Oblivion Modding

I did once play a lot of Oblivion through with just a couple of mods installed – one to make stealth a little better, and one to improve damage from arrows, I believe. I have to say that since playing from scratch again – not really out of choice since I forgot to back up my save games during a system reload – I have been experimenting with rather a lot of mods and am enjoying the game even more.

Firstly, we had better start with the ‘official’ mods, which can easily be downloaded here. A word of warning for Vista users – do not download these, as they will not install. An all-round better option anyway is to purchase the Knights of the Nine compilation, which includes all official plugins to date.

Basically for £15-ish you get a large quest giving new armour at the end of it, a huge dungeon with a dagger reward, horse armour, tomes with new spells, a magical ‘orrery’ giving spells linked to ingame lunar cycles, your very own pirate cove for thieves, a lair for evil characters (especially useful for vampires) and an impressive looking mage tower. Worth it, I think, although many beg to differ.

Ok, now, on to the free mods – I have the greatest respect for the wonderful people working on these creations; I have started to learn to use the contruction set, and it is taking me quite a while! Anyway, I digress; here are the mods I am currently using, with links to download locations and in some instances their official forum post location.

Most of these mods have been updated to work with the new v1.2 patch. Do not install them without it!

Unofficial Oblivion Patch
Does what it says on the tin! Forum thread is here.

Francesco’s Levelled Creatures/Item mod
Fantastic mod, do not miss out on this! Tons of new items, creatures, bandits no longer with stupidly rare armour, rare drops rarer, skills level more slowly, more enemies, increases difficulty (so, for example, you can’t beat the arena at level 5!)….I could go on. Fully customisable too; forum thread here.

To get this working since the patch (until version 4.3 is out), try this out:

Edit the oblivion.ini file. Go to
My Computer
Your documents (named after your computer)
My Games
Oblivion
Oblivion.ini
Once in the oblivion.ini so a search for “SArchiveList” (leave out the ” and then add to the end of the list:

Francesco’s optional new items add-on.bsa, Francesco’s optional new creatures add-on.bsa

Don’t forget the comma after the previous item in the list or you will crash to desktop!

Quest Award Leveller
Annoyed that you can no longer use that level 8 quest reward now that you are level 30 and the stats are useless? Grab this handy little mod, which ensures that as your level increases, your quest reward items level alongside you, so you don’t have to wait until higher levels to get that better quest reward.

Official Mods Unofficial Patch
Fixes little bugs in the official plugin content, that Bethesda don’t see to want to fix. Forum thread here.

Mart’s Monster Mod
Tons of new creatures, npc’s, and more! Upgrade Patch is here. Forum thread here.

Dark IU
Excellent darker version of Oblivion UI.

Dude, Where’s My Horse
Never lose your horse again!

Natural Wildlife v1.3
Sick of being attacked by Mudcrabs and rats? This mod is the perfect solution! Mod for Mart’s Monster Mod compatibility is here.

Atmospheric Weather System
A very large weather addon, with 5 times the weather types of standard oblivion.

DarNified BTMod
Excellent looking interface. You must have Oblivion Mod Manager installed to run this. Install AFTER Dark UI.

Reneers Guard Overhaul
Changes guard behaviour, making them more realistic. Thread is here.

Rens Beauty Pack
Another must-have. More options for your characters, and a new race.

Artifacts of Tamriel
New weapons and armour that are a challenge to obtain! Read all about it in the mod description.

Stealth Overhaul
Make stealthing more worthwhile. Requires OBSE (see below).

Thievery in the Imperial City
A mod especially fot thieves, including a new fence and quests!

OBSE – Oblivion Script Extender
Needed for a few addons, including Decorator Assistant (below).

Decorator Assistant
A handly tool for decorating your home. I am still rubbish at it though. Requires OBSE.

Bookplacing
Again, for decorating purposes.

Better Gold
Erm….better looking gold.

Short Grass v2
Can make systems run faster – I just think it looks better.

Right, that’s all for now! I haven’t included housing mods because I am going to write a little ‘review’ of them later. I love my houses!