Say what???? *SPOILERS*

[Firestormalpha]

Ok, so I'm doing the Order of Virtuous Blood quest, and I'm tracking Sirdur in the Memorial cave. I look over and see some spell action goin on, then a journal update saying I killed him and should report back to what's-his-face.
Odd since I didn't do anything of the sort. But I went to check out the area and sure enough there's a dead Sirdur laying there. So I snatch all his Elven armor, and like a good hero, I take credit for the kill. I did however find a dread zombie near him and killed it, possibly he and the zombie disagreed about something and had it out? Either way It was just a really strange occurance.

Also anyone know of a reliable source of Elven arrows? Silver's great for the ghosties, but I prefer Elven right now. Glass would be cool too, but I've only found seven of them and they've been expended.

[Sever]

With the Radient AI, it's quite common for npcs to bite the dust without any effort on your part. Fortunately, most of them are invulnerable until they've played their little parts in various quests. Seridur's probably died a dozen times before you got round to him, but only now that his quest requirements are fulfilled will he truely die.

The only reliable sources of decent arrows that i know of are mod related. Unfortunately, in vanilla, you're expected to use what you can find until you level up. Glass, ebony and daedric arrows can be found in abundance as levelled loot from about lvl 15 onwards. Smiths are the best places to go if you want to buy them.

[Firestormalpha]

Interesting. For some reason I've found sneaking much easier in Oblivion than it was in Morrowind. Not that I mind, I also like how they fixed the NPC's greeting you in one way or another from 10ft. away. You actually have to get reasonably close. Now I hear snatches of conversations as I'm running by instead of people hollering at me.

Anywho, found a smith who had 100 elven arrows in stock, so I picked up the lot of them. at 10 lbs. I decided the load was worth it.

Anyways I'll probably finish this run sans-mod, and then see what I can find to make things more interesting.

[Sever]

Smart move. Doing it that way saves you the embarrasment of having to ask a noob a question like: In your game (unmodded as it is), do the silver arrows have an equal or higher damage rating than elven or glass arrows? I abandoned missile weapons early on until i'd made an assassin character. At that time, i'd installed an arrow damage 1.5x mod. I believe it also changed the damage stat for silver arrows to be on par with glass or elven arrows. A bit of a game spoiler, if you ask me, though there was no documention hinting at it. To this day, i still don't know what the proper rating should be. What does yours say, FSA?

[Firestormalpha]

Well, arrow stats in a no mod game:

type - dmg/wgt
Iron - 6/.1
Silver - 8/.1
Dwarven - 9/.2
Elven - 10/.1
Glass - 11/.1
Ebony - 11/.2

that's listed from cheapest to most expensive. I skipped the steel arrows as I couldn't find any at the time. Between Glass and Ebony I'd keep the glass and sell the ebony.

[Firestormalpha]

Holy Crap!!

I think I waited too long to get into my first Oblivion Gate. I actually had to notch down the difficulty setting to pull it off, and even then taking on more than one daedric beast at a time was almost suicide. Hmmm... perhaps I'd have had better luck with a full head on melee character?

[Sever]

I've played 5 characters so far ranging from full on melee, to stealth, to magic. In vanilla, stealth characters were the weakest but only just and only due to underpowered (or over balanced) missile damage. (An arrow damage mod like the one i use changes that dramatically.) The second weakest was the full on melee character who, with the aid of Bethesda's level scaling, only found the battles getting longer and harder as he progressed. The most powerful, by far, was the Atronach ensigned sorceror that i made who relied solely on his destruction and blocking skills in combat. None of that running backwards and casting BS. In fact, he didn't run at all. Ever. If one has the right spells and knows when to use them, one needs only walk towards the enemy...

Thanks for the arrow stats. The mod has indeed changed them. As for the use the glass/sell the ebony thing, you'll find that as your missile weapon skill progresses, the difference between the two will become more apparent. Hold onto 'em and use them for those special targets.

[Firestormalpha]

I've also discovered that your skill in a given weapon type affects/effects(these two have always confused me) the number. I put my blade skill up a little and my ebony dagger went up from 10 to 11.

Anyways, I think I've found a way to take on Daedra, evade and conquer. Also enchanted weaponry with damage health doesn't hurt too much. Which is why I like my Bow of Harm right now. Arrow damage plus 18 from the enchantment, then x3 if you manage to stay hidden. Well, the x3 might not apply to the enchantment, I'm not sure, but either way, it's a good thing. I can take down most daedra at my current level in two shots that way. As long as they never see me. Sad thing though, in Oblivion the daedric weapons I've encountered so far are not the uber powered counterparts from Morrowind. And Daedric Field arrows suck. 1 unit of weight each and only 6 damage.

[Kyrvias]

Ah, but those aren't real Daedric arrows.

Real daedric arrows are a godsend. Daedric weapons aren't as powerful as they seemed in morrowind, but they're pretty powerful overall. You'll find them eventually...

Remember: Daedra weapons = Weak.
Daedric weapons = Strong.

[Firestormalpha]

I knew it, they couldn't have been the real things.

Anywho, sigil stones, have one with a turn undead for so many points so many seconds on strike and the other effect is detect creature for 180 ft constant, I'm guessing one applies to weapon enchantment and the other to armor?

If so then I can make a handy replacement for the cowel of nocturnal and avoid the whole city watch after me any time I forget to take it off around people thing. Cuz I mostly use it for the detect creature, assassins afterall don't like surprises.

And Welkynd stones, best to be sold and purchase ingrediants to make a homemade magica restore potion, yes?