Morrowind Help!

[Leole]

I just recently bought Morrowind with all its expansions for 5$, and when I started it (since I already played TES IV: Oblivion) I had no idea what to pick for skills or anything, really (Minor skills? What are those!?). Now I get when people say Oblivion was "casual-ised". Anywho, I just set whatever skill I wanted, and started playing.

The first few things that I noticed was a lack of a compass/waypoint system. Awesome, I like it. When talking to a NPC, not all of it was spoken, also awesome, I kinda read "fast" and when they speak, they usually do it in a very SLOW manner, it pissed me off. The inventory screen is a little confusing. I'll get used to it, I managed to equip a magic ring I found nearby that healed me.

Skip a few mins, and I'm in a cave, getting my ass handed out to me, I don't know how to cast shit, and I'm pretty much dead right after.

So I was wondering if you guys could give me some tips for a Mage based character (What to mayor, what NOT to), what race to pick, and what factions to be on for best enjoyment of the game.

Also, Captcha: Please onabol. Not on a bowl, on the thread, please.

 

[Jelly ^.^]

Okay, a few of the most important things to know if you're going to be a mage-

1. There are no penalties for wearing armour while casting spells, and thus there is no reason for not wearing any.

2. You do not regenerate Magicka by standing around scratching your staff

3. Most other things you need to know about Magic and becoming a spellcaster can be found on the Wiki, here's a good starting place: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Magic

Best of luck, Outlander! And steer clear of the Cammona Tong. Until you get the mission to kill them all. N'wahs.

 

[JesterRaiin]

There are plenty of good manuals for MW.

However, consider this : if you're not into speed run, then eventually you'll advance to highest levels no matter what character you made. Don't stress yourself, walk here and there, do some quests, gather some equipment, enter mages guild (Balmora), side with one of great houses (Telvanni is a natural choice for magic based characters).

Also, if you're looking to sell some precious equpiment, there are only two "shopkeepers" with bigger purse. One is a talking mudcrab, other - scamp living in one of bigger cities.

 

[Furioso]

Unlike Oblivion, enemies are NOT leveled to you, so if you see a creepy looking structure/ruins, do NOT approach unless you are ready, this was my very first open world game, and something like finding enemies way above your skill level was new to me, so I thought "oh awesome, cool ruins = cool loot" only to run into one scary ************, "ok" I thought, "I can get through this... *Need a silver weapon or better to damage this enemy* (or whatever the message says, I know I am way off) and then dead


TLDR: Scary place = scary enemies, they bad if your weak

 

[Leole]

One is a talking mudcrab

Sold, I'm there.

Don't tell me where, I REALLY want to find it myself.

And by "myself" I mean I will probably ask around to no avail, then look it up on UESP.

 

[Signa]

Being a mage in Morrowind is hard. You are FAR better off being some sort of enchanter. Enchantments recharge and are a lot more customizable than they were in Oblivion.

You are far better off starting with some combat skills than magic ones. Major and Minor skills are exactly the same as Major Skills were in Oblivion. Minor skills just give you a smaller bonus to start.

If you are set on spell casting, WATCH YOUR FATIGUE bar. You will have less chance in succeeding the spell if you are tired. Also, you are better off choosing the Atronach starsign, as that will grant you a 50% chance to absorb incoming spells. If you piss off your own ghost summon, he will be guaranteed to recharge your mana without needing to rest or drink a potion.

EDIT: Oh shit, forgot to answer the "how to cast" question. Equipping your weapon and spells are exactly the same. There is a draw/put away weapon key, and there is a raise-your-hands-up/put-them-down button for spell casting. If you have an enchanted item that has a "cast on use" function, you have to equip it as as spell in order to cast it. When you open your inventory, there is a window that lets you manage which spells you have equipped. The top of the list is your spells, the bottom is your enchanted items.

Don't be confused by the other styles of casting enchanted items. There's "cast on strike" which is reserved for weapons, there is "constant effect" which does not need to be cast, but merely equipped. The "Cast on use" enchantments can be equipped normally for no added bonus. They have to be equipped in order to be cast, so if you put 10 different rings on your hot-keys, each time you swap to one of them, you will auto-equip them.

Also, on the topic of what race to pick, etc, I have never found a better race than the Brettons. They are naturally resistant to debuff spell effects, and they have increased mana. As I mentioned before, the Atronach starsign is unbelievably awesome, and is a must-have for anyone, regardless of class. Even fighters can benefit from being immune to 50% of all incoming spells.

The natural resistance is important later when you find the boost of blinding speed. You will increase your speed attribute by 200, but it also makes you 100% blind. As a Bretton, you will only be 50% blind, so you can easily see things still. Any non-beast race can still make a quick enchantment that will give them 1 second of magic immunity, which is enough to open the menu and equip the boots. It's an extra step you can avoid though. The only down side is that they start with low strengh, and they don't have any bonuses to weapon skills. It doesn't take long to compensate, so it's fair trade for being god-like in the end.

 

[JesterRaiin]

One is a talking mudcrab

Sold, I'm there.
Don't tell me where, I REALLY want to find it myself.
And by "myself" I mean I will probably ask around to no avail, then look it up on UESP.

Very good attitude sir ! Good luck !
Once again : don't rush into doing main quest. There's really much more than this.

 

[Signa]

One is a talking mudcrab

Sold, I'm there.

Don't tell me where, I REALLY want to find it myself.

And by "myself" I mean I will probably ask around to no avail, then look it up on UESP.

He's on a small stone island that is sticking out of the water east of the mega-city Vivec. You will know when you find him because when you loot his body he will have booze on him. Believe me, what I just said wasn't really a spoiler. I think I killed him on two separate playthroughs before accidentally talking to him. He is so hard to find even when you know around where he is.

 

[OManoghue]

NPCs will give you a direction, like SW or NE or something, and that meants directly NE from where they are standing.

The default key for equipping a selected spell is 'C' I think, i changed it to RMB because going from a sword to lightning is a little clunky. If you wanna be a mage straight up, it's all about the high elves, although if you want a mix and be able to fall back on a long sword or something, the bretons are a decent choice. Although, taking the mage birthsign on any race will give you a huge Mana buff allowing you to lay some fools down with your sweet spells.

 

[Ranorak]

As a resent follower of the Morrowind hype, I know exactly what cave you mean.
I entered it as well, and got my ass handed to me.
Figured my build must have been wrong and tried, tried and tried again.

They kept blowing me up, so I figured, I'll do a few other quests, join a guild and a house and come back later.

And I came back later.
My spear in my hand, only level 2, but a lot more confident.
My medium armour cracked slightly as I opened the door. The sound it made startled me and I curiously peered if the person below the rock formations heard it as well.
He didn't.
Slowly I walked up to him, he noticed my approach and rushed for me, but 2 good thrusts turned him from a threat to a swiss cheese.
Another door, another sound, another person behind it.
His magic spell barely missed me as I raised my hands to cast my own.
My spear was replaced by a demonic looking bow. The string cracked as it was drawn back.
The string clapped as it was released.
The body fell as it was impaled.
Nearby slaves were the first to witness my acts and lived. They thanked me for saving them.
I raised my hands again to obtain the powers granted to me by my Tower sign.
A enchanted item was nearby.
I will be mine.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

Use Mods for Superpowers... and cool residences

 

[ResonanceGames]

My advice? Forget about what the "best" options are and focus on roleplaying a character that seems cool to you. The game is very forgiving in that respect. If it gets too tough because you made the "wrong" choices, just turn the difficulty down for a while.

Keep in mind that the game doesn't level the enemies with you to the extent that Oblivion does, so of course you're going to get your ass handed to you in dungeons when you're a low level. Stick to the outdoors and grind a little before you go charging off like Galahad and you'll be fine.

 

[Bad Jim]

1) Spellcasting is not a terribly efficient way to bring down foes. It's easier if you use a sword and enchant it with some interesting 'cast on strikes' effect. Or you can use enchanted rings to cast spells. The nice thing about using enchanted items is that you can rapidly click the mouse until they are empty, while spellcasting takes about 2 seconds per spell. I would therefore avoid the School of Destruction.

2) Joining the Mages guild is a smart move even for non-mages. You get to use guild guides, a fast travel network between their guildhouses.

3) The schools of Mysticism and Alteration have numerous handy spells for getting around. Divine Intervention teleports you to the nearest Imperial Legion outpost and Almsivi intervention takes you to the nearest Imperial Cult temple. You can set a point with Mark and teleport there with Recall. And Levitate is just a very handy thing to have, especially with the terrain Vvardenfell has.

4) Character creation works a bit like Oblivion. You level up by increasing ten major or minor skills, and the attribute boosts you get depend on how many skills with that governing attribute you have increased, including misc skills. The distinction between major and minor is that major skills start higher and are easier to raise. The main thing to avoid is having all the skills of a particular governing attribute as major/minor skills or as misc skills.

I'll link to the wiki
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Morrowind_for_Oblivion_Players

 

[ohnoitsabear]

My biggest piece of advice is to save often. You should save every 5-10 minutes if you've been wandering around in the wilderness for a while, because you never know when you're about to be assaulted by an enemy that is more powerful than you. You should even save about once every 15 minutes even when you're in town, because the game has a tendency to crash frequently. And finally, ALWAYS save before entering a dungeon. Dungeons in Morrowind contain many surprises, and many of them can kill you instantly.

Also, be sure to install [URL="http://www.elricm.com/nuke/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewdownloaddetails&lid=4519" (title,target)]Morrowind Patch Project[/URL] and [URL="http://www.fliggerty.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=1008" (title,target)]Morrowind Code Patch[/URL]. These fix a ton bugs and issues, and make for a much better experience

 

[ms_sunlight]

If you must play a mage (and I did a mage playthrough and enjoyed it very much) invest in a shock spell early on. Many of the NPCs are Dunmer and hence have fire resistance. There are a fair few Nords. Few creatures can resist shock, however.

Work on your mysticism. You'll be wanting the travel spells sooner rather than later (Mark, Recall, Divine Intervention, Almsivi Intervention) as they make getting around a hell of a lot quicker and easier.

You can wear garments under armour and robes over armour, so don't be afraid to layer those enchanted items!

Get yourself a jinkblade as soon as you can. They can't hurt you if they can't move. It will save your life a lot at lower levels and give you the time to get your spells working or to run away.

 

[Wayneguard]

Being a straight mage is tough. As others have said, using health-damaging offensive magic alone is a pretty inefficient way to kill enemies in this game (compounded by the fact that magicka does not regen). I find that magic is better used as a buff/debuff tool. Using damage attribute (e.g. damage strength, damage fatigue, damage intelligence, etc) spells and fortify attribute spells (e.g. fortify strength, fortify health, etc) can turn difficult battles into child's play and leave you with enough mana such that you don't have to rest after every fight.

Also, the alteration school of magic has the most hilarious spells ever. The first thing I craft in any playthrough is a "fortify jump 30 pts for 1 second" spell. Jump, levitate, waterbreathing... you need these things to explore every nook and cranny of every dungeon (and it's in these nooks and crannies that the phat lewt is hidden). Alteration has practical uses, don't get me wrong; but, it is definitely the skill to take if you just want to have some fucking fun with the game.

Oh, and last thing to note. Your casting skills are going to be TERRIBLE at the start. Your mana pool will be shit and you will fail to cast a significant amount of the time. To quickly improve your casting skills, go to the nearest mages guild (Balmora) and buy a spell from each of the schools. Then pay a spellmaker to create one spell for each school that costs one point of magicka to cast (I usually label mine something like "Training Alteration" or "Training Destruction" so that they are all together in the spell menu). As you're walking around, just continually cast these one point spells. In Morrowind, a 1pt spell raises your skill just as much as a 100pt spell so these training spells are a really cheap and efficient way to boost your spellcasting levels and your casting success rate.

 

[Erana]

The natural resistance is important later when you find the boost of blinding speed. You will increase your speed attribute by 200, but it also makes you 100% blind. As a Bretton, you will only be 50% blind, so you can easily see things still. Any non-beast race can still make a quick enchantment that will give them 1 second of magic immunity, which is enough to open the menu and equip the boots. It's an extra step you can avoid though. The only down side is that they start with low strengh, and they don't have any bonuses to weapon skills. It doesn't take long to compensate, so it's fair trade for being god-like in the end.

Or you could be like me and grab the Steel Blade of Heaven for its excellent and easy levitate enchantment, equip the BOBS and zoom over the landscape. At those speeds and without worrying about obstacles in the sky, you can just use your map as navigation and don't really need to worry about vision.

 

[Signa]

The natural resistance is important later when you find the boost of blinding speed. You will increase your speed attribute by 200, but it also makes you 100% blind. As a Bretton, you will only be 50% blind, so you can easily see things still. Any non-beast race can still make a quick enchantment that will give them 1 second of magic immunity, which is enough to open the menu and equip the boots. It's an extra step you can avoid though. The only down side is that they start with low strengh, and they don't have any bonuses to weapon skills. It doesn't take long to compensate, so it's fair trade for being god-like in the end.

Or you could be like me and grab the Steel Blade of Heaven for its excellent and easy levitate enchantment, equip the BOBS and zoom over the landscape. At those speeds and without worrying about obstacles in the sky, you can just use your map as navigation and don't really need to worry about vision.

Not a bad way to do it, but I was happy paying something like 20GP to get a levitation potion and then donate it to that alter in Vivec. Though I probably was wearing the boots when I did that and had properly unblinded myself. One of my first enchantments is always my "shoehorn ring" which is just once second of magic immunity. Well... as a Bretton, 50%.