I'm looking for any mods that fix bugs and/or add quality of life, while keeping the game the most vanilla.

Thank you for the help :)

I often try to go very Vanilla, w/ mainly overhauls of say UI.

1. Get a Mod Manager for mod installing. Just makes life often so much easier.

2. Script Extenders. Now For Oblivion, that's OBSE. You'll often need this for other mods.

3. Any sort of UI mods - so, think like DarnUI and stuff of that sort, NorthernUI, and stuff of that sort.

4. Loot Menu Mod / Quick Loot Mods - namely for doing any sort of Fallout 4-like Quick-Looting.

No mods at all, except possibly the Unofficial Oblivion Patch.

On a first playthrough, i recommend only bug fixing mods

OBSE + its "EngineBugFixes" plugin to fix lots of engine bugs and issues for more stability

The Unofficial Patch + the Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch + Unofficial Oblivion DLC Patches should be used to kick remaining bugs out of the way.

Then once you're done with the game, and would like to replay it, stuff like
Vilja, that is the most indepth party member in Oblivion
AFK_Weye , Weye from being barebone receive a lot of quests and stories development
would be nice to have

For some gameplay+content you can get either Maskar or Oscuro (while there are mods that allow to merge both, but i would be cautious about the game stability with such thing, better choose your prefered gameplay overall mod to keep the game more stable)

Usually i don't care about graphic "improvement" , but in the case of Oblivion i always have a hard time to tolerate those deformed odd heads models most NPC have. To remedy this i use Oblivion Character Overhaul , but there may be other mods for that.

After that i don't play with any "hd texture", "texture remaster" or things like that, i find the visual pleasant as they are, but there are a bunch of those new texture replacement around to fit your needs

I'd start playing without OBSE and the EngineBugFixes mod - mainly because I never had one of the issues this mod addresses (it's also questionable if everything the mod fixes is really a bug).
But read the mod description. If you encounter one of the issues mentioned there, you can still consider installing the mod (assuming you have no problems installing OBSE).
It's your choice.

Regarding the Unofficial DLC patches, I'd be careful. There was one of them (Knights of The Nine?) which caused a crash on my PC. It happened many years ago, and perhaps the Patch works meanwhile (or it was simply a load order problem - I don't know). I deactivated these Patches, but activated one of them again occasionally, and only temporsrily when I noticed a problem with the respective DLC. May well be that this is not really necessary..
I never had a crash potentially caused by the Unofficial Oblivion, Shivering Isles and most DLC Patches.
Again, it's your choice.

Finally, I'm aware of only two kinds of Oblivion crashes (even without any Unofficial Patches). One may happen when you alt-tab. To avoid it, don't alt-tab, or do it only after using ESC, to move the focus away from the main game screen.
The second one happens when you cross certain in-game borders (for example, enter or leave rooms, but also while moving around). I can't say for sure where this crash comes from, but I suppose it's a memory management problem - garbage piles up, is not removed, and eventually creates an overflow. To avoid it, or reduce the probability that it happens, keep your playing sessions short. I rarely play more than 30 to 60 minutes, and have the crash about two or three times a year. And, as far as I remember, never during the first 30 minutes.
That's all.

Unofficial Oblivion Patch

Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch

Unofficial Oblivion DLC Patch

I'll throw in one that most people playing on PC don't care about but I still think is important to some: controller support.
Northern UI (Vanilla) comes with baked-in X-input support meaning that most modern controllers will work with Oblivion on the PC. The best part is that the UI is completely unchanged from the stock Oblivion UI and allows other UI mods to work on top of it - I used Darnified UI with Northern UI and they both worked as long as my load order placed Darnified over Northern.

It's a bit of a a niche mod for a PC audience but I figured if anyone was trying to get into PC gaming after coming from the consoles this mod is a good one to have.

Hello everyone!

I do agree with other users in that one does not need any mods to enjoy "TES IV Oblivion", especially not in the game of the year edition.
When someone wants to start Oblivion in its originally sold version, than I would only consider the official patch as absolutely recommended. It enhances among many other things the terrain rendering in the distance.

Regarding recommendable mods, there are only four mods, that I almost always installed and used on my playthroughs of Oblivion:

- key chain
(a gameplay / interface mod which adds a key chain object to the inventory on which all keys go automatically, no more inventory cluttering with individual keys, nor guessing which key was for which door or chest..., although, further game saves will require the key chain mod installed and ticked on otherwise you loose all keys in it!)

- sunflare
(a sunflare texture replacement, a tiny but for me very atmospheric modification, there are various different texture replacements available to choose from, I like one with the lensflare sparks integrated, since I never used god rays)

- depth of field
(a mod which utilizes the transparent ripple/distortion shader, e.g from the gates' fire tongues, for texturing a large invisible sphere around the player with the distortion shader to emulate a rudimentary 'depth of field' effect. It does not change the sharpeness depending on the focus, rather depending on the distance / size of the sphere around the player, similar as was done in "Gothic 3" around the same time)

- LOD replacement / Tamriel visible when distant
(a LOD meshes replacement, adding the amount of objects / buildings / ruins / forts visible in the lower detailed distance of the outer quadrants; I am quite picky on which objects I keep included, though. I do not care for every rock, tree and well being visible, only major landscape features are sufficient for me and do wonders in better orientation.)

(Before the granular filter textures of the far distant landscapes introduced by the official patch after the release of the PS3 version of Oblivion, I also used texture replacements for improved far distant grass and landscape shadow textures to increase their resolution to 512x512, or 1024x1024, or even up to 2048x2048 and to achieve smoother, filtered distant shadows on mountains and hills, but the enhancements carried over from the PS3 release into the official patch for the PC version made their benefit less impactful.)

Kind regards,
foxgog

According to many users and tested myself I believe Bevilex modlist is the best. Just know that there are many mods. Pick the ones you really like.

https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/47591

The more the better! Great! Do you know the unmodded original game well enough that you can say for sure if anything that happens while you play is caused by the game, or by a mod, and by which mod? Congratulations!

How could someone say what he / she "really likes" without knowing the unmodded game? Do you see the possiblity that mods might make the game worse, at least for some players?

It's not "Don't fix what isn't broken", it's "Fix everything, broken or not" (which includes breaking what isn't broken).
To each his / her own.