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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Hints

Putting Entries in the Journal

You can force a quest-related entry into the journal if you know the code name of the quest and the stage number you want to set it to. In order to figure out which code name and which stage number you want, use the TES4 Construction Set program. See the links below for help on getting and running the Construction Set.
- Doesn't Oblivion come with a compatible construction set program?
- How can I use the construction set to make super items?
After loading up the Oblivion.esm file, use the Edit menu's "Find Text" feature to search for the name of the quest as it's shown in the journal (or this hint file). After the search is done, click on the "Objects, etc" tab and look for a quest form entry. Its type will be "Quest," and its object ID will be "QUST Form 'xxx' (yyy)", where xxx is the quest code name you're looking for, and yyy is the quest's form number (which you don't need).

For example, to find out what the code name is for the Bravil misc. quest called "Caught in the Hunt," use the "Find Text" feature to search for "Caught in the Hunt" (w/o quote marks) and then click on the "Objects, etc" tab if it isn't already selected. You'll see a quest-type entry whose ID is "QUST Form 'MS08' (0001F426)." That means that the code name you're after is MS08.

Once you know a quest's code name, go under the Character menu and click on "Quests..." to bring up a window on which you can view quest data. Scroll the left section down to the code name you want (MS08 in our example) and click on it to select it. Then click on the "Quest Stages" tab that's long the top of the main section of the window. You'll be given a list of indexes (stage numbers) that you can click on in order to see what each one's journal text entry says, plus a list of various related conditions.

You can now look through the indexes and see which one you want to use to advance or complete the quest. Once you know, you can use the following command in the game to force that journal entry in:

setstage <code name> <stage number>

You can use a similar command to get the number of the current stage for a quest:

getstage <code name>

In the "Caught in the Hunt" example, let's say that we just started the quest and want to skip finding and talking to Kurdan gro-Dragol. The "getstage" command would reveal that we're at stage 20, and scanning through the quest's index list in the Construction Set would show that stage 40 makes the boat to Fort Grief available. So we'd type this command to set the stage to 40:

setstage ms08 40

Then we could go use the boat and move on with the quest from there. See how it works? You can look up any quest's code name and then find out what all stage numbers you can set that quest to in order to move it along. However, note that putting in a stage number that's less than the quest's current stage setting will have no effect.

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