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Okay new line of questions.
This will be a thread, about all of asking what would be the hardest thing to do, and the next person can answer it.
Obviously I'll go first.

How hard would it be for my only combat skill to be Conjuration
No
Blade
Blunt
Marksman
Destruction
Illusion
Hand to Hand

-Keep it going guys!

I'd guess it would be quite hard (assuming you can't USE any other combat skills, not just keep them out of your class build), as you cant command which creatures for your summoned monster to attack. It might go after the summoned scamp and not the wizard who summoned it, for example.

I guess I'll keep it simple.

Go through the game without equipping any armor as a non-stealth focused melee fighter.

That would depend on race, difficulty and level. It wouldn't be too difficult to do that because you have all sorts of other things that can keep you safe. Even if you are strictly melee fighting, there are numerous enchanted items that could replace the armor.

Mine is something that I've already done but I will throw it out there anyways.
level all possible skills to 100 before leaving the tutorial sewers.

That just sounds annoying.

How hard would it be to get someone or some thing angry at you in Anvil, and then follow the roads all the way to Leyawiin with your adversary in tow? (Keep in mind, the guards would likely join the battle along the way. Probably better to start this with an assault so they attack you.)

I'm guessing near impossible. @Orcishslacker: That's what my friend did.

Reaper67 wrote:level all possible skills to 100 before leaving the tutorial sewers.

I don't know how dedicated people are, but I certainly couldn't do that. Sitting there, summoning dagger after dagger, constantly healing myself all the time, making myself invisible while recharging Magicka. Ugh.

Next question: How hard would it be to go through the game using only equipment found in the sewer? This includes the fighters and mages guild, to let you know.

easy, u didn't mention u can't use spells

I've always wondered about roleplaying Oblivion as a TOTAL pacifist character. It would make the game MUCH more difficult, forcing you to use lateral thinking and strategy instead of just relying on the usual hack, slash 'n' cast, but it should still be possible to complete the game.

The challenge is to figure out HOW to play successfully under "pacifist rules", which are as follows:-

1. ALL usage of skills that DIRECTLY lower an enemy's Health are prohibited.
2. Escaping from battle or INDIRECTLY lowering enemy Health IS permitted.

These lead to some changes in the way you use skills:-

PROHIBITED Skills (NO increase via usage, but can still PAY to Train towards level-up):
> Combat (weapons): Blade, Blunt, Hand-to-hand
> Magic: Destruction (Fire/Frost/Shock/Poison & Damage/Drain Health), Mysticism (Reflect Damage/Spell)
> Stealth: Marksman (NO using bow to shoot enemies)

PERMITTED Skills:
> Combat (protection): Armorer, Athletics, Block, Heavy Armor
> Magic: ALL (except for prohibited Destruction/Mysticism effects)
> Stealth: ALL (Marksman restricted to using bow ONLY to dislodge Welkynd Stones, etc)

I can see how "pacifist rules" would lead to brainstorming some cunningly devious strategies and methods for dealing with hostile Creatures or NPC's, especially at higher levels. Anyone want to suggest a few?

Edit: Corrected for chromalfean's correction below. Reflect Damage/Spell is indeed Mysticism, not Alteration. Got the effects from UESP Oblivion Wiki (Skills > click magic skill > scroll to bottom of page for effects). I somehow got the skill pages mixed up... It's 2:30am here in UK <gently topples off seat>

some of this was discussed in a priest discussion thread, but I wanted to go more for "indirect" influence, which isn't hard using magic, especially illusion. a lot of calm, command, demoralize, frenzy (and for this, conjuration and summonings, but not for an actual priest character), etc. just check the spell effects b/c aside from the obvious command spells, some only work on npc's and some only work on creatures (frenzy/npc only, calm/all, etc.) so what about fighting creatures and undead? are they included in the pacifist approach?

and just for the record, reflect is a mysticism discipline, not alteration ...

A pacifist, by definition is someone who does not fight. Or, you could just roleplay someone who is terrified of battle or inflicting harm on others. But yeah, I'd say no damage of any kind...at least by my way of thinking, and I have considered this before. h8ball might have a different impression. The real question is: does this character avoid combat taking place altogether, or could you run to the guards to save you? For that matter, could you use conjuration and followers and just heal and shield them?

Assuming that instigating any kind of combat is taboo, illusion would have to be the main skill. Use powers of persuasion (charm or Speechcraft), hiding (chamo/invis and Sneak), and Calm. You would need Mysticism for paralyze and Sneak for good pick-pocketing to be able to get some items. I imagine you'd also want Athletics and Acrobatics to be pretty decent so you could run away. So basically, I'm thinking major skills of: Illusion, Mysticism, Sneak, Speechcraft, Athletics, Acrobatics, and probably Alteration.

and just for the record, using conjuration as a primary combat skill actually is very easy and works quite well. for one, it gains experience and levels much faster than any of the combat skills, so your summons are usually much higher level than your enemies. this works especially well for a breton mage. with a starting skill of 40, you can be journeyman by second level. took journeyman level summons into the mythic dawn quests. it was pretty funny watching my flame atronach/headless zombie wipe out the entire shrine single-handed. a couple actually tried to run. if you again combine this with command/frenzy (illusion) it gets even better. any groups wipe each other out, and last-man/monster-standing is usually weakened. sic a summons on him to finish the job.

For the pacifist idea, you could just use a moderate paralyze spell to avoid fighting. One challenge would be to find a way to complete the Arena quests being a pacifist. I don't really see a way that this would be possible.

Maybe "total pacifist" was the wrong term. A better term might be "sneaky underhanded so-and-so who avoids getting his hands dirty".

No direct immediate Health damage allowed on strike or on cast (which includes damage over time since the first "hit" is immediate, also enchanted weapons because on-strike still damages Health). However, indirect Health damage is OK. Examples: Summon "decides" to attack and do damage, not you. Enemy "decides" to follow and Guard "decides" to help. Enemy "decides" to chase you through a trap and triggers it, or "decides" to stupidly run through just as YOU trigger it.

In all cases, you're not hitting the enemy with weapons or spells that do direct Health damage. You're effectively exploiting AI "decisions" and game mechanics to do indirect damage FOR you. You can help that process along by casting spells that weaken the enemy (Damage/Drain Skills/Attributes/Magicka/Fatigue) or cripple them (Silence, Paralyse, Disintegrate Weapon/Armor, etc). You can also protect or heal yourself and your "allies" by any means necessary.

The objective is to make the game MORE challenging, for players who get a kick out of using intelligence and lateral thinking to solve problems. I came up with the idea because I'm disappointed that Oblivion "spoon-feeds" players with enemies that more or less match their level, so there's never any REAL sense of danger. Most players hack, slash & spellcast their way through destructively without REALLY working out some of the more unusual ways to beat enemies.

A good example is my recent penchant for looting Aylied Ruins under "pacifist" rules. The object is to survive and escape with everything lootable, without using ANY weapons or destructive spells. The main tactic is to dodge and run, or employ Stealth. However, I award myself a bonus for every enemy who commits suicide by stupidity, i.e. allowing themselves to be lured into traps or into each other's line of fire, etc. Great fun!

Arena fights can be won under "pacifist" rules by using summons to fight FOR you.

h8ball wrote:However, indirect Health damage is OK. Examples: Summon "decides" to attack and do damage, not you. Enemy "decides" to follow and Guard "decides" to help. Enemy "decides" to chase you through a trap and triggers it, or "decides" to stupidly run through just as YOU trigger it....You're effectively exploiting AI "decisions" and game mechanics to do indirect damage FOR you.

Blah, shame on me for thinking this was an RP challenge. Now, see if you can win with this rules while you have an overhaul mod like Oscuro's installed so that the game has static levels.

h8ball wrote:The objective is to make the game MORE challenging, for players who get a kick out of using intelligence and lateral thinking to solve problems. I came up with the idea because I'm disappointed that Oblivion "spoon-feeds" players with enemies that more or less match their level, so there's never any REAL sense of danger. Most players hack, slash & spellcast their way through destructively without REALLY working out some of the more unusual ways to beat enemies.

eh, this is basically why I preferred morrowind. try clearing a daedra-infested island for azura's star as a second level mage. you'd better have your thinking cap on or else you're screwed ...

Now that WOULD be a challenge, since OOO affects levelling of enemies, removing that feeling of being "wet-nursed". Just like Morrowind, you CAN encounter high level enemies when you're still at a low level, which RE-introduces the sadly missing sense of danger.

I DO have OOO but, on my current play-through, it's not installed. This is because I want to finish Oblivion plain vanilla style, as intended by Bethesda. As such, I have NO mods installed that have any MAJOR effects on gameplay or levelling, only the Unofficial Oblivion Patch, various visual/performance tweaks and a few user interface improvements.

On my next play-through, I WILL have OOO installed for greater difficulty and a more Morrowind-style sense of "Hey! Better be careful... You CAN get killed out there, you know?" For now, though, I'm happy to get some laughs proving that HI (Human Intelligence) is better than AI (Artificial Intelligence).

I agree with chromalfean. I still prefer Morrowind's sense of "Uh oh. This looks like instant death. Am I a fool for attempting it now, or should I wait until I'm stronger?" Once I finish Oblivion, I'll go back to Morrowind and finish the game I left off. I'm a Breton Atronach with NO armour skills as Major or Minor (they all started at a measly 5). I'm at Level 7 and can STILL be killed instantly by ONE bite from a Kagouti, or ONE arrow from a Skeleton Archer, so strategy and cunning are the watchwords!

well, I've been pretty adamant about NOT using third-party mods for numerous reaons, but I did check out OOO. I found that along with the other requisite mods (UOP, UISP, UOMP) that the Oblivion Mod Manager reported several severe conflicts that I decided I'd rather not find out the hard way how bad they were, so after reinforcing my previous ideas about mods in general, I disabled them all and went back to the official "core" game/expansion/dlc content, unless someone can recommend a load order to eliminate/reduce/minimize all those conflicts?

UOP = Unofficial Oblivion Patch
UISP = Unofficial Isles of Shivering Patch?
UOMP = no clue


It seems we've successfully derailed the thread unless we're going to start offering challenges with Oscuro's up. So...how hard would it be to kill the Unicorn at level 1? Bad enough you have three minotaur guards, but the unicorn itself is pretty darn tough to deal meaningful damage to -- even if you "cheat" and try to lure it to guards.

azuarc wrote:UOP = Unofficial Oblivion Patch
UISP = Unofficial Isles of Shivering Patch?
UOMP = no clue


It seems we've successfully derailed the thread unless we're going to start offering challenges with Oscuro's up. So...how hard would it be to kill the Unicorn at level 1? Bad enough you have three minotaur guards, but the unicorn itself is pretty darn tough to deal meaningful damage to -- even if you "cheat" and try to lure it to guards.

ack! screwed the pooch on my acronyms ... I meant the "Unofficial Oblivion Patch", "Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch" and the "Unofficial Official Mods Patch" for the DLCs. couln't they just combine those for an "Unofficial GOTY Patch" or something?

I think you could easily beat Oblivion by using Conjuration as your only weapon.
Unless you purposely chose things that would hamper your using conjuration.

It might be difficult if you also had The Atronach as your birthsign.

I once made a char, I wanted to be strictly a fighter/warrior type, and I chose The Atronach as my birthsign.
Let me tell you, you want a tough row to hoe?
Try choosing the Atronach as your birthsign.

azuarc wrote:

So...how hard would it be to kill the Unicorn at level 1? Bad enough you have three minotaur guards, but the unicorn itself is pretty darn tough to deal meaningful damage to -- even if you "cheat" and try to lure it to guards.

This isn't a level one trick, but something I learned with a mountain lion on my tail.....

Best way to kill unicorn?

Turn invisible, get on it's back, ride to middle of bridge, make it jump over edge, and drown it.

Mogtepyigsoloth wrote:It might be difficult if you also had The Atronach as your birthsign.

I once made a char, I wanted to be strictly a fighter/warrior type, and I chose The Atronach as my birthsign.
Let me tell you, you want a tough row to hoe?
Try choosing the Atronach as your birthsign.

Atronach was completely awesome in Morrowind if you made yourself a custom spell that drained your intelligence 100 points for 1 second. After you got your intel back, you got all your manamagicka as well. Atronach is much less useful in Oblivion considering that magicka regenerates "normally" rather than waiting to rest. I haven't seriously considered playing a character as Atronach yet, however that 150 point bonus would be pretty nice if you could get around the stunted magicka. OTOH, as a non-magic user, I imagine the magic absorption is handy.