I’ve been playing Elder Scrolls games since the days of Morrowind, and when Oblivion was first released, I dove straight in. However, it’s taken until The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered for me to completely wrap my head around skills and attributes, just in time for a new skill and leveling system. With so many people playing Oblivion now for the first time, understanding the difference between the two and how they interact is as important as ever.

There is plenty to do in Oblivion to keep you busy, from closing all those Oblivion gates to venturing out on weird side quests. This has been a wonderful dose of nostalgia for me, so much so that I completely overlooked just how much some of the game mechanics have changed, particularly around leveling, for the remaster. Oblivion Remastered has tweaked some of its mechanics for skills and how they interact with leveling up, finding a great balance between the old system and Skyrim.

What Are Skills & Attributes?

These Two Mechanics Have Been Neatly Separated For Oblivion Remastered

In Oblivion, a character's abilities are broken down into attributes and skills, with one influencing the other and both playing a role in leveling up. However, this might sound very complicated for anyone who has only played Skyrim, as the fifth Elder Scrolls installment simplified things massively. It used to be that attributes directly governed skills; however, in Oblivion Remastered, this is no longer the case, although attributes will still help with certain skills.

In the original Oblivion, each attribute influenced three skills, except Luck, which helped with all but Acrobatics and Athletics.

There are eight attributes in Oblivion, which can all be leveled to a maximum of 100 points, with the exception of Luck. The starting attributes of your character are determined by your race, origin, and class in Oblivion Remastered. These attributes can then be improved when your character levels up.

There are 21 skills in Oblivion, which will be broken down into Major and Minor skills depending on class. Each skill has five tiers running from Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, and Master. Skills in Oblivion Remastered work in much the same way as they did in the original Oblivion or in Skyrim.

Each skill is improved by using it, and as skills increase, perks are gained that help the operation of those skills. For example, leveling up Armorer will mean using fewer repair hammers, higher levels of Blade will do more damage, and higher Speechcraft means that bribes cost less. Unlike Skyrim, there is no way to select specific perks, as the flow from one to the next is linear.

What Are Major & Minor Skills?

A Character's Class Determines A Lot In Oblivion

Major and Minor Skills play a huge role in how leveling works in Oblivion, and understanding the difference between the two categories makes this so much easier. What skills fall into which category is determined by your class, which can either be one of the many premade classes available or a custom one. Each class has seven skills, which are designated Major skills; the rest will then become Minor skills.

Major skills are the skills that you will be using the most often for your class, and as such, will receive a 20-point increase. These skills will level up quicker than Minor skills and provide a much larger increase to overall player experience, which contributes to leveling up. Each time one of these skills increases, you will move closer to your next level.

When creating a custom class, selecting a specialization also gives a plus five bonus to associated skills. This is also true for premade classes, so paying attention to their specializations is important.

Minor skills make up the rest of the skills in Oblivion, and each will contribute about a tenth towards leveling up when they increase. Minor skills increase more slowly than Major skills, but that doesn't mean they should be ignored. This means they'll need a little more attention to increase, but provide the same benefit they would if they were Major skills.

Oblivion Remastered Has Changed Leveling For The Better

Gone Are The Days Of Min-Maxing For Oblivion

How you level up in Oblivion Remastered has changed from the original, and I couldn't be happier. Gone are the days of carefully balancing skills and specifically focusing on skills to raise certain attributes. With the new system, all skill increases now count towards you leveling up, with Major skills providing more of a boost to overall level progression than Minor skills.

If you do overlevel a non-combat skill (eg, lockpicking or acrobatics) and find combat too hard, focus on combat skills for a couple of levels to even things out. The Arena questline is great for this.

To me, leveling up now feels like a great balance between original Oblivion and Skyrim, with skills no longer tied to attributes. Previously, attributes could only be raised based on what skills associated with them had been increased. Now there is far more control, with you firmly able to choose which attributes benefit at level up and by how much.

Leveling the Luck attribute works a little differently and is best done early.

Each time you level up on Oblivion Remastered, you now get 12 Virtue Points, which can be distributed however you like between three attributes. You will need to sleep in a bed to level up, even if it's only for an hour. Each attribute can only be increased to a maximum of five per level, but I love how much more versatility this gives when creating builds for Oblivion Remastered and how increasing Endurance now applies the increased health retroactively, making higher levels much less stressful.