The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Modding Part 2

FAQ PART 2
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Modding
by jamenta

Last updated: May 8, 2010

Group III: Character Enhancements/Textures
Choices and Consequences 2.02 (Requires COBL)
Common Oblivion (COBL) 1.72 (Requires WryBash)
Cyrodiil Travel Services 1.3
Deadly Reflex 5.0 (Requires OBSE)
More Realistic Encumbrance 2.21 (Requires OBSE)
Parasitex New Vampires 1.52
Persuasion Overhaul OBSE 1.43 (Requires OBSE)
Realistic Leveling 1.13 (Requires OBSE)
Realistic Physics and Force Package 1.0
Reneers Guard Overhaul 2.07
Roleplaying Dialogues 0.72b
Stealth Overhaul 1.3 (Requires OBSE)
Tamriel NPCs Revamped 1.06 (Requires WryBash)
Tamriel's Travelers 1.39c
Unnecessary Violence RC1 (Requires OBSE)
Zumbs Lockpicking Mod OBSE 1.2 (Requires OBSE)

Character Enhancements Description:
Sometimes it can be hard to categorize a mod, so you may find here some mods that do
overlap into other mod categories, but a good part of will fall into what I loosely
deem the "Character" category for Oblivion. (Don't ask me to be too specific though!)
A good example of a hard to categorize mod is Common Oblivion also more popularly
known by its acronym: COBL.

COBL will improve a ton of features in your game, but primarily focuses in the common categories
of food, races, alchemy, books and even character luggage. Even more impressive about COBL is it
acts as a shared library resource integrating itself into other player mods in a seemless fashion.
For further info check out COBL link: COBL.

A mod I recommend that depends on COBL is the excellent Choices and Consequences
by Lingwei. This mod revamps both the Fighter & Mage Guild Hall advancement & skill
requirements, augments the Dark Brotherhood guild with new exclusive quests and even integrates
the mod villages by martinb into a set of new quests.

Based on two excellent recommendations by fellow Oblivion (addicted) modders I have added
two character mods that will improve your combat experience dramatically. Both mods
Unnecessary Violence and Deadly Reflex will work seemlessly together and expand
on such things as dual wielding, 24+ new melee attacks, hand to hand combat while your
weapon is sheathed, location awareness of attacks, crits, expanded NPC combat behavior, dodging,
stunning, impaling and even fumbling. Kudos and mucho karma points have to go to both HeX &
SkyCaptain for authoring these two combat ready mods.

Three mods sharing the keyword "Overhaul" giving you a general idea of what they do to Oblivion are:
Reneers Guard Overhaul recently updated March 2010 upgrades the behavior of the guard/crime
system in Oblivion making it more realistic and detailed. Check out RGO's readme file for more
information. Another worth-while overhaul I recommend is Persuasion Overhaul which
reworks the original Persuasion mini-game to a more involved/interesting one. Stealth Overhaul
is a popular mod given the large number of players who enjoy playing the sneaking/thieving type of toon.
This mod does an excellent overhaul of the original system that was somewhat lacking in polish.

Realistic Leveling provides a more improved and adjustable leveling system from the original
vanilla Oblivion that turned out to not be as popular with players. There has been quite a few
leveling mods created since the original release, and Realistic Leveling borrows and
builds upon many of them to create perhaps the most up-to-date leveling mod available at this time.

Realistic Physics and Force Package provides much more realism (and configurable) to your
in-game physics and force so you get less of the "arcade" like flying of toons and more sense of RPG
realism.

Tamriels NPCs Revamped is the ambitious result of approximately 1,550 modding hours of hair pulling,
eye popping, face drawing, modifications by Stephane Wuttunee. Stephane managed to modify the facials of
exactly 1,623 Oblivion NPCs, while maintaining the racial aspects of each. Supplementing Tamriel's NPCs
Revamped is Tamriel's Travelers, a mod brought to you by the same author. This quite
popular mod adds traveling merchants and traders to the game.

Cyrodiil Travel Services adds heavily armed travel service providers throughout
Oblivion if you wish not to instantaneously transport from one spot to another i.e. more
realism and immersiveness. You can still fast travel however if you absolutely must be delivered
overnight.



Group IV: Item Enhancements/Textures
Apophis: Armory of the Silver Dragon 0.9.3
Better Looking Tools 1.2
Better Staffs Texture 1.0
DB Shadow Armor ELITE 1.0
Fine Weapons & Rusty Items For OOO Omod (OMOD version use OBMM to install)
Hammerfist Shiny Gold 1.1
Imperial Furniture 1.0
Ingredient Storage Shelves 1.0 (Requires OBSE)
Kafei's Armored Circlets 1.1
Kafei's Better Amulet Replacer 1.0
Kafei's Better Rings Replacer 1.0
Mighty Umbra 1.1
Myths and Legends OMOD 2.4.8 (Requires OBMM)
Q More and Moldy Ingredients 1.1
Thieves Arsenal 1.5 (Requires OBSE)
UC Wood Furniture Texture Replacer 1.0

Item Enhancements Description:
There are a gazillion player mods available adding new items and new item textures. Especially
popular are new armor & weapon mods for NPCs and the player. Right now I realize my Item
recommendation group is a bit on the slim side, but note that many of the more popular item
mods are already incorporated into Oscuro's Overhaul. So my item recommendations try not to
overlap what you already get with Oscuros.

Most of the items I recommend are self-explanatory in their titles and you can simply click on
the download link to get more information. But some of them are worth me commenting on: The
Hammerfist Shiny Gold mod is an especially worthwhile small item texture mod that really
improves the look of the gold coins in Oblivion. Both of Kafei's Replacer mods for Amulets &
Rings are a clear improvement over the original textures for those items.

Better Staffs Texture is a must have for mage playing characters, and Myths
and Legends Weapons is a major item mod that not only adds several well crafted
weapons to the game, but includes a quest for each one. Fine Weapons / Rusty Items and
Better Looking Tools add nice touches to the game when you encounter either of these item
categories (not so frequently).

Thieves Arsenal is geared for a thief or assassin playing character, as it not only
introduces an array of thieving weapons to the game , but modifies NPC behavior to provide
more realistic reactions (such as when you're spotted!)

Imperial Furniture allows you to furnish that new home you might purchase or inherit.





Group V: Sound and Light
Cities Alive at Night 1.0
Illumination Within Revived 0.9.2
More Immersive Sound Edited 1.0
Oblivion Stereo Sound Overhaul 0.9
Real Lights 0.7.2
Storms and Sound 3.0 (Also download compatibility patches for other player mods)
Subtle Sunlight 0.1
Symphony of Violence 0.5

Sound and Light Description:
I recommend four sound mods to augment your Oblivion play: Oblivion Stereo Overhaul
adds 42 new unique sounds and tweaks existing sounds. More Immersive Sounds Edited based
on the original More Immersive Sounds I have added to my recommendations because it no longer
conflicts with OSSO and includes a very important LOW-WIND esp that will reduce considerably the
overblown wind effects in Oblivion.

Storm and Sounds is an up-to-date mod adding new lightning and thunder
during thunderstorms and integrating weather sounds that you will hear while inside a building,
depending of course on the weather outside. This mod incorporates the original classic mod
"Weather Inside" and "Better Storms and Weather" and can be used with many different weather
mods including the weather mod I've recommended: Natural Environments.

Symphony of Violence provides more realistic sound to your combat effects:
including a new nice twang to your bow and the more realistic clashing of shield and sword.

In the lighting department: For city window lighting I strongly recommend Illumination Within
Revived by cyDog. This mod lights up your city windows at night with ambient lighting, there
are other city lighting mods available but the ambient glow that IWR provides really makes a
difference. If you have also installed the Blockbuster Mod Better Cities make sure you install the
compatibility .esp for Illumination (BC .esp replaces original). Cities Alive at Night
supplements AWL by lighting up towns from afar. So with both mods working, you will see lights
to your Tamriel city of choice as you approach, and lights as well once within city limits.

Real Lights is a nice realism mod that modifies indoor lighting to reflect
real lighting conditions and does away with fake lighting sources. Windows also only now
let light in during the day and not the night. Interior light must come from candles or
fireplaces or your wizard's staff in emergency situations. Subtle Sunlight provides
a nice tweak to the Oblivion sunlight by amping up the glare just a bit more (but not to
much) and thus improving on the already famous Oblivion sunsets.


Group VI: Miscellaneous But Still Good
At Home Alchemy 1.1
At Home Alchemy - No Bounty Fix 2.0
Bank of Cyrodiil 1.11
Beast Tongue Evolved 1.0
Days & Months 1.0
Dude, Where's My Horse 100
Fast Exit 2.0 (Requires OBSE)
Improved Ancestor Guardian 1.0
Keychain 5.0
Magic Foci 1.0
Multitude of Magecraft 2.7
Perception 2.1
Phinix Master Summon 2.18
PJs Spell Compendium 2.0
Portable Campsite 2.3
Reduced Backwards Speed Mentalorised 2.01 (Requires OBSE)
SM Plugin Refurbish 1.2

Miscellaneous But Still Good Description:
A quick run-down of my Misc Mod list recommendations: At Home Alchemy is a popular player mod
ported from Morrowind making Alchemy more natural and not inventory intensive (don't forget
to also install the follow-up At Home Alchemy Bounty patch). Bank of Cyrodiil
allows you to not carry around all your gold, and even offers interest per 1000 gold pieces.

Dude, Where's My Horse is a nice little mod to help you find your horse when you
forgot where you parked him. Days & Months kindly provides english translations to
the Tamriel day and month so you won't be kept guessing.Keychain is a nifty little
mod that allows you to consolidate all your keys under one item (your keychain)in your inventory.
Click on the keychain to activate and view your keys.

Magic Foci allows a magic user to focus magic for longer effects using magic foci
items. More Realistic Encumbrance improves the way encumbrance works making it
more realistic. Multitude of Magecraft adds a multitude of new and unique spells (I
won't spoil the surprise here).

Perception is a nice little mod introducing a perception spell allowing you to perceive the level
of your enemies before you have to fight them - can be helpful in avoiding a quick and early death.
Phinix Master Summon completely overhauls the Conjuration system to a more masterful and enhanced
version. PJs Spell Compendium adds over 50 more spells to Oblivion. Portable Campsite is a mod
for allowing you to sleep outside of cities and is really useful if you play with a mod requiring sleep.

Reduced Backwards Speed Mentalorized makes it much harder for your character to back-pedal
unnaturally to escape from combat - note this mode requires use of OBSE. SM Plugin Refurbish is
an excellent modification of the official plugins so they are activated in a more natural manner into
your game (instead of all at once).




Group VII: Books, Paintings & (Doh!) Gardening
Alchemists Reference 1.0
Better Letters 1.1
Book Jackets 1.0
Complete Gardening 1.42
Encyclopedia Cyrodiilica 1.21
New Paintings 1.2
Paintings Galore 1.0
Paintings n Tapestries 1.0
The Essential Book Mod Compilation 1.0
Tombstones Epitaphs 2.5

Books, Paintings & (Doh!) Gardening Description:
One of the more unique qualities of Oblivion and in my opinion, more engaging than
most RPG games of its genre type, is besides the obligatory "hack and slash" adventure
stuff, which is obviously a must-have as you don't want to spend your hours bored to
death, but when you would like to rest a bit and just explore the scenery or organize
your hard won booty, or even open up a few books you have found along the way - well,
Oblivion has some of that for you as well.

So, for all you creative types out there: here are player mods adding more books and
paintings to Oblivion. Some of the books are even informative and can assist you in your
hacking and slashing survival techniques, or provide you with some interesting tidbits on the
history of Cyrodiil. Just click on the links to find out more about each of the book or
painting mods.

Oh yes, and now there is a player mod that allows you to garden in Oblivion. If you don't have
the space for a garden in your real world life, why not create a garden in your non-real world
life? Complete Gardening allows you to cultivate your own garden. It's easy, you collect two
flora parts from any flora in the game, and after planting, a new plant will appear in 5 days.
Collect an array of different flora, and with some careful artistry, you can create your own
bloom'n Garden of Eden.





GROUP VIII: Real Estate
A Better Benirus Manor 4.5 (quest, well, vineyard, training area)
Abandoned Mountain Shack R1.20 (fixup sim, cozy)
Bartholm 7.0 (150+ NPCs, 25+ buildings, 1700+ voice files, 32 quests, arena)
Belda Elysium Manor House 1.5 (quests, black tabby cat)
Bravil Sea Domes 1.1 (underwater homes, purchasable)
Brew House 1.5.1 (Requires original Brew House 1.12) (farming sim)
Castle Domrose 1.2.1 (servants, storage, crypt)
Castle Dunkerlore 1.1.2 (small quest, secret passage, ship, mining village, drawbridge!)
Castle of Night 2.0 (5 mini-dungeons with bosses)
Colovian Heights Mansion 1.2 (fixup sim, quest, true library, small garden)
Crows Nest Cottage Anvil 1.0 (storage, shelving, trophy room)
Divine Watch 1.0 (ownership quest, voice-overs)
Eiganjo Hall 1.0 (dining & sitting room, stairs & landing)
Glenvar Castle 2.10 (elaborate quests + Voice add-on pack 1.1 )
Halcyon Island 1.0 (winner of the Oblivions Real Estate MORE Homes challenge)
Hoarfrost Castle 1.2.2 (7 quests, storage, displays)
House on the Bluff 2.0 (basement, creaking sounds)
Karew Manor 1.1c (faction shrines, storage, displays)
Lenawiln Cottage with Quest 2.11 (ownership quest, scenic)
Mountain Tower 6.0 (library, wine cellar, art gallery, trophy rm, chess & dice games, much more!)
Mystic Archives Expanded 1.1 (15 new books, new artifacts)
Paradise Retreat 1.0 (hidden nature sanctuary)
Princess Anvil Seaside Cabin 2.2 (views of dock and bay, lighthouse nearby)
Shadowcrest Vineyard 1.02 (2 quests, working kitchen & wine cellar, hidden dungeon with prisoners)
Shezrie's Villages 1.0 (Requires COBL) (3 villages + quests: Lakewood, Ravenview & Woodland)
Snow Dragon Temple 1.1 (japanese themed home, secluded with view)
Solace Revisited 2.0a (tree city, 2 quests)
The Abacean Lighthouse 1.1 (Winner of the Oblivion Real Estate Underwater Homes Contest!)
Topal Island 1.7 (ownership quest, lighthouse & quarters, sailing vessel, bridge, alchemy garden)
Valley View Estate 1.1 (ownership quest, working vineyard, farm, wine cellar)
Verona House: Bloodlines 6.0 (massive 11 part quest, Verona Bay town, multi-level dungeons, player home)
White Tower 0.8 (mage tower: library, arboretum, stable, rex arcanum)

Real Estate Description:
OK, so you've downloaded all the player mods that make Oblivion that much better - lots of
tweaking of ragdoll physics and monster & player levels. Lots of fixes like getting rid of that
annoying crosshair in the middle of the screen, or those repeat messages that your horse is at
the stable. You've downloaded new player textures, so now everything seems even more life like
than ever before (if you can believe it). So now what?

Well ... let me tell you, you're just getting started.

Because Oblivion player modders don't just like to fix borders, they like to re-draw the
borders as well. So my final two mod group recommendations bring the Oblivion modding scene
into its own, as these two final groups provide new content: new buildings, new places & new
quests.

And yes, some of the new player content is amazing. In the list I provide above, three include
entire towns and villages. Bartholm is an entire new player town that includes 150+ NPCs, 25+ new
buildings, 1700+ voice files and 32 quests. Solace Revisited adds an entire tree city
including a new player home in the trees and related player quests. Verona House: Bloodlines
adds the well populated town Verona Bay sporting a chapel, graveyard, merchants, hotel and bar,
guards, pets, thieves and fist fights. But it also adds a massive 11 part epic quest line to boot.

But if you're not happy with more towns to explore how about an island? Topal Island located
just South of Topal Bay includes a Lighthouse, a comfortable player house, an Anvil style
sailing vessel with Captain's quarters, a garden with every plant you can think of for alchemy,
a bridge connecting the island to the mainland and a Mermaid statue. There is however a quest
you must go on to have the island all to yourself.

And if you don't like towns or islands - then maybe you might like to try out several player
created castles. Castle Domrose comes with 7 servants: a smith, an alchemist, an administrator,
a warrior, a hired hunter a commoner for the household work, and a knight to lead the castle
guards. Castle Dunkerlore is located on its own island and is fully furnished, including a
treasury room, secret passages, a dock & ship, and a small auxiliary village "Dunkerlore
Mining." Castle of Night comes with 5 mini-dungeons each with its own boss.

If you really are not looking for a large castle or island for your hero, then maybe
you would prefer a more modest sized cottage. Crows Nest Cottage Anvil is a small,
Chorral style built cottage sitting on the causeway leading to the Anvil Bay lighthouse. It
features lots of shelving, well-labelled storage, a modest trophy room, floral displays and a
lovely view of the harbor. Lenawiln Cottage with Quest overlooks the scenic Nibenay Basin.
It is perfect for the book collector, artist or weary traveler looking for a cozy home.

Several manors are also available either for a price or for a quest. Belda Elysium Manor House
has three stories including a basement, balcony, stables, landscaped grounds anda pet cat. It
is located next to the Belda Ayleid ruins. Karew Manor is an extensive Imperial style house
just outside the Imperial City's Talos Plaza. It houses a lab/study in the attic, shrines,
archery targets in the basement and display cases in every roomto show off your hard-won hero items.

Besides villages, islands, cottages, castles and manors, there are some remarkably
unique building mods I recommend: Snow Dragon Temple is a beautifully textured Japanese
style home & temple, including a shop that sells katanas, wakazashis and nodahcis. The temple
is located far north in the snowy mountains of Cyrodiil. Mountain Tower is a true mage's
mountaintop tower living quarters, featuring a tropical pool with exotic fish, a
highly decorated sitting room with fireplace, trophies and polar bear rugs, and a mages
library study room.

Well - you get the idea. Just click on the mod links I haven't mentioned and they'll explain
the rest. And if you still haven't gotten enough, check out ORE Oblivion Real Estate.
An amazing player mod recommendation site dedicated entirely to real estate mods.





GROUP IX: Quests
DEV_AKM has done a stupendous job in recommending Quest mods, it's silly for me to try to come
up with something different. So, just go here:

DEV_AKM Quest Recommendations

However, that being said, I must mention one *must have* quest mod "The Lost Spires". This
unbelievably well done player-mod will easily add 15+ hours to your gameplay with an
awesome engaging questline. Lost Spires website: THE LOST SPIRES


The End!

http://www.overclock.net/pc-games/143344-oblivion-modding-faq.html 

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