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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Hints
Potion-Making Tips
1 of 10: See the Alchemy section of the game manual for basic potion-making info, and the Magic Skills Practice Tips for tips on practicing your Alchemy skill up fast.
2 of 10: When you're ready to make some useful potions, see the Alchemical Ingredients and Alchemical Effects lists to help you figure out what ingredients to use.
3 of 10: Remember that only your Alchemy skill level and the quality of the apparatuses you're using affect potion strength. Your Intelligence and Luck attributes have nothing to do with it, unlike in Morrowind.
4 of 10: Unfortunately, almost all of the non-random alchemy apparatuses you'll find (like in Mages Guild buildings) are novice quality, which is the cheapest kind.
5 of 10: Once you practice your Alchemy skill up to 100 and get master-quality versions of all four apparatuses, you'll be able to mix up some really strong potions. Read on for some assorted tips on doing so.
6 of 10: Potions that can easily be replaced with low-level spells are useless to carry around with you, and should always be sold. For instance, once you have access to spellmaking altars, you can create a set of cheap spells that'll restore your attributes when they're damaged (see the Spellmaking Tips). Once you do that, you'd never need to keep any attribute-restoring potions on hand.
7 of 10: You'll want any potions that you're going to carry with you for future use to be as lightweight as possible. The weight of the ingredients you use will affect the weight of the potion. For instance, if you want to make some Restore Fatigue potions, using pumpkins and watermelons would be a bad idea since they're so heavy, but using apples and grapes would be a good idea because they're so light.
8 of 10: Another weight-related trick is made possible by the fact that if you make one type of potion several different ways, all of the potions will end up having the same weight as the first one you made. That is, unless your Alchemy skill goes up or you get better apparatuses during the process -- it depends on all of the potions you make being of the exact same type and strength.
9 of 10: Due to that, this trick is really only useful once your Alchemy skill is 100. Let's say it is, and you have a bunch of pumpkins you want to make into Restore Fatigue potions. Start by making a Restore Fatigue potion out of an apple, or some other lightweight ingredient with Restore Fatigue as its first effect. That'll create a lightweight potion, and all of the potions you make from the pumpkins afterward will "stack" with it (because they all have the same effect at the exact same magnitude).
10 of 10: Sometimes potions that you make won't be named appropriately. This may happen when you make potions using two or more ingredients, and keep going after one or more of those ingredients are used up. To avoid this problem, always exit back to your inventory after you finish making one type of potion, then click on an alchemy apparatus to get back to the potion-making screen. (Or always name your potions yourself by clicking on the name line at the top of the potion-making screen.)
