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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Hints
General Oblivion Tips
1 of 11: Oblivion worlds' outdoor regions are often fairly large and complicated. The only map available is the local map, which can't be zoomed in or out, or even scrolled very far. If you switch to the world view, you'll just see the Province of Cyrodiil map, which isn't useful.
2 of 11: Your overall goal in any Oblivion world is to close off that world by grabbing its gate's stabilizing power source, the sigil stone. That stone is always at the top of the largest citadel tower in the world area. You'll know you're in the right tower if you see the base of a big column of fire ahead of you when you enter it.
3 of 11: You don't have to close off an Oblivion world in order to leave it. You could just go back out through the gate you entered through, but you'll get the same world when you come back in, since it was "set" when you first went through the gate.
4 of 11: While you're exploring around an Oblivion world's outdoor area, there are several hazards you need to watch out for besides all the resident Daedra. For one thing, the "water" is all red-hot lava. Anything that touches the lava will get badly burned. That includes Daedra, so if you're battling one near lava, try to knock it in for a quick and easy kill.
5 of 11: Other outdoor hazards include falling rock traps in which large boulders roll down a cliff as you approach, spike traps in which arrays of large spikes come up out of the ground and try to jab you, small towers that throw fireballs at you if they detect you nearby, and little "proximity mine" things that will jump into the air and toss a fireball at you when you approach. There are a few other kinds of traps inside some sigil towers, but they're usually easy to avoid or run past.
6 of 11: There are three types of plants in Oblivion worlds that you can harvest for potion ingredients. The bloodgrass (large tufts of blood-red grass) is the least dangerous to harvest from, since it has no self-defense mechanism. Spiddal stick plants (small bunches of flowers) will spew a poisonous gas at you that will drain your Speed stat if you stand too close for very long. However, the Speed drain wears off very quickly, and your resistance to magic can help you avoid its effects.
7 of 11: Harrada plants are the most dangerous ones. They look like clusters of long, dead vines or branches, and many of them will swipe at you when you get close. If they hit you, they'll knock your health down a bit. Have something ready to heal yourself with whenever you're harvesting harrada.
8 of 11: You'll often find treasure containers outdoors and in caves in the shape of large fleshy pods. You raid them the same way you would ordinary treasure chests. Inside several towers, you'll find a different type of treasure container called "the punished" which works similarly.
9 of 11: Most of the smaller towers will have odd elevators called "corpse mashers" that lead from the bottom floor up to a mid-level walkway, where a ramp starts that goes to the top floor.
10 of 11: Two other things you'll find inside many of the towers (and in a few outdoor areas) are blood fountains and magicka essences. Use a blood fountain to get a fairly powerful Restore Health effect (similar to a good Restore Health potion), and a magicka essence device to get a similar Restore Magicka effect. The fountain and essence devices do eventually recharge, but it takes a long time, so don't count on using any one device more than once.
11 of 11: Also, smaller towers sometimes have big levers on their top floors that are used to open large "war gates" in the outdoor area or nearby prisoner cages hanging from the ceiling. Releasing prisoners isn't useful unless you want to raid the bodies (they sometimes have fairly good treasure on them), but opening war gates can be more useful since they usually allow you to reach parts of the outdoor area that you couldn't otherwise get to.
