Cheats (Oblivion)

In addition to playing the game through "as intended", many players also enjoy pushing the game engine to its limits, or taking advantage of bugs or other unintended effects to play "outside the box". Besides outright cheating, there are also a number of ways to exploit the game's rules to speed up progress or gain a more powerful character.

The cheats listed here fall into three basic categories: exploiting known bugs, using internal console commands, and means to abuse the game engine without actually "breaking" any rules.

Console Commands

 * For a full list of console commands, see Console commands.
 * For a list of IDs, see Item IDs and NPC IDs.

The PC version of the game gives players access to the debugging console, which is typically used by employees when play testing the game. As such, the console allows you to directly manipulate the game world in ways not normally intended. To access the console, press the tilde key, '~' (usually, next to the 1 key). This will pause the game and display the console cursor, and any recent commands you may have run.

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 (assuming that's not the ~ key.) Also, there is a known issue with Windows Media Center edition, when the infrared unit is connected to the USB port when you boot your system, you cannot access the console (or, apparently, use the ~ key at all) until you unplug the unit and reboot.

Gold and Items
The AddItem console command allows you to add any number of any item in the game directly to your inventory. (Technically, you can add items to any characters inventory, but adding them to your own is most useful.) The command looks like this:

actor.AddItem itemid amount

The term actor here just means an object that represents some character in the game. The word also appears in many of the commands that affect NPCs, but for our purposes, the global actor name player always refers to your player character. The ItemID for gold is 0000000F. You do not need to add the leading 0's to the ItemID, so all you would need to enter is the letter F. Item IDs for most other items can be found in the list mentioned above. So, to give yourself an additional 1000 gold, the command to enter is:

player.additem 0000000F 1000

Or, alternately without the leading 0's, the command would be:

player.additem F 1000

Note that calling AddItem with no parameters will make a complete copy of the player character itself. DO NOT attack this clone of you, as it belongs to all of your guilds and you will get kicked out of them all.

Skills and Attributes
Several commands exists that let you alter the skills and attributes on your character. The ModPCAttribute and MODPCSkill command (abbreviated modpca and modpcs) allow you to increase an attribute or skill on the player character. Set SetActorValue function (abbreviated setav), when called on the player object, allows you to directly set the value of an attribute or skill. (Note that SetActorValue can also edit other information about your player, such as your bounty, chameleon level, magic resistances, etc.)

The difference between the two methods for changing your skills involves the levelling process. When you use ModPCSkill to raise a skill, it doesn't actually advance your "usage count" to the minimum needed for that level. This technically gives you negative progress towards your next skill increase. Using completely made-up numbers, if you needed to cast 50 spells to raise Destruction, and you had already cast 25 of them, using ModPCSkill to raise Destruction would mean you had -25 uses. This means you'd need to cast 25 more spells just to get your progress meter back to 0. Using SetActorValue in this same case would leave you with 25 uses out of whatever the new total needed was. On the other hand, ModPCSkill increases count towards your character level, while SetActorValue increases do not.

A word of warning: Trying to set values over 255 will roll them back to zero. Negative numbers also work, though they may cause unstable behavior (especially if you lower a skill or attribute below the minimum requirements for your current skill level, class, etc.)

These commands are used like so:

ModPCAttribute attribute increase ModPCSkill skill increase actor.SetActorValue valuename newvalue

For example, to raise your Strength by 10, your Marksman by 25, make yourself a master in security, and give yourself a permanent 200 foot Detect Life condition:

modpca Strength 10 modpcs Marksman 25 player.setav Security 100 player.setav DetectLifeRange 200

Targetted Commands
In some cases, you can execute commands on other objects in the world. The easiest way to do this is to enter the console while the object (item, corpse, NPC, etc.) is on screen, and while the game is paused, click on them. The item's name and ID will appear across the top of the screen. Certain commands will automatically affect the targetted item, such as:


 * : Brings the targetted corpse back to life
 * : Instantly kills the targetted creature or NPC
 * : Remove targetted object from the game, permanently.

Miscellaneous Commands
A number of other console commands can be used to alter the basic game behavior. The most frequently used commands are:


 * or : Enable "God Mode"
 * or : Add all spells to your spellbook.
 * or : Reveal (or hide) all map location markers
 * or : Turn collision detection (what makes you fall and makes walls solid) on or off. Useful for fixing bugs where a quest is rendered unfinishable because a character has become stuck in a place where he/she cannot be conversed with or killed.
 * or : Disable all AI processing, making everything but you freeze.

Beat Oblivion in 20 minutes
To Beat Oblivion in twenty minutes, you will need lots of paint brushes.
 * Make a ladder outside of the Temple of the One using your paint brushes.
 * Climb up to the top of the Temple of the One (Preferably above the door.)
 * Fall down onto the door portal (remember to heal: THERE WILL BE DAEDRA LATER)
 * Go through the door. You will see that the Temple is in its destroyed state. If not, wait an hour.


 * The door is lodged in the ground and it can only be seen from one side.
 * Go out, you will find the minor Oblivion Gates with Daedra pouring out.
 * Kill a scamp and walk around a bit until you get a Journal entry saying that Dagon is here.
 * Go back into the Temple and wait 24 hours. Martin should be there in the temple with you.
 * Talk to Martin.

After this, the game has been completed and the ending of the game will be shown.

Known bugs

 * The full list of known bugs has been moved here.

Some bugs commonly used to cheat are:

Note that bugs are constantly being fixed by Bethesda, so these cheats may not always work on the latest patch. See the bugs article for more details.
 * Cloning items with arrows
 * Cloning items with scrolls
 * Cloning items with melee attacks
 * Infinite money from Dorian
 * Infinite money from the Vampire Cure quest
 * Selling items from horseback

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 judgment 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 perceivable sense, but undermine the balance of the game.

Leveling

 * For general skill leveling tips, see skill leveling tips.

There are a number of techniques for leveling specific skills without using them in any productive manner. Some of these techniques are obviously against the "spirit" of the game, while others may be completely reasonable for your character. One word of warning: some of these exploits can allow you to level your skills unattended. If you raise a skill too many levels at once, you will effectively be wasting attribute bonus points on your next character level, since those max out at +5.


 * Athletics: Use the "auto-run" command to have your character run into a wall, mountain, boulder, or other obstruction. Even more effective is finding a place where you can swim into a wall.  As long as your character is trying to move forward, his or her Athletics skill will increase.


 * Acrobatics: Head to Cloud Ruler Temple and move to the massive fireplace in the main room. Get close to the fire and jump while moving forward. If this is done correctly you shouldn't ever land, instead you simply hover in one place above the fire continuously until you move away or stop jumping.

You can also go to Tove The Unrestful's house in Bliss. Go upstairs to Tove's "skyboat". It will have a "roof" of sorts over the boat. Stand just under the edge of the "roof" and jump repeatedly while pushing forward toward the boat slightly. This will allow you to raise your acrobatics fifty to sixty levels within as little as half an hour.


 * Armorer: If you have The Shivering Isles installed, collect the Amulet of Disintegration and buy as many repair hammers as you can, or clone them. Hotkey the Amulet and repair hammers. Then keep pressing the amulet's hotkey and after about 3 seconds of pressing on the PC, or about 10 on consoles, use your hammers hotkey and then repair. You can get 100 armorer in about 20 minutes.


 * Sneak: Locate an NPC that doesn't move, such as a city guard, preferrably near a corner. Begin sneaking behind the NPC, out of his or her field of vision.  Using the "auto-run" command to start moving forward into the wall.  As long as you keep moving, near the NPC but not noticed by them, your Sneak skill will continue to improve.


 * Sneak: Continually pickpocket NPCs that are traveling as your companions, such as the adoring fan from the Arena. These NPCs, and a few others you may run into (such as Armand Christophe), won't care how often you pickpocket them, as long as no one else sees you.  Your companions will continue to obey your direction, even if they begin to strongly dislike you.


 * Sneak: Go to the Inn of Ill Omen BEFORE you kill Rufio. Go down to the basement.  Open the door to Rufio's room and go inside.  Go into sneak mode, face the corner away from Rufio's bed, and press the auto run key (default is Q).  Leave the game for a few hours, and you will have leveled up to the next major level (25, 50, 75, and 100).  When you close the journal entry that says you're now an apprentice/journeyman/expert/master of sneak, you'll have to press Q again.


 * Schools of Magic: Repeatedly cast low-cost spells that target yourself, such as Shield (Alteration), Detect Life (Mysticism), Light (Illusion), or Heal (Restoration). Even if the spell has no real effect, if it successfully hits its target (you), you get credit. You can also cast low-level Conjurations repeatedly, as they always succeed. Note that Restoration skill tends to level much more slowly than others, and Conjuration skill tends to level fastest.


 * More Schools of Magic: Even better, use the spell creator to create multiple spell effects that cancel each other out, such as a spell that simultaneously does 5 damage to you and heals you for 5 damage. Note: Sometimes you are only able to level up the first effect of the spell(I'm pretty sure you only level up on the first effect of the spell. For example, a spell with Summon Dagger, Fire Damage Self 5 pts, and Heal Self 5 pts, may only level Conjuration.


 * Conjuration: Summon a bound weapon and sheathe it. The spell ends immediately and can be re-cast.


 * Extended Casting: You can use the table in the Arena Bloodworks to extend the above processes. After you win an Arena match, the table will replenish your magicka fully when you activate it.  Thus, you can cast a string of spells until your magicka is gone, replenish immediately, and cast again.  Ayleid Wells, Essence Wells on the Oblivion planes, and Welkynd Stones can also be used, but aren't as easily replenished.


 * Security: Use the skeleton key from the Shrine of Nocturnal on a Very Hard level lock (such as one to the sleeping quarters of a count). Just keep on failing to unlock the lock.

The following techniques can also be used to rapidly raise skill levels, but arguably fall within the realm of expected behavior for a player character. As such, they are not always considered exploits:


 * Infinite Casting: Use 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.


 * Mercantile: Whenever selling items to any vendor, find a vendor with a low mercantile skill. Use a combination of persuasion and Charm spells to raise their disposition as high as possible.  Then, begin selling your items, one at a time, starting with the least expensive.  Each time, attempt to haggle the price up one step higher, until you are rejected.  Then back down and continue selling items.  Selling at the maximum possible haggling level will raise your mercantile skill, at which point you can haggle even higher and keep going.


 * Alchemy, Mercantile and Big Money: Alchemy is a good way to make some fast gold, while simultaneously raising your skill. Gather every alchemy ingredient you can find, including taking crops from farms and small gardens.  You can also buy ingredients from alchemists, innkeepers, and other merchants at fairly low prices.  Use these ingredients to make a large volume of potions, even if they are useless, to raise your Alchemy skill.  Alchemists and traders will then buy back these potions at a substantial profit.  The Imperial City, for example, has two alchemy shops, plus two inns that sell food, in the same district. Or, if you're lazy, you can clone a few ingredients that can be mixed together hundreds of times so that you can continually tap the A button and make several hundred potions within minutes. (You can get to Master level in alchemy if you make about a thousand potions this way. It should take less than an hour and isn't actually as strenuous as it sounds.)


 * Alchemy, Mercantile, and Big Money, Part Two: At high enough levels, you can obtain an arbitrarily large amount of alchemy ingredients from your own properties. Eyja from Rosethorn Hall will give you Shepherd's Pies upon request; if you are a Master Alchemist, you can make potions from this single ingredient.  In addition, Frostcrag Spire and Deepscorn Hollow both have gardens; Frostcrag also has an Alchemy-enhancing altar in the next room for more valuable potions.


 * Alchemy: Use a cloning glitch on two ingredients with same abilities. (Even restore fatigue(E.G. Bread loaf) will work, as it is basic) Then just get the two ingredients and create away. You can get an alchemy of 100 very quickly this way.


 * Alchemy: Go to skingrad and pick every grape in the vineyad you will get around 85-100 grapes then head north east along the skingrad wall till you see a tomato farm pick all of those to get around 80 tomatoes to make a extremly large quanity of restore fatige potions.


 * Blade and Block: Go to the Cloud Ruler Temple watch the Blades train for a few mintues and it will soon increase your Blade and Block skill up 2 points. Also, especially if you have a set of equipment that makes you invisible, you can use the Fork of Horripilation on a Mage. The fork does a negligible amount of damage, allowing the Mage to heal him or herself whilst you continually hit them with the Fork. You can strike very quickly with the Fork (almost as quickly as you can tap the attack button), and this quality also makes it great for raising your blade skill before "forking it over" to Big Head, so to speak.


 * Acrobatics In the Bruma mages guild up by the "head mages" room, there is a beam on the roof right above a railing. Jump onto the beam and hold the forward button and repeatedly press the jump button as fast as you can. You can do this forever because you can't fall.

Killing by Blocking
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 a certain disposition, 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 yielding 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 an assault. You should have enough time to kill most people within their houses with this method, though.

Killing by Summoning
If you need to kill an NPC, especially guards, without getting a penalty, a quick way is to summon a high level Daedra and make it go rogue. Dremora work especially well, as they are strong, use both melee and magical attacks, and are universally considered 'evil' by NPCs. Simply summon the Dremora near a guard and punch it three times. It will go rogue, and the guard will run in to help. You can then step back and let the Dremora wear the guard down, and repeat as needed. Note that not all creatures are considered evil by all NPCs.

Free Daedric Equipment
There are at least two known methods for getting "free" high-level Daedric equipment. Both methods involve tricking the game into allowing you to drop a bound item. Under normal circumstances, the game will not allow you to drop conjured equipment, or even unequip it. Attempting to drop the item fails with a message that it cannot be dropped; even simply sheathing the weapon causes it to vanish. However, using one of the following techniques, you will be allowed to drop the item onto the ground. When the spell ends, the game attempts to remove the item from your inventory, but it is no longer where it should be, and so it is never removed from the game.

The first method requires access to an Altar of Spellmaking, such as the one at the Arcane University. This technique only works for creating permanent weapons, as follows:


 * First, learn two or more Conjuration spells to summon weapons.
 * Create a spell with two Bound Weapon effects, with a short duration.
 * Cast the spell, causing the first item in the effects list to be equipped.
 * The second weapon will be in your inventory, but not equipped, and you are free to drop it.
 * Wait until the spell effect ends, and pick up the weapon.

The second technique works for both weapons or armor, you can do it at any Armorer skill. The process is as follows:


 * Cast any single bound weapon or armor spell.
 * Cause the item to take damage.
 * Repair the item with a Repair Hammer
 * Once the item is repaired, you will be allowed to drop it.
 * Wait until the spell effect ends, and pick up the item.

Damaging the equipment may be a bit tricky, as you are presumably not creating these items in the middle of combat. Since you are already a Conjurer, one easy solution is to use a summoned creature. If you can create spells, a custom Disintegrate Weapon/Armor On Self spell also works well.

Both techniques have the added benefit of increasing your Conjuration skill in the process. Also, if you are an expert in armorer and want to easily increase this skill, repairing these permanent items from 100% to 125% will help significantly. Repairing Daedric equipment has a larger effect than 'normal' equipment, because they have more health points than any other.

These items are not only very powerful weapons or armor, but unlike physical Daedric equipment, the bound items have no weight (though the armor will still affect your spellcasting effectiveness). However, keep in mind that the summoned versions of Daedric equipment are somewhat inferior to their real counterparts. They armor is a mixture of Light and Heavy, and are more fragile than physical Daedric items. When they inevitably break, you can repair them at any Armorer skill and its a quick way to level it up. (You can carry multiple weapons, as they are weightless.)

100% Chameleon
Join the Arcane University. Enchant 5 clothing/armor items with 20% Chameleon. Wear them all at once. The effects will stack giving you 100% Chameleon. Now you can attack monsters all day and they will never see you or counter attack. You can also steal anything you want. If you are caught pickpocketing, you can just resist arrest and walk away from the guards.

Another way of doing this is to enter a Plane of Oblivion, get to the Sigil Stone, save, then grab the stone. If you get the silence for x secs on target/Chameleon 30% on self stone, then all you have to do is use the item duping cheat. If you do not, reload your save and grab the stone again. Use the duped sigil stones on four un-enchanted items that are wearable, and you will have a 120% Chameleon effect. You can also achieve this with the silence for x sec/chameleon 15% sigil stone obtainable at lvl 8 with 7 pieces of un-enchanted armor. Then the world is your playground:).

If you download the sigil fuser mod you can get a 30% sigil stone and fuse it into a 60% one.

Cheap, Instant Kills
It is necessary to have access to the Arcane University for this, but it will work for either an enchanted weapon or a created spell.

Enter the University, and find the Altar of Spellmaking or Enchanting and create a spell with the effect Drain 100 Health for 1 second. A Destruction skill of 25 is all that is necessary for this to work.

Under level 30, this will kill anything. After this level, it is likely that targets will not be instantly killed anymore. This can be worked around by adding some more damaging effects (Damage health, fatigue, etc).

If this is made as an enchantment rather than a spell, the same Destruction and magicka requirement applies, and the final weapon won't require much magic to recharge.

To kill stronger enemies, try creating a spell with the same effect as above, though with Drain 80-90 Health for 2-3 seconds. This will be more costly, but you will be able to kill much stronger creatures.

Try adding a weakness to magicka 100% for 1 second, as this will double the spells effects.

Permanent Boosts
To gain several permanent stat/skill boosts, gain any quest item that has a constant boosting effect on it and cannot be removed (e.g. the Boots of Springheel Jak). Equip this item and either get yourself arrested or do a quest in which all your items are removed. When you get out of jail (or get your items back), you will see that the boost is still in effect but you are not wearing the quest item. You can now equip any other item in place of the quest one, but you will not be able to wear the quest item again (though the boost will remain permanently).

This can be done with the latest patch using scrolls:
 * Pick any enchanted item in your inventory, even ones that you made yourself. Then duplicate *Double click on any two scrolls
 * Drop the item you wish to duplicate.
 * Pick up the enchanted item and its duplicate.
 * Equip either one.
 * Double click on five scrolls.
 * Drop the duplicated item that is not equipped.

You can no longer wear the item, but the effect remains on you permanently. This has not been verified on the PC version of the game.

Near Invincible Stats
Your character should preferably be beyond level 25 to do this!

One method to become nearly invincible is as follows:

Collect the following items:


 * 1) Spellbreaker - Reflect Spell 30% on Self (acquired in the Daedric quest: Peryite).
 * 2) Bladeturn Hood - Resist Normal Weapons 11% on Self, Reflect Damage 10% on Self, Shield 12% on Self (acquired through the Unearthing Mehrunes' Razor Quest).
 * 3) Either the Necklace of Swords or the Amulet of Axes - Fortify sword/blunt skill 25 pts on Self, Reflect Damage 33% on Self.
 * 4) Raiment of the Crimson Scar - Fortify Agility and Speed 15 pts on Self, Fortify Sneak, Marksman and Blade 25 pts on Self, and Reflect Damage 35% on Self (in a closet after purchasing all items for the Vile Lair).
 * 5) Ring of Namira - Reflect Damage 12% on Self, Reflect Spell 10% on Self (reward for the Namira's daedric quest).
 * 6) Mundane Ring - Reflect Spell 35% on Self, Resist Magic 50% on Self (randomly generated loot, but only at very high levels).

Final Stats (plus any racial modifiers)

 * Resist Magic 50
 * Resist Normal Weapons 10
 * Shield 12
 * Reflect Damage 90
 * Reflect Spell 75

Another method is as follows:

With a high enough Alchemy skill you can make your own Reflect Damage and Spell potions.


 * At Journeyman level, you can make Reflect Damage potions by combining Green Stain Cups and Scamp Skin.


 * At Expert Level you can make Reflect Spell potions by combining Glow Dust and Cinnabar Polypore Yellow Cap.

As always, the strength of these potions is determined by both your Alchemy level and the level of the equipment used.

Add Shield spells and you're invincible.

Another way to become near invincible for Bretons
Pick enough magical items to get damage reflection to 100% and the mudane ring. Stats shown for levelled items are the stats if you obtained them at there strongest.


 * 1) Mundane Ring -Reflect Spell 35% on Self, Resist Magic 50% on Self (randomly generated loot, but only at very high levels).
 * 2) Escutcheon of Chorrol- Fortify Attribute: Endurance 10 pts reflect Damage 35% acquired from Sins of the Father Quest
 * 3) Necklace of Swords Reflect Damage 33% Fortify Skill: Blade 25 pts. (Randomly generated amulet)
 * 4) Amulet of Axes -Fortify sword/blunt skill 25 pts on Self, Reflect Damage 33% on Self. (Randomly generated amulet)
 * 5) Raiment of the Crimson Scar -Fortify Agility and Speed 15 pts on Self, Fortify Sneak, Marksman and Blade 25 pts on Self, and Reflect Damage 35% on Self (in a closet after purchasing all items for the Vile Lair).
 * 6) Ring of the Iron Fist-Fortify Hand to Hand 25 pts reflect Damage 33% (The Ring of the Iron Fist is a randomly generated ring)

Congratulations your now immune to magic with a 35% chance of reflecting a spell and are immune to melee damage (you still take damage from arrows but they are easy enough to dodge)

Another Method to be near invincible

=
====================================================
 * Ayleid Crown of Nenalata - Reflect Spell 25%
 * Savior's Hide - Resist Magic 25%
 * Greaves of Resilent Flesh - Resist Normal Weapons 11%, Resist Poison 50%, Resist Disease 50%
 * Boots of the Atronach - Resist Fire, Frost, and Shock 50%
 * Gloves of the Atronach - Resist Fire, Frost, and Shock 20%
 * Mundane Ring - Resist Magic 50%, Reflect Spell 35%
 * Ring of Ironfist - Reflect Damage 33%
 * Amulet of Swords - Reflect Damage 33%
 * Esuchteon of Chorrol - Reflect Damage 35%

Totals:
 * Reflect Spell 60%
 * Reflect Damage 101%
 * Resist Magic 75%
 * Resist Frost 70%
 * Resist Fire 70%
 * Resist Shock 70%
 * Resist Normal Weapons 11%
 * Resist Poison 50%
 * Resist Disase 50%
 * In order to get 100% spell reflection, equip spellbreaker & ring of namira
 * +Racial Modifiers

-- no expansions needed