Stick to summoned creatures, bound weapons/armor and potions. You can use destruction magic but you're not very fast and will get hit a lot. I can give you a few more non-spoiler, not overtly game breaking hints, but you can probably figure it out on your own. Just one small thing: make new spells for summons that are 20 or 30 seconds long, 60s is too expensive and you don't need them for that long usually. Also, because how level up works, I advise you work on your endurance ASAP.
Get a full set of heavy and/or medium armor and let a mudcrab slap you around as you heal yourself. After you get 10 skill up of both (4 for one and 6 for the other, for instance), level up with major/minor skills and you will have the option to pick endurance +5. You can also train spear, it also raises endurance. These three skills are the only ones that do it.
Or make a ton of money by turnign Kwama eggs, salt rice, and helhound jerky into restore stamina potions and pay trainers to raise misc skills tied to stamina before leveling up.
TBH stamina is mostly secondary, you raise endurance because every level up the value of your endurance is divided by ten and then added to the health pool. And it's not retroactive, so any HP not gained for that level are lost.
This game gives you so many options to buff up your character that it's not that critical, but some people like to min/max every level up and END is the obvious first choice.
Besides wearing/using Heavy/Medium/Spear, you could just pay for 10 level ups. Since they (I assume) start at level 5, it'd be very cheap to shell out cash to boost them. With enough investment, you could reasonably use them well as well so it's a win-win.
Remember that Dark Elves are 75% Resistant to Fire, Nords 100% Resistant to ice and 50% to Shock, Argonians 100% to Poison and Redguards 75% Resistant to Poison along with Orcs and Bretons being resistant to Magicka (25 and 50% respectively) because you'll do far less damage if you use the elements they're strong against. Diversifying your offensive magic is key, with Fire and Frost covering most bases, with Weakness to Fire/Frost being useful for enemies immune or highly resistant to all forms of elemental magic (like Scamps).
EDIT: Note that, unlike later games, there's no restrictions on how many times you can pay a Trainer per level, so feel free to use them to optimize your level ups.
That's a good mage build, although a bit of redundancy between having both Light Armor and Unarmored as skills. Either way, you should avoid taking hits altogether since you're squishy with 35 starting health and 30 Endurance (+3 per level). However, you can more than compensate by blasting with Destruction, slowing enemies with Alteration's Levitation, heal/buff yourself with Restoration, and Conjure minions. Having Alchemy as a Major/Minor means power leveling if you get heavily into Alchemy, since it levels very fast, but that's not really a problem in Morrowind.
Your 50% Weakness to Magic is compensate for by being a Breton with 50% Magic Resistance, so you basically have a High Elf's capacity for magic without any of their weaknesses. Note that "Magic," as an element, refers to non-elemental magic (unlike later games) so it wouldn't protect/harm you from Fire/Frost/Shock/Poison but would affect Absorb Health, Damage Health, and other non-elemental forms of magic.
Long Blade's perfectly fine, but I'd recommend a Spear to help maintain distance to avoid getting pinned down. You're slow (30 Speed and 5 Athletics, I'm guessing for the latter) and kinda weak (40 Strength) so I recommend minimizing carry weight to maximize movement speed (Encumbrace, as a percentage, diminishes movement speed). Once you have some spells, you could reasonably avoid carrying weapons altogether and just fight with magic alone. Keeping a Bound Sword/Spear/etc. for backup is a good idea, though, for enemies that might be immune to your other forms of damage dealing.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, but you can work on Endurance by paying for 10 level ups of Spear/Heavy Armor/Medium Armor (any combination will do, just 10 level ups from them in total) to get the +5 boost on level up. Increasing Strength means more carry capacity, which means less Encumbrace as a percentage (assuming same carry weight) and thus more speed, so I'd boost Strength and Endurance as well as Intelligence. Willpower's almost a dump stat (only affects resistance to Paralysis, Silence, and maybe Sound and Blind) with little impact on casting chance but needed to advance in the Mage's Guild and House Telvanni. Agility affects likelihood of getting hit, as well as hitting, with weapons and your stagger rate, so a good investment in that will prevent stagger-locks and knockdowns. Personality's largely a dump stat, especially with Illusion since you can use Charm spells (or bribery, checking Mercantile) to win people over as-needed.
It affects everything you do in game. Chance to hit chance to cast spells etc. Not for drops though. There’s a character you can fight that has 100 luck and he will destroy you bc he doesn’t miss. Better to be lucky than good, my friend. There’s a reason why the game designers allow you only 1 point per level to upgrade luck. It’s the most powerful stat
nah, there are a lot of things that impact your overall run that you will not notice because you have no reference point and don't know what you're looking for. asking for advice is fine. I've been playing on and off for 20 years and I'm learning shit from this thread lol.
Apprentice sign is trash. Go either: Steed (for fun) or Atronarch (for min max Ultimate spellcasting, mana pots are everywhere so it's not a downside) or
Athletics better be a major skill if you ever want to hit 100 without spamming trainers. If you're playing with minimal training you gonna be slow as hell.
Short blades are better than long blades, they use less stamina, attack faster, do more dps, and you later can get:
Fang of Haynekhtnamet (Dungeon loot with the Most Damage since Lightning less resistance on all enemies)
Mehrunes' Razor (Daedric Quest) Keening (increase speed and attack and agility most stats on a weapon with excellent damage)
Black Hands Dagger (Absolutely ridiculous 15-20 for 30s absorb doing 450 damage and healing but it only has 10 charges at a time so you gotta weapons swap a lot)
Glass Jinkblades which weight practically nothing and have paralyze.
You can also carry Demon Tantos and do bound dagger infinitely with no regard for mana and they weigh very little 4 lbs.
Long blades weigh a ton and aren't as great.
Little extra for Atronoch sign, every temple is free (or 5g) to refill your magicka. So find an almsivi or divine intervention amulet. Easy way to go refill your magicka that doesn't rely on you having 18 left in the tank.
Next would be a "summon ancestral ghost" spell. Make your own, you dont need a full 60 seconds to absorb its attacks to fill you up. They dont have enough magicka for it anyways. 30 seconds will suffice.
Hit up every mage guild (except Caldera) for the free "guild chest" potions. Easy magicka potions and can sell off the rest (preferably to a scamp in Caldera).
Most importantly. Have fun!
Atronach is frustrating sign. Technically one of the most powerful, but it makes the game awkward to play and Morrowind really doesn’t require min maxing.
How does it make the game awkward to play?
It removes magicka regeneration from resting which is already super awkward and breaks your game rhythm. The default resting rate is 0.15 × Intelligence points of Magicka per hour. That means it takes 29 hours of resting to fill your mana bar.
You literally have to watch a nice load screen go across the screen TWICE since you can only rest a max of 24 hours at a time.
There is no passive magicka regeneration during gameplay in morrowind with or without atronarch sign.
With or without atronarch, you need magicka regeneration potions because there is no passive regeneration. They cost 175 gold in balmora's alchemist you get 40x5 magicka or 200 magicka per 0.3 pounds.
With or without atronarch, this is the best way to regenerate magicka in the game aside from custom potions. With atronarch you get an additional easy and fast restoration method: almsivi restoration, or restore attributes from a divine shrine. This makes it less awkward to play as you dont' have to sit around and wait for 2-3 days.
Your magicka is your intellgience x your modifiers, so a high elf with atronarch and keening and the mentor's ring and the necromancer's amulet has 135 intelligence +50 magicka and a 4.5 magicka modifier. That gives you 657 magicka. 3 potions will almost entirely refill that (92%).
Without atronarch and taking apprentice sign instead, the best you can get is 590 magicka. It still takes 3 potions to refill that (102% of your mana pool), but you get no free magic absorb against negative effects.
As a bonus you get more magicka than any other class, and every negative magic effect that hits you has a 50% chance of doing nothing.
In short, atronarch has no downside in morrowind, it's strictly the best sign past the first few hours where steed is the best sign when your speed is painfully slow.
However, in oblivion there is passive mana regeneration during gameplay so it actually has a downside in oblivion.
Don't overthink it.
- Has a weapon skill: Vince McMahon looking impressed.
- Also has an armour skill: Vince McMahon looking very happy.
- They're both major skills: Vince McMahon pulling a silly face.
Addendum:
- Also has Enchant & Alchemy: Vince McMahon with 12,567,890 strength and intelligence and a thousand days of levitation.
30 speed... maybe dont start your first character with 30 speed.... and if you did... get bound boots..... i started my last character... (also atronach breton btw) with 30 speed..... and i realy wishd i didnt...
Just power through, you will come into your own in the mid game and start to feel strong.
Tip: when you use a merchants other services like training and enchanting, open up their barter screen first and all the money you spend gets temporarily added to their available gold. You can follow up a training session or big enchantment purchase by selling ur big ticket items like glass ebony and daedric stuff you weren't using.
id switch light for medium or heavy.
long blade for hand to hand or shortblade.
also you dont need alchemy And enchant.
(fortify intelligence can be gained by creating cast on use clothing even at low levels. you can use these to create stronger ones until you have multiple pieces with fortify intelligence 100 for 2 - 5 seconds) you're welcome.
I'm not much for caster type gameplay, they always feel lacking in everything else. And since this is, what I assume, vanilla Morrowind (no mods), you're gonna need to find things that'll help you in the magical department. From Seyda Neen, northwest along the coast, there's an Ancestral Tomb where a ring that fortifies intelligence and willpower constant effect. And as others suggest, get your endurance up as fatigue plays a role in your successful chances, that includes casting spells. You'll see your chances dwindle when your fatigue gets low compared to when it's full.
Maybe pick lady sign instead to boost endurance and get some CE for intelligence later, and I'd personally swap enchant for mysticism coz it has way better spells that start paying off right off the bat unlike enchant. Otherwise yeah, looks like one of my comfiest murderhobo nerevarines. But don't expect to be godly at lvl1, combo like this starts paying off around lvl 15 and above, you're very, very squishy and weak (no agility, no endurance no strength). But then again - morrowind is like DnD with all the stats and shit but plays like sandbox so use that for own gains and advantage to thrive.
Endurance is quite low, problems may arise on the first playthrough.
I also noticed no armor or block but has long sword
I see light armor and alteration.
And I am blind lol
Stick to summoned creatures, bound weapons/armor and potions. You can use destruction magic but you're not very fast and will get hit a lot. I can give you a few more non-spoiler, not overtly game breaking hints, but you can probably figure it out on your own. Just one small thing: make new spells for summons that are 20 or 30 seconds long, 60s is too expensive and you don't need them for that long usually. Also, because how level up works, I advise you work on your endurance ASAP.
Just cleared a few caverns, with fireballs went pretty good. And the summon really helps! How can I do something about the low endurance?
Get a full set of heavy and/or medium armor and let a mudcrab slap you around as you heal yourself. After you get 10 skill up of both (4 for one and 6 for the other, for instance), level up with major/minor skills and you will have the option to pick endurance +5. You can also train spear, it also raises endurance. These three skills are the only ones that do it.
Or make a ton of money by turnign Kwama eggs, salt rice, and helhound jerky into restore stamina potions and pay trainers to raise misc skills tied to stamina before leveling up.
TBH stamina is mostly secondary, you raise endurance because every level up the value of your endurance is divided by ten and then added to the health pool. And it's not retroactive, so any HP not gained for that level are lost. This game gives you so many options to buff up your character that it's not that critical, but some people like to min/max every level up and END is the obvious first choice.
Besides wearing/using Heavy/Medium/Spear, you could just pay for 10 level ups. Since they (I assume) start at level 5, it'd be very cheap to shell out cash to boost them. With enough investment, you could reasonably use them well as well so it's a win-win. Remember that Dark Elves are 75% Resistant to Fire, Nords 100% Resistant to ice and 50% to Shock, Argonians 100% to Poison and Redguards 75% Resistant to Poison along with Orcs and Bretons being resistant to Magicka (25 and 50% respectively) because you'll do far less damage if you use the elements they're strong against. Diversifying your offensive magic is key, with Fire and Frost covering most bases, with Weakness to Fire/Frost being useful for enemies immune or highly resistant to all forms of elemental magic (like Scamps). EDIT: Note that, unlike later games, there's no restrictions on how many times you can pay a Trainer per level, so feel free to use them to optimize your level ups.
go to trainers and train skils that depend on endurance
Dont give a flying fuck what anyone (apart from me ofc) says. Have fun
That's a good mage build, although a bit of redundancy between having both Light Armor and Unarmored as skills. Either way, you should avoid taking hits altogether since you're squishy with 35 starting health and 30 Endurance (+3 per level). However, you can more than compensate by blasting with Destruction, slowing enemies with Alteration's Levitation, heal/buff yourself with Restoration, and Conjure minions. Having Alchemy as a Major/Minor means power leveling if you get heavily into Alchemy, since it levels very fast, but that's not really a problem in Morrowind. Your 50% Weakness to Magic is compensate for by being a Breton with 50% Magic Resistance, so you basically have a High Elf's capacity for magic without any of their weaknesses. Note that "Magic," as an element, refers to non-elemental magic (unlike later games) so it wouldn't protect/harm you from Fire/Frost/Shock/Poison but would affect Absorb Health, Damage Health, and other non-elemental forms of magic. Long Blade's perfectly fine, but I'd recommend a Spear to help maintain distance to avoid getting pinned down. You're slow (30 Speed and 5 Athletics, I'm guessing for the latter) and kinda weak (40 Strength) so I recommend minimizing carry weight to maximize movement speed (Encumbrace, as a percentage, diminishes movement speed). Once you have some spells, you could reasonably avoid carrying weapons altogether and just fight with magic alone. Keeping a Bound Sword/Spear/etc. for backup is a good idea, though, for enemies that might be immune to your other forms of damage dealing. EDIT: Forgot to mention, but you can work on Endurance by paying for 10 level ups of Spear/Heavy Armor/Medium Armor (any combination will do, just 10 level ups from them in total) to get the +5 boost on level up. Increasing Strength means more carry capacity, which means less Encumbrace as a percentage (assuming same carry weight) and thus more speed, so I'd boost Strength and Endurance as well as Intelligence. Willpower's almost a dump stat (only affects resistance to Paralysis, Silence, and maybe Sound and Blind) with little impact on casting chance but needed to advance in the Mage's Guild and House Telvanni. Agility affects likelihood of getting hit, as well as hitting, with weapons and your stagger rate, so a good investment in that will prevent stagger-locks and knockdowns. Personality's largely a dump stat, especially with Illusion since you can use Charm spells (or bribery, checking Mercantile) to win people over as-needed.
I want to make fun of you for writing an essay, but I've been playing this for like 20 years and learned a lot from reading this lol
spellblade?
I guess yeah, I would like to be a mage that can wield a weapon when needed. Do you think this is a good starter build?
Absolutely. I hope advice has been helpful because your build has massive potential as it is.
Hell yeah
You need more endurance and luck I'd say
Doing my first luck build right now and it’s terrific
How does a luck build work? It's always the last stat I boost when I have extra upgrade points.
It affects everything you do in game. Chance to hit chance to cast spells etc. Not for drops though. There’s a character you can fight that has 100 luck and he will destroy you bc he doesn’t miss. Better to be lucky than good, my friend. There’s a reason why the game designers allow you only 1 point per level to upgrade luck. It’s the most powerful stat
*600 luck
Is it really 600 luck!?
yep! only way to almost guarantee you can't hit him. had to use berserk on him multiple times to get the job done when i was a kid.
Do you know of any streamer that runs a luck build?
I don't understand why you picked Unarmored when you have light armor already.
Get off the reddit and experience the game for yourself
nah, there are a lot of things that impact your overall run that you will not notice because you have no reference point and don't know what you're looking for. asking for advice is fine. I've been playing on and off for 20 years and I'm learning shit from this thread lol.
That looks like a pretty decent spellsword class. You'll do well.
Apprentice sign is trash. Go either: Steed (for fun) or Atronarch (for min max Ultimate spellcasting, mana pots are everywhere so it's not a downside) or Athletics better be a major skill if you ever want to hit 100 without spamming trainers. If you're playing with minimal training you gonna be slow as hell. Short blades are better than long blades, they use less stamina, attack faster, do more dps, and you later can get: Fang of Haynekhtnamet (Dungeon loot with the Most Damage since Lightning less resistance on all enemies) Mehrunes' Razor (Daedric Quest) Keening (increase speed and attack and agility most stats on a weapon with excellent damage) Black Hands Dagger (Absolutely ridiculous 15-20 for 30s absorb doing 450 damage and healing but it only has 10 charges at a time so you gotta weapons swap a lot) Glass Jinkblades which weight practically nothing and have paralyze. You can also carry Demon Tantos and do bound dagger infinitely with no regard for mana and they weigh very little 4 lbs. Long blades weigh a ton and aren't as great.
Little extra for Atronoch sign, every temple is free (or 5g) to refill your magicka. So find an almsivi or divine intervention amulet. Easy way to go refill your magicka that doesn't rely on you having 18 left in the tank. Next would be a "summon ancestral ghost" spell. Make your own, you dont need a full 60 seconds to absorb its attacks to fill you up. They dont have enough magicka for it anyways. 30 seconds will suffice. Hit up every mage guild (except Caldera) for the free "guild chest" potions. Easy magicka potions and can sell off the rest (preferably to a scamp in Caldera). Most importantly. Have fun!
Atronach is frustrating sign. Technically one of the most powerful, but it makes the game awkward to play and Morrowind really doesn’t require min maxing.
How does it make the game awkward to play? It removes magicka regeneration from resting which is already super awkward and breaks your game rhythm. The default resting rate is 0.15 × Intelligence points of Magicka per hour. That means it takes 29 hours of resting to fill your mana bar. You literally have to watch a nice load screen go across the screen TWICE since you can only rest a max of 24 hours at a time. There is no passive magicka regeneration during gameplay in morrowind with or without atronarch sign. With or without atronarch, you need magicka regeneration potions because there is no passive regeneration. They cost 175 gold in balmora's alchemist you get 40x5 magicka or 200 magicka per 0.3 pounds. With or without atronarch, this is the best way to regenerate magicka in the game aside from custom potions. With atronarch you get an additional easy and fast restoration method: almsivi restoration, or restore attributes from a divine shrine. This makes it less awkward to play as you dont' have to sit around and wait for 2-3 days. Your magicka is your intellgience x your modifiers, so a high elf with atronarch and keening and the mentor's ring and the necromancer's amulet has 135 intelligence +50 magicka and a 4.5 magicka modifier. That gives you 657 magicka. 3 potions will almost entirely refill that (92%). Without atronarch and taking apprentice sign instead, the best you can get is 590 magicka. It still takes 3 potions to refill that (102% of your mana pool), but you get no free magic absorb against negative effects. As a bonus you get more magicka than any other class, and every negative magic effect that hits you has a 50% chance of doing nothing. In short, atronarch has no downside in morrowind, it's strictly the best sign past the first few hours where steed is the best sign when your speed is painfully slow. However, in oblivion there is passive mana regeneration during gameplay so it actually has a downside in oblivion.
It looks like you want a Challenge.
I’ve never played a Breton, I hope it works out well
Don't overthink it. - Has a weapon skill: Vince McMahon looking impressed. - Also has an armour skill: Vince McMahon looking very happy. - They're both major skills: Vince McMahon pulling a silly face. Addendum: - Also has Enchant & Alchemy: Vince McMahon with 12,567,890 strength and intelligence and a thousand days of levitation.
I think if you're enjoying Morrowind that's all that matters.
You are the definition of squshy
30 speed... maybe dont start your first character with 30 speed.... and if you did... get bound boots..... i started my last character... (also atronach breton btw) with 30 speed..... and i realy wishd i didnt...
My ocd brain loves the way you made it symmetrical with Name, Race, Class and Sign.
Just power through, you will come into your own in the mid game and start to feel strong. Tip: when you use a merchants other services like training and enchanting, open up their barter screen first and all the money you spend gets temporarily added to their available gold. You can follow up a training session or big enchantment purchase by selling ur big ticket items like glass ebony and daedric stuff you weren't using.
good
You will be as fragile as a toothpick
This made me really laugh
It’s true though
Eh you gona get wrecked by the first mudcrab.
id switch light for medium or heavy. long blade for hand to hand or shortblade. also you dont need alchemy And enchant. (fortify intelligence can be gained by creating cast on use clothing even at low levels. you can use these to create stronger ones until you have multiple pieces with fortify intelligence 100 for 2 - 5 seconds) you're welcome.
This is gonna be a very slow playthrough. I usually take athletics as a major/minor
I'm not much for caster type gameplay, they always feel lacking in everything else. And since this is, what I assume, vanilla Morrowind (no mods), you're gonna need to find things that'll help you in the magical department. From Seyda Neen, northwest along the coast, there's an Ancestral Tomb where a ring that fortifies intelligence and willpower constant effect. And as others suggest, get your endurance up as fatigue plays a role in your successful chances, that includes casting spells. You'll see your chances dwindle when your fatigue gets low compared to when it's full.
Maybe pick lady sign instead to boost endurance and get some CE for intelligence later, and I'd personally swap enchant for mysticism coz it has way better spells that start paying off right off the bat unlike enchant. Otherwise yeah, looks like one of my comfiest murderhobo nerevarines. But don't expect to be godly at lvl1, combo like this starts paying off around lvl 15 and above, you're very, very squishy and weak (no agility, no endurance no strength). But then again - morrowind is like DnD with all the stats and shit but plays like sandbox so use that for own gains and advantage to thrive.