Oblivion Remastered: Complete Paladin Guide Master Mode

If you wish to tackle the Master difficulty mode in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered while roleplaying as a Paladin, our build guide is perfect for you.

Paladins are generally stalwart warriors who try to be just. They can use their holy powers to bolster themselves in combat, helping them smite their foes with ease! While Oblivion might not really have “holy powers”, you can still approximate a standard Paladin role pretty closely.

Read on for our full Paladin build guide for Master difficulty.

Complete Paladin Guide Master Mode | The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered

First of all, let’s go over the selections to make during character creation:

• Race – Breton with the Systres origin for Strength.
• Specialization – Combat.
• Favored Attributes – Strength and Intelligence. Focus on Strength, Intelligence, Willpower, and Endurance as you level up. Ignore Willpower if you pick The Atronach as the Birthsign.
• Major Skills – Alteration, Athletics, Block, Blade, Heavy Armor, Restoration, Mysticism.
• Birthsign – Depending on preferences, you get two options here:
  • The Lord – Grants you +15 Armor Rating and +15% Magic Resist. If you mostly want to be tanky, this is your choice. Very helpful early in Master Mode.
  • The Atronach – Grants you +150 Magicka and 50% Spell Absorption. However, you’ll be unable to regenerate Magicka over time. You’ll need to rely on absorbing spells and using consumables. Better for utility and spellcasting.

With this setup, you have a fairly standard Paladin build. Now we do know some may favor having Speech/Mercantile as skills and Blunt instead of Blade, mostly for roleplaying purposes. However, those skills aren’t quite as great in Master difficulty.

With that in mind, Alteration, Mysticism, and Restoration are your magic schools of choice due to their protective nature. Alteration allows you to bolster your defenses with Shield magics. Restoration grants healing, resistances, and absorption. Mysticism gives you the Detect and Reflect spells.

Additionally, it might be a good idea for you to dabble in a bit of Destruction magic. While it’s not important enough to pick as a Major Skill, Destruction’s offensive spells are the closest you can get to a traditional “smite” power.

Aside from that, you have the standard melee-combat skills of Block, Blade, and Heavy Armor. Athletics will also be helpful as it boosts your speed, plus having it as a Major Skill makes it a bit less annoying to level up!

Notes on Equipment

When it comes to armor, the general rules of thumb apply. That means that any Heavy Armor, Shield, and Sword works for this build. Just make sure to get some solid Enchantments on it or find good Enchanted equipment. Here’s a quick list of some of the most useful Enchantments you can get:

• Fortify Skill (pick any of your Major Skills, or Destruction if you choose to use it).
• Fortify Health.
• Fortify Fatigue.
• Fire Damage on Strike (for a flavor of smiting!).
• Resist Normal Weapons.
• Shield.

Aside from that, the Relics of the Crusader set of equipment is also an excellent choice for a Paladin. It comes with a lot of Enchantments that fit the build and its power fantasy! The screenshot above shows what the full set looks like, for reference.

You can get this set by completing the Knights of the Nine questline. The initial quest for it is “Pilgrimage”, which starts once you hear about a prophet in Anvil from any NPC.

So, there you have it, that’s our recommendations and setup for a standard Paladin build that should do pretty decently in Master difficulty in Oblivion Remastered. If you want to get the best enchanted sword to go with this build, check out our guide on how to get Umbra.