Oblivion:Skill Underflowing

Skill Underflowing

Category: Player Stats

Also Known As: Underflowing

Version Compatibility

v1.0	v1.1.511	v1.20214	v1.2.0416
?	?	?	✔

Required DLC Images will go here.

Details

Found By:	MeemawHustlin
Date Found:	9/23/2021
Archaeologist:	N/A
Date Recovered:	N/A
Original Source:	Link

Skill Underflowing is a glitch that allows the player to reduce a skill's base value below zero, resulting in the integer value underflowing back to the maximum integer value of 255.

Instructions

There are two currently known ways to underflow skills, either by using the Class Reset glitch, or by using the Molag Bal Glitch.

Class Reset Method

1. Acquire some combination of the Underflowable Boosts listed below.
2. Perform the Class Reset glitch, making sure that any skills you desire to underflow are reset to values less than the total boosts you have acquired in step 1.
3. Remove the acquired boosts using the appropriate means, either dropping the Skeleton Key or drinking the Cure for Vampirism potion.

Molag Bal Method

1. Acquire some combination of the Underflowable Boosts listed below.
2. Steps will be added in soon.

Mechanics

Underflowable Boosts

There are several free skill boosts in the game that are incorrectly programmed to give the player boosts to a skill's base stats rather than fortifying it as a magic effect. These types of boosts are what makes underflowing possible:

Boost	Skill Bonuses	Acquired From	Class Reset	Molag Bal	Removed Via
Skeleton Key	+40 to Security	Nocturnal quest	✔	✔	Dropping the Skeleton Key
Vampirism	+5 to +20 Acrobatics, Athletics, Destruction, Hand to Hand, Illusion, Mysticism, and Sneak	Getting/developing the disease to the final stage.	✔	✔	Drinking the Cure for Vampirism
Night Mother's Blessing	+2 to Acrobatics, Blade, Marksman, Security, and Sneak	Whodunit? quest	✘	✔	Molag Bal Glitch
Gray Prince's Training	+3 to Athletics, Blade, and Block	Origin of the Gray Prince	✘	✔	Molag Bal Glitch

Effectively, this means that we currently know how to underflow 11/21 skills in the vanilla game. (Acrobatics, Athletics, Blade, Block, Destruction, Hand to Hand, Illusion, Marksman, Mysticism, Security, and Sneak)

Class Reset Mechanics

When a Class Reset is performed, it resets the player's stats based on their current level among many other factors. Since the base stats are altered by these skill boosts, Class Reset effectively ignores them when calculating the new skill values, but keeps their effects active on the player. For example, the Skeleton Key gives +40 Security, so if the player Class Resets and picks Security as a minor skill, Security could for example be reset to 39 (it is based on player level and will not always be this value.) However, since the base stat is now 39, and the Skeleton Key is still on the player, the player currently has a +40 Security boost for a total of 39 Security, meaning that if the player then drops the key, they will lose 40 Security, resulting in a final total of -1. Skills are unsigned 8-bit integers, which means that they can only be a positive value from 0-255, so a value of -1 is interpreted as rolling backwards from 0 to 255. This is what results in the final desired effect of skills underflowing to a very high value.