This is somewhat of a hybrid of topics.

Is a purely Illusion-based character viable? It seems to me that every Illusion effect beyond Charm, Calm and Frenzy is insanely expensive. The Magicka cost of spells such as Silence, Paralyse or Command is huge - I've found it generally takes less magicka to turn them to ash with Destruction magic than to paralyse them for a measly few seconds - these effects seem best used as Potions or Enchantments as them spells are horrendously expensive - could anyone who isn't an Altmer/Atronach realistically cast them?

Secondly, the most powerful spells and advantages of Illusion in crowd control - frenzy, calm and command, have a maximum level of 25. What happens when your character gets beyond this level and is incapable of using his best assets against monsters?

Thirdly - I'd like help to concoct an Illusionist build! My previous attempts generally ended up with me using Destruction magic and defeating the roleplay vision of the character. What skills, birthsign etc would you reccomend?

I had;
Argonian, Female, The Mage
Alteration
Destruction
Illusion
Mysticism
Conjuration
Blade
Heavy Armour (stand out from the crowd! I realised how seldom I used Heavy Armour, and how ugly most of the Light Armours are -save Mithril!)

This is funny.

I'm actually here at the moment because I just walked away from a non-violent Illusionist build after I got him to Weye and realized that he had absolutely no way to deal with Rumare Slaughterfish..... I really didn't want to use Destruction magic with him at all, but it's not as if he can Calm the Slaughterfish and get them to give up their scales voluntarily, and there's nothing else around to get them to fight with, so..... ?

Beyond that-- all I can offer is a seconding of your questions. I've been concerned about the exact same thing-- the best illusion effects are insanely magicka expensive. I'm not sure what the answer is.

Regarding level-- the level 25 spells will work on anything, no matter what level, but only IF you're not wearing any armor. The max level spells are actually level 25 and above, but if you're wearing any armor at all, it drops the effectiveness down to at most level 24, and then it's up to level 24 period.

I can't help with the build, but the max level of those kinds of Illusion spells will work on enemies higher than 25, as long as your spell effectiveness is 100%.

[edit] ninja'd! :ninja:

With the right enchants and potions, magicka costs aren't much of a concern and I think an illusionist could be a lot of fun, provided the character is primarily an illusionist rather than exclusively. See gpstr's experience for why. Be it illusion or anything else, I don't find this game caters very well to putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak.

Yeah... that's why I walked away. I realized I was going to have to rethink the idea.

It's not even so much that I wanted to make him an illusionist-- it's just a face that I came up with while I was trying to build an Agent, and it was just so obviously "Jeff the... you know... like totally like non-violent dude, you know?" I could just envision him traipsing through Cyrodiil, wondering why everyone's so totally aggro when we should just be like kind to each other, you know? I'm not even convinced that he could command or frenzy others into fighting with each other-- even that might be too much for his delicate sensibilities-- but I figured I'd deal with that when I came to it.

But I didn't reckon with the Slaughterfish, so he didn't even make it any further than Weye. He could just blow off that quest, but Aelwin's such a nice old dude and he really would like to help him out, but..... I dunno.

Probably I'll set him aside for a while and go back to one of my other characters-- see if any inspiration comes to me....

Maybe Illusion and Restoration- use the restoration "Drain" Spells for when you must personally kill, but still be illusionist otherwise.

In that case, I'll record how my Illusionist gets on here - I think a Daedra-worshipping Argonian noble/shaman dandy is quite the interesting role-play to begin with.

I'll use this build;

Female Argonian 'Three-Hands Kusei'
Atronach

Alteration
Blade
Restoration
Conjuration
Illusion
Mysticism
Sneak (filler-ish)

With a big focus on Alchemy aswell, obviously.

How bout armorer instead.

Viable? Certainly. Enjoyable, maybe not.

An Illusionist, as you want it, would be defensive, not offensive. Generally, you want to confuse and disrupt the enemy as you can. The cheap spells are honestly the best. For example, taking Command of a summoned foe to tear its master limb from limb requires little Magic. Unless its a Xivali (summoned), as they always Absorb spells (33-50% chance my foot).

An explosive Frenzy spell is always a good way to spark a civil war, and then easily pick off the survivor.

In general, you hardly want to draw a blade. Command Creature and Frenzy is the way to go. Invisibilty for the Frenzied foes that attack you regardless.

And yes, Level 25 is required for most of this to work, no armor. So Conjuration can help too, as a distraction and for Turn Undead (or The Ritual birthsign. Not a recommend). Dremora, though, don't Frenzy. They're immune.

Paralyze is high cost, low return. A Paralyze 1 sec on Touch is Apprentice level, and all you need. Those Paralyze for 7 seconds Master levels spells hardly help.

I'm a battlemage at heart, so that's all the advice I can give... I'm much better at crushing skulls and burning witches than sparking civil wars. Definite potential for immense destruction in Frenzy. Chameleon and Calm don't help much unless your a passivist.

And Weakness to Magic doesn't help frenzy, calm, demoralize, ect. I tried, didn't work.

gpstr, I can't believe you had a problem with an Illusion based character after playing the Courtesan?!. Anyway, I think it is definitely viable. ProjectTitan313 has a lot of the ideas down. The idea is to use Frenzy and Calm until there is nothing left but one enemy if u even want to kill them, you can always run away or run away invisibly while everyone fights, but it is still possible to kill the last one. I'd use a poison dagger, then turn invisible and wait for the last one to die. That is if you weren't where you could simply entice that last enemy to chase you into the next area with more enemies, which works great in OB gates. For any character especially at low level, you have to pick your battles, and doing the Rumaire fish quest is about the worst possible quest for a first level Illusionist....

So much for the overview of the strategy. As for the Class, I always think of the first edition D&D class, that had its own list of spells, and there were no spells at all like Destruction in TES, no fireballs, lightning bolts, etc.. But they also had an ace in the whole, so to speak, the "Illusion" which was some sort of phantasm that if some else believed was real, could do real damage and kill them.... I think one could consider this like Conjuration, if you went with that logic. If you restricted the class too much, it will be hard to pick enough majors. So, I would consider this.

Spec Magic -
Acrobatics - place holder, think- create Phantasm, or Cast Command, then jump on a rock...
Alchemy - all magic users in D&D could create potions.
Conjuration - phantasms as above
Mercantile
Speechcraft - this is a personality based character for sake of this game so all Personality skills in build, easy to level slowly (just remembered Illusionist had to have a Charisma of 16 out of 18 max)
Athletics- again a place holder, trying to restrict the class to Illusion and as few combat or other magic skills as possible....
last spot is getting tough to not include another 'useful' skill...I'd say either Blade and restrict to Daggers, or H2H

You could try to restrict the use of the other magic skills as well. Just use Alchemy for healing, no Alteration, etc...

The most important thing to do is to get Custom Command spells as soon as you can. The way the game works, you only need about a 4 sec duration on the effect and the target will fight on even after that. The lower duation saves a lot of magicka and allows you to increase the effect. When you can add a 2 sec Inviso effect do that to help you get out of the area. Just cast that or Frenzy, then get out of the way until there is one left.

It is possible, and I've done it. Haven't tried it without using Restoration but my Courtesan didn't use it much anyway and didn't have Conjuration as a skill or use it much.

It is possible to frenzy the lower-level Dremora - my 'Pilgrim' character does it whenever there is more than one enemy in Oblivion. He's never been able to frenzy the higher ones though but thats probably the armour + level 25 situation.

I rolled the build in my post and took on VIlverin - using Calm to get in power attacks with my sword and managing to get +4's to Intelligence and Endurance and get my Alchemy to over level 25 - not bad for someone who can't be bothered to efficiently level, and I actually used a few of the Restore Fatigue potions as well. Observations are mainly Atronach-based - I'll miss being able to wander around casting Heal Minor Wounds or Starlight to easily level those skills, and I realised how seldom magic actually needed to be used to give a decisive edge. I used up a few Welkynd stones conquering Vilverin but I'm steadily collecting Flax Seed, Stinkhorn Caps and Steel-Blue Entoloma for the future.

I instantly went for the reccomendation quests (not something I normally like to do, I prefer a lot of Dungeon Diving early-game and a few miscelleanous quests to get to grips with the character's personality and playstyle) because my levelling would render most of my spells useless until I can create my own - it's a little tight of Bethesda to give you Calm up to level 2! I picked up Frenzy and Charm, and Frenzy is serving me very well; I've got Bravil, Leyawinn, Chorrol and Bruma done - leaving only Cheydinhal, Anvil and Skingrad - and I'm wondering how I can efficiently kill the zombies without fire damage - I think a little dungeon-diving to pick up Summon Scamp and a stronger Turn Undead should stand me in good stead.
My equipment, somewhat unorthodox, consists of a Fine Iron Longsword, an Iron Cuirass and Shield, a Green Robe Hood, Gold Trimmed Shoes and Green Felt Linens. I'll eventually ditch my Armour when my endurance isn't so unbearbly low (or I start to near level 25 enemies) and get some appropriately dandyish atir. After entry to the Mage's Guild, I think some Daedric Quests (Sheogorath, Vaermina, Mephala for sure - and Azura because the star is so incredible) and perhaps the Dark Brotherhood.

How about casting Frenzy on a fish, then letting it chase you to where another one is, then turn invisible? The fish ought to fight each other then. Of course once you get to the last fish you will still be stuck. Unless you can lure it into an area like Fanacasecul where there are mudcrabs that might do it in.

I've never tried casting http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Frenzy on a critter because I believe it only works with NPCs. I bet a command creature spell would be helpful. I think a commanded fish would follow you to another one, then attack.

Well.... Jeff's level 1 and has just barely left the IC, so he doesn't have command yet. I know that he could just go on to Chorrol and get it from Alberic, but he doesn't know that. All he knows is this kind old dude asked him for a favor, but the favor involves killing a bunch of fish, and he just can't bring himself to kill a bunch of fish.

The first thing I tried with him was to lure the first fish to shore, then conjure a skeleton to kill it. But that didn't work out-- while he was standing there watching the skeleton trying to kill the fish (not terribly successfully, I might add), it seemed as if that was even more cruel than just killing it himself would've been. By the time he was watching the third skeleton bash this poor dumb fish over and over, he just couldn't do it any more. I could feel him wanting to go pet the fish and apologize to it, and that was precisely the point at which I walked away from the character.

I don't know..... I like the character and I want to keep going with him, but I haven't figured out how to deal with him yet. He just can't kill the fish, or even be responsible for something else killing the fish, so I think all he's going to be able to do is go back up and apologize to Aelwin for failing to help him, and go on. I'll just have to see what happens from there.

In the meantime though, I got hooked into a very Middle Eastern-looking Redguard swordsman named Jibran. He's got a tremendous min/max build-- just playing him naturally, I'm 30 hours in and he's just barely gone to level 4.

I tried to play one and he just wound up being a general mage. The low level Illusion spells seem pretty weak. I mean . . . "Starlight." How the heck are you supposed to kill Monsters with that!? :shocking:

Same way you kill something with Night Eye -- you don't cuz they're utility spells

Okay Mr. Smarty-pants, what DOES a 1st Level "Illusionist" use to kill monsters?

And don't tell me Absorb Health, Flare, or Summon Nasty Critter, cause those are all non-Illusion spells. Daggering it to death would also constitute a "non-Illusionist" tactic

Sneaking past the monster to get the treasure _might_ be a legitimate answer to this question: how does a low-level Illusionist make a living. But still, sneaking is not exactly an "Illusionist spell," so once again it seems the solution is that the PC is not going to "BE" an Illusionist but be a general magic-user/sneaky guy who initially dabbles in and eventually makes extensive use of Illusion.

In D&D, an "Illusionist" was a somewhat tenable character class, provided he played with a group, or stuck to NPC-oriented type adventures at low level (charming barmaids into giving away their garters and that sort of thing). Because of how TES is setup, I think Ilusionism cannot really function as a focus for a character, but rather as an specialization added on to a general Mage orientation. Well, at least not an entertaining specialization.

It depends on the situation. I would use Frenzy, Calm or Command, depending. However, I would agree that playing a mage that used no other schools of magic or another way to rid themselves of an enemy would find it a bit tough going. BUT, I would think there would be ways to use other schools to enhance the illusion school. Such as using alteration to weigh an enemy down so they couldn't move and allows you time to get to your goal then run. Or destruction magic that makes enemies "fall asleep" (Drain Fatigue) ? I would think those would fit into the illusion character spellbook easy enough?

Yeah I know, I was just being a smarty pants. That was :slap: of me :ph34r:

I also know I couldn't pull off an Illusionist, at least not one who intended to fight. Frenzy is the only real "combat" spell, but no matter how many times you cast it, you're still left with the last guy standing -- and yeah, Starlight doesn't do much. About all I can think of is to lead the enemy into a trap of some sort....

If only Illusion included a way to make a mirror image of yourself that you could use to lead a bandit over a tall drop or something....

I really like this idea but i'm confused? is the "illusionist" idea to only be defensive so as to never attack with a weapon? illusion and conjuration spells to avoid combat or to have combatants fight each other? what about a conjur long bow with a strong poisin attached? would that not contstitute as an illusionist? at lower levels it could be a bound dagger spell or even a short 5 second bound bow. i think this way you could role play the illusion of the bow being cast and then gone?

He could just do something like illusion + destruction or illusion + dagger, but center the latters around illusionist strategies.

I agree.

My char is based around illusion + bow, and that works wonderfully.

I should think a char based on illusion + conjuration would be a terrifically fun (and doable) challenge - the common theme would be no weapons or direct killing. Most killing would be done by 'encouraging' enemies to thin their own ranks, but I wouldn't rule out any schools of magic - fortifying summons, weakening a foe to fire before summoning a fire atronach, etc.

That's the way I'm playing my dissipated Imperial assassin Clive-- he's haughty and fancies himself highly cultured, so he won't engage in anything that seems like physical labor. He relies just about exclusively on Illusion and Conjuration.

The two actually complement each other extremely well. Between getting things to kill each other and getting other things to kill them for him, he pretty much just casts a couple of spells, then stands around and, as you said recently about Buffy using poisons, just buffs his nails and waits.

Here's a role-playing build that turned out to be a quite powerful illusionist more or less by accident. As noted above wearing armor isn't a good idea for an Illusionist. I gave him alchemy as a hobby which got him good INT raises. I didn't worry about much else. For a more *cough* serious build I'd leave Athletics as a minor. You'll get better Speed raises. The whole idea here is not to get hit so health really isn't that important.

Class: Great Wizzard aka Coward

Name: Rincewind ("Luck is my middle name. My first name is Bad")

Race: Male Breton*

Birthsign: Thief

Specialization: Stealth (Edit: There's a lot to be said for choosing Magic or even Combat instead so Player's Choice)

Favored Attributes: Speed, Luck

Major Skills: Athletics, Alteration, Conjuration, Illusion, Acrobatics, Sneak, Speechcraft

Rincewind is a character from Terry Pratchett's Discworld Universe novels. He's the universe's worst wizard whose only real talents are a gift for languages (Speechcraft and Illusion) and a good turn of speed and agility when pressed (Acrobatics, Athletics). He owns The Luggage, a many legged ambulatory trunk with a bite like a giant crocodile that defends its owner fiercely and has a bottomless storage capacity (Conjuration and Alteration was as close as I could get to this). Hiding/sneaking is his second choice for self-defense, talking his way out of trouble is the third choice. He saves the world on numerous occasions but never because he willingly sets out to do that. His most prized possession is his hat, a battered red cone-shaped affair with "Wizzard" stitched on it. (Why a man with a natural gift for languages spells wizard with two z's is known only to Terry Pratchett). He prefers to wear a red robe and sandals. His highest ambition is to hang out in Discworld's version of the Arcane University (Unseen University), where he serves as Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography and/or the Librarian's assistant, and lead a boring life.

* I used the console to give him female Breton stats which makes starting STR 30 and SPD 40.

Mara

I have for the few last characters just played almost exclusively with illusion, the basic bought spell paralyze for 3 seconds on a non focused mage character ( i.e no breton / altmer / other magic race ).
Is a life saver against high level foes as you can knock them down, beat them up while your magicka regenerates and then cast again. In caves it makes a terrific bottle neck.
Commands are by far and away perfect spells even with their high cast cost. Pacify is a cheaper version but has its benefits.
Invisibilityis a life saver, and chameleon is a very practical spell for a few quests / areas.
Light saves holding onto torches, but to stay hiden even while not sneaking night eye is great. Switch between the two and you are not going to miss much when exploring dark areas.
It takes some work but I say illusion spells are more reliable than destruction, as long as you have something to back them up with, ie summons, alteration spells, melee / marksman attacks.

My most usefull build was a race / birthsign from a mod .
Ohmes raht ( khajiit sub species ), variation on the mage sign.
Illusion, Conjuration, blade, light armour, alteration, destruction, acrobatics.
Of all the skills destruction was least used, with light armour coming next but as it was a role playing build so I still would keep them if I had to play over again.