So reading around lore and the like makes it seem as though you *NEED* magic of some kind to survive in tamriel... not just magic items, but you need to be able to use some sort of magic.

I prefer to play non-magic assassin-thieves, who rely on quick wits and feats of agility to bring them through the day... would it be impossible for such a one as that to actually accomplish anything in tamriel?

No one needs magic to survive. In real life, or, especially, a fantasy RPG. Sadly, Oblivion makes it feel like you absolutely 100% have to use magic, since going to your inventory every time you get down to 50% health to drink a potion is bothersome.

Play Morrowind as an Orc Warrior. You'll do just as well as the High Elf Mage.

In Oblivion everyone can use magic, because there's no chance of failure when casting spells, so everyone can cast simple healing spells. In Morrowind it's harder for non mages to cast magic spells, so you'd be more likely not to rely on any magic with warrior characters and use more potions instead.

But yeah, magic helps, when you can get it working. Which makes magic equipment good for everyone. It should be possible to achieve things without any magic though.

Which is why I keep a stack of health potions hotkeyed.

Most of my characters have not used magic. I have played a lot of warrior/barbarian melee-type characters who fear and despise magic. Most of these characters:

* Did not enchant armor or weapons or clothes.
* Did not use pre-enchanted armor or weapons or clothes.
* Did not use spells.
* Did not use scrolls.
* Did not use potions.
* Did not use soul gems.
* Did not use Ayleid stones
* Did not use Ayleid wells
* Did not do Alchemy.
* Did not use Oblivion's menu-based fast-travel (which I view as a form of magic travel).
* Did not use Morrowind's Guild Guides.

I got along just fine in both games.

I enjoy playing without magic. Made another TES2 character who only knows how to hack things to death, and even threw away the spellbook you always have at beginning. You can imagine my dismay when I made my first TES4 character ever, again a pure warrior, just to see that Bethesda had decided that EVERY character is a spellcaster in that game.

Actually, in character creation you should be able to choose disadvantages such as:
Inability to regenerate mana
Inability to cast spells
Inability to use magic items
Inability to use scrolls

Or the total immunity to magic, which I describe in my Post.

The large majority of my characters never use magic. Some use restoration. Badly

You'll survive but people won't think much of you.

I've always seen magic as sort of a status symbol. Because most ordinary people who know a spell or two bought them from the mages guild and that's expensive.

Most spell casters by profession are part of some exclusive order.

kinda reminds me of what I disliked in daggerfall... an example:
-inability to cast magic at day
-lowered magicka during day
-inability to cast magic at night+
-lowered magic during night
-stunted magicka
-critical weakness to diseases
-spell absorption
-regenerates always
-add some kickass bonusses here

that char is just all about hacking and slashing away stuff and can even have like 20 hp/level without hurting the level speed much.

Ooo that's really cool. Most of the character's I roleplay specialize in magic. I've never tried roleplaying as a character who despises and avoids it even to his own detriment. I'm getting ideas for a mage-hunter now...

I imagine potions would be fine though. Not just so you have some way of healing, but since alchemy is scientific and biological, not magical.

I suspect your judgedment was affected by Oblivion. Its not so much as you *need* magic, as that the game makes it so easy that you can take it along. In a TES realistic situation, you wouldn't need magic if you could live off the land, knew how to swing a sword, how to shoot an arrow. Magic is simply there to help make things easier, but it isn't necessary.

I don't know, I only ever use the default crappy healing spell every now and then to top myself off. I don't really use magic in any of the games.

I can't resist magic. The only Elder Scrolls game I play without magic is Arena. I find it necessary in Daggerfall, less necessary(but still necessary) in Morrowind, and just a whole lot of fun that I can't resist in Oblivion. In lore, it's not necessary, but as they say about mages, "Prefering to use their extensive knowledge of all things magical, they wield a might more powerful than the sharpest blade."

What are you talking about? My Warriors in OB/MW never used magic, ever.

There are few issues in the world that can't be solved with a nice fireball to the face.

The rest you can dominate into accepting your will

Not in the Elder Scrolls universe. In TES potions (and Alchemy in general) are magical.

You are right. How else could you explain graqes making you walk on water when put through a glass tube and boiled?

Now I might be wrong, but isn't it magic that Mundus was created with? And didnt the daedric princes make their realms from using magic? So if all the magicka in the TES universe suddenly disappeared then would there be nothing in existence anymore?

But I can't do that because my hotkeys are filled with... spells. :shakehead:

Technically speaking, that's what we're told, but if you believe everything you read in the lore, no matter what you do, magic is as much part of existence in Nirn as gravity is to us, really, unless something involves physically casting a spell or using an enchantment, I don't think of it as magic.

Regardless, though, I don't really see how a character could survive without potions in the Elder Scrolls, if they don't use enchantments or spells instead. It shouldn't be too hard to survive without spells or enchantments, those can be helpful under certain situations, but there isn't really any situation where you can do anything with them that you can't do with other things, but if you don't want to use spells or enchantments, the ONLY way to heal normally available, at least in Morrowind and Oblivion, is either potions, or resting, and you can't do that in combat, this might actually be more of a problem in Morrowind as where as just waiting an hour fully heals you in Oblivion, in Morrowind, you need to spend time to rest, many hours if you've lost a lot of health, thus you could end up wasting a very large amount of in-game time if you're adamant about not using anything related to magic, plus, levitation is NECESSARY to getting to certain places in Morrowind, including places that are part of the main quest, and if you don't use spells, the only way to get to those places is through enchantments or potions.

So yes, you can get by without using magic in the game, though I would not recommend trying to play without even using potions.

I should have mentioned that my Warrior-type characters did use magic when a quest required it (Tel Fyr, ect).

By the way, I didn't mean to imply that a 'pure' non-magic character was easy. I didn't start off from day one with that entire list. I eased into it gradually, as I played game after game after game, and began looking for interesting challenges.

I should also mention, I guess, that I no longer play this way. Nowadays I tend to play characters that change over the course of a game in response to the events they experience. My favorite character nowadays is a Breton Warrior who has left her home and turned her back on her magic heritage. Over the course of 20 or 30 levels she decides she has made a mistake and begins to embrace her magical side. I am finding this a much more fun way to play than sticking to an unchanging character and abiding by a set of inflexible rules.

I think there's plenty of room for players to decide for themselves whether alchemy is a magical or scientific discipline. Certainly, it's grouped with magical skills, but in Morrowind so is Unarmored. Being able to release effects by eating ingredients and enjoying combat advantages from lack of encumbrance both seem pretty mundane. Arguing whether in a fantasy world those effects are magical or scientific seems like a pretty airy topic on which there's no need for agreement among players.

I can even imagine in-game tomes in which the writers taking conflicting views on the topic.

I'm going to be a jerkass and NOT take this as if it was a question about the gameplay, and rather a lore question:

As far as I know, a person does not need magic to survive, yet at the same time it rains from the stars and stun constantly. Who knows what life processes require magicka to work?

And in a bit more wide-scale approach, magic IS required to survive, as the Towers constantly draw it in to keep the Mundus stable. Indeed, if Magicka just stopped flowing into the Mundus somehow, it would collapse into Oblivion (literally). Then again, Oblivion realms need magicka to survive as well, so its a two way street.

I rarely use enchanted weapons in Oblivion because frankly I find the whole charges/soul trap mechanic tiresome. I've made a mage who can pretty much blow up anything but he's my least favourite character for some reason. On most of my characters I only tend to use restoration spells and maybe the odd fireball now and then.