Finished Nehrim mod for Oblivion and it sucked…

Thanks to this thread and its positive reportages of Nehrim, I've also finally taken the chance to sample it, with a little hankering for an open-world experience than can only come from reading one too many Skyrim threads.

I'm about 20 hours in and level 11, going for a knight/archer hybrid build with some conjuration on the side. The game is very solid fun so far despite the remnants of Oblivion (UI, art assets) being unavoidable. The modders have done a wonderful job crafting their own vision with memorable encounters and well scripted events which serve to further encourage exploration. I was already level 8 by the time I began to take an interest in the main plot, which to be honest I like so far. Some other plusses:

- Great first dungeon (as GBG indicated) with a minor set piece that reminded me of the encounter with the Black Beast from Arx Fatalis.
- Experience based level system with learning points and instructors spread throughout the world gives the game a quasi-Gothic feeling at times.
- Mellow, immersive new soundtrack with some KaiRo touches here and there.
- Some interesting loot, specific class based item sets and variety of crafting options.
- Really nice sense of progression assisted by the fact that you can find non-scaled objects in the world. (Bye bye level scaling!)
- Scripted events and moderately interesting dungeon design (more so than Vanilla OB)
- I actually like the German voice acting. (Maybe I should try to learn the language one of these days…)

Minor quibbles:
- NPCs in towns don't really have much to say.
- Reminders of Oblivion are always there.
- Some unpredictable CTDs. (Save early, save often)

As others have stated, the combat is the sore point, but generally I'm in awe of what these guys have managed to do with this full conversion mod and are definitely enjoying their work.

After referencing Nehrim in another post, I decided to give this mod another shot after putting it aside some time back. I just had a quick question on skills and leveling up: is it possible to screw yourself if you don't specifically level up with +5 into your stats?

Also… the music is wonderful! It's hard to believe these orchestral pieces were produced for a 'mod'.