Hi guys.


As someone who prefers to play as a warrior for most playthroughs, I never really looked into or thought about playing as a Mage.


I know people can think too much about what race they should be in ES games, and the way the perk system works you know you can pick any race and be a successful archetype without any issues.


For me, it makes sense to be either a High elf or a Breton. What's your opinion?

My favorite Mage so far has been an Orc Mage. There was something about this character that fascinated me as soon as she entered my imagination. Why was this Orc interested in magic, I wondered? What was her story? I was suddenly dying to find out. The "main quest" of this game for me was all about discovering who this eccentric character was.

I've played a few Altmer and Breton mages, among other races, but somehow they just never stirred my imagination the way my Orc did. So my advice is to pick a race and "class" combination that will to intrigue you, and make you want to play that character for hours and hours on end.

I would say high elf for pure mage, breton if you want to be a spellsword (battlemage, sword and spell type of character, you get the picture) since it's much better all rounder, so it largely depends.

Story wise any race makes sense and it can be more interesting to play a less 'typical' race as PW mentions.


In terms of gameplay...I recently did a pure Mage playthrough and found Altmer very effective. With the racial boost to magica and the mages hood you can have 180 magica at the start of the game allowing you much more casting ability and means you can put early level up points into health making you more survivable.

I would put it down to if you prefer playing as an elf or a human. Both are on par. I have always played a Breton pure mage.

I think playing a character that best fits the racial abilities of a chosen race can be good and feels 'proper', but then again the option to mix it up as well is really cool. I once played a Nord who had melee but focused on Frost magic. That was a fun build, I think I gave him a clan name of Frostwind or Snowsong or something similar, wielded a Stalhrim war axe.

For me it comes down to the character and what makes sense for them. They may not be the best choice "stat" wise for a mage but that doesn't sway my decisions. I'm willing to take the bumps along the road for picking a "non magic" based race. If I choose to deviate from the magic races for the story then I'm okay with not being as powerful as an Altmer or Breton might be. I often times don't even pick a magic based "birth sign" or "standing stones" as Skyrim has it.

In Skyrim, the one mage play through I did enjoy was a Nord bringing back the "clever craft".