I recently restarted Oblivion and I was instantly drawn in by all the mods the game has to offer. However, these mods, in some cases, seem to ultimately cause problems, either right away, of somewhere down the line during your saves. So my question is this:

This is a great game but are all the "enhancements" added by these mods worth the possible downstream problems they may cause?

It appears that the game is vital enough, by itself, in the vanilla form and mods are not really worth it to add to the experience.

Any thoughts...Vanilla or heavily modded? Maybe only a few mods? If only a few, which would you say are absolutely necessary? Weather mods? Environment mods? Are the many mods that add multiple characters, more hair styles, tons of clothes, really worth it? Especially if you have an older machine and you cannot support the gigabytes of files these mods add.

Thank you all for your input.

And here we go again, the vanilla gamers vs the modders I only use Spell Delete, Forest Friend and one that prevents the FG porters follow you around. I like my games as vanilla as possible even though many mods are simply fantastic! I just wish it had been there from the start. At 1500 hrs and counting adding those mods wouldn′t do so much for me

*waiting for "Are you crazy!?!? It would do wonders for your gaming, smuckhead!!"*

I've never been too into gameplay mods, just ones for graphics and menus.

"Are you crazy!?!? It would do wonders for your gaming, smuckhead!!"

I personally can't imagine playing without mods anymore. Let's just leave it at that.

I'm definitely for mods although not heavily modded/ too many mods. I myself usually run no more than 50 at a time with no real issues. If it weren't for mods, I would have moved onto another game by now.

Unofficial Oblivion Patch is an absolute must for all the fixes it makes in the game.
Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul (OOO) is another one many people use and I'm no exception. It may not necessarily be a must but it certainly adds a lot to the game and I've had no real big issues using it.
Apachii mods are another set of my favorites. They may be fairly large downloads and could be considered cheat mods since there are lots of high quality items you can get at relatively cheap prices (merchants shops), but they are some more mods that I commonly use and have had no big issues running them.
Reznod Mannequins so you can put full sets of armor, you collect, on display.
Portable Campsite - carry around a bedroll, chair, and a tent with you.
Companion Share and Recruit for a companion mod. Relatively simple/ easy to use mod where most any NPC is recruitable if your character meets certain conditions.

There are lots of excellently rendered armor and weapons sets out there.
Of course there are also plenty mods out there that aren't problem free, but I usually read people's comments about the mod before I download them.

If you are on a PC then you should at least get OBMM and the Unofficial Patches, because Vanilla does have a lot of small bugs that can cause as many headaches as any mod ever will.

I probably would have quit this game a long time ago if it wasn't for mods, they just add so much.

Tons of more quests/more immersive dialogue options in quests.
Making the game actually difficult.
So many graphical/immersion improvement mods
Tons of gameplay improvement mods.
New weapons, armors, clothes, cities, even entire new regions of tamriel.

Mods do not really cause your game to be unstable and screw up your saves. If you load your mods in a proper order, read the readmes to make sure your mods are compatabile/you get compatability mods, and you don't add mods to an existing save which spefically state that they require a new save then you shouldn't really have problems.

I played about a year without mods (except UOP). For the last 3 years however, I've been playing with about 30 or so mods and I have never had a problem related to using mods. No problems with saves or anything else either up frront or down the road. At least in my case, I don't share your perception of the problem you outline.

Being a console gamer, It's not hard for me to play without mods. I wouldn't say they are necessary. I will say, there are a lot of great mods out there that add some great features though.

I'm going to feel [censored] for admitting this, but I have never used a mod other than my own creation (minor lvl list and creature tweaks, a few houses, custom merchants, etc.). Of all the mods available for Oblivion over the past five years, I have yet to try a single one. Same with Morrowind...

Perhaps it speaks more of Bethesda giving me a more satisfied and complete experience than other players, but on the flip side, those that are less satisfied have a vast resource to pull from for customization. I guess that's the beauty of the game and this community.