Hi all,
after finishing Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas all other games seemed really boring and not immersive. After reading the Fallout forums a lot it seemed that only TES IV would be able to quench my thirst for epic RPGs. So far I'm really loving it and the scale of the game (even compared to Fallout) is mind blowing. Apart from the enemy levelling thing the game is almost perfect.

So, I'm about 60 hours into the game and currently at level 21. My question is how do I get my magicka to high enough levels in order to buy some of the really powerful spells? At level 21 my magicka is only 282 of which 50 are due to me being a Breton. How on earth am I supposed to get it up to say 1000+ that some of the killer spells require? I upped my Intelligence EVERY time I leveled up.
I would appreciate some feedback on how you get yours beyond 1000. Did you get items that boosted your magicka? Is there a particulare character build to follow?

Thanks.

There are potions called "Fortify Magicka" that help, and there are also certain items that are enchanted with "Fortify Magicka" that have the same effect. Both of them boost total Magicka.

As you level up your magic skills the base cost of spells will drop. At skill levels above 60, magicka costs begin to drop rapidly for spells within that skill. For example; If your destruction skill is level 30 it may cost 750 magicka to cast a 110pt shock damage spell, at destruction skill level 100 it would only cost like 150 or so (that is estimated, as i dont know the true equation for spell cost calculations; It can be found at uesp.net/oblivion). Anyways the higher your skill the lower the magicka cost. You don't really need 1000 magicka, which is actually impossible, just a higher skill level so the spell will cost less.

Tech

This is the key point. Your magicka cost goes down dramatically as you become more skilled in the associated school of magic.

At skill level 100, a spell cost about a 1/5 as much as it does as skill level 40. So those spells that seem out of reach become usable.

Any character can cast any spell you can buy in game if with Intelligence at 100 and skill at 100, even without any magicka fortification.

Additionally if you're making your own spells, you may want to consider duration effect spells. A spell that does 10 points of fire damage over 10 seconds does as much damage as a 100 point spell over 1 second, but cost much less magicka.

What birthsign are you out of interest?

one of my newest characters is a high elf shaman with the atronach birthsing which gives me +150 magicka but no regeneration which is fun, but i have tons of strong potions of sorcery and some weklynd stones. by the way my shaman class is light armour mace wielding element king he has nearly journeyman destruction, journeyman in illusion and alteration. anyway... he is level 14 (roughly) and has about 400 magicka and i have no fortify magicka armour, that's just altmer atronach for yah .

its all down to your race and birthsign, you can gain magicka level by increasing intelligence when you level, but for big base numbers in the end you need to have the best race/birthsign, but you don't need 1000. you can't even get this amount, not sure what the max is for a normal leveled character.

:obliviongate:

When you close Oblivion gates you get a sigil stone. Some of them allow you to apply a +50 Magicka bonus to wearable items such as rings, clothing, armor, necklaces. If you are at least level 17 (you mentioned you are level 21), the stones will provide +50 Magicka (Transcendant Sigil Stone). If your character finds a sigil stone at lower levels, you get weaker sigil stones, such as Descendant (+10), Subjacent (+20), Latent (+30), Ascendant (+40) .

Also, for every five points of luck above fifty, the spell cost goes down 2 points. As recored in the UESP.

Let's put it into perspective. If you don't mind wearing clothes. This is what you can get legitimately. 50 magicka per sigil stone after level 20. 50 for pants. 50 for shoes. 50 for shirt 50 for prison iron 50 for helmet 50 for shield (if a shield doesn't fit your char equip a staff. You won't see it on your char.) 50 for each ring or one ring if you want mundane ring or sorcerors ring and 50 for amulet. There's 450 EXTRA magicka. Not including your birthsign and the magicka gained form intelligence. That's quite a huge chunk of Magicka. Now thrown in Fortify Magicka potions and high alchemy and you can easily have insane Magicka. With this setup you can easily be a Pure Mage Orc with very little issue. Given the fact that a Pure Mage Orc with Atronach would have a magicka pool of around 800+.

This is my third character and each time I forget to keep the prison iron from the tutorial stage! There's no other place to get one, is there?

Don't think so but 750+ isn't bad either. Can still cast anything in the game. Oh, I forgot to include gloves. You can enchant gauntlets with fortify magicka 50 also.

Yes, with the Vile Lair DLC, Shivering Isles (Dunroot Burrow) or in that Cell in Sundercliff Watch (Mehrunes Razor DLC).



Until you're skill reaches 100, then Luck has no affect.




As mentioned above you can cast any spell you can buy in the game without any fortifications with any race or birthsign, if you have high enough intelligence and/or skill. Depending on the level you may not be able to cast "Fingers of the Mountain" but it is a very magicka inefficient spell -- you can make much better ones.

Your question seems like it has been answered, but one semi-glitch method is to make a spell that combines weakness to magicka and fortify magicka, and cast it a bunch of times on yourself. After a few casts you will be really weak to magic, making the fortify magicka effect way more extreme, but only lasting long enough for 1 powerful cast.

You can use the same enchantment on armor and keep the armor rating. Only downside would be the magic efficiency, however it does only matter for turn undead, frenzy and command spells at level 25 and higher.
Depend on how you feel, one option is to wear armor to level 25 to raise endurance or speed then shift to clothes.

What I mean is even if you're not fully proficient the above will still get you enough to cast anything. Also I'm aware you can do it with armor but as mentioned it lowers the effect on spells. Spell effectiveness, if I recall correctly, also affects the damage. This makes clothing the best option. Besides, with a high shield spell armor is unnecessary and with some dodging, correct application of drain speed and Paralysis, still not necessary for armor.

3 things at play here.

1. You can fortify magicka for temporary extension

2. Increase Intelligence on level up to increase total Magicka.

3. As your skill in a given magick school increases, the cost of spells within that school decrease. So right now it may take 300 to cast, but raise it up and it may lower to 200.

Birthsign = Mage
Race = Breton

It's my first characther and I've grown rather fond of him....will be really difficult to start a new one

HI all,
a BIG thank you for the detailed responses. It has been really helpful.

I was particularly surprised about the luck factor mentioned above. I've hardly touched it during level ups and might need to start doing so now.

Also, the fact that spell (magicka) costs go down as your skill level for the applicable school goes up makes perfect sense and thanks once again for pointing that out to me. Hopefully I'll soon be able to summon some wickedly powerful creatures to help me out.

This game has me hooked and I can't wait to get home tonight to try out your suggestions.

Cheers and come round to Skingrad tonight, beer is on me

You cannot equip gloves AND prison irons. Gloves, gauntlets, and prison irons equip at the same place.

Never seen that before... big time gambler arent ya. A real chance taker... grumbles...

Might i add extremist.... Left wing totalitarian....

:rofl:

Yes but I was quoting his post where he stated he doesn't have the irons anymore. So I was stating he can use gloves/gauntlets.

Perhaps you should explain to us how you enchant a staff in vanilla Oblivion? And then could you be so kind to explain how a staff will give you a constant effect, when they are used as weapons that fire a projectile?

Staffs firing projectiles (aka rifles) have the constant effect that you're dead when they have fired at you.

It appears to me that Gaerolth was saying that if you equip a staff, an enchanted shield you might have equipped won't show.

Ah, I see now thanks for explaining that, but I believe the same effect is gained when you equip a shield and then don't equip any weapon, correct?