Might even be a FAQ of some sort...

Anyway, I'm new (another Steam weekend deal user -- I guess there's more of these showing up these days). I have started to read up a bit on some IGN manual, especially on the character creation as that's usually a decision that has to be made early

Anyway, so I read that there's all sorts of things you can choose to create your "unique" class. Fine. I'll probably go for some magic user, and when I continue reading through that IGN manual thingy I can probably figure out what I want even though I don't understand the bonuses because I don't know the game.

HOWEVER, games often offer various classes, equipment paths, whatever, to provide some variation. Sometimes, however, certain classes/paths/whatever tend to be much "better" than others. For example, if I choose a magic-based class now, will I learn 100 levels later that most stuff is highly magic resistant and could be easily killed with a rusty dagger that I can't even wield because I'm the wrong class? Will I find uber-swords around every corner while still struggling with my starter wand/staff/whatever? Will I be struggling with my skill points, as opposed to some berserker-type warrior who only levels 'hit harder' all the time, and dumps a point or two into "hit much harder' every now and then?

In other words: despite having lots of choices in the beginning, should I avoid certain choices, or should I definitely go for certain choices no matter what? Like when I started to read the IGN manual, the first race they listed has "water breathing", and they even mentioned that most of the game world is not covered in water. So that's an obvious choice of something NOT to take.

There are other reasons to choose Argonians than their ability to breath underwater.

You can be successful in this game with any combo of skills and attributes, as long as you have an attack skill, a defense skill and a recovery skill. Of course your choices determine how you do things in the game, but that is up to you.

What you want to avoid is leveling your character before they are ready to be leveled. Everything in the world levels and every skill you pick as a major and a minor will count towards leveling as you use them. This means you can be doing mundane things like lockpicking and alchemy and leveling up, go out in the world with a low level attack skill and get killed by something you can't handle.