It's real time.

All TES games use real time combat.

It is worth noting that Oblivion differs from previous TES games in one important respect: Combat is collision based, like you'd expect in an action game. If your attack collides with the enemy, it hits. This is unlike Morrowind and earlier, where combat is instead dice based; the game rolls a random number, compares it to a few values (your skill in the weapon type being one of them), and uses that to determine whether your attack actually hits.

Since you've said you never played any Elder scrolls game before you should know a HUGE aspect of this series mainly is the mods from the modding community. The amount of mods available for oblivion is staggering and will probably overwhelm you as what to go with first but you should play the game normally to then see what mods might make the game better for you. Combat mods are plentiful so if the combat system seems like its missing something a mod was probably made to cater to your play style.

Hi
koolking1

The Elder Scrolls series, are open world/ First Person/3rd Person (after Daggerfall), role playing/ adventure games.

The Combat
In Daggerfall, as well in Morrowind you wack you opponent until you hit, with every hit you make, you receive points in that skill which you were using, giving you a greater chance to hit.

As said by others above, Oblivion, and Skyrim are collision based. Which means that you have a 100% chance to hit, *but* you do less damage, your damage increases the more you level up the skill which you were using. In Skyrim you have perks which you progress in a skill tree, and receive certain bonuses the same way as all prior games.

I recommend you to watch these reviews, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL13lNv4luuSq6NmN-1i-cIP1dc-4WfHlz they are from Arena until Morrowind. If the link doesn't work just search for "LGR" and watch his reviews.

Or http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page

Have Fun
gogwitcher300

Elder Scrolls games are basically Fantasy Life Simulators. There's a main plot, but it's your choice whether to start it up or not.

The main plot kicks up when you take a certain amulet to a certain monk. Yeah, the game is way past spoiler date, but since you've just found Elder Scrolls... :)

And mods. I have nearly 200 mods installed, some of which turn Oblivion into a survival game.

Edit: In all the games, the main plot is optional (not sure about Elder Scrolls 1: Arena; never played it), and generally starts when you either take a message to someone, or answer a message from someone.

Yes, the main plot is optional in Arena, too.

And back to the OP: Combat is real-time (this has been mentioned before) with 3 different techniques (thrust, bash, slash), and there are no mods making it turn-based. :-)

I wonder why that is, and I also wonder why that doesn't bother me.. I couldn't play Oblivion with Guns after a while without a turn-based combat mod. The existence of that mod means it must be possible in Oblivion as well, at least.

Is there a turn-based combat mod for Oblivion indeed? Interesting. I never heard of it. What's the name of this mod, and where can I find it - I'd like to have a look.

Not that I know of. The marketing name for the game I called "Oblivion with Guns" is "Fallout 3". Both it and NV have turn-based mods (e.g. Finally Turn Based Fallout). Sorry if my nomenclature confused you.

I found Round-Based Combat for Skyrim, but it seems to be pretty heavily Final Fantasy flavoured. "turn-based combat" is a recognized Google search for both Oblivion and Skyrim, so I guess a lot of people are interested, but no-one's done it.

Possibly engine differences between Fallout and ES that make it harder in ES; either that, or no mod author took it up for long enough.

The V.A.T.S. system in those games probably made it easier to implement such a mod since it basically freezes time when it's active. Not sure if something like that would be possible in Oblivion at all.