I want to try out a more magic orientated character after reading so much about how wonderfully adaptable and customisable the spell making system in Morrowind is, the problem is I seem to have a lack of imagination of how to put together exciting or even useful spells.

Do any of the more experienced players have favourite custom spells they use?

Thanks

Presently, I am a breton sorcerer with alteration and conjuration as the main skills and little bit of illusion. I usually conjure bound armors to fight weaker enemies. When confronted with tougher opponent, I paralyze them and summon minions to finish them off. Specifically bonewalkers with scamps. Bonewalker makes the enemy immobile while the scamps maul the health away. Also I have two type of combo with Bound armor. One has noise, for mages. Other has , paralyze, for fighters. If all fails, I have a spell with frost shield and summon frost atronach. With 30% additional frost resistance from Denstagmer's Ring, that is a real life saver.

Also, all these spells are for short duration, 10 to 20s tops, so it doesn't eat my magicka away, and also can have better chance of success. I have different magnitude levitate, 5s levitate to cross a stream or 30s one to travel across azura's coast.

They don't have an equivalent Morrowind page, but many effects are the same in http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Useful_Spells.

You can create a Drain Health x points for just a few seconds. It comes cheaper than a Damage Health spell, and since most enemies don't have that much HP, it's enough to kill them.

Sometimes way back in the past I made a magic training spell (or if I had to make 2 perhaps). One spell with an extremely small and harmless effect from each school, small enough that it only cost 1 magicka to cast. The fun thing with combined spells is that they always use the weakest spell school as the "master", so in this case it always trained the school I had the lowest skill in. Very practical if you wan't an all rounder.

A spell I pretty much always make is a 1 magicka (yes, 1 magicka, not 1 point of health) restore health spell. I make it that small since I never take restoration as a minor/major, and a small spell like that is easy to cast for everyone and since I cast it between fights it doesn't matter that I have to cast it 10 times or something. It's actually good since then it also trains my restoration.

A second restoration spell I always make is the restore 1 point agility, strength, endurance.... and so on. That's the same idea as the above. When I have run into a bonewalker or something that have damaged my attributes, I just have to cast that spell a bunch of times and then I'm good to go again. No point having a stronger spell since there is no drawback in casting it several times.

If you are playing as the atronach sign (as I see it, the best sign for every character, even more so for mages), a 17 second (I think it's 17, could be 14 also..) spell of summon ancestral ghost is great. After you have summoned it, punch it 2 or 3 times and he will attack you, filling up your magicka without harming you. 17(14) seconds is the perfect length since it is cheap and he has time to cast two attack spells at you but disapears before he goes at you with his fists.

A 100 point, 1 second resist magicka spell is a classic for everyone who uses the boots of blinding speed. Or 50 if you are a breton.

Those are some of my specials. Other than that, If I play a mage I always make a bunch of different fire/frost spells of different strengths for different enemies. Fire and frost are the only elemental spells needed, but you will have to learn which creatures/races that resists one of them.

A couple of different open lock spells, often 25, 50, 75, 100 points both touch and range so that I can stand around a corner and open a lock without anyone seeing me.

The thing to think of about spells is the duration and points about the spells and therefore how much magicka they cost. Most (almost all) of the purchased spells are quite badly made, especially when it comes to duration. 60 seconds for the conjuration spells? Way, way, way to much. The opponent has either died long before that or your summon have. That's a lot of wasted magicka.

When it comes to spellmaking i always look closely to the magicka cost. Where do I get the most bang for the buck. As with my ancestral ghost for instance, at 18 (or 15) seconds it will cost one more point of magicka, so it's better to stop at 17 (or 14).

Thanks for the replies.

One thing I have noticed is that when I'm in the spell making screen it always shows the chance to successfully cast the spell as lower that it really is when I buy the spell and check it in my inventory. It makes it harder to decide what values you want for your new spell.

It doesn't consider fatigue values. At full fatigue, chance to cast is actually 1.25 times the value at the spell making menu.

That explains it, thanks.

Spellmaking is great for non-magic oriented characters too. I have a Nord Barbarian, intelligence/Magicka 30, so she's very limited in what spells she can cast. Standard Levitate cost too much, for example. But I made one I called Levitate Slow, 2 points for 30 seconds. I forget the casting cost, I think it was around 19. And it works fine for getting over hills or around Vivec. I did use the gold she'd gotten from dungeon exploring to buy some Alteration training. 25 was high enough for a 55 percent chance, which actually works most of the time.

I was given a Restore Strength spell as a quest reward, so then I could have a custom Restore All spell made for the other attributes. 5 points for 1 second, just cast it over and over. I think it's a 1 point spell. I have a bunch of those. I have a Practice Detect for Mysticism, and I had a Resist Magic 1 point for 1 second that I used until I got my Restoration high enough for regular spells (why not just play a Crusader or Spellsword, you may ask? I actually wish I had, so I'm converting her into one). I never thought of a "1 point in all schools" spell, I'm going to have to try that.

I've seen other threads where people list their "kill Vivec" or "protect from everything" spells. Some really nasty ones. Morrowind players are delightfully vicious. Look back through the forum, I saw that thread not too long ago.

Mostly thing to make my life easier.

- spell of frenzy 100points for 3 seconds.

- powerful charm spell (seriously broken)

- calm spell for maximum value.

- spell of long lasting night eye ( i can't seem to find golden saints in my current play through for a ce enchantment)

- spell that restores all my attributes for 5 points (damn greater bonewalkers)

- spell of resist magicka 100 points for a few seconds (needed for the boots of blinding speed).

-I also use absorb health for offensive spells, its kinda fun blasting cliff racers with a pink laser and it tops of my health (sadly it takes a lot of magicka to cast.)

You can use Ascended Sleepers' souls to create CE items.

What I also like to do is casting a very weak, but very long touch spell that does elemental damage at the beginning of a fight (3 Points of Fire Damage for 15 seconds for example). Those will slowly drain the life of the enemy and don't cost very much. A 100 point open spell and a long lasting night eye spell are also essential for me. Summon Golden Saint Scrolls can be bought in Mournhold if I remember correctly.

I got the impression that the precentage of casting a spell is also determined by the skill the player has for a spell school.

Which are a lot easier to kill and you'll encounter those in the MQ.