I started role-playing a breton mage and i'm enjoying it so far.

My goals are:

-Trying to become the Arch-Mage of College of Winterhold and trying to do everything in there

-Read books that has something to do with magic and colleges history

-Trying to master most of the magic skills (I'm using Skyrim Redone, so it might take a while)

My rules are:

-Can't use fast travel, but i can use carriages to travel to cities that i have already been

-Can't use armor, this guy is a pure mage

-Can't skip conversations

-Can't brake law

-Can't steal anything

That's all for now, so what do you guys think?

Good luck? Maybe use a follower, you don't want everyone and everything concentrating on you.

Oh yeah i forgot to mention that i will use a follower so i can heal them and use rally spell on them.

Don't forget to get the mage armor perks in the Alteration tree.

Well conjuration would also work for a shield. I am currently playing a pure Mage that focuses on every magic skill except alteration, but uses alchemy as well, and it is incredibly fun on expert difficulty. I have no trouble putting down draugr with my turn undead spells and my fire magic, and conjuration and illusion are both amazingly powerful, although I don't know how it is with sky re

Don't forget to invest in Sneak perks. You're pretty squishy without armor (even with the magical protection of the various 'flesh' spells - oak flesh, iron flesh etc.) so hiding can make a big difference.

I actually play with similar rules as yours, even though I skip conversations lol Anyways, for a pure mage, I would say Des, Con, Alt and Resto are your best friends... Illusion isn't worthy imo. I mean, I like playing with 2 support skills tops, in this case, Alt and Resto... More than this is way too much for my liking, but if you feel like buffing your follower, go for it!

Don't forget to take all 3 perks in Mage Armor since you will wear robes only... I think some Dragonpriest masks could have no armour rating (like Morokei and the new ones in Solstheim, but oh well).

All Dragon Priest masks have an AR, so they won't work with Mage Armor.

Haha, I know... I didn't make myself clear... what I meant is that I wish some of them (the magic related ones) had no armour rating, so you could use them and Mage Armor would still kick in =P

I agree, Morokei would that much more useful.

Don't listen to him. I've played a pure mage before and never needed that, even on higher levels.

Full-speed laws only, eh?

I am not that crazy about those perks. As someone mentioned, they don't work with dragon priest masks. Plus, you don't get the hidden 100 if you are not wearing armor, so your 300 with three perks and ebony flesh is the equivalent to 200AR with a full suit of physical armor.

Then, when you get Dragonhide, you don't really need the perks that much since they do not affect Dragonhide. That spell gives you an 80% damage reduction, which is plenty.

A lot of times, my mage will wear robes with a dragon priest mask and enchanted boots and gauntlets. With three pieces of armor, you get most of the hidden 100, plus some actual AR from the three pieces of armor (more if you smith it -- even unperked, you can get a good smithing bonus on your gauntlets and boots if you use fortify smithing enchants and potions and you smith before you enchant). Then you can cast your unperked flesh spells on top of that to boost it by up to another 100 with ebonyflesh.

You may not get quite as much protection this way as you can with three perks in Mage Armor, but you will still get a decent amount of protection, you get the benefit of the robes enchant, you can wear the dragon priest masks and you save three perks (five if you weren't going to perk Alteration but for the mage armor).

Wearing a pair of gauntlets and boots does not seem that out of character for a mage to me.

If you want to be truly unstoppable as a mage, I have but one advice to offer you:

Get real friendly with your knight in shining Daedric armor: http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/577866905447658088/8155A4A3132265527152AC7B3A2B100F0F37A64B/

Well, I must respectfully disagree with many of your respondees. Being a pure mage is more of a chore than a warrior or stealth character. I do not dispute that. And it can be more difficult, if you make it so. However, the game mechanics do give you what you need to make it work. If you are on a PC though, I would advise you to look into a little Mod made by Mysty. Even without mods, though, Skyrim's magic can be used to completely rule even the end-game if you acquire all the spells and get your enchanting used. It's just a matter of planning a battle out before it comes. I will never say that the other 2 types are inferior or superior, becuase that's not what TES is about. I will say that you need to think about each battle a lot more before you engage as a pure mage.

The guy clearly said he wants to play a pure mage. Wearing armor would make him a battlemage instead.

Really? When you say 'higher levels' do you mean higher levels of difficulty or just leveling up a bunch? If the OP is playing on Master or Legendary, I can't imagine Sneaking is a complete waste.

Not if it is just boots and gauntlets paired with robes and dragon priest hood. Besides, with no attributes and no major/minor skills there are no more classes in Skyrim.

What i have never understood is why people wear boots and gauntlets with robes. They dont give
you any good amount of AR, and you cant use mage armor with them. Defeats the purpose if you ask me.

It looks badass. That is all.

Both. 40+ level, and on Expert.

I deleted the character because of a mistake in my roleplay, but I did kick ass with him. So whenever people say "You're gonna need X if you want to survive as a mage", I just...

Don't forget you get hidden AR bonuses for wearing pieces of armor. If you wear boots, gauntlets and a dragon priest mask you get a hidden 75 AR in addition to the displayed AR. Add that to the AR you get from the gauntlets, boots, and dragon priest mask and it comes close enough to the bonus you get from the mage armor perks.

Remember, you can still use mage armor spells when you are wearing armor, it's just the bonus from the perks you don't get. This frees up 3-5 perks you can use elsewhere.

Plus, the perks become less useful at higher levels because they do not give any bonus to the dragon hide spell.

Obviously there are some options here. Regarding Sneak, I would advise to be careful not to invest in too many skills because this will level you up (which makes enemies harder) and might leave your combat skills underpowered relatively. Sneak might be one of these that you decide to do without.

I've recently started a pure mage, and I had to be careful with this. I found it very easy to do things like sneak, sell things (speach), open chests (lockpicking), building houses (smithing), wearing a useful dragon priest mask (light armour) and be leveling up without enough improvement in core mage combat skills. My mage is specialising in destruction and conjuration (which provides good tanks/distractions for the squishy mage).

There are quite a few options for defense for the squishy mage here - I'd suggest choosing one or two (but not all).

I would imagine that they wear them because they just plain want to wear them.
Not everyone plays the game the same way, so maybe they aren't as concerned about maximizing their AR or guzzling tons of potions to become invincible or create a seriously powerful enchantment.

Maybe they wear them because they just like the way that they look on their character....