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Oblivion's Enchanting vs Skyrim's—why does gear crafting feel so broken?

RiftenWanderer

New Member
I'm replaying Oblivion after years on Skyrim, and I keep hearing that enchanting trivializes everything way harder than it does in Skyrim. I'm only level 12 right now with basic gear, so I haven't hit the endgame yet. Is it actually that bad, or does it only get stupid if you min-max? And if I want to avoid turning the game into easy mode, should I just... not use enchanted stuff, or is there a way to engage with the system without breaking it?
 
Oblivion's enchanting is genuinely busted compared to Skyrim, but it's not quite as bad as the "breaks the game entirely" crowd makes it sound - it depends entirely on what you're doing with it.

The core problem is that enchantments scale way harder with your gear than they do in Skyrim. In Skyrim, even an end-game enchantment is balanced around the fact that you're wearing one or two pieces of gear. In Oblivion, you can stack the same effect across your entire body - helmet, chest, gloves, boots, ring, amulet - and each piece amplifies the effect independently. So yeah, if you go full min-max with something like constant Fortify Intelligence and Alchemy, you can create potions strong enough to make the rest of the game trivial. It's mathematically broken.

But here's the thing: you don't have to do that. At level 12, honestly, just use enchanted gear you find or buy. The game is tuned assuming you'll use some enchantments, so wearing normal enchanted stuff won't ruin anything. Where it gets stupid is when you start crafting your own with the intention of gaming the system - like enchanting gear specifically to boost your crafting stats, then using that to make better gear, ad infinitum.

If you want to engage with enchanting without breaking it, just set yourself a rule: don't intentionally chain-craft to amplify your own stats. Use what you find, buy what you want, maybe enchant a weapon or two with something straightforward like "Frost Damage" or "Absorb Health." The game's still fun that way. You'll feel powerful without turning it into a spreadsheet.
 
Yeah, that's the honest take. I'd add that Oblivion's enchanting is also just way more forgiving than Skyrim's in terms of how much soul gem capacity you need - you can enchant stuff way earlier and easier, which makes it feel more broken than it actually is when you're just playing normally.

The other thing nobody mentions is that Oblivion's difficulty slider actually matters here. If you're playing on a higher difficulty, the game's already scaled up to expect you to use enchanted gear, so you're not really "breaking" anything by wearing it. You're just... playing the game as intended. It's only when you start deliberately stacking Fortify Intelligence potions or whatever that you're actually gaming the system.

Honestly, at level 12 you're way too early to worry about this. Just equip whatever decent enchanted stuff drops and move on. By the time you'd even be tempted to min-max your crafting stats, you'll have a feel for what the game expects from you anyway.
 
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