Oblivion:Restoration

Restoration involves the magical healing or augmentation of living tissue.  You can cast spells to restore, fortify, or absorb physical and magical attributes, cure disease, and resist magical attacks. You can heal yourself while or after fighting with this type of spell.

In-game Description: Cast spells to restore, fortify, or absorb physical and magical attributes, cure disease, and resist magical attacks.

Mastery
Mastery Perks
A Novice can only cast Novice level Restoration spells.
An Apprentice can cast Apprentice and Novice level Restoration spells.
A Journeyman can cast Journeyman, Apprentice and Novice level Restoration spells.
An Expert can cast Expert, Journeyman, Apprentice, and Novice level Restoration spells.
A Master can cast all Restoration spells.

Skill Benefits
As your restoration skill increases, the Magicka cost to cast restoration spells decreases, according to the following equation:
 Cost = BaseCost * (1.4 - 0.012 * Skill)
The maximum value for Skill in this equation is 100; increases past 100 will not continue to decrease spell-casting cost.

Skill Increases
You gain 0.6 experience points every time a restoration spell is cast upon a target, regardless of the magicka cost.  You gain experience even if the spell has no end effect, such as if the target is already at full health or is not poisoned.  Restoration is the slowest magic skill to increase, requiring ten times more spell casts than the fastest magic skill (Conjuration).

General tips for increasing spell-casting skills are provided at General Magic Strategies.

The best standard restoration spell for practice is Minor Respite: it is the cheapest restoration spell, and since it is cast on self you can always repeatedly cast it to gain experience. The standard Heal Minor Wounds spell is relatively cheap and has the advantage that all players start with it. Note that holding the block button and the cast button at the same time increases your casting speed for all spells. Less time wasted means more time increasing other skills.

If you wish to create a custom practice spell, the various resist effects (Resist Disease, Resist Fire, Resist Frost, Resist Poison, and Resist Shock) are the cheapest restoration effects.  However, none of these effects are available via standard spells; racial powers will give most characters access to one or more resist effects.  Otherwise, the Fortify Attribute effect is almost as cheap as a resist effect, and is available from standard apprentice-level spells.

See also:
Increasing Skills: General tips on how to improve your skills semi-naturally.
Trainers: Pay for restoration lessons.
 
Skill Books: Books that provide lessons in restoration.
Increasing Attributes: Tips on training skills to improve the Willpower attribute.
Free Skill Boosts: Two quests provide free restoration skill boosts.
Magic Items: There are multiple generic items with the fortify restoration enchantment.
There are no Unique Items that fortify the restoration skill unless you have the Knights of the Nine plugin. These do not include Leveled Items such as those received from quests, or Artifacts.

Dialogue
When your skill reaches 70 or higher, NPCs will start saying: "You have the hands of a healer."

Character Creation
The following races provide initial skill bonuses in restoration:
+5 bonus: Nord
+10 bonus: Breton

The following standard classes include restoration as a major skill:
Crusader, Healer, Mage, Nightblade, Sorcerer, Spellsword

All characters start with one Restoration spell: Heal Minor Wounds.  If you choose Restoration as one of your major skills, you will start with one extra Restoration spell: Absorb Health.

Magical Effects
A list of all standard restoration spells can be found on the Spells page.  The following individual effects are all considered to be part of the school of Restoration (see the individual effect pages for full details on availability; the Magical Effects article also provides a summary):


Fortify Restoration
Making a custom "Fortify Restoration on self" spell at the Spellmaking altar leads to some interesting (and potentially very strong) effects. Getting a temporary skill boost in restoration will not allow you to cast spells above your natural level but any spells you cast afterwards will cost significantly less magicka. Try a "Fortify Restoration 46 points for 3 seconds" followed by "Restore Health 12 points for 6 seconds" for cheaper healing. At restoration level 54, total magicka cost went from 98 to 44 for that specific combination.

Messages
The following table provides the messages that are displayed when your Restoration skill levels up.



Notes
You can gain more health regeneration for a given magicka cost by using a spellmaking altar and spreading the healing effect over time.  A 60-point Restore Health spell can be significantly reduced in magicka cost if it is made into a 20 point spell over 3 seconds.
The Convalescence spells (generic spells that can restore health on NPCs) are rather wasteful due to their "On Target" projection means.  To make a more magicka cost-effective spell, use a spellmaking altar to make an on-touch spell.
The Anvil Mages Guild specializes in restoration; Thaurron and Marc Gulitte sell the most restoration spells.  Also, many restoration spells can be bought from healers in chapels.
Once your combined Fame and Infamy reaches 50, you can visit the Magnus heaven doomstone to receive the greater power Skein of Magnus.  One of several benefits of this power is that it fortifies your restoration skill 15 points once a day for 120 seconds.
If you have a restoration level of 100, access to the Arcane University and a lot of money, you can make some powerful spells using the spellmaking altar (such as Fortify Intelligence and Magicka) which you can also stack for extra effectiveness. In this way, you'll be able to raise certain attributes or skills by a huge amount.
If you have installed Knights of the Nine, it is possible to permanently lose the reference for Master-level Restoration training as both of the advanced trainers, Marz and Ohtesse, suffer from scripted deaths as you progress through the questline and their replacements will not provide the necessary dialogue, though they will still offer advanced training.