One of the great things about this game is its character customization. Customization itself is nothing new, as many RPG’s have tried it. The thing worth noticing is the level of customization you can take your character to with Oblivion.
You have a set of basic traits that are assigned to you when you choose your race. These attributes are then modified by your choice of Birthsign. Then you can complete your character customization by adding skills.
Attributes
- Strength
- Intelligence
- Willpower
- Agility
- Speed
- Endurance
- Luck
- Personality
- Health
- Magicka
- Fatigue
How much you have of one or more of these attributes will determine what you can do. For example, you stand a much better chance of manipulating people if you are high in Personality, Luck, and Intelligence. Other than that, there are basic aesthetic preferences like hair and skin color, but those are only the tip of the iceberg. Your first choices are you race and sex. Sex is pretty self explanatory; your character is either male or female.
Race
The choices of race are:
- Argonian
- Breton
- Dark Elf
- High Elf
- Imperial
- Khajit
- Nord
- Orc
- Redguard
- Wood Elf
Birth Sign
Each race has its own special abilities and skill bonuses associated with it. You will want to be sure to pick a race that is compatible with your birth sign. There are 13 birth signs you can use to set you on a career path. Your birth sign choices are as follows:
- Mage: Magica+50
- Apprentice: Magica+100, Magica weakness 100%
- Warrior: +10 to agility, speed and luck
- Shadow: Invisibilty once a day
- Lover: Paralyze and lose 120 points of fatigue per day
- Ritual: restore heatlh once a day and turn undead
- Tower: Reflect damage and open lock once a day
- Serpent: Damage health, dispel, cure poison, damage fatigue all once a day and simultaneously
- Atronach: Magica+150, no magica regeneration
- Lady: +10 to willpower and endurance
- Steed: +20 to speed
- Lord: Restore health and weakness to fire.
Skills
There are 3 main classes of skills each of which fall into 3 main categories: combat, mage, and stealth. It is wise to figure out what you want to be before you pick, and you want to stay mostly within one family of skills. Not many mages have call to wield a two handed broad sword. You gain access to new skills based on how you play. For example, you will gain the ability to use new spells by using the ones you already have. One thing to note: it has to be a useful casting. Setting the trees on fire might be fun, but it won't help you. Also helpful, if you join a guild you can sometimes acquire new skills at the guildhouses.
