magical disciplines, so it is extremely versatile. He can always study Restoration later, when he's decided to focus on his Willpower Attribute.

He's still a Level 1 character, outfitted with some of the best weapons and armor available during these early, primitive days of his freedom. He decides that he might as well continue buying alchemy ingredients until his alchemy rating is 25 (Apprentice Level) before advancing to Level 2. He can always study Conjuration or Mysticism later to boost his Intelligence Attribute. Not only that, he's well aware that when he becomes a Master Alchemist that it will more than double his profit potential for each ingredient he collects! And, of course, the potions that he keeps for himself will be more potent. He spends some of the cash on five points of training in one of his more difficult Major Skills, and banks the rest of it for later.

If you want to hear more about the life of Galadril, just let me know! (By the way, Nephele, I agree with your post 100%.)


Bbrass10 17:44, 15 December 2007 (EST)

Splitting Out Skill Boosting[edit]

How about splitting out the section on boosting skills on to a new page? It could also use some better formatting and some editing. Plus the content needs some work. Anyone mind if I take a first pass at this on an unlinked page? Tikiman 17:05, 7 July 2006 (EDT)

I think that would be great! I don't think that info should be buried on the Efficient Leveling page: even if you're not trying to play efficiently, you're likely to occasionally want to enhance certain skills (i.e., you're desperate for that next skill perk). I think a separate page ("Skill Training"?) could be linked to from some of the top-level pages.--Nephele 17:47, 7 July 2006 (EDT)
I created a page Skill Boosting to distinguish manual leveling from going to trainers Tikiman 12:46, 8 July 2006 (EDT)

Discussions Needed[edit]

Before unilaterally reversing changes just made by another contributor, I'd like to suggest that the people editing this page discuss what should be on this page. There are two issues that seem contentious, and keep getting added/deleted from this page:

  • Do attribute raising tips belong here?
  • Does under leveling belong here?

I think there needs to be a consensus reached on these questions before any more changes related to them are made.

My two cents are that:

  • the attribute raising tips do not belong here. It is information useful in circumstances other than just efficient leveling. There is no reason why the efficient leveling page can't just link to the page on Oblivion:Increasing Skills.
  • under leveling doesn't belong here either; I think it's a different style of play than efficient leveling. There may be overlap, but there's enough about them to have them on separate pages that just cross-reference each other.

--Nephele 16:33, 30 July 2006 (EDT)

I think what you have just suggested is the way to go.
I tried to take all the information on raising skills / attributes and combine them to make the Increasing Skills page. The old information was scattered around on pages like this efficient leveling page, and therefore hard to find. Now it can be linked from the skills page also, where there are probably just as many people looking for this kind of info.
The under leveling section was also put in here by me, but I can see why its somewhat different than efficient leveling. Probably better to let it have its own page.
-- Dieter 07:56, 31 July 2006 (EDT)
In the absence of any arguments at all in favour of keeping the attribute-raising tips here, I've deleted those sections from this page, and instead added a few links to Increasing Skills. --Nephele 19:40, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Article finally fixed![edit]

This now appropriately talks about attributes rather than stupid "stats" or even worse: abilities, which are an entirely different thing (related to races or starsigns). How anyone could have written such a poorly worded article is beyond me.

Still, it says: "If you gain more than 10 skill points related to one attribute you have "wasted" the opportunity to use those to raise attributes" - why? aren't they used on the next level increase just like this? please check and fix this if needed. --FMan 08:32, 4 October 2006 (EDT)

Nope, attribute bonuses do not roll over from one level to the next. See question/response at User talk:Truffle. As for whether or not it's a waste, that's another question: you have enough skill increases to increase your each attribute to 150 or more, so the skill points end up being wasted anyway. Why not use them early on and take advantage of having a more powerful character? But that's a different argument (which I brought up earlier on this page). --Nephele 14:27, 4 October 2006 (EDT)

Efficient Leveling experiment[edit]

I just started a new character and thought I could make a new section called "Efficient Leveling Example from lvl 1 to 10 (+5/+5/+1)" or similar. I could update the page as my character grows in levels and gains skills and attributes. Adding comments, tips and the ways how I leveled up different skills in different situations. So this could work as a "real life example" of Efficient Leveling for the first, say, 10 levels. I'll set up a page when I'm ready. - - Teknikaali

Somethings I don't Quite Understand...[edit]

I really thought this guide was helpful, mainly because I've been tyring to understand exactly how to get the +5 to an attributes when you level, but not really understanding it totally. This guide helped clear it up alot, but there are still some things I'm wondering. I mean, I know as soon as you get 100 in all major skills or attributes will make it so you can't level anymore, but not having 100s in all your skills seems like a much worse option than having not all 100s in your attributes... Is there some way to get both 100 in all your skills AND 100 in all your atributes? I think the idea is cool, but, I think a much better way to do this that lets you get your skills much higher could be done.... This is going to take alot of thought and math (Uck.), but I really want to explore on this. Thanks for writing the guide by the way, it really cleared alot of things up for me!

....Unfortuanatly, after reading this, I realize I'm gona have to start a new character....

I'll post my findings later somewere. --MrTaco122 16:46, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

Even if you get 100s in all your attributes (which is very difficult to do, since you can only ever get +1 for luck), you can still continue to increase your skills. You can keep increasing any skill after you've maxed out the governing attribute. You just don't receive any level-ups if the skills are major skills, but at that point all it means is that you don't get any health increases. So there's no fundamental problem with getting 100s in all attributes and all skills. --Nephele 02:23, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

Max. Level 53--Max. Luck 100[edit]

I'm not sure if any of these numbers would be helpful to anyone else or where(if anywhere)they belong. I barely managed to pull myself away from my Efficient Leveling experiments to do a bit of simple math. Apologies in advance if this is the wrong page or unimportant information.

Level 1--52 to Max. & Luck 50--50 to Max.

Level 3--50 to Max. & Luck 50--50 to Max.

Level 1--52 to Max. & Luck 55--45 to Max.

Level 8--45 to Max. & Luck 55--45 to Max.

This is mainly intended for those concerned with the attribute cap prematurely limiting the level max(before the Shivering Isles "Addiction" quest)seeing that Luck can be tricky. — Unsigned comment by 72.67.80.126 (talk) at 07:11 on 26 July 2007

A fast way of leveling for 'pure' characters (10,10,10, / 10,10,1x2)[edit]

I thought you guys might be interested in a leveling method I'm using (I've not seen it mentioned or used anywhere else, so it might make a good addition to the forum).

It's the opposite of efficient leveling.

The idea is to skill-up three major skills ten times without sleeping. Providing you split the thirty skill-ups equally between the skills, without sleeping, you can basically average a +5 modifier for each of those skills' attributes when you eventually come to sleep, regardless of the order in which you skill-up each skill. (you have to sleep multiple times (once for each ten skill-ups)).

Or you can skill-up two major skills ten points each without sleeping and when you come to sleep, sleep twice and add the extra point to luck to effectively double the speed at which your luck attribute raises.

It's based on the idea that the best way to play is to create a focused, 'pure' character.

Here's more info on it (my post to the bethsoft.com forum).

It also includes some of my basic reasoning for the method

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=766542&st=0#

Hope you find it interesting.

--Hatesink 13:50, 18 October 2007 (EDT)

A Diary For Console Users[edit]

I'm going start a round of Oblivion with some focus on Efficient Leveling, but since I'm playing on an Xbox, the skill diary mod linked in the main article isn't really useful to me for tracking the stats. I Googled around for a sample spreadsheet I could use, and found a pretty good one (accompanied by a well-written explanation) here. Any thoughts on how/if to link to this thread in the main article? Roddie 00:15, 9 February 2009 (EST)

The link listed above seems to be dead. I was dissatisfied with existing spreadsheet options I could find so I just created my own through google docs. (Link) It seems that spreadsheet options would be quite useful to console gamers like the mod is for PC gamers, but I'm not sure how it should be integrated into he article. 65.183.189.103 22:50, 23 September 2012 (GMT)

Own personal character maps[edit]

Hi, would anyone be interested in posting their own personal efficient leveling method. So from level 1 to whichever level it took you to. Start for example with which race, birth sign, then what skills you raised at each level and by how much exactly. If you kept a record of it then it will be easy for you to copy down! I think this will be better for me to learn from because I'm having trouble with all this 5/5/5/ 5/5/1 stuff. Personally I like Breton's the best. Anything else I'd like to just copy for easiness sake. A few notes. I don't care about Personality so much, there is a simple spell which can increase your Mercantile by 100 for 1 second + Charm 100 on target for 1 second which works every time. Also I use the duplicate items glitch (scrolls method, PS3) so money is no problem, I can spend whatever I need on trainers or whatever. I'm not even sure if trainers count towards the whole 5/5/5 thing. Anyway if you do this thank you so much. It will increase my enjoyment of the game a lot. I can't give anything in return but gratitude. PS. I know the glitch is a cheat but it's my game which I paid for with my hard earned money and I have every right to cheat if I want to. It helps me enjoy the game better. — Unsigned comment by 90.197.201.207 (talk) on 18 June 2009

I'm sorry, but the wiki is not a good place to share personal experiences. I'd recommend the forums instead. --Timenn < talk > 11:04, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

Question about "overcoming the leveling problem (example 2)[edit]

This section confused me a lot. I didn't really understand what the problem with example 2 was. Should the character who had nine intelligence points level his alchemy/conjuration (minor skills) at the 10th point and then raise a major skill? I'd like someone to explain this and maybe reword the section to make it a bit more simple or explanatory :) --Blue deep 08:17, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Overcoming the Leveling Problem[edit]

I've changed the order of the sum below example one so that the figures are in the same order as the skills listed- just to make it clearer. I hope this is ok. -Snorkel.maiden 13:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Maximum possible level?[edit]

I never used any special "training" of yours, nor I did some special planning. I reached level 51, and I have still to raise something (I think maximum level I will ever have will be 53). I was asking myself, what's the highest level one can become? --195.60.143.253 20:04, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I dont think there is any known max level. try youtubing it :P Gorilladin 17:48, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Help[edit]

I first played Oblivion afew years ago, leveling up as much as possible without thinking about getting 5/5/5 or 5/5/1, and towards the end the game was very difficult. However I did enjoy the game enough to want to play through it again, this time trying to create a stronger character. What i'm looking for is basically a battlemage, but a bit different. A character with reasonable endurance (higher health, block), reasonable strength (blade, and able to carry more stuff), but mostly I enjoy the spells. I'm leaning towards higher willpower first, to regenerate magika faster, although I also need intelligence to have a large enough magika pool to cast the more expensive spells. What ive got so far is a Breton, Lady birthsign, willpower and endurance as favoured attributes, and my major skills are blade, block, mysticism, alteration, destruction, restoration, and mercantile. I'm having trouble however getting the 5/5/5. I keep ending up with 5/3/3 no matter how many skill increases I get and i don't understand why. What would be ideal for me is 5 on intelligence, 5 on willpower and 5 on endurance for one level-up. And the next level up the same but instead of 5 on endurance, 5 on strength. And with each level-up change between strength and endurance. That way I can concentrate on magic use more, but still have decent strength and endurance. Could anyone please give me any advice on how it would be best to do this? — Unsigned comment by 94.168.92.24 (talk) at 12:18 on 19 August 2010

You must get your skill increases before you qualify to level up in order to get their bonuses on that level (that is to say, before you're told you should rest). -  Bomb Bloke (Talk/Contribs) 21:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

My Bad/Good solution?[edit]

Create an Orc or Nord with all major skills as magic (including alchemy) And since you level up once every 10 skill level ups, simpily divide those evenly such as 3 blade, 3 block and 3, blunt and the last one doesnt really matter. If you do not wish to become an orc/nord just pick whatever skills your desired race would faulter in. i.e. Argonain comabt skills or an Orc with stealth/magic skills. Anyone really get what im saying? Im not good with writing or anything so it may be kind of un clear — Unsigned comment by Gorilladin (talkcontribs) at 03:03 on 30 September 2010

If I understand what you're saying, then that's basically the point of Efficient Levelling: choose skills that you can control when you level up as your major skills, then try and level up your minor skills together with the major skills to get the best results possible. Robin Hoodtalk 21:50, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
What exactly do you mean by 'level up your minor skills together with the major skiils'?Gorilladin 17:46, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
It's been a long time since I've played with the built-in levelling system, but as I recall, the goal of efficient levelling was to increase both minor and major skills at the same time in order that you would get 3 +5's (or 2 +5's and a +1 for Luck, if you're doing it that way). That seems to be what you're describing: choose magic as your major skills, then increase non-magic skills enough that you get your +5's every time your level goes up. Or did I misunderstand? Robin Hoodtalk 19:40, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
It may be worth noting that you only level up after 10 major skill gains. Choosing magic skills as majors then increasing just your combat skills won't increase your level. -  Bomb Bloke (Talk/Contribs) 21:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


more playable efficient leveling[edit]

i find the posted method for efficient leveling extremely not fun, and found its really not needed to max out your attributes. there is a better way that lets you play the game mostly normally, and still get perfect modifiers every level for your character.

when you choose your Class skills make sure you choose one for each attribute so you have 2 secondary skills for each attribute. then pick the Class skills that will let you play the game without needing to use secondary skills.

every level train exactly 10 points in 2 secondary skills for x5 modifiers, with the 1 over in luck, then go back to playing the game normally using only your 7 class skills and you get perfect modifiers each level and can still play the game mostly normally.

with 2 secondary skills for each stat you should be able to max out all your stats without caring what the modifiers from your class level up skills are. so if you choose class skills you can play the game with, and use secondary skills as just train skills each level, you can still play somewhat normally.

How do you plan on training 10 points in your secondary skills? You can only use trainers for 5 points, and you said you made a build that would not need to use its secondary skills. --Brf 13:28, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Will having one of the 3 associated skills at 100 limit the bonus?[edit]

Last night, I leveled up, & was keeping track of my skill increases. My sneak was already at 100, so I raised my security & marksman a combined total of 10 points in order to get the full +5 to agility. Well, it turned out that it only gave me a +4. Thinking I'd miscalculated, I read a skill book I'd been saving for the next level & tried sleeping again. Same result. Anyone else encounter this?--149.160.118.185 00:42, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Is it possible that you raised your security and marksman partially after you'd gotten your ten major skill increases? Anything after the announcement that you should meditate gets counted towards the following level, including the skill book. 97.88.33.110 13:10, 26 October 2013 (GMT)

5/5/5 versus 5/5/1[edit]

So, I'm on my second playthrough (after almost 2 years away). Getting used to the leveling -- it's coming back to me -- but it would be good (and most appreciated) to have some solid info before I trek off once again beyond the introductory sewer and 100% set my character.

On my 1st play, I generally ignored Luck. From my understanding, increasing your Luck positively modifies all skills. However, all skills (save a few) are capped at 100. (And yes, the Arena and Mehrunes Razor are positively affected, but I'm focused on player traits.) So, why shouldn't I just focus on raising everything else to 100 and ignore Luck?

If I can raise skills to 100 on a 5/5/5...is there even a reason to consider the 5/5/1? Wouldn't Luck expenditures be wastefully spent, assuming you can hit 100 in most/all skills?

Again, apologies if I haven't re-integrated myself into the game enough to fully understand the mechanics....but that's exactly why I'm asking. Many thanks, --66.227.219.174 07:32, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

well its pretty much your choice but luck affects everything if you want to make the best potions you need 100 luck and 100 alchemy or if you try to disarm a enemy luck raises the chance. take a look at the luck page, but ultimatley its your choice (Eddie the head 07:46, 10 July 2011 (UTC))
Luck makes an amazing difference in your gameplay. Yes, doing 5\5\5 is much faster versus 5\5\1, but when you cap out luck and all your skills, you'll see why capping luck makes such a big difference. Having max luck makes everything a lot easier. (Soda08 01:53, 17 September 2011 (MST))

You cannot improve on perfection. Your attributes are as high as they can go.[edit]

"You cannot improve on perfection. Your attributes are as high as they can go." This is the message I get when I try to sleep when I've gotten all my attributes to 100, including luck. This is very frustrating for me for a couple of reasons:

1. The level-up marker next to my compass. I want this to go away. 2. Marksman training. I was counting on more marksman master training to reach level 100 marksman. Levelling marksman is the most frustrating one to level, in my opinion.

Does anyone know a way to bypass this without using the console?

(For some reason I can't open the console in my game. And yes, I AM hitting the tilde button next to the 1 key. It looks like this: ~)

Edit: Working on opening the console. Does anyone have suggestions on what my console key would be? I've tried \, ~, and essentially every key on my keyboard. I assume it will bring up a flashing text line when I manage to get it open, correct? In the bottom left? — Unsigned comment by Soda08 (talkcontribs)

Read Oblivion:Console, probably you have to allow the console in your .ini file. --Alfwyn 20:18, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
You can't get around it. There is literally no way to level if your attributes are maxed out. The only thing you could do would be to use the console to manually set any of your skills or attributes. --DKong27 Tk Ctr Em 05:06, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, after I wrote this section I checked out my .ini file (thanks to the oblivion:console page's guidance) and I do have my bAllowConsole set to 1, and always have. For some reason though I can't open my console. :( Does anyone know if I could be doing something else wrong? Soda08

Luck. Clear description missing[edit]

In my opinion the circumstances in which Luck grows by 1 are not described clearly here. First, I thought that you have to make 5/5 increase in two attributes and nothing else. Then my brother reported that it did not work and I assumed that you have to use a customized class specializing in Luck. Yet, after all my attributes but Agility and Personality maxed at 100 at level 25 I suddenly got an increase in Luck. I use standard class Acrobat (Dunmer/The Serpent). I can push my luck to around 75 theoretically but all quests are done at level 28 (Luck 54), so there is no point. --93.72.154.102 09:49, 16 November 2012 (GMT)

The Minimum Level to Max out all Attributes[edit]

I think the minimum level to max out all attributes is 38 instead of 40.For example,I am a Nord male choosing the thief birthsign and I generate a class with the attributes endurance and luck.Then my stats will be 50,30,30,50,50,55,30,65.

First I raise the three "30" attributes to 50 with the "5/5/1" approach,and I will be level 7 with my stats being 50,50,50,50,50,55,50,71.

Then I raise the first four attributes to 100 with the "5/5/1" approach,and I will be level 27 with my stats being 100,100,100,100,50,55,50,91.

Then I raise the fifth to the seventh attributes to 80/85/80 with the "5/5/1" approach,and I will be level 36 with my stats being 100,100,100,100,80,85,80,100.

Finally I raise the remaining three attributes to 100 with the "5/5/5" approach,and I will be level 38 with all my attributes maxed out.

So I think the minimum level should be 38.--Lywzc 21:28, 20 May 2013 (GMT+8:00)

From your example lvl 36 stats you need 55 points to maximize them. At 15 a level from that stage you need to lvl 4 times to get the required points. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 01:01, 21 May 2013 (GMT)
Oh yes...How can I be so stupid.OK,I calculated it again and it is really 40.--Lywzc 13:07, 8 November 2013 (GMT+8:00)

For a strong character, overplay some skills.[edit]

The Efficient Leveling page makes it sound like building any points outside the two or three target attributes per level is detrimental. It also states that you should not build more than ten points per level in any target attribute. This slows the game and weakens the character if strictly followed. You can get an attribute to 100 by efficiently building only two skills per attribute, leaving the third untouched or unconstrained. This means that if you are conservative about building jumping and light armor points, you can run all you want (although it helps to put some of those points to use on levels where you want a +5 in speed.)

If you choose to use the third (conserved) skill to make up points later, you can overplay your two other two skills. There are strategies where you want to overplay skills early in the game. For instance, overplaying Alteration as a major skill in the early levels will enable you to open medium locks in Ayleid ruins during The Collector quest (when the money from selling statues and stones is substantial.) Overplaying Destruction (as a minor skill) at the same time (getting both to 50 by level 5-6) allows you to enchant weapons with strong spells upon entering the Arcane University. Another strategy is to build Heavy Armor (minor skill) to 60-65 during the tutorial and then play Endurance skills efficiently from then on. This allows you to reach 100/no encumbrance by the time the heavy sets of armor show up. — Unsigned comment by 76.1.33.251 (talk) at 00:35 on 7 November 2014‎

Page Update[edit]

I know this page is old and hasn't been touched in years, but it could use a major overhaul. It's gotten messy and the actual purpose of the page seems lost. I've started playing the game again and gotten back into the nuances of efficient leveling. So far I have 3 new characters with about 30 hours of gameplay in each one. Efficient leveling has always been a joy for me and now that I've gotten back into it I've found ways to make it more enjoyable and even allowed myself to play the game properly instead of spending hours mindlessly grinding. If it's okay, I'd like to redo the page so that it is more concise and easier to read while offering more practical advice and offering alternative strategies and solutions. Hopefully I'll have something written up in the next few days. I'll make the changes and if it's a problem we can just change it back. Tea ache sea (talk) 04:38, 21 July 2020 (UTC)