Though about getting Morrowind for cristmas, I have not plaed it at all, ever and I've not read anything about the quests and such, only general stuff about skills/attribute races and such.

So if someone could be kind and explain if i've understood the birthsigns right:
the lady give +25 on both Personality and +25 on Endurance? This would Prob make it the best of all of the birthsigns, maybe after the mage boosting or the warrior?

I was thinking about a bosmer marksman born under the steed and favoured attribut would be speed, do I start with 80 speed?

The Atronach is the best birthsign, especially if you don't use any mods that actually give non-Atronachs some sort of magicka recovery effects aside from sleeping.


The Lady is nice to have. That extra personality makes everyone of these xenophobic people a little bit more friendly right away, and the extra endurance might be nice if you're running vanilla and want to have a character with 100 points in endurance really fast.

That really depends on your play style as the Atronach severely alters normal game play. The only benefit it has for a non-caster is spell absorption, and you can get that from enchantments anyway.

The Lady is really good. The Atronach is good for mages, if you can adapt to the somewhat different playing style. The Apprentice is also nice for Mages if you choose the Breton race, which has a natural resistance to magic. Otherwise the Mage birthsign is alright too.

The Lord is pretty bad. The restoration spell is alright but the weakness to fire is dangerous.

For a Bosmer marksman I think the best birthsigns are The Steed and The Lover. Agility is more useful than speed, because the skills it is linked to are Light Armor, Marksman and Sneak. And block. It also affects your ability to succesfully hit and succesfully dodge. So it's useful to have that high.

But you'll be raising agility anyway because of the skills you use, so maybe starting out with a higher speed would be more useful.

Please note that i'm going to use magic as little as possible. Illusion will be the only thing I'm using on my stealth, fast assassin bowman.

So i'd like to know this:

Do I need 25 extra endurance? Bosmer has 30 in beginning, so it is pretty low.

However, if I choose the steed, and favor speed as an attribute, i'd start of with incredible 85 speed. This suits my gameplay perfectly, as i'm going to use blind/paralyze/invisibility to be able to make further distance between me and enemies. Alchemy for poison on my bow.

So, which of these is a better idea for this kind of gameplay:

Steed

Mage

Lady

?

Alchemy does not work like that in Morrowind. You won't be able to do anything with the negative effect potions that you brew up ("poisons") except selling them for a lot of gold. Unless you use mods, I guess.


The Mage makes no sense at all for the character you are planning. If he's not going to use magic except illusion, then why does he need more magicka at all?

Extra speed might be nice, but I've had no difficulties to run away from monsters with my regular Atronach thief-mage characters. By using acrobatics and running almost all the time on foot instead of using the boats or the silt striders, my Athletics and Acrobatics increase so quickly that I can outrun/outjump just about everything.

I'd go for the Lady in your case. It's a good, all-round useful birth sign for beginners. You might also really like the extra endurance in the case of your fragile bosmer.

Oh. Well I guess i'll take the Lady, as I'll be able to take some more hits.

Further wondering: Athletics as a Major or Minor skill?

From what I've read, don't have Athletics as neither Major or Minor, it already raises so quickly just by running around that more is overkill and can in some cases ruin your levelling by making you level too fast to get decent multipliers in anything but Speed.

Illusion increases your Personality multipliers so that half of The Lady won't be too important to you, I'm guessing. The Endurance part is bound to come in useful though, since your character doesn't sound like one that has any major/minor skills that raise it, unlike agility which is going to be sky high with your chosen skills and speed which raises itself thanks to Athletics as I said before. Low speed really should only be a problem for low level heavy armour users, which you're not playing as. My personal choice for your character would be the Lady just for the endurance boost, the extra few HP might save you in those situations where you can't avoid getting hit.

Wow, is athletics really that much faster to increse compared to oblivion? well thanks for the warning! I won't be taking that one for sure then

How does it sound so far:

Bosmer male-specialized in stealth arts, born under the Lady

Major Skills:
Marksman
Sneak
Illusion
Light Armor
Security

Minor Skills:
Short blade
Acrobatics
Mercantile
Speech Craft
?

Attributes:
Strength 40 (+10 starting bonus?)
Intelligence 40
Willpower 30
Agility 50 (or +10 on agility?)
Speed 50
Endurance 55 (lady bonus)
Personality 65 (lady bonus)
Luck 50 (+10 starting bonus)

I've never played Oblivion so I don't know exactly how much faster it is in Morrowind, but even with characters that jump around everywhere instead of walking and wear heavy armour I tend to have my characters move like the average sprinter when they run after about level 10-15, all thanks to athletics. It's less crazy if I deliberately ignore speed on every level up though. Not that I'd want to, going faster is better unless you're amazingly patient. Acrobatics is the same I find, which you chose as a minor. It might actually be worse, I have one character with acrobatics as a major and she reached 100 acrobatics at more or less the same level as most of my others reach around 60ish (early 20s). She can jump over the river through Balmora which was great fun for quite a while.

As for your choices, I'd go for strength and agility, not luck, as your favourite attributes. I don't think luck makes enough of a difference unless it's stupidly high. I'm not sure about that missing minor skill though. Perhaps you should try athletics to see what effects it has with your playstyle, it might not give you silly level ups like it does for me especially if you're the sort of character who prefers to be out in the world getting stuff done. I'm the sort of player who will happily hang around in towns performing acts of random nonsense, which I suspect might be why I get such high athletics, if I'm zooming around town then athletics and acrobatics are pretty much all that's getting raised while if you're out and about everything will get raised.

Bosmer male-specialized in stealth arts, born under the Lady

Major Skills:
Marksman 45
Sneak 40
Illusion 25
Light Armor 40
Security 30

Minor Skills:
Short blade 20
Acrobatics 25
Mercantile 20
Speech Craft 20
Athletics 15

Attributes:
Strength 40 (+10 starting bonus?)
Intelligence 40
Willpower 30
Agility 60
Speed 50
Endurance 55 (lady bonus)
Personality 65 (lady bonus)
Luck 40

Does this look solid?

Should I focus on the early levels to up my Agility, strength and speed?

The short blade skill might be painful to rise from that level. I suggest switching it with Light Armor. Low armor won't be as big of a problem for a stealthy archer.

You'll definitely need the Endurance, so I'd vote for The Lady. Remember, your Fatigue drains when you run.

The atronach is by far the most overpowered birthsign. Whether or not you will use the extra mana, the 50% absorption is just unbelievable against casters. The protection it offers is really unmatched.
The mage and the apprentice are ok for a mage based character with the apprentice being better almost always as most spell attacks are not pure magic. (doesn't really work for your character)
The lady is good if you wanna avoid the atronach. Keep in mind that the 25+ personality is essentially useless in this game.
The steed, thief and warrior are all decent options with the rest of the signs turning out to be pretty useless.

Your actual build looks fine, though I'd suggest picking endurance as one of your favored attributes if you dont have any skills for it (regardless if you choose the Lady). The dangers with endurance mainly stem from the expansions where a high HP is really necessary to do well. Endurance speed would be my favored attributes.

Honestly, the best choice would be to choose a birthsign that provides you with something that is either a. difficult to obtain in the game, or b. difficult to enhance/increase in the game. If you're making a thief, marksman, stealth based character then choosing a birthsign that gives you agility or speed is useless because you will level those attributes up very quickly anyways, and then the birth sign will virtually be useless unless you obtain a very high level and end up almost maxing your stats anyways. For a stealth based character I would choose the lady, warrior, or thief (for the luck).

I would put a Speed Skill in your last secondary slot (or swap it with a major skill to raise is even faster) because the level up will quickly increase your health with the lady as birthsign. Since it is your first playthrough, you probably want to be on the safe side Health Point-wise, because a Mudcrab can and will kill you (easily... many times). And i would put an aditional 5 points in Endurance, since only the first number counts for health gain. So, even if you got 59 Endurance, you will only get 5 additional health points. That can be done easily at level 1, if you can find a trainer for any endurance skill (preferable for the skill you are least experienced in, because it costs much less that way, and you only have to invest 1000 Draken (Septims) or so. Also note that there is no cap on how many times you train each level, so once you got the money you can pretty much define wich Attribute you want to boost). Strength and Endurance as favored attributes is also a good choice, because half your Endurance and thrength combined determine your starting health. I'm sorry if you already know this, i don't want to belittle you.

Most important though is not what skills you choose in the beginning, but the way you play the game. Don't get to much information beforehand, you already played Oblivion, it's not an entirely different game. Make your own experience, and remember, losing is fun!

Personally, I always liked the thief. Stat boosts are really nice early on, but if you plan to play on the character extensively they will be at 100 eventually anyway, and the birth signs won't naturally allow you above 100. Thief however gives a nice combat boost (10% sanctuary) that won't later become obsolete. I also prefer it as a marksmen character as I don't usually have a shield up, but I can still avoid blows through sanctuary.

Well I did read that the game has slim-or-none level up on enemies, which would make it better for me to make a character as strong as possible at the beginning, yes?
I'll switch places with light armor and short blade then:

Bosmer male-specialized in stealth arts, born under the Lady

Major Skills:
Marksman 45
Sneak 40
Illusion 25
Short Blade 30
Security 30

Minor Skills:
Light Armor 25
Acrobatics 25
Mercantile 20
Speech Craft 20
Athletics 15

Attributes:
Strength 40 (+10 starting bonus)
Intelligence 40
Willpower 30
Agility 50
Speed 50
Endurance 65 (lady bonus)+(starting bonus)
Personality 65 (lady bonus)
Luck 40

Short Blade, Acrobatics, Athletics level up really fast, especially if they're major or minor skills.


I use them a lot and I am now putting them as misc skills initially. If you're using Conjuration for Bound Dagger, then the low initial amount of points in Short Blades shouldn't matter anyway (Bound Dagger comes with a +10 points fortify effect). Athletics is the slowest of this bunch -at least if your character bunnyhops most of the time-, so it might be feasible as a minor skill, without affecting your leveling too badly.

Instead of these skills, I now put magic skills that I like as majors and minors. They increase way slower than your weapon or movement form of choice, and fizzling these spells like Mark/Recall or the Intervention spells most of the time is much more perilous to my characters than missing quite a bit with the dagger attacks in the first couple of levels.

If I paralyze an enemy-will I get higher bonus to hitting it? Possibly making me able to increase lower weapon skills?

Yes, it's helpful for the early game if you don't die to every mudcrab. And a strong character will even get stronger faster than a weak character.
And yes, at least one weapon skill is advisable, as the chance to hit something is dice-rolled, so without a high weapon skill you will die because you can't hit anything. Same with magic, low skill means lower chance to actually cast anything, and a low Fatique reduces this chance even more.




Nope, but you gain valuable time to kill him/run a way from him (her). If i remember correctly, 100% chameleon means that your enemy can't hit you, while you can still attack him, but i'm not sure.