So my question is, how to level up smarter?

[Edited by Aspom, 1/3/2008 4:28:42 AM]

so if your blade is a major skill and blunt isn't, then leven up both at the same time

One of the most unique aspects of Oblivion is the way it handles experience and levels. While in
most RPGs, you want to level up as quickly as possible to gain an advantage over your enemies,
that's not always going to be the case in Oblivion. In fact, the game can become quite difficult if
you simply attempt to level up as quickly as possible, because of one simple fact: as you level up,
so do your enemies.
Levelling Effects
Here's a small list of things that are affected when you level up. There are probably more effects
than these, but these are the important ones.
l Enemies increase in level. You'll run into harder enemies the higher level you are, with
better spells and equipment and more health. Their skills will increase as well, so Sneaking
and Speechcraft will become more difficult if you don't consistently improve these skills
between levels.
l Loot and treasure is better quality. At level one, it'll be difficult to find magical items, but
they become more common as you level up.
l Quest rewards are increased in quality. If you complete a quest at level five in one game,
then play again and complete it at level 15, you'll get better quest rewards for the same
quest. (Although some quests, like the Daedric quests, have rewards that are always the
same.)
l Locks on chests and doors become more difficult. A door that had a two-tumbler lock at
level five might wind up having five at level fifteen.
The biggest effect, though, is the effect that levelling has on your foes. If you charge through the
game's main storyline and attempt to gain levels as quickly as possible, you'll probably start
encountering enemies that are going to be very tough to beat. You can still level up quickly if you
wish, but it's more important to level up smartly.

Obtaining Maximum Attribute Points at Level-up
Now, here's where things get kind of complicated. Although raising your Minor Skills doesn't count
towards your levelling rate, it does count towards the attribute gain you can add when you level
up. The best way to explain this is through an example, or perhaps multiple examples.
Let's suppose that you wanted to raise your Strength attribute by five points at your next level-up.
The related attributes for Strength are Blunt, Blade, and Hand-To-Hand. In order to get the full
five points at your next level up, then, you'll have to increase those three skills by a combined ten
points. This can be done in a number of ways, obviously; if you're focusing on bladed weapons,
then you can increase Blade by ten points, or you can spread those ten points out between all
three skills.

Power-Levelling In Action
We're going to give you an example of how all this comes together, drawn from our warrior
character. His Major Skills were Blade, Heavy Armor, Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction,
Mercantile, and Security. His two favored attributes were Strength and Endurance.
The basic process to increase both of these attributes by five points per level went something like
this. We almost never used bladed weapons at all, preferring to stick to blunt weapons. For long
portions of the game, we used a two-handed mace weapon, switching to Hand-To-Hand combat
for weaker enemies. Thus, for our Strength attribute, we used Minor skills exclusively to increase
it, with Blade seeing occasional use when we found powerful swords. Since we were attempting to
level up slowly, though, the fact that Blunt and Hand-To-Hand didn't count towards increasing our
level made them preferable, and it wasn't difficult to get at least eight or ten points in both of
them between each level, allowing us to consistently raise our Strength by four or five points.

if that makes sense