History GameBreaker / TheElderScrolls

** There are a couple of other videos out there that abuse other game breaking item combinations available right at the start in order to finish the main quest in under 10 minutes...

* What, no mention of the much despised leveling system? The enemies in Oblivion are scaled in difficulty according to the player's level. You level up by sleeping. If you never sleep you will never level, at the expense of not being able to improve your primary attributes (you still can with items and magic) but you will be able to cast master level magic and attacks on a enemy designed for a level 1 player.

*** So yeah, these items are the obvious step up from the daggers, as you let the enemies kill themselves. Or completely disable enemies (ie melee suddenly lose their weapons, mages are suddenly unable to cast). Also, these are very useful for characters trying to complete the game as technical pacifists (Combine this with the 100% Chameleon suit above, and you can kill/incapacitate any NPC while remaining totally hidden). And a few more last notes: No murder bounty involved. The worst you get is a pickpocketing charge. They are reusable. [=NPCs=] will not wear stolen items, so make sure to take it off a dead body, get the stolen icon removed by selling it to a fence then buying it back, or remove the stolen flag via a [[http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Exploitable_Glitches glitch]]. These will not charge your Atronach Mana gauge. They will just kill you. [[CaptainObvious So don't equip them.]]

* The Atronach birthsign gives you the highest magicka bonus of all birthsigns plus 50% spell absorption at the expense of being able to regenerate your magicka reserves. Combine this with playing an Altmer (Highest starting magicka out of all the playable races). Stack more spell absorption via enchanted items (The Amulet of Absorption, Magebane Greaves, Greaves of Purity, Sorcerer's Ring, and Mankar Camoran's robe (Provided you get it at level 20) are all good items for this, or wait until you're level 17 to close Oblivion gates and keep save-scumming until you get sigil stones that have 15% spell absorption and enchant other items with them; if you don't want to keep closing gates to get copies of such sigil stones honestly, you can always just get one and [[http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Exploitable_Glitches#Duplication_Glitches clone it with the Skull of Corruption or scrolls]]) and you will completely offset your Stunted Magicka birthsign effect. Enemies will be unable to kill you as spells and magic weapons will only refill your magicka (High Elves have a weakness against fire, frost, and shock, which is easily remedied with 100% Spell Absorption), so all the game can do is hit you with normal weapons. MinMaxersDelight indeed.

** Furthermore, if the player enchants an item with a casting skill bonus that raises said skill over 100, spells associated with that particular magic can become several magnitudes more powerful. Simply breaking the regular one-hundred skill maximum, the player is capable of crafting a spell that deals hundreds or even thousands of points of damage all with a cost of 5 MP or less (usually 1-5% of total MP). This troper had a vampire character capable of making midday visits to the local temple with the outrageous protection and regeneration spells a 101+ skill enabled him to make.

*** Alternatively, use 4 pieces of armor at 25 or 30% (it's an option on the second-best and best Sigil Stones). It doesn't make you completely invulnerable, as you can still take damage from traps/other inanimate sources of damage, but you pretty much have to purposely die.

*** The same glitch can also be used to make permanent an spell of "temporary increase of stats". Heck, it's possible to find a spell of "temporary increase of SKILLS". I had a character, just for fun, who could jump across the whole Morrowind due to having a magical skill of Acrobatics at 2000 or so. Without falling damage, of course.

** "A Rusting Curse": As the above, but enchant with Disintegrate Weapon/Armour 5 pts a second. These will eventually destroy any weapons or armour equipt by the NPC. (You can use this on immortal [=NPCs=] who you want to be able to move around, but still want to weaken (for example, if they are going to betray you later on).

** The Spellmaking Altar lets you create custom spells As long as you have a spell you can use, you can make customs spells with that spell's effect with any variation of range, area of effect, target, intensity and time of effect you want, even if the original spell didn't have it(barring cost of creating spell and Magicka cost, of course). For example, you start with the Flare spell, a basic ''Fire Damage'' spell that does a measly 6 pts. of damage. With that spell, you can make, for example, a Fire spell that does 6 pts. of damage per second for 10 seconds. If you add to it Weakness To Fire at 100% for 10 seconds, it does 12 PTS. PER SECOND. You can join together pretty much every effect you can think off for some truly staggering magical effects.

*** An even simpler way to break the game is to create a spell that inflicts 100% vulnerability to fire that lasts for at least 1 second in order to take effect, and 100% fire damage on touch. Relatively inexpensive for a character with high Destruction magic skill.
**** This doesn't seem to work on the PS3 version of the game however. You ''can'' create the a spell with these effects, but the weakness effects don't actually affect the target and the spell only inflicts its base damage.

** "Assassin's Clothing": Aquire a weightless item (Black Hoods, Mage's Hoods, Dark Shirts, and Black Wide Pants are all possibilities). Enchant with: Damage Health x pts. Effect: The NPC equips, then slowly dies as their HP drains away x points per second. And they won't attribute it to anything. How to use: Reverse pick-pocket the item onto the target (possible due to the item weighing 0. If not, you can't reverse pick-pocket). Notes: More effective than poison apples, as the NPC doesn't need to eat, and will normally instantly equip it. Also reusable. If you want, change the enchantment to: Fire (or any other element) Damage x pt for pretty colours and elemental themed death.

* The Atronach birthsign gives you the highest magicka bonus of all birthsigns plus 50% spell absorption at the expense of being able to regenerate your magicka reserves. Combine this with playing an Altmer (Highest starting magicka out of all the playable races). Stack more spell absorption via enchanted items (The Amulet of Absorption, Magebane Greaves, Greaves of Purity, Sorcerer's Ring, and Mankar Camoran's robe (Provided you get it at level 20) are all good items for this, or wait until you're level 17 to close Oblivion gates and keep save-scumming until you get sigil stones that have 15% spell absorption and enchant other items with them) and you will completely offset your Stunted Magicka birthsign effect. Enemies will be unable to kill you as spells and magic weapons will only refill your magicka (High Elves have a weakness against fire, frost, and shock, which is easily remedied with 100% Spell Absorption), so all the game can do is hit you with normal weapons. MinMaxersDelight indeed.

** The Unlock spell doesn't check lock strength when the player is in an outdoor area, so you can cast a 1% Chance Unlock spell and it'll always work on any door if you're outdoors. Combine that with how shoplifting is possible by just walking into a shop after hours, and you can rob the entire city blind.

*** Magical skills are stupidly easy to increase once you get access to a spellmaking altar; this entails either progress in the Mages' Guild or building one in the Frostcrag Spire DLC. Either way, the idea is to make silly training spells all set to the minimum settings--"Light 3 feet for 1 second on self", "Damage Fatigue 3 pts. for 1 second on self", and so on. Skill increases depend only on the action, not on the actual difficulty of the action; for example, punching a mudcrab gives the same amount of Hand-to-Hand training as punching a guardsman, and more relevant to our case, casting "Summon Skeleton for 1 second" gives the same amount of Conjuration training as "Summon Skeleton for 60 seconds". However, spells need to actually affect a target to count for skill experience, hence the "on self" part. The end result, at any rate, is a spammable spell whose magicka cost is trivial due to magicka regeneration rate (and most characters that don't regenerate magicka will just absorb their own spell anyway). As you walk around town, feel free to set yourself on fire or summon spontaneous skeletons; the NPCs don't care if you assault ''yourself.'' Besides, that fatigue will also regenerate itself without any effort whatsoever, meaning that the only visible result of the spell is experience in the skill. If the magic is also one of your major skills, say hello to ridiculous level gains!

* Following on from the Healthdrainer and Sleepgiver daggers, custom enchanting has developed a new way to kill, instantly, any character, be they technically immortal or not. And the best thing is, you get the target to do it to themselves! Here are the newest tools for any PC who is tired of NPCs. (yes, the names do matter, as NPCs equip enchanted items in alphabetical order)

** "Anasthesia Garment": Works as above, but you enchant with Damage Fatigue 15 pts (you may need other equipment to be enchanted to get to a total of 15 pts per second). With this, give it to any NPC to put them in a AndIMustScream situation. They collapse and are unable to recover. Ever. (DANGEROUS: CAN BREAK QUESTLINES IF USED ON IMPORTANT IMMORTAL NPCS SUCH AS MARTIN!!!!!). The reason is that the NPC equips the item(s) and their fatigue will drain faster than it regenerates. And then they collapse, but will be unable to get up. And if used on an immortal NPC, you've disable them permanently (and lost your item as you can't kill them, so can't reclaim from body). Note: Incapacitated NPCs can still alert guards.
** "A Rusting Curse": As the above, but enchant with Disintegrate Weapon/Armour 5 pts a second. These will eventually destroy any weapons or armour equipt by the NPC. (You can use this on immortal NPCs who you want to be able to move around, but still want to weaken (for example, if they are going to betray you later on).

*** So yeah, these items are the obvious step up from the daggers, as you let the enemies kill themselves. Or completely disable enemies (ie melee suddenly lose their weapons, mages are suddenly unable to cast). Also, these are very useful for characters trying to complete the game as technical pacifists (Combine this with the 100% Chameleon suit above, and you can kill/incapacitate any NPC while remaining totally hidden). And a few more last notes: No murder bounty involved. The worst you get is a pickpocketing charge. They are reusable. NPCs will not wear stolen items, so make sure to take it off a dead body, get the stolen icon removed by selling it to a fence then buying it back, or remove the stolen flag via a [[http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Exploitable_Glitches glitch]]. These will not charge your Atronach Mana gauge. They will just kill you. [[CaptainObvious So don't equip them.]]

* The Atronach birthsign gives you the highest magicka bonus of all birthsigns plus 50% spell absorption at the expense of being able to regenerate your magicka reserves. Combine this with playing an Altmer (Highest starting magicka out of all the playable races). Stack more spell absorption via enchanted items (The Amulet of Absorption, Magebane Greaves, Greaves of Purity, Sorcerer's Ring, and Mankar Camoran's robe (Provided you get it at level 20) are all good items for this, or wait until you're level 20 to close Oblivion gates and keep save-scumming until you get sigil stones that have 15% spell absorption and enchant other items with them) and you will completely offset your Stunted Magicka birthsign effect. Enemies will be unable to kill you as spells and magic weapons will only refill your magicka (High Elves have a weakness against fire, frost, and shock, which is easily remedied with 100% Spell Absorption), so all the game can do is hit you with normal weapons. MinMaxersDelight indeed.

* The Atronach birthsign gives you the highest magicka bonus of all birthsigns plus 50% spell absorption at the expense of being able to regenerate your magicka reserves. Combine this with playing an Altmer (Highest starting magicka out of all the playable races). Stack more spell absorption via enchanted items (The Amulet of Absorption, Magebane Greaves, Greaves of Purity, Sorcerer's Ring, and Mankar Camoran's robe (Provided you get it at level 20) are all good items for this) and you will completely offset your Stunted Magicka birthsign effect. Enemies will be unable to kill you as spells and magic weapons will only refill your magicka (High Elves have a weakness against fire, frost, and shock, which is easily remedied with 100% Spell Absorption), so all the game can do is hit you with normal weapons. MinMaxersDelight indeed.

*** So yeah, these items are the obvious step up from the daggers, as you let the enemies kill themselves. Or completely disable enemies (ie melee suddenly lose their weapons, mages are suddenly unable to cast). Also, these are very useful for characters trying to complete the game as technical pacifists (Combine this with the 100% Chameleon suit above, and you can kill/incapacitate any NPC while remaining totally hidden). And a few more last notes: No murder bounty involved. The worst you get is a pickpocketing charge. They are reusable. NPCs will not wear stolen items, so make sure to take it off a dead body, or get the stolen icon removed by selling it to a fence then buying it back. These will not charge your Atronach Mana gauge. They will just kill you. [[CaptainObvious So don't equip them.]]

** And that is just the tip of the iceberg. The game allow you to collect a set of items which give you 100% invulnerability to magic and melee damage, pretty much 90% of all the damage your character will take and the remaining 10% of ranged attacks can simply be dodged. Then there is the abilty to make your own spells, which allow you to become a godlike craftsman, negotiator, or alchemist for a few seconds, but that is all you need, as doing any of these things pauses the timer on the spell. Then there is weakness stacking; make a weapon with a mere 10 points of magical elemental damage, 100% vulnerability to this damage, and 100% vulnerability to magic in general again for a few seconds only. On every consecutive strike on a target the amount of damage, and the vulnerability to this damage will be in increased. 6 hits will kill any creature. And before a patch, you could do this on yourself for ridiculously strong buffs.

* The Atronach birthsign gives you the highest magicka bonus of all birthsigns plus 50% spell absorption at the expense of being able to regenerate your magicka reserves. Combine this with playing an Altmer (Highest starting magicka out of all the playable races). Stack more spell absorption via enchanted items (The Amulet of Absorption, Magebane Greaves, Greaves of Purity, Sorcerer's Ring, and Mankar Camoran's robe (Provided you get it at level 20) are all good items for this) and you will completely offset your Stunted Magicka birthsign effect. Enemy mages will be unable to kill you with spells and magic weapons will only refill your magicka (High Elves have a weakness against fire, frost, and shock, which is easily remedied with 100% Spell Absorption), so all the game can do is hit you with normal weapons. MinMaxersDelight indeed.

* The Atronach birthsign gives you the highest magicka bonus of all birthsigns plus 50% spell absorption at the expense of being able to regenerate your magicka reserves. Combine this with playing an Altmer (Highest starting magicka out of all the playable races). Stack more spell absorption via enchanted items (The Amulet of Absorption, Magebane Greaves, Greaves of Purity, Sorcerer's Ring, and Mankar Camoran's robe (Provided you get it at level 20) are all good items for this) and you will completely offset your Stunted Magicka birthsign effect. MinMaxersDelight indeed.

* The Atronach birthsign gives you the highest magicka bonus of all birthsigns plus 50% spell absorption at the expense of being able to regenerate your magicka reserves. Combine this with playing an Altmer (Highest starting magicka out of all the playable races). Stack more spell absorption via enchanted items (The Amulet of Absorption, Magebane Greaves, Greaves of Purity, Sorcerer's Ring, and Mankar Camoran's robe [Provided you get it at level 20] are all good items for this) and you will completely offset your Stunted Magicka birthsign effect. [[MinMaxersDelight]] indeed.

* Unlock spells. Get your alteration skill to at least expert level. Make a spell that opens very hard locks. You will never, ever need lockpicks again (Save for one of S'Krivva's Thieves Guild quests). Combine this with the 100% chameleon suit, add equipment, spells, and potions that do feather, and you can rob a whole city blind. If you use this to steal stuff for the Thieves Guild, the world is your oyster and you can access missions right away by selling all your stolen goods to just one fence.

** Boosting one's intelligence in this manner can produce similar results. As the magnitude increases each time around, one can easily skyrocket to over 200 MILLION intelligence, then create obscene Restore Health/Fortify Attack/Spell Absorption with durations that would last for MONTHS of real-time play.

** The Character Creation is far more flexible than in the game's sequels. A character can choose permanent spell absorption from the start of the game, as well as a bunch of other super-powered abilities, with no drawbacks if the player decides (although it'll take longer to level up if the player only stacks good attributes). Create a spellcaster with permanent spell absorption, [=SpellMake=] an ''area-affecting nuke'' and cast it wherever you go. ''As long as the nuke hits you, you'll regenerate the spell points back and can cast it immediately again;'' you can chain-nuke your way through any monster in the game. Note also that spell-casting is instantaneous, so if your finger's don't get tired, you can cast a permanent everything-destroying nuke forcefield around yourself as you explore a dungeon. (Sometimes the spell absorption breaks itself and [[HoistByHisOwnPetard you stop absorbing anything, leading to a horrifying suicide.]])

*** So yeah, these items are the obvious step up from the daggers, as you let the enemies kill themselves. Or completely disable enemies (ie melee suddenly lose their weapons, mages are suddenly unable to cast). Also, these are very useful for characters trying to complete the game as technical pacifists (Combine this with the 100% Chameleon suit above, and you can kill/incapacitate any NPC while remaining totally hidden). And a few more last notes: No murder bounty involved. The worst you get is a pickpocketing charge. They are reusable. NPCs will not wear stolen items, so make sure to take it off a dead body, or get the stolen icon removed by selling it to a fence then buying it back. These will not charge your Atronach Mana gauge. They will just kill you. [[CaptainObvious So don't equip them.]]

** ''Oblivion'' is also susceptible to a sneaky route to infinite power for players who want to get some time away from the keyboard. Get your Intelligence high enough so that you can recover one point of MP faster than it takes you to cast a spell. Design a really weak restoration spell that only costs one point of MP. Then hold your cast button down with a heavy object or tape or something, situate your character in the corner of some room where he's safe, turn off the monitor, and go find something else to do for six or so hours. When you come back, you should have amassed incredible skill with the school of magic that does buff spells as well as levelled up, and can soon design and cast buff spells that send your stats into the gazillions. Game stomping commences. It's like how [[{{Naruto}} Rock Lee]] would become a great mage if he were an ''Elder Scrolls'' character: "If I cannot cast 100 Boost Healths now, then I have to do 200 Boost Lucks!"

** "Assassin's Clothing": Aquire a weightless item (Black Hoods, Mage's Hoods, Dark Shirts, and Black Wide Pants are all possibilities). Enchant with: Damage Health x pts. Effect: The NPC equips, then slowly dies as their HP drains away x points per second. And they won't attribute it to anything. How to use: Reverse pick-pocket the hood onto the target (possible due to the hood weighing 0. Other hoods won't work). Notes: More effective than poison apples, as the NPC doesn't need to eat, and will normally instantly equip it. Also reusable. If you want, change the enchantment to: Fire (or any other element) Damage x pt for pretty colours and elemental themed death.
** "Anasthesia Garment": Works as above, but you enchant with Damage Fatigue 15 pts (you may need other equipment to be enchanted to get to a total of 15 pts per second). With this, give it to any NPC to put them in a AndIMustScream situation. They collapse and are unable to recover. Ever. (DANGEROUS: CAN BREAK QUESTLINES IF USED ON IMPORTANT IMMORTAL NPCS SUCH AS MARTIN!!!!!). The reason is that the NPC equips the item(s) and their fatigue will drain faster than it regenerates. And then they collapse, but will be unable to get up. Ever. And if used on an immortal NPC, you've disable them permanently (and lost your hood as you can't kill them, so can't reclaim from body). Note: Incapacitated NPCs can still alert guards.
** "A Rusting Curse": As the above, but enchant with Disintegrate Weapon/Armour 5 pts a second. These will eventually destroy any weapons or armour equipt by the NPC. You can use this on immortal NPCs who you want to be able to move around, but still want to weaken (for example, if they are going to betray you later on).

*** So yeah, these items are the obvious step up from the daggers, as you let the enemies kill themselves. Or completely disable enemies (ie melee suddenly lose their weapons, mages are suddenly unable to cast). Also, these are very useful for characters trying to complete the game as technical pacifists (Combine this with the 100% Chameleon suit above, and you can kill/incapacitate any NPC while remaining totally hidden). And a few more last notes: No murder bounty involved. The worst you get is a pickpocketing charge. They are reusable. NPCs will not wear stolen items, so make sure to take it off a dead body, or get the stolen icon removed by selling it to a fence then buying it back. These will not charge your Atronach Mana gauge. They will just kill you. So don't equip them.

** "Assassin's Hood": Aquire a weightless hood (Black Hoods are the easiest). Enchant with: Damage Health x pts. Effect: The NPC equips, then slowly dies as their HP drains away x points per second. And they won't attribute it to anything. How to use: Reverse pick-pocket the hood onto the target (possible due to the hood weighing 0. Other hoods won't work). Notes: More effective than poison apples, as the NPC doesn't need to eat, and will normally instantly equip it. If you want, change the enchantment to: Fire (or any other element) Damage 1 pt for pretty colours and elemental themed death.
** "Anasthesia Hood": Works as above, but you enchant with Damage Fatigue 15 pts (you may need other equipment to be enchanted to get to a total of 15 pts per second). With this, give it to any NPC to put them in a AndIMustScream situation. They collapse and are unable to recover. Ever. (DANGEROUS: CAN BREAK THE STORYLINE IF USED ON IMPORTANT IMMORTAL NPCS SUCH AS MARTIN!!!!!). The reason is that the NPC equips the item(s) and their fatigue will drain faster than it regenerates. And then they collapse, but will be unable to get up. Ever. And if used on an immortal NPC, you've disable them permanently (and lost your hood as you can't kill them, so can't reclaim from body).
*** So yeah, these items are the obvious step up from the daggers, as you let the enemies kill themselves. Also, these are very useful for characters trying to complete the game as technical pacifists (Combine this with the 100% Chameleon suit above, and you can kill/incapacitate any NPC while remaining totally hidden).

* What, no mention of the much despised leveling system? The enemies in Oblivion are scaled in difficulty according to the player's level. You level up by sleeping. If you never sleep you will never level, at the expense of not being able to improve your primary attributes (you still can with items and magic) but you will be able to cast master level magic and attacks on a enemy designed for a level 1 player.

* For real fun, combine game breakers: create 5 pieces of 20% chameleon armor (heck, since you'll be invisible, you don't even need armor, you can just enchant clothes and the manacles you start the game with, you can enchant your jewelry any way you please), next create Healthdrainer. You are now able to kill anything without being seen.