Increase Skills Governed by Endurance Early
Since your character's endurance rating affects the number of hit points gained with each level, the faster you can raise that endurance rating, the more hit points your character will ultimately possess. The skills governed by endurance are Spear, Heavy Armor and Medium Armor. As described in the previous section of this guide, in the PC version of the game you can increase your endurance attribute multiplier by training this skill even if it's a miscellaneous skill for your character. In the Xbox version of the game, it's worthwhile designating at least one of those three skills as a major or minor skill so you can increase your endurance multiplier through training. A lot of good armor items are Heavy Armor items, so even if you don't elect to choose that skill as a major or minor skill, you'll likely benefit from training it.

Restoring Attribute Scores and Dealing with Disease

Sick Stats. When your attributes have been reduced below their natural levels, they’ll appear red in color. Enhanced attributes appear white

To restore attributes, you can either (i) cast restoration spells related to that attribute, if you are able, (ii) drink restoration potions, which are commonly available for barter from vendors, or create your own using your character's alchemy skill, or (iii) click on a shrine and select restoration as your blessing. In towns, you can find shrines capable of restoring attributes in either temples or Imperial shrines. You can also find shrines in many Ancestral Tombs. Prior to casting restoration, however, you must ensure that you remove any items your character is currently wearing that enhance the attribute you want to restore, or the restoration will not be effective. For example, if your character's agility attribute score is normally 45, but your character is wearing a +5 agility glove, your character will have an effective agility of 45. But if that score has been reduced a couple of points by a Greater Bonewalker, for instance, your character will still have an effective agility of 43. Since that number is higher than your character's natural agility, the agility score won't even be highlighted in red on your character's statistics screen, and you won't benefit from casting restoration. Similarly, if that character's agility had been reduced to 35 and you cast restoration without first removing the agility-enhancing glove, you won't gain back five points of agility since restoration spells only restore your attributes back to their natural, unenhanced, scores.

It's particularly annoying to have your character's strength attribute reduced, since that effect will frequently result in your character becoming over-encumbered and immobile. Your character should carry several restore strength potions to avoid being forced to drop items in order to regain your mobility. In such circumstances, you can also cast Feather spells to help remove encumbrance, at least for as long as it takes to get to a shrine or healer. Even when immobile, your character can still cast, or use objects capable of casting, Divine or Almsivi Intervention to instantly appear at a shrine or temple.

Attribute scores will also be affected by disease, especially early in the game when your character has relatively low willpower and resistance. You should always carry several cure blight disease potions and cure common disease potions to quickly recover from the effects of disease. Those potions, or the related spells, will immediately cure all attribute reductions and, unlike when casting restoration spells to cure the effects of Greater Bonewalkers, you don't need to remove attribute-enhancing items prior to drinking curing potions. Attributes will also be affected when your character is infected with two other types of disease; vampirism and corprus disease, neither of which can be easily cured. There are separate sections in this guide outlining how to deal with those diseases.