So what does this mod do?

This mod tweaks and modifies quite a few of TES IV Oblivions leveling mechanics that I consider to be one of the weaker aspects of the game. 


This mod changes... 


Skill Progress Accumulation: 


This mod changes the growth rate in an attempt to make all the skills increase more equally with each other. For example athletics will increase much faster then before. Armoror will increase roughly the same as before. Combat skills will increase twice as faster then before equal to magic skills. Hand to hand increases slightly slower then other combat skills to account for the less damage dealt when using hand to hand. Restoration now increases at the same rate as destruction and alteration. Mercantile increases twice as faster and alchemy and conjuration increase a little bit slower then before. The idea is to make it so no skill is too fast or slow to gain a level increase for while also taking into account the effort that goes into increasing that skill. The idea behind this mod is to rebalance the game in a way that is fair but takes the grind out of increasing certain skills and allowing them to increase in an equal learn rate leading to roughly decent bonus attribute multipliers on level up for simply playing your class naturally the way you are supposed to. This way you don't need to min max to gain good bonus multipliers on level up.    


Governing Attributes Tweaks: 


This mod does is changes some of the governing attributes of skills. For example, instead of endurance governing block, agility now governs block. Instead of speed governing light armor, endurance governs governs light armor. I tried to make all governing attributes make more logical sense for the skills they govern. For example movement skills are going to increase speed, taking damage will increase endurance regardless of armor worn, swinging a blunt weapon will increase strength and blocking and parrying attacks will increase your dexterity (agility). The descriptions for these attributes have also been changed to accommodate the the governing attribute changes for certain skills.   


More Skill Increases Required For Leveling Up:


Instead of only ten skill increases required for leveling up, now fifteen skill increases are required for leveling up (think of how it was in Daggerfall). The reason I have changed this is to allow for a better chance for characters to gain more bonus multipliers for the skills they use each time they level up making each level up more meaningful as well as to make up for increasing the learn rate of many of the skills. Trainers will train a skill seven times instead of only five times like before. 


Changes To The Way The Game Rewards Skill Increases And How The Game Calculates Attribute multipliers: 


Changes how the game calculates attribute bonuses and rebalances it in a way that allows greater leveling up attribute multipliers. In vanilla Oblivion increasing a skill ten times in a level up gives you a plus five bonus to the associated attribute. This meant that the player was often incentivized towards min-maxing and 'efficient leveling' just to get good bonus attribute multipliers on level up. This mod gives you a plus six to an attribute for ten skill increases. Five skill increases will give you a plus four bonus to the associated attribute and three skill increases will give a plus three to the associated attribute. This means that now you can play your class exactly how the game originally intended you play and you can still get good (+3, +4) bonus multipliers on level up leading to more natural, fair and less micromanaged way of playing the game.      


Quick Fixes To The Leveling System:


Lower leveled gear and creatures will now spawn in the world even for a high leveled character and not disappear from the leveled lists. This mod *doesn't* de-level the world of Cyrodill so if that is what you want then you will need to install a mod that does that and load it after this mod. What this mod does do however is that it fixes the level lists to allow lower level enemies to still spawn for a higher level character. This is more similar to Skyrim's level scaling and not a complete removal of level scaling altogether.  


Ebony & Glass Weapons To Hit Ghosts, Wraths and Will O' Wisps:


I have enabled all Glass and Ebony weapons to hit ghosts, Wraths and Will O' Wisps just like how they could in Daggerfall and Morrowind. In vanilla Oblivion, only Deadric and Silver weapons could hit ghosts, wraths and will o' wisps.


Damage Increases To Non Magic Related Weapons:  


This mod increases the damage of all (if not most) non magic related weapons (not including staffs).


All weapons will deal + 10 damage from their original base damage values. I didn't want to increase them too much but thought weapons in vanilla Oblivion dealt too little damage leaving armor soaking up a lot of the damage. I increased them a little bit. Not to realistic damage proportions but a bit more then what they where in vanilla Oblivion. 


 Power Attack Damage Increase:


This Mod Increases the damage dealt by power attacks from what they where in vanilla Oblivion to deal almost as much damage as a sneak attack. Watch out because this change applies to enemies as well as your character.


Third Person Camera Fix: 


This mod fixes the third person chase camera so that it is more like Morrowinds third person camera


How To Install:


Copy 'Essential Oblivion Vanilla Friendly Leveling & Balancing Tweaks' into your 'data' folder and activate it in the game launcher or whatever mod manager you use. Alternatively you can find your plugins.txt (in %appdata%/local/Oblivion and add the 'Essential Oblivion Gameplay & Balancing Tweaks.esp' plugin name as well as the esp extension to the plugins file to activate it.


I have a similar although be it smaller mod for Morrowind that I also recommend. You can download it here. https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/54503