Morrowind - character question

[nekkerbee]

So, I've begun a new game of Morrowind. I'm only a few hours in but I'm wondering about the viability of a character build. I made a Dark Elf thiefy type - sneak and security, long blade and marksman, y'know. Int is 40, willpower is 30.

While I know he'll never be a powerhouse mage, how feasible is it for him to pursue some magical training? I know that in Oblivion you're better off not choosing skills you actually want to excel in, but I don't know if that applies to Morrowind. I seem to recall that Morrowind characters tend to be less general-purpose than Oblivion. My Dark Elf above has alchemy as a minor skill, but the remaining mage skills are of the miscellaneous type.

So, what kind of magical future does this character have? I think I wanted him to start off as a practical adventurer-thief who takes magical training throughout the game, but I now suspect I'll end up a jack-of-all-trades incapable of handling the higher level threats. But I also seem to recall that you become overpowered about halfway through.

I suppose I could restart as a magic-focused character; I'm playing with Morrowind Comes Alive so I can always hire a companion (like the sexy redhead fighter in Seyda Neen) until my wizardry achieves a degree of lethality. But if respectable magery is feasible with my current character I won't have to repeat the hours I've put in already.

Thanks.

 

[Mastermind]

Pay to enchant items to do the spellcasting you need, natural spellcasting is mostly shit anyway. You might want to train enchant at some point though since it reduces the number of charges each cast takes considerably.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Basically what Mastermind said. Non-enchantment based spell casting is shit.

 

[DraQ]

While I know he'll never be a powerhouse mage, how feasible is it for him to pursue some magical training? I know that in Oblivion you're better off not choosing skills you actually want to excel in, but I don't know if that applies to Morrowind.

It doesn't. In theory it might, but since skills govern failure rate in Morrowind and since calculated probabilities go beyond [0,1] range freely pretty much anything short of making cigarette lighter spell and firing it at the wall for hours will help such character develop without autofailing and dying horribly to even weakest foes. Since there is no scaling nor aggressive levelling there is no point to such retardation either - you will grow stronger with increasing level, not weaker, so there is no point to avoiding leveling

So, what kind of magical future does this character have? I think I wanted him to start off as a practical adventurer-thief who takes magical training throughout the game, but I now suspect I'll end up a jack-of-all-trades incapable of handling the higher level threats. But I also seem to recall that you become overpowered about halfway through.

In general Morrowind wasn't made with powergaming in mind - quite the contrary, you need extensive house-ruling to prevent yourself from breaking the game. Refraining from grinding, all sorts of merchant abuse and extensive use of trainers should do.

As for magical abilities - serious offensive casting is off-limits without race or sign related magicka multiplier - 100 is not enough for such applications. The game does feature a lot of utility spells, though.

I suppose I could restart as a magic-focused character

Personally, I find dedicated casters to be the most fun in Morrowind, but you need to readjust mentally from fireball spam to math and experimenting with weird effect combinations.

Also,

Basically Mastermind is shit.

Fix'd.

Enchantments are powerful and more than borderline broken, but they force you to lug a screenful of trinkets, constantly swap them and capacities of enchantable objects don't allow for truly interesting combinations of effects.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Enchantments are powerful and more than borderline broken, but they force you to lug a screenful of trinkets, constantly swap them and capacities of enchantable objects don't allow for truly interesting combinations of effects.

Well, there has to be SOME sort of disadvantage.

For utility spells? Yeah, regular spells are fine. But for anything offensive? Enchanted items are significantly better.

 

[Redeye]

Alchemy.
Eat ingredients as you go along to raise it.
Just don't abuse potion stacking.

Could go for Womburned (Atronach sign) Breton and pursue endurance/speed/acrobatics.
Mix with alchemy.
Grab a knockback weapon.
You can always develop sneak/etc. as you go along.

I always break the game that way.

----------------------------------------------------
You can even break the "thread of fate" and still win if you really want to.

 

[Mastermind]

quite the contrary, you need to be a larping faggot like me to prevent yourself from breaking the game.

Fixed.

Enchantments are powerful and more than borderline broken, but they force you to lug a screenful of trinkets, constantly swap them and capacities of enchantable objects don't allow for truly interesting combinations of effects.

You don't need a screen-full of trinkets because most effects are virtually useless.

 

[ElectricOtter]

You don't need a screen-full of trinkets because most effects are virtually useless.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

You coud use a mod to take care of enchant vs spellcasting imbalancing shenanigans. DraQ would suggest Wakim's Game Improvements, but I prefer the final solution.

The Morrowind Code Patch also adds a minor cooldown period to enchanted items (4 seconds), which prevents spamming and makes spellcasting sometimes preferable. You're probably using that already, though.

 

[Mastermind]

You don't need a screen-full of trinkets because most effects are virtually useless.

absorb attribute Shit, better off nuking.
absorb fatigue Useful for knocking people out
absorb health very useful, won't hurt when it gets reflected.
absorb magicka Shit, better off nuking.
absorb skill Shit, better off nuking.
almsivi intervention useful
blind Shit, better off nuking.
bound x 11 weapons are useful for the extra attack, but you probably won`t use more than 1 or two. rest are shit.
burden Shit, better off nuking.
calm creature Shit, better off nuking.
calm humanoid Useful if you don`t want to kill an npc
chameleon Useful, mostly as CE though, so no reason to have it take up space.
charm Useful so you can ignore the already shit speechcraft skill
command creature Useful for moving the mudcrab merchant in your house. Shit otherwise.
command humanoid Shit, better off nuking.
cure common disease marginally useful, potions are more common and thus better.
cure blight same as above
cure paralyzation no point in enchanting something you can`t use.
cure poison same as above.
damage attribute Shit, better off nuking.
damage fatigue useful for knocking people out
damage magicka Shit, better off nuking.
damage skill Shit, better off nuking.
demoralize creature Shit, better off nuking.
demoralize humanoid marginally useful for getting peopel to stop fighting you if you don`t want to kill th em.
detect animal shit
detect enchantment marginally useful for quests, never had to use it.
detect key same as above
disintegrate armor useful for robbing people without killing them.
disintegrate weapon same as above
dispel Shit, better off nuking.
divine intervention useful
drain attribute Shit, better off nuking.
drain fatigue shit, better off damaging or absorbing
drain health Shit, better off nuking.
drain magicka Shit, better off nuking.
drain skill Shit, better off nuking.
feather shit
damage health x5 useful for raw damage, though I usually just use absorb health
elemental shield x3 shit
fortify attack shit
fortify attribute shit
fortify fatigue shit
fortify health shit
fortify magicka shit
fortify skill shit
frenzy creature Shit, better off nuking.
frenzy humanoid useful to get people to attack you without pissing off guards.
invisibility useful
jump useful for late game transportation
levitate useful for mid-late game transportation.
light shit, use night eye
lock Shit, better off nuking.
mark useful
night eye useful, better as low magnitude CE
open useful
paralyze Shit, better off nuking.
rally creature shit
rally humanoid shit
recall useful
reflect shit, use absorb + atronach
resist blight/common shit
resist elements shit
resist magicka useful for breton and to put on the boots of blinding speed, atronach + absorb is better even then though.
resist normal weapons shit
resist paralysis shit
restore attribute useful
restore fatigue shit
restore health useful
restore skill useful
sanctuary Shit, better off nuking.
shield Shit, better off nuking.
silence Shit, better off nuking.
slowfall useful for fast transportation.
soultrap useful for enchanting
sound Shit, better off nuking.
spell absorption useful as CE when combined with atronach.
summon x 15 shit except golden saint.
swift swim shit, just get the boots of blinding speed
telekinesis useful when trying to lockpick well guarded doors.
turn undead Shit, better off nuking.
water breathing useful in a couple of spots, not much underwater content though.
water walking useful when babysitting some faggots
weakness to disease x3 shit and useless
weakness to elements useful when combined with damage enchantments

Good sir, I believe my point stands.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Mastermind's no bs guide to succeeding in Morrowind

 

[DraQ]

I get off while stealing candies from babies because it proves how fucking strong and clever I am.

You say?

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

Just keep playing as it is. You can take a few goes at training every level to kickstart your spell success and stats. After that just let your combat spellcasting take you.

Yes training can seriously break the game with all the ever-flowing gold that you can find/sell for, but if you make a half-conscious effort not to make yourself a level seven god-man, you will be fine.

 

[Phage]

Sell expensive weapons to Creeper -> train skills -> become so powerful that you can kill Vivec and the game is boring.

 

[Mastermind]

Why bother to sell shit when you can drain your skill to 0 and train it for free?

 

[Mastermind]

I get off while stealing candies from babies because it proves how fucking strong and clever I am.

You say?

Butthurt detected.

 

[saenz]

*double post*

 

[saenz]

OP, you mentioned you already have MCA and NOM in. I'm assuming you also have MCP and MGE XE as well? MCP 2.0 just came out fairly recently and does some pretty solid balancing and stability fixes.

Also, are you running Galsiah's Character Development mod? GCD actually makes your character build stick as opposed to vanilla where you always end up mutating into a jack-of-all-trades..

 

[Hobo Elf]

Slight hijack: Started playing Morrowind 3 days ago too. Making a slightly different character this time. Picked the Atronarch sign and Breton so I can rape magic users hard. I'm also going full unarmed. Armor is for faggots. Instead I'm gonna enchant my clothes with constant effect magic to replace armor.

 

[Phage]

Why bother to sell shit when you can drain your skill to 0 and train it for free?

Oh shi- never thought of that. Honestly the only external help I had in making my character godly was a quick search for "Morrowind NPCs with most gold" then I found Creeper (and mudcrab, but he's a pain to get to).

Cool game. Great environment. Boring quest direction and shitty skill system ultimately hinder it. The less you metagame the more you'll enjoy it, to be honest.

 

[Mastermind]

Why bother to sell shit when you can drain your skill to 0 and train it for free?

Oh shi- never thought of that. Honestly the only external help I had in making my character godly was a quick search for "Morrowind NPCs with most gold" then I found Creeper (and mudcrab, but he's a pain to get to).

Cool game. Great environment. Boring quest direction and shitty skill system ultimately hinder it. The less you metagame the more you'll enjoy it, to be honest.

I enjoyed the quests and exploration. The metagaming knowledge is useful for setting up cool scenarios like this massive undead/atronach attack I did on ald ruhn once. Skeletons for melee with storm atronach for artillery support. Unfortunately, the storm atronach's attacks did area damage so they ended up killing the skeletons. The much tougher and more numerous redoran guards then raped the atronachs and caved my skull in with silver maces. Good times.

 

[DraQ]

Slight hijack: Started playing Morrowind 3 days ago too. Making a slightly different character this time. Picked the Atronarch sign and Breton so I can rape magic users hard. I'm also going full unarmed. Armor is for faggots. Instead I'm gonna enchant my clothes with constant effect magic to replace armor.

If you're going to be a dedicated caster, you can do better. A caster doesn't really need armour most of the time, and when he does, he can cast appropriate combo of bound armour, shield and sanctuary for short-term protection. A caster, however does need other stuff, like intelligence and willpower for superpowered spells. Of course, by forfeiting armour, you're forfeiting enchantments slot, which isn't good, though if your character is physically weak you might find lugging around all that enchanted armour not feasible, and enchanting it with fortify strength would rob you of extra enchantment slots anyway, while also limiting your movement rate compared with unarmoured (but it might increase your net carrying capacity if you need that).

Of course, do mind that constant effect enchantments require powerful souls to power them (and a metric wagonload of gold, but the economy is broken so it shouldn't be a problem).

 

[Hobo Elf]

Actually, I'm melee. Using Long Swords and Shields. Basically I'm just coming up with new creative ways to build characters since I'm at the point where I've played so much Morrowind where it's gotten to the point where I just try to be as zany and interesting as possible now.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

You probably played Long blade + shield already. Cripple yourself by playing as a magic-hating, unarmored hand to hand monk then. Or you could even larp that he's a stranded human guy from Earth, maybe a Streetfighter (starting clothes only, and the only spell allowed is fireball).

Use your imagination

 

[Hobo Elf]

Not really. I always go short sword for daggers or marksman for bows. Or magic. I always like to play Thief or Mage characters in open world games. I have used Long Swords and Shields, but never that seriously.

I was gonna larp a monk next. The hadoukens are a nice touch though. Good idea. I wonder if anyone has modded in playable Dan models.