Ok, so I've been reading up on efficient leveling today and I think I have it figured out. First I'll describe what I want, my end goal, and what my plan of attack is.

I want to play a Male Dunmer (Playing my Nerevarine). Base stats:
Dunmer

Male
■Speed +10
■Willpower -10
■Personality -10

■Athletics +5
■Blade +10
■Blunt +5
■Destruction +10
■Light Armor +5
■Marksman +5
■Mysticism +5

I pretty much want to play to my strengths as a dunmer. My current class is vanilla Nightblade, which fits perfectly to my preferred play style. Once I realized there is a better way to level, then to just do it blindly, I decided to start over. So from what I under stand, this is what i need to do:

I want to max out health off the bat, so I'm going to plan on maxing Endurance. I also want to be strongest w/ a blade in Combat, so I will be focusing on maxing out Strenght. lastely, my favorite thing is a speedy character, so I will also plan to max out Speed as well.

Also from what I understand I don't want my skills that I plan to use the most to be my major skills (ironically) because once I max out those skills, I will no longer be able to level. so my customer class will be:

[u]starting attributes[/u]
Endurance
Luck

Focus on +5/+5/+5 strategy for:
Endurance (for max health)
Strength
Speed

Major Skills
Strength - Blunt
Endurance - Block
Intelligence - Conjuration
Willpower - Alteration
Agility - Marksman
Speed - Acrobatics
7th - Athletics

The skills I will use most will be Blade, Light Armor, Destruction, Restoration, Sneak, Security. I purposefully chose a major skill from the 5 main attributes, and skills that I don't plan to use all the time. I also chose skills that I feel I can lvl easilty once I have reached my 20 minor skill quota per level. This strategy seems odd to me, but this is what I took from the wiki. So please take a look at this and let me know if I am on the mark, or way off. Thanks for your advice in advance.

I had similar questions in http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1150237-tips-for-grinding-5-5-5/page__p__16826892__hl__tip+for+leveling+%2B5%2B5+%2B5__fromsearch__1#entry16826892

I think I got to about lvl 14 doing +5, +5, +5 then I stopped. At that point all my attributes that were most crucial to my character were in the 90's.

Rather than just chase the levels I gave up and just tried to enjoy playing the game. Though it was kinda fun grinding out the levels, it started to take away my enjoyment of the game and/or make me play in a style that didn't fit my character.

My advice, and I'm no veteran, is to effeciently level ( I did +5,+5,+5) until you're satisfied that your build is in the right direction. When that is, is up to you.

if im not mistaken the points you get are based on the amount you use a skill

bows = agi
magic = wis or int
and such least from what i can see

I had trouble following your entire post, are you still going to use blade for the second character and just taking blunt at first to train strength? Your weapon level increases the damage you do it'd be kind of slow killing everything if you switch to a weapon you are not skilled with even with high strength. although strength lets you carry more which is always nice.

sorry i typed it out in haste, so it's a little choppy. i was really just wanting clarification on my strategy for obtaining 5/5/5 each level. from what i read, it suggests to pick the skils you will use most as your minor skills so that you are not leveling up when you don't mean to. so if i plan to use swords most of the time, i can skill up in it as much as i want w/o fear of causing a level up before i'm ready. if i level up before i get the necessary skills in, then i won't get the +5/+5/+5. that's what i understood at least, and i was just looking for confirmation that is the best strategy.

Totally with you on this one. I'm at level 9 and I'm getting tired of restricting my use of various skills in order to level efficiently. I want to use my sword all the time, yet I can't cause I'd level too fast or 'incorrectly'. It kinda svcks, but so does having a character that's underpowered compared to your level cause then you get your ass handed to you wherever you go.

You probably don't need to go to the extreme of having no majors that you use. You can safely make the most controllable one of your preferred skills (or slowest to raise) a major and get the initial boost benefit. Restoration may be safely done that way - I like that one for the ability to use Fortify Magicka at Journeyman.

I've done that with Marksman, and it's just a question of making sure the other two +5's come along at the right time by training, skill books, or practice. If it's a really slow skill, you won't need to watch.

If you're on PC, I can heartily recommend "Realistic Leveling," which is presently mentioned in the OOO thread. I've been using it for a while, and it does away with the whole silliness of creating "major skills" that you don't use, and all the worrying about multipliers. It simply works. Leveling is pretty much a "background" business, and the character develops naturally and without the "leveling problem" of vanilla.

Your plan sounds like a good one to me. Conjuration has a high xp/usage rate so it is a good one to have as a major for Intell boosting in controlled fashion, plus it is so controllable and easy to use. Just don't use it very often or it will level you up before you get your 5/5/5 bonuses.

For the strength, blunt is similarly good one to eff level with. Assuming your on PC there is a good little mod called "Setsuna Dummy Training" that allows you to train on the various punching stations and bullseye targets in the game and gain XP.

For the Willpower, you might consider Destruction, even though you intend to use it. You only get Destructo xp when you hit something, so it tends to level fairly slow IIRC. Also, there are different experience points gained per use for different skills . . . Ah yes, here is the table

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Increasing_Skills#Acquiring_Experience_Points

As you can see, Destructo only pays 1.2 per use, whereas alteration pays 4 and Restoration only pays 0.6. Because your Major skills get a bonus to XP gained, from that standpoint, you'd want to make Restoration your Major, even though you may intend to use it quite a bit. However, I find that if Destructo is not a major skill, it is pretty much unfun to try to raise it up to a high level.

Pretty much the same thing with Block. I tend to make it a major skill and never seem to have problems with it overlevelling, even though I go and recruit rats, and mudcrabs and wounded goblins for "training sessions." The other thing to do is to spend the first part of the game wearing heavy armor, let weak critters beat on you, then repair it.

You've got two speed attributes. As you can see in the table Athletics is incredibly slow 0.03, and there is no way to train it up (not counting the console) except to run/swim or get trained, i.e,. you cannot just stand in one place and hit the "Use" key. If you want to be fast. Acrobatic is quite controllable so if you really want to be able to get your speed up that isn't a bad one to take along with Athletics.