Cheats (Oblivion)

The first prominent cheat to emerge involves taking advantage of Bugs, specifically the infinite money bug.

Console Commands
PC users can use the console to add money to their character if they wish.

Press the tilda/back-quote key (~/`) to bring up the console player.additem 0000000F 'gold amount'

PC users can also change attributes and skills in console. The values rollbacks to 0 once you pass 255. And all names are without spaces, like for 'hand to hand' use 'handtohand'. You can also use negative numbers for modpca, but dropping a skill below the requirement for your current skill level, ie below 25 if you're at Apprentice, 50 if at Journeyman, 75 if at Expert, or below 100 if at Master, may crash your game. modpca attribute howmuchtoadd   Ex. 'modpca strength 50' will add 50 to your current strength value modpcs skillname howmuchtoadd   Ex. 'modpcs marksman 50' will add 50 to your current marksman skill

Type the letters in  in the console, excluding the .
 * God Mode: 'tgm'
 * Add all spells to player: 'PSB'
 * Reveal all map locations: 'TMM'
 * Toggle collision on and off: 'TCL'
 * Toggle AI processing on and off: 'TAI'
 * Save Game: 'SaveGame [filename]'
 * Quits without going through menus: 'QuitGame' or 'qqq'

Full list of PC Console Commands

Opening console troubles
Some users may have trouble bringing up the console. It is said that in such cases the ' or @ key may work, or the key directly left of the 1, however I myself (using a Logitech MX3100 keyboard) am still unable to bring up the console.

Exploits
Exploits are degenerate strategies that tend to emerge out of complex systems. Whether or not a strategy can be considered an exploit can be a bit of a judgement call, since exploits are not, strictly speaking, Cheats: they are part and parcel of the rules of the game.

Some strategies will seem "unrealistic" when compared to the theme of the game, but still be balanced within the abstract scope of the game mechanics. Other exploits will make total percievable sense, but undermine the balance of the game.

Leveling
How to increase a skill without doing any real work
 * Sneak: Find a guard... such as one in the imperial city by a door. Face a wall behind the npc, such that the npc isn't looking at you. Switch to sneak mode (make sure the little eye is grayed out, not bright, such that they don't actually see you - you may need to remove your boots or switch to walking mode). Press the "auto-run" button in Oblivion, so that you continue walking forward without holding the key down. If you just keep "sneaking" against the wall, you will level up your sneak skill for as long as you let it. Just be careful doing this in excess, because your attribute modifiers will max out and you'll essentially be wasting level up points- making you lose attribute points in the long run. This procedure will also work in rooms with sleeping people.
 * Athletics: Same technique as sneaking, but without the sneak or NPC requirements, just let your character run, or better swim, next to a wall.
 * Alteration: Simply use a low costing unlock spell repeatedly on any container, or a low-cost self-targeting shield spell repeatedly, and the skill will level very quickly.
 * Restoration: Conjure a skeleton or higher creature based on your health, hit it with your bare hands 3 times, sit back and take the beating, then heal yourself to full health with the lowest cost healing spell. Note: Restoration levels very slowly compared to other spellcasting skills.
 * Mysticism: Repeatedly cast Minor Detect Life while traveling on foot.
 * Illusion: Repeatedly cast a charm person spell on all NPC's.
 * Illusion & Destruction & Restoration: If you have access to the arch-mages spell creator. You can create a 1sec spell that causes fire (destruction) damage to yourself, heals (restoration) yourself, and casts detect life (illusion).  If you set them up to the lowest setting possible, it wont take much mana - and the fire & heal will offset each other.
 * Most schools of magcika: (have to have access to spell creator) Make a spell that does "Fortify Magicka" (x) points, then add an effect you want, making sure that the total cost of the spell is half of (x) or less. Select the spell and then just keep "c" pressed down.

Killing Neutrals/Friends
If you have a high disposition with someone that you would like to attack, you can Yield to them immediately after attacking them (hold "Block", and press (A) or "Activate" while facing the character).

The character will say something like "I accept your yield" and go back to passive behaviour. Both their health and disposition will have been lowered due to your attack, so make sure you persuade or bribe them to stay in their good books.

If you attack them at under ~40 points (need fact check here!) they will refuse your yield. The yield was introduced so that accidental attacks on friends could be "un-done", rather than having to reload due to a simple mistake.

It's a nice feature to have, but unfortunately it introduces an exploit: You can keep attacking and then yeilding to a friendly/neutral NPC until they are dead! Couple this with sneak attacks to drain their health faster. Note that if you do this in cities, the city guard will inevitably try to find you as it counts as a disgression. You should have enough time to kill most people within their houses with this method, though.

This exploit certainly won't work on Guards, who are tenacious bulldogs once they're set off.

If any bethesda employees are reading this, my suggestion to fix the exploit is to simply give back the health taken from the NPC - it's not a perfect fix, but it's certainly in line with the idea of "un-doing" the unintended attack.

Item Duping
See Also: Cloning Items

Infinite Money
See Also: Dorian Glitch

See Also: Vampire Cure Glitch

See Also: Orc Glitch