First off, hi. Seeing the roleplay community on the Oblivion forums made me want to ask a question, related to a new character I'm roling now. He's a Nordic Bard, of the pre-made Bard class, and I was wondering if anyone had any tips for playing this sort of character(class setup below for convenience), since I'm used to either mages or warriors of some sort, and some roleplaying tips if anyone have them. Thanks in advance

The Bard:

I'm a bit old-fashioned when it comes to certain roleplaying aspects, but for TES there have to be certain deviations from these old-fashioned aspects.

You've got Speechcraft as a Major, which is good. Not that it's a Major, but that it's something which is gonna get used. A Bard needs to be able to influence people with words, after all. I personally would not choose Illusion as a Major (not in the vanilla game, anyways) because it levels up way too fast, but Illusion is a good skill to have, for a lightly-armored character who uses words sometimes instead of combat.

I'd look into Alteration as a Minor, too, for all the protective spells it offers. Are you on PC or console?

I'm playing this character on the console.

Not sure if you're familiar with this, but in the vanilla (unmodded) game, any magic school (except Restoration) is gonna level your game upwards super-fast. I don't wanna fully spoil what happens for ya as the game levels upwards, personally I didn't enjoy this aspect of Oblivion back when I didn't understand what was going on.

On the other hand, you've only got one magic school listed: Illusion. It'll level upwards faster than any of the others, but it'll also 'cap' at some point, once you reach 100 in that particular school. I'd say Light Armor will be second-fastest, assuming your character wears only light armor pieces.

BAh, just ignore me. Just play the game, enjoy yourself, maybe you won't have the same issues I had back when I was new to the game. RP-wise, I'm liking what I see, but just keep in mind that Speechcraft

Thanks anyway, it is not bad advice form what I gather, what you gave me

Whoops, I see you've got Alchemy listed as well. Alchemy can level upwards very fast too, but this assumes the player/character starts 'spamming' potion-making. This means creating tons of potions (like Restore Fatigue) that aren't really useful, other than to make your Alchemy higher. On the other hand, you could also go ahead and spam some potions (for awhile). As you sell them all, this will make for perfect practice, Mercantile-wise. Make sure you

I am back & forth with my opinions and suggestions, as you can see. That's what happens when you're open-minded.

Hehe, I'm not much fr spamming anything other than the repair hammer menu normally, but I try to pick up ingredients while I travel the world. Good way to make money adventuring and training, so I'll keep it in mind.

I've had characters spam potions before, there's no harm in it RP-wise, and it's also your game, so do as you wish . You could say your character's gone on some sort of mad scientist tangent. But it can make your game unbalanced very quickly. Your character will wind up becoming insanely rich in a world full of NPCs which barely have any coin to speak of, for one thing (this might break immersion for some), and the poisons this Uber-Alchemist is making will just about flatten any enemy in his path. No challenge.

On the other hand (see, I keep saying that!) if your game is leveling upwards super-fast, and some ridiculously overpowered enemies start showing up, it might be GOOD to have the ability to make some Uber-potions.