I just wanted to start this discussion to get an idea of what people think of powerleveling in Morrowind. Don't get me wrong, I love roleplaying and have played through the entire storyline with the expansions three times already. I've also done almost every guild quest and a lot of misc. quests, but lately I found there to be a lot of fun in powerleveling a character and getting the most out of it as quickly as possible. With powerleveling I don't mean cheating or glitching, though. I mean exploiting the game in a legit way to level your character as quickly as possible. The easiest way for me is the alchemy and training exploit. With this I can get to level 30+ in less than an hour. I don't see this as a viable way of playing the game seriously, but more of an interesting experiment, since I mostly didn't care too much about leveling and correct skill progression before. So, what are your thoughts on this topic?

Generally speaking, I'm not that big of a fan of power-leveling (but there is a caveat I'll get to momentarily). I personally think that leveling is part of the [classic] RPG experience. In some ways (I want to be careful not to over-generalize here), power-leveling misses the point of playing RPGs in the first place. It's not the destination, but the journey that truly matters!

But now for that caveat I mentioned...

Say you want to role-play an experienced character who already has acquired some nice gear. If you take your time leveling, it could take days, weeks, or even months before your stats and inventory reflect what might be considered "experienced", and that kind of defeats the purpose of role-playing as a "veteran". In such a case, I would submit that it makes perfect sense to spend a little time power-leveling to get those stats where they need to be, and to acquire some of the gear a veteran might be expected to have collected. Once the power-leveling has been completed to a desired point, the actual role-playing could begin. Morrowind is actually a pretty good game for something like that since there is no scaling like you see in Oblivion and (to a somewhat lesser degree) Skyrim. You could power-level and still find plenty of places that would be challenging. Of course, that would also mean a lot of the game would be a cakewalk, but if you're playing as a veteran you'd expect that.

So yeah, I think there is a place for power-leveling in Morrowind. But in general, I think this is a game that is best played by taking one's time. Of course, that's just my take on it... people play games for lots of different reasons, and with even more different ideas about what makes a play-through a "good" one. So, as always, YMMV!

That's exactly my point. As I said, Morrowind is an RPG and needs to be played that way, but after 13 years of playing the game and reaching a point where I can honestly say that I've done virtually anything interesting in the game, I really want to try out something new. I'm currently playing Skyrim and Fallout: New Vegas, but in these games character development isn't nearly as much of a thing as in Morrowind. They are still great games, though.

In my many years playing the game I've done this a few times.

I gotta say I'm not much of a fan. I find the game gets too easy by around level 15 and up, and the funnest part of the game for me is between about level 7 and 15. When I'm level 30, my character is basically a God, even with full difficulty up, and I find other just gets boring for me.

Like I said though, I used to do it all the time when I was younger. I can see the appeal, but it's not for me.

I like the adventuring my weak character, having to run from hard guys, talking to npcs and asking them everything, and just getting myself immersed in the world now.

Great games, indeed!

But back to your point, yeah, that absolutely makes sense... especially for very experienced players like yourself. Also, for PC players there are tons of mods that make the game more challenging for more experience characters. I'd go so far as to say that Morrowind is the best TES game for power-leveling as you described it.

Interesting topic... makes me miss Morrowind all the more!

True enough, but even when playing the game normally your character gets overpowered very quickly. Last playthrough I played a pure Redguard warrior. Just playing the Morrowind and Tribunal questline my character became nearly invincible just through artifacts and balanced enchantments. I'm currently trying out a combination of Wakim's game improvements, Economy Adjuster, Service Requirements, GCD and some minor balancing mods and it works quite well. No powerleveling possible, but it makes the game insanely difficult, too. But as I said, powerleveling is a waning appeal for me, just like speed running. Takes the fun out of the game in the long run, but it's fun once in a while.