I have a wood elf and I plan on making an assassin type character. Hopefully there is some type of assassin type group to join, preferably one not so inclined to do good deeds. Anyways, im still in the jail and from what I know about Morrowind, I should be choosing my sign and major/minor skills soon.

Note: I would prefer not avoiding fights (Like sneaking etc) but just be quick while fighting, I hope a thief is like this.

So my questions are :

What's a good sign?

What are some good major skills? (How come I hear about not picking skills you use a lot as major skills? If what I heard is true, what should I pick)?

Im guessing I need speed and agility as my two attributes.

I would also love any tips, thank you for your time.

Edit: Im playing it right now, and I would also like to know. does the feather of the weapon only symbolize the weight for the effects of slowing your moving speed or does it affect swinging speed as well? Thank you.

Well you are in luck. There is a group right up your alley. I'll say no more about that however because it's spoilers.

Good sign? Assuming birthsign The Thief is pretty good. Lets you head out the door with some decent stat boosts.



There are 2 ways you can play.

1. You can choose the skills you think you will use the most and take the level ups as you earn them. (I call this natural)

2. You can choose a bunch of skills you will never use for the sole purpose of controlling how you level up.

In Oblivion when you level up you get to add up to 5 points to any of your attributes. Controlling your leveling guarantees that you get +5 +5 and +5.

Playing naturally basically means you will never get a single +5 to any attribute. You will mostly get +2 and +3.

What does this mean? Some people find Oblivion gets really difficult to play as they level up without controlling it. Enemies level as you do and some people feel that they surpass the player.

I personally play naturally because I don't have the patience to control everything. I've also found that if your character gets decent gear that enemies never get too hard.


Attributes: It doesn't really matter, choose what you want.

The feather on the weapon is weight only.

Thanks. Also, if you're still here, do bows svck in this game? I remember they were horrible in Morrowind, terribly under-powered. I am willing to become a bow thief if it's any good.

You'll want to always want to get the sneak bonus damage with the bow. Poisons will help. They are difficult to level up because enemies tend to get to you faster than you can put them down at first.

There's a person on here that only uses bows however and his little wood elf will put anything down with a single arrow.

I've used the standard Agent class with great success for the last 115 hours Illusion magic is something that a sneaky character can put to good use, once you level it up to 50 to get to the good spells. Chameleon, Invisibility, Frenzy, Dominate, Silence. All great ways to either avoid battle or level the playing field beforehand.

Bows are great with sneak attacks and poisons, but once the enemy has seen you you'll need a damn lot of arrows to put them down. Or as i do, use invisiblity, wait for them to lose interest and put another sneak attack in them

Sneak attacks with bows are great, add a little poison, even better. but yea it does sometimes take pincushioning them to death. as for signs maybe Thief. as for skills it's...complicated. as you level up so do your enemies. but just because you leveled up doesnt mean your attack skills got any better. maybe you just leveled up alchemy or sneak. well if that happens too many times, if you level up non-combat orientated skills too many times more than combat orientated ones then the enemies frequentally outstrip you and the game gets frustrating. my suggestion would be to only put combat skills in the major slots, like blade, bow, light armor, maybe restoration, and keep non-combat skills in the minor skill slot, like sneak, alchemy, security. you also have to take into consideration the fact that some skills level faster than others. conjuration for example levels beastly fast so it doesnt matter as much if its a minor skill.

About weight :

you move a lot faster when your carring near to nothing than when you carry almost your max.

feather does raise the line.
(for example if you wear shoes that weigh 2, but have 25 feather on them, you gain 23 free weight to use for other things:)

But thats not all, WHAT you wear does also limit your speed
For example if you are wearing heavy armour and run, than take it off (but still have it in your inventory, so your inventory is just as burdend) you'll see you move faster.

You just want QUICK fighting : well than you want sneak.

If you sneak to someone and than hit him/her you get a 6x damage boost. (often enough to kill anyone in one strike) this also prevents them from raising the alarm:)

I would say pick Luck and endurance for any char as main stats

Luck is the ONLY stat you can raise only 1 per levelup (other can upto 5) so it takes the longest to max out. if you put your stats in luck it helps:)
endurance increases health PER LEVELUP, so a char starting with endurance higher, gets a higher health in the end, than one that does not, because it will give you EVERY LEVELUP some exta health.
10% of your endurance = healthgrown.

When leveling the first few levels, I would say level strenght endurance and luck (the last 2 for reasons just named) strenght raises the amount you can carry, and that increases your speed AND allow you to loot more:)

About stats to pick :
Well true you DO want sneak, do not need to make it a primairy though, it's really easy to level.

what primary's SHOULD you pick?
well I would say look at leveling stats. it'll take about 12 skill-levelups to level 1 level.
but : what you level, determines if you get +5 or just +2
you want stats you can control somewhat so you can level up optimal!

For that reason you do NOT want stuff like sneak or altetics as such skills will level up out off controll, ruining optiomal leveling.

also you want at least 1 skill in every "type" for optimal control

So your optimal 7 mayor skills would be

For Strenght : Unarmed/Blunt/Sharp (pick either one, and use the other 2 when you do not want to increase strenght in a level)
For Personality : Illusion (it's the only one you can controll, and it takes only 8 spells to cast for 1 level, easy to controll) merchantile and speechcraft are hard to level and even worse to controll)
For Agility : Marksman (It's the only one you can controll, it's slightly harder to level, but no harder than strenght weapons,) sneak and security level to fast and are impossible to controll
For Endurance : Block (it is SO easy to level, but in normal fight you will hardly use it, perfect leveling skill) the other 2 are somewhat valid options too, should you want them, but they are harder to controll.
heavy armour is harder to level, and the need to take it off as soon you got your needed number of levels (to prevent over-leveling) is not nice.
armorer can be controlled by using repairservices when not wanting to level endurance.. but still it takes doing.
For Speed : light armour (and THATS why you do not want heavy armour as stat!) : yes it has all the downfalls listed under heavy armour, but it has some controll (just swop it for heavy armour or take it off and go naked after you reached you desired level.)
the other two (atletics and acrocatics) level INSANELY fast and are impposible to controll properly
For
Willpower : Destruction (you WILL use healing all the time, so restoration is to hard to controll, and while Alteration seems more controlable, the ease burden spell and others like it are TOO usefull to "cast aside" just because you do not want to level the skill)
For Intelligence : any will do, all have good and bad sides. Alchemism, gives total controll (you will never use it unless you want to) but it levels SLOW, and you need to gather resources all the time) Conjurtion : it levels faster, you will use soulbind when enchanting, light sometimes, but not so often normally it causes leveling. so if you want it, take it. Myticism is the same, it levels fast, most spells you will rarely use, though summon armour is VERY usefull (having a backup armour with no weight is splendit!)

Next your sign :

They list in three groups

First the magic groups
More magica, is usefull, since it will allow you to cast more powerfull spells (spells will grow so large sometimes that your max mana limit will be used!!)

1 the mage : +50 max mana, no downfalls very Usefull!
2 The Apprentice +100 max mana, downfall : Weakness to Magicka 100% -> It's upto you, you will be hit harder by spells, but your own spells will be more powerfull too, i'd say it's well worth the trade in, so this ones better than the mage.
also you can EXPLOIT the negative effect as well. (adding -1 to endurance on self to any boost stat on self spell, triggers the 100% weakness, doubling your power to boost yourself:)

3 The Atronach +150 max mana, 50% spell absorbtion (that effectively lowers spelldamage cast on you AND raises your magic while being cast : downfall : your mana will not grow back on it's own! so you need to carry mana potions always or be hit all the time. For those who can live with the work to buy/make pots regulairy, this sign is the best if you want the most powerfull spells.

Next the boost stat group (I would not use any of these since well your stats will rise anyway, and these stats do NOT raise max stat, they just make you reach it faster. (so they give nothing you cannot get wihtout them)

1 The Steed +10 speed, totally useless
2 The Lady +10 willpower +10 Endurance , because of the higher starting endurance, this will leave you with 10 more health than otherwise. still i'd to say permant +50 magica is WAY better than +10 health, so useless
3 The Thief +10 agility +10 luck +10 speed, useless again, all this can be gotten by leveling normally
4 The Warrior +10 Endurance +10 strenght, because of the higher starting endurance, this will leave you with 10 more health than otherwise. still i'd to say permant +50 magica is WAY better than +10 health, so useless

Next the powers group :
Mosr Powers can only be used once per 24 hours (and are useless for that reason) :

The tower : open lock spell (useless, can use lockpicks or a normal spell for that) & reflect damage 5% (useless if you have shivering isles, if not somewhat usefull since it will be your only acces to this spell)
Shadow : invisible for 60 seconds (better spells available ingame to get this effect longer)
The Serpent ne combined power : Cure Poison (somewhat usefull) Dispell (also somehwhat usefull) Damage Fatique (wtf?) Damage Health (wtf) I'd say there's better ways to cure your illnesses, useless sign
The Ritual : turn undead (can use normal spells for that) Heal yourself for 200 points, -> this one has no 24 hours limit and is a pretty good healing spell, but you get better ones at higher levels, rendring this sign useless after all
The Lover : paralise target 10 seconds, -120 fatique on self... pretty useless, better use a normal spell for this
Lord : gives you a cheap, efficient restore health spell with NO once a day limit, however at later game you will get normal spells that are better, rendering this one useless too, 25 weakness to fire, aint that nice either.

So your build would be

Stats :
Luck
Endurance

7 mayor skills :
Unarmed/Blunt/Sharp
Illusion
Marksman
Block
Light Armour
Destruction
Mysticism/Alchemism/Conjurism

Sign
The Mage/The Apprentice/The Atronach

Oh yea, forgot to mention, the weight of a weapon does affect how fast you can swing it. heavier weapons swing slow, lighter ones are faster.

No. You swing the Daedric long sword just as fast as you swing an iron long sword, but there is a 28 unit difference between the two.

Right. The type of the weapon determines its speed, not the weight. All two-handed swords have the same speed and reach (except for the dai-katana), all one-handed swords have the same speed and reach, etc.

oh, ok. doesnt make as much sense but i just looked it up and yea thats correct.