What inspired Bethesda to fill the Ashlands with so many of these things?

They are rather easy to kill, but it is exceedingly obnoxious to be constantly attacked by so many of them at once.

Does anybody have any advice for dealing with Cliff Racers quickly and effectively? Can I avoid them with invisibility spells?

bound dagger spell works for me (after selling the orcish armour to creeper and buying short blade training)

The developers actually didn't have any intention on making cliff racer appear in such large numbers. It was accidental, I think. I read somewhere that the cliff racers weren't supposed to appear so much. I just used a mod that kills every cliff racer in the game while not removing the corpses of them. Before I used that mod, I just killed them if they attacked me.

Try archery, with enough skill you can pull off a lucky shot on a cliff racer as soon as you see it on screen. Bound longbow is kind of nifty on an enchanted item if you can't cast it reliably to cut down on weight rather than carry around a 10+pound bow then all it needs is a few arrows to kill off pest creatures on the way around to places. I just carry enough arrows that I'm not tempted to reloot them off diseased creatures I caught a disease before looting a corpse to get a few arrows back.

Invisibility should work to avoid them but you can't interact with anything without cancling the spell effect.

Cliff Racers - Planet Elder Scrolls. Google it. It's also in the hall of fame on Planet Elder Scrolls.

You're welcome!

Well, I think there should be a faction devoted to its study. How and where they sleep, where they build their nests, why only attack the player ... It may be interesting.

lol, welcome to morrowind. (secret hint - get the passive healthy wildlife mod!)

With a decent bow and the Morrowind Crafting mod, I can shoot down "cliffies" pretty close to the limits of visibility, then collect the feathers to fletch arrows.....to shoot down still MORE cliffies. I switched my one character from reliance on Marksmanship to Destruction magic for ranged attacks when he got too close to maxing out his Marksman skill, with the next highest skill still under 70, thanks mostly to cliffracer spam.

Having modded around red mountain, I can't see how Beth didn't think they would end up filling the world with Cliffracers. Virtually all the spawn markers are for cliffracer lists. I think the developers got a bit carried away

Yes, I believe they were mistaken in having the cliff racers appear across the levelled lists. I guess they wanted the air to look alive.

Am I the only one who actually LIKES Cliff Racers? I must be insane.

Was that really an accident? I thought they were on purpose to match up with the tramaroots to get around foyoda paths easily.

Yup. I read it in news for Morrowind. It was a mistake they made.

My character is neither a destruction mage nor an archer. I am completely limited to melee attacks, so there's no way I can take care of them from a distance.

They might be appreciable if they were more graceful, but the way they blink around and move like tanks, I can't appreciate them at all.

I like Racers too... pretty much because I hate them. It's paradoxical, but it makes sense in my mind. Morrowind isn't Morrowind without the Racers

The only "good" point is that Connary's incredible retexture almost makes them likeable....almost. And then you hear that sound....

I don't mind them though, with my Creatures mod they soon learn who's boss and will mostly leave me alone. Just have to bash a few skulls first....

This is pretty much my take on them as well. At lower levels they can be a minor threat sometimes, especially two or more of them. At higher levels they are but a nuisance. But they are nonetheless doing their part in making the world feel alive. I think they fit really well into the game. (Of course they do; they've always been there.)

One way to get rid of them is this thing I've thought, to roleplay a certain St. Jiub character who uses Command Creature and Levitate to take them all to Solstheim.

I would put them all in Skyrim in preparation for the return of the Dragons 207 years later. That way we wouldn't need a Dovahkiin at all - the Dragons would never survive the cliff racer swarms.