Have any other Lurkers played Morrowind?

[roguebanshee]

You only need some 70 to 80 Chameleon to be more or less undetectable to 95% (or so) of the inhabitants of Vvardenfel.

Mages are IMO powerful enough without mods, learn the resistances & immunities of the various opponents (don't blast a Dunmer with a fire spell). A 50 pts (5 dam over 10 seconds) frost or fire spell is a good cheap way of killing most animal critters. Also the only non-uniques in vanilla Morrowind with Magicka resistance (or immunity) are Orcs (25%) and Bretons (50%), making Absorb Health quite useful since it can't kill you if reflected.

Your Magicka supply shouldn't be that big a problem if you take a race (Breton/Altmer) and/or a sign (Apprentice/Atronarch) dedicated to it. Besides Restore Magicka potions are easy to come by with Alchemy and a certain alchemist in Balmora.

[Lokishadow]

Well, in my experience, you can join and get by in just about as many factions as you want. Now, I haven't gone down the Magic route very far yet, nor have I found a way to join the Camonna Tong, but I suspect that you are right. The only big no-no is don't join two different houses, but then, the game won't let you.

Oh, and a word of advice: If you're going to work for the Mages guild, build up you Speechcraft and Security skills, since 90% of what they want you to do involves stealing. Then, build up your Armor and Weapon skills, since they'll go from having you steal alchemical recipes worth about 200 septims to going toe-to-toe with groups of Daedroths and Dremoras. Yeah, they care about you that much. *snort*

Of course, mabye you can make the mage thing work, but I found that I just don't have the patience to sit there and cast fireballs at the horizon until I level. Oh, and if you join house Telvanni, get the Tribunal expansion pack, since the fourth of fifth quest you get sent on is broken. Yeah, that's right, broken. Unless you're a very good thief, which I wasn't.

WARNING: SPOILER

The broken quest is to get the Staff of Silver Dawn from someone in the Wolverine Hall Mage's Guild. So when you go ask around, the mages say, "why yes, I think Arielle has one." So you go and ask Arielle about it, and what does she say?

"Why yes, I think Arielle has one."

C'mon, I at least expected a mages duel or an upturned nose, but speaking of yourself in the third person? You need to lay off the skooma, lady.

Now, I wasn't a terribly mighty mage, nor was I a very good thief. Therefore, I did not try to kill everyone in the Mages Guild (the ones in Balmora are powerful enough, and this is Wolverine Hall we're talking about), nor did I try to pick her pocket, given that my Security skill was *5*. You might be able to get somewhere with those routes, but chatting is absolutely pointless.

So saying, don't piss off too many of the Houses too much, because later on...well, you'll see, Saint Ne...er...Warlocke.

Hee hee
-Loki

[Skandranon]

Also the only non-uniques in vanilla Morrowind with Magicka resistance (or immunity) are Orcs (25%) and Bretons (50%), making Absorb Health quite useful since it can't kill you if reflected.

I never claimed that magic couldn't work, just that it was incredibly frustrating compared to going through as a fighter. Balance was my criticism, that the fighter and mage types are imbalanced in favour of the fighter. If you consider mages "powerful enough", then clearly you must consider fighter types "incredibly overpowered". Right?

That said, here are some problems I've had, especially in late-game Morrowind, Tribunal and Bloodmoon. It takes 200 or so magicka to take out the average Golden Saint while it's whacking on you with whatever daedric, glass or ebony doodad that it spawned with. Roughly the same for Dremora Lords. All while you're casting at it and it's hitting you and swinging your point of view back and forth. You can be completely abusive and exploit the AI's lack of ability to react to Levitate, but I never did due to its extreme cheesiness. Plus, since they all have Reflect to some degree or another, it's not about weaknesses, it's about using as much Absorb Health as you can, because running any kind of damage guarantees that one out of five times you'll fry yourself. Plus, casting times are just irritating. If I want to kill things with magic, my fighter will take a golden saint soul to Galbedir and get a nice ring that shoots 10 foot radius Absorb Healths with no casting time at all. Mages can do that, too, but not any easier, and if both of us are using the (incredibly broken) enchanted items, then the only difference is that the fighter has a lot more in the way of useful skills.

Casting times and the relative power of spells are just terrible compared to just about any weapon out there. Still, it's workable until you get Bloodmoon...as if mages didn't get blasted enough, they have to deal with Riekling Raiders with 60 points of Reflect, which tend to congregate in packs and attack quickly. A fighter can just tear in with a melee weapon or use a bow or darts from a distance. Mages have to run backwards across half of Solstheim hoping that they can get through those 400 hit points quickly enough. Just not worth the hassle.

[kandrathe]

Yeah, I know the Game of the Year edition is soon to be released, with Tribunal and Bloodmoon included, neither of which I have.

So I was in the local PC Everything store last night wondering how they can compete with mail order. I saw Tribunal and Bloodmoon on the shelf for $20 (USD) each. So, I was thinking; Hey that's not too bad. But wait! The GOTY edition should be out now, I wonder if it is less than $40. Why, yes it is! So I just placed my order for the GOTY for $28.99 to be shipped free (by super saver).

[kandrathe]

For me, being a wimpy mage takes more planning than being able to whip out your scourge and bludgeon the crowd to death. Not having yet played Tribunal or Bloodmoon, I've found that most of Morrowind's encounters are 1 vs 1 or 1 vs Few (3 or less). If the 1 vs 1 encounter is going to be tough, (i.e. like Ash vampire, Golden Saint, Dremora) I resort to some preparatory spells and an enchanted wizards staff. I think for a dedicated mage it is important to build at least one very good staff. My favorite for those tough melee creatures is an Ebony staff (cast on striking) With stats, IIRC, "Soul Trap" 10 seconds, "Weakness to Fire" 50 pts x 10 seconds, "Fire" 10 pts x 10 seconds. In any case, you need to find the right power/time balance. For me, one or two strikes of this staff is sure to kill and trap a golden saint or dremora. So if I see one, I use invisibility to walk right up close, and get one good smack in on them, then run away and avoid them. The golden saints will sometimes forego chasing you to cast a dispel, so as I see them preparing to cast I run back in and smack them right after they dispel. Switching to shield in between castings can help to deflect many blows.

Other strategies are to use invisibility to "case the joint", and see if there are any good cover locations from which you can cast. Many times a short duration levitate spell can put you up onto a ledge or even a rock, or by water walking you can get you a vantage point where you can hurl spells and quaff restore magicka pots in relative safety. And there are a ton of scrolls available. Now, granted that many of these things are available to all classes. But, then IMO, casting spells is just one skill, much like marksmanship allows one to shoot a bow. Another strategy I use is to use "Calm Humanoid" and "Calm Creature" to give me some time to prepare for the next barrage of attacks.

[roguebanshee]

Casting times and the relative power of spells are just terrible compared to just about any weapon out there. Still, it's workable until you get Bloodmoon...as if mages didn't get blasted enough, they have to deal with Riekling Raiders with 60 points of Reflect, which tend to congregate in packs and attack quickly.   A fighter can just tear in with a melee weapon or use a bow or darts from a distance.  Mages have to run backwards across half of Solstheim hoping that they can get through those 400 hit points quickly enough.  Just not worth the hassle.

Think this spell can do anything about those packs?


I'd like to see a fighter cause the same amount of mayhem, Magicka isn't a problem for an accomplished alchemist.

[Skandranon]

Think this spell can do anything about those packs?

Actually...no. Cast that on five Riekling Raiders and the odds are that it fails on three of them. From my experience shooting firebloom arrows at them, it feels more like 80 points of reflect than 60, but even at 60 it's quite an obstacle. Even if it works, it only takes a little under half their life. During those twenty secondsMeanwhile, they're charging at you (and they're quick). High Elf/Atronach at least gets around the magicka problem, but you still have to cast while Rieklings are shooting arrows at you, and then run from the packs, as I said, across half of Solstheim while you hope your spell works or even if it does, it's forty seconds to kill them, and they can cover a lot of ground in forty seconds. You almost have to. At roughly 50 damage a pop, three hits would do for your character easily.

As for fighters, keep in mind that my warrior with a Daedric nodachi (dai-k, with mod, but same stats) fully enchanted with Absorb Health can inflict roughly 250 damage per hit, pulling back fully and striking once every, say, one and a half seconds. In the twenty seconds that your spell is inflicting 200 damage on, say, six targets, for a total of 1200 damage in 20 seconds, I strike with a two-handed sword 13 times doing 3250 damage. You'd have to hit seventeen targets for that spell to outdo my damage output. Even without an enchanted weapon, say Chrysamere or Umbra, it's 180 or so damage per hit.

The thing about spells is that the damage listed is the damage you do, whereas for weapons, the damage on the weapon is base damage, further modified by skill in the weapon, level, and strength. Fighters of equivalent level and skill can always dish out more damage than spellcasters; just without the flashy lights, and mostly just one at a time (even though it's faster).

And I noticed, of the other spells of your list, just how many are Absorb Health. Life Drain, Life Force Leech, Life Sucker, Mega Drain...well, that's all Absorb. Kinda takes away from the fun of spellcasting when the game is so balanced against mages that you have to constantly reuse the one unreflectable offensive spell.

[roguebanshee]

And I noticed, of the other spells of your list, just how many are Absorb Health.  Life Drain, Life Force Leech, Life Sucker, Mega Drain...well, that's all Absorb.   Kinda takes away from the fun of spellcasting when the game is so balanced against mages that you have to constantly reuse the one unreflectable offensive spell.

Those are used against reflecting mobs, others will be handed a spell that's more mana efficient depending on their resistances and immunities. Why waste 140 Magicka on something you can kill and soultrap, with one spell, for less than 30?

As for damage speed, try stacking spells. Because you can't stack the same spell, the game won't allow a single "spellsource" to stack with itself, make an excact copy with a different name. A specific spell from an entity is a "spellsource". Scrolls and potions can be stacked since each scroll or potion is a different entity.

Finally the only thing that's remotely lethal for a mage, once you get the boots, is ranged attackers or being in a small enclosed space with an opponent that hits very fast or hard.

[WarLocke]

Random thoughts:

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