Oblivion:Endurance

Endurance is the governing attribute for Block, Armorer, and Heavy Armor. It affects:

• Fatigue = Endurance + Agility + Strength + Willpower (NPCs and player)
• Base health = Endurance × 2 (player only)
• Health increase on leveling = Endurance ÷ 10 (rounded down) (player only)
  • If increasing Endurance on level up: Above + (Increase x 2).
• The duration that your character may breathe underwater for before drowning.

In-game Description: Affects how much Fatigue you have, your Health, and how much your Health will increase when you sleep and raise levels. Governs the skills of Block, Armorer, and Heavy Armor.

If your Endurance is increased while leveling, your health will increase both because the base health has increased and because of the health increase on leveling. In other words, base health is recalculated at each level-up after applying any Endurance gains.

Character Creation

• The Races page provides a table summarizing the initial endurance for each race and gender.
• Initial +10 endurance bonuses are possible by selecting either Lady or Warrior as birthsign.
• The following standard classes have endurance as a class attribute (initial +5 bonus):
  • Acrobat, Pilgrim, Scout, Sorcerer, Spellsword, and Warrior
• Or any custom class can select endurance as one of its two attributes.

Health Gains

The health gain each time you level is dependent upon the current value of your endurance; this increase is not retroactive. Therefore to get maximum health you need to raise your endurance to 100 as quickly as possible. To illustrate, the following table compares the health for five characters who all reach 100 endurance by level 20.

Level	Case 1			Case 2			Case 3			Case 4			Case 5
	Endur.	Health		Endur.	Health		Endur.	Health		Endur.	Health		Endur.	Health
1	30	60		30	60		60	120		60	120		60	120
2	35	73		30	63		65	136		60	126		60	126
3	40	87		30	66		70	153		60	132		60	132
4	45	101		30	69		75	170		60	138		60	138
5	50	116		30	72		80	188		60	144		60	144
6	55	131		30	75		85	206		60	150		60	150
7	60	147		35	88		90	225		60	156		60	156
8	65	163		40	102		95	244		65	172		60	162
9	70	180		45	116		100	264		70	189		60	168
10	75	197		50	131		100	274		75	206		60	174
11	80	215		55	146		100	284		80	224		60	180
12	85	233		60	162		100	294		85	242		60	186
13	90	252		65	178		100	304		90	261		65	202
14	95	271		70	195		100	314		95	280		70	219
15	100	291		75	212		100	324		100	300		75	236
16	100	301		80	230		100	334		100	310		80	254
17	100	311		85	248		100	344		100	320		85	272
18	100	321		90	267		100	354		100	330		90	291
19	100	331		95	286		100	364		100	340		95	310
20	100	341		100	306		100	374		100	350		100	330

The minimum Endurance you can start with is 30 and the maximum is 65. Between these two characters, there will be a 37 point difference in maximum health as long as both max out their Endurance as soon as possible. If, however, you neglect to level endurance until as late as possible, a character following the efficient leveling guide, with the maximum level of 46, will have between 384 and 486 health, a deficit of over 100 to a character who started with 30 endurance and maximized it by level 15.

Notes

• Any Fortify Endurance effect will also provide a health increase (equal to two times the endurance boost). These effects will not modify the health received when you level.
• Conversely, Damage Endurance or Drain Endurance effects cast upon you will decrease your health. In the case of Damage Endurance, this is substantially more expensive than directly casting a Damage Health spell. On the other hand, Drain Endurance is effectively cheaper than Drain Health (although obtaining access to the Drain Endurance effect is very difficult, and draining Endurance only amounts to a temporary decrease in health).
• However, using a Damage Endurance or Drain Endurance effect upon NPCs does not decrease their health.
• Fortifying endurance to values greater than 100 continues to increase your health and fatigue.
• It is possible to permanently increase your base Endurance past 100, allowing you to squeeze out a little bit more health on leveling:
  • The Knights of the Nine official download confers a permanent bonus to one Attribute upon completing the questline. Mara's Blessing (obtained by praying at Sir Casimir's tomb) will increase Endurance by +5. Note that an Endurance of 105 will be rounded down to 10 points of health on leveling. Consider taking the bonus early on to benefit from the added Endurance and then switch to a more practical bonus when the extra points are no longer useful.
  • The Shivering Isles expansion has a quest in which you become addicted to a substance called Felldew. As part of this addiction, your base attributes will be lowered by a certain amount depending on the severity of the addiction. Because the base attribute is lowered, this allows it to be raised back up to 100 and once the addiction is cured, all lowered points will be returned. The maximum Endurance bonus from this method is 10 points, for a total of 110 Endurance (11 health gained per level).
    • In total, a maximum base Endurance of 115 is possible, although this will be rounded down to a maximum of 11 health gained per level.

See Also

• Increasing Attributes: Tips on how to increase endurance.
• Magic Items: There are multiple generic items with that fortify the endurance attribute.
• Unique Items: A list of unique items, of which several fortify the endurance attribute. These do not include Leveled Items such as those received from quests, or Artifacts.

Unique items include:

• Dondoran's Juggernaut is a heavy cuirass that can be obtained from Olfand at the Nord Winds. Among other enchantments the cuirass fortifies your endurance by 10 points.
• Fists of the Drunkard are a unique pair of heavy gauntlets that can be obtained from Maenlorn at the Flowing Bowl. Among other enchantments, the gauntlets fortify your endurance by 5 points.
• Ring of Wortcraft is a unique ring that can be obtained from Falanu Hlaalu at the All Things Alchemical. Among other enchantments it fortifies your endurance attribute by 5 points.
• Circlet of Omnipotence is a unique ring that can be obtained from the non-journal quest A Ring of Keys. It fortifies all attributes, except luck, personality and intelligence, by 3 points.