The Midas Magic Mod convinced me the wonders of magic. Certain ingredients were required in order to obtain a spell for casting, effectively making each spell I wanted to use a quest, which I thought was fun. Also, whether calling down meteors upon the enemy, or turning fallen enemies into gold coins, most of the spells were useful and fun to use. If you play Oblivion on the PC, I recommend you try it out. You can even summon an umber hulk!

magic skills like picking locks/frenzy/bound items dont really make you a mage imo. these are to enhance every play style.. illusion is great for sneaky/stealth builds.. IMO playing a mage means you use destruction as your damage dealing.. everything else is for all builds to take advantage of.

Wow, you just listed most of the reasons I hate playing mage in OB. Hopefully the convenientness of being a mage is much reduced, but with increased power in what he/she can do. In OB, why be a thief if a mage does it better? Down sides are good. To be powerful with it, I always felt I had to exploit the spell maker system to do so, so I tried to avoid it.

Raise Zombie.

/thread.

Thanks everyone for responding. One other question is, which schools of magic are your favorites? Knowing what type of spell belongs in which category isn't always obvious to me...aside from destruction...that one makes sense. Aside from that one, which ones do you like the best?

Illusion and conjuration were my primary magical schools. Destruction was fun but to strait forwards. restoration was pain to get good at because of low XP per spell. Alteration killed all the disadvantages of being a game(while nice it made the game a little boring after while). and mysticism was only there for soul trap. I like conjuration because it allowed me to carry a full set of best armor in game plus weapon and powerful creature to fight along side for zero weight. Illusion because it had some of the most fun spells like frenzy, calm, rally and demoralize. they allowed you to control any battle and could be used on townsfolk without getting in trouble.

Great answer. This is the kind of information I'm after. I guess I never really had a full understanding of how useful magic can be. Does anyone know of any good tutorials or guides to magic for noobs?

So, you wanna be a SpellBow eh OP? Well thankfully, we can choose to beef up our HP, Stamina, or Magicka after we level, so I doubt it'll be much of a problem.

Even though spellmaking has been taken, which loads of people were bummed about, it doesn't really matter here. Because the game contains over 80 odd unique spells. whereas OB and MW's spell list consisted of a lot of variants of the same. This time your spells will level up and become more powerful through skill, rather than purchasing or creating an upgrade. So really, if you focused all your skills into the schools of magic only, the result by the time you reach level 50, which is the rough level cap, we're looking at a pretty decked out mage, who would probably be capable, flooring a dragon in a couple hits. Your basic fireball spell, will become a rudimentary rocket launcher by the time you've focused enough time into it.

I really love being a mage in Oblivion because my favorite spell is the command humanoid spell. I like to bring 6-15 Imperial Guards with me on my quests and they [censored] [censored] up. Don't really like being the lone wolf, I'd rather be a general.

Flexibility... Although the new attribute system favors only one type of combat magic or magic... Spell swords and battle mages got dwarfed...

I suppose that would be one way of putting it. I still think I want to use a blade for some of the time, but I love Archery (bowhunter in real life), and some of the magic seems so cool, such as getting enemies to attack eachother or raising zombies to fight for you.

Niiicee.....lol.

Beacuse explosions are fun.
Manipulating A.I is fun.
Breaking out of prison with a flick of your wrist. (I wonder if thats been changed?)
Watching someone hit you and they kill themself due to reflection; Is epic.

mages can use bosmer as fuel for the fire, mages can hold fire in the palm of their hands, mages can throw fire form the palm of their hands, mages can set the world on fire :flamethrower: :flamethrower: :flamethrower:

pyromania, the source of mage love

and illusion is my fav school (even though i cant burn stuff with it :tongue: ) maniplating the minds of others always sounds appealing

Mages are greast fun. I quite like Illusion, especialy back in the days of mighty magic. Damar moved the 'drain' spells under illusion. Makes sense because drain damage is temporary, destruction is about real tangible damage.

So I used to play an illusionist that could kill people with illusions ala Matrix: 'Your mind makes it real'

Until you run out of magicka and your trusty daggar does 4 points of damage and your pancaked against a wall surrounded by badass mauraders. I used magic to augment a fighter or thief type. Never had luck as a pure mage, at least not running mods that made it harder like OOO. I'm hoping it will be a little more rewarding to be a pure mage in Skyrim and spells are more effective.

I don't get why people hate DA2 so much? I thought it was a good game IMO. only downsides i can think of were not enough depth to the story(compared to other bioware games) and to small of a setting.

The reason to be a mage, is that in all likelihood, they will be 100% superior when compared against all other play styles if the past is any indication.

Because mages are awesome and they can do amazing things!

Some people want to watch the world burn. And the best way for that is duel wielding fire spells.

Ill never forget my mage in Morrowind with the levitate spell, i was flying around everywhere it was awesome!

Because mages are awesome.

Master of the elements? Check
Can summon weapons out of nothing? Check
Can brainwash people, and animals? Check
Can turn invisible? Check
Can create force fields? Check
Can heal almost any wound? Check
Can move things with their mind? Check
Can summon powerful beings as servants? Check
Can open any lock with a gesture? Check
Can walk on water? Check
Can levitate/fly? Check
Can steal people's souls? Check

I can do this all day OP.

I look forward to having one of my characters be a cracked dunmer necromancer on a twisted quest for power, knowledge, and revenge. Became pretty excited about how easy it is to get Raise Dead and Fury, should be fun.

7 reasons to play a mage character:

• Versatilty - there is no situation that magic can't handle (other ways of doing it are just more effective at times).
  
• Damage at any range - one of the best advantages I found to playing a Spellsword in Oblivion was that there was never an instance where your opponents weren't under pressure and could just back down to catch their breath. If they tried that, they'd taste my fireball :chaos: . This pretty much forced them to always be attacking me, a tactical error that I would exploit.
  
• The right tool for the right job - with a little bit of effort, you can learn which opponents are weak against which element, and use that knowledge to maximize damage.
  
• The best armor - a spell in Alteration that almost doubles your armor rating. Need I say more?
  
• Infinite travel - with Restoration, you are prepared to heal yourself of any ailment. Therefore, the only limit to how far you can travel without visiting a town is your carrying capacity.
  
• B for Backup - believe me when I say a summoned Daedra makes a huge difference in a fight.
  
• Invisibility - who doesn't want it? :laugh: