Summary
- Obtain essential items such as Repair Hammers early on to sustain gear for lengthy adventures.
- Aquire Lockpicks to access useful items in locked chests found throughout the game.
- Gather the Cairn Bolete, a versatile mushroom for both health restoration and Alchemy.
When it's time to save Tamriel from the forces of Oblivion, even the most determined heroes have to start somewhere. As with any great RPG, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered features a wide variety of items that players can pick up from the very start of the game, but most of them are only good for resale value.
Oblivion Remastered: 9 Best Unique Items, Ranked
Gear up with Oblivion Remastered’s most powerful unique items, from enchanted swords to rare gauntlets that change the game.
It's important to look out for valuable or useful gear, weapons, and other miscellaneous items when the game starts, so that players can get a head start on rescuing Martin Septim and closing the gates of Oblivion. These early-game items in Oblivion Remastered aren't valuable or rare; they're just useful and easy to find.
7 Repair Hammer
Essential For Long-Term Adventuring
- Where To Find: Locked chests, looted from bodies, purchased from shops
The player's low-quality gear at the beginning of the game wears out fast, and facing an enemy with broken weapons and armor isn't ideal. The player might even need repairs before finishing the tutorial and escaping from the city, and then there's the journey to Kvatch to find Brother Martin that takes place immediately afterward.
Instead of changing gear or stopping at a strange location for repairs, adventurers can save some time and money if there's a Repair Hammer in their inventory. It's best to have a few of them on hand, because they get used up fast, with one hammer lasting for only two or three repair jobs.
6 Lockpicks
Every Character Needs Them
- Where To Find: Looted from Bandits and chests
Even in the original Oblivion, the lockpick minigame had its detractors, with many noting the vast improvement seen in The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. In Oblivion Remastered, however, players still have the old version of lockpicking, and that means a lot of Lockpicks will break, even on Easy locks, until the character raises their Security skill.
How To Increase Security Skill In Oblivion Remastered
This guide will show players how to level up the Security skill fast, including where they can find all the trainers for Security.
Several locked chests that the player can find throughout the game contain all kinds of useful items, especially at the beginning of the campaign. Unlike some other RPGs, there's no option to break a locked chest to reveal at least some of the contents, so if players want to get into these chests, they have to collect as many Lockpicks as possible as soon as they can.
5 Akaviri Katana
Easily Obtained Early In The Game
- Where To Find: Drops in the sewer and is available at the Cloud Ruler Temple via the Blades membership.
Those who follow the game's main quest line to Cloud Ruler Temple will have access to some better gear if they join up with the Blades. Once the player delivers Martin to the Temple safely, they'll be able to join the elite soldiers tasked with protecting the Imperial family, and that means access to better weapons, training, and repairs.
Other than handy amenities like beds and storage, there are some nice weapons here, and one of them is the 
Akaviri Katana. It's not a rare or valuable weapon, and players will find more of them in various places, but it's a durable, fast blade to have early on in the game.
4 Weak Healing Potion
Picked Up, Purchased, or Crafted
- Where To Find: Looted from bodies or crafted with a Mortar & Pestle
Players will find a few of these before they find the ingredients and build up the skill to make Potions themselves, and it's best to assign them to a fast key as soon as they are picked up.
Oblivion Remastered: 8 Best Early-Game Weapons, Ranked
These early-game weapons in Oblivion Remastered can carry you through Cyrodiil’s toughest starter quests with damage, sustain, and unique effects.
During the tutorial, the assassins in red robes will drop a few different low-level potions, and some of them are useless, but there are a few health options in the mix. Weak Healing Potions are about as good as players can expect in the first few hours of Oblivion Remastered, but they're still worth having on hand.
3 Mortar And Pestle
Required For Crafting Potions And Poisons
- Where To Find: Found in chests or purchased from merchants.
The sooner players can start leveling Alchemy, the better, and there's a Mortar & Pestle in the Tutorial that's easy to pick up. After reaching the natural caves portion of the underground sewers, kill the goblin sitting at a table and take their Mortal & Pestle from the nearby table. A small tutorial opens up the first time players pick one up, no matter where they find it.
Unlike in Skyrim, which requires a whole table for Alchemy, all players need to craft potions and poisons in Oblivion a Mortar & Pestle in their inventory. When they click on it, another window opens, which includes a list of ingredients on the left and the mixing station on the right.
2 Dremora Mace
A Powerful Weapon For A Starting Character
- Where To Find: Drops from Dremora on the plane of Oblivion.
It's nothing special in the way of enchantments or buffs, but the Dremora Mace is one of the deadliest and nicest-looking weapons available in the early stages of the game. It's found in the Plane of Oblivion, easily accessible via the fiery Gate just outside Kvatch.
Oblivion Remastered: Level Scaling, Explained
The level scaling system in Oblivion Remastered closely resembles the original game's level scaling with some minor differences.
As the player fights their way through this hellscape, seeking a way to close the gate, they will meet the servants of Mehrunes Dagon, demon-like beings known as Dremora. They carry some nice weapons, and the Dremora Mace, with 12 damage and a relatively fast attack speed, is one of the better ones.
1 Cairn Bolete
An Important Base Ingredient
- Where To Find: A plentiful fungus that likes caves, shorelines, and shady undergrowth.
The Cairn Bolete is a useful mushroom that can be consumed raw or used as an Alchemy ingredient. Its main function is to restore Health, but players can find many more uses for it if they keep experimenting with other ingredients, which is also easy because they can find plenty of it in the wild or buy it from taverns and inns.
Easy to find and harvest, they're found in damp, dark places like most other mushrooms, which means there are often other useful fungi nearby. Collect a lot of Cairn Bolete so it can be used in the Mortar & Pestle to rank up the Alchemy skill at a low cost.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 82 /100 Critics Rec: 87%
- Released
- April 22, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Sexual Themes, Violence
- Publisher(s)
- Bethesda
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Genre(s)
- Action, RPG, Open-World, Adventure
