OK, as the topic says. What are must have mods to play Olibion+expansions vanilla? Like better faces, skin, so you can steal/lockpick, do things without everyone in the world knowing you did it a second afterwards.. All that manner of stuff. Theres just way to many mods on here, to try and go through them all to figure out what are most essentional and what are just glamour like the 3000 armor bling mods.

Have a look at the TESNexus Top 100.

My personal favourite is Akatosh Mount.

boils down to personnal taste, though MMM,Bartholm and The Lost Spires are excellent mods

Without doubt The Lost Spires mod. The feel you get from it, it`s uniqueness, the grand end battle (Vanilla Oblivion ending disapointed me greatly in this way) and a lot of sweet stuff you can get... what more is there to ask from a mod? Well, if you don`t want a total conversion that is...

Well, not really into wanting a full conversion.. Basic just wanting that awful AI mind-reading to be fixed.. and while I dont keep up on things. I dont think that was ever fixed in an official patch.

My top ones are;

Fenrir the Wolf... companion mod, LOVE it, Fenrir rules all.

Rens Beauty Pack... better hair, eyes...

Exnems Body replacer, not to everyones taste but I like my charecter looking hot

Growlfs Hot Cloathes and Armour, for Exnems body.

Shady Sam Plus

Lira & Pizz Hiyoko Store

and finally the Unique Landscape Mods... stunning all of them.

1:Unique enviroments mods (adds incredible realism)
2:Bannasplits Better Cities (gives the cities more of a people live here feel)
3:Qarls Texture Pack (outstanding overhaul that give everything a realistic look)
4:LOD retexture (steps up the textures on far away object so they arnt blotted out)
5:Illumination Within (another one of those realism touches)
6:Better Sunglare (pretty self explanitory)
7:Real Lava (so oblivion dosent look like a giant bowl of red jello)
8:Not really a mod but turn down the brightness turn off all faders activate self shadows kick up that 9800GT and stare....

OOO
Qarl's texture pack
Distant LOD replacer
OOO pretty much dose evrything for me

"toaster says Share" is a Mod where you can acces any NPCs Inventory like a treasure Chest. You can put Weapons and Armor in there, after you have read their Stats. You can read if they are better with light or heavy Armor, which weapon they prefer and so on.

you can also issue orders to that NPC. You can order them to follow you, to meet you at a location or to wait here.

I have key Positions heavily guaarded, in some places daedra will literaly not be able to move once the spawn. That wont concern them though, at least not for long. 10 strong NPCs hacking on one Xivilai with enchanted Daedric Weapons will result in a nice Portion of Meat Loaf.

Well, I would suggest Budda's list O' links though if you prefer a more narrower list
check out the top 100, or files of the month but if those are not to your taste I would then try



Midas Magic (IS A MUST HAVE!!!)
Nico's Dreadweave armor (alternate tff RM version aswell)
Jojo's new frostmourne and lich king's helm
Roberts male body/MaleFullbodyV37z
Breezes Defined Male Body Replacer (replaces RM with a more muscly mesh and texture)
Exnems eyecandy body replacer (nude and underwear versions)
HGEC ( replaces Exnems eyecandy, Nude and underwear versions available)
Beautiful people
captNKILLS non tilling texture mod
Stylish jump or Amazing jump
DMC stylish
Get wet
Cyrodil border remover
Nightshade armor
Unofficial oblivion patch
Tda's pyramid head mod
Let the people drink
Umpa dance animation (many different versions of this...)
Actors in charge
The lost spires
Lost paladins of the divines
Oscuro's oblivion overhaul/OOO
Marts Monster mod/MMM
Francesco's loot mod
Frostcrag Reborn
ImpeREAL City - Unique Districts
Glenvar Castle
Kvatch Rebuilt
Oblivion Sound Sets
Natural Faces
Hilarity
Companion Share and Recruit
tdas_Armoury_Beta

list of links to links

BUDDAHS LISTOLINKS: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4394
Top 100: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/top.php
Files of the month: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/filesofthemonth.php

Many many more, but I don't feel like posting 1000 mods.
P.S. a few of these mods are recommended for after beating the game so I would suggest reading up on them first.

he stated he did not want full conversion, ergo OOO is out!

Adonnay's Elven Weaponry. Awesomely good blades. Snow dragon temple is a fave of mine.