Hey guys, I just recently bought Morrowind and the game seems to be pretty cool. My first character is a Dunmer Nightblade. I'm not really used to Morrowind's play style and how combat works, so I was wondering if you guys could give me any advice on my character? I'd like to know what armor and weapon types you guys think will fit my character best. Also, are there sneak attacks in Morrowind like there are in Oblivion and Skyrim? Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

There is sneak attacks in Morrowind, but they are called critical attacks or critical hits. I have never played a character that uses magic for more than just some backup, so I can't say much about what would be best for classes that make larger use of magic.

Make sure you have some sort of ranged weapon on hand. They work great with sneak since you can get a couple of good shots off before switching to your melee weapon.

For armor, I recommend light. Chitin is pretty good and you can get some right off the boat, so go with that until you find something better.

I have played a Nightblade. I always make sure a major skilli is restoration, short blade, sneak and archery. I would wear light armour (the armour from the first assasian is perfect for a while) and check for amulets and rings that upped your mana and or health to keep your Hearth Heal or general health fine to heal yourself in melee. Unless otherwise needed I would go with bow as your main weapon as much as you can or as often as you can and eventually move to that sword and use the bow as a backup.

Without knowing what your major, minor and miscellaneous skills are it's hard to tell what you need, so I told you what skills I went for as a Nightblade.

Oh I'm sorry, I should have specified my skills to begin with. Anyways, I'm just using the skills that come with the standard Nightblade class.

-Take things slow, dont rush into combat or questlines.
-It might help to pay a trainer to get your short blade skill up to 40 or so.
-Shop around for spells, invest in both a ranged and on touch fire or shock spell. Spells always hit, if you can cast them.
-At all times carry a scroll of intervention.

Nightblades are awesome but tricky. You have three main strengths - melee fighting, spells that mess with enemies, and stealth - and you need to make them all work together well because you have low health and can't always afford to charge in like a warrior. You have some ranged fighting abilities with Destruction magic and Marksman but they won't be especially strong for some time, so these are really a supplement to your main strengths. Also always remember that you're a Nightblade, not some meat-head thug or psychotic sorcerer: you don't have to exterminate all life in a dungeon, if you've got the loot then a clean escape is as good as a kill.

Illusion spells are a Nightblade's stock in trade. Chameleon aids with Sneaking and so Illusion+Sneak is a good combo. Invisibility makes you undetectable until you interact with the world again and is also very powerful, especially for quick getaways if you run into something very dangerous (or annoying, like Cliffracers). Spells like Frenzy and Charm are magical equivalents of Speechcraft abilities, Frenzy makes people attack you (so you can fight back and kill them in self-defence without breaking the law) and Charm improves their disposition towards you. The Calm spells can be quite useful too early on. Silence and Sound play havoc with enemy magic users. Paralyze is expensive and it can be resisted, I generally don't use it as a spell but it's good as a weapon enchantment.

Alteration magic is also good. Use Levitate and Jump to escape enemies and get to out-of-reach spots. Ranged Open spells are really handy for cracking locks that are well-guarded and tough to Sneak near. Lock spells can sometimes be handy if you're being chased. Water-walking and Water-breathing are useful when you're exploring.

Mysticism is mainly used for teleporting (Mark/Recall, and Divine/Almsivi Intervention spells) but the Absorb Health spell is a good combat spell.

With Nightblades I don't often use Destruction to directly damage enemies. Instead I prefer to use it to cripple their stats to make them easier kills with my blade. Damage Strength and Damage Agility are good for this.


For weapons, I prefer to use Shortswords or Wakizashis when I can get them. They're the biggest and nastiest of the Short Blade class. There is something to be said for smaller daggers though because they attack very quickly which is especially good if the blade has a damaging enchantment.

For armour it's your choice whether you go with Light or Unarmoured. Personally I prefer Light Armor because it's very efficient and because raising that skill gives bonuses to Agility, an important stat for Nightblades.

Since you're familiar with Oblivion, don't neglect http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Morrowind_for_Oblivion_Players.

Unlike Oblivion you can buy as much training as you like per level - i do not recommend abusing this to min-max your main skill stats as the game ceases to be challenging mid game on if you do. However I make an exception to this with endurance because inability to run for any distance and constantly having to reload when subjected to surprise attacks with no puff left can IMO detract from enjoyment. Therefore I abuse training in spear and heavy armour (neither of which i use as a stealth based character) buying ten levels of either in the early game per level to get +5 endurance bonuses. The justification for this is that as a stealth based character wearing light armour and using bow/short blade it is almost impossible to raise endurance by more than 1pt per level otherwise.

if you've got Trib/Bloodmoon installed you will get periodically attacked by dark brotherhood assasins from early game who drop overpowered light armour that IMO you should try to resist using if you want to play the game as originally balanced.