UESP Forums

The high level armor in Oblivion looks terrible IMO (duck-footed, "Y"-helmed elven, glow-in-the-dark green glass, gaudy ebony with its goofy helm, and boiled-crawdad deadric). My favorite is Blackwood armor, but the helm and boots are lame, and the greaves are too skinny for female characters (but they do color coordinate with blue suede sneak shoes).

Mixing and matching, the best look I could come up with for my dark-haired Breton female was orc helm, blackwood cuirass, daedric geaves, and ebony boots + gauntlets. Repaired to 125% it gives pretty good protection, but the cuirass gets damaged easily.

I've had characters look really good in Earnest's best shirt, and the vampire dark shirts are usually pretty stylish, but I have yet to play a character with enchanted clothing instead of armor.

My jet black Kajiit, Black Tom, looks most impressive in just his loin cloth, but that is not practical.

What have you all come up with?

I just usually just wear the highest rated armor and ignore the armor rating. Of course 90% of my time is spent as a Breton Mage so my opinion is worthless.

In my two playthroughs I had warrior-mage hybrid characters who both ended up wearing mithril for the entire game, as the higher-level armor sets just didn't appeal to me. I've had three pieces enchanted with fire/frost/shock shield sigil stones, so the armor gave me fairly good protection. I just had to repair the pieces more often.

My main character ended up wearing a mage's hood instead of a helmet, because I went like, "Wow! Cool!" the first time I saw a legion battlemage and I sort of had to copy the style.

So far I've only had light armor characters, but I'm planning to replay Oblivion as a heavy armor character someday. When I do I'll probably use modded armor, though. together with hood should be perfect for the necromancer battlemage type I have in mind.

Clothing-wise you'll find me dressing in a Dark Shirt, Black Wide Pants (courtesy of Jalbert), and Doe Skin Shoes, or the Robe of Glib Tongues and Gold Trimmed Shoes.

I'll wear Iron Armor at first, and slowly pick up a full set of Steel as I do the Mages Guild Recommendations.

Once I hit Level 5, I upgrade to enchanted Steel. And even when the latest tier of base armor becomes available, I stick to the previous enchanted set.

I feel my Eyes of Akatosh, Boots of Unburden, Gauntlets of Potence, Cuirass of the Herald, Greaves of Flame, and Shield of the Undefeated is better than a set of unenchanted Dwarven armor.

I rather like how Ebony Armor looks though, but I do agree Daedric Armor looks stupid. Which is why I got a mod that ups the quality of the Imperial Dragon Armor to between Ebony and Daedric, strips the crappy enchantments, and adds a Shield (although I think the Escutcheon of Chorrol fits the suit better).

Madness and Amber armor look stupid too. Amber especially [&@%!] me off. How is a thief/assassin clad in light armor suppose to sneak around in that neon green/yellow garbage?!

When I get to the Shivering Isles, I've usually discarded my armor in favor of a Jeweled Amulet, Gold Sapphire Ring, and Gold Emerald Ring enchanted with Elemental Shield Sigil Stones. Three pieces of jewelry that gives me 75% Armor and 25% Resistance to all 3 Elements and never needs repairing. What's not to love? I'll equip the Raiment of Arden-Sul to cover the last 10%.

Only thing I don't like about the Raiment is my hair clips through the back of the collar.

If I want to be cheap I'll slap on the Escutcheon of Chorrol, Necklace of Swords, Ring of Iron Fist, and a Mundane Ring and proceed to cheese everything without lifting a finger XD!

Nice thing about shields is they don't bite into your Spell Effectiveness unless you equip a one-handed weapon, so I can equip a claymore or staff and not have the Escutcheon hinder my spell casting.

For armour I really like the look of Madness Armour from The Shivering Isles. The Fur Armour and Leather Armour both look nice too but I prefer heavy over light and they aren't exactly the best light armour anyway. Then for casual wear I like either Sheogorath's clothes or Earnest's Best Shirt, Black Wide Pants and Leather Boots.

Actually, I am having this issue right now. I wish shops had a "Try me on" feature where you could model full, or partial suits of armor before purchasing them. That or mannequins in-game would have been a nice alternative. because we all know that armor rating, and even armor class sometimes, makes up for about 20% of our looting/purchasing of our new garb.

Personally, the martial arts looking wide black pants do look nice, so I might stick with those. But else wise, I enjoyed running around in sandals and a sack cloth shirt. I looked very thievish. And with 100% Chameleon (which is so awesome btw), armor isn't an issue cuz nothing is ever gonna attack me! But alas, then I don't see me.

At the moment my armor is a mish-mash of whatever I happened to find that happens to give me 100% resist magic and about 50% reflect damage. Mostly glass, with a few pieces of elven, the Escutcheon of Chorrol, and the Saviour's Hide.

For in town, I've been wearing different outfits as I find them and put them together. Right now it's the Sheogorath outfit with a purple wig from a mod.

I usually just wear what I think looks best with the hood I wear - for most of my non-warrior/knight/other-types-of-iron-clad-guys characters. So shirts, pants (laced leather or blacksmith's) and some shoes. I enchant it all of course.

Shivering Isles Amber armor is my favorite by far. But, I mostly stuff my armor in chests and fight in Green Brocade Doublet, Green Velvet Shoes, and Green Silk Garment.
Sometimes, with my characters who are skilled in heavy armor, I choose Daedric armor and weapons and a Black Hand Hood.

Cheydinhal City Watch, with leather gloves and boots. And the Green Robe Hood looks great on the outfit as well, for a woodcrafty ranger type.

Strolling around the assembled camp inside of Bruma, with guards from all the cities in place, just makes this outfit rock.

One problem may be that the quiver of arrows on the back which match the outfit are of the Iron variety. Then again, if I have less than 70 arrows on hand, I think I'm low on ammo. Shooting things, a lot, is fun. A lot. I actually maintain several caches of 200 Iron Arrows in various safe containers in the countryside, such as the burned-out All Things Alchemical on the Red Ring road. Just in case I need to reload.

As for tactical defense considerations, simply slap a couple of Transcendant Sigil Stones with Fire/Frost/Shock Shield into the pieces of the outfit. You'll be up to 85 in no time.