Medium armor viable for my Orc samurai?

Post » Wed Nov 06, 2013 9:53 am

Tooling around with the idea of something like this...

Major:

Long Blade

Medium Armor???

Speechcraft

Athletics

Spear

Minor:

Armorer

Restoration

Marksman

???

???

I'm contemplating Alteration, Mysticism, or Short Blade to fill out the last couple minor skills.

Orcish armor is classed as Medium, but I wonder if that will be effective, or if I should ditch it in favor of Heavy.

One point to consider is aesthetics - Orcish armor is, IIRC, pretty samurai-looking. If I can live with it, I'd prefer to. But I won't be doing any blocking, so viability is important.

Tips or suggestions on other skills, quests, RP, or anything are most welcome! I'm imagining this guy as a stoic warrior/poet type, y'know, wandering the earth and all that, righting wrongs and eviscerating bad guys. I plan to pursue the Main Quest, eventually. Redoran would be a good fit I suppose, but I'm not sure if he'd want to join a house.

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Chelsea Head
 
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Post » Tue Nov 05, 2013 11:01 pm

Medium armor isn't quite as good as the absolute best Light or Heavy armors, but that's a minor detail. I had no problem completing the MQ with a character using seriously underwhelming equipment (a mix of mostly Imperial Dragonscale and Imperial Steel, with a couple of miscellaneous pieces thrown in; Orc armor is better than any of those). Morrowind is fairly forgiving, and at worst it might take you a couple of extra levels before you can do the same thing with lesser stuff.

The best Light Armor can actually exceed the protectiveness of Medium, BUT.....and it's a major issue.....Light Armor will NOT count toward building Endurance, so your hitpoints will suffer in the long run. Either Medium or Heavy will count toward increasing that Attribute.

Orc armor is one of the best Medium armors in the game (unless you count the expansions), and more than sufficient, if your character develops sufficient skill in it. My advice is to just play the game and do what the character would do.

Marksman can be tough to learn, because you can't hit the broad side of a Netch to gain experience in it. Once you do become proficient, it's overwhelmingly powerful in many situations.

Mysticism can be a powerful school, although Enchanting or Alchemy are potentially more versatile (enchanting being difficult to start with, but overwhelmingly effective in the long run). Alchemy is so easy to abuse and to such extremes that it's funny, until your insanely "uber" potion won't wear off for another 17,283 seconds; then it's annoying. I also like Alteration, which is good for getting into awkward places like Telvanni wizards' towers, mountain tops, or high ledges, etc., but an Orc makes a poor "direct" spellcaster, so I prefer potions and enchanted trinkets for an Orc character.

I think you have almost all the bases covered, except one. Long Blade and Armorer will boost Strength, Medium Armor and Spear will increase Endurance, Marksman will increase Agility, Speechcraft will boost Personality, Athletics benefits Speed, and Restoration will raise Willpower. You're short one skill for Intelligence, unless you're intending to play a stereotypical "dumb Orc", which doesn't seem to fit the rest of the description. That could be handled with Alchemy, Enchanting, or Lockpicking, although the last doesn't seem to fit the character.

Otherwise, a very decent build, and quite playable as is.
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Alexandra walker
 
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Post » Tue Nov 05, 2013 10:01 pm

If you are on PC you might consider trying this:

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=1552

It's supposed to be a really good set of Japanese armor.

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Darren
 
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Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2007 2:33 pm

Post » Wed Nov 06, 2013 1:56 am

Dang, I'm so used to Oblivion, where Intelligence can be handled with Mysticism...

Hmm. I've never done either Alchemy or Enchanting in Morrowind. I guess Alchemy could fit. He's the kind of guy who will cut off some heads and then stop to watch a flower bloom. Yeah, I like it. :D

I know Marksman is really touch-and-go in the early levels; the only character I've made that has managed to complete any major questline in MW was an Imperial who used Marksman - he was *completely* unoptimized in those early levels. But eventually he got decent, to put it mildly.

MW gives you so many skills that I often find I'm just throwing one or two in there to round out the 10, not that I think I'll use 'em much. Maybe that's enough to justify using my other Minor for Short Blade (which becomes important for MQ). So I'd have:

Major:

Long Blade

Medium Armor

Speechcraft

Athletics

Spear

Minor:

Armorer

Restoration

Marksman

Alchemy

Short Blade

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Carys
 
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