Oblivion:Water Walking

	Water Walking
School	Alteration
Type	Defensive
Effect ID	WAWA
Base Cost	13.0
Barter Factor	400
Availability (Click on any item for details)
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Water Walking for D seconds

Allows the target to walk on water. It is useful for getting across lakes more quickly than swimming, and for evading combat with sea-dwelling creatures. Although very few creatures will ever attack you while water-walking, as the land creatures can't keep up with you, you still have to worry about flying creatures and some swimming creatures in the Shivering Isles, such as the Baliwog. Your horse can walk on water as well, but you must cast the spell on the horse to make it work (see Notes).

Water-walking can be very useful for walking across lava in the planes of Oblivion. You will still take damage when lava-walking, but you can traverse the lava much more quickly when walking than when swimming. Also, it is generally easier to get out of the lava and onto the shore when walking.

Water-walking allows you to sneak over waterlogged locations, to evade detection or execute a sneak attack with a bow. Some dungeon levels contain pools or flooded sections, and water-walking is an excellent way to conduct "amphibious" tactics against any enemies in the area.

Water-walking allows you to cast ranged spells and/or fire arrows at targets outside the water, while standing on water. While swimming, you cannot cast ranged spells and the speed of arrows is negligible.

It is still possible to swim even if you have a water-walking effect active, both intentionally by looking down and pressing Forward, and unintentionally by hitting the surface of the water with enough speed.

Notes

This spell effect is actually rather hard to find. Only one person sells it - Trayvond the Redguard at the Cheydinhal Mages Guild - it is called Sea Stride. You'll need to go to him first if you want to make your own spell or enchantment with this effect. Alternatively, you can use a pre-made enchanted item or create an enchanted item using a Sigil Stone, although neither of these will give you access to spellmaking or enchanting with the effect.
Water walking can be a particularly useful effect to cast upon your horse, since horses normally swim very slowly. You need to make a custom spell in order to create a Water Walking on Touch spell. A 115 second duration spell is possible at journeyman level, which is more than enough to cross Niben Bay from east to west on a black horse. At apprentice level, a 45 second duration is possible; if combined with a 15pts 35secs Fortify Speed effect (apprentice level Restoration), this is sufficient to use all of the shortcuts for safe, fast and convenient off-road travel.
In the German version of the game, the effect is wrongly translated as "Unterwasserlaufen" which means "Walking under water".