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Greetings,

Apologies if this has been asked and answered already I tried using search engine and couldn't get the information I was hoping for.

First off with scaling quests rewards is it worth while to wait till higher levels to do/complete them? My char has done quite a bit and I feel like I might have rushed things a bit because at lvl 5-9 the rewards are nice for my lvl but don't seem too great compared to what I could have gotten if I had waited.

Another question is about guilds and if you can join multiple ones. I know I can do things like join Dark Brotherhood and Blades, but can someone for example join DB and Thieves guild and/or mages guild? The rewards for being in mage guild and making own spells etc. seem pretty nice but my style of play (rather enjoy being a villain type) so the DB is a must for me as the quests are especially fun for me.

Question that might sound really odd is if you have to rely on Alchemy to get some potions or can you buy some? Healing potions for example I looked all around in imperial city and perhaps it's just my inexperience to the game or I blatantly missed an obvious vendor I couldn't locate anyone to sell me any.

I read about how making a custom character is advantageous for maximum statistic gains while leveling, something I was curious about is a good way to pick skills so that you don't level up too fast but is also convenient. While I don't fully understand the skills and what works best as a major or a minor quite yet I was hoping for some suggestions on what I might want to consider for majors if I was hoping to make a villain type char that is a good assassin type (opinions on what races or birthsigns you prefer are welcome as well and for info I like melee and bow equally with magic for offense not really my thing but for utility I enjoy it).

I don't like hardly any of the stock classes cause they'll do things like have (for Agent for example the character I've given up on) Sneak, Security and Marksmanship as majors. While all usefull, you are kind of screwed if you want to level efficiently are you not because if you even get 1 skillup in something that isn't agi based you can't get the +5 to agi upon leveling up. I read the great guide but because of my lack of experience with these types of games I'm still not really certain of what skills are better used than others for majors or minors. If anyone could help provide some insight it would be greaty appreciated.

I know this is a long post with lots of questions so thank you in advance for reading and for any replies/information you'd be willing to give.

Some quests are worth doing later on, ad the rewards are great for the level you do them at...other can prove stupid- Take for example finger's in the mountain. The result is a spell at deals one of each type of elemental damage but the damage and the magika cost is scaled to your level. Now you can make your own fingers in the mountain spell which is much more efficiant but when i did this i was like 30 (I finished off the qiest much later on) and i ended up with a spell that i was unable to cast...i think it was ovewr like 2000magika! so getting this spell earlier is prolly wiser till you can get to make your own version which will be much more efficiant.

My advice would be to join ALL of the guilds...there's no harm in being an Initiate in all of them, even if you never do them...that way quest NPC's become marked and you don't accidently kill them, item's also become marked so you can take them freely without penilty and there are some other perks of course

Potions can be baught in most every city -

-Imperial city- Mystic Emporium in the Market district

-Any general trader like the copiouse coinpurse or Jensine's "Good as New" Merchandise.
This also applies to most other citys....they all have a general trader or some form of mystic emporium(though it'll be called something differen't) so you should be able to find what you want without too much of a travel

I hope i speak for everyone in saying that long posted are welcomed and enjoyed. First off you can join every guild in the game if you want to and all at once at that. I think i can also help you wit charater problems, when i got Oblivion i started a new file everyday trying to find the perfect one. It took me forever but i got a dam good one worked out.

Male Nord

Sign of the Worrior

Attributes; Strengh and Endurance

Major Skills;
Heavy Armor
Blade
Block
Armorer
Sneak
Security
Marksman

I call him an arcaini; the acient fighters of rome, who were strong fighter and dangerous assassins who murdered enemies on the battle field (ie; sneaking up behind them and messing 'um up) which i belive apeases your need to be sneaky. I digress. Most of the things you get from alchemy arent worth it. Using restoration is good for healing and buying poisens is better than making them. Good potions come at HIGH HIGH lvls. You can get potion from the guilded caraft in the imperial city. My advise to you is to do fighters guild and DB first then do the main quest. So you can get good sigil stones.

mandangalow wrote: Most of the things you get from alchemy arent worth it.

I think thats rather general! Even at lower levels you can make some kickass potions...great for exploring and reviving you when you get mobbed my goblins or whatever! My trick was to make whatever i could out of all the things i picked up, whatever i didn't need (I never really used the resist potions or the burden poisons) i sold and made a pretty penny...Think aboiut it...it costs nothing to harvest ingrediants...but you can sell everything afterwards

Hygiliak wrote:First off with scaling quests rewards is it worth while to wait till higher levels to do/complete them? My char has done quite a bit and I feel like I might have rushed things a bit because at lvl 5-9 the rewards are nice for my lvl but don't seem too great compared to what I could have gotten if I had waited.

Generally, depending on the item. Some of the levelled rewards are very nice and very powerful, while others can be replaced with well thought-out custom enchantments once you assemble the required items. It takes experience to know which one is which.

Hygiliak wrote:Another question is about guilds and if you can join multiple ones. I know I can do things like join Dark Brotherhood and Blades, but can someone for example join DB and Thieves guild and/or mages guild? The rewards for being in mage guild and making own spells etc. seem pretty nice but my style of play (rather enjoy being a villain type) so the DB is a must for me as the quests are especially fun for me.

Yes, you can. They made practically everything accessible for a single character, which from a role-playing aspect is quite a dumbdown (In Morrowind, there are some faction conflicts that become evident if you join both of the involved factions, the Great Houses factions are mutually exclusive unless you exploit some bugs, and there are skill requirements to advance in rank), but if you don't care about that, you can join every guild that you want.

Hygiliak wrote:Question that might sound really odd is if you have to rely on Alchemy to get some potions or can you buy some? Healing potions for example I looked all around in imperial city and perhaps it's just my inexperience to the game or I blatantly missed an obvious vendor I couldn't locate anyone to sell me any.

Of course you can. You just need to know which are the ones that sell potions. I never bought potions myself since I always hoard the ones I get from looting enemies, but I believe you should be looking for the alchemist merchants (some in the mages guilds) to buy potions.

Hygiliak wrote:I read about how making a custom character is advantageous for maximum statistic gains while leveling, something I was curious about is a good way to pick skills so that you don't level up too fast but is also convenient. While I don't fully understand the skills and what works best as a major or a minor quite yet I was hoping for some suggestions on what I might want to consider for majors if I was hoping to make a villain type char that is a good assassin type (opinions on what races or birthsigns you prefer are welcome as well and for info I like melee and bow equally with magic for offense not really my thing but for utility I enjoy it).

Can't help you there since I don't buy into that school of gaming; I play custom characters but always pick preferred skills as my majors and don't make much effort to get maximum statistics. However, there are many on the board who are familiar with that style of gaming; I am sure they can enlighten you.

I'm not v. experienced either, but a few things that I've found so far:

Efficient leveling: I've done it more out of necessity. I'm not so good at controlling the fight action etc, so I need to make sure that I can win! And to be honest, there is abit of a competitive streak in there, as in if I don't get +5 each time for my chosen three (or two if I'm working on Luck) then it is abit of a case of "could have done better". But quite frankly I do find it a pain in the rear! I'd prefer that it wasn't an issue.

For major skills I made sure that I had some that could be leveled on the spot if necessary, like Conjuration. Get a low level spell and then you can control far easier when you level up. That is the main reason that I wouldn't have skills that I really wanted to use alot as major skills. The first two characters that I had (and dumped) where leveling up far too frequently, and getting far too few bonus points.

I also have Mercantile as one of my majors, which has meant at times that I've had to hoard an awful lot of loot to prevent going up before I'm ready. In future I'd probably choose Speechcraft as a major, as that is v. easy to control and v. easy to increase when you want to.

Alchemy: Well I really like just skipping amongst the trees picking flowers anyhow!! But seriously, one big advantage that I found was that provided you're careful about what ingredients you use, you can make far better home-made potions that also weigh less. If you've got 100 health potions at .5 as opposed to 100 health potions at .1, it can make a big diff to how much loot you can carry, at least at the lower levels.

As Book Worm has already pointed out, they are also a great source of income. Even stolen ingredients can be made into legitimate potions.

I took some convincing on the poisons that you can make, damage 4 pts for 10 seconds sounds pretty lame, but as others have pointed out here before, put that on an arrow, get the 3x sneak advantage, that's 4x3 for 10 seconds, 120 points just from the poison. Though of course you may need to keep running away for the 10 seconds!

Joining Guilds: This also means the members of the Guild like you more. This works out particularly well in the Mage's Guild as nearly every Mage's Guild has a Merchant who then seems to give you the best relative rates on loot you sell them.

Quests: I have left all of the quests that have level dependent rewards till I'm at least at a level to get the highest reward. Mostly because it seems that if it's something worth having, then you need it to still be useful at higher levels.

I also wouldn’t want to miss out on getting Transcendent Sigil Stones which apparently you only get from level 17 onwards.

Good luck! I hope you continue to get great enjoyment from it!

Thank you all very much for the excellent replies!