Thanks Acadian I was not sure how to put the answer apart from after a certain level the risk to reward tail spins.

One note another reason to stop under 25 is that you plan on using conjuration, illusion and armour.
For years before joining this forum I presumed that after your pc levels past 25, leveled spells, frenzy, command, turn... etc, don't work.
Now learning that they do work past level 25 as long as you don't wear any armour, is a major reason for a roleplayer to fudge his level and major selection so she / he can look how they wish without penelty.

NEVER take Sneak OR Alchemy as Major skills UNLESS you like to level like a rocket.

Mecracntile may not be a good choice - unless you never intend to sell anything - ouch.

I find speechcraft and h2h natural choices. The rest depend how you play:

Blade/blunt - if you don't want to use them and don't care about increasing strength. They are fine choices for my char because she will never add a point to strength or touch a melee weapon.

If you only wear one type of armor, you might consider taking the other type as a 'never use' skill.

Alteration is a possibility for some characters. Water walk, water breathe, feather, elemental shields all lend themselves to enchanting on items - but, they all require a skill of at least 25 in alteration. You can take alteration as a major and it will be at least 25. Then just enchant the items you need. You never need to cast an alteration spell. Now, if you want to cast shield spells instead of sipping homemade shield potions or if you want to unlock things by magic, this will not work. My character will not touch a lock pick and opens everything by spell, so this is a non starter for her.

Security. Since my character never touches a lockpick (opening things by spell) this could be a choice for some. It can be an awkward road for two reasons: Unlock is an on target spell effect only (no unlocking underwater) and you miss out on some locks at low levels as your alteration skill is building up. Nevertheless, my mystic archer has security as a 'never use' major.

Many of these possibilities will not appeal to many characters. I'm just throwing out some ideas to think of if you are looking for 'never use' skills.

Thanks for the tips :foodndrink:

I might add alteration to my majors, because the only use it will have to me is enchanting equipment with feather/shield/element shield etc. (dont need water breathe because im argonian :dance:)

Speechcraft is a possibility because I wont be using it at all really :glare:

I might drop conjuration and add mysticism because I wont use mysticism as much, and conjuration is way easier to lvl (plus it will help me gain intelligence :dance:)

Defininatly keeping marksman and destruction as majors, as I need them and they are a pain to lvl up :ninja:

And what is all this about paralyze and frenzy and such not working after lvl 25?

Two seperate questions. Paralize works fine. Period.

It is the mind control spells that can be a bit quirky at higher levels. Basically for them to work on enemies of higher level, you need them to be cast at 100% effectiveness (no armor). Enchanting them at max magnitude on a weapon will work fine also (regardless of your armor of course).
UESP wiki explains it here:

"Several magical effects are described in the game based upon the level of the creature that will be affected: Calm, Command Creature, Command Humanoid, Demoralize, Frenzy, Turn Undead.
Spell effectiveness is applied to the spell's original magnitude; the actual levels affected by the spell are then calculated from the resulting, reduced magnitude. Therefore, the levels shown for any spell are likely to be incorrect if your character is wearing armor. For example, Touch of Rage claims it works "up to level 18." However, if your character's Spell Effectiveness is 85%, the spell's actual magnitude will be 63.75 (75*0.85), resulting in a spell that only works up to level 15.
The maximum possible level of these spells, even at the Spell Making altar, is 25. However, the maximum strength spell, despite claiming to only work "up to level 25," will in fact work on any level enemy — as long as your character has 100% spell effectiveness. For example, casting a level 25 Command Humanoid on an NPC of level 34 will succeed. This quirk prevents these spells from becoming effectively useless for high-level characters, who will only meet creatures and NPCs with levels higher than 25. If you are wearing any armor, even with armor skills at 100, the maximum magnitude of a spell becomes 95 and therefore will only work on enemies up to level 23."

Here is the reference link: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Magical_Effects#Magnitude_to_Level_Conversion

Options: Don't wear armor (easy at higher levels when you can create great enchantments, spells and potions); Enchant these effects onto weapons (except you cannot enchant with calm); Don't use mind control spells (fine for the Nord with a sword crowd, lol); Use a mod that eliminates armor penalties to spellcasting (that's what I do so Buffy can wear her modded buckskin boots 'cuz she likes how they look).

So does "wear no armor" mean wear nothing at all, or just nothing that has an armor rating attached to it? (like normal clothes that give no protection, but with enchantments added on)

Wear no armor means wear no light or heavy armor. A good discriminator here is that if it can be worn and repaired, it is armor.

Clothes are fine. Clothes enchanted with enough shielding to make a dragon wince are fine.

85 is the max armor rating you can have. At level 17 or higher, you can achieve this with 4 pieces of enchanted clothing/jewelry. A good mage can achieve 85 with a spell or a couple homemade potions that last long enough to win any fight.

If you open your magic tab, it will show you your current spell effectiveness as a %.

Cool, thanks for clarifying that :wavey:

Oh yeah, what kind of enchantments would be usefull for this character? I was thinking some +magicka, +shield (elemental or regular?), and maybe some +feather to increase looting capabilities. I know a couple of good rings that I can acquire easily (such as ring of gray and circlet of omnipotence). I dont know of any good amulets though (exept maybe crueltys heart :shrug:)

Buffy uses 4 enchanted items:
A custom bow that briefly immobilizes, shocks and captures the souls of her foes.
Azura's Star.
A pair of sigil enchanted rings that combine to give her 360 feet of detect life - she hates surprises. The range is twice what she needs for dungeons, but handy when traveling with her precious mare, Superian.

Admittedly she runs around with an armor rating of about. . . 6 or so, but that too is part of her intentional 'glass cannon' package.
She doesn't bother enchanting any of her attire because she changes outfits too often to be bothered.

Others might wisely recommend items enchanted with more magicka. You can do anything if your blue bar is big enough. Lol.

Is shock the best element dmg to get? I hear its good because alot of deadra monsters are weak to it, and there isnt really anything that resists it.

About the sigil stones, can you have a sigil stone enchant on an item, and then add another enchant to go along with it?(Like +50 magicka and Life detect/shield on the same clothing?)

Which elemental resistance would be the best to go for? I hear that I should get 25% sigil stones for each of the elemental shields. There are also some really good detect life sigil stones (lvl 17+ ones give 180 detect life) and I really think that would help me.

1. Shock is the least resisted element in the game, so it is popular for enchanting.

2. No. Once you put the sigil's one effect on an item, you are done. Cannot add to it.

3. I adore the 180' sigil stones. Those who like elemental resistance and armor rating will quickly endorse one each of the 25% elemental shield sigils. Again, another very popular sigil is the +50 magicka one.

Only one enchantment per item without mods I'm afraid.

Elemental resist: against magical traps and early on the best is fire, later on more enemies use frost and even more use shock so a combination is best imo.
That or just get 100% pure magical defence: one of these reflect, absorb or resist magic on 5 or so pieces of clothing.

Detect life is also really good, but if you plan on using the reload till you get trick for sigil stones, just get the one you think you need the most.

Edit: true like an arrow Acadian.

So you just save in front of the stone before grabbing it, and if you dont like what you get just keep reloading?

So for that reason should I hold off on doing oblivion gates until I am a higher level? (even the kvatch oblivion gate?)

Also, is it better to hold off any guilds until higher lvl? ( I know mage guild should be in beginning, but what about DB or theives guild, because I hear they have leveled rewards. What about arena?)

1. You can do that yes, I have and may in the future, but the last characters either did not suit the wastes or really could not give a toss about sealing the gates during the MQ.. so I've not done so for awhile.

2. Its a trade off, do you want better stones if so leave it untill level 20 or so, if not doing the MQ at a early level is best imo, that or just ignore the MQ completely.

Madocmayhem is right. If you want the top level sigil stones, save some gates until you are level 17.

As far as leveled loot, I approach things differently than many players. What items to you really want for your character at their top levels? My no melee archer could care less about leveled swords and heavy armor and such. In fact after careful study, we have concluded there is no leveled quest reward in the game my character really needs - so we ignore them all and love the freedom. I would determine which if any items you want at their top level and plan accordingly. Don't seek top leveled items just because you can unless you have a thing about collecting them and are willing to let that drive your game. :foodndrink:

Yeah, there are only a few leveled items that I really want to get. They all are good, but if I waited to get all of them, I would be questless in the beginning of the game :facepalm:

Also, in terms of skills, which skill would be best put into my "barely/if ever use major" catigory: Alteration or Restoration? They are both govern by willpower, so I can't have them both (because I have destruction). I was just wondering which would be more useful as a higher level then the other? Alteration seems good because of the Element shield/shield/other enchants, but restoration gives me more heal power (I was thinking that potions would eliminate the use, plus I dont think I will be in dangerous situations THAT often :whistling:)

Both skills are essential to my character. She insists on healing others so restoration spells are a must. She also refuses to touch a lockpick so alteration unlocking is a must. Oh, and she loves to cast http://i668.photobucket.com/albums/vv43/Acadian6/Buffy%20I/ScreenShot258.jpg(alteration). Lol.

I would submit that if you use lockpicks, alteration can lend itself to enchanting the effects and using potions to augment shield etc. By taking alteration as a 'never use' major, it starts at 25 - the prerequisite to enchant feather, elemental shields, water breathe, water walk. . . . You can enchant alteration effects and never cast an alteration spell if you wanted.

I would never forego use of restoration spells. Healing yourself is only one of the many wonderful things it can do. My character has found that once she can cast cure disease, restore attributes etc, the numbers and types of potions she has to carry drops way down. Not to mention how neat absorb health is if you are cornered or fighting underwater. Or buffing up your summons. Or healing your horse. Or. . . well, you get the idea.

Acadians right as always here, restoration you will use no matter which class you take I can't be 100% sure but I would say most players even die hard role ones still use it.
Alterations most usefull effects are shields and open locks, both of which in vanilla O have perfect means to perform without direct use of this skill.

As spell skills require more so than any other skill to be at the highest level *100*, I say if you plan on heavy use keep them as minor skills.
Imo only illusion will give you much of a benefit as a major due to a lower rate of increase and 2* of its effects only coming into play at the 50 skill mark.

* Yes I know command spells are available before hand and are by far the most powerful effects, but invisibility and chameleon still are very usefull powerful effects themselves.

I thought destruction would be a good major because of how slow it levels up :shrug:

They are all good choices, but I cant have all 3, so I need to figure out 2 to be majors and 1 to be a minor.

Destruction: I have never found any decent way to level up destruction, especially if it started as a minor (any tips on leveling?)
Alteration: Yes, the automatic 25 alteration from making this a major is very nice, and im not going to touch it, only use it for enchantments.(pretty sure this is going to be one of the majors)
Restoration: Yes, this skill levels SLOW, I have always had trouble raising up this skill, no matter if I made it a major or a minor (any tips on leveling this?)

So its between Destruction and Restoration

Leveling up magic skills faster:

Use weaker spells so you use more of them. Use 5 weak healing or weak fire spells to do the job instead of two.

Make training spells, and practice them before bed. I would think any mage would do this to get better. http://i668.photobucket.com/albums/vv43/Acadian6/ScreenShot557.jpg. For example:
Destruction: Drain/damage fatigue on self for minimum magnitude for minimum duration.
Restoration: Almost any restoration effect on self for minimum magnitude and duration. If you cast a healing spell on yourself while in perfect health, you will still gain full experience for it.

Exploit this quote from UESP wiki:

For example, let's say you want to cast a detect life spell a lot while in a dungeon, but would like to level up restoration more than mysticism. Craft a combo spell with a medium detect life effect and a strong restoration effect. Voila, it will be a restortation spell. The possibiliies here can be great.

Wow that is really cool, I had no Idea mixed spells worked like that. That will help me for sure :foodndrink:


So it really doesnt matter whether I take destruction or restoration as a major? (I didnt know destruction/restoration had *cast 1dmg on self 1 sec* type of spells, that will indeed help me leveling them both up.)

For destruction I use the basic fire attack it gives you at the start... and hunt wildlife with it!

Got pretty good at picking attacking rats out of the air. Instant cooked dinner.

You are close. You have to make those weak training spells at the spellmaking altars. The lowest damage you can put on a spell is 3. So something like damage fatigue on self 3 x 1 second is a fine training spell for destruction and probably will cost 1 magicaka to cast.

As far as choosing between restoration and destruction as 'use and level' type majors, you are right. For the mystic archer you seem to be planning, it shouldn't make much difference.

Buffy fancies herself an illusionist and healer when it comes to magic. For RP purposes, we generally shy away from elemental damage spells - after all, she has her bow for raw damage. She uses plenty of destruction for drain speed and weakness to poison though.

I also have a question about soul trap. I know you can make soul trap 1 second or 120 seconds, but does it make a difference? If I have a 1 second soul trap does that mean the monster has to die within that time? Or when you use soul trap the effect stays until the monster is dead?