Leveling up in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered is far more complicated than it needs to be. You don’t just earn XP and click through a menu. Instead, the leveling system dictates that you do a bunch of other actions first.
Our Oblivion Remastered guide will tell you all about the leveling system. We’ll also cover how to level up all skills and your general character level in Oblivion Remastered.
How to earn XP in Oblivion Remastered
Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks via Polygon
You don’t earn XP in Oblivion Remastered by killing enemies (well, not directly). Instead, you earn XP by improving your major and minor skills.
And you improve those by… just doing things. Wearing light armor for a while (in combat) improves your Light Armor skill. Lockpicking improves your Security skill. Swinging a sword (in combat) improves your Bladse skill. Running (and swimming) improves your Athletics skill.
As you improve your skills, you’ll occasionally see a progress bar in the upper right corner of your screen. When that’s full, you can level up.
How to level up all skills in Oblivion Remastered
The XP you earn to level up comes from improving your major and minor skills. You improve them by using them. But the seven skills you’ve selected as your major skills — whether through choosing a class or making a customized class — will level up more quickly, though it’s unclear in the game just how much more quickly.
Here’s a list of all skills in Oblivion Remastered, with details about what they affect — and, thus, how to level them up:
- Acrobatics: jumping and falling
- Alchemy: Creating potions and using alchemical ingredients
- Alteration: casting spells that change abilities or reduce damage (spells that alter your abilities)
- Athletics: running, swimming, and sprinting
- Armorer: repairing weapons and armor (with a Repair Hammer)
- Blade: dealing damage with blade weapons (like katanas, shortswords, and daggers)
- Block: mitigating damage when blocking
- Blunt: dealing damage with blunt weapons (like hammers and, confusingly, axes)
- Conjuration: casting spells that summon creatures, weapons, and armor (and turn the undead)
- Destruction: casting spells that inflict elemental damage or weaken your opponents
- Illusion: casting spells that do things like charm, conceal, silence, paralyze, and command
- Hand-to-hand: dealing damage with your bare hands
- Heavy Armor: wearing heavy armor
- Light Armor: wearing light armor
- Marksman: dealing damage with bows
- Mercantile: buying and selling goods
- Mysticism: casting spells that absorb or reflect damage, dispel, move objects, and reveal paths
- Restoration: casting spells that restore, fortify, and absorb attributes as well as cure disease and improve resistances
- Security: using lockpicks
- Sneak: moving undetected and pickpoketing
- Speechcraft: persuading NPCs
Your skills and attributes both affect your abilities, but they’re not directly related. For example, having high Strength and high Blades both increase your damage with longswords, but Strength doesn’t have any control over or influence on Blades.
How to level up your character in Oblivion Remastered
Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks via Polygon
Once you’ve improved your various skills enough, you’ll get an icon in the upper right of your screen. In the pause menu, you’ll see that same icon on the Character tab next to your level.
You can’t just level up from the menu, though. You’ll have to rest (and “meditate on what you’ve learned”) first. To do that, find a bed or a bedroll and take a nap. The length of time you sleep doesn’t seem to matter.
Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks via Polygon
When you wake up, you’ll get a new screen that says you’ve ascended to level whatever. Below that, you’ll see the level up options.
Each time you gain a level, you’ll get 12 Virtues — think of these as attribute points — to assign to three of your attributes. You can raise any attributes by up to 5 per level (meaning you have to spread them across at least three attributes).
Best attributes to level up in Oblivion Remastered
You have eight attributes in Oblivion Remastered. They determine everything from the damage you deal to how fast you swim and how likable you are. Attributes and skills combine to affect a lot of your abilities, but they aren’t quite the same (see above).
The attributes you’re working with are:
- Strength: Affects damage with longswords, claymores, maces, war-axes, battle-axes, warhammers, and barehanded. Also determines your carry capacity and has a slight influence on max Health
- Intelligence: Determines your max Magicka
- Willpower: Determines Magicka regeneration and greatly increases your max Fatigue (stamina)
- Agility: Affects damage with daggers, shortswords, and bows. Slightly increases max Fatigue and determines Fatigue regeneration
- Speed: Dictates how fast you move
- Endurance: Greatly increases your max Health and Health regeneration out of combat
- Personality: Affects how much people like you, and improves information-gathering and getting deals at shops
- Luck: Luck is a bit esoteric and is a blanket improvement to your skills when it is above 50
Which attribute you choose is really about your playstyle, and is also likely influenced by whatever race you chose when creating a new character, as your race affects the base score of your attributes. Early on, though, regardless of how you’ve built your character, you should focus on surviving — dealing damage and increasing your health and fatigue.
Strength is the obvious choice if you focus on the more martial melee weapons, while Agility is better for up close and stabby. Intelligence is your go-to if you’re playing as a caster. And Endurance is always a good pick for the health regeneration. Willpower increases your stamina (with a bonus to Magicka regeneration if you’re magic-focused).
