Allright, title says it all. How would/should I set up a toon so they could join and achieve master rank of all the various factions of Morrowind (aside from two of the three great houses.)

That means, What gender, race, birthsign, and masters/minors, as well as advice for running them. No doubt there's going to be multiple methods to this madness...

Two questions: Are you using vanilla leveling? Do you mind using trainers freely or do you want to try leveling from use only?

Trainers are fine, and I am using the vanilla leveling method (I think. Unless it's one of the fixes from the MCP). I would like to avoid training as many skills as possible, though I probably will have to for the ones I can't stuff into the majors/minors.

OK, the main thing is to have an offensive skill for survivability and after that, the most widely accepted favored skills for advancement. The good thing about your weapon (or main magic) skill is that it will be the easiest to get to 90 by usage for top level requirements. So, one more question: what great house? Unfortunately, there is very little overlap in their favored skill requirements so your primary weapon will depend on your selection. Short blade or Marksman for Hlaalu, long blade or spear for Redoran, and Destruction or Mysticism for Telvanni.

Mysticism is is a must regardless since it's a favored skill of Telvanni, Mages guild, Imperial cult and The Tribunal Temple. The most bang for your buck as well as being a good utility skill even if you don't use it offensively (with absorb health).

Altmer. Extra magicka for your spells.

The Atronach or The Apprentice sign. This depends on your preferance. I prefer The Atronach because I mostly get my magicka from potions anyway and with the Necromancers Amulet I have 75% spell absorption +50 more magicka than I usually would have.

Skills: Some endurance skills such as spear and medium armor. Then sneak, security, weapon skills (or magic skills).

Attributes: Favorite stats are Strength and Endurance. Why? Because Strength affects your starting HP and Endurance affects your HP per level. Also be sure you get Endurance to 100 AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. This is the reason you took speak and medium armor as your skills.

If you truly wish to be Jack-of-all trades then luck is a stat you want to max. It will take a while (50 levels) but you`ll get there eventually. Try to level so that you get 5x stat points from a miscallenous skill, 5x from a main/minor skill and put 1 point into luck on every levelup.

I've played a number of games, without trainers, in which I've made top rank in all the guilds/factions. Whether or not you use trainers depends a lot on gameplay, your playstyle, and what you enjoy doing. I'm going to set up a character that plays as a warrior, without trainers, and it takes a LOT of fighting. If you're into magic you probably won't enjoy it.
Actually (as long as you don't join House Redoran) it only takes 3 high level skills to make top rank in everything: Blunt Weapon, Short Blade or Marksman, and a Magic Skill (I use Destruction). House Redoran would require 1 more at high level.

Race: Nord (I like the male attribute distribution)
Specialization: Magic
Birthsign: The Lady (can't pass up 50 attribute points when not using trainers)
Favorite Attributes: Agility and Intelligence
(If you want a little more magicka a Breton, with Combat, Agility and Strength would also work)

Majors: Destruction, Mysticism, Restoration, Security, Long Blade

Minors: Blunt Weapon, Short Blade/Marksman, Light Armor, Heavy Armor, Alteration


Aside from Redoran, all the skills needed to make rank in all the factions/guilds are listed above, except that 1 more skill is required for the Morag Tong, probably Acrobatics. IMO this set up also makes the game very playable (for a warrior with low magicka) without using trainers. (A "small" levitation spell is cheap, very useful, and levels up Alteration).

Majors-Heavy Armor/Block/Short Blade/Athletics/Marksman
Minors-Alchemy/Speechcraft/Enchant/Armorer/Mysticism

You will need to improve these to at least 90 and then train Sneak and Unarmored to 35. This will allow you to quest your way to the top of all of the playable factions as well as Hlaalu/Redoran. If you train one other required magic discipline to 35 that should do it for the Telvanni, too. Of course, you can only be in one Great House.

I prefer Redguards with The Lady and combat specialization

Allright, opened up the CS editor and took an inventory of the major/joinable factions (Ignoring EEC since you're promoted to master regardless of rank by the end of it, as well as the Blades/Nerevarine cult since you can't ask for promotions in either one, and ignoring Great Houses right now since it would only complicate matters further.)

Here's what I found... the optimal choice would be with these skills; Marksman, Short Blade, Light Armor, Acrobatics, Sneak, Long Blade, Blunt Weapon, Heavy Armor, Block, Unarmored, Alchemy, Restoration, Illusion, Conujuration, Mysticism, Enchant. All of these are shared by at least two factions in their class (and that means the only one you need to look out for is the three-way between the Imperial Cult, Temple, and Mages Guild.)

Now, for great houses. We're considering them now, and seeing which house will naturall fit into the above list. Hlaalu, is compatable with Marksman, Short Blade, and Light Armor. Doable, but there's not much room for other choices. Redoran is Compatable with Heavy armor and Long Blade. It's probably not worth it- you'll have to pick up one of the 10 skills specifically for Redoran. Now, what about Telvanni? They are compatable with Mysticism, Conjuration, Illusion, and Enchant. And Alteration and Destruction, which it shares only with the Mages Guild (which was omitted from the previous list.)

Looks like it would be best to go with Telvanni- there's more than enough to fill out three magic slots.

Mysticism and, oddly enough, Blunt Weapon are the first choices. Blunt Weapons are actually favored by the FG, Imp. Legion, Imp. Cult, and Temple. That's four factions, for those counting. Just like Mysticism. We'll need 1 more at 90, and hey, let's go with Light Armor. That's 3/10 skills down, and the three big ones. Getting all three at 90 will satisfy the biggest requirement for everyone but Redoran, so the rest we'll need at 35 to achive max rank.

Yeah, they really have high standards in Morrowind, don't they?

The remaning two majors would probably be Block and Alchemy. Or Sneak and Alchemy. Alchemy is chosen because it's shared between the Temple and the Mages Guild, and it's really really useful. Block or Sneak based on your personal preference. For minors, we'll take Acrobatics, Long Blade, and Sneak or Block (whichever wasn't taken as a major.) Now, we need to be careful- the remaining two slots will need to be magic-based, since none of the four magic-specializing guilds have the exact same tastes outside of Mysticism. So far, we have 1 for Each, Plus 1 for the Mages Guild and Temple. And with Blunt Weapon, we don't have to consider the Temple anymore, and the Imperial Cult is at 2. So, we need to concentrate on Telvanni, Imperial Cult, and Mages Guild. Enchant is good, it's shared by all three. And it knocks the Mages Guild and the Cult out of the race. So, the last one is free to fill with anything that you want, so long as Telvanni uses it. Let's go with Alteration, since it has utilitiy prospects (like levitation for those damn towers!)

And as a side note, so long as Mysticism, Blunt Weapon, and Light Armor are majors, the rest can be switched around as you like. This setup just my own personal tastes.

So far, we have...
Majors: Mysticism, Blunt Weapon, Light Armor, Block/Sneak, Alchemy
Minors: Acrobatics, Sneak/Block, Long Blade, Enchant, Alteration

Now, for race. What we want here is to hit as much of these as we can with the racial bonuses.

Who is it? Erm... at a grand total of 4/10 skills covered is the Wood Elf. 2nd choice is a tie between at least 5 others (3/10). The orc gets last place, covering 1 of the skills in the above setup. Honsetly, at this point, it's down to personal preferences- so long as your attributes are above 35, you won't have any problem getting max rank of any faction in Morrowind. Unfortuantly, no race starts off with no attributes below 35, at least in vanilla Morrowind. However, you can use birthsigns to cover any attribute weaknesses.

But... keep the ideas coming, guys! I'd like to hear what you use!

One thing to consider is your starting survivability. With Blunt as a major, Nords are strong. Or, swap blunt and long blade and pick Redguard with a 15 point bonus. A combat redguard will start with 50 longblade which is enough to get out in the world and take on almost anything you'll find right away instead of having to pick your fights.

Looks like you certainly have all the skills covered. I would, however, question 2 things.

1) Disarming traps and opening locks. This can be covered by Mysticism and Alteration which probably means a high magicka character. This could limit your choices of race and/or birthsign.

2) There's no skill to increase Endurance.

For 2, that's a defanite downside.

One could replace Light Armor with Stealth, drop either Long Blade or Blunt Weapon for heavy armor, and fill in the missing "slot" with short blade (primarily because the endgame uses Sunder and Keening. You could use marksman, seeing as this build has a bit of a problem with ranged attacks.) And magicka may not be too much of a problem- alchemy is there and with it can create a fortify and/or restore magicka potions.

Of course, one could get around the lack of bonuses to Endurance with potions (fortify Health/Fatigue), so, six and one-half dozen of the other.

The point of this build is to easily attain master rank with all the joinable factions, which it certainly covers. There are playability concerns of course, but hey, that's where Fallout 3 fell flat on it's face; too easy to kill everything, especially with all the DLCs installed.

If you're trying to min-max, the Endurance skills are better left as miscellaneous skills. That way you can get x5 multiplier for Endurance every level cheap ( if you use trainers ) and quickly without much hassle.

As far as playability goes I think 2) is easier to solve than 1).
Just carry a spear/halberd. Whenever you want a multiplier in Endurance use it against mud crabs and other small vermin.They're easy to dodge and kill and Spear, as a misc. skill, will level up quickly.

Just as an aside: I'm not sure about Telvanni, but for all the other factions/guilds, except for the Imperial Cult, I've always been able to make top rank with a high skill of only 80. The Cult does need 90.