I have to admit it is getting a little tedious running around killing mud crabs because I can't kill much else. I'm killing at many as I can to try to "graduate" to something more interesting and lucrative when my skill gets higher (long blades). I have the difficulty slider all the way down to easy and its still quite a challenge to kill a single bandit, let alone a cave full.

Wow, what's your longblade skill? It shouldn't be that hard but you need a reasonable skill level to hit anything, like 35-40 range. If you didn't take your main weapon as a major, that could be the problem.

Or you don't move enough on low levels. Or you go Click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click on an enemy and thus inflicting minor damage. For decent damage, click and hold for a second or to before bringing down the blow. This "charges" you attack.

Do you mean that you have trouble hitting them? Oblivion's engine is a shooter, and you always hit. Morrowind's engine is an RPG dice roll. Several factors are involved, but one of the most important is Agility. You want to raise that with good multipliers, right from the start. And expect to miss, a lot, at least for a while.

You've no experience with actual combat then? This is completely untrue and demonstratively so. You need to be trained with a weapon to be able to do anything with it other than hit a rock. Even a bow. An unskilled person at point blank range will probably not even be able to draw it. (Ever used a powerful bow?)

Honestly, boxing prizefighters at fairgrounds used to allow rubes to attempt to strike them, while they did nothing but dodge. The rubes never landed a blow.
I know some amateur fencers who would be happy to demonstrate how you CANNOT land a blow on them because of your complete lack of skill.

Please, all of you, take this thought, born of instant-gratification from console games and bin it. You might enjoy the results (and fair play if that's what you want), but it is completely unrealistic. Morrowind's lack of dodging animations produces visual oddities, but it is far more realistic than Oblivion.

Edit: One of the things I'm working on is a 'Morrowind players guide to Obivion': what to watch out for. For example, dirty mods seem far more common. Spent a while last night cleaning a mod of all the vanilla scripts. Someone had hit compile all.

heh. My first play through when I played the game, I was so pissed off at the bandit cave near Seyda Neen. I kept trying to get through it, and kept getting pwned. Finally I wandered off and took a siltstrider to Balmora and just messed around there for a while. You can wander into a cave or someplace and get killed in a couple hits, especially in the early levels. But it is gratifying to come back a few levels later and mop the floor with the bandits or whoever was an enemy. When I reinstalled the game last year, after a 3 year hiatus, I even decided to walk to Balmora, or Pelgiad... well, I jogged quite a bit - oh look! A use for Restore Fatigue potions in this game... , got killed in every place I stuck my nose into on the way just about. It was pretty fun. Much as I love Oblivion - and I do - Morrowind is an incredibly rewarding game to explore and re-explore. I got re-used to the clunkier feel of weapon and magic combat.

(And I installed quite a few "pretty-fying' mods, which definitely helps. I also installed a Cliff Racer mod to just get them out of my hair - they were such a freaking pain in my first playthroughs when I knew nothing about mods. that bloody screech they make *shudders* I would flinch every time I stepped into an area and heard that in the distance. I felt like I was cursed with some invisible Cliffracer radar.)

That cave outside Seyda Neen makes a good "test run" for any new characters I create. If they can get through that, then they're viable in a fight. Typically, I try to have at least one weapon skill in the 30+ range (40+ helps a lot, if your character race gives you any bonuses with a weapon type), and USE that type of weapon (remember that long and short blades are DIFFERENT weapon types in MW), otherwise it's a long, hard road ahead of you before you can really deal with the routine combat. Then again, I've taken high-Agility characters and used a weapon with only a 5 skill, and had at least "so-so" luck at hitting things right from day one. This game is NOT like Oblivion, where it pays to take your preferred weapon as a Misc. skill to avoid levelling up.

Holding the attack control until the weapon is fully "drawn back" will insure maximum rated damage for that weapon type at that attack type. Of course, if you're not hitting at all, doing 3 damage or 20 on every hit isn't going to make much difference. For that, only skill with that weapon and decent Agility will do you much good. Luck will factor in slightly, but only slightly. Being fatigued from running will seriously reduce your fighting ability. Fortunately, if you're getting pummelled by a lowly Mudcrab, they're slow enough to run away from.

This is getting out of hand, but to answer I?ve practised martial arts and I can use a real mongolian bow and firearms since I hunt. I?m NOT saying a novice is as good as an expert, I?m simply saying almost anyone can hit an object right in front of them that doesn?t move for two seconds. Enough with this :stare:

Closed by request.