What Is the Easiest Way to Make Money in "Oblivion?"

"The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" has its own economy. You can buy and sell items, haggle with merchants and even invest in a store. While there are many ways to make money, the easiest is to take advantage of the existing economy in Cyrodiil and sell items as much as possible. There are several important strategies for you to acquire these items, manage them properly and sell them. If you play to the game's strengths, you can make plenty of money in no time.

Instructions

Finding Items

1. Join the Theives Guild. You can make a great deal of money by selling stolen items, but you can only sell them to Theives Guild fences.

2. Target wealthy locations to steal from. Good choices include castles, guild halls and stores.

3. Steal wisely, considering how much you can sell items for; some of your earlier fences only have 600 or 800 gold available to barter with. A rare item worth thousands and thousands of gold may not be a good choice for theft if the maximum you can sell it for is 600 gold.

4. Fight or sneak your way through all the dungeons you can to collect valuable items. You can sell these items to any merchant, not just Thieves Guild fences. If your character is low-level, be careful; you do not want to get overwhelmed by too many opponents in a dungeon.

Managing Items

1. Drop the least valuable items in your inventory when you are over-encumbered. Compare your loot's value-to-weight ratio by dividing the item's gold value by its weight. An item item that weighs 10 and is worth 50 gold has a 1-to-5 value ratio, which is not very good.

2. Collect all the ingredients you can to make all the potions and poisons possible. Potions and poisons do not weigh much, and you sell them at 100-percent profit if you collected the ingredients from the wild. Potions and poisons are almost always worth more than their individual ingredients.

3. Increase your inventory size with "Feather" spells or potions. This way you can carry more loot back to merchants.

4. Make multiple trips to dungeons if necessary; do not waste all the work of clearing out a dungeon. As long as you go back within a few days of game time, the items you left should still be there.

Selling Items

1. Use the right merchants. Try to sell to merchants that accept all types of items; otherwise you may have to go to several stores to sell all of your loot. Good choices include the Three Brothers Trade Goods in the Imperial City, Borba's Goods and Stores in Cheydinhal, Best Goods and Guarantees in Leyawiin and all the Theives Guild fences.

2. Improve merchants' disposition toward you. Do this by playing the persuasion mini-game, casting charm spells and wearing enchanted items to enhance your mercantile or personality traits. This way you can sell your items for more.

3. Haggle with each merchant until you find the best deal. Be careful, though; if you push merchants too hard and they refuse your offer, their disposition toward you lowers.

4. Use the same merchants whenever possible. As you sell items worth over 100 gold to merchants, their disposition begins to increase toward you, allowing you to sell items at a greater profit.

Tips & Warnings

• Steal gold whenever you can. Gold is not flagged in your inventory as stolen, so if you successfully steal it, the money is yours even if you're caught stealing something else later.

• Carry plenty of lock picks if you are going to steal. You can buy lockpicks from Thieves Guild fences.

• Creating potions and poisons can also help you if you are over-encumbered. The potions you create are lighter than the ingredients used to make them, so you can reduce your inventory weight at least a little.

References

• IGN The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Guide/Walkthrough: Items, Weapons, and Armor
• GameSpot's The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Game Guide: Commerce Tips
• GameSpot's The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Game Guide: Alchemy Tips
• "The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Official Game Guide"; Non-Quest Dungeons; Prima Games; 2006