I've got an experience to share that's at least new to me...

I'd played through Oblivion over the spring-summer of 2006 with only a few mods, and none that added new content or messed with level'd lists. I just recently re-installed with OOO and MMM, along with a few other realism mods added in. The one thing I found most apparent was how slowly I was leveling and, of course, the near absence of player-centric level'd creatures/NPCs.

So, on pretty much my first trip outside IC, I head off to Bruma to visit the fence for the Thieves Guild quests. Getting distracted by prancing deer outside the city gates I wander off just west of the walls. You can imagine my surprise when, at lvl 2, I am faced with a rather large Frost Minotaur (I think). It was no more than a 100m west of the Bruma walls and was making a terrible mess of the region. A myriad of expired bandits and such lay scattered about the snowy terrain, with a couple of Imperial Foresters tossed in for good measure. It didn't have a very large roaming path, but I believe the MMM mod had its combatants running fleeing in all sorts of directions, dragging the Minotaur into one encounter after another for the better part of 15 minutes.

I'd had the wherewithal to save before attempting to goad it, and good thing too as it was more than capable of one-shotting me into a large frothing cloud of red. After a couple of attempts I managed to drag it back to Bruma without running out of fatigue and collapsing in a pile at it's feet (thanks to the Real Fatigue mod!). Through the gate, up the stairs, into the castle, and straight for the barracks. Once inside, I kited the foul beastie for no more than 20s and the dozen or so guards beating on the Minotaur managed to best it. It was so hell-bent on ending my life that I don't believe it tried once to defend itself against the formidable castle guard.

The loot was not worth the effort, but it sure was exciting! And I felt better about venturing west of Bruma for the false Vampire killer quest (sorry, can't recall the actual name), but the region was deathly quiet after that. Not a soul to be found.

After another evening of play I'm now level 3, only half way to level 4, and I've not encounter anything so menacing, but I have stumbled across plenty of encounters that are still far beyond my capabilities. Yay for location-centric leveling!

Sorry, wasn't thinking. Fixing now.

Nothing quite like those low level encounters with high level enemies. Cool story!

The 'new character vs. crazy monster' encounters are always entertaining My best story comes from one of my very first encounters. Was Summer of '06 and I'd just gotten Oblivion to go along w/ the brand new dual-core that I built (applause). I had already done some reading and knew that I didn't like the default leveling system. One thing lead to another, and my first time through was w/ a full FCOM install, so I had no idea what to expect. The main quest pointed West, so naturally I went the completely opposite direction, lol. On purpose mind you Was wandering around at level 2, and some cave caught my eye, though I forget the name.

I head in, and find myself face to snout w/ a Shadow Wolf. Playing as a Warlock, I drained my magicka 3 full times in an effort to slay the beast :gun: Finally he went down, and at this point I thought myself to be nigh invincible, so I ventured further inside. Wasn't too long before the situation warranted that I get out while I still could. So I found myself sneaking through a dungeon that I had no business being in at level 2. And a level 2 squishy magic-user at that :ninja: After I barely managed to escape a room unnoticed, I was ready to turn around. But just ahead, I saw the entrance to what was obviously a very large cavern. Thinking I'd just take a quick peek from the top, I go in and survey the area. Shining against the light and water, I spot some kind of sword embedded in a rock. I spent about 10min. scaling the walls and slopes, making my way towards this treasure. I snatched the sword, and all hell broke loose :nuke:

Much to my dismay, I couldn't even move. Thinking I should at least look at this thing before getting destroyed, I open my inventory to find I'm almost 30 units/pounds overweight. So what the heck was it anyways? A huge 2-handed sword called 'Mafre Falquan'. Easily 3 times more powerful than anything I could obtain at that level, and with a wicked frost enchantment to boot. Determined to keep my prize, I dropped all of my ingredients and most of the potions I was carting around in order to make weight. I then employed the Brave Sir Robin Maneuver (running away screaming like a banshee). On a whim, I turned around and ran backwards so I could see what was chasing me. In no particular order; Shadow Wolves, Ghost Warriors, and a couple Liches bliviongate: Eventually they got stuck in a tunnel and turned on each other, allowing me to escape. For the next 5 or 6 levels, I had my sword drawn at all times, even just walking down the road, lol. I've had a number of 'oh wow' moments since then, but the sheer scope and satisfaction of looting my first treasure just stands out

*applause* @ Immortal-D Those are the moments that keep me playing this game...

One story I will always remember was when I first started using MMM. My low level char was exploring a goblin den (can't remember the name, the one with two goblin shaman staffs) and when I got to the 2nd level of the den, in a big room, there was at least 20 goblins, belonging to 2 different clans, fighting it out. I just stayed back in sneak mode and watched them go at it for at least 5 minutes, and killed the last 2 survivors at the end of the fight. I was walking waist deep in goblin corpses after that one, this got me hooked on MMM right away

Glenvar Castle/Smokeable Pipe Mod

Nice little bit of serendipity when these two mods interact. SPM has a setting that gives NPCs a chance to smoke instead of playing their eating animation. The longer they eat, the greater the chance that they will get their pipe out.

As many will know, every evening in Glenvar Castle the staff gather to eat in the dining room. After an hour or so the female staff go off for a swim, while the men stay sitting at the dining table. Assuming you don't run after the girlies you will see most of the men lighting up and enjoying a post dinner smoke together, as used to be traditional after a meal when the ladies withdrew.

Now we need someone to make a mod for passing the decanter and drinking port!

Thought I'd provide an update...

The monster I encountered was no Minotaur. The correct name was Frost Titan. I took a moment to check the guild chest I'd stashed the loot item in. Frost Titan's Mane, or some such. Now that I'm level 8, I'd like a rematch. Pretty sure I'd still lose, but at least I'd give it a run now that my sneak and marksman are nearly double what they were. Considering the broad size of the target, I could "share" with it my stealthy sniper shots from just within the max'd object fade range.

Midas Magic, Heart of the Dead.

A play through or three ago, while using Midas Magic, I fought my way through a Beholden lair. Grabbed a Beholden eye. "Groovy," I thought, "now to summon a Beholden."

Back to Midas' shop I went. Re-read the ingredients list. Created the new spell. Summon Beholden was mine!

Next battle I tried it out. Ended up with a Beholden, who turned out to be useful.

And he never went away.

Tried waiting. Tried casting the Midas Unsommon spell. Tried killing him. Nothing worked. I'd fast travel, and there, at the end of the trip, would be my smiling, confused looking Beholden.

I could out-run him for a while, but in a few days, or after a few fast travel trips, there he'd be again. He never followed me through a door, but every time I travelled outside, there he was. Grinning goofily.

So I used the setactorfullname console command to name him "Timmy". For the rest of that character's career, at least half of the time when he was outdoors in Tamriel, there was Timmy.

In that same save, I summonned a mighty Cheese Attronauch. Probably the strangest monster Midas Magic offers, and a very cool looking beast. Problem was, my companion from Heart of the Dead hated it. Never could figure out why, as she was fine with Timmy, but she just hated cheese. Completely lactose intollerant. She'd attack the Cheese Attronauch with all the power she could.

But that was one hard cheese. It creamed her, repeatedly. It would knock her out, she'd get up a minute or two later (she's an essential character), and it would knock her out again. Finally I tried the Midas Unsummon on it, and unlike Timmy, the cheese attronauch didn't follow me.

I didn't like getting rid of it, but I didn't want my companion wasting her time cutting at the cheese.

Saddest part: Both of the above are absolutely true stories.

No one wants to be around someone who's cutting the cheese all the time.

@Old Book

Superbly told. :rofl: Keep 'em coming......

Great idea, Wrye!

These are the main mods of this story: FCOM, Tamriel Travellers, More Realistic Encumberance and Fatigue, Stumble Running Backwards, and Duke Patricks Smash of the Titans.

I'm heading to Kvatch from Skingrad.
Along the way, off to my right, I see a figure in the distance. Always wanting to practice my marksmanship, I let fly at the distant figure. I actually hit the target to my surpise.

Even more of a surprise was the fact that the target was a Hill Giant. And pissed. And after me.

Being a lowly level 5 wood elf wasn't condusive to going head to toe, so I knew I had to run to stay alive.
I was able to get off another shot, then I turned and ran. Suddenly, in front of me, was a Marauder, an Amazon, and a Beseecher. I was in deep doo.

As I crashed through the group in front of me, my fatigue was near 50% and I was slowing down. The pace was too much for me.
Spint, walk. Sprint, walk. Sprint, walk. BAM! I'm flying through the air, my health is less than half, and I land on my ass.

In the wonderful animation sequence of me gasping for breath and flopping around on the ground, I see not just a Hill Giant, but TWO of them.

The Marauder group is getting thrashed and tossed about by one of the giants and the other is after my little elf.

I managed to drink a couple of potions to avoid death, but I was not going to make it. I just knew it.
I was able to get up and start running again. I knew I was close to the stables and figured some the the NPCs could take the heat off me. I managed to get there before dropping again from the fatigue loss.

It was my lucky day!

A bard guard, two adventurers, a Skingrad guard, and two city NPCs jumped into the fray. Giving me time to catch my breath and heal.

The other giant, having dispatched the marauder group, decided to join the fray as well. I'm plinking away, running backwards, and I trip.
Just as one of the giants is about to bash my head in, he gets a whack in the back from one of the guards. Dead. Saved by the narrowness of a hair...

We finally managed to take down the last giant, but the final death toll was horrible.

Of the 9 NPCs, only the town guard was left alive.
Lots of loot I couldn't carry, so I just left everthing on the bodies, taking only the lightest of stuff.

Needless to say, I didn't take pot shots at anything I couldn't identify until I was level 13 or so.
I still run away a lot, but now I can run faster and farther.

Cool. More good stories!

I always feel guilty when I inadvertently train some MOBs to the local town, and the stableguy joins the fight and gets killed. At which point, I "cheat" and resurrect them. (Really ought to add support for that sort of thing into the game somehow. And something like a "Hold Still!" so I can cast heal spells on Legionairres who have beat half to death while fighting the mobs around a gate and saving my butt.)

However, short training story...

At an early stage of my main character (shortly out of prison, before I ran into that gate in Niben Bay), I'm on the west side of Lake Rumare, and I run into that Spectral Warrior guarding the fort. I take some shots at him, figure I'm outclassed, and so run for it. Naturally, he keeps following. I haul my butt to IC Talos Plaza, where mass chaos and carnage follows. More dead civvies. Not good.

So I rewind to a savegame just before this happened. I'm not going to quit, but I don't want the civvies killed either. I try prepping, buffing, etc. but I'm still getting clocked and hardly making a dent. So I run for it again, but this time with a bright idea... Straight across the bay... Stop a bit to make sure that he's not too far behind, then I pop into Doznt cave. Run around the log trap (let him catch it, heh, heh, but that only slows him down a bit), then straight on up through the cave, running past every amazon in site, then jump down to the lower level, back out the cave door, dive in the lake, swim out to the island and sneak. Sure enough a few seconds later, he runs out followed by half the Amazons in the cave. I get a nice safe back row seat to the carnage. Half of the Amazons get taken out, half the remainder head back into the cave when they're done, and the few remainders are (relatively) easy picking even for my low level character.

Hoarfrost Castle, Companion Share and Recruit, Set Essential Actors, Less Annoying Magic Experience

I have discovered the single deadliest trap in my install.

I usually use Hoarfrost as my player's home. It's well laid out, and the teleport system makes it easy to stop back and drop things off. I'm also a fan of the kitchen; a trip through every few days keeps me fully stocked on food ingredients, and I can sell most of my loot to the castle cook, alchemist and smith. Special pieces go to the display halls. It's a nice set up.

And then there's the dining room.

I tend to add a lot of companions. Some come from companion mods, others I add with Companion Share & Recruit, a great mod by Talkie Toaster. When I'm not travelling with them, I park them at Hoarfrost castle and tell them to make themselves at home. The place fills up pretty quickly, between the guards and staff that come with the mod, and the 5-10 extra NPCs I'll leave back there. Most of them have schedules that include sleeping and eating, which means that the dining room gets pretty crowded. Still, that's OK. I like the sound of pointless NPC banter as I come back from a quest.

After one quest, I came back to find a city guard I'd added using Companion Share and Recruit dead on the table, sprawled accross it. I wasn't sure what had happenned. NPC fight? Poison apple? At least two of the NPCs were "reformed" enemies. Maybe their factions had come back?

I used the True Resurection spell from Less Annoying Magic Experience and left.

Next time I came home, I found my castle alchemist dead at the table, silver cups and plates all over the floor.

I had found the deadliest trap in my install. My dining room table.

I brought her back, but by the next time I returned home, the table had killed my castle priest.

At that point, I went through the castle staff, using the Set Essential Actors spell to make all of them Essential. It was the only way to protect them from that table.

Now I sometimes find an NPC trapped in the table, but at least I know they'll survive, and eventually escape. If Midas ever makes a Summon Table spell, I'll be right there to add it to my character. You can have your Golden Saints and Spriggans; no summon you come up with is going to kill as quick and clean as my table.

That is gold, Old Book! I always knew there was something fishy about mass produced furniture.

This is most likely OOO, but I'm honestly not sure. I don't run MMM, so it might also be Tamriel Travelers.


I was sneaking through one of the upper class manors in the Talos Plaza, I think it was Aren manor, gettin' my sneak on, taking anything that looks shiny and/or valuable. Cloths, tableware, gold tableware, crystal balls, the misc loot with some value. I come back from the basemant (never anything good in there, it seems) and slip upstairs.

I'm just getting settled into the groove now that I didn't see anyone come in. Suddenly, my detect life flares up at the door. I jump behind some of the crates and start crouching down, hoping to be avoided. The purple smoke comes closer to me, and I flip off my Nighteye goggles. I notice he's sneaking because of how slowly he walks. He gets closer, and closer, and says this:

"I see your with the Gray Fox too!"

I lol'd I especially like talking to Thieves Guild members in the IC. Say.. standing right next to a guard, lol.

Well, first off, Thanks to Wrye for pointing out this thread to me, and it's a damn great idea
for "selling" / "featuring" mods.
Already I'm going to download LAME, because I just learned (in this thread) that it CAN be used with SM,
previously I was under the assumption that it was always "One Magic mod, or the other, never TWO"

OK, Seeing as my character is only level 3, my stories are going to be proportionate in size to her level.

So I installed the Entire lot, of FCOM and the whole kit and kaboodle, over a pretty full DATA Folder,
despite the warnings not to, and luckily everything went swimmingly....."It's all about the Read me's Baby!!!!"
(bad rap reference aside)

I have all of the UL mods, KCAS leveling, Ren's Corpse Mod, Arcane Archery, and plenty more
(And Thanks to learning how to do a Bash Patch from the FCOM tutorial I have a feeling I'm going to
be one of those....."MODS are like Potato Chips!, Just one more MOD" type of person, until I break the hell out of the game)

My newest install was the recently released/updated? "http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8711 by Deathless Aphrodite and Lilith
Because hearing the Weather inside is AWESOME, and Lightning Strikes? Even better.
(Reminds me of Morrowind)

ANYWAY....(wow I said these stories would start out short and eventually get longer as my character leveled up )

I'm doing the Mage Guild quests, and mind you, I HAD NO CLUE about attempting them at level 3 with FCOM installed.

"yea yea blah de blah, your amulets at Fort Blueblood yadda yadda" is what I say to Whats her name at the Leyawinn Guild,
(Picture Sir Robin at the Bridge of death "THAT'S EASY!")
(After all, I've done this quest Zillions of times before at this level)

So off I go, I'm halfway there, and a thunderstorm starts, and lightning starts striking the ground.
then the DaRNified GUI starts saying WARNING HP CRITICAL!

So I'm standing there by some mushrooms like and idiot thinking, "Oh Great, apparently you can get hit by lightning with this Storm mod"

I heal up holding down the C key and spamming the crappy heal for 10 point spell.....

BANG! WARNING HP CRITICAL!

Oh for crying out loud, I better remember this and post in the [RELz] thread that apparently the Lightning zeroes in on your character!
After all, I've got 106 HP, and the lightning strikes are reducing me to almost ZERO!?!?!??!!

Spam "C" Heal

WARNING HP CRITICAL

I'm getting ready to wind up with a long string of expletives, when I notice this Skeleton that's Floating towards me,
who also has a cool particle effect around him........

BANG!

Yea, right before the "Load Game because I'm dead screen" I see the LIGHTNING BOLT coming FROM HIS HAND.

:facepalm:

This is with my level 4 character (who knows, maybe I'll break the fabled level 10 barrier this time?).

I had just gotten out from visiting the Archeology Guild (Lost Spires) and headed off to restart the water to the IC (LtPD), which thankfully for poor Simone--who found the guild far beyond his current talent--was a non-combat quest. It was a beautiful day (<3 AN), so I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going, when lo' and behold, 3 bandits make an ambush attempt. I managed to put my summoned timber wolf to good use (LAME) while using SM's various shield spells to prep Simone while dodging and weaving while the three defensive spells finished autocasting (Skyranger's Super Hotkey mod).

Sadly, things weren't going very well; two of the bandits continually attacked from the front, while the third would attack from behind (FCOM or one of its parts), making it hard to single out a single one--until a single power attack switched me into 3rd person. Followed by a *very* well done stab-backstep-twirlforthe"off with 'is head"-finisher move (Deadly Reflex). I finished off the last bandit with some on-touch lighting, the last of which crit'd (SM/Deadly Reflexes combo), charring the bandit medium-rare.

Funny, but that sequence was the very first time I actually *liked* combat in Oblivion. No...scratch that, that's not fair. I believe the words I uttered were: http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2/xXAequitasXx/Oblivion/Oblivion2009-03-2323-34-43-22.jpg <--(post battle)

Tyana: :rofl: Might be a good time to mention the http://wrye.ufrealms.net/Wrye%20Bash.html#TweakSettings setting in Bashed Patch. Always fun to enjoy the post mortem casual chat between the bandits who just killed you.

"Frak" -- It's the new :spotted owl: (spotted owl) ! (Sorry. In joke for old forum members.)

I think I vaguely remember something like that, was it back in the Morrowind days?

Edited my above post, because I saw that it was read already, so here goes....

----------------------------
Suggestion/Idea to OP.

Is there a list of the Acronyms for the mods that are being mentioned in this thread?
And could it be added to and referenced from the OP.

at least a link

I just realized that we're all talking like REAVSD, SM, MMM, OOO, X=(Y?*N?)
and expecting everyone else to know them.

And anything 3 characters or less = 0 in search

I've already seen a few that have me scratching my head


I'll try the Death Camrea, but do I really want to hear

"I saw a Mudcrab yesterday"
"I've killed men less than you"
"Yesterday I saw Mudcrabs"
"Don't Talk to me"
"Bye"
"How are you!?"

One of my favourite includes MMM, Daedric Invasion and Deadly Reflexes.

Using the soldiers you can get from Daedric Invasion, I went south of the Imperial City to find some Oblivion Gates to shut down. On the road I saw the Inn of Ill Omen. It was getting dark so I thought that I should stay the night there. But as I was getting close to the inn, I saw a bright red spot ahead and the skies turned red. The Gate was about 100 meters from the Inn. Near the Gate, I could see some activity like some people/creatures running in all directions but couldn't really make out what was happening there.

I ran towards the gate, glass warhammer in my hands with my men following me and I saw what was going on. 8 marauders were fighting the Daedras. So I charged forward and attacked the Daedra. In the midst of battle, I saw three dremoras teaming together on one of my men so I charged them to protect him. As I hit a Dremora in the guts, the game went in slow motion and I crushed his skull (Deadly Reflexes) and saw it splatter on the battlefield.

Eventually the marauders died, and we were left with the Daedras who were very, very numerous. Hell Hounds, Dremoras, Beholdens, Fire Atronachs. (MMM)

As I was struggling to save my men's lives, two Forest Ents (MMM again) came in from the forest nearby and finished the remaining daedras.

That's the kind of experience I get most of the time I'm around Oblivion Gates. Because of these mods, I actually enjoy closing Gates. The battle I described above went on for about 5 minutes. It was intense. We were at least 20 combatants with the Marauders, Daedras and us. Add to this the battle songs I have from numerous epic movies and games. It was incredible.

Update OP... Done. Good idea. I've linked to acroynms page. But that page could use some added links to mod downloads. :snooze:

I was heading from Skingrad to Chorrol to reclaim the gauntlets of the Nine (Knights of the Nine). Since it's along my way, I took Domenick's job to deliver some stuff to Brindle Home. In front of Skingrad I saw khajit known as Thief (which should have been disabled, but for some reason it wasn't. Yet. Both Domenick and Thief are from Skingrad Market) so I thought why wouldn't I recruit him? (Toaster says share). So there he was as my companion dressed in some rags. I decided to give him some light armour from my bag (of holding, of course). I gave him some legendary and exceptional armour (reneer's fur crafting, edited to find the stuff in leveled lists), some stuff that I made myself (MMM hunting & crafting) and he was equipped.
First some wolfs (from WAC), some trolls (MMM), then two wicked guys barbarians or whatever (MMM) and what happened?
After first punch he hit the road, blasted Thief! Leaving me alone to fight two guys!
I've never saw him again, neither him nor the gear that I gave him.

Edit: Oh, one more interesting thing! Just before Chorrol, I've got message something about the heaven cries because of the death of spriggan.
I stood there asking myself wtf is that now, looked at the sky and everything was clear. Few moments later - a storm! And then, I saw two white lions (WAC) and a dead spriggan.
I have no idea which mod has done that, so if anyone knows, please tell me.

Damn you're fast!!

True....despite the links, I'm praying for people to at least glean the info from the
Acronym and be able to use a "Search" button
whether on this site, or somewhere else.

As with myself, because I'm NOT NEW, But NEW to the Acronyms,
All I need is a list, so I can at least use a comprehensive search term

LMAO.

I've had that feeling many times, especially when re-starting the game.