I mean, that's obviously a *good* thing.

But how do you pure mages do it?

Assuming you're actually using your major/minor skills, that's a lot of different skills to work up. And the magic schools are not as simple to work on as a weapon or armor skill.

The last magic-user I played extensively was a Battlemage (pre-made class), and even there I found myself simply ignoring several of my skills. I just couldn't fit it all into the hotkeys. My Battlemage wore heavy armor and used axes and Destruction spells. He carried blades and a bow for backup, and only dabbled in Alteration. I don't think he ever cast a single Conjuration or Mysticism spell. As for Alchemy and Enchanting, those were also barely used.

And that's a hybrid class!

So I'm wondering how you all play mage types without feeling overwhelmed with all the options.

A corollary problem is - perhaps - a lack of focus. A 'summoner', for example - yes, he'll have Conjuration as a major, but then will be obliged to choose 9 other skills. Sometimes it seems as though it's difficult to create a character with a truly focused interest. I know you don't have to *use* all 10 skills, so maybe this is a non-issue. Still, how do you deal with the 10-skill requirement when you want to make a focused kind of class?

Actually, the magic skills are quite useful to improve. Alchemy is the easiest. Your character can either buy a ton of wickwheat and marshmerrow from one merchant and max the skill pretty quick, or you could buy just the daily food items that are everywhere and go slower. Either way, once you max the skill you can make lightweight Restore Magicka potions to help improve the other magic schools by casting spells. I have a routine with three spells to fill a common soul gem. First Summon an Ancestor Ghost for 12 seconds (Conjuration), then Trap the Soul on target for 10 seconds (Mysticism) and finally 30 points of Fire Damage on target for 1 second (Destruction). Thus, I get a filled soul gem worth 3K that I can then use for Enchanting or sale. You should be a millionaire with lots of powerful enchanted items by the time you max these five skills and I take them as majors to ensure that the spells initially work. Once your character is not so squishy, you can swim around the island with short spells to Water Breathe (Alteration) while Invisible (Illusion) and Detect Magick (Mysticism) to hunt for treasure. Restoration can keep you out of trouble. If one lap doesn't max these skills, then go for two! That's how I do it.

To avoid neglecting some of the magic schools, I use effect combinations, especially for combat-focused spells. For example, an attack spell that also paralyze is quite useful, but make the paralysis strong enough and it's considered an illusion spell. As for alchemy, I use BTB's plugin so there's a lot more interesting recipes to test out and for enchanting, I made my very own overhaul that makes self-enchanting a reasonable option and the Code Patch made soul gem recharges more viable.

Sometimes, it can be hard to pick so many skills at chargen when you only need a few for your specialist character. Nowadays, I tend to complete my selection by using the last skills for completely story-related reasons. A good example would be my Nord warrior. She had Restoration magic in her skills, despite being pretty bad at it and having a pathetic magicka reserve. But it fortified her background story and made her that much more interesting to play. (Not to mention, restoration is always useful, even in small doses.)

Most of my magic-users concentrate on around 2-3 schools, such as one primary and two secondary. A few schools have enough variety that they cover all the major requirements between two of them.

Example: one attack form, one healing form, and one for general utility (levitation, waterbreathing, etc.). The attack can be Destruction, Absorb Health from Mysticism, or even a Summoned attacker. The healing form could be Restoration, Alchemy, an enchanted item, or Absorb Health from Mysticism. The utility school is often Alteration or Illusion, but might include Alchemy or Enchanting instead. As long as you cover the essentials, the exact combination isn't that critical. The other schools may come into play on occasion, but my characters will rarely pursue them.

Two insanely powerful alternatives are to concentrate on Alchemy or Enchantment, EACH of which essentially covers 95% of everything the other schools do, and all of your experience goes toward that one skill.

So how do you tend to fill out the rest of your skills? If you have, say, 3 magic skills that your character concentrates on, would you then fill in the rest of his majors/minors with other magic skills, even if they won't see any use? Or do you tend to go for the hybrid playstyle, throwing in some combat/stealth skills that you do intend to use in the game?

Depends entirely on the character. I may go with a hybrid mage/fighter or mage/thief, or I may concentrate on general utility skills which mostly fall into the "Stealth" category for lack of a place of their own: Speechcraft, Mercantile, etc., especially if the character is supposed to be "charismatic". Many times I've utilized Sneak with a character who would be considered "lawful" and doesn't steal, because stealth allows one to observe and learn without getting killed, or avoid combat. Depending on the character concept, they may be mechanically inclined and be passably competent craftsmen and Armorers. Most of the time, I'll still have one weapon skill, even if it's a minor, and one or two armor skills (instead of, or in addition to Unarmored), even if my character only wears one or two pieces of armor (such as a suitable robe, soft hat, and a thick pair of boots). It doesn't hurt to have more magical schools as minors, even if you rarely use them and focus on the ones that define your character concept.

I prefer to figure out WHO the character is first, THEN pick the skills to match the concept. Having too many Major and Minor skill slots has never been an issue.

Personally, if I had a character that felt compelled to only use 3 magic skills, that's how I'd play it. When I've played "pure" mages in the past there often focused on a few schools and neglected several others. For instance, my last mage was mostly a destruction/enchanting mage, with only a moderate skill in the other schools.


I play characters, not "builds" or "classes" and I don't feel compelled to use all major/minor skills not do I feel compelled to refrain from using misc skills. I base the decision on what skills to use and what skills not to use on the character's choices which are in no way bound by "class".


I use the "class" system to design a character with a background and certain strengths and weaknesses but once I start playing, I feel in no way compelled to stick with the class, but rather I stick with the character.


If you only use half of your major/minor skills you can still level your character up into the 30s, which is plenty in Morrowind. So there is no real downside to not using all your major/minor skills. Plus, the uncapper option in MCP lets you continue leveling on just a few skills.

I like to play Mage/fighter or Mage/sneaker hybrids. Very rarely do I ever play a pure Mage.

I agree with Turija, once I've figured out the character concept and decided what skills they favor and what they're not inclined to use, it's not a matter of using skills because they're major or minor, the character just does what the character would do, and their personality should dictate which skills get used, which are usually (but not always) the ones that have been selected as majors or minors.

It's perfectly valid to play a character who is terrible at something, and insists on doing it in spite of a lack of natural ability. In Morrowind, that Miscellaneous skill WILL increase over time, but at a slower rate than Major skills. While you CAN overcome a starting handicap, it takes a lot more effort, which may be an integral part of the character concept.

Usually, characters have Major and Minor skills to reflect that they're either naturally good at those things, or have previous experience at them. In most cases, they're the "go to" skills because the character is well aware of them.

I guess as a pure mage, I never had an issue of not using spells from each school!

I always use at least restore health for Restoration, light or night eyes from Illusion, levitation, unlock, or water breathing from Alteration, soul trap or recall from Mysticism, summon spells for Conjuration, and at least some damage spells from Destruction. Enchant builds up when recharging with soul gems, and alchemy with ingredients found and used. Avoiding constant effect items also help at least for self training, otherwise you'll need to use trainers to advance.

The only mage skill that rarely gains is unarmored as I generally avoid getting hit.

Most of my characters tend to be more stealth oriented, as those skills have a broad range of use outside of spell casting. So, most of my characters tend to have mercantile, speechcraft, acrobatics, & athletics with the other six being more class focused.

In Skyrim, I'll play characters that use all of them and sometimes spellsword or nightblade types who just use restoration or illusion. In Morrowind, I use:

• Alteration for mobility spells.


• Conjuration for summoning spell casters (to use destruction for me), distractions, souls and bows. If my characters can't use weapons, I might use a melee focused daedroth with the spell critical strike effect.


• Destruction for direct damage until conjuration becomes more viable (so about level 3-5 [bearing in mind that I cast spells sparingly and so level very slowly]).


• Illusion for invisibility, charm and very occasionally for starting/ending fights.


• Mysticism for soul trapping, stealing, teleporting, trespassing, healing and direct damage. It's by far the most versatile school.


• Restoration for healing, curing diseases and restoring strength.

I find restoration and destruction the most dispensable.