I want to create a mystic archer.

Race: wood elf
Sign: mage
Specialty: magic
Attributes: agility and intelligence
Majors:
Marksman
Illusion
Light armor
security

What other majors should I get? I want to cap lvl at 25. Not for rp as imagination is not one of my better attributes >.>

Any help would be appreciated

If you want to cap your level at 25 you'll need some majors that you never or very rarely use. Good candidates are Speechcraft, a melee weapon skill or two and heavy armor. Acrobatics might work if you don't jump around a lot. Mysticism is another possibility if you're not addicted to casting detect life and are willing to enchant a weapon with soul trap.

Mara

Thanks for the input. Speechcraft won't work as I always use it anyway. Since I won't be using melee skills ill probably use them. Detect life ill have enchanted, as I hate having to remember to keep it up in dungeons. Soul trap will prob enchant on weapon.

Does anyone know how many major skills i should have to lvl to get to level 25? I want command to work well, so unfortunately I will miss out on battling any lich :/

Oops sorry double post. I'm on ps3 so no mods. not sure where my pc copy went

Mystic archer bosmer:
To cap your level at the lowest level 6 -7 put all magic skills as minors.
Keep marksman, the 3 melee weapon skills, heavy armour, mercantile, block, and speechcraft as majors.

Take out any but marksman to raise your level, sneak and alchemy may raise fast if you spam them, but as a Bosmer they will raise the lowest ammount of levels again 6 -7.

So I would take Marksman, heavy armour, mercantile, block / h2h, for sure, with illusion, sneak and acrobatics to reach 25, as long as you don't spam they should not raise your level too fast either.

With regard to spamming sneak, ill be keeping that as a minor skill since I'm always sneaking when outside of cities

A Bosmer with mage birthsign, agility+intelligence, magic specialization - all as you lay out, sounds fine.

To stop at level 25, you might consider taking 3 majors to max and 4 that you don't want to use. Maxing the first 3 will get you to around level 22 or so. Then play with the others temporarily to bump yourself up to level 25 - if you plan things carefully, you can actually accept a few skill ups in your 'never use' skills along the way. Don't freak if you read a few skill books for your 'never use' skills.

Picking majors? Start with marksman, of course. Try to make sure it goes up at least 3 skill ups for each level your character advances. This will help keep your damage up with your foes.

Then two more majors skills to max. Pick any two you like, but I tend to like restoration and block for this. Ideally, pick things that you might enjoy using but are controllable and/or level slowly. Some might like destruction here.

Finally, pick four more to 'never use'. That depends entirely how you want to play and limit your character. My character could easily pick from among the following for this: h2h, blade, blunt, heavy armor, security (if you use alteration for unlocking). With other characters, I have happily used alteration as one of these skills. Again, you really have to decide how you want to play and limit your character.

Attributes. Because you have less levels available to you, attribute gains each level are important. Plan carefully here. Perhaps you don't need to boost all attributes at all. My mystic archer has never added a single point to luck, endurance or strength. One aspect of this is that because she never raises strength, she could take all three strength governed skills as 'never use' majors if she wanted. My point is don't overlook the impact of your 'never use' skills on your attribute gain planning. The only reason she added to personality is for RP. She finds her attributes to be most important in this order: Agility, intelligence, willpower, speed. Note that she doesn't consider speed all that important - she tends to kill or disappear, not run.

Ok here goes.

Race: bosmer
Sign: mage
Favored attributes: agility and intelligence
Major skills that will max:
Marksman
Illusion
Restoration
Major skill that will fine tune: mysticism
Never touch:
Heavy armor
Blade
Blunt

Health: 60
Magicka: 140
Fatigue: 145
Encumbrance: 150 oh dear that's gonna be a challenge, always had that at over 200 before.

Thanks for all your help guys. Much appreciated.

Ps: acadian, love your buffy stories, keep up the good work

You're welcome for the help and thanks for the kind words about my bowgirl.

Your build should work. Be careful that illusion doesn't level too fast for you. Buffy is an illusionist and cast illusion spells like crazy so we keep it as a minor. Resto will level slowly and you can slow it down further by augmenting healing spells with potions.

For your mysticism, it looks like you will want to get Azura's star quickly and items that have detect life. We keep it as a minor because at higher levels, we cast long lasting soul trap spells on poisoned targets, then quietly hide until we hear them being whisked into Azura's Star. You can get around this by adding other componets to a combo spell such that the school it takes is not illusion - that is you can manipulate what school a combo spell comes from.

Yeah once I lvl I'm gonna grab azura's star.ill be enchanting my bow with drain soul as soon as I get far enough into the mg. Then ill get detect life from sigil stones and enchanting rings and possibly necklace. i dont intend to finish the mq as I intend to get heaps of sigil stones.

I will be using poisons xD can u give me a good poison recipe for the novice level of alchemy? Can't find a decent one that im happy with

For a novice alchemist, you are looking for pairs of ingredients where the first effect is damage health:
Nightshade, Stink horn cap, Wisp stalk cap, Harrada, Spiddal stick. The last two can be found in/around Oblivion Gates. You can just pop into that gate at Kvatch, harvest what you want and pop back out. Like all other ingredients, they will respawn in 3 game days.

Once your alchemy skill increases, you can get more creative with your poisons. Play around with this to come up with good recipes: http://www.uesp.net/oblivion/alchemy/alc_calc.php

One more level to apprentice lol. It will be much easier with that

Good on ya! For a mystic archer, creative poisons are extremely useful. :tops:

Not much help against the rogue mage... had drain 15 health (found) poison on her and still it took us about 10 minutes in imgame time to bring her down. Was fun tho

You should have had four of your own homemade poisons in her all working at once over time.

And some homemade work over time restore health and / or restore magicka potions working on yourself at the same time.

That rogue mage. My pacifist mage tried to hold her off for a while, but the stupid battlemages were only interested in fighting with her summons, so my mage finally lit out down the road, trailing a parade. It took the Anvil guards a good ten minutes to get the situation under control... :wink_smile:

Oh, THAT rougue mage. . .
An excerpt from Chapter 14 of Buffy's Journal:

* * *
I felt vulnerable without the comforting weight of bow and quiver upon my back, and began to second guess my disguise. I had never encountered a merchant wielding a bow, but perhaps I should have decorated my hip with a dagger - just for looks. Traveling the roads unarmed probably meant that I was either a dangerous mage that didn't need a weapon or a young and foolish girl. The truth of course was that I was a young and foolish mage that refused to learn how to use a dagger. I wasn't strong enough to do much damage with a blade anyway. Buffy! Stop daydreaming when you're supposed to be trying to walk into a trap.

I caught the occasional reassuring glimpse of blue hoods, as the two battlemages faded in and out of the brush alongside the Gold Road. They were, of course, my primary defense.

Suddenly, a figure entered the road ahead from my left and started running towards me. As the blue velvet gown quickly approached, I was relieved to see a familiar face, but concerned for her safety. "Caminalda, it's not safe to be traveling alone. That murdering highwayman has still not been -"

"Silence, tree hugger!" The Altmer's face had twisted into an ugly sneer. "I hope you carry more of value than the last few merchants." A menacing blue glow formed in her hand.

I was flustered, but didn't have time to curse the fact that I'd been expecting a snarling man, not the pretty elf that had timidly introduced herself to me the day prior. The green magic that would free my dancing cobra was just beginning to grow bright in my hand when Caminalda released her spell. The column of frost tore into the flesh of my left side, spinning me around, fizzling my spell and forcing my mouth open into a scream. Stunned and reeling from the pain, I turned towards her again to see the terrifying blue glow reforming in her hand.

My panic response took over and I managed to quickly wrap myself in the safety of invisibility. Despite the agony from my wound, I quietly slipped to my right. Her spell flew through the empty space I had just vacated and exploded the bark of a nearby tree into icy shards. I managed to circle behind her. To my horror, Caminalda spiked the air with a burst of pink magicka that was well-familiar to me. "You can't hide from me, little one." Her poison-laced words oozed the confident knowledge that her skills vastly exceeded mine.

Where were those battlemages?!?

As she began scanning the area, no doubt for my pink glow, I surrendered my invisibility and launched a weak fireball into the mage's back. I was staggering now, and didn't know how much longer the pain would allow me to stay on my feet. My mind raced aimlessly, unable to focus on my next spell.

Suddenly, Caminalda jerked violently as she was lit up by a bolt of lightning that came from the thick brush to her left. Before the crackling sparks that danced from her spasming limbs could subside, a massive ball of flame flew past me and engulfed the mage, bursting her gown and hair aflame. It was Caminalda's turn to scream. The heavily armored battlemages raced in after their spells, and quickly silenced the mage with flashing blades.

By the time I could smell Caminalda's burning flesh my vision had narrowed, grown devoid of color, then gone black. I grabbed the frozen wound on my side as I felt myself falling.
* * *

Curious, the only time I had trouble with the rogue mage was when i was a High Elf Wizard. AND... Apprentice sign. My other characters snuk up on her easily and... she dead.

How did you know the pretty girl in blue by the side of the road was the rogue mage? My mystic archer was naive enough to not carry her bow (disguise as traveling merchant) and assumed Caminalda was just out for a walk until she attacked. She also figured those battlemages were there to help. Turns out the battlemages had to delay their spells because they were afraid they would hit Buffy while she was invisible. It was only when she gave up her invisibility that the battlemages struck and kicked some butt.

Um, did I mention that we RP very heavily?

well, in more detail: the last time i played i was sneaking so as not to be taken by surprise. At some point in the way she charges towards me and summons something (and says something too), but my sneak icon is still 'undetected". She passes me by and as I turn to attack her, she is charging other characters (one is that lady thaty warned me at the inn).

One arrow, 3x damage... finish her.

Consult my sig link for character build info.

Well Karl'thas (congratulations if you get the reference, btw I am aware that in the referenced game the character is male, and that this mystic archer is female, this is the name I think suits her best) breezinog through the mage guild recommendation quests.

She plans to become the arch mage, then prob join either the db or tg. She tells me she wants to be the most powerful hero ever :/ thats gonna be fun lol

Sounds great. Buffy is sure hoping some hero will come along and solve that darned Oblivion Crisis!

Lol the only thing I want to do with the mq is to get far enough to get the oblivion gates. She will be using the sigil stones

Acadian

Apologies if I've missed it somewhere but, having heard a lot about Buffy as a mystic archer, would you mind telling me how the original is set up? What are Buffy's majors, specialisation and attributes? There are clues in your replies but I'll be intrigued to know.

Apologies to doommeister if you feel I'm hijacking your thread but have always wanted to know but was a little shy to ask in a new post.