Category:Leveled Lists

Leveled lists are used to create dynamism in the game world. In general, leveled lists can be used to introduce random chance into events - characters being equipped at random with one of a set of weapons - or they can be used to scale the environment to the player's level - seeing a Rat at level 1 and a Mountain Lion at level 17. Many leveled lists focus on providing one or the other, but they can also be partially random, partially level-based, depending on the way they are set up.

Types of Leveled List

There are, by default, two types of leveled list: Leveled creatures, leveled spells, and leveled items. These are fairly similar and the differences are somehwat self-explanatory. See the individual pages for more information.

All leveled lists have some similar behaviors. They return one or more objects from the list, may select objects randomly, and may be arranged into "level tiers" to produce different results depending on the player and/or actor's level.

By default, the lists will return an object from the level tier in the list closest to but not exceeding the player's level. If only one entry exists at the closest level tier, then the selection will not be random. If two or more entries exist at the closest tier, then the selection will be randomized from these entries.

Item lists carried by an actor gain an additional rule: the selection will be made based on either the player's level or the actor's level, whichever is lower. This prevents low-level NPCs or creatures from getting powerful items just because the player has achieved a high level, but it also prevents high-level NPCs from getting powerful items when the player has a lower level.

If the “Calculate for all levels <= PC level” flag is set for the leveled list, then lower-level tiers may be considered in the random selection process. In this case, Oblivion selects a level range from which to choose using the LevelDifferenceMax game settings (see below). The presence or absence of this control flag is the major distinction between "boss" lists, which should always produce a challenge or reward appropriate for the player's level, and the "grunt" lists, which may randomly produce weaker enemies or worse loot.

Leveled Lists and Compatibility

Leveled lists are one of the greatest sources of incompatibility between mods. This is largely due to the nature of Forms within Oblivion.esm and in various esp files, and how Oblivion loads plug-ins. For more information on that, see here.

The main point is that adding anything to any list changes that list. Only one mod may change any list; any mod that does so will overwrite any previous mods that change the same list. This means if two mods add things to the same list, only the one which loads last will actually work.

For more information on this, please see Leveled List Compatibility Techniques.

Leveled Lists and OBSE

The Oblivion Script Extender allows scripts to modify leveled lists dynamically. There are a number of nuances to this, especially when including objects which are neither actors nor items in the lists. For more information, see Leveled List Functions.

Leveled Lists and Game Settings

Two Game Settings affect leveled lists:

• ILevCreaLevelDifferenceMax
• ILevItemLevelDifferenceMax