Maximum Stats Guide v1.0

Leveling up in the Elder Scrolls games is fairly different from other RPGs.  Throughout the game, you control your one character, and the principle behind the level up system is that you get better at things the more you do them.  Sounds intuitive enough- you sword-fight a lot, you get better at swordplay.  You cast a lot of healing spells, you get better at healing.  You run a lot, you get better at running.  And so on.  But when you pick apart exactly how the game lets you increase your stats, and the fact that every enemy in the game is based off of your character's level, things get a little tricky.  Oblivion is the rare RPG in which leveling up can hurt you.  But there are two sides to this coin, and the other extreme is that you can exploit the system to make a character that is basically unstoppable.  It requires a lot of planning and sometimes boring spamming of certain skills, but you'll soon realize as you progress through the game that the slight increase in your enemies' stats will become almost insignificant to the leaps you are making.  Not to mention the fact that your character will be proficient in every skill in the game.

And that's what this guide is all about.

Alright, let's get down to the number crunching.  Let's say that you have an Oblivion character, and you named him (yes, he's male, get over it) Rex.  Rex has what are called attributes and skills.  Attributes represent the less specific portions of what Rex is made of, and are separated into 8 categories: Strength, Intelligence, Willpower, Endurance, Agility, Speed, Personality, and Luck.  The starting point for each of these stats is based on things like race and gender, and the maximum they can reach is 100 (without magical buffs).  Then there are skills.  There are 21 skills, with 3 skills connected to each attribute except for Luck. (See our section on skills below for more details on them)

So here's how leveling works.  During the first part of the game in the sewers, Rex gets to choose his major skills.  These are the skills that determine when Rex is ready to level up.  You choose 7 major skills, and the other 14 are labeled minor skills.  For our purposes, suppose Rex chooses Alchemy, Alteration, Armorer, Hand to Hand, Light Armor, Sneak, and Speechcraft to be his major skills.  Don't worry about why those were chosen just yet- that comes later.

Rex levels up when once he has gained a total of 10 levels across all of his major skills.  For example, if Rex gains 5 levels in both Alchemy and Armorer, then he is ready to level up.  Alternately, he could gain 2 levels each in Alteration, Armorer, Light Armor, Marksman, and Speechcraft.  Any way they add up to 10 does the trick.  When you level up, you are given a screen displaying the 8 attributes, with your current value of each, and potentially a number ranging from +2 to +5 next to each attribute.  You get to choose 3 of these attributes to increase by the number displayed next to it.  If there is no number, selecting to increase that attribute will increase it by 1.  This number is determined by the combined increase in the 3 skills related to that attribute (irregardless of whether they are major or minor skills) since you last leveled up.  More specifically, it is the added levels gained in the 3 corresponding skills divided by 2 (rounded down), up to a maximum of 5, and with a minimum of 1.

For example, if Rex increases his Armorer by 2, his Block by 1, and his Heavy Armor by 3, then he will have the option to increase his Endurance by 3.  This is because the total increase among these 3 skills related to Endurance is 2 + 1 + 3 = 6. Divide 6 by 2, and you get 3.  And it works like this for all the attributes except Luck.

This is where leveling up can be extremely good, or extremely bad for good old Rex.  If Rex levels simply by increasing 5 of his Major Skills by 2 each, then he can potentially only increase any of his attributes by 1.  So he's only adding 3 total points to all his attributes combined.  But if Rex gets to working on increasing those minor skills in addition to his major skills, it is possible to increase 3 of his attributes by 5 each, for a total 15 points gained among all attributes.  That's what this guide is about- getting that +5 to 3 different attributes EVERY level, and making it as easy as possible.  The core mechanic behind this is to gain 10 points in the skills related to the 3 attributes you want to increase, and have that happen simultaneously with getting 10 points across your major skills.  The end goal: max all your attributes at 100 at the lowest possible level.

This process requires a good amount of planning to pull off perfectly.  Of course, you can wing it, but it'll really only make things harder on you, though most of the critical choices you have to make are over with by the time you get out of the sewers at the beginning of the game.  This section is all about helping you get all of that planning done, and hopefully if you follow this advice, you'll be ready to start building your maximum stats character as you first emerge from the introduction sewers area.

Before anything else, you should know that Endurance is more important to get maxed before any other attributes.  Endurance controls how much health you gain each time you level up.  Every time you level up, you add one-tenth of your Endurance value to your maximum health.  The unfortunate caveat here is that when your Endurance increases, it does not retroactively add more health.

For example, let's say Rex has 60 Endurance and 100 health when he levels up, so when he finishes leveling he will find that his maximum health is now 106.  If he levels again, adding +5 to his Endurance, now making it 65, he will gain 6 more health this level, bringing his max health to 112.  Now, if he levels up once more, adding another 5 to his Endurance, making it 70, he will gain 7 health this level instead of 6, and his max health will be 119.  If he had already had 70 Endurance when his health was 100, then 3 levels later he would have 121 health instead of 119.  Now, I know 2 health doesn't seem like a lot.  But if you can max your Endurance at level 8 (which is very possible), you'll end up with a lot more health than you would by maxing your Endurance at a much later level.  It adds up quickly.

There are 10 races to choose from in Oblivion: Imperial, Kajiit, Nord, Orc, Redguard, Wood Elf, Argonian, Breton, Dark Elf, and High Elf.  Your starting attributes will be determined by your choice of race, as will your special powers, and each race gets bonuses to certain skills.  Any race can certainly become a max stats character, but that doesn't mean that some aren't better than others.  The main thing to consider is Endurance.  As described above, Endurance is one of the most important attributes to max early, so getting a good head start is a solid choice.  The races that start with 50 base Endurance (the highest starting value), are Nord (male only), Orc, and Redguard (male or female for these 2).  Other than Endurance, there isn't really any important factor in deciding your race.

Choosing a Birthsign is another one of the character creation choices you have in the sewers, and is a very important one.  Basically, if you are trying to max your character's stats at the lowest level possible, there are really only 3 valuable Birthsigns you need to consider: The Lady, The Thief, and The Warrior.  These are the only Birthsigns that give any meaningful attribute bonuses (please, ignore The Steed), and good ones at that.  Just by choosing one of these 3 signs you can reduce the level you'll need to get your character to by 2 or 3 levels.  As for which one of these 3 is for you, that's a little harder- though only slightly.

If you want to max out your Luck, then The Thief is a must.  No ifs, ands, or buts about it.  Those 10 extra points in Luck mean 10 less levels of using your attribute increases on Luck.  Since Luck is the only attribute that can never increase by more than 1 per level, any bonus you can get to it is of the utmost importance.  Always keep that in mind.

Otherwise, it's really preference as to whether you choose The Lady or The Warrior.  They both give Endurance increases (very nice), and then Willpower and Strength, respectively.  So it really comes down to pure preference here- I would simply suggest going with The Lady (Willpower) if you'd rather be more magic focused at early levels, and going with The Warrior (Strength) if you'd rather focus more on melee attacks at the lower levels.  Obviously, you plan on maxing all attributes at some point, so simply think about what you'd prefer at the lower levels.  Neither is a bad choice.

When you are choosing a class (it is highly recommended that you do a custom class, rather than a pre-made one), you choose an emphasis for your character.  Your choices are Combat, Magic, or Stealth.  Each specialization is linked to 7 skills, and those skills will gain an automatic +5, as well as level up faster than the rest of your skills.  Your choice here won't affect how well you can get to max stats, so it doesn't really matter that much.  You can, however, make life a little nicer down the road by choosing to specialize in those skills that are naturally hard or annoying to level up.  Destruction and Restoration are extremely slow to level, so Magic is probably the best choice from a logistical standpoint, but it's really not that big of a deal.

This is one of the easier decisions you'll make in the sewers.  At one point you get to choose 2 "favored attributes", which basically means you get to choose 2 attributes to get a small +5 bonus to.  If you've been following along, you should know where this is going.  Endurance is important early on, and I don't see any reason not to give it a +5 bonus every chance you get.  So that's one down.  For the second one, if you plan on maxing Luck, then choosing Luck as a favored attribute is a must.  That +5 to Luck will be essential.  If you don't care about maxing Luck, then the second favored attribute is really up to you.  As long as Endurance is covered, simply pick your favorite attribute!

This is quite possibly the most important choice there is to make when creating your character.  When you are making your custom class, you must go against everything you think is right about how to choose your major skills.  Your intuition might suggest to make your most used skills your major skills.  The truth is, you'll want quite the opposite.  The kinds of skills that you want are skills that you DON'T naturally use all the time.  Specifically, you want your major skills to be ones that will only increase if you sit down and actively focus on increasing them.  The reason for this is that you want to be sure you get that +5 to 3 different attributes when you level, so you must have COMPLETE control on exactly when you level.

Some great examples are skills like Alchemy, Sneak, and Speechcraft.  It is hard to accidentally increase any of these skills, making it hard to accidentally level before you want to.  At the same time, when you are ready to level, these skills level up extremely fast, which means you can level practically whenever you need to.  This is exactly what you want from your major skills- you won't level when you don't want to, but you will level quickly when you need to.  This can also vary from character to character.  For example, if you plan on using a lot of Alteration spells in fights for some reason, wield a Blade, and wear Heavy Armor, then these obviously make bad major skills for you.  However, if you don't use any of these, then they are perfectly fine for major skills, as they are easily controlled.  Knowing ahead of time how you want to play your character can give you a better idea on what makes a good major skill for you.

Another important consideration is to pick your 7 major skills across as many of the 7 attributes (excluding Luck) as you can.  This makes it a lot easier to incorporate those 30 skill increases (10 in 3 different attributes) into your 10 major skill increases at each level, as whatever attributes you are working on are all present in your major skills.  As stated above, the idea here is to try and time your skill leveling so that getting your 30 needed skill increases for maxing your attributes coincides with leveling.  The importance of this is a subtlety, but a very, VERY important subtlety.  Since each skill caps at 100, it is quite possible to max out too many skills before maxing out your attributes, in which case you won't even have enough skills left to max out your attributes.  In other words, it is possible to dig yourself into a hole where a max stats character is no longer feasible.  It's not easy to do, so don't worry about it too much.  Just focus on increasing the skills you need at the moment, while increasing as little else as you can in the process.

As one last piece of advice, try to avoid choosing many skills that you would like to max as major skills. The reason for this is that once you max your attributes you don't really want to level any more, since increasing your attributes was really the only benefit of leveling in the first place.  From experience, I know it is possible to max at least 2 major skills before your attributes get maxed, but I wouldn't risk more than that.

To wrap up this important section, I'd like to bring it all together and give an example of a set of major skills for Rex that follows all of these guidelines.  First, let's assume that Rex wants to wear Heavy Armor, use a shield, and be proficient in Restoration, Destruction, and Conjuration (eliminating these as potential major skills).  As another note, Athletics and Acrobatics are ALWAYS bad major skills, since you really can't help increasing those in most cases.  Thus, the following would make a good set of major skills for Rex:

Alchemy (Intelligence)
Alteration (Willpower)
Armorer (Endurance)
Hand-to-Hand (Strength)
Light Armor (Speed)
Sneak (Agility)
Speechcraft (Personality)

By choosing these 7, Rex has covered all 7 attributes except Luck.  He has also avoided any skills that might go up without his wanting to (given the nature of his character).  And he has also chosen skills that he doesn't care about maxing, with Armorer being the possible exception (remember, maxing 1 or 2 major skills is possible).  Therefore, this is a great set of major skills for Rex.

At the same time, there is no best set of major skills, so you don't have to go with these 7.  As long as you follow the guidelines you'll be fine.

Luck is the odd man out in almost every aspect of this game.  It is the only attribute that has no related skills, which means that you can only ever increase its value by 1 when you level up.  So if you want to have 100 in all 8 attributes, you should really start pounding away on your luck from the start.  But maybe you don't really care about Luck and you're only going for 100 in the other 7 attributes.  You know, the ones with more obvious impacts on the game.  That's cool too, as Luck is mostly optional.

The point is that Luck works differently from other attributes, and you may or may not really care about it.  This leads to 2 slightly different approaches to creating a max stats character.  The differences are described below.

If you choose not to have max Luck, you'll have a little more freedom on how you make your character, as well be able to max all your other stats at a much lower level.  In fact, if you simply ignore Luck, you can max your Endurance at level 8 (the lowest possible, meaning you'll always have max HP!!!), and all your other attributes by level 28.  The only real downside, other than not having an awesome Luck score of course, is that each level takes a little more work.  This is because you are trying to increase 3 different non-Luck attributes by 5 each every level, meaning you need to get 30 skill increases.  This effectively reduces the extent to which you can abuse skill trainers (which, believe me, those guys are going to be your best friends this side of maxing Restoration), and adds in more grinding.  In the early game this is easy, but it can become a chore at the later levels.

In all honesty though, there isn't much special about following the "non max Luck" path that hasn't already been described elsewhere.  Trying to max Luck is really the tricky part, which is why this is split into 2 parts.  For this build, simply use all the knowledge we have bestowed upon you thus far, and go to town!

I will leave you with something that might be useful though.  When I did my max stats character without Luck, I kept a spreadsheet of his skills as they leveled, all the way to level 28.  I'll post Thor's progression (my character) as an image here, so feel free to take a look.  His major skills are the first 7 listed, followed by a gap, then his 14 minor skills.  As another note, he was a male Nord, and I gave him The Warrior Birthsign, along with choosing Strength and Endurance as his 2 favored attributes.  This meant that he started with 65 Strength and Endurance each, and I was able to max both of them at level 8.  The magic focused attributes, such as Intelligence and Willpower, are the ones that took some time, but they got there.  Anyway, hopefully this is somewhat useful as an actual example of a max stats character.

Choosing to max Luck adds in a few complications over the alternative, but the rewards can be pretty sweet.  The biggest, most obvious drawback is that it takes more work.  Since Luck can only increase by 1 point each level no matter what, you're looking at a good number of levels needed just to max Luck, not to mention your other stats.  There are a few helpful tools to reduce this however.  Every race starts with 50 Luck, straight up.  If you choose The Thief Birthsign and take Luck as a favored attribute (things you definitely want to do, as explained in their respective sections), then you can actually start with 65 Luck.  This is as good as it gets at level 1, and reduces the amount of times you need to increase Luck from a potential 50, down to 35.  This is still 35 levels of spending one of your 3 attribute increases on Luck, meaning you obviously have to go to at least level 36 just to max Luck.  At the same time, you're only getting to increase 2 other attributes per level, and it turns out that when you max Luck at level 36, you still won't have maxed everything else.  It will take 4 more levels to round out the remaining stats, meaning you have to go all the way to level 40 to max out all 8 attributes.

So that's 12 levels you lose over not maxing Luck, meaning your enemies will be 12 levels stronger for your 50 extra points of Luck.  Those are the facts, and whether it's worth it is debatable.  What's not debatable, is that it's hard to max out your HP while maxing Luck.  Getting that head start of 65 Luck at level 1 will leave you with a level 1 Endurance score no higher than 55.  Compared to the 65 Endurance you'd have at level 1 if you didn't max Luck, you'll miss out on some HP.  All in all though, these drawbacks are pretty minor, especially since Oblivion isn't a particularly hard game, and you'll still have your attributes maxed.  You'll also find a ton of awesome drops, since your Luck will be so good, meaning you can dawn some awesome gear that you probably couldn't find without max Luck.

So those are the pros and cons.  As for the actual process of leveling a character towards max Luck, the most important thing to keep in mind is that you have to choose Luck as one of your attributes to increase practically every level until it is maxed.  You have the slightest amount of freedom here, as you need to increase Luck 35 times in the 39 levels you will gain to reach level 40.  How you choose to do it is up to you, just make sure you don't miss 5 levels of Luck increases anywhere in there, or you'll be headed to level 41 and beyond.

Perhaps surprisingly, leveling up a max Luck character is actually a faster process (per level) than leveling a character without max Luck.  This is beacause you only have to worry about 2 attributes other than Luck every level, meaning you only need 20 skill increases compared to the standard 30.  Factoring in the 5 points you can get from skill trainers every level, and the process can go pretty quick.  At the same time, you have to focus a little more on not increasing more skills than necessary.  You'd be surprised at how quick you'll be ready to level, so pay close attention and make sure you level when you need to, to avoid getting a ton of extra, unnecesary skill increases.

Other than these few tips, not much is different from the general guidelines outlined in the above sections. Making sure to increase that Luck at practically every level you gain is the key.  Keep that in check, and you'll be well on your way to a max Luck character.

Brief overview of all the skills, and the easiest, cheapest way to improve them quickly.

All 3 Strength skills level up the same way.  Ya gotta whack some stuff.  Sounds easy enough, but when you get to those high levels, they can take a long time.  One way to speed up your Strength training when they just take too long is to use summoned monsters and upping the difficulty.  At any time you can change the difficulty of your game, giving enemies more health.  So up the difficulty, go into a house you own, or some secluded area, summon a monster, and begin tearing into it with the weapon type you are leveling.  I would save first if you are summoning a powerful monster, because they will attack you after you hit them about 3 times.  Hopefully though, you won't die and you'll be able to whack on that one enemy in a more controlled environment until it dies or its summon time runs out.  Rest and repeat as needed.

Alchemy is one of the easiest skills to level up in the game, and it is recommended that you take it as a major skill since it is easy to level up but you will never level it "by accident".  There's no real trick here, just pick random ingredients everywhere you go and store them in a chest in a house you own.  Then when you want to level Alchemy, go yank stuff out of your stash and start brewing.

Conjuration and Mysticism (along with the other spell skills) are leveled up easiest in the same way.  Join the Mage's Guild and use their cool little shrine things to make your own spells.  For each type of spell (Conjuration, Mysticism, etc.) make a ridiculously cheap spell (you can usually get it down to 1 magicka).  If it needs a target, simply target yourself.  Now you have a spell that you can freely spam as you go about your daily business, and level it quickly.

Alteration, Destruction, and Restoration are leveled up easiest in the same way as Conjuration and Mysticism (described above).  Make a low magicka cost, self targeting spell and spam it whenever you are walking places.

Armorer is an awesome skill, and getting it to 100 is well worth it.  The best way to level up Armorer by itself requires the use of a bow, at least 2 arrows, and a wooden wall that arrows will stick into.  Follow these steps:

1.  Equip bow and at least 2 arrows.
2.  Stand facing a wooden wall, about a foot away from it.
3.  Shoot an arrow into the wall so that it sticks in the wall.
4.  Grab the arrow.
5.  Repair your bow

I know that sounds like a lot of work, and it is pretty annoying, but you get into a rhythm with it after a minute and your Armorer skill should improve quickly.  Use a hotkey for your repair hammers or set them to the D-Pad on the 360 version, and make sure you have enough of them.

Block improves by you blocking, so go find something that wants to kill you and block it.  If you don't want any other skills going up (specifically your armor skills), strip down to your undies and just wield a weapon, but shields are better obviously.  I prefer finding a giant rat for this exercise, seeing as they deal very little damage but attack pretty fast.  They are also usually easy to find.  You could summon something too, if you don't feel like going looking for a rat, but yeah, not too complicated.  Piss something off and hold the block button.  Oh, and make sure you don't have anything on that reflects damage.

Heavy Armor works a lot like block, piss something off and let it smack you around while wearing some heavy armor.

Security is kind of aggravating to purposefully level up.  You can scour cities at night, just picking open everyone's doors and then moving on, or you can take the approach of sticking to one lock.  To do this, find a Hard or Very Hard lock if you can, and start to try and pick it.  The way security works is that for each tumbler you correctly put in place, your skill increases a little bit.  So, if you put 1 or 2 into place, and then screw up on purpose (or simply exit the lock picking minigame), you'll reset the tumblers but you still gained some skill.  It can take a while, and you may run through lots of picks without the Skeleton Key, but how else do you expect to level your lock picking skill?  Pick locks!

Sneak is an easy one to level up, especially if you are able to get a set of 100% Chameleon armor/clothing.  As a very quick explanation, you can enchant clothes or armor in the Arcane Sanctuary if you are a member of the Mage's Guild, giving them the Chameleon effect.  If the total % of Chameleon from every item you are wearing equals or exceeds 100, then you can't be seen by anyone.  Ever.  No matter what.  So the easiest way to level Sneak is to get 100% Chameleon and sneak around in a crowded area.  Sneak levels with each step you take when you are not detected in sneak mode while there are other things around.  If you don't have 100% Chameleon, or any Chameleon, you can still level it fairly easily.  Be sure to take off your boots if your Sneak isn't high enough, and go into a room where people are asleep and jiggle around for a bit.

Marksman SUCKS.  I actually like the skill, but it's just no fun to level.  You should turn the difficulty up for this one, get tons of arrows, find a wide open space and summon or find something with a lot of health.  Use a crappy bow with crappy arrows.  Coerce them into a cross country chase, and run backwards, firing shots at them repeatedly.  Hope they aren't faster than you, and that you don't get mauled by something else you accidentally run into.

Athletics is one of the more challenging skills to level.  The only ways to do it are running or swimming, and you have to do those a lot.  Swimming is better, so you should probably do that.  Find some water and swim... what more can I say?  For those of you who want to use an auto run command to run into a corner infinitely, I wouldn't advise it unless you are watching your game or at least checking in frequently, because you want to hit the right number of levels exactly, not go over.

Acrobatics isn't too bad, but still takes a bit of time.  The best way I found is to find a steep mountain with a very sudden, long drop, and at least one of 2 other criteria.  It should have either a fast travel point at the top (close to the point where you'll jump off) or a steep slope that can be climbed from the bottom of the drop back up to the top without going too much out of the way.  These 2 criteria are based on the ways Acrobatics levels up, which are:  every time you jump, you gain a little bit, and every time you take fall damage, you gain an amount proportional to the amount of damage you took.  So, you jump off the cliff, take the fall damage, then either fast travel to the top and repeat in quick succession, or "bunny hop" up the slope back to the top by moving forward up the slope while repeatedly jumping.  I think the bunny hopping method works faster, but I can't really be sure.  Oh, and be sure you rest between jumps so you don't kill yourself, and save before you try a fall for the first time.

Light Armor works just like Heavy Armor, only you wear Light Armor instead.  Strap some leather on and let something whack you.

Mercantile is interesting, and is yet another way to prove how silly one would look if they tried to improve a skill from Oblivion in real life.  Essentially, your mercantile goes up a little after every transaction with a shopkeeper.  So find something he has a lot of (Arrows!), buy them one at a time, and then sell them back... one at a time.  Sweet.

Speechcraft is incredibly easy to level, one of the easiest.  Using the Xbox 360 controls for my example, here's how it works:

1.  Find some random dude, if he hates you, even better
2.  Start the little "wheel to make him like you better" thingy
3.  Rotate your left thumbstick randomly while mashing the A button

Essentially you are having a light speed conversation with the person, and changing their opinion of you incredibly rapidly.  With any luck, they won't ever reach 100, and you'll be able to keep on doing this until your Speechcraft is at the level you want.

Illusion works just like all the other magic skills described above.  Make a cheap self targeting spell and spam it obsessively.