Early on inThe Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, while you’re still traversing the tunnels beneath the prison, you run into Emperor Uriel and his retinue again.
While he’s resting, he chats you up a bit, asking which of the star signs in the night sky you were born under. Bit of an odd question to ask a random prisoner you just met, but it turns out it’s rather important for your overall character build.
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The star sign that you choose during this process can subtly or overtly shift the direction that your character’s overall build will take.
You can choose pretty much any sign you want, but if you give it a little thought and coordinate it with your chosen race’s specialties, you might just end up with an even better build than you were originally thinking about.
Out of the 13 star signs available to choose from, here are the ones we like best in no particular order, as well as some ideas on how you may build around them.
9The Thief
Up All Night To Get Lucky
Description
Fortify Agility
Increases Agility by 10 points
Fortify Luck
Increases Luck by 10 points
Fortify Speed
Increases Speed by 10 points
A sword fight is kind of like a deadly game of footsies; you have to stick and move, never be in the same place two seconds apart. If you’re looking to do a lot of sticking and moving for an agility build, the star sign for you, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the Thief.
Taking the Thief gets you three Fortify buffs: Fortify Agility, Fortify Speed, and Fortify Luck. That gets you 10 points in all three of those stats right off the bat.
Not only is this naturally great for those that enjoyspeedy, subtle builds like assassins and thieves, but that luck bonus will increase your overall skill gain speed.
Any luck stat above the base 50 will give you percentage-based increases to all skill experience gains. Luck also takes longer to level than other base stats, so this will give you a nice little head start.
Cast More, Live Longer
Fortify Endurance
Increases Endurance by 10 points
Fortify Willpower
Increases Willpower by 10 points
There are few things as frustrating as being locked in the middle of a climactic battle, only to realize you’re low on health and out of Magicka.
Suddenly, what should have been a curbstomp battle has been flipped on its head while you scramble to chug potions and wait for your Magicka to come back. To reduce the frequency of this scenario, choose the Lady.
The Lady star sign provides Fortify Willpower and Fortify Endurance, giving you 10 extra points in Willpower and Endurance, respectively. Willpower governs how quickly your Magicka regenerates, while Endurance determines your base health stat.
Both of these stats together also determine how much Fatigue you have. The Lady is a great pick for close-combat spell-slingers who want to stay in the fray for as long as possible.
That Endurance boost will also increase the amount of extra health you get every time you level up, which can help make you beefierin the early game.
7The Atronach
A Little Grief Now For More Power Later
Fortify Magicka
Increases Magicka by 150 points
Spell Absorption
50% chance of absorbing spells cast at them
Stunted Magicka
Magicka regeneration is halted
In many RPGs, some builds require you to endure a little more hardship in the early game on the promise of greater strength and potential later on. If you’re a fan of playing the long game, no star sign plays it longer than the Atronach.
If you take this star sign, you’ll lose your ability to passively regenerate your Magicka meter, which means you can only recharge with things like potions, wells, or Magicka Essences in Oblivion.
In exchange for that, though, you get a whopping 150 extra points on your Magicka meter, plus a 50% spell absorption modifier. Basically, that means any spell you’re hit with has a 50/50 chance to restore your Magicka instead of lowering your health.
This star sign can be brutal in the early game, but once you’re kitted out and have lots of Magicka potions on hand, that spell absorption will give you tons of extra survivability.
6The Warrior
Throw A Punch
Fortify Strength
Increases Strength by 10 points
If you have absolutely no interest whatsoever in casting magic or anything more complicated than swinging a pointy implement at people, your choice of star sign should reflect that. Specifically, if you’re going all-in on raw brawn, that’s a job for the Warrior.
The Warrior is similar to the Lady, in that one of its benefits is a 10 point Endurance bonus via Fortify Endurance. The difference is that, rather than Willpower, its second benefit is Fortify Strength, which gives you 10 points to your Strength stat.
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As you’d expect, more Endurance and Strength means more health and melee damage, respectively, which means you become more of a proper battle tank in the midst of a scrape.
If you’re opting for the ol’ unga-bunga approach, the Warrior has your back. Plus, more Strength means more carry weight, so you’re able to loot more chests and corpses.
5The Lover
Sealed With A Kiss
Lover’s Kiss (Greater Power)
Paralyzes the target for 10 seconds and reduces the caster’s fatigue by 120 points. Can be used once per day
Sometimes, when you’re locked in battle with a single, powerful foe, you just can’t seem to get them to drop their guard or stand still. Even if you have the strength and weapons to damage them, it won’t matter if you can’t get a clean hit in.
If you’re concerned about this particular situation, then you’d benefit from choosing the Lover star sign. The Lover gives you access to a greater power aptly named Lover’s Kiss.
Any enemy or NPC you cast Lover’s Kiss on will be completely paralyzed for 10 seconds, leaving them utterly defenseless against whatever DPS you’ve got in store for them.
The downsides to Lover’s Kiss are that you can only cast it once a day, and using it burns 120 points of fatigue. However, you can offset this by playing as an Imperial, which gets you access to the Star of the West greater power.
Like Lover’s Kiss, you can only use it once a day, but it lets you swipe 100 fatigue on contact. Use ‘em together, and your net fatigue loss is only 20.
4The Ritual
Everyone Likes Free Spells
Blessed Word
Forces the undead to flee in horror for 30 seconds. Can be used multiple times per day at the cost of 40 Magicka points per cast
Mara’s Gift (Greater Power)
Restores 200 points of health. Can be used once per day
One annoying thing about speccing for spellcasting is that it’s going to take a hot minute for you to actuallyget a proper spellbook going.
You won’t have any cash to buy spells at the start of the game, after all, and a lot of the good stuff is locked behind quests. If you’d like a little something to get your collection started, try the Ritual.
The Ritual star sign gives you two free abilities to start with: the lesser power Blessed Word and the greater power Mara’s Gift. For 40 points of Magicka, Blessed Word causes all nearby undead-type monsters to flee from you for 30 seconds, similarly toTurn Undead. Mara’s Gift, meanwhile, allows you to restore 200 points of health at no Magicka cost once per day.
Blessed Word is particularly nice for those who like toexplore the open world, as the caves and caverns of Cyrodiil are absolutely lousy with dead dudes. Mara’s Gift makes for a great emergency heal, since it doesn’t cost any Magicka or Fatigue.
Take A Punch
Increases Armor Rating by 15
Resist Magic
Increases magic resistance by 15%
As the old saying goes, the best offense is a good defense. Even if you’re not as overtly powerful as your foes, simply being able to outlast them in a fight can go a long way. If you’re planning on turtling up, sign yourself up for the Lord star sign.
The Lord confers Shield and Resist Magic buffs, increasing your Armor Rating by 15 points and your magic resistance by 15%. That Armor Rating boost will be helpful both early and later, protecting you before you have full armor and enhancing you further when you do.
As for the magic resistance, well, it’s magic resistance. You take 15% less damage from any magic-based attacks. You’re just naturally more resilient from every angle, which means better general survivability.
Incidentally, this star sign had a different effect inthe original Oblivion, giving you a lesser power for healing and a fire weakness, neither of which have carried over.
2The Apprentice
A Risk-Taker’s Magic Build
Increases Magicka by 100 points
Weakness to Magic
Increases susceptibility to magic by 100%
To cite a bit of classic RPG lingo, a “glass cannon” refers to a build that has high damage potential, but little in the way of defensive potential.
The Apprentice star sign gives you Fortify Magicka, providing a hefty 100 bonus points to your Magicka meter. However, you’re also slapped with a 100% weakness to all incoming magic damage.
It’s an extremely risky build, especially if you don’t have any followers with you, but that extra Magicka could be put towards long-range or summoning spells to keep you out of danger.
You can also offset the penalty a bit by playing as a Breton, all of whom get a free 50 points to their Resist Magic stat as part of their base kits.
Simple Magic Perks
Increases Magicka by 50 points
Sometimes, a build doesn’t need to be particularly complicated to be properly viable. For instance, do you want to chuck a few extra spells around in a fight without the penalties from the other star signs? Then it’s time tojoin up with the Mage. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
The Mage star sign does exactly one thing: you get a permanent buff of 50 extra points in your Magicka meter. That’s it, no bells or whistles like the Atronach or Apprentice.
It’s not the most interesting star sign to pick, but sometimes a flat buff is nice, especially when it doesn’t come with any drawbacks.
If you’re really interested in getting into magic, those extra points will make such an approach a little more viable in the early game, and you won’t need to worry as much about finding other ways to increase your Magicka meter for a little while. Saved efforts, saved headaches.
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