I recently bought the GOTY edition of Morrowind after enjoying Skyrim so much. I installed it in a plain vanilla version (without the DLCs) on an old PC of about the same age as the original game. It's running fine without mods.

I created an Imperial agent which I am running with some success. Up to level 7 now with several of my major skills in the 50's. But after playing for a while I am having some questions or difficulties.

The first has to do with aggro. I am a long long term Everquest player who preferred Enchanter toons in that game, and this Morrowind character seems to be tending to go the same way. So finding myself wanting to be running more of a Nightblade than an Agent, but with the very flexible leveling system it seems it should be easy to shift my specializations. But I can't find any way to by-pass meeting things that aggro on me and won't stop. I don't see any function in the game equivelent to the "mesmerization" spell or the "memory blur" spells in Everquest. My character has "Voice of the Emporer" which is supposed to charm for 15 seconds but seems to do absolutely nothing when I use it. Is it dependent on my Illusion skill...which is still down around 7? Or are the things I am trying to charm resisting it? They just keep attacking. I have managed to successfully "fear" off rats.

I discover when something aggroes I can kill it, which is what I usually do. Or I can run away and I see when I zone out of a cell they don't follow me. But they also don't lose the aggro and seem to be waiting for me when I return. I recently visited my first dwarven dungeon following the quest for the Dwarven puzzle box and it's full of named npcs.... They all attack me on sight. They seem to see me even when I'm sneaking and even though my sneak skill is up to 50. They won't talk so I can't use my 64 Speechcraft skill on them. So I am killing them all, and now my thieves guild contacts are warning me against so much slaughter. And I wonder if there is some faction I should be joining to deal with them and if I am destroying some quest npcs that I should be preserving.

Suggestions?

First, you need a calm spell not a charm spell. Second, it might be easier to get a passive wildlife mod which will do what you want. This sort of mod will have no affect on performance.

edit: here's one
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=175

Those npcs mentioned are not important and, in general, hostile npcs are rarely important. I usually kill all these bandits myself so don't worry.

if you want to keep playing vanilla just let the monsters follow you to a city and let the guards kill them or use some chameleon, invisibility, or calm . caldera sells a nice invisibility ring. just remember invisibility drops if you do anything chameleon doesnt but is hard to get to 100%. charm just makes npcs like you more for bartering or disposition needs.

bandit npcs dont really matter they are always hostile and if something attacks your first you green light to kill them without penelty most of the time, the execption would be quest npcs that are needed.

Thanks for the replies...

So in Morrowind "charm" is a sort of faction adjustor, doing much the same as Speechcraft? Speechcraft is my highest skill and I have a high Personality.

My other best skills are light armour, shortblade and sneak.

It sounds like if I do want to be more stealthy I need to work that illusion up with chameleon and invisibility spells.

I've been confused what to put level up points into. Agility for sure... but I've been putting them into personality and strength and speed but maybe should switch to intelligence (that would affect alchemy and security) and endurance for a more stealthy build.

My willpower is unusually low... should I be worried. I use restoration spells fairly often but usually wait till after the battle is over.

My lockpicking really svcks. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong but at about 7 Security I can't pick even level 5 locks. I keep clicking on them and nothing seems to happen. I get no message that I have failed and I don't use any lockpicks. Am I missing something?

Are you equipping the lock picks as a weapon? You should get a message.

At skill level 7 you won't be able to do much of anything. That goes for every skill in the game, not just lockpicking. Morrowind is a much more character-skill-based game than Oblivion or Skyrim (which are player-skill-based games). If your character's skill level is low an action has a chance of failing. The lower the character's skill level the greater the chance of failure.

a rule of thumb i use for putting the attributes (at least if im going to max the stats and train non class skills) is train up two major or minor skills and one skill thats not aligined to your major attributes. that way the three points go into your skills you trained and one into the one you are building up. maby not perfect but good way ive found for going off of class build.

but normally focus on your class skills. you cna get training and cheap if your lockpicking is that low, you can also get scrolls or magick to pick the locks. morrowind was good about magick offering the alternate way for people. even scrolls and gear enchanted poffered magick to non mage characters.

The "Voice of the Emperor" will affect any NPC of a certain level or lower. A Rat is not an NPC, and is kind of hard to verbally manipulate anyway, if it doesn't understand a word you say. You want a "Calm Creature" spell against creatures, and even then, I believe Daedra will be immune.

Sneak is difficult to get to the point where it's effective, but becomes overwhlemingly powerful soon after that. In the mean time, a few points of Chameleon will raise your effective sneaking skills, or the more expensive and difficult Invisibility spell will replace it entirely, until you manipulate something, cast a spell, or use a weapon. I find Scribs to be excellent sneaking practice, since they're a bit unattentive compared to most creatures, and won't attack on sight if they do spot you. Just wander out of visible range, activate Sneak until you get the icon again, and then try slipping up behind them.

Any NPC that attacks you is "fair game". Killing any NPC who is not attacking you will result in a bounty, and a warning from the Guild when they remove that bounty. Bandits are not protected by law, so you should be able to raid caves and hideouts, kill the occupants, and still have a clean record.

Any creatures that spawn along the way will respawn the next time you pass, if you remove the bodies. Leaving the bodies will delay respawn for 3 days, so you can get a couple of days of break between attacks. That's important in caves and ruins where you leave a trail of dead behind you as you progress; removing the bodies will result in having to fight your way back out as well, unless you use an Intervention or Recall spell to return to civilization. It also means that those creatures or NPCs with "aggro" will reset after 3 days; whether or not they attack on sight the next time depends on thier natural behavior.

As for lockpicking, compare your majors skills (you claim some are at 50+) with your Security skill (7), and realize that if 50 is "marginal" for skills like sneaking, consider just how terrible your character is at picking locks. Since any "Stealth Class" character will start out with an automatic +5 points on top of the 5 points that every skill begins with, you're only 2 points better at picking locks than some barbarian Orc would be at the start of the game, and poorer at it than ANY thief character should begin the game with, even if they don't take it as a Major or Minor skill. If you're getting NO response, not even a "fail" message, something else is wrong; are you trying to pick a lock with a Probe (to disarm traps) instead of a Lockpick, or trying to unlock an already unlocked (but possibly trapped) chest or door?

Thank you all for the help! Yes I wasn't equipping the lockpick right, so that is working now And I was able to find the calm spell...now just need enough illusion skill to use it effectively. Seem to be using a lot of alteration spells also.

So I need to train up before I can use finesse. In the mean time, I have killed everything in that dungeon. And yes I just learned the hard way about leaving the bodies lie.

Thanks again...these tips were very helpful.

Okay got some other questions now .. .

Does armour get better or worse when the armour number gets higher? I'm comparing chitin and netch light armour. The chitin has higher armour numbers and costs more. I thought it was better than netch. But I see that iron and steel have much lower armour numbers...and they certainly provide more protection and certainly cost more. On the other hand, that metal armour is medium or heavy so do the numbers mean different things?

Higher the better. The number you see is modified by the skill you have in each type. So, Chitin and iron have the same base value but if you have higher light armor skill, Chitin will look better to you.
You can see the base values here:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Base_Armor

It depends upon your levels, if you have a higher Light Armour than Heavy Armour or Medium Armour your armour rating will be better when wearing Light Armours (like Chitin) than when wearing heavy or medium armours (like Iron or Imperial legion armour)

unarmored boosted all of it right? it does on mine but im not sure if that got fixed by a patch or not

Thank you!

Here's a few more.

I started to try to make some custom spells. And made mistakes. So I now have in my spellbook 4 versions of levitate, most of which are useless because the range is touch instead of self. Unless I want to levitate mud crabs. Is there any way to "forget" spells or remove them from the spell book or at least hide which ones are visible?

I increased my endurance by about 7 points (I'm up to level 11 now) . Before I hardly ever got low on fatique except when deliberating training athletics, but all of a sudden I'm feeling fatigued just walking around even though my endurance is much higher. What gives? Do I need to sleep more?

To delete a spell: Depress Shift and click on the spell.

Fatigue = Strength + Willpower + Agility + Endurance

You shouldn't become fatigued by just "walking" (you're probably running). To speed up (a little) and control fatigue you might try jumping while walking.

Probably because as you leveled you gained more loot you're carrying around. Fatigue also increases as the ratio of actual encumbrance to max encumbrance.

Also if you want everyone to stop attacking you for good, you can set your Personality to over 7,500 ( I think maybe 10,00) and everyone will talk to you and not attack.