[Silencer]

When you are well-fed (in the last 24 hours you have had blood) there is no sun-damage, there is no personality side-effects, and you only get a boost of 5 points in some skills/attributes. (Admittedly, you do get the rather useful "Hunter's Sight" lesser power, which is a mix of Night Eye and Detect Life, and a damn good spell to boot).

When you have failed to feed in the last 24 hours, there is 1 pt of sun damage per second, but the boosted attributes now have +10. And you gain another power (this one a greater power...can't remember which).

Then, after 36 hours with no blood, it is 2 pt sun damage per second, +15 to boosted stats.(And another greater power)

After the full 48 hours with no blood, it's 4 pts sun damage per second, +20 to stats, and the final greater power.

*times may not be exact, I'm doing this off memory...

Anyway, it's a great boost, but to get the really powerful benefits you have to deal with some horrible penalties (and the later powers are kind of annoying - one use per day is just annoying). Keeping well-fed is easy enough, just break into a house, or find a beggar, and feed on their sleeping form.

You could go either way. If you don't like the sound of the above, or don't want to be a vampire, then get it cured (I believe before the transformation is complete it's only a cure disease required). If you want to try it, go ahead, there is a way to remove it as a quest (though if you do this you can never become a vampire ever again...save for using the console). It can be fun, it can also be annoying. Oh, one more thing, as you go without blood, you become more physically old-looking, and people start to dislike you (lower starting disposition..."harder" to raise disp), and people might eventually realize you're a vampire. Some of the comments are funny, though. @Stage 2 vampirisim: "Are you sure you're OK? You're looking slightly...ill..."

[Aptorian]

Hmm. But what about the fire weakness? Anyone had any experience fighting fire demons as a vampire? Does one get his ass kicked?

[Stalker]

I never went vampire, since I was playing as a good character. May have to try it at some point though,

Couldn't you be a werewolf in Morrowwind?

[Silencer]

In the expansion pack, Bloodmoon, yes. Only place in the world of the game that they exist, actually.

Never had a problem with fire, myself. Only time I had that was with (one of) my Altmer character - weakness to magic + the Apprentice birthsign = RUN FROM ALL THINGS MAGIC.

However, as a vampire Dark Elf, no probs (mind you, Dark Elves have a natural resistance to fire, so they cancel out). I haven't heard of anyone finding the penalties for Vampirism to be too large...most people just complain that drinking blood makes you weaker - I mean...wtf? Who's idea was this system, anyway?

[beru]

if you lvl up before you go to oblivon gates the flame astrionachs(sp) gets changed to storm ones (lightnig dmg) so you can safly stay wampire wich owns btw

i prefer to wait until i become relativly powerfull before i get myself to becom vampire... and remeber aslong as you dont sleep/wait you dont get more vampire so get yourself lots of willpower so you get your mana back faster (and you get more fatige)

[lobo the wolfman]

There is an quicker way to be cured of Vampirism if you have the Vile Lair official plugin. Just use the Font of Renewal with some Purgeblood Salts you can get from nearby. All of this is found within Deepscorn Hollow, near Leyawiin. Also you can buy a cattle cell for the same place, that has an unkillable, unwakeable npc that you can use for blood or to practice your skills on.

If you cure your self this way then you can't become a vampire again, so be sure before you do it.

[Silencer]

Yeah, and if you don't have it, GET the Vile Lair plug-in. It's awesome for evil characters. (Even if it IS just a "house mod".) But the Mehrunes Razor plug-in is the best of the DLC, imo. Great fun for stealth characters, and most of the enemies in it respawn, leading to endless assassin goodness! ^^

[Gothos]

Silencer, I can't help but wonder what difficulty level are you playing on. I tried the top end of the slider once on an assasin type character (agility, luck; blade, light armor, alchemy, sneak, security, speechcraft, mercantile - shut up, I wanted to try out mercantile for once ) and a simple rat took bloody ages to kill. backpedalling and hacking away ain't really my type of awesome. even worse is that I couldn't kill anything stronger than a beggar with one sneak attack even during sleep which is kinda weird (6x damage is waaaaay too little).
anyways, I've been trying OOO for the past few weeks (not much time to play sadly) and it takes bloody ages to level. I got myself to Listener at level 4 or something... and yeah the final parts were rather hard.

[Silencer]

Gothos, is this in the opening sequence? Because yes, they are powerful then!

Given that you'd chosen your stats, what race were you, and what birth sign? Yes, you can't kill anything much with a sneak attack...but you really don't take that much damage. With difficulty on middle (because I'm trying to rush the DB questline for the DB Chronicles mod), I can DB QUESTLINE SPOILERS:

Spoiler

take out the entire Sanctuary during the Purification

on level 2, full assassin type char, Dark Elf, 80 health, and only wearing the Shrouded Armour, and not take half damage. This is talking no mods, no buffs, no cheats. Now, I'd normally do this on higher difficulty, but even then, I've played through the entire main quest and only reached level six at the end of it. O.o

Seriously, guys, level scaling does NOT make them harder than you. The battle that gave me the most fun was against Umbra, and that took what felt like 30 minutes, but was actually about 5, used about 20 health potions, and 5 strong health potions, using enchanted silver weapons, and I still ended up on about 15 hp when I finally killed her (used ALL my health potions...so close to dying...I was fricking shaking after that battle!)

Look at it this way, there are guides on UESP that tell you how to stay UNDER LEVEL TWO in order to become more powerful. If you chose some decent skills on level one, that are enhanced by your racial class, then you shouldn't have any problem taking out the enemies. I admit, on level one, with your average character (personally, I don't go in for "power levelling" or "efficient levelling" - I prefer to actually roleplay a certain character type), you can have some difficulty with Daedra. I assume, however, that you have healing potions, and therefore if you avoid the lava and the falling rocks, you shouldn't die.

Links:
Under Leveling
Leveling in Oblivion
Efficient Leveling
Leveled Lists
Daedra

Additionally, a Scamp has 80 health - the same as my level one assassin, so a warrior must have at least 100 health more than that...

[Gothos]

well some stuff is really hard at the beginning since some characters are set to like Character Level + 12 or +16, which at level 2 or 3 means they totally outclass you (which makes beating them both rewarding and awkward... I dare you to kill Havilstein Hoar-Blood (lvl PC+20) at level 3 or 4, I think Shadowmere did more fighting than I did since they guy was oneshotting me, or Mathieu Bellamont (also PC+20) where I had to chain quaff healing pots and pray to god that my poison and the other Black Hand member finish him off before I run out of alchemy support...
under-leveling was at large in Morrowind and I must say I don't like the idea. sure, it works, but... feels like cheating really.
also. Sneak Attacks with a melee weapon aren't that easy to achieve, so I think they should be awarded way more than they are. also, where's my Garrett style blackjack to knock stuff out?

[Silencer]

Yeah, I don't get people who go out to beat a game by manipulating mechanics. Weird way to spend 50 bucks.

I didn't think Bellamont is that far levelled. He's tough, but, unlike most other things in that game, gets easier when you get to higher levels. They did some funky workings on the exceptions, though. Things like Xivilai can't have less than 240 health...which is all well and good...except they don't even apepar until character level 20 or some such, so the chance of their health being that low (unless you are playing a pure thief or some shit), is just ridiculous.

Did anyone else find that summoned creatures (from the PC) are really weak? I had a level 20 mage - pure mage - who was at 100 conjuration. My Lich could last about 10 seconds against a guard, and my Xivilai about 30...and still not kill them. So much for working my freaking conjuration skill up. What a waste! Wish I'd underleveled that character.

[Aptorian]

Right now I am using a mod that lets me carry about 8000 pounds. I am rolling in armor and weapons

[Morgoth]

Aptorian, on Apr 23 2009, 07:54 AM, said:

Right now I am using a mod that lets me carry about 8000 pounds. I am rolling in armor and weapons

I believe that's called cheating

[Stalker]

Yes, I believe Morgoth is quite correct.

Because you need to be able to drop stuff as you go. That was always what I disliked was managing my inventory to ensure that I wasn't encumbered. You need to experience that too.

[Aptorian]

I know, I know, but I have a scavenging problem, I simply cannot get myself to leave anything behind. I'd rather run out of a dungeon four times quick travelling to the local city and back, than leave a couple of swords, a cuirass and pile of ingredients behind. And this travelling back and forth completely ruins my gaming experience. So I'd rather use a mod and enjoy the game.

[Illuyankas]

Mark, Recall, and one of the Intervention spells. All you needed to travel from dungeon to town and back in Morrowind.

[Gothos]

running a custom class Nord Paladin now (Endurance and Willpower; Alteration, Armorer, Block, Blunt, Destruction, Heavy Armor, Restoration) using OOO (Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul), middle difficulty setting so far. it's kinda cool cos it adds a lot of stuff to the world that doesn't scale with your level, and at the start you can really get your ass handed to you if you don't look where you're going, and quite often you'll find yourself running for life from something that tears half your hp off in one hit. the starting HP is way less as well (my Nord who started with what, 65 Endurance I think, has 108 HP at level 2 ), skills grow a lot slower. most items in the game got their gold value buffed up considerably (almost everything can be sold for profit now, no longer are there tonnes of totally worthless junk in the world, thieves rejoice), as well as housing prices (125k gold for the Skingrad home).
I'd say it's gonna be fun with this mod

[Silencer]

Yeah, OOO and other overhauls like it are sweet. They make the game more like Morrowind was.

@Illy, so true. They removed Levitation, Mark, Recall, Divine Intervention (obvious reason for no Almsivi), Spears, Crossbows, Long Blade and Short Blade were merged, Pauldrons and guantlets were joined to the cuirass, they got rid of medium armour, reduced the number of special weapons by half....made Daedric as common as muck on level 25, and impossible to find on level one.
They also had to cut the dialogue down, as they voice acted everything. Rumours are now entirely generic, and useless.

That, right there, plus level scaling, is what makes the game worse than Morrowind. Oh, and the fast travel...that you don't have to pay for. And the crappy main quest.

>.>

But I still like it! Don't get me wrong.

[Aptorian]

I've been wondering. What happens when you finish the main quest line?

Does the game just end like Fallout 3 or can you continue playing? I mean there are tons of dungeons and quests that I want to see and explorer. Plus I have the Shivering Isles and Knight of the Nine quests to go through.

[Silencer]

The game never ends. You can finish every single quest and visit every single dungeon. ^^