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I look at for example Scout and Agent. Scout has Alchemy as a bonus. As we all know, leveling Alchemy gives + 2/5 Intelligence on level up. But the Scout uses no magic whatsoever. This can mean two things.

1: The Alchemy is there purely for "roleplay" and the Intelligence gained should either be ignored outright or used in moderation so one has more magic to cast the odd Heal Minor Wounds.
2: One is supposed to level Mysticism/Conjuration along with it to accelerate the Intelligence gain and actually find a use for it.

The same issue befalls the Agent, this time with Illusion. As Expert/Master Illusion spells can be very costly, such as Chameleon, Paralyze, Command Humanoid etc, and since the Agent has no Intelligence skills boosted through their class; should they dabble in Alchemy/Mysticism/Conjuration to up their Intelligence? Even then, that does not take Willpower into account. Since Agent has Security and has no need for Alteration, and both Restoration and Destruction take ages to level; How could they muster enough Intelligence/Willpower to keep spamming Illusion spells?

I was considering a woodsman sort of class for my next character, something like:

Agility/Endurance +5

Acrobatics
Alchemy
Armorer
Athletics
Light Armor
Marksman
Sneak

But this would create the same issue as the Scout has. So which of the two examples I provided to explain the Scout's issue with should be used, or does someone have a better idea?

A character that can't heal/cure poison/cure disease is at a disadvantage. Characters that wouldn't be candidates for Restoration, like barbarians or thieves, might have Alchemy as an alternative. So I guess that would be #1.

The Agent class should have Alchemy in place of Mercantile. I don't remember 007 ever going to Costco. With 4 Restore Magicka/Fortify Magicka potions any character can be as dangerous as Traven.

Daemos Avetorii wrote:I look at for example Scout and Agent. Scout has Alchemy as a bonus. As we all know, leveling Alchemy gives + 2/5 Intelligence on level up. But the Scout uses no magic whatsoever. This can mean two things.

1: The Alchemy is there purely for "roleplay" and the Intelligence gained should either be ignored outright or used in moderation so one has more magic to cast the odd Heal Minor Wounds.
2: One is supposed to level Mysticism/Conjuration along with it to accelerate the Intelligence gain and actually find a use for it.

I don't know about roleplaying, but if the Scout uses no magic, and Alchemy isn't affected by Intelligence, then I just see it as a dump stat. So option #1.

As for the Agent, I think Illusion is there just so you can cast Charm occasionally

It doesn't mean squat. You are reading too much into the classes. They are not optimized for game play, which means they are little more than sets of skills that are given names that more or less fit the characteristics, then some guy wrote a few sentences to make them sound good.

Chicken Slayer wrote:It doesn't mean squat. You are reading too much into the classes. They are not optimized for game play, which means they are little more than sets of skills that are given names that more or less fit the characteristics, then some guy wrote a few sentences to make them sound good.

Agreed. I don't think I've ever used one of the predefined classes.

Oblivion is probably the easiest game in existence to min-max. I don't know what to say beyond that, really. If you really looked at the attributes and their effects, it becomes rather clear how to build any character. The downside is that ultimately, every character is simply perfect at everything. The preset classes are generally not that great from a min-max standpoint, simply because from a min-max standpoint, I only really care about my endurance and luck. Endurance as it is the only attribute which does not improve your stats retroactively (health increase changes with leveling => endurance should be 100 ASAP to reach maximum attainable health for each level), and luck just level up slowly in all scenarios => if I want my luck to be 100, but I do not want to over level the world, I need to boost it as high as possible initially.

As no pre-made class has both endurance and luck as starting attributes => they are all inefficient.

And the major skill/minor skill divide is quite the issue. Controlled leveling is usually best, but so many hard or nigh impossible to control skills, like acrobatics and athletics, are used. So basically, I would never use any starting class.

What good does luck do? AFAIK, its only effect is to boost some of your skills 0.4 points per level and do the same to whomever you are betting on in the arena.

Luck affects a lot of things in little ways. And if you want a perfect 100 across the board character, you need to start early.

Neither thing seems useful to me, but to each his own.