So after a few years away from it I couldn't help myself and started playing Oblivion again when I heard that Skyrim was in development, and this time around I was very determined to get FCOM to work which I somehow did just about flawlessly on my first attempt. While I love it, I am going to be playing a pure mage and was wondering if any magic mods such as LAME or Supreme Magicka would be needed to make it a more enjoyable experience in the long run, or will just using the FCOM base be enjoyable for the pure mage on its own? Any thoughts or opinions on what people use for magic mods (if any at all) with this amazing overhaul convergence is greatly appreciated!

Personally, I like OOO's magic quite a lot so I wouldn't say a magic mod is needed really. If you'd like to add a magic overhaul I'd recommend Supreme Magicka as it's very configurable and can be set to mimic OOO, so you'll get OOO's "balance" while keeping SM's additions/features. LAME is quite different from how OOO is set up - for instance you can cast long duration buffs quite cheaply. Some think it's "less annoying" - personally I think it takes away much of the strategy in using magic as a Shield spell will last almost throughout an entire section of a dungeon. But it's an excellent mod in its own right so perhaps best to try them out and see what you prefer. You can also run both together - the one loading last will determine the general magic settings but you'll get the additional spells etc. from both.

Midas Magic is also an excellent mod, adding loads of new scripted spells, quests etc. It doesn't touch the magic system so you can run it with any magic overhaul.

I insist on having both SM and LAME, because they both do things I rely on, and would hate to be without. I'm also using Midas this time around, for fun.

Luckily, they're both quite configurable (but yes, SM far more so). And, as Arkngt said, the load order matters too.

There are other ways (i.e., via mods) of balancing magic, reducing its effectiveness/reliability, or whatever else you might like to achieve. For instance, mods like Fizzle can make it harder to just casually use magic whenever and however. Oblivion XP, regardless of any issue some people might have with any other aspect, effectively nullifies the whole "cast until you level up" procedure that some people find all too tempting... Incidentally, I'm using that at the moment, too, and it's great!

Thank you for the responses! For now I think I'll just stick with the FCOM default magic settings and see how things develope and will make changes if necessary. If the balance seems to be good I might just pick up Midas Magic as new spells seems pretty appealing as long as it isn't too overpowered. My ONLY worry is the poor scaling of conjuration and illusion in general : summons only hit a certain level and while illusion has some REALLY nifty spells they just are...bleh on things over level 25. I looked in the OOO readme and couldn't find any information on this, is it something that was changed or is Supreme Magicka needed for it?