So I have played Morrowind since release but surprisingly have not played as a pure mage until now. And boy am I having some trouble with it. I am playing on Xbox (gave up trying to install MW on my new Vista laptop) so mods that make playing a pure mage more bearable are out of the question.

I am playing a Breton with a typical mage setup, though i added longblade for when I am out of Magicka. The problem is am constantly out of magicka in combat. Restore Magicka potions don't grow on trees and the ingredients to make them are rare. My guy is ungodly slow and weak and takes a major beating in close combat. It seems like after every encounter i find myself retreating to rest and restore my magicka. This is pretty annoying and not at all the way I intended to play this character. As far as i know it isn't possible to enchant a constant effect restore magicka item to restore it between encounters. I see this class being fun at high levels but at low levels it feels like such a grind.

So do you guys have any tips for playing a pure mage in Vanilla Morrowind?

What is your birthsign, major/minor skills?

Yes, mages are extremely difficult to manage at lower levels, but not unmanageable. Starting your adventures with the Mages Guild is a safe way to gain levels and earn some cash.

Two artifacts that I always secure when playing a mage:



Both are relatively easy to come by.

[edit] posted spoilers in GD.

Absorb spells are your friends. Especially Absorb Health.

And Absorb Strength 100 for 5-10 seconds is cheap to buy and cast, nearly paralyzes the opponent, and allows your weakling mage to strike with the power of a highly trained warrior. There's no better choice for 1 vs 1 fights (and with even more foes, with a bit of practise).

This won't make all your troubles go away, but it will help:

1. Don't use the stock spells. Instead make your own at a spellmaker (like the Altmer lady in the Balmora MG). Make minimum and maximum magnitude equal if you want a reliable spell. Make sure duration is at least 2 seconds. This is because the first second costs double. So a spell that does 20 Fire Damage for 1 second and a spell that does 10 Fire Damage for 2 seconds are both equally effective in combat, but the second one costs 25% less Magicka to cast. And 7 damage for 3 seconds would be 33% cheaper to cast than 20 damage for 1 second.

2. Learn the resistances and weaknesses of your various enemies and use appropriate spells. Frost Damage and Poison Damage don't work very well against undead and casting Fireballs at Dunmer isn't a very good idea either. You can use the UESP http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Creatures to aid you. Note also that Resist Magic doesn't protect against all spells, it only protects against "pure" magic effects like Damage Strength, Absorb Health, and Charm. Basically it's used to protect against anything that doesn't have it's own resistance. So Fire Damage, Frost Damage, Shock Damage, Poison Damage, and Paralyze will all ignore it.

3. Fire Damage and Frost Damage are the cheapest damaging effects to cast. Shock Damage is more expensive, but resistance against it is less common. Poison Damage is overpriced, don't use it. Absorb Health and Damage Health have the same Magicka cost and are both countered by Resist Magic so Absorb Health is obviously much better. Absorb Health also has the benefit that it's harmless if it gets reflected back at you (as long as the magnitude modified by your Resistance or Weakness to Magic is lower than your health). I'd mostly stick to Fire Damage, Frost Damage, and Absorb Health. The first two are cost efficient (assuming the target isn't resistant) and the last one is safe (and relatively few enemies resist it).

4. An Absorb Health spell with low magnitude, long duration, and large radius is an excellent spell to cast if you get swarmed by multiple opponents. If your spell absorbs 2 points of Health and you hit 3 opponents you will get healed for 6 points per second.

5. Save your spells for "worthy" foes. It's a waste to spend Magicka on fireballing weak enemies. Spending magicka on a bound weapon which you then use to kill these weak enemies however, is fine.

6. Get into enchanting. Make rings that shoot fire and frost and absorb health. Unlike your Magicka the charge of enchantments regenerates over time and since rings only have 0.1 weight even a mage can easily carry dozens of them without weighing him down.

7. A 1 point Levitate on self for 5-8 seconds is a great way to reach some places that would otherwise be difficult to get to. A 1 point Levitate spell with a long duration on touch or target can be used to slow down enemies. And make a custom Levitate spell on target for 1 second. It only costs 1 Magicka to cast and if you shoot Cliffracers with it they will loose their ability to fly and fall to the ground.

8. If you ever have to get into melee use a Bound Longsword. It's not expensive to cast, has great damage, and fortifies your Long Blade skill by 10 points.

9. Shield, Feather, and Burden all svck because their casting cost is too high. Use Bound armor, Fortify Strength, and Drain Strength instead.

Edit: When you are making your own spells at the spellmaker pay attention to the Magicka cost and casting chance that are displayed in the upper right corner of the spellmaking window. Overlooking those two numbers is a fairly common mistake which can lead to an otherwise great spell that you simply can't cast reliably. You'll probably want to stick to spells that have at least 80% casting chance.

Well written with great advice Dragatus! http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:7ZK1yvFBUjb6LM:http://i460.photobucket.com/albums/qq328/PaulSouthron/Fishy%20Sticks/fishystickcf7.jpg&t=1

Maybe a spoiler/exploit > Others can explain the Sujamma trick.

Edit: Yup. Good stuff Dragatus.

I am playing several pure mages on my (vista) laptop, so Xbox is unfamillier to me, as is the vanilla pure mage experience, but I can tell you this, they are really fun to play as.

If you like alchemy you can find vendors to sell you the ingredients you need to make potions of restore magicka on the UESP wiki. But it's more fun to just discover them as you come across them.

As you are probably already aware, your pool of magicka is proportional to your Intelligence, so I recommend getting a complete suit of exquisite clothes with CE "Fortify Intelligence". There are also various artifacts that will give you a Fortify Maximum Magicka multiplier. You can get your pool of magicka into the thousands this way.

Don't want to be too specific, this thread is already more appropriate to the Cheats/Hints/Spoilers forum.

I'm also curious to know if spells like Damage Weapon and Damage Armor are permanent or last with the time factor.
I recently use Damage Weapon on a Skeletal Minion (weapon drawn) and when I checked the damage of its weapon,
it was only 10pts. less than maximum, and that was probably damage acquired from hitting me. The damage was 30pts.
which I casted twice. I suspect it damages only for the time casted. I'm starting to find them kinda useless.

I agree. Good Q&A here. Let's try and get it moved.

Make a drain intelligence 100 points for 1 second on self for easy magic regeneration, goes well with the Atronach sign, and builds destruction skills too!

Some might say this is cheap, but for as wimpy as mages are in Vanilla MW, it's a necessity.

Ok, I've played magic heavy characters and there is one universal piece of advice for surviving low levels that I'll give to you:

Tips For a First time Magic User:

RUN!!!

All jokes aside, when playing a magic reliant character there are SEVERAL considerations that I would add and they can be simplified like so:

1) Keep enemies from hitting you (I know this sounds obvious)
- you can keep enemies from putting the hurt on you by using summon spells (even summoning ancestor ghost helps, and you can find items/scrolls for summons... I would NOT recommend the bone belt IIRC it has a 10 second time limit. There will be times when the summons stands there watching you get attacked and 10 seconds just is NOT worth while.) Since it can take almost 10 seconds there are other ideas
- use range attacks (can rely on marksman which may not be a strong point)
- use stealth (again may be a weak spot)
- use a jinkblade (paralysis for short time, give you ability to control pace of combat)

2) if you have to combat using melee attacks, deal as much damage as possible!!!
- I know this sounds obvious as well, but there are reasons for this! If you fight a someone with a heavy weapon they could knock you down and kill you with second hit (it happens!!!)
- using a bound weapon (like Dragatus said) is the fastest way to deal damage at low levels. Can't cast one? Can't buy one? Find the khajit trader in balmora for a cheap devil weapon...

3) some regular potions are your friend: stuff you might overlook normally
- sujamma (strength bonus = carry more and more damage/likelihood of hitting(?) but remember you might lose you ability to cast if you use it)
- telvanni bug musk (No need to bribe someone for a deal if you have this)
- mages guild gives you replenish magica potions in the chests

4) plan on selecting/using your strengths and abilities - This should be carefully considered from the beginning!
- if you choose the atronach sign, your life will be more difficult unless you plan accordingly. Atronach makes it so you have like twice the amount of magica, but you don't regen magika when you sleep. You only regen magica when you absorb it from an incoming spell (does NOT affect penalizing spell effects from equipment - such as the "boots of blinding speed" blind effect), and this is part of the atronach sign ability, a strong absorption -OR- using a regen magica potion.

ST