Oblivion Tips and Hints
The following tips and hints have been submitted from various Oblivion players from around the world. Many of them are quite useful and can help you in the PC or Xbox 360 version of the game.
This is the third set of Oblivion hints, see the first set and the second set if you have not already.
Oblivion Character Creation
One of the most important parts of the game is overlooked by many players. The selection of your character - its race, class and sign - will affect you for the rest of the game and is probably the most important decision you will make. Don't be lured into making hasty and unthoughtful decisions by your urge to get playing quickly. Before you pick your character do some research and decide what you want to do in the game.
If you are not sure browse the many forums and fan sites for information on the differant playing styles. Once you have your playing style selected you can then decide how you want to make your character. Online character creation tools found on the web are great to determine whether your ideas will work well. In general it is not good practice to pick a premade class. They often have overlapping skills such as blade and blunt that waste a major skill spot.
Also some skills can easily become useless either later game or with certain items. Security for example is useless if you get the Skeleton Key, which can be acquired early at level 2. Simlarly some races have redundant skill bonuses. For example some races such as Redguard have bonuses to both blade and blunt, which is, in the case of Reguards, a waste of +10 skill bonus. Similarly some signs are either weaker and less useful than others. The tower for example allows the player to open one average lock a day and reflect 5% damage for 2 minutes.
While it could have uses it is far less useful than other either magicka or stat boosting signs. However stat boosting signs can become less useful late in the game — if played right an attribute can be raised by +5 per level. To do this you need to level up the abilities that are governed by the attribute 10 times. For every 2 levels of skills under the attribute you gain +1 to the bonus when leveling up. This also factors into strategy for picking skills, as a player might want to leave at least one skill in each attribute minor to allow for this leveling up. (Once you increase the major skills 10 times you can no longer continue to add to attribute bonuses.)
While Oblivion is a great game and the urge to play it can be overwhelming not thinking through a character can lead to much frustation later in the game as you discover that some choices were not good. You will be that character for a long time, put the time in early to make sure the time later is enjoyable.
Submitted by: Dan Pasowicz
The Blackrock Caverns
In short, the dungeon does a good job appearing to be fancy-pants and then being very, how do you say, sub-par in it's core.
This dungeon perfects the double-bluff, needless to say.
Hidden behind a waterfall in a calm little pond in the western parts of Cyrodiil, near Chorrol. The entrance area is a kodak moment in and of itself. Inside, you'll find a a handful of bandits and a nasty trap waiting to fill your face with a log as big as you (Bigger if your a Bosmer, heh.)
After you kill the bandits in the second level, you'll likely wonder if your missing something. You are.
Look for a switch in the southern area of the second level (it's a turnable switch.) Activate it and it'll glow, make a weird chime, and vanish. One entrance has been blocked by a bolder, the other door leading back to the first level has a surprise in wait on the other side. Undead Pirates! Yay!
Kill the Blackrock Pirates and take there stuff. Then look around for another magic switch where they had appeared. Activate it, and head back to the second level.
No Pirates, but look almost directly ahead of you and you'll find a trap door leading to the dungeon's main event.
Follow the tunnel until you get to the rock door. Activate the switch on the right, and you'll find yourself facing the earthly remains of a Pirate Ship, plus more Pirates. Kill them, and the place is yours to plunder. You'll find Septims, Weapons, and some potions.
Submitted by: Kyle B.
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