So it's time for us to ask the great question after some good time playing the game. Is it truly balanced? Is it playable from any angle, or can you screw up by pushing skills in the wrong directions? Is there a standard skill set that works for vitually every character? Are certain skills better used by playing the game the same way (for instance, a stealth vampire better than a fighter vampire?)

I think certain skills are useless, being mysticism and security that I can think of. Other skills can be important no matter what the character, like illusion, marksman, restoration. So it seems if I want a knight he has to major in part to stealth. A stealthy character finds more options in the game than dash and hack, but at the same time does earn kills as fast. Mysticism only had 3 or 4 spells, and they all seem useless. Soul trap can be done just as easely without majoring in it and work as well (seeing as how rare grand soul gems are it doesn't matter if you ecounter them anyway) Tlekinesis is fun but useless as you can't do any harm to the monster. Dispel is useless because of how rare enchanted characters are anyway. When you do encounter them they're barely any more difficult.

Security can be done by just learning the game, and it doesn't make it that much easier when you get into higher levels. You'll still be searching for lockpicks at every corner.

Blade ended up being all powerful but I don't think it has anything to do with the joining of long and short, it's just there's a lot of seductive stuff that comes in blades. War hammers have there own seduction but not as powerful.

Ahem......Character creation threads or such.....MY FAVORITE!!!

OK first of all,i completly disagree about your Mysticism comments.When you're a mage you will be probably fighting with ranged magic.That means you will need a ranged soul trap spell.Which,with decent duration,requires at least skill 50.

Next one is Detect Creature spell.For a stealth guy (or posably for everybody else) it's important to know what's behind the corner.When something becomes Invisible you will still be able to fight it and see it if you have a Detect Creature spell.It's important that the spell has good duration and that it covers a large area.That will reqiure higher skill.

Reflect Spell.Useful aganist spellcasters.Very useful.A good one will reqiure high skill.
Reflect Damage:Useful against warriors.As with reflect spell,it's duration and uality will depend on the higher skill.
And Mysticism is easy to develop,which is very good for developing Inteligence.You will want to raise your Inteligence as soon as posible because it isn't retroactive.

Security:Yes it is useless and it's because of the Skeleton Key.Stupid devs.I wasted my skill slot there.

As for useless skills?
Speechcraft - With a 100 Charm spell that has duration of few seconds you can allways keep people disposition at maximum.It requires Illusion skill of merely 25.Speechcraft is nice for raising your Personality though.

Strangely i can't remember any other useless skills besides these two.


To answer the other part of the question:You can hardly screw up.
The game is so easy going that almost anything goes smoothly.If you suck at something you can easyly develop it as a minor.Sure,it will take some time but at the end you will be the same as the guy\chick who picked it as a primary.I will take Acrobatics as an example.I picked Athletics as a primary and Acrobatics as a minor.Right now i'm master at Acrobatics,and i'm not master at Athletics.So there you go.

Actualy you can handle yourself pretty good by chosing one of the pre-made classes,and just about any race.

There are diffrences in gameplay depending what kind of skills are you using.Example:Somebody complained about Ogres on this forum.Ogres are easly beaten with a bow and some pathetic poison maybe.Trolls are very difficult to stealth chars,but i heard people saying they are piece of cake with some fire spells.
Some creeatures are best fought with spells,some with melee,some with ranged weapons a poisons.So i would say it's pretty much even.

I agree with Hypno.
You can play any angle and be a very effective character, and pick any level of difficulty that suits you!
speechcraft is not useful to pick as a major skill. I enjoyed the mini game, but you can easily break persuasion.
Security (wasted my slot there too) is wasted as a main choice as well, even if you don't get skel key. You can get good at minigame (too boring) or practice them for autopick.

I think that illusion is the Best magically-oriented class because it has so many different things to choose from like charm, command, frenzy, paralyze, light, night-eye, silence and some other cool things. I also think that conjuration is very helpful in the beginning (1-10) and middle (20-30) levels, but when you get to level 40 or above, you don't really need to summon anything to help you because your basically a demi-god by then.
Two skills that weren't so important in Morrowind but are now necessities in OB are Armorer and Alchemy. Armorer is very awesome at expert level because you can make things even better than they were originally and at master level your repair hammer never breaks
Alchemy is a necessity because it is like being a mage but with out using magicka because you can make potions that do fire, frost, shock, health damage, fatigue damage, magicka damage (destruction). You can also make potions like Invisibility, Silence, chameleon, paralyze, light, night-eye (illusion) and you can make potions that Burden enemies, feather you, and protect you from frost, fire and shock damage (alteration) and you can also make potions like cure disease, restore health, restore fatigue, restore magicka, and even potions that can restore your seven attributes (restoration). You can even make potions that detect life, dispel, absorb magic, and reflect magic (mysticism). Alchemy has potion effects from every class of magic except for Conjuration which definetly makes it a worth-while skill.

I think that security, speechcraft, athletics, acrobatics, hand to hand, and mercantile are the most useless skills in OB. Even though they are better than they were in Morrowind because of the skill perks, I still think that these are the most useless skills in OB.

The skills I find useless are lockpicking and sneak. Sneak can be replaced by chameleon and lockpicking by open lock spells.

Sneak - Useles???
You are obvlusly not a master.

speechcraft is worthless (to me at least) all you need to do is bribe and pickpocket the money back

I agree with hypno on sneak, my character is a master of sneak and he's a demigod in own way.

On Mysiticism, yeah it's not totally useless to be good at but I'd rather not choose it as a major and instead just practice it on my own (as opposed to what I did do) because it's impractical at lower levels when you can't get good relfect damage spells yet, and you don't give yourself that much an advantage with the first set of spells you get with mysticism. Besides, most of the spells offered in mysticism are some of the most easy enchanted items to come by, detect life, reflect damage, etcetera.

What's so good about master sneak?

Master of Sneak ignores oponent's armor when striking a critical hit

It's not just that, I can be two feet infront of a guy in broad daylight with a 25% chameleon item and he won't see me. I can stab someone full frontal in a cave and if they're a dumber monster they'll look around for me but can't see me, and I don't even have to move that far. Sure, I sacrificed combat ability but in the right setting I can beat anybody. Heh, in order to beat the shrine of dagon quest I jacked the book then I woke the guy up and disappeared into the shadows, and just kept hitting him with major convalesence when he got into trouble, staying hidden myself.

To make an immediate god...

HIGH ELF/ APPRENTICE sign

(contrary to a previous post, Int gaine magicka is "retroactive", you get straight 2 points magicka per int, no matter what your level, HIT POINTS are not retroactive, so if you melee a lot, get end up first)

However, to make your god char, forget melee... All that swinging and crazy spinning, its chaos (fun, but chaos). You dont want that, its dangerous, a guy could get hurt!!

What you want is Destruction, Sneak, Illusion, Alchemy and Restore!!

The lowest level you can cast Paralyze or Invisiable is level 50 illusion, the spells you buy dont get lower, and you cant create a spell with an effect that you cant cast...

HOWEVER!! Who says you cant cast a spell just cuz your skill is too low?? This is where restore comes in... you can get a novice fortify skill spell.. and you can make a 3 second (oh I dont know) fortify Illusion spell that should EASILY get you over 50 long enough to click the Spellmaker... then make a 1 sec paralyze (I called it stun) and a 10-15 second invisable....

Use destruction on everything... or bow, or both....

THE PLAN: You sneak around in dungeons... you see a guy....

Pull him, alone, with a ranged attack... poison an arrow or just fireblast him doesnt matter...

Then when he gets close, cast your 10 second invis... he loses you, sneak up, and WHACK HIM HARD!! repeat ad infinitim till he dies...

If you run out of magicka, thats what alch is for... and if you make a skill to fortify Illusion, make one for Alch!! Then your potions rock!! Its also free money because potions will start selling for 60+ gold EASY all while level 1!!

If you are a vampire, you have detect life free... which is neat, it also boosts SPEED! (aweome) Destruction (better) Illusion (how could you NOT have skill 50 now?) Sneak!! (SNEAK CRITS RULE!! and with Invis, you can keep doing it!!) and acrobatics, strangth, will, other stuff... Jump farther, carry more, regen magicka faster...

I made a bunch of touch spells... I am level 10 and my destroy is at 100, when I go stage 4 vamp, destroy is at 118 (got the conjurer robe too) So I have these 100 damage for 2 seconds, and 100% weakness to damage type for 2 seconds spells. 400 damage on touch... at level 10!! I wipe people out with at most, 3 of those.... and if not, cast invis.... run away, they lose you... sit around, drink a pot or 2, come back and finish em off...

I think my char has been physically struck maybe 25 times this whole time.... I am almost master of mages guild, cleaned out about 20 dungeons or so....

Armor skills useless if you dont get hit, and blades/bows/axes/maces break, so I stick with destroy...

Plus, I can carry more since I am not weighted down by unnecesary arms and armor... I carry one good sword for "emergancies" and some killer dispel pots for the rare time I didnt dodge a silence spell... (very rare)

Next char I make will be a more Thief type, maybe just using illusion for magic... more bows, poisons, blade, and a WEE BIT more melee...

I think melee is the most advanced style of play in this game. Stealth and magick (or both together) are easy/invincable....

Thats my opinions...

whatcha think?

Cadaver

Well, considering I just started a character with main skills of Mysicism and Speechcraft I've just made one hell of a booboo. It fitted best though with what my character concept was. Actually, maybe Illusion did.

Ah well, anyway.

Security - useless once you hit Level 5, because of the Skeleton Key.
Conjuration - useless for bound armour etc. because generally the stuff you get is better anyway.
Either Blade or Blunt is useless depending on personal preference, as I've found I tend to stay with one weapon class. On the new char. I've picked Blunt, just to try it out.
Speechcraft - Yes, the minigame is easy. And also at high levels everyone's disposition is positive to you as well because of the main quest, and even if not it doesn't matter as you can easily get it cranked up.
Hand to Hand - I have never used this. Ever.
Merchantile - probably I've not got appreciation of this because I did the Hackdirt quest and then levelled...twice for the remainder of the game. So maybe I'm biased, but havn't found it so great.
Marksmanship - Even if you shoot things first, generally you end in Melee and the marksmanship skill goes up slowly.
Sneak - Same as marksmanship. Eventually you're seen. Once you get to the top it's sweet, but whilst you're not and fighting high level peeps, you're in a world of pain. One 6x attack on a dread zombie is really negated quickly by their regeneration.
Athletics/Acrobatics - Are fun. But they also level up pretty much on their own devices and need no real attention.
Block - If you block succesfully, it increases your block. If you fail, you increase your armour skill. What are you going to lose?

My new char has Armourer, Light Armour, Blunt, Speechcraft, Mysticism, Sneak and Marksmanship. But as I've said, that has nothing to do with what's better or worse - it's purely a 'this is the kind of character I want to play and this fits in with it' sort of choice.

Heh, it's actually level 10 you get the skeleton key, and it's not just because of that, once you figure out the game technique for lockpicking you don't need it.

Acrobatics is a good skill to major in unless you want to spend hours jumping up and down, in which case it well end up equal to a major. At level 50 acrobatics you get the dodge ability, which I find super useful in combat (expecially since my character is keen on disappearing acts, I just dodge back over and over again about 50 feet, go into sneak and it's over, screw invisibility).

You don't eventually get seen with sneak if you do it right. I mean yeah, in the last dungeon of the thief story I get seen in a fat dungeon full of monsters and ended up just standing up and running (for like 5 minutes, that was a long dungeon that I basically completely skipped), then going into a new room and climbing something high, going into sneak, and waiting for the last of those that chased me to wander back off.

You usually get seen with Sneak if you attack/fight. Granted, on higher levels if it happens to be dark and moody you can kill of a few people without being seen (the 'I've been hit by six arrows and yet I can't be bothered to find out why' AI), but unless you're using magical assistance, you'll always get spotted at some point.

Personally I use sneak until I get an arrow in them, then charge. Occasionally a good smack in the back with whatever I'm carrying, then fight as per usual.

I level pretty easily on Acrobatics because I have a habit of taking shortcuts through town by vaulting over walls, and have an unhealthy obsession with near-vertical descent routes when walking in the Jerral Mountains. I don't think you need to major in it to get it up quickly.

So sounds like the secret to Acro is jumping down mountains... thats good to know... I want to find a bridge or cliff that takes about 90% of my life.. then wait 1 hr...
repeat...

I think that would crank it up....
I love that you heal when waiting now!! So awesome... for my next char, I am going to move more toward stealth and WEAPONS, and less magic.... this should be more difficult since I will depend on equipment more....
My GOD STEALTH MAGE (Class Deathnyte) is invincable, I cranked through every Arena match (while on 70% difficulty) at level 10 in about 30mins... The only "problem" was the guy with the shield that resists everything, him, I just kept illusion "invisable", sneak attack, invisable, repeat till dead, and then I was done!! It was a joke... this time, with my stealth Idea, I am not going to be a Highelf/Apprentice sign, so wont get to rely so much on magic.... we shall see how it goes... I love this game....

I noticed with the Stealth Arrow attacks (or spells too) if you are far enough away, you shoot, and run and hide before the arrow/fireball hits them, then they come to the area you shot from and cant find you... still stealthed... its AWESOME!! So yeah, stealth rules.... IMO

Question on marksman... at Skill 75 and 100 you get "chance to knockdown, and paralyze" respectively... How high of a chance?? Anyone know the percentage chance they will fall down?? If its between 33-50%, it might be useful... you could just back up and keep blasting the hell outta them.... or at least get them way down...

Cadaver

I do this a lot... I'm jumping off the cliff right by the stables outside the Imperial City. I use this area a lot for training.

- jumping off to train acrobatics/run to train athletics

- heal myself to train restoration

- sneak close to the gate guard to train sneak while my magicka goes back up

- summon creatures and fight them to train conjuration, destruction, blade, block, blunt, hand to hand, light armor and armorer.

Best way to train Acrobatics is to jump wherever you go.
As for athletics,swiming is a lot better than runing.Explore the water,and develop your athletics.

Constant jumping is fine..
a good spot to uber-train is from the wall on cloud ruler temple... no matter how good you are at acrobatics, you can jump far enough to take most of your life down. I did it a few times whenever I'd go there and then heal as I ran back up.

Sure, but that is quite silly, and jumping from a cliff where you loose almost all you health gains a LOT more acro training than simply jumping.

What? Silly to jump off cliffs? Nooo...

Security is useless because once you get the Skeleton Key it becomes a useless skill in major. Merchantile is useless because it increases so painfully slow without training. But putting a skill in major isn't everything. The first skill I mastered was Armorer and its not even one of my majors. But yes you can screw up a character by choosing the wrong skills and theres virtually no option for hybrids. My current character is the only working hybrid I know of. Check my sig if you want to know what it is.

heh.
Jumping wherever i go is an old habit from Morrowind.In Morrowind you would actualy move faster while jumping.I carryed my habit in Oblivion,and i became a master of Acrobatics,developing it as a minor

Ahh Morrowind,the memories........

That's not true.
The game is so ''slack''t that you can make some really wicked hybrids even if you don't intend to.
I intended to play the game as a stealth char.Somewhere in later levels i developed in a quite a figher,and i was the master of Illusion even though i developed it as a minor.I also boosted my Inteligence with Alchemy,so i had enough magicka for some good spells too.I got intrested in developing a little Mysticism and voila,i'm a master.

About Merchatile:I can't confirm this because i'm not a master,but i heard that you can ''invest'' your money in shops,so that they can have more money.