I usually play Sneaky Archers, always. I then made a heavy armour warrior with a sword and shield, after lvl 25 i turned it into a light armor archer

This time i'm wanting to go where ive never gone before, using Magic.

Was going to go full blown magic, but thought thats too much. Instead i want to use Meele with Magic, basically a spell sword.

I have a few questions though...

1. What stats should i use for the class, or should i use the pre-made spell sword class.

2. What Race/Gender will be the best for a meele/magic user, dont mind what it is

3. How the hell do i play as one? Only use touch spells or ranged then touch or what...

Thanks for your help

Undeaddragon!

If this is going to be your first caster type, I'd recommend a Breton born under the Mage. Gender is irrelevant beyond your starting stats. For a build, how about Light Armour, Blade, Block, Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion and Restoration? Covers all the attributes except agility. You've got two willpower skills, but they're the two slowest leveling skills in the game, so I think it'll be OK. You can spam shield spells if you're really hell bent on getting +5 to willpower.

Play style is entirely up to you. I often play archers or pure mages, so I tend to do a fair bit of melee with my battlemage types. I do that because I enjoy it, though, not because it's somehow better than a different approach. I use destruction to 'pull' enemies or to deal with ranged attackers, then switch to sword and board when they get in range, using restoration to keep my health and fatigue levels high. Illusion, of course, works wonders on crowds. Conjuration is nice for crowds, too, as it will typically draw something away from you.

However you end up playing it, just have fun with it.

Actually Gender affects alot

Bretons

Male
+10 Intelligence and Willpower
-10 Agility, Speed, and Endurance
Female
+10 Intelligence and Willpower
-10 Strength, Agility, and Endurance

Now im guessing i should go with Male because the =10 Strength would afffect my meele?

And I was considering going Heavy Armor, or would it be good if I went light armour, then picked female to get the extra agility? And I could always swap Conjouration for Agility since I would be taking damage as a meele char, not running and firing.

It's a question of perception, then. 10 strength, to me, is nothing. You'll make it up fairly quickly. If you choose male, you'll be able to carry a little more, will do slightly more damage, but will also get staggered more. Pretty much evens out in the end. Take heavy armour over light if you prefer, you'll still have armorer as a minor to get your +5s. I was only offering a guideline and you are, of course, free to deviate from it as much as you like, or even disregard it altogether. There are many ways to make a warrior/mage hybrid.

One of my first (and favorite) characters is my breton blademage. All magic's (except alchemy) and blade as major. Endurance and luck as favorite and atronach as birthsign. He's currently level 38 and still going strong.
From the get go he played as a hybrid melee-mage. He picked up a heavy shield for block/heavy armor training and practiced sneaking and lockpicking (never had a use for open lock spells). You play him just as you would a straight mage with the added bonus of having a blade when they get to close - summon a zombie, buff him with a shield spell and send'em in, frenzy one enemy to kill the other(s), Buff your sneak/blade and carve a happy face on their kidneys, the list goes on...
Touch spells are the best for magicka management. The arcane university should be your primary goal once out of the sewers. 'Drain 100 health for 1 sec on touch' is devestating early on and very easy to obtain. The atronach is the best birthsign for ANY character, IMO, but it can be tricky to play if you are not used to it. Restore magicka potions (by the truck loads) is how you cope. Alchemy is one of quickest skill to train so you'll be able to make potions that can regen half your magicka in no time and get the added benefit of training your intelligence. It's also good roleplaying - having to 'stock up' on components before adventuring.

My best / current spellsword has these skills Blade, block, alteration, destruction, illusion, conjuration, acrobatics.
At a higher level it can summon / command most things, paralyze ogres / goblins / beast daedra for three seconds swing away repeat with no trouble.
Avoid any tough fight by jumping high up on ledges, deflect with armour spells, and use destruction magic as she likes.

Light armour is good but you do not need to invest in it imo.
This character is facing down just about anything and has from the near begining, with nothing but light unenchanted armour and weapons.
That just be me liking the way it plays however.

Go for thoughtful casting, just lobbing rarely works, you need to see what you are facing and then come up with a plan.
So summon, command, silence, paralyze then engage. if at range soften up but seek to close where npc spell caster and bowmen are weaker.
Close combat npc's soften and weaken never face even 1 or 2 at the same time, no such thing as a fair fight when you can cast spells.

Breton?

Yeah, good

I wouldn't touch the games registered class though, for anything

Skill in magic has less to with the initial build and more to do with practice, and you should be training outside combat any way. So I think it's a bad idea to put any of the magic skills you will be using in the majors as that will make you level up too fast and unevenly

The best training spells are protect[alteration] bound dagger[cojnuration] minor detect life[mysticism] and starlight[illusion] and that's before getting in to the arcane uni

Alteration has sheild and also feather which can compensate for the encumberance of equipped weapon and armor weight

Ilusion has been dealt with, I haven't used it too much

Mysticism has soul trap and also detect life which allows you to see enemies before they see you

Conj, thats argued about, I like it though but you have to do a lot of manuevering to keep your summmons between you and your adverserary

Best to pick a favourite pet and get to know the way it moves

I would go for Breton or Dark Elf. The Dark elf gets +10 to blade and destruction, so it fits the build.
A +5 charcter is the way to go.
Blade
Mysticism
Alteration
Heavy Armor
Marksmen
Speechcraft
Acrobatics

Blade is the only major skill that I would use with this build, so your levelling is kept at a slow speed.
Focus on lifting your Blade, Alchemy Conjuration, Armorer and Block by (a combined) 10 raises at each level so you get +5 to Strength, Intelligence and Endurance.
Spend time lifting all your other minor skills ie illusion, sneak, restoration, destruction, light armor etc. as much as you want.
Take Apprentice or Atronach birthsign to support the high magicka spells at the end of the game.


Male.


Use Detect life or nighteye ring to spot the enemy. Use range destruction or frenzy to hit them. Dark elf can also add bow to the first hit if needed.
Blade and touch destruction up close. Make sure you wield a good shock enchanted blade with soul trap.
Use Azura's Star to recharge the weapon.

Have invisibilty as your panic spell to cast if things go bad.
Conjuration is handy to sidetrack your enemy. Dremora Lord is your best bet at master level.

Do not plan on actually using armor so that you maintain 100% spell effectiveness. Makes things simpler.

The question then becomes do you want to melee mage as in melee fighting with weapons + magic, or do you want to melee mage as in melee range? I would strongly suggest the latter approach because it is much easier and does not require switching back and forth, nor does it require concerning yourself as much with weight/encumbrance.

Put all majors as skills that you will not normally use, especially all offensive skills. Ideally, a great build is using Illusion + Destruction and Restoration. As I have posted in other threads, you'll be almost immortal once Illusion and the others hit 50 (Journeyman) even on max difficulty.

Sample build: Blunt, Heavy Armor, Alteration, Mysticism, Light Armor, Security and Speechcraft. This works wonderfully for me. Actually, I have trouble roleplaying ranged attacks even if I want to because the melee range abilities are so incredibly powerful.

Strength doesn't matter for a mage. In fact, any stat or skill can be temporarily increased as needed through magic, so you have a lot of flexibility.

For default races, I'd choose Breton female with Lady birthsign. Even for my custom race (faeries and angels) that's what they are based on. They are lethal.

I posted one example elsewhere, but think about this as just one approach of how Illusion + Restoration = death. Once you have Calm + Absorb, you can literally stand in a group of enemies and drain them dry while they are forced to watch helplessly. Once you add Invisibility, you don't even have to worry about ranged attackers shooting at you (they can't see you so no problem). Also, you do not need to worry about armor because 1) they can't see you if you are invisible and 2) you can always enchant clothing with AR as high as actual armor very easily.

At low levels (1-5, perhaps) you can do a lot of luring enemies to guards or other foes so that you simply help out rather than trying to combat them all alone. Companions like Erthor from the mage recommendation quests can also be used until you gain a few levels.

I'll add one point about leveling speed of Destruction and Restoration. They are only slowly leveling on a per use basis. Since those two schools are the "big guns" of magic use as far as doing direct damage to foes, they get used far more frequently than other schools. For example, you will cast Restoration and Destruction spells much more frequently if you are trying to damage enemies with them than if you use something like Frenzy from Illusion (which is basically cast once or twice and the foes kill each other). You'll also use them a lot due to other uses such as Disintegrate Armor (to train Armorer) and Fortify (not to mention Heal).

The stock spellsword class isn't bad, except you should drop Alteration to minors and pick up something else. Breton is everyone's preferred race but Orc is also a very good choice with his high STR, END and WILL. Orcs also get a nice 25% magicka resist. With Mage as birthsign he has plenty of starting magicka. Of course the downside is that orcs are butt-ugly and there's not much you can do about that.

Mara

Breton is a pretty good choice. You could actually pick Warrior for sign as it will help their poor End and you should have enough magicka provided you get to spellmaking pretty soon and know some good spells. Pick Combat for spec. I suggest the following majors

Athletics
Blade/Blunt
Conjuration
Destruction
Illusion- command
Restoration - abosb health and magicka combo spells rock at high level
Speechcraft/Mercantile/Acrobatics - basically something pretty slow to level and/or controllable.- Or just throw in Heavy Armor but it can be used as a minor as well.

Train Armorer every level.
Good spells: Command your level +5 for 5 secs (+ inviso for 2 secs) . Frenzy. Weakness to magicka 100% for 2 secs on touch + Inviso for 2 secs on self. Fortify Armor to 100 for 1 sec - gives Master Armorer Perk. Charm + Fortify Merc 100 for 1 sec on touch. summons for 10 secs + shield/inviso