Hi all,

I've come back to Morrowind after a lengthy break, and as I've played through all the quests in the past I've decided that I'd just like to wander around exploring without joining any factions (in many ways I wish that I could have my previous knowledge of the game erased from my brain).

I want to stay out of towns as much as possible and resist just trying to make a load of money and spend it in the shops. What I'd like to do instead is fend for myself as much as possible, and therefore would appreciate suggestions for mods which make this both interesting and relatively challenging without being ridiculous.

I have NoM installed and Abot's Water Life, meaning that catching my own food is now possible. I've also got Morrowind Crafting, but frankly have no idea where to start with it and what it might enable me to do.

I am finding the economy a bit of an issue - if I catch a fish, it's worth the same as a pair of relatively good light armour boots. I can't see any shop accepting a fish for a pair of decent boots in any other reality, so I was wondering whether anyone else had done anything about this kind of thing. A further example would be plants like bittergreen being worth four gold pieces a leaf - it doesn't take many of those to buy even a semi-decent weapon at the start! I'm running an alchemy mod which seems to result in getting multiple items from one plant, so that might be part of the problem - again, if anyone could suggest a more 'realistic' modification that would be very much appreciated.

I also seem to have ended up with a mod which puts some things of relatively high value into the urns in ancestral tombs - like lich dust. This in itself could get me 500+ gold per tomb straight away, which I don't really want, and I don't know which mod it is LOL

Having a set of roleplaying rules probably wouldn't be a bad idea, I would think, so anybody's thoughts on that would be most welcome.

you cuold always go into the CS and change the value of the fish. if you want to get less money for them i suppose.

as for making to much money from things you find like the lich dust you mentioned . you could always not sell it and just use it for your own personal alchemy use

i also play the game with the kinds of mods you have abots fish and birds mod nom and morrowind crafting.
with morrowind crafting you have to harvest alot of the resources such as the clay and make your own materal though you do have to purchase things like wood. its difficult to get your skill up without ending up with a ton of items . so what i did was picked up the trash can mod. and i end up just throwing alot of stuff away that way im not loaded down and i dont have to bother making trips to sell and end up with the resulting cash. other than that im really not sure .

i also play a sef-sufficient type char. and normaly use a portable camp site mod or something like the ashlander tent. though i do have a small cabin where i can keep and tend a garden made with the seeds that i collect from advanced herbalism. its a fun way to play when youve beaten the game numberious ways with different types of chars. but it does take a bit of RP to pull it off. anyway if youve never used the CS dont let it scare you . its not that hard and can really give you controll over such things like prices. good luck with your morrowind life.

I once played a sort of 'naked barbarian' character who hated civilization and steered clear of it entirely. That was one of my favorite characters. I spent practically the entire game (about 35-40 levels, as I recall) wandering around Solstheim, Ald-Vendras and LoKKen. The character never even set foot on Vvardenfell.

I had no money problems of the type you describe because the character was genuinely self-sufficient. The character never traded with a merchant. Using Grumpy's companion project I made a companion who could repair weapons and armor (how to handle repairs was my only major concern when starting this character). I changed the Alternate Start mod to spawn my character outside of Dagon Fel. I equipped the character with a modified version of Dongle's tent. I equipped the character with a cloth bracer so the Unarmored skill would work.

It was great fun.

Sounds like you might want an economy mod. There are several listed http://www.mwmythicmods.com/realism.htm#Economy along with all sorts of other realism mods.

I've done this with mods before. An easy way to change the difficulty and rebalance to your own tastes. Prostitution isn't nearly so lucrative in my game.

Play so that when your character dies you delete the save. The money all of a sudden seems worth the risk, and you will need to spend wisely to maximize survivability.

While Morrowind Crafting is the more "polished' of the two popular "general" crafting mods, I find that Complete Morrowind Full works better for "survivalist" characters. It uses basic in-game items such as a basic utensil-type knife, any standard axe, and a few other readily available things as tools, rather than having to hunt down special and heavy "toolkits" for each of the various crafting disciplines (as in MC, such as you find at an "outfitter's" shop or the appropriate guild hall in Vivec).

Unfortunately, CMF has a number of "quirks", such as hurting yourself on most of your failures at crafting tasks. Don't attempt cooking, sewing, or other "mundane" chores when your health is low; you can easily kill yourself with a sewing needle or hot skillet. Woodcutting, mining, and armor smithing are no better or worse in that regard. Unlike in MC, where minerals are mined IN MINES (what an amazing concept!), all CMF mining is done on rocks in the outdoors, and the odds of breaking a mining pick (irreparably, they are removed from the game) are so high that making a bunch of them has to be an absolute top priority. It doesn't take a lot of effort to deforest a significant portion of Vvardenfell, so be careful about how much wood you cut, and limit it to one or two logs from any one tree so they don't disappear. They don't grow back.

There are potential built-in "spoilers" as well, such as being able to melt down certain weapons or armor pieces into more ingots than it takes to make a new one, leaving you with a free supply of metal without ever having to swing a pick. It also allows you to make a few types of high-value and high-power items at absurdly low skill levels from cheap and readily available materials. When you can turn 1 or 2 Septims worth of materials into a 1500-2000 Septim item with even a 10% rate of success, that's "cheezy" in my opinion.

These are great suggestions, thank you all very much indeed.

I have installed Advanced Herbalism, which has stopped me from picking every single plant on the land and turning it into massive cash and loads of potions. That's really helped. I am looking into economy mods - I don't really have the...er...brain (!) to modify the stuff myself and I want to make sure that I get one that works for me. Interestingly I seem to be finding way less lich dust in this new save - maybe I just got extremely 'lucky' last time!

Keep 'em coming!

Re: Having a set of roleplaying rules probably wouldn't be a bad idea, I would think, so anybody's thoughts on that would be most welcome.

In my role-playing suite, you'll find a module called 'Vivec Says' which suggests a kind of code you can play by. It offers ideas on ways to add a bit of challenge and realism to your gameplay and helps identify exploits you might wish to avoid.

Link: http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=8002

That is genius in it's simplicity. I had not thought to do that before, and it would certainly add risk, especially if combined with unknown factors from mods. Another idea would be to look for any mods that add additional realism like bleed effects and such, so that it truly feels like your alone and in need of finding solutions to the common problems that would bring.

May I present the excellent sticky from ForumPlanet: http://forumplanet.gamespy.com/morrowind_general_discussion/b49672/7613429/p1/?121