What are the best mods for Oblivion?

I'll tell you the ones that are good for getting up and running.  Think of this as an entry level article on how to get started with modding Oblivion. The single most necessary thing is the http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/5296/. This will squash a great number of bugs you'd otherwise be faced with.   Not to get too technical, but there's a sort of latency between when you move your mouse and how the screen accelerates whilst turning. It causes a lot of people motion sickness, but you can fix that with http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/1840/. Right behind in importance you'll want to clean up the UI. Inventory management is a pain in the ass without it so be sure to install your preferred version of http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/10763/. (I use the dark one myself.) If you really want more control over your HUD and prefer something more familiar to skyrim, try http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/34905/ but install it after Darnified UI, as they share some assets and load order is important. You're going to want to improve the scenery a number of ways. The absolute best way to start is with http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/15781/. It's a separate utility that increases the draw distance; that is, how far you can see in the distance. Be advised though, you'll need to re-run this utility every time you install a mod that changes a good portion of the terrain. Thankfully that's not going to happen often but there are two very important overhauls you'll want to look at. http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/16513/ and http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/19370/ are both absolute musts for Oblivion. There is a preferred method to installing both; and there's also a compatibility patch to get them to play nice with each other. Personally I've turned off Bravil, the Waterfront District, and the Imperial Isle. The former two because they were very poorly optimized and made the game prone to crashes, the latter because of some minor foliage bugs. Your mileage my vary. Speaking of stability, the http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/45576/ will help out immensely, since you'll be pushing your game well beyond 2006 console standards. There are a few other tweaks you can do to improve performance like http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/45033/, but I'll stick to the basics. http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/18498/is the standard by which other texture packs are measured by. It's a good idea to install this first, and all the other mods on top of it. It's going to dramatically increase the quality of just about every static object in the game. As well as some armors and clothing. Don't forget a http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/9952/ though. It's an easy thing to overlook but you'll really notice if you run without one. It's a mod you'll install and never think about again, which is a good thing. Character models are painfully bad. I suggest http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/44676/ (for faces), http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/15802/ (for females), and http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/40532/ (for males), as they seem to be not only stable, but also well crafted. Provided of course you install them correctly. There is a compatibility patch for both, I'm sure you're starting to notice a trend here. Be sure to read the documentation on all of these. I recommend running a performance http://enbdev.com/download.htm, and perhaps http://sfx.thelazy.net/downloads/. Since the graphics aren't exactly state of the art, you can push the system a little further with shaders than you otherwise could with a modern game like Skyrim.  These third party utilities improve the vanilla lighting system, and has some of the most direct impact on how the game looks. I generally run with an autosaver, and in Oblivion's case it's http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/22136/. I find Oblivion is more prone to crashing than Skyrim, so having a backup of a save that is relatively recent is a godsend. You can definitely run without it, but I wouldn't want to. Okay let's switch gears and go back to the UI for a little bit. There's many tweaks you can install that just get rid of annoyances. http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/14822/get's rid of the under-detailed parchment map and replaces it with a much better representation of Cyrodiil. http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/2487/ make landmarks easier to differentiate on your map as well. http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/27638/ gives you a hotkey like Skyrim and Fallout to press when you want to loot an enemy quickly. As far as gameplay changes are concerned, the only thing you should unquestioningly do is find a leveling system mod that you like and install it. Just about anything's better than the vanilla version, but I run with http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/13879/ because I'd rather play a game than worry about min/maxing, but there is enough variety out there to suit everyone.  http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/11911/ is another good tweak, especially for stealth based characters, as it simply gives guards a more reasonable hearing distance. Also nice for archers is http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/9333/, which gives you the choice to fire or not. Other than that it's pretty much personal preference. There's quite a few good mods out there, like HD texture packs for blood, or Health Regeneration. Even improved physics or music systems. Pretty much everything you can think of. It has a catalog of mods around as large as Skyrims, and you'll probably want to install more as you go. But the ones listed above is a pretty good primer on the subject, and certainly enough to get you going. You don't need to install all at once, or even on the same day, but you should know what you're doing before you start poking around too much. If you want to play Oblivion with mods, just go into it with an attitude of wanting to learn. There's a lot to take in.