Hey peeps, as the title suggests, any ideas? character? stuff to do? i always seem to start multiple files, im on xbox

Necromancer. Dunmer.

Try and work at using spells that weaken and immobilise enemies so that summon'd minions can finish them off.

My main character (that ive had for about 5 years ^_^ ) is an ancient Necromancer. Dont think ive sliced up of magically wounded an opponent in ages and ages. Just damage their strength and summon Daedra to finish them off. Gives me time to look around the place too while they get carved into slices

Also: i suggest really sticking with a character more satisfying.

I agree with Psycholex, if you've never tried a Mage before, try that. It's a completely different playstyle, that requires an awful lot more thought.

My longest lived character was Aralin Hlerayn, a Telvanni Mage who eventually became Arch-Magister of her House.

Standard mage class, Breton, Mage (birthsign) if you're unfamiliar with Mages. The magic resistance is a godsend when you're learning how the best ways to dispatch enemies with magic (believe me, there's tonnes of ways (levitate on target anyone?).

Thanks everyone, I have used magic characters before but have not really gone in depth with them. More replys welcome.

Breton is a good race to start a mage character because of the bonus to most magic skills and extra magicka. Apprentice is a perfect sign for Bretons because the weakness is canceled out by the resistance leaving you with a lot of magicka with no downside. Resistance to magicka isn't that great in MW because it doesn't apply to elemental damage as it does in Oblivion, if you're familiar with that game. The skills of the standard Mage class are good but I'd pick endurance as one of the favored attributes because Bretons need the extra health badly.

I have one major problem with mage classes - The magicka regeneration. How do you deal with only being able to cast a certain amount and then being out of magicka until sleeping/using a potion. At the early, most difficult levels, it takes 2-3 spells to burn through the whole pool... I can't possibly carry that many potions and I find it hard to sleep that often.. especially mid-fight. Is it mandatory to get a Magicka over-time enchantment or something? Am I missing something? XD

Well, it's partly picking the right spells for efficiency. Let's look at a typical Breton build: all magic skills and Apprentice sign; this gives you starting magicka of 180 (210 as soon as you get Mentor's ring). The starting spells are very efficient, 5 or 6 magicka for about 22 touch damage or 11 target damage (average) That's 30 casts. Get to Wolverine hall for an absorb health spell and that's only 11 magicka for 27 absorb health damage -and you get free healing. These spells along with a few custom made ones will get you through the first 5 or 6 levels easily. I would get a low level calm spell made and a slightly more powerful version of fire and frost like 17 damage for 3 seconds on target in 10' for about 25 magicka (enough to take down cliff racers and skeletons in one cast).

You will need some restore magicka potions for an emergency or the rare group battle but you shouldn't run out in the average tomb or cave until you get to at least level 10 when you should have a better feel for magic. Also, if you follow the Telvanni path which would be normal, you'll get some good enchanted items that will give you some very helpful summons without draining magicka.

Soo where would you suggest for me to go for levels 1-10? Just wander in the general area from Seyda Neen -> Balmora and Seyda Neen -> Vivec?

I think playing a stright mage is much more difficult in Morrowind than Oblivion since you do not regenerate magicka naturally. To survive initially you will need to know the magic system pretty well. One way to is to go for Conjugation as a priority. This enables you to summon monsters and fight with bound weapons which are strong in the early game. The problem of magicka regeneration means you must major and train up in Alchemy quickly to make restore magicka potions in quantity.

As for race either a Breton or a Dark Elf (Dunmer) would be suitable. The most difficult decision is the birth sign as this has a big effect. There are three to choose from for mages:

The Aprentice: Gives 150% bonus to magicka but you get a 50% weakness to magic. Makes this sign easier to play at the beginning since there are not too many magic using enemies and you get the big magicka pool bonus. However as the game progresses you may regret the magic weakness. You will need to get some high level soul gems asap to make some constant effect enchantments to counter this weakness. You will need to do this before you get into fights with heavy magic users.

The Mage: Gives a 50% bonus to Magicka but no weakness penalty. Harder than the Apprentice at the beginning but then benefitting from the lack of the weakness to magic. This is the safe "middle of the road" choice for a mage character.

The Atronach: 200% bonus to magicka and 50% spell absorbtion, but cannot regenerate magicka whilst resting. This sounds a bad deal but actually it's not since every spell cast at you restores your magicka pool @ 50% casting cost per spell. This means while enemies can still cast at you you will never run out of magicka meaning you always get the last laugh. Your 50% natural spell resitance means you can afford destroy dangerous melee opponents while their magic support helpfully replenish your magicka for you before you finish them off which makes you an awesome Mage. However when dealing with enemies that do not use magic at all you are at a serious disadvantage. Hence this sign is the opposite of the Apprentice - it is much harder at the beginning when few enemeies use magic against you and gets progrssively more powerful towards the end when more enemies use magic against you.

So mid-end game you would like to be a Atronach, but getting there requires a clear early game survival strategy. Most important would be the ability to make high quality restore magicka potions. To do this you will need to train quickly and expensively in Alchemy, One approach to pay for this would be to go for sneak as a major, security as a minor and train Illusion up immediately so as to get sneak at 30+ and Chameleon at 30%+ as quickly as possible. This will enable you to travel throughout Morrowind using safe transport stealing a lot of loot before you start any questing untill you have the Alchemy skill to make the required strength restore magicka potions. I don't think following standard guild quest/fed-ex quest lines will supply the necessary funds.

However an easier approach would be to to select the Atronach but start the game as a straight rogue (preferred to warrior since the extra money makes re-training as mage less eye-watering) with good short blade, light armour etc but leaving most magic schools as misc so thay are cheap to train in batches of 10 to start with (exception Alchemy obviously, and Illusion maybe also Mysticism might be in your major/minor selections). From about L10 start to use the money to train in the other magic schools using batches of 10 which will give you nice x5 level up bonuses to Intelligence and Willpower. By L20 you should be a very dangerous mage with the benefit of speed, short blade and light armour etc developed early as a rogue.

That would be pretty limiting. The Seyda Neen area is the safest because it's the starting area but otherwise, all the areas (except for the red mountain area) are similar in that there are easy and hard locations mixed. The strategy is to run away when you see you're outclassed; really, it's as simple as that. Of course, if you're just starting with MW, it won't always be obvious but you'll get the idea pretty quickly. One way to get serious experience would be to swim up the west coast as far as you can. This builds athletics (and speed) and gives you many, many easy to medium enemies, mainly slaughterfish and Dreugths. For a mage, all you need is absorb health (the 5-52 , 11 magicka one) and an efficient way to restore health, either the efficient balm spell you can get in Peligead or potions if you have high alchemy. An additional spell would be water breathing if you have at least 20 Alteration; you only need 1 second to restart the clock.

Atronach is the best if you want to try a mage, it does require a bit of thinking. A good way to replenish early on is to go to any shrine and reflect the blessing, or go to a restoration shrine if you can be bothered walking a bit further. Another good way is....Scrib Boxing! Good early-game strategy...

If not play a thief, they are really fun characters and lockpicking everything early on is cool. You'll also get to meet Jim Stacey if you are lucky...

I can't but help chime in here. I enjoy playing class-customized Bretons with the Atronach sign. I agree with the suggestion to train alchemy as quickly as possible. However, I haven't felt any need to pay trainers to do that but instead use the cash to upgrade stuff or buy spells.

If you are willing to take a slow approach to raising money, there's lots of cash to be made in Seyda Neen to fund buying essential stating equipment such as the mortar and pestle. Gather and sell animal and vegetable ingredients. From past experience, I'm guessing you can easily gather 500+ gold just doing that while at the same gime improving mercantile, alchemy and whatever other skills you deem important. And as you explore and travel, you can continue collecting animal, mineral and vegetables for sale or consumption.

Enjoy your game.

John

Learn alchemy as soon as you can, and you become pretty much unstoppable as a mage. With fortify intelligence potions, you can exponentially increase the magnitude of your potions. Once your intelligence is high enough, making any other potions will yield often hilariously overpowered results. You can restore magicka far faster than you can drain it. You can fortify your magicka pool to massive levels (iirc, I may be wrong), etc.

Then it's just a matter of building your casting skills.

You remember correctly although that sort of thing is usually referred to as Alchemy abuse for a good reason: it can make the game trivial and boring unless you set some limits. If you like that sort of thing, however, there's an even easier way that doesn't require any Alchemy training. Take Restoration and as soon you get attacked by the assassin, get to Mournhold and buy a fortify skill spell. Then make a custom spell of fortify alchemy 200 for 2 seconds on self and you're done. You can also pay an enchanter to make a ring with the same spell so you don't even need Restoration.

Aye, I remember reading up on the UESP about it after I'd found I could do this.

Yes, it's alchemy abuse. But for gamers that don't really care about roleplay, or can include such a thing in their roleplay (I did, my char was Arch-Magister of House Telvanni, of course she'd be pretty beastly, but I didn't go too uber. I was still killable, due to weaknesses built into the char), it's a very effective way of playing a Mage.

I agree. I didn't mean to be as negative about it as I probably sounded; the important thing is to keep from making yourself too powerful. It sounds like you found a good compromise.

Don't worry. I didn't take it that way. It's a single player game after all. We can all do as we wish.

I had a "mess around" char who I used to abuse all the exploits with, just for a laugh. That's one of the things I love about TES. You can pretty much bend to world til it's exactly how you want it.

However, I fear we may be de-railing the thread >.> Back on topic I say!