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I have searched several online spell databases and have found no reference to them, yet in forum posts and the Oblivion Wiki, people are making recommendations regarding them. I know they exist as spells utilized by items, but they do not appear as sold spells. Perhaps an obscure vendor?

How can these spells be used in spellmaking if they are not sold and registered in your spellbook? I have seen recommendations, for example, that a "Drain Personality" spell can be made at the Arcane University, yet spellmaking can only use spells you already know, by definition.

You can not know a spell if you can not buy it, or get it as a quest reward, can you? There is a claim in the Wiki that you can make it at the Arcane University, but based on the description of spellmaking on p.38 of the user's manual, you should not be able to if you can not obtain the spell anywhere.

If you know where they are, please post it here.

This is regarding self-targeted spells. Some quest challenges actually require you to decrease an attribute, like Namira's quest.

There is an absorb strength spell. Dunno if you already knew that.

There aren't even any FormIDs from the construction set for Drain Personality and Drain Strength as spells. This makes it very hard to believe they exist as spells.

Absorb Strength increases your strength, not decreases it, since you are absorbing it from another target....a target which can not be yourself.

Yeah..

Orrery mod grants you powers containing "drain attribute" effects.
Now as I think of it, this is absolutely the best thing you get from the Orrery. Not the power. Not the fortify. Just access to the "drain attribute" effect.

Ahh...now that is very critical information which should be appended to that Wiki claim.

Heh..I had completed the Orrery quest, but never bothered to use the machine. It is not enough just to get the quest cleared as a "finished quest". You must go into the Orrery afterward and press the button for a "power du jour" in order for the spellmaking altars to update and permit availability to all Drain Attribute spells. Apparently it does not matter which power you obtain from it, at that point all spell altars start including "Drain Attribute".

It is not intuitive to see how pushing a button for a "power of the day", usually some mundane spell effect, would also suddenly change spellmaking altars throughout Cyrodiil so dramatically. By doing that, you can get access to all of the new Orrery spell effects without actually experimenting with it...making it pointless to ever push the button again.

The answer is simple: The altar contains effects that you can cast or that affect you. If you can't cast any "drain attribute", you can't make an item that casts it, and it doesn't matter if you cast it as a magicka-based spell or a once-daily power. What is curious though, is that if you equip an item that casts some effect on you, you gain access to that effect as well. Not quite logical.

The unintuitive part is why gaining only a Drain Agility spell, for example, would suddenly allow you access to Drain Strength, Drain Intelligence, Drain Willpower, Drain Speed, Drain Personality, in addition to Drain Agility from spellmaking altars. Therefore, it doesn't matter what day of the week or month you push the Orrey button, any power it gives will allow you total access to all the other powers.

'cause you'd have to spend ages collecting the rest. What about drain, fortify, absorb, damage, restore skills? A separate spell for each skill?
In Morrowind, where there were some 30 or more skills that would be just unrealistic.

There are already a hundred or more spells, what difference would 6 more make? As far as I can tell, the devs seem to take delight in creating designs that maximize repetitive and meaningless player interaction with the game rather than minimize it. Take for example, buying and selling items one by one vs. say a more intuitive design of selecting several items at once to sell, or a design that gave you a choice to do it either way (so the mercantile sub-game could be preserved in its bulky glory).

Besides, it puts to waste the presumed primary quest reward of the Orrery's special varying powers...why vary powers at all when it also gives them to you wholesale at the same time?

The design probably just took on this weird form because it was the easiest way to retrofit the true purpose of the mod to the game, I bet. The true purpose simply being to add all the Drain Attributes back.

Come to think of it, I seem to remember now that I read an interview on the official site indicating something along those lines: surprise from the devs that so many people were complaining about the fewer spell options in Oblivion than Morrowind. I bet the Orrery mod was the response to that.

Anonymous wrote:There are already a hundred or more spells, what difference would 6 more make?

7 attributes (str, wil, int, end, agi, spe, luc) times 5 modifiers (drain, damage, restore, fortify, absorb) makes 35 spells. And consistently, the same logic should be applied to skills - 21 skills times 5 modifiers, 105 skill related spells. Add 4 derived parameters (health, fatigue, magicka, encumberance) and you have 160 effects on the list.
Thank you, I'll pass. And don't support making a horrible design decision with another horrible design decision. (Morrowind trade system is what many miss)

Besides, it puts to waste the presumed primary quest reward of the Orrery's special varying powers...why vary powers at all when it also gives them to you wholesale at the same time?

'cause Orrery sucks.
The "powers" would make sense if they provided something much better than you can spellmake - say, fortify/drain a little but for a day or so, not for 80 seconds!

Come to think of it, I seem to remember now that I read an interview on the official site indicating something along those lines: surprise from the devs that so many people were complaining about the fewer spell options in Oblivion than Morrowind. I bet the Orrery mod was the response to that.

I don't really think so. The effect was in the game all the time and you could probably spellmake something with it using an item that casts that on you. And the problem is primarily with spells that entirely vanished from the game, not just with ones that are present as effects on items but not spellmakable.

Slowfall, Levitation, Mark, Recall, Divine Interventions, Jump, Blind, Detect Enchantment, Detect Key, Fortify Attack, Lock, Poison, Remove Curse, Sanctuary, Sound, Swift Swim. All gone. Quite a bit of reason to complain, isn't it?

Vook wrote: ...you could probably spellmake something with it using an item that casts that on you.

Nope, doesn't work. Tried it with Helm of Ferocity and Cheap Wine. Drain effects on you do not confer knowledge, it must actually be in your spell list to activate the spell altar selection. Therefore only by mod can you get it. Interestingly, using the Staff of Withering will let you cast all 7 Drain Attribute spells at once on a target, but it also does not confer the ability to spellmake with them. That would explain why they were in there originally...because many items use them.

They probably should have added it as a Daedric quest reward, or mage guild task reward...would have solved the problem much more elegantly. I saw an entry in the wiki indicating it is also available if you started as an Orc, since they get that as a daily power. Someone should make an Orc to see if it actually does open drain attributes in spell altars.

Vook wrote:Slowfall, Levitation, Mark, Recall, Divine Interventions, Jump, Blind, Detect Enchantment, Detect Key, Fortify Attack, Lock, Poison, Remove Curse, Sanctuary, Sound, Swift Swim. All gone.

Sounds like a list of things to pump up the value of sequels to Oblivion to me...

interestingly, things like Grey Prince's training (constant +3 to blade skill) add "fortify skill" effect to the list.

"Fortify Skill" also seems to be the primary effect of an official mod, in this case, The Thieves Den, which has a spell vendor selling fortify in a few skills. Like "Drain Attribute", it only takes the presence of one fortify skill to open up spellmaking altars to allow fortify on all skills. There are trainers in that mod also, but they add nothing more than what you could get elsewhere. There is also a chest that resets so you can practice lockpicking and a small stream of income from "pirate plunder".

Like the Orrey mod, I would say the most important aspect of the mod is the upgrade to spellmaking.

Given this pattern...two mods and two upgrades to spellmaking, (or rather returning spells that used to be available in Morrowind)....I would say that the purpose is just that, to give back what was taken out.

Was it afterthought, or did the users goad them into returning those spells? (Albeit, at a profit). I stand by my point.

Quite likely these spells were just forgotten, not purposedly left out, and since this is not a -bug- per se, can't be included through patch, so they plug them into the mods.

Hmm...Thieves Den is not related, although you can pick up a few Fortify Skills there. I just loaded a very early game (Level 5 or so), before any mods, and one before I had any spells to speak of, and just enough money to buy the candles to activate the spellcasting altar in Frostcrag. I eliminated all mods except Frostcrag. On activation of the spell altar, even though I had no Fortify Skill spells or items, "Fortify Skill" appeared in the spellaltar list.

Apparently, Fortify Skill is a native option, or related to Frostcrag. It probably may exist for everyone regardless of spells known. All other spell types seem to be normally regulated by "knowledge", -- whether you have an archetype in your spellbook.

The Skeleton Key.

I found it. The item that was adding "Fortify Skill" to spellmaking was, of all things, The Skeleton Key. It adds "Fortify Security", which then apparently adds access to all skills in spellmaking Fortify spells.

The Key lies so low in my inventory I didn't see it. I had to go back to an even earlier save, to find out Fortify Skill is not automatic, nor is it added with the Frostcrag mod. However, Thieves Den will also add it through the spells sold there. However, since everyone goes for the Skeleton Key anyway, Fortify Skill is probably going to be in everyone's repertoire anyway.

Well, I just hunted for the Jode Stone power. The power is kickass, especially for a beginner character and the requirement (10 fame) trivial, and it gives you fortify skill too.

In my case I hit level 10 (req. for Skeleton Key) before I hit fame 10. Only had fame 7. But then, at that level, I had zero need for spellmaking, and even less cash to do so. If you mess around in caves and forts initially rather than do the main quest, you won't have much fame for awhile. The only quests I did early, which turned out to be dynamite for early levels was the Eschutcheon of Chorral and a sword quest.

That shield alone can get you through the entire game without fighting almost. The reflect damage it has is as good as any weapon almost. If need be, one just has to raise shields and let the bad guys pummel themselves to death. It just takes a long time and you over train Restoration if your block skill is not high enough

The Skeleton Key after level 10 was also critical as I could suddenly go everywhere, locks no problem, ever.