Oblivion Remastered: What Is the Best Birthsign?

At the start of Oblivion Remastered you’ll be given an important choice while customizing your character — your Birthsign. Birthsigns are special bonuses that give better attributes or other bonuses, and some of the Birthsigns have been remixed in Oblivion Remastered, they aren’t the same as they were before. One particularly useless Birthsign has been improved greatly and just might be the best birthsign available now.

If you’re wondering what Birthsign to grab, here are our recommendations — and recommendations from the rest of the internet — so you know which Birthsigns are best. The Remaster has completely changed our opinions, so you may want to check the list below even if you’re an Oblivion veteran.

All Birthsigns

Birthsigns are constellations that you were born under — depending on the Birthsign you choose, you’ll earn a different permanent blessing. The blessing is picked during the Tutorial and meeting with Emperor Uriel Septim again. You can choose your birthsign during a conversation with the emperor then customize it further after leaving the prison.

There are 13 birthsigns. These are the birthsigns you need to consider before a run.

• The Apprentice: Bestows the Apprentice Birthsign ability which permanently adds Fortify Magicka +100 points on Self & Weakness to Magic +100 points on self. Temporary buff.
• The Atronach: Bestows the Atronach Birthsign ability which permanently adds Fortify Magicka +150 points on Self, Spell Absorption +50% on Self & Stunted Magicka on Self. (Stunted Magicka stops MP regeneration.)
• The Lady: Bestows the Lady’s Blessing ability, which permanently adds Fortify Willpower +10 points on Self & Fortify Endurance +10 points on Self.
• The Lord: Permanently grants +15 Armor Rating & +15% Magic Resistance.
• The Lover: Bestows the Greater Power Lover’s Kiss — Use the Lover’s Kiss power once a day to paralyze an opponent for 10 seconds on Touch and Damage Fatigue 120 points on Self. Can be used once per day.
• The Mage: Bestows the Mage Birthsign ability, which permanently adds Fortify Magicka +50 points on self.
• The Ritual: Grants two powers — Blessed Word & Mara’s Gift. Blessed Word will Turn Undead up to Level 25 for 30 seconds on target. Can be cast multiple times a day and costs 40 Magicka. Mara’s Gift will Restore Health +200 points on Self, once per day.
• The Serpent: Bestows the Serpent Spell Greater Power — causes four effects when cast. The effects are Damage Health 3 points for 20 seconds on Touch, Cure Poison on Self, Dispel 90 points on Self & Damage Fatigue 100 points on Self.
• The Shadow: Bestows the Moonshadow Greater Power. Casts Invisibility 60 seconds on Self, once per day.
• The Steed: Bestows the Steed Birthsign ability, which permanently adds Fortify Speed +20 points on Self.
• The Thief: Bestows the Thief Birthsign ability, which permanently adds Fortify Agility +10 points on Self, Fortify Luck +10 points on Self & Fortify Speed +10 points on Self.
• The Tower: Grants two powers — Tower Key (Greater Power, open Average Lock on Target, once per day.) & Reflect Damage (Greater Power, Reflects Damage 5% for 120 seconds on Self, once per day.)
• The Warrior: Bestows the Warrior Birthsign ability, which permanently adds Fortify Endurance +10 points on Self & Fortify Strength +10 points on Self.

Best Birthsigns

The best birthsigns are ones that work best with your favorite build — any birthsign is viable, but if you want to know our recommendations, here are our favorites that should be extremely useful for almost everyone.

• The Lord: This birthsign gives +15 Armor and 15% Magic Resistance default which is incredibly useful for any build. Even Mages can use this as you’ll always have a low armor rating.
• The Thief: The best aspect of the Thief is the +10 Luck attribute — Luck can be surprisingly useful in ways most players won’t realize, and the +10 attributes in Speed and Agility give you an early start in any Rogue build.
• The Atronach: Combine with Breton and you can make the most powerful Destruction magic builds in the game. A classic metagame combo for Oblivion.
• The Lady: Very useful for +10 Endurance, as Endurance is useful for sprinting. Although, running out of endurance in Oblivion Remastered does NOT cause your character to immediately ragdoll, so sustaining endurance isn’t as critical in the new version of the game.

Basically, any Birthsign that grants additional ability points is both useful and useless — you’ll be able to reach max attribute faster, but it gives you no other special benefit in the long term. We think climbing the ranks earlier is better as the early game is the most difficult part of Oblivion, but that’s all up to you and how you want to play the game.