Hey! Well I managed to reach level 14 on my first character, but I didn't like his race or how poorly I had played up until then. So I've decided I will start over fresh. I plan on making a mage with blade for when he runs out of magicka. Any advice before I get started?

That depends. If you make a pure Mage chances are you'll never to be at a point where you run out of Magicka if you play your cards right. Not that having blade is a bad thing. I recommend that you don't take Alchemy as a major and put blade in place of that. That being said, what do you plan to play as? What race? That will help us answer questions like sign advice and what not.

Probably a High Elf as they have the most magicka i believe?

In that case I have two recommendations for you. The safe way is Atronach and in the early levels before you get access to tons of potions or very powerful self made restore Magicka potions your blade will come quite in handy. By level 20, however, you can easily get 100% absorb Magicka. This means that your natural weakness to all elements is instantly negated. Instead, any spells thrown at you get absorbed straight into your Magicka pool. If, however, you want more of a challenge I recommend Apprentice. This will give you an insane (albeit not as insane) boost as Atronach and your weakness to the elements becomes worse (with the weakness received from apprentice) but with careful playing this isn't so bad. You'll have quite a bit of Magicka, the ability to naturally regenerate it, but you'll have to be wary of being hit by spells.

Furthermore I recommend that you wait until 17+ to do anything further than Apprentice rank in the Mages guild and before closing Oblivion gates. This means that in Oblivion gates you can save before you grab the Sigil stone and have access to Fortify Magicka Sigil Stones at their maximum level. You can then enchant any clothing/armor you have with Fortify Magicka 50. Easily pushing your Magicka pool by several hundred more. The Mages guild I recommend that you wait until your mid twenties. It makes getting 100 Spell Absorption very easy. Hope this advice helps.

What is the best race to be as a mage? I don't like being weak against spells but could deal with it if there isn't an easy alternative.

There's two "Best" races. Altmer and Breton. They're tied too. Altmer are weak against Elements but by far have the largest starting Magicka. This means that they can efficiently cast the most spells. Of course they start weak to Magicka as well as a penalty. The Breton get a 50 Magicka boost and 50% strength against Magicka. While they have much less Magicka than their High Elven counterpart they have solid defense against Magicka. Playstyle is up to you. Most people who make a Breton go Breton with a Mage Sign. This gives only a 50 boost but no drawbacks. If you pick up a mundane ring in your 20's you are completely immune to Magic. Breton is a very popular choice as a result. Still, the Altmer Atronach has the most Magicka in the game and people like that. Plus it starts with 50 spell absorption with that birth sign. Get spell absorption to 100 and you're also immune to Magic and absorb Magic as well. Losing the weakness and all of it going to their magic pool instead, fueling them.

Of course that's more end game. You'll want to carry around Magicka restore potions and make your own with alchemy if you go Atronach as you can't regenerate Magicka on your own. So really what do you want to do? Your choice. Oh, and Altmer Mage is a possibility too. Has more Magicka than a Breton with the Mage sign and only 25% weakness to the elements. Another safe alternative. Really you can be what you want. I have a Dunmer Pure Mage born under the Atronach sign. He has absolutely no issues.

Thanks, I've been playing a breton mage with huge magicka problems so I think I will go with High Elf Apprentice and adjust to dodging all magical blows I can. Thanks again! All set

No problem! High Elf Apprentice is very fun. A friend of mine swears by it and he refuses to play anything else. At any rate I recommend when you get to level 17 you start getting some fortify magicka sigil stones and enchanting your rings and such with it. You'll never have Magicka problems again. Oh and if you find a mundane ring that'll lower your weaknesses by quite a bit. Very useful ring to keep an eye out for. It's a random drop. Good luck.

I was thinking of making a character like that as well Unfallen. He was going to be a mage-type that focused completely on dealing damage via conjuring monsters and using a sword/shield, but I was going to leave him unarmored besides the shield so as not to harm spell effectiveness that much (plus the style of not using armor sounds fun).

Also, you could just get the Quest Award Leveler mod so you don't have to worry about doing quests and getting awards too early. I think it even upgrades sigil stones as you gain levels. Personally, I don't see how people can possibly know how long to put off doing those quests other than spoiling the game and reading up on everything first, which doesn't sound like any fun.

Well, most of us have been playing Oblivion for years so even without looking things up we got a fair idea what level items are what. Another option that I have used in a few of my characters is this (it only works on the pc). You receive a reward early that you like. You got a low level version of that. Drop it use the console to disable it. Alt tab and go online. Fine the code and use player.additem (code) (number of items, usually 1) and then put in the max leveled one. Same thing as using a mod to give you the max leveled item but a more complicated way of doing it manually.

The Quest Award Leveler actually only levels specific things you have in your inventory, and you can set it so it's not automatic.

I use it, because I think that there's some evidence that Bethesda would like to have included something similar in the original game, given that they did exactly that with the KoTN items. It makes sense to me (the vanilla leveling system does not make sense to me, because it seems to penalize the player for getting more skillful.)

Oh, so that's what that does? I should look it up then.