Oblivion:Endurance

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.
—In-game description

Endurance is the governing attribute for Block, Armorer, and Heavy Armor. It affects Fatigue, health, health regeneration^OBR, and how long your character may breathe underwater before drowning.

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 your birthsign.
• The following standard classes have Endurance as a class attribute (initial +5 bonus):
  • Acrobat, Pilgrim, Scout, Sorcerer, Spellsword, and Warrior
• Any custom class can select Endurance as one of its two attributes.

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 gained when you level up.
• Conversely, Damage Endurance or Drain Endurance effects cast on you will decrease your health. Damage Endurance is significantly more expensive than casting a Damage Health spell, whereas Drain Endurance is cheaper than Drain Health, although Drain Endurance is a temporary effect and challenging to find.
• However, using a Damage Endurance or Drain Endurance effect on 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 for a slight increase in health upon 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) increases Endurance by +5. Note that an Endurance of 105 will round down to 10 points of health gained on leveling. Consider taking this bonus early 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 includes a quest where you become addicted to a substance called Felldew. This addiction lowers your base attributes by a certain amount depending on its severity. 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, resulting in 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 that fortify Endurance.
• Unique Items: A list of unique items, of which several fortify Endurance. These do not include leveled items, such as those received from quests, or artifacts.

Unique items include:

• Dondoran's Juggernaut: Obtained from Olfand at Nord Winds, this heavy cuirass fortifies Endurance by 10 points.
• Fists of the Drunkard: Obtained from Maenlorn at The Flowing Bowl, these heavy gauntlets fortify Endurance by 5 points.
• Ring of Wortcraft: Obtained from Falanu Hlaalu at All Things Alchemical, this ring fortifies Endurance by 5 points.
• Circlet of Omnipotence: Obtained from the non-journal quest A Ring of Keys, this circlet fortifies all attributes, except Luck, Personality, and Intelligence, by 3 points.