Weapons (Oblivion)

A weapon is an object that can be used to deal damage to an opponent. Weapons are made from a variety of materials, such as common Steel to less common Glass. Damage and speed of a weapon is determined by the strength of the weapon, the material it's made of, the weight, and the skill of the character wielding it. The main exception is a Staff, which is not used as a melee weapon, but rather one that shoots out magical attacks. You can use a staff regardless of your level or skills.

Most of the equipment in Cyrodiil comes in several flavors, namely, the material type. They nearly always go in a consistent order of quality: if a dagger of one type is better than a dagger of another, then armor of the first type will also be superior. One point that is frequently confused is Dremora and Daedric equipment. While identical in appearance and weight, Dremora equipment is vastly inferior in quality, doing as much damage or giving as much protection as Steel. Otherwise, weight is generally a good indicator of quality.

Due to Oblivion's leveling system, rarity for higher end items is nonexistent. At level 20+, Bandits and Marauders frequently roam with full sets of Glass or Daedric equipment.

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Weapon types by skill
Blade Blunt Hand to Hand Marksman Other
 * Dagger
 * Shortsword
 * Longsword
 * Claymore (two-handed)
 * War Axe
 * Battle Axe (two-handed)
 * Mace
 * Warhammer (two handed)
 * Bow and Arrow
 * Staff
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Weapons based on material

 * Daedric
 * Dremora
 * Dwarven
 * Ebony
 * Elven
 * Glass
 * Iron
 * Replica
 * Silver
 * Steel
 * Madness
 * Amber
 * }


 * Bound weapons are temporary weapons cast by the Bound spell of the Conjuration line and are of Daedric quality. You can also make bound items permanent by using the Bugs

"Normal" vs. Enchanted weapons
"Normal weapons" are standard base weapons that are not enchanted. Normal weapons cannot be used to attack certain ethereal creatures such as ghosts and wraiths. The exceptions to this rule are Silver and Daedric weapons, which do not have to be enchanted to inflict damage on non-corporeal enemies.

Weapons can be enchanted with a Soul Gem that cast the enchanted spell(s) on "strike". These magical weapons have a certain number of charges with which the spell will be cast. When all of the charges are exhausted, your weapon will cease to perform its enchantment, but is still usable and will cause its original base damage. You can recharge your weapons using filled Soul Gems or a Varla Stone, which will recharge all of the enchanted weapons in your inventory. Soul Gems restore a greater number of charges depending on their soul level. In addition, certain NPCs will recharge your enchanted weapons for a fee. This can be quite hefty, however, so if you have a charged Soul Gem available it would be a better idea to use it.

Weapon health
Weapon health is an indicator of your weapon's condition. If a weapon's health is lower, it will do less damage. When its health reaches zero, the weapon breaks and becomes unusable (broken items are marked by a split orange circle superimposed on their graphic in the inventory), the same way armor does. You may repair weapons yourself using repair hammers, or you can take them to an NPC who performs repair services. Any vendor of weapons or armor will perform repairs for a fee; to access this service, activate the person and then click the icon of a hammer. You can then select the item you want to repair from a list of all the items in your inventory which are not at maximum health. Fighter's Guild porters also provide repair services to members, and charge less than vendors for their services.

To repair magical items yourself, you will have to be of at least Journeyman rank in the Armorer skill. Please note that repairing enchanted weapons does not recharge them.

Attack speed
Attack speed is the rate at which you may perform attacks with a given weapon. Your own Speed attribute influences how fast you can swing/fire a weapon. Smaller weapons have greater attack speeds, though they also have shorter reaches and generally do less damage with each hit. Daggers have the fastest attack speed; warhammers have the slowest. For more specific speed ratings, see pages for individual weapon types.

Reach
Reach is, essentially, how far away you can hit an enemy from with a melee weapon. Shorter weapons have shorter reaches, and larger weapons have larger reaches. If an enemy outreaches you significantly, you will have to rely on speed and blocking to dodge and deflect their blows in order to get close enough to inflict your own attacks. There is some variation in length even among weapons in the same category; for example, Goldbrand is significantly shorter than most longswords.