What I like OP the most is that he doesn't even acknowledge the challenges, aka achievements, gain you a perk that give you bonus similar to "dynamic" leveling system.

Personally, imo skills should be earned by learning and doing. How much skill points you receive should be based on your intelligence value as retentive when studying. The higher your intelligence, the more skill points earned when reading books or being taught instead of having to do the skill to learn. I like the idea of skill books because it makes sense in fallout that previous knowledge of weaponry, science, speech, ect is saved onto books you can learn. And as for actually doing the skill you should earn some experience for a little skill points or retain what you learned. You can have teachers who you can basically use to raise your skill level. However you can only learn as much as they know. Like 100 caps per 15 points or something. I would personally like it this way, seems right.

Yeah that svcked balls.

I think it was ment as an insentive not to grind up lvls, but you just ended up grinding a bunch of side skills in order to get the best lvl up, which really detracted from what was otherwise a much more realistic system

If Oblivion's level system had been *balanced* and not so horribly tilted that you had to grind sneak or spell casting, even when you used it all the time in normal play... then maybe. Instead, you had skills that just wouldn't keep up with your level and you had to spend time training them.

Frankly, I think Oblivion's skill and level up system belongs on the ash heap. It might have been salvageable if only the first 5 points in each level were auto-assigned, but you could move the other 5 points around. Or if they gave you a full pile of points to assign even if you didn't min/max your activities during the previous level. As it was, if you didn't want to get behind the monster's level-up curve (since they all leveled up when you did), you had to install mods to track how many points you had earned since your last level. Just so that you wouldn't be shooting yourself in the foot by dumping all your points into Barter or getting a really low boost to your stats due to lack of focus.

When I installed Fallout 3, I was pleasantly surprised by the use of a XP-oriented level system where you could pick your perks and drop points into skills. It felt right, it felt natural, and it was a whole lot easier then the frustration that was Oblivion's leveling process. That's not to say that it couldn't be tweaked, but I don't miss casting a spell over and over or having to go hack at a dummy for an hour just to get a few points in a skill.