Skill Leveling Tips (Oblivion)

Armorer

 * Always repair all your own equipment. Bring 20-30 Repair Hammers with you into the field, for this purpose.  Repair the equipment and weapons of your fallen foes too, for extra gain.  Use Disintegrate Weapon or Disintegrate Armor to increase the total wear on their equipment. This is most effective on foes with better, heavier armor, since it takes a larger number of attempts to fully repair.
 * You could also create a spell of Disintegrate Armor at the Arcane University to wear down your own armor and build up your Destruction magic simultaneously in the safety of your own home.
 * Or you could use the Amulet of Disintegration found in the Shivering Isles in The Coming Storm quest, it has disintegrate armour and disintegrate weapon 10,000 on Self. It doesn't necessarily break all of your armour instantly, but it will eventually. If you have done the quest, you can still murder/pickpocket Ahjazda to get it back. She has a store named Things Found in Crucible.

Athletics

 * Find a body of water with a suitable wall and use auto-run to keep swimming into the wall. Go for lunch. Works with running into a corner too, but your athletics will level slower. For people playing on the XBox 360, use a rubberband on the controller's left control stick to keep running.  Also, don't use a wireless controller, or else it will turn off after a while.

Blade

 * Use Conjuration to summon a skeleton and bash it from behind (this will also level you in Conjuration as well). Most of the time they go down before they turn on you.  The safe way is to cast, attack 2-3 times and recast, dispelling the first skeleton.
 * A very effective technique is to obtain a blade with very few hit points (e.g. rusty iron dagger) and conjure a ghost. The weapon will have almost no impact and you can strike 15-20 times before the spell expires.
 * If you have the Vile Lair plug-in, you can just keep hitting your prisoner with a blade. He won't wake up and because he won't die you can train your blade as much as you want.
 * Another way to increase any skill that derives experience from attacking is to somehow obtain 100% chameleon and set the difficulty to max. This way, you can hit enemies many, many times; and since difficulty has nothing to do with experience gain, you can easily level up any skill.
 * Wear the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal in a main city (like the Imperial City) and then attack the guards. If you're low on health, take the Cowl off and yield to them.
 * Obtain a horse, set the difficulty to the right of the slider, travel away from civilization, and slash away with a dagger. When the health of the horse becomes low, simply wait one hour and repeat. You should also stock up on repair hammers, so you can improve your armorer skill at the same time and prevent your dagger from breaking.

Block

 * See Heavy Armor, below.
 * Often use block whenever attacking.

Blunt

 * See Blade.

Hand to Hand

 * See Blade.

Heavy Armor

 * Once you've gained some semi-decent armor, find a rat and let it hit you over and over again. Optionally level Restoration at the same time by using a tiny healing spell to counter the damage.
 * After you've beaten the Arena and can fight the Minotaur Lords, turn the difficulty to very easy and just let them hit you until your skill raises as much as you'd like. You can also use restoration spells to increase restoration while doing this.
 * Once you get the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal, you can put it on and the guards will come after you. You can just let them hit you over and over, and improve your heavy armor. When you get low on health or want to repair your armor, just take off the mask and yield to them. Be careful if you have a reflect damage effect on, since the guards will get damage when hitting you, making them think it was an assault.

Alchemy

 * Alchemy is trivial to level up, if you collect all the ingredients you see as you're doing other things. Occasionally visit the nearest Mages Guild to "borrow" a Mortar and Pestle, and just start making potions.  Since it's only the number of potions that is important rather than their usefulness, buying food from tavern owners is also an option for getting ingredients.
 * If you want quick, simple leveling, go outside Skingrad and gather grapes. Also gather all the vegetables from the multiple farms in Cyrodiil, such as Odiil Farm east of Weynon Priory and Gweden Farm east of Anvil, or even go through barrels and crates in any town. Then go crazy creating Restore Fatigue potions. Selling these potions is also a good source of earning money. (Note: This is a good way to get your Mercantile skill up but be sure to sell each potion alone, if you sell in a bunch your mercantile will only go up for each sale not each item sold.)
 * To get more money for your potions you can go to Frostcrag Spire (if you have it) and use the Frostcrag Alchemy Lab to get + 15 [Alchemy] with Alchemical Brilliance. If you are at 85 and use this to get to 100 your skill in alchemy will not go up while making potions. But being at 100 with Alchemical Brilliance will give you the ability to make single-ingredient potions and poisons (very profitable).

Alteration

 * Cast the smallest Shield spell you have over and over again on yourself. Spell level does not affect gains, so cast as cheap a spell as possible. Even faster is casting Open Very Easy Lock on any lock of a harder grade (i.e. at least an Easy lock) -- the lock won't open, but the skill will increase quickly. This also works on some doors that don't lock like the large ones in Imperial City.


 * The easiest way to build any magic skill up, is to gain access to the Arcane University and create your own spells (or just use Frostcrag Spire). You just have to make sure they are the minimum and are targeted at self. This works with all types of magic, you can just tape down the cast button on the controller or balance a roll of pennies on the C button on the keyboard and go get some food. You can even time it so you can get a +5 to intelligence and willpower before each level. For the 360 you can switch your t.v. set to regular t.v. and just keep hitting right bumper. Check on your skill advancement during comercials. (This works for the other non-alchemy magic skills as well)

Conjuration

 * The fastest and most efficient way to level in Conjuration is to summon a Bound Dagger If you have access to the Arcane University, you can create a spell for Bound Dagger that lasts for 1 second. The dagger will disappear so fast that you can simply hold down the cast button and not be interrupted.
 * If you go to the Arcane University to create the above spell then you might as well add a Bound Mace with it and add a couple of seconds to it. Thus, you'd have Bound Dagger and then Bound Mace both for 3 seconds. The reason for this is a free, weightless Daedric Mace. Once it is cast, look into your inventory and you'll find that your Bound Dagger is equipped. However, drop the Bound Mace and you can stock up on it. You can also use bound axes, hammers, swords, etc. as long as it is a weapon (no armor) both bound to self at the same time.

Destruction

 * After gaining access to the Arcane University, create a 3-point, 1-second damage-on-self spell and cast it over and over again. Optionally raise Restoration at the same time by countering the damage with a tiny healing spell.
 * Once you reach apprentice level, create a new spell of Weakness to Fire with the same parameters. This way you don't have to worry about dying and go take a break.
 * A simple way to raise this is with the Vile Lair prisoner. Simply cast Destruction spells on him, as he won't wake up or die.
 * Following The Purification you can use Shadowmere for target practice seeing as it is an NPC that won't die or attract the guards.
 * The most useful way is probably to buy a bunch of repair hammers and cast a disintegrate armor 3 pts. for 1 second on self. This not only levels destruction, but you can level armorer rather quickly as well, which is a major help throughout the game.

Illusion

 * Cast a tiny Light spell over and over.

Mysticism

 * Cast Minor Detect Life over and over.

Restoration

 * See Destruction or Heavy Armor, above.


 * Or if you just want to focus on Restoration alone, all you need to do is cast a Restoration spell over and over. To see if casting a spell is increasing that skill level just check the current skill bar before casting, cast it a lot, and recheck the status bar to make sure it is adding up.


 * The cheapest skill for Restoration is a Restore Fatigue spell found at most chapels.


 * Make a spell that restores Restoration on touch. Create a spell with Dispel 3 pts for 1 sec, Fortify Willpower whatever degree your skill is at, Fortify Magicka whatever degree your skill is at, Disintegrate Weapon or Armor (x) points, and Weakness to Magic. This combination of effects ensures that you always have magicka because it will never fall below the spell's magicka cost.  The key word is touch here because you can cast spells faster on touch than if you cast spells on your self. To increase your casting speed, hold down block while you cast this. Holding block and casting a touch Restoration spell (or other schools of magic spells) is three times faster than any self or target spell. This works on all schools of magic too.


 * Make a Fortify Magicka 3 Points for 1 Second on self spell. Since it only costs 1 Point to cast and you gain 3 points each cast you will not run out of magicka casting this spell continuously. Cast it until you reach your desired level.

Acrobatics

 * You can increase Acrobatics quickly by finding a ledge or something that is just slightly taller than your character, running underneath it, and jamming on the jump button. The goal is to find a spot where your jumps are as small as possible. Be sure to keep moving forward or use auto run as well, as that seems to be required for this rapid-improvement technique.
 * Jump from high places that cause damage to yourself, the more damage you take the more your skill bar increases. Just don't kill yourself doing it; learn where a safe height is and always save before you leap.
 * Find a steep mountain or a little steep hill where it is possible to just walk up it. Jump up the mountain until you're at the top, then jump off bit by bit, but enough to take damage each time (you can heal yourself while doing this). Repeat as needed.
 * Simply jump everywhere you go. Slow method but adds up over time.

Light Armor

 * See Heavy Armor, above.
 * Making sure you have at least 40 gold on you to pay as bounty for attacking a guard, put on whatever type of armor you wish to improve the skill of, and make sure you have nothing on that will reflect damage. Then simply find a city guard and cast a very weak destruction spell, such as flare.  Let them attack you until your skill is to the desired level; this is also a good way to improve your block, restoration, and armorer skills, as long as you can repair that type of armor (you must be at least journeyman to repair enchanted armors).

Marksman

 * Use an Iron Bow and as many Iron Arrows as you can carry. Find a troll, then climb up onto a steep cliff or rock, where it is unable to follow, and start shooting. The Painted Trolls seem to be especially tough, with plenty of rocks in the environment. Between the low damage of Iron Bows and Arrows and the trolls' natural regeneration, the only limit is the number of arrows you can carry.
 * Just keep killing the featured scamps in the Whom Gods Annoy quest. As a mage at the Mages Guild tells you, new ones will keep on appearing to replace the ones you kill, plus cheap arrows will do the trick with little chance of harm in return.
 * Take your horse to the wilderness where no one is around and use a weak bow and arrow to shoot your horse. Your horse is very strong and can take a lot of hits (100+ arrows). When your horse is about to die use a Restore Health on Target to bring its health back to 100%. Your horse will not attack you, nor will he move or call for help. If you do not have a Restore Health spell, simply wait one hour.
 * After becoming the Grand Champion of the Arena and reaching level 18, arrange a fight against Minotaur Lords. Sit in the tunnel area leading up to the Arena and shoot at them; they will, for the most part, be unable to enter. On occasion they will be able to squeeze in; when this happens, simply run for the opposite tunnel and repeat.

Mercantile

 * Find an item that both buys and sells for 1 gold (if such an item exists, unconfirmed). Buy and sell said item over and over and over again. Barring that, sell all items one at a time, even arrows and other large stacks. Remember to move the haggle bar high enough to get your bargaining through the merchant.
 * Sell items for the highest price possible. Increase the haggle percentile by 1 after you’ve sold three or four items. When the offer is refused go back by 2%.

Security

 * Continuously fail to pick a lock (quick double clicks do it). This is expensive, however, as you keep breaking your lockpicks and need to purchase new ones.
 * The Skeleton Key can be a way to render this skill obsolete, but it is simultaneously a perfect tool for leveling the skill up as it will let you "fail to pick" any lock as much as you like (for min/maxing stat gains).
 * The Training chest in The Thieves Den mod also allows lockpicking practice.

Sneak

 * Enter Baenlin's House from the Accidents Happen Dark Brotherhood quest, go into the crawlspace at the end of a bedroom on the top floor and Sneak in autorun for whole days on end. You can't be discovered and there always seems to be at least one person in the house. Very easy if left overnight.
 * Crouch in a corner where you are near someone that doesn't pay attention and sneak at the wall - the door guards at Imperial City and behind the fans in the Arena, for example.
 * You can also go to a chapel, and follow someone through the dark areas, while you keep sneaking at a prudential distance.
 * Just find someone sleeping in a bed, and sneak while walking against the bed. You have about 8 hours of game time to level up, then just wait until the NPC sleeps again.
 * Go to the tavern (i. e. Imperial City, Market District) sneak near to door to the basement and keep walking on the door, wall or barrier ( whatever you found there ).
 * Go to a secluded place (with no guards or citizens around) with your Adoring Fan, and then enter sneak and continuly pickpocket him, he will neither run nor call for help so you may pickpocket him all you want. This will also work with a highwayman, if you pay instead of choosing to fight, and Amusei.
 * If you have not yet completed the Dark Brotherhood mission A Knife in the Dark then Rufio's room makes for the perfect location to level up your sneak skill quickly. Merely take off any boots you have on and sneak continuously into the corner made between the wall and his bed.

Speechcraft

 * There is no easy way, but keep playing the persuasion mini-game with the random townsfolk including guards and beggars. After some Speechcraft level increases, you can play the game against the same people again (but usually only one or two rounds). In practice, use the small wedge for the hated reaction (it will rotate clockwise as you make choices) and one of the larger wedges for the best reaction. See Persuasion for more information.
 * A slightly less graceful way to level up is to continually spin the wedge around in a circle while repeatedly tapping the A button.  Rounds will go by in seconds and you will level up quickly.  The NPC's disposition will rise and fall, but the skill is increased by the number of times the Speechcraft mini-game is played, not successful increases of disposition.