I'm thinking about playing a mage of some sort. Battlemages are appealing for their survivability, but I know that the armor impedes spell efficiency so a more traditional mage might be better. Some advice from people who have played them would be greatly appreciated.
Also, as far as the Atronoch birthsign and spell absorbtion- Is there a way to keep it from absorbing self cast spells like healing or protection? It seems like a bad birthsign to take...

Thanks.

A Battlemage is in essence, a Destruction mage. In the same way a Conjurer is a Conjuration mage and an Illusionist is an Illusion mage. Nowhere does it say that a Battlemage MUST wear armor. Some do, but I think it would be best to wear enchanted clothing and/or use shield spells instead of armor.

As for birthsign, that really depends on your race. I think the perfect Battlemage is either a Breton born under the Apprentice or Altmer born under the Mage. Breton Apprentice will have slightly more weakness to magicka and start with less health, but also have more Willpower and therefore regen magicka quickly. Either one is fine. You could go with Breton with the Mage sign, but I personally think its better to pick the Apprentice for the extra 50 magicka which in the long-run is very useful. The weakness that the Apprentice gives isnt too bad, since most magic is easy to dodge and you can just conjure something to get in the way, also with a Breton it will only be a 50% weakness to magicka.

I personally find the Atronach better suited to characters that dont use magic, or ones that only use it for defensive/utility purposes. Playing a mage that relies on Destruction for example is tedious when using the Atronach. You go through potions/welkynd stones like theres no tomorrow, and its a hassle to keep going to your inventory midway through a battle. The sign was better in Morrowind when magicka only regenerated when you rested, since the stunted magicka wasnt as noticeable.

I disagree. A destruction mage would be a Destructor or something. A battle mage I think uses many different schools, while also having high proficiency with blades and some type of armor. Of course, I base this off the Imperial Battle College but where else better to find the definition for battle mage in TES?

The name "Battle"mage itself should be an obvious hint towards Destruction. Its the most battle-orientated school of magic. So its obvious that a Battlemage would specialize in it primarily.

Battlemages in lore tend to be mages that blast fireballs at the enemy line in battle before the melee troops engage. They do use other schools of magic, yes, but they focus mostly on Destruction, hence the "battle" part of their name. They're mages designed for use in battle. Thats why in the Mages Guild its Battlemages that are sent to carry out an attack on Necromancers etc.

Yes and they wear armor when they do so... I'm confused. You said no armor, then you said they fight necromancers and if we use that example from OB then they do indeed wear regular armor and use weapons, as well as magick.

Yes I understand destruction meaning battle, but it doesn't purely mean battle. Battle is more then one aspect. So the mastery of alteration or illusion or conjuration can also apply to the "battle" part because they are all either offensive damaging spells, or they add magickal armor to the pre-existing armor they wear in game. I never doubted destruction should be a battle mages primary school. But it shouldn't be the only one.

If they dont wear armor then obviously they'd either have enchanted clothing instead or use shield spells before battle. Most of the powerful Battlemages in lore like Chancellor Ocato and Jagar Tharn dont wear armor. Its usually the rookie ones that do. If you have a mastery of Destruction then you can pretty much just blast anything in your path so no need for armor.

Btw the in-game book "A Reponse to Bero's Speech" gives more insight into Destruction being the primary skill of a Battlemage.

When you get good skill with an armor, your spell penalty will decrease to 5%. This is not a big deal unless you intend to use illusion mind control type spells on high level foes. For that you would need 100% spell effectiveness (no armor).

Spell absorption does not affect your own healing or shielding spells, so that is not a concern. The only self-aborption quirk with it is telekinesis (which can actually be used to add to help fill up your blue at higher levels of mysticism skill and spell absorption). Atronach is well suited to a character that is built to get hit by enchanted weapons and enemy spells. If you use lots of destruction magic and no weapons, you will have a pretty high magicka consumption, so that is a consideration. Summoning helpers, using illusion and augmenting weapons tend to be less magicka-intensive magey ways to fight.

Assuming you build your battlemage to be pretty sturdy and flexible with spells and weapons, they can be strong at all levels and quite forgiving. A pure mage is also extremely strong, but takes more time to get there and can struggle some at lower levels.

Good luck. Oh, and don't let anyone try to define what a class should be in a single player game for you.

These are golden words. Acadian deserves a trophy:

Yes but what percentage of battle mages do you think are that powerful? Not too many Tharns running around is there?



Agreed, but he did ask for advice, so we came a suggested different styles. He wanted defining, we didn't force it on him.

Good stuff here. Thanks for the help guys! :3

The classes are really all about the leveling process. In combination with your style of play the choice of major skills can be a help or a hindrance. Better to ask yourself "Do I want to wear armor and fight toe to toe in melee style combat?" If so, you will need some armor and weapon skills from the git-go. If not, you might want to choose Battlemage anyway just to slow down the leveling process by not using those armor and weapon skills.

My last two characters started with the standard Mage class.

Sarrah was a Breton with the 'Mage' birthsign. Despite her obvious magical bent, by the time she was level 25 she was bored and wanted to fight as a warrior. She donned Daedric armor, enchanted a claymore with 'Absorb Health' and went on a frenzy of gate closures and quests. She considered the planes of Oblivion to be her personal hunting ground. Before she died with over 500 hours of game play. (I play dead-is-dead) she closed 38 OB gates. She never completely stopped using her magical powers and just for fun, she would sometimes enter an OB gate wearing a plain Blue Velvet dress and armed with only a staff. Of course she made and extensively used potions.

Angel is a Breton born under the sign of the Atronach. From the beginning, she had to make potions to support her magicka. Alchemy gave her both a profession as well as protection and poisons in a fight. She has never used armor of any kind. Being a gentler personality than her older sister Sarrah, Angel often uses illusion magic to either avoid a fight or to command her foes to turn and fight for her. The bigger the crowd, the more devastating she is. She uses conjuration magic to turn the undead making her powerful against Necromancers. Using shield spells and potions, Angel can protect herself in a toe-to-toe melee as well as the best armor the game can provide and shields are not vulnerable to armor destroying enchantments.

Playing a standard Mage class usually means a fairly rapid climb up the leveling ladder. Sarrah was around level 45 when she died. Angel is level 40. The point being that you will want to take some non-magic skill training so as to improve some of your other attributes as you shoot up in level. The other point being that for roleplaying purposes, you might want to remain at a low level; not easy for an active mage. The other point being that it is at the higher levels that you encounter the best bling and the most interesting opponents. At high levels, NPC melee fighters start using advanced skills such as the ability to disarm you while archers develop the ability to stun you into paralysis and there is no defense against it other than avoiding getting shot.

They may wear armor, but Oblivion's vanilla Battlemage class doesn't have it as a Major Skill.

The "Guard Battlemage" NPC class does major in heavy armor

wrong forum thread. sorry.

Destruction can be very lethal. With proper use of its weakness effects (especially weakness to magic) you can quickly cut through more hitpoints than any foe has. One of many references: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Useful_Enchantments#Tips_for_Weakness.2FDamage_Stacking

Wearing armor does indeed affect spell effectiveness in Oblivion. Reference: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Magic_Overview#Using_Armor

Umm, yet it is. Your Spell Effectiveness will be reduced if you wear armor. How much it is reduced depends on your skill in the armor. But even at the highest skill level, your spell effectiveness cannot go above 95% if you are wearing armor. When using destruction, that 5% is negligible. But with illusion spells that lowers the level of creatures you can effect with your spells, and makes it impossible to effect creatures above level 25.

I was about to scream false at both of you until I noted that for some reason this thread had gotten confused into my Skyrim threads.... It does in Oblivion and my post does not apply to Oblivion. I am going back to edit that... *sigh* Sorry.

My own custom Battlemage is born under the Atronach and uses heavy armor, blade, block, conjuration and destruction in combat. I find that the only time he needs to chug magicka potions is when fighting non-magical enemies. Otherwise getting hit by spells and enchanted weapons keeps the blue bar filled. I love the Atronach birthsign for this type of character.

Something Lothran has learned to master long ago. His favorite way is to have a weapon, preferably a bow, enchanted with all weakness and follow it up with a mixed Destruction spell.

Or like now he has a bow with shock damage and weakness to it for 10 secs. Within that timeframe he launches a heavy shock spell called Thor′s Revenge

Angel does it the other way around. She casts a rapid sequence of weakness spells followed by a blast from one of her powerful staffs.

Heh, it was tough for me when the Oblivion forums opened up. For a few weeks I was making all kinds of posts in the wrong forums. It took me a couple of weeks to get the forums for Oblivion and Morrowind organized in my mind. I know what you're going through.

Lothran does that too, only he uses a specialized axe. That particular spell and axe were made with each other in mind