Just wondering what you guys think here, since I'm experimenting with a new build. Which is more important? They have varying degrees of usefulness depending on your stage in the game, I think that melee combat is more useful and magic is primarily for only particular circumstances (for usage in combat).

I've never really played around with high powered magic, but you'd be surprised what can be done with low powered magic. Ever use a minimal area around caster damage spell to push your foes around? It works great for keeping them from counterattacking, shoving them off cliffs, and so on. It's also quite a lot of fun.

I wouldn't know. I traditionally enjoy the versatile "agility" classes - my main in Daggerfall is a Thief. But I like some small usage of magic in day-to-day things - she has "open" and some other miscellanea just to help with, say, sneaking into houses.

Magic for me is typically utilitarian. I rarely ever use offensive spells; illusion spells, certainly, and healing, open, create item, recall, etc. The usual helpful spells, but never fireballs and whatnot. I tried a puremage once; it didn't pan out for me, especially in the early stages. It just takes too much to actually kill something--I end up spending my whole pool on 2 or 3 creatures before I'm spent. Sure, once your magic skills get high it gets better, but the journey is long and is punctuated with a lot of rest to get your magicka replenished.

My custom classes usually resemble Battlemages or Spellswords, with some roguish skills thrown in for good measure. I use a wide variety of spells, both utilitarian and attack/defense, almost all of which are custom made. But I do not neglect fighting ability. If you want a sample build, here it is (at least the basics):

Primary: Long Blade, Mysticism, Critical Strike
Major: Thaumaturgy, Stealth, Archery
Minor: Illusion, Restoration, Alteration, Short Blade, Lockpicking (or Backstabbing), Climbing

Expertise in Long Blade
2X Int. spell points (or 1X, or 3X, depending on how much emphasis on magic use you want)

Forbid Blunt weapons and Axes

[Additional special advantages and disadvantages as your desire/concept suggests]

You will note that Destruction defaults to a miscellaneous skill. Don't fret about that, since it is the easiest skill in the game to self-train.

This gives a fair balance of magical skills and fighting skills. With a lot of leeway toward customization. Is this of any help?

PWB

I enjoy playing pure mages in DF. They are surprisingly powerful and fun. Load your Primary and Major skills with spell colleges, give your character 3XINT in spell points and Spell Absorption General, and the enemies will tremble before your magical might
You need not to rest much with this setup, because you absorb your own area affecting spells. I think that Morrowind is slightly better for pure mage play, but the experience in DF is very rewarding, too.
V

Eh, I try not to abuse that absorption thing, so that's probably why my mages svck. Just seems a bit lame (and boring) to be able to spam fireballs at your feet all day. Morrowind, on the other hand, playing a puremage was the most rewarding character I had in that game. Kinda funny: my favorite DF character was a pure-rogue with no magic whatsoever, and my fav MW character was a pure-mage with nothing else

I, too, do not like to spam fireballs to my feet, but i spam them to the faces of zombies with joy . But you are right that it is abusing of that ability, in some respect. Pure rogue/thief is my second favourite character. Have you tried to give your thief character light- and darkness- powered magery and inability to regen spell points? That way you'll be never able to use spell. Inability to cast Recall makes dungeon crawling really interesting. BTW, I think that playing DF improved my RL orientation ability
And yes, Morrowind is probably the best game for playing magic character. I played character with all mage skills in majors and minors, supplemented with speechcraft, and it was the greatest character I have ever played in any RPG.
V

I did both of those, yes, for that character. Ended up with huge amounts of points to give me insane advantages, like regen and rapid healing, immunities, and the like. What was more fun than having to backtrack through each dungeon to leave was that I had to do the main quest without levitation.


So true!

I enjoy thief characters with utilitarian magic, I kind of liked combat with some mindless fireball throwing in Arena but it feels too awkward in Daggerfall.