Oblivion's Vampirism - Is Being a VAMPIRE Worth It? Lore, Analysis, & Quests EXPLAINED
In today's video, we're discussing if in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the condition of Vampirism is worth it and suitable for long term gameplay and sustainability. The process of becoming a vampire is started when the player contracts Porphyric Hemophilia. After 3 in game days and no cure given to you, your character will transform into a vampire upon going to sleep and waking up. There are a numbers of contracting the disease and a number of ways to cure it. While being a vampire, there are an abundance of new advantages as well as disadvantages that the player experiences that can be completely game altering. Fancy and fun new abilities, buffs, blessings and bonuses are added, yet a new level of maintenance and responsibilities need to be upheld or else there are dire consequences. Let's have a deep dive into if vampirism is worth going through in this game! Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe!
#elderscrolls #oblivion #lore #gaming #quests
At risk of sounding like an insufferable boomer, you should check out vampirism in Morrowind. There are three different variants of porphyric hemophilia that you can contract, each associating you with a different vampire clan. Each clan has their own benefits, strongholds, and questlines. The quests are very limited and the content in general feels incomplete, but it's clear that Bethesda had big plans for vampirism that were never fully realized until Dawnguard, several releases later.
That’s actually really interesting and I didn’t know about that! It would’ve been so cool to see the exact same thing in Oblivion!
Based and Chimpilled
This is one of the reasons why Morrowind is one of the best in terms of lore
@@huskiefan8950nothing gives me greater pleasure than going through the main story from Morrowind on a decently high enough level. And not just the main quest either. But the interesting political side Morrowind and the lore behind Bloodmoon and Tribunal expansions.
Ahh come too this place where destiny is made
There's a 4th way to contract the disease: If you sleep in random bedrolls throughout the wilderness there's a small chance a vampire might feed on you and give you the disease It often happened to me as a noob, before i figured it out, when i slept near Vilverin to level up
The infinite sun death loop... I'm sure all of us who've played Oblivion as a vampire has experienced that at least once.
That's why you save often, and with multiple files. Lol
I stopped playing after this happened to me and had to restart my game.
Yuuupp.
I had one where it was just the start of the day, I went into a hut in the woods but an enemy was outside who I couldn’t kill and couldn’t skip time because of them, I couldn’t bare to wait the whole day
No, actually. Not only have I never experienced this, I don't really know how this would happen unless you only keep a single save file for a character and you're just really careless.
Vampirism is the ultimate dungeon build, especially if you want a powerful character. No feeding so you get maximum stat bonuses for battles. Be a dark elf to help with fire resistance. Enchantments help as well. Sun damage and fast travel is extremely easy to work around with minimal hassle as well. If it’s daytime and you need to fast travel, just go back into the dungeon or building you just came from and wait until nighttime. Then leave and fast travel. It only takes 5 seconds and is incredibly easy. On occasion I would feed, but it was rare as I usually didn’t mind just going inside. You can also stop and rest at inns or other landmarks as daytime approaches if you’re on foot, which is a MORE IMMERSIVE adventure experience because you have to actually plan your trips. If you need to travel a bit on foot during the day, keep a decent to powerful restoration spell on your favorites or hot keys and keep casting. It’s good for training your restoration anyway. If you need to barter but you’re concerned the trader won’t cooperate, get your disposition higher with as many of them as possible before you get to stage 4 and you’ll never have to deal with it. The dying of sun damage fear, while not unfounded, usually is a problem with being too weak or low a level as a vampire. Become ultra powerful, while every potential negative can be worked around.
You're pretty smart!
That's exactly how I went about it! Nice to know I'm not the only one who didn't have a problem with this :D Although, I did cure it in the end though, for role playing reasons :)
I would swap dark elf fire resistance instead you want High elf and Apprentice for 200% weakness to magic so that while you have a higher base Magicka, movement speed, your end game spells cast on self will be more powerful. Especially absorbing attributes with a magnitude effect. The effect of the sun can be countered entirely with a weak restoration spell that lasts a longer period than the first day of advanced stage vampirism . u.u
Plus there are very easy potions you can make at any level that heal over time. Just keep a bunch of those on you and proceed as normal. You'll level up alchemy making them all the time and eventually you'll basically ignore the sun damage.
I use orc for magic resistance and equip a fire resistant ring
I know most don't like being vampire, but i quite like it. If you do it once your athleticism, acrobatics, strength and speed are already 100, you can boost them all to 120, and possibly further if you get addicted to felldew first. In short, you jump really far, you run really fast, and you can carry a good bit of extra weight, not bad.
That’s definitely a good point for vampirism! I will say the movement was really nice when I was playing as one!
Also if you are really high lvl anyway than you don't really need to sleep (to lvl up) and instead of waiting if i need for a quest i just go do other stuff (or wait get higher vampirism and just use 100% chameleon and go into peoples homes to feed. If i don;t feel like using fast travel [and rather stack speed/athletics/acrobatics/feather for ridiculous speeds on the map] i can be higher vampire lvl because at lvl 30+ and using various exploits you can do pretty much what you want.).
@@xxXXRAPXXxx wow that’s awesome that you’ve spent so much time as a vampire you know all that. I’m one of the people who have avoided vampirism in general in oblivion, despite playing like 10,000 hours of it lmao
@@r4v4g3r 10k hrs and still havent play as a vampire is a big misss😂
@@eliwoodnguyen1505I don’t think it is tho. Oblivion is the worst elder scrolls game to be a vampire in. Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Skyrim with dawnguard did it better.
That message legitimately spooked me during my first playthrough. This was my first Elder Scrolls experience, and although I was aware vampires existed, I didn't think they'd be factored in as something you could become. And I had no idea I even had the disease. I was at the point where Martin needed a daedric artifact and went with the Blood of the Daedra quest. Had my ass handed to me by the vampires in the cave...and I guess I missed the infection message. Then days later...I thought I ruined my entire playthrough.
😂😂😂 I can only imagine how good of a scare it was and the confusion that must’ve caused!
I have ruined my entire playthrough by clearing saves and forgetting about the sun and getting trapped in an inescapable death loop. I know better now but it's a risk to new players, I think I did it twice, ruined my dark elf and red guard.
The vamp cure quest bugged out for my brother back in 2007. Remember watching him feed so much in that play through.
From making this video, a lot of the features with vampirism were really finicky and glitchy for me too! I wonder if it’s just the games coding as a whole for being a vampire!
Funnily enough, my first oblivion playthrough of Oblivion ended with me ending up in an infinite sunlight death loop. Most memorable and yet most annoying moment in my time playing that game. 🤣
That very reason is why do don't play vanilla vamp.
The only things i love about being a vampire is reading their nightmare. When u on infection, those nightmares r super dope to read I wish they wrote more nightmares, even more grotesque, horror nightmares
In my headcanon, order vampyrum (iirc the name of the cyrodillic clan of vampires) are more closely related to Clavicus Vile than Molag Bal. I think in the book Immortal Blood, it does say that some vamps are associated with him along with Molag.
That’s very interesting! I’ll have to read up more on that! Thank you for bringing it to my attention!
That's not headcanon. It's just canon. Clavicus Vile created Porphyric Hemophilia. He can basically make off shoot vampires using his power of wish. Mortals wish for something and it lets him preform tasks outside of his wheel house. Molag Bal created Sanguinare Vampiris, which makes traditional vampirism. The pure blood strain is gotten from sharing blood with a vampire (like traditional vampires) and the diseases variant is way weaker. It's rare and not often shared which is why you have Vampire lords in Skyrim from ancient pure blood strains. Pure vampires can't infect people with diseases, they can only turn from sharing blood. So only their weaker offspring can run around spreading Sanguinare Vampiris. Porphyric Hemophilia is in Cyrodil and Morrowind since people wished for vampiric power and Clavicus gave them the new strain. But it's obviously way weaker and doesn't get much stronger with age. It's also gotten from blood sharing, though the player can't do this and is shunned by their clan in Morrowind till you win them over with quests. Noxiphilic Sanguivoria is the daywalker strain. Lamae Beolfag's pure strain created by Molag Bal when he... you knowed her. You only get this is TESO during the 2nd era. Lamae is gets stronger with each vampire that she blood shares with that sires children. So she's the reason that vamprism spread all over Tamriel.
I would say that the 20% resistance to normal weapons is far and away the best benefit of vampirism. That's a very rare effect to get, and if you're a vampire, it's possible to stack it with items from the plugin Unearthing Mehrune's Razor to achieve over 100% resistance, making you immune to normal weapons, like a ghost. Needless to say, that trivializes most non-magic encounters. Even if you're not building for that, the 20% resistance plus an 85 armor rating is going to make you a damn tank. Almost every other effect is relatively negligible and more often than not will stop having any impact at all on a high level character. That said, there are easier ways to become immune to normal damage, like stacking Reflect Damage in a similar vein, with the added benefit that enemies basically will kill themselves via attacking you. There's really only two notable downsides of being a vampire. The first being the lack of fast travel. The actual damage you take from being in the sun can easily be overcome by crafting a healing-over-time spell that matches or outpaces the sunlight damage you take. However even if you're healing faster than you're taking damage, the game still blocks you from fast traveling. The second downside is NPCs no longer talking to you when you're maxed out on your vampire rating. Four days SEEMS like a long time between feeding, but if you're questing around, dungeoneering, and fast traveling, those four days will go by faster than you think. You wind up basically having a chore that you have to do every time you get into town, waiting until nightfall and going to (usually) the same easily-accessed sleeping NPC over and over again. You don't feel like a predator stalking their prey, you feel like someone waiting outside of the grocery store every week, waiting for them to open. All in all, definitely not worth it from a tactical viewpoint. Fun for an evil playthrough, maybe, but otherwise it is just a chore. There's a reason the negatives were all but removed in Skyrim, and even then it is very arguable it's worthwhile. A small aside, when I was a child playing for the first time, I was infinitely disappointed that you'd still take sunlight damage while in the shade. Never made much sense to me then. I was also sad that Vampire's Seduction didn't make people vulnerable to you feeding on them while they were awake, as the quest Order of the Virtuous Blood suggests that vampires are able to seduce people into thralldom and that ability SEEMS like the means that they do that. Which of course *is* implemented in Skyrim, even though feeding is considerably less important in that game.
I wonder if you mix this build with the atronach star sign to make you absorb spells, you'd be basically unkillable 🤣man i'll have to try this someday if i ever play again
@@ironscalp484 I've done this exact build, just to see how easy it is to set up. It's disgustingly easy to set up, albeit basically every armor slot you have will be devoted to the build. Absorbing magic is fun, though I personally prefer to reflect it just because it's funnier. And amusement is a big factor because otherwise the game becomes a walking simulator.
@ironscalp484 this is what I always do on mage playthroughs atronach and sorcerers ring with ring of the iron hand I think it's called then fire shield and frost shield stuff on clothes with the alchemy skill for making sorcery potions as well as making poisons with maxed out umbra sword always poisoned and black soul gems in the pocket all on a high elf vamp
Man. Vampirism is definitely one of those “if you like it, you love it, but if you don’t, you’d hate it” kinda things. It was super cool having those buffs, but between feeding, sun damage, and NPCs not interacting with you if you get to 100%, it was fun to do once, and only once. If it was like the cowl of the gray fox where you can toggle it to any capacity with more convenience, yeah, I’d be cool with it. But your point of it removing too many big aspects of the game, I have to agree
I still don't understand why you get more powerful as you starve yourself of blood. It just seems completely backwards to me.
Im p sure its cause of this specific bloodline being based on blending in, so when you feed, you are then allowed to blend in with society.
I think the idea is a starved vampire is feral. A satiated vampire would be more humanlike.
@@samhall5096 I agree, but you'd think they would lose their magic strengths and buffs and gain stronger melee focused buffs to make them more animalistic.
Skyrim's "Better Vampires" mod does exactly this, in addition to many other enhancements to vampirism.
I played originally when Oblivion was launched on the Xbox 360. With little to no online info at that time I had no idea what happened to my playthrough. I contracted the disease without even being aware of it & was wondering why after a few days in-game I got the popup notice. I continued playing adapting to my new found needs & wants slowly starting to understand what had happened. After a few more days irl I started to get more comfortable with the new version of my character. I continued to play all the way till end game & then decided I would make it my personal journey to find the cure. Mind you, this was without any online resources or guides. In the end it made Oblivion & The Elder Scrolls games that much more endearing & beloved.
It’s cool to hear all the different sides of those who’ve experienced playing as a vampire! It’s a really cool way to immerse yourself further into the gameplay!
From a pure meta gameplay standpoint, being a vampire is very worth it and I immediately do the azura shrine quest to get it asap. If you don't mind visiting ongar the world-weary (who can almost always be found sleeping) in bruma when you occasionally have to sleep and keep yourself at 25% then it's just a hard buff with disease immunity and a kickass night eye/life detect minor power that is easily spammable. Both of those things are super valuable and all it costs is visiting an old guy when you level up and your skin starts burning. Also just letting yourself go full vampire for access to all its abilities and buffs before dungeon crawling is just ridiculous. You can pretty much go super saiyan whenever you want, shit it even happens at a relatively similar speed as it does in dbz
Lol I honestly forgot about weakness to fire because I tend to play dark elves so that gets entirely negated unless you are intentionally going for a higher level of vampire
@@ampeater777 covering the weakness to fire is can be done as an atronoch birthsign or a breton with a mundane ring iirc
The first time I contracted the disease was when I slept in bedroll at an abandoned camp in the woods. I got the prompt that something bit me and got a weird disease. I had no idea that vampirism was a viral infection and not instant turning. I also didn't know I had it. I thought I caught some random disease from sleeping outside and never slept outside again. Every time I went to bed, I got those horrible dream prompts and tried repeatedly to cure it to no avail. I had to legit look it up to understand what was going on. The worst part about it was turning in the ingredients since in the base game, the quest is glitched to where you HAVE to give the bloodgrass first, otherwise you can't complete the quest. I made that mistake and had to make a new character. I also kept getting stuck in the death loops, so all in all, vampirism IS NOT worth it.
I can only imagine how confusing and awful it must’ve been not knowing how it happened!
I played Oblivion as a kid, so I thought I had been doing that quest wrong. I'm so glad to know it was bugged. I hadn't thought about it in a long time.
Imagine if you did food reviews lmao I had pizza did not understand why it's covered with cheese or why I have pizza will not try pizza again not worth it. I play vamps a lot it's totally worth it when you actually understand how it works and the purpose of it and I've beaten the game so many times as a vamp that I forget I'm not one on my normal character play throughs
@@trickyfoxx6941 Yeah, they don't like it 'cause they don't understand it! The thought of being inconvenienced by a game mechanic makes them...Heh! And it's not like the game doesn't give you hints and how to avoid getting it or even curing it at all, all in the game!
@@grimnir7749i mean, feeding isnt that hard to keep up with, and if your dark elf theres basically zero bad effects from level 1 vampirism other than maybe being a little uglier.
I once randomly became a vampire. I had NO clue how it happened lol. I just started burning up in the sun and the game was like "hey uh you got vampirism buddy" and I was like "wth?" It was an interesting experience.
I've always heard that vampirism in Oblivion sucks and it seems it really does. Btw I had no idea you will not become a vampire again after curing. Seems like the Argonian disease immunity is literally in your blood after consuming the antitode or something.
in all the games it sucks ESO get the better version of it and still trash
It's always been more for role playing than anything else, mechanically it's always had pretty bad drawbacks. Skyrim with Dawnguard at least tried to make it more attractive but even then it's always been very meh and something you really just take if you're going "evil" or maybe you're playing a "blade" type character who hunts your own kind.
Yes! I’d say Oblivion might have it the worst for vampirism tbh! Like the previous comment mentioned, Danwguard in Skyrim tried to make it appealing, but Oblivion gets none of that 😂
@@thisismyyoutubecommentacco6302 Missed opportunity to join Dawnguard as a vampire. At least make speech craft actually do something to persuade him.
@@azraelselvmord3650 Yep, when he shines the light on Sorine and Gunmar that should have been an opportunity to talk your way into staying a vampire, rather than having to be forced to go get yourself cured. My guess is they figured it would make Serana basically redundant as she's the one hogging the "vampire with heart of gold" role in the questline.
I consider vampirism in elder scrolls games to be almost like a "replay mode" after youve experienced the entire questline as a non-vampire, it makes for an alternative and interesting replay option. Thats how ive always seen it, along with lycanthropy in skyrim.
Probably the most important piece of information is how the original plan was to be a vampire from the start. This implies it was meant to be major factor when considering your character and your playstyle, more akin to a class decision than a race. That's probably why they removed it from that point.
I think it’s really fascinating the angle they were going for there! I’d love to see it further explored in TES one day!
If you can get 5 items, each enchanted with 20 chameleon, you can feed anywhere a person is sleeping. Once you just start the mages guild questline you get access to all of their sleeping quarters.
I mean with chameleon 100 on your gear you pretty much break the whole game
Man the rate you are pumping this good content out is astonishing! Keep it up!
Thank you for the continued support! :) 😂 I just get so excited to make them that I become obsessed with them!
Another of my favorite creators what a crossover
@@ABardsBallad Happy to hear it man! You do you and keep doing it with a smile :)
Heard that if you're a vampire after completing the great gate quest your characters statue will burn in the sunlight
That’s really interesting! I’ll have to check that out!
The statue is basically an NPC with the AI scripts disabled (that way they can make it look like the player, by simply copying the player actor), like mannequins in Skyrim and Fallout 4. And sometimes that script is buggy and the mannequins walk around.
Gonna be real your production far outclasses most channels of your size. Very well made vid my man
Thank you very much! I really appreciate it! :)
I do most my playthroughs as a vamp. I think its fun
That fear of the infinite sunlight death loop isn’t irrational. RIP DeAndre. 😪
😂😂 pour one out for DeAndre!
Self sufficiency is the key to being a vampire. Having a maxed out skill in Armorer is essential and Alchemy is good too. When you can make more powerful potions and poisons than what can be bought, along with being able to repair your own gear without fear of running out of hammers, you greatly reduce the need to venture into town. Maxed out security is good too for the same reason. Nobody likes running out of lockpicks. The less you need from the townfolk, the better vampire you will be and the less reasons you need to feed, allowing you to enjoy the full power of the disease.
Very solid point! The less reasoning for needing to move around towns in the daytime the better!
Just cheese spell the skills
The threat of gaining Vampirism is the sole reason "cure disease" potions are a must carry. Nothing more annoying than finding yourself dying out in direct sunlight.
You don't immediately get vampirism, you get Porphyric Hemophilia and it takes three days for full blown vampirism. You also don't take sun damage until you have full vampirism and have rested another two days. There is no scenario where you would need a cure disease potion to immediately cure the condition before you would start taking sun damage, if you're taking sun damage, you have neglected the issue at multiple turns after being informed of what's going on.
Yes! I literally only carry them around for this disease! Rockjoint, brain rot, etc. I’ll just go to a wayshrine but I don’t mess around with Porphyric Hemophilia 😂
@@ABardsBallad I'll add to that; in quite literally _all_ of my Oblivion playthroughs, Restoration is *ALWAYS* a skill that I main, even if it technically isn't one of my "Major" skills. Because it has a "Cure Disease" spell, which you can buy from healers in the churches. Having access to that spell means you no longer need to worry about a bunch of "Cure Disease" potions clogging up your inventory. That, in turn, means extra room for more loot, and extra money (from selling the potions in question). Not to mention Restoration is already a pretty useful thing to have, anyway.
On a side note I like how some of the clips are just of you punching enemies
I was not aware of the easier way to cure vampirism. I always did it the hard way. Which in my humble opinion is the mother of all fetch quests. Honestly, I thought that being a vampire was a liability. You learn something something new all the time about the game.
I love seeing oblivion still being mentioned. Love your channel and I have huge respect for you!
Love to see a nascent Elder Scrolls lore channel on its way up. Keep it up, love your content.
Always great to see new Elder scrolls channels. Keep up the great work.
I loved playing as a vampire tbh
Kinda crazy that Molag Bal arguably has the most widespread presence on nirn out of every daedric lord because of this one disease. Good video btw.
It's also funny how it's basically HIV but with extra steps, and one that started as an STD, unsurptisingly
Your videos are great! I havent played Oblivion for a year or two and now have it for the PC so im looking forward to playing it again.
That Azura thing isn't technically part of the main quest. You can do any Daedra shrine, that's just the one Martin tells you about.
me walking around as a level 4 vampire during the day leveling up my restoration...
Honestly, that is definitely a decent way to level up restoration!
Do you even sleep?!
😂😂😂 apparently not as much as I should! Thank you again for the continued support!
Great video man 😊 I always thought that if you sleep in certain places you could become infected, I have slept in I think the abandoned shack at the waterfront on several playthroughs and woken up with vampirism...though maybe I was infected and didn't realise 😂
i like the mods that reverse it and make you get stronger for each time you feed as it feels better then starving to get stronger XD
I remember soft locking my character on PS3 with Vampirism, I was stuck in the witches house during the daytime, which counted as trespassing, so i couldnt wait and had to constantly yield to the witch. My dad had a similar experience, becoming a vampire because he thought it would be cool, getting softlocked and then trying to load a save only to find they had been corrupted.
The was really well thought out.
Thank you for the support! I appreciate it! :)
love your videos!!
Thank you for the support! I appreciate it! :)
Loved playing with my Dad on PS3 back in the day. His best character accidentally became a vampire and he went through the whole cure quest only to discover a bug where after turning in all of the quest items she would never hand over the cure. Turned out the entire PS3 GOTY version is bugged and it was not going to be fixed unless you purchased an original edition copy of the game and loaded your character with that disc in and completed the quest that way lmfao.
Oddly enough i found vamperism useful early on but after a while like around the early to mid 30s i was generally strong enough and had enough resources that i didnt need the bonuses like immunity to disease anymore, early on being able to cure disease is rough if you like doing the thieves guild and dark brotherhood questlines first
you can also get it when you do the arena challange while you sleep
I’ll have to check that out!
Bethesda did a good job but the benefits are not worth the disadvantages, having to spend time feeding and only playing during the in-game night (at which point it becomes more of a vampire sim) In real life, these disadvantages would be outweighed by the fact you can live forever and have an infinite amount of time to build wealth, skills needed to survive, create a synthetic blood which meets your needs etc. But as a video game character our player is functionally immortal anyway, they won’t die of old age… so it becomes a question of how much real world time the vampire restrictions add to gameplay… at which point they are never going to be worth the benefits
The sunlight damage can be mitigated or eliminated with heal self enchanted equipment. If you make one powerful enough you may only need one.
In lore: Just don't die. Ez. In game: lol no
😂😂😂 exactly!
Haha.
Thank god, I found another quality Bethesda video essay channel! I wonder what happens if you let the Dark Brotherhood guy bite you after you've completed these quests?
Thank you for the support! :) I appreciate it! :)
i remember a friend showing off the game, but he was stuck for a while- he was a vampire, low level, low hp, and couldnt heal through the sun damage. so he was trapped in a house with an unkillable npc who wanted him to leave their house. so he had to keep fighting the npc cause he couldnt wait or leave till nightfall
I once tried to play a Vampire specific run in Oblivion. I went in fully aware of everything, with my challenge originally set to mostly maintain a 100% vampire state, only sneaking in to feed and spend the day shopping and selling goods, then slinking back into the night. Going between the Imperial City, Bruma, Chorrol, and Cheydinhal was pretty easy. No issues hiding in dungeons and sneaking into town to feed. The waterfront makes for an especially easy entrance into the Imperial City. When I went down to Bravil and Leyawin, it wasn't much more difficult, but there were too many outside nuisances that slowed me down and no real place to sneak off to to avoid the road when travelling, though dungeons were still numerous and entrance into town wasn't too difficult. Then was the Skingrad-Kvatch-Anvil trek. Getting from the Imperial City to Skingrad wasn't too difficult, though I swear there are more guards on the road in this stretch than any other save perhaps around Bruma, though the Bruma mountains make them easy to avoid. Anything past here, though, is a nightmare. Way too many bandit camps in the Gold Coast that, while they make for easy feeding, are very annoying and time consuming, as are the various dangerous wild animals. Dungeons are clustered in some areas and then there are wide stretches without them. This made the gameplay either very difficult in full vampire form or pretty much the same as any other run in 25% form, and I gave up on the run at this point, as it was no longer fun.
I really like to hear people’s different experiences with playing as a vampire! I think it’s a very interesting and neat way you did it!
@@ABardsBallad Thank you! I like to RP hard when I play RPG's, and I love to keep coming back to Oblivion and Morrowind. They're both games I love to play to relax after a long day. It's usually a ton of fun, but on occasion an idea just doesn't pan out. The journey is always worthwhile, though.
I remember contracting vampirism within Skyrim with the Dawnguard expansion. The grind leading up to the full perk power on legendary mode at near level cap: Cave Johnson Lemon Rant.
The fact that vampire skills grow when not feeding means that the most powerful vampires are those who cause the least harm.
I’m glad I never became a vampire in oblivion… except once many years ago in a file long since deleted. However, I tend to go got the vampirism in Skyrim when I play. I also have two characters in ESO who are vampires, one of which is nearly unkillable for most.
Hunters sight was a great bonus while a vampire. Getting the cure was a royal pain in my playthrough. I found all of the difficult to obtain by simply progressing through the game. The 6 garlic were the problem. It actually took close to 10 gameplay hours of active search and that involved actively going to places where you can buy food. Just about drove me crazy.
If I recall correctly, my argonian shadow spell had an uncharacteristically smooth time living as a vampire after learning 100% chameleon allows one to be unseen by the light of the sun. Actually took me a while to figure out why I was getting the sun damage warning message but not losing health.
the fine for feeding is 40, that isn't even that bad.
I believe it’s treated the same as assault!
Sounds like an incentive
There's a mistake in the video. You say that Brain Rot comes from rats, but actually you get it from Twitter.
They have the same name but twitter reduces intelligence while rats drain strength
Here before it blows up
Thank you for the support! :)
I only became a vampire once just so I could do the cure quest because it was one of the few quests I never completed
I totally get it from the completionist angle!
Ultimately for oblivion vampire your definitely right about it not being worth it. If could have made three changes to the system they would be: To allow full coverage clothes to dramatically cut down on sun damage and disposition penalties (this allowing you to still adventure and the like but with the penality of no armour). Increasing the the time between level transformations from daily to every three or 4 days (this would make feeding less of a pain by reducing it's need while still making it something you need to consider). Feeding to reducing your vampire level by 1 rather than being a complete reset (as it is trying to stay at levels 2 or 3 is pretty difficult so allowing feeding to simply reduce the level would provide more player control and make these stages more useful). The theme of these changes is to make the game more difficult but in a unique way to still keep it fun.
I like it and totally agree! I think if they changed up how the mechanics for Vampirism worked it would be a lot more tolerable!
@@ABardsBallad indeed, which is something they learnt for Skyrim. However they over compensated and essentially made the penalties meaningless.
It's interesting on a level 1 run
I remember catching vampirism in the dlc for Shivering Isles,which was the first path i took upon starting, never knowing it could have been avoided or removed so i played as a vampire managing the entire time. I learned that during the day if you went to water it lessen the damage and if it was deep enough you could avoid sun damage lol i finished and thought thats how it was supposed to be played until many years later finding out it could have been all avoided & removed smh lol
I like playing vampires simply because I love them. Avoiding the sun and drinking blood is part of the expirience. And its neither shining in dungeons and oblivion. A considerable problem in oblivion is obviously the fire but im a Breton and powerful mage so its mitegateably. The sinister look is also an advantage for me.
Vampirism in post-Morrowind Elder Scrolls games always feels kinda watered down for my liking, neither the benefits nor the drawbacks are strong enough.
I’ve heard that Vampirism in Morrowind is a lot more interesting than Skyrim and Oblivion!
@@ABardsBallad It really is. The potential benefits are double that of an Oblivion vampire (up to +40 in some attributes and up to +50 in some skills depending on which type of vampire you are, as well as halved damage from normal weapons) but the vast majority of characters in the game will treat you like a blood sucking monster who should be killed with fire - only the mages guild, house Telvanni, and your Clan will deal with you at all. Your Clan don't even like you, they see you as a half-breed mistake that they only really tolerate because you do jobs for them. There are no "levels" of vampirism in Morrowind, you're either an overpowered abomination who everyone wants to kill or you're not. It's a character defining decision.
I’d totally watch a skyrim and morrowind version of this video, also I played as a vampire in oblivion for a long time, and it can be really fun if you’re in the mood for a bit of role play, especially in the dark brother hood, depending on the mood you’re in it can be a grind to manage but that kind of makes it more immersive, being a vampire within society would be hard, and having to struggle with the challenge sometimes makes sense, although the infinite death loop is a pain
And after all three videos a final one that compares vampirism across the games and ranking which game has the most useful vampirism.
2 things you missed. You can also get the disease from being hit by zombies. Some people say if you sleep at a bedroll at a camp it can happen, but i can't confirm. The other thing is the quest to cure yourself can easily bug out, so hand in all minor ingredients at 1 time to avoid this.
Lvl 1 vampirer c pretty cool with the brother hood equipment you get good bonus
Certainly not for first time players as it gets annoying, but a second time player looking for the utimate dungeon destroyer can enjoy it quite a bit, i've always had my character turn into a vampire, the first vampire playthough is quite challenging but on the second one you just learn to break the game and you really become drunk with power, and it turns extremely fun until it ends and then all playthoughs become the same so you install a boatload of mods and make it fun again.
Im sure the stats were worth it but all I remember was being locked into the final fight of the shivering isles as the sun was rising and beating the boss only to die during the dialog from the sun. I didnt have a recent save other than during the fight so I had to get through the fight as fast as possible then stuff myself with health potions and food to tank the sun.
The glenmoril witches also played a part in curing werewolfism in morrowind
I didn’t know that actually! That’s pretty interesting!
Since in my first ever play through I lost my file because I got stuck with an auto save in the light and died instantly upon reload vampirism will never be worth it to me. 150+ hours gone because I was dumb, and didn’t keep hardsaves. Many lessons learned
Is it on PC? if so & you still have that auto save, reload & immediately press the key for entering the command prompt & enable an invincible command or one that gives you x amount of health, you can find a list online of all possible commands easily
@@KHA0T1X nah it was in 360, and def still don’t have that save. That was back when it originally came out. God I wish I could go back and play it blind again
Vampire really is perfect for Min/Maxing or getting higher stats at lower level. With Felldew Addiction and Hermaeus Mora you can raise strength ot a capped point that is pretty appreciable. Endurance as well. The difference between 10 and 12 a level is huge, with vampirism it can be 145. And if you really cheese with Feldew rush and undownloading the DLC even higher. It really comes down to how you play. I like breaking past 100 on skills and I like going past 115 in the long run. A bit of a Min/Max perspective but if I play Vamp I then can ignore diseases. So Dark Elf or Breton or incredibly powerful race choices (Also personal faves). It has a place - and its place usually is with someone with a particular playstyle in mind - hence why in Skyrim those who swear by Vampires often combine it with Necromage. It's a Min/Max heavy choice - and one with benefits that can exceed the downsides when you build for it. It's not perfect but I see the appeal.
"Beggars are a fantastic source to feed on, as they are alone and sleep outside" Bulking grindset
The origin of vampires commonly accepted in the community is not of a child of Molag Bal, but rather him doing something I definitely can't say here. If you're curious, check the ingame-book "Opusculus Lamae Bal".
I play as a high elf vampire mage. I use charm on npcs for them to talk to me and have a restore health over time spell to negate sun damage. I never feed
In my first play through when the game first came out the cure mission glitched and i was stuck as a vampire lol
Doesn’t help that the power of the stages is flipped on its head, you are at your strongest when you are starving; usually when starving for anything that needs some form sustinence; you are at your weakest.
Slept at the blades base protected my ass “can hold off 1000 men with 100” he says yet a sneaky guy bites me bologna guy
Vampirism in original release Skyrim was really poor, there was the vampire cure quest only and the only thing going for it was necromage which nobody was really sure was a deliberate design choice. Dawnguard made Skyrim about par, as far as the vampirism's power level itself goes, with Oblivion's, though with the added quests it did push Skyrim's ahead. However, Skyrim's moddability is what really makes Vampirism stand out. Mods like sacrosanct, better vampires, royal bloodlines, vampires fly (with collisions) are all amazing.
It is really worth it, When you reach max stats in STR, WIL, SPD it will allow you to go over the soft-cap limit of 100, for those attributes and skills granting you a huge +20 to everything. Not only will you move faster, attack faster and do more physical damage, you will also take 20% less damage from all weapon attacks. All at the cost of some fire weakness. If you have enough patience to plan you level ups to get a +5 to all attributes on every level, planning to avoiding day light is is a breeze, making sun damage a non issue! Vampirism is significantly better in Oblivion then it was in vanilla Skyrim.
One thing i never got about tes vampires is becoming more powerful the less you feed. To me it makes more sense that the more you feed and the less time since your last feeding the stronger your buffs and debuffs should be.
I got something similar to the Infinite Deathloop where my vamp character dies instantly in my latest save. I just got frustrated and used console commands to get the potion cure. I felt really bad doing that instead of going through with the quest and getting the cure, but the quest was also too hard and my character was a really low level. This is the only reason why I preferred vampires in Skyrim's DLC Dawngaurd because your character does not die, it just gets weakened in the sun. All though this makes the game way too easy, killing a vamp in the sun made Oblivion too hard. I found myself role-playing as a vampire a lot more in Dawngaurd, sneaking into random houses at night and drinking the blood of citizens of Skyrim while they slept. A lot of good memories, especially with survival mode on in the anniversary edition. The point is: Bethesda if you're reading, please add some sort of spell or something like sunblock to make it easier to survive as a vampire in Elder Scrolls 6. Oh and please have random werewolf transformations in ES6 too.
I've done multiple vampire playthroughs and honestly if you just keep 4 or more rotating save files for your character, you aren't in any danger of trapping yourself in a doomed playthrough where you can't get out without dying of sun damage.
I had fun roleplay is a vampire assassin and I would hide in the sewers in the Imperial City.
The sun damage sucks, having to skip time all the time just breaks the immersion
I feel like it adds to the immersion tbh
I agree it does suck! That’s definitely the main thing keeping my from trying an all out Vampire play through!
To avoid the disease the best way is to summon something to fight vampires for you I found this helpful but I found this rather slow depending on what you summon and what level your character is and how high your characters Conjuration is
You can literally make regen healing spells that would make the sunlight damage mute
20:00 i have not played Oblivion but what happens if i myself is an Argonian?
You still have to kill an argonian.
I honestly enjoy vampirism in Oblivion. But my game has a glitch where the witch won’t accept the bloodgrass, making it impossible to cure the disease. Sooooooo frustrating.
I contracted the disease from a vampire but thought nothing of it. Soon, my brother came into the room and saw that I contracted it. Then, he had the brilliant idea of telling me to sleep, causing me to get that chilling message. He burst out in laughter as I sat there in complete confusion. Either way, being a vampire is fun, but can also be annoying at times. Overall, it's my favorite part of this game.
The worst part of vampirism in Oblivion was fast traveling at night and arriving at your destination midday and instantly dying when regaining control of your character.
I made it so long without ever having a problem with the sun damage. I went into things so that everything happened at night, or I fed on homeless people when that wasn't possible And then I had to fight Jyggalag, and he was standing outside. I had just enough healing to kill him and then die while his talking head post fight thing is going on. Think I tried to do it faster probably 6 times but eventually gave up and reloaded a save.
My vamp mage build race high elf sign atronach skills alteration, conjuration, illusion, blade, sneak, block, and acrobatics as these touch each stat and will make it easier to max all stats to 100 well except luck proceed to fast lvl to lvl 30 getting bit by a vampire a long the way raise alchemy up as well as the rest of your mage based skills once lvl 30 get ring of iron hand and sorcerers ring put frost shield, fire shield etc. on clothes use poison on your blade and go make some one shot all powerful spells with a max magicka character and destroy every enemy in the game in seconds. Know the game and where you can quickly duck out from the sun when tht fast travel gets you burning helps
Vampirism would be a lot easier to manage if you could get, say, a special waterskin but for blood. It can only hold so many doses of blood and it can only hold one race's blood at a time. Have there be only one or two of these so you can't just ignore feeding all together by getting 100 of the things, while also only reducing vampirism by one stage per dose in said "blood"skin. Makes it easier to manage the correct amount of vampirism you want while out in the wild while also allowing it so when you visit a town to do your normal things, you stock up on blood for your travels. It's still a chore you have to maintain, but it's more manageable and gives the player more control over the condition. Also, when I played Oblivion on Xbox when I was a kid. I hated the cure vampirism quest since, for some reason, my ENTIRE WORLD was devoid of empty grand soul gems. Oh, I found and could by plenty of FILLED soul gems...but an empty one? Nah, just didn't exist...and when I finally DID get them and cure my vampirism, I caught it again and my game in classic "Bugthesda" fashion, turned me again without realizing. I was so mad because I couldn't get the quest again and I turned in the second dose to the Count of Skingrad. I quit the game after this.
I did it organically as a kid. Think I was on easy so I had a lot of fun. Do enchantments help with fire damage?
If you make resist fire enchantments on a piece of equipment, it will negate the weakness to fire you get as a vampire
Theres an even more obscure way to contract vampirisim in Oblivion. If you sleep someplace outside there is a chance a vampire will bite you as you sleep. Its a very low chance but it can happen and its largly over looked because not many players actually sleep outside but it can happen.
I know many will disagree with this, but being a vampire is genuinely my favorite way to play Oblivion and Skyrim (especially Skyrim.) However, it's completely understandable why others would rather not become one, and I absolutely won't defend the vampirism curing quest in Oblivion. Holy hell that quest is annoying. That quest aside, I think this kinda solidifies the greatness of these games. One player's trash is another player's treasure. I'll continue to enjoy my blood-sucking fiend, and others may continue to enjoy their skooma addicted warriors. I enjoyed watching this video. Have a like.