How to Handle Being a Vampire in Oblivion

Turn into a vampire! You can't handle being a vampire if you are not one in the first place. You can become a vampire by contracting the disease porphyric hemophilia, sometimes caught while battling vampires or other undead creatures. On Azura's Shrine quest (Level 2) you can do her quest and enter the cave since all of them are vampires let them hit you until you contract 'porphyric hemophilia' then finish the quest for a special reward or just leave. Another way to get it is to get pretty far in the "Dark Brotherhood" quests, up until you stop getting quests from Vincent. Ask him about vampirism, and of course say you want to be a vampire. He will bite you the next time you sleep in the sanctuary. This is the safest and most reliable way to become a vampire. If you don't want to kill someone to join the Dark Brotherhood, then a good way to get vampirism is to do the Gray Prince's quest in the arena. There are vampires in it, and if you don't get the disease - don't worry. Complete the quest, and the Gray Prince will become depressed. When it is time to fight him in the arena, he won't fight back. This will count as murder and allow you to enter the Dark Brotherhood, but will be completely legal. Once you've contracted vampirism you'll then need to know how to deal with it.

• Good areas for encountering vampires include Barren Cave, Bloodcrust Cavern, Crowhaven, Memorial Cave, some areas of the Imperial City Underground, other vampire-orientated forts and caves and anywhere where zombies can be found, since they also carry "porphyric hemophilia".

Buy a house. You can deal with vampirism so much more easily if you can retreat into your own house rather than having to find some random place to stay in while the sun is up. Vampirism has four stages; the first gives you a few abilities, but no real detriments other than a slight weakness to fire. However, after 24 hours of not drinking blood, your vampirism goes up to stage two where you take sun damage. The sun damage increases with each day that you do not drink blood, so finding a place of your own is a big help. The best house to buy is also the cheapest; for 2000 gold you can buy a shack in the Imperial City Waterfront, close to the beggars you will need later on. You can buy this house from Vinicia Melissa at the Office of Imperial Commerce in the Imperial City Market District. In addition, certain downloadable content, such as the "The Vile Lair", can be substituted for a house, although you may need to pay for upgrades to it - see further down for more information on using downloadable content to aid you in handling vampirism.

Drink blood. As a vampire, you need to drink blood to keep energized. No matter which stage of vampirism you are at, whenever you bite someone's neck you will restart at the lowest level of vampirism where you do not take sun damage. You can bite someone's neck by going up to a sleeping person and pressing the action/activate button. Select "feed" to bite their neck and in a few seconds you'll be refreshed. The easiest prey are beggars - they sleep in the open, are easily accessible, are found in most cities and are often not around other people when resting, so your neck biting goes unnoticed and therefore, does not incur a fine. From your house in the Imperial City Waterfront, the easiest beggar to feed on is Puny Ancus, who is directly behind Methredhel's house (just up the road from yours) and right next to the garden where Armand Christophe meets new Thieves Guild members (behind the abandoned shack next to Methredhel's house). Puny goes to sleep every night at 10pm (like all beggars), giving you roughly 2 hours before Armand Christophe enters the area. Sneak up to Puny (but be careful not to be seen; if the sneaking eye is bright someone can see you) and feed on him. This can be done with anyone, but this location is the easiest.

Embrace your abilities. Don't just automatically assume that vampirism is an absolutely bad thing to have - you get awesome powers and abilities and if you can get the handle of things, it could make you more powerful than imagined - see the embedded video in this article for more information on the different skills you can gain while affected by vampirism. This could be especially helpful if you don't mind exploring at night and sleeping during the day, although you can explore dungeons and caves during the day also. Entering a night session of the Arena as a vampire can also give you the fighting edge you need, although you can only fit one night session of Arena combat in per evening before it closes, unless you have finished the Arena quest line, in which case you can battle creatures any time of the day, once a week.

Plan out your activities and movements. You need to be ever vigilant when you have vampirism - between sun damage and suspicious people, you'll need to make sure that you get to where you need to go before the sun comes up, or make it to a feeding site before you begin to take sun damage in Stage 2 of vampirism. It can be a real pain stopping halfway through exploration to feed, but be patient and try to complete the Vampire Cure quest if it is too much of a hassle, or find other ways to deal with the problem such as "The Vile Lair" downloadable content. The sun goes down at 8pm in the evening, so be sure to get out as soon as it does to start exploring and completing quests.

Download extra content, such as "The Vile Lair", which allows vampires and evil players to feed and live below ground comfortably. In particular, "The Vile Lair" is made with vampires in mind - it includes a purchasable prisoner on whom you can feed and a Font Of Renewal, which will cure you of vampirism. This is most helpful as you will not need to buy it to use it. You can download "The Vile Lair" off the Xbox Live marketplace for 150 Microsoft points if you are playing on the Xbox 360 or off certain internet sites if you are playing on the PC. Be aware that some costs may apply or alter for downloading this content.