UESP Forums

First off, I've played the heck out of Skyrim and Oblivion (as evidenced by my hour counts) but have never really gotten into Morrowind. I was wondering what would be the best character to make? Skills, weapons, spells?

What do you want to do? Any set works out, although main templates from Arena and Daggerfall are still available in MW.
Or, do you wish to powerplay? That's no hard as well.

What you do is you stay your ass out the water. You save often. You relieve yourself of any notion that the animation portrays the action. You get over the lack of quest pointers and fast travel, because Almsivi bless you, but they dang sure don't hold your hand.

As far as preselects, what you pick really only effects the early game. If at any point you don't like the role you started out with, just change your play style until you find what you like and level those skills instead. Morrowind is more forgiving of this as there are precious few aspects that level with you.

My first real playthrough I started as a Nord barbarian. After surviving an assassination attempt, I donned my would-be killer's armor and played stealthy for a while. By the time I took down Dagoth, I was a full out battlmage. This was the same character, same run.

Do what thou will.

What you say is true, Marisa. But with the combinations available to custom spells and enchantments even a novice player can easily overcome any magicka shortfalls. I'm also of the opinion that employing the seemingly limitless power of alchemy is less an exploit than something the devs left in place as a deliberate workaround, evidenced by the fact that they never nerfed it (my belief is that they didn't anticipate the Internet so readily giving away the secret). It's not an easy thing to discover, it leaves the choice of how far to take it firmly in the hands of the player, and can be scaled back at any time.

Sure, most players can easily master the trick necessary to be able to one-shot Vivec 15 minutes into the game using nothing more than what the world provides; few others will invest the time it takes to find just the right point in the story to challenge him in werewolf form. Hircine wills it.

This is the class I put together and currently employ with an Imperial male. It's a combat based class that gives me a couple of different options. I am primarily a heavy armour, long blade, and blocker in most playthroughs of the game, but this time I wanted to incorporate marksmanship as a ranged option instead of running head-on all the time. I've also incorporated spears, because I've seldom used them and again, it's an option, if I had a hard hitting opponent that I wanted to back away from and be able to strike at range. Medium armor is another option, which would be helpful for me earlier in the game primarily. I tend to come across a decent amount of medium armors in my travels, and rather than restrict myself to the more expensive heavy armor that I might not necessarily be able to afford, I want to be able to mix and match a bit if I need to. And, my Endurance is raised nicely by having Endurance as a primary attribute that's been boosted by the Lady

Armorer is self-explanatory. With a warrior class, I want to be able to have my stuff maintained, and armorer's hammers are quite easy to find out in the field.

Mercantilism enables one to get the best deals bartering for goods, and Speech enables me to use persuasion effectively, both of which are helped by an Imperial's natural personality level, my primary Personality attribute, as well as the second boost from the Lady. So, with 85 personality at level one and speech being a primary attribute, I'll have significantly better success using personality-based options.

It's also worth noting that I made this class from a roleplay perspective, as I tend to roleplay all my RPGs. Maybe a diplomatic warrior isn't your thing, but it's a demonstration of being able to use the options available to you.

Not sure what's the item or items in the way of your enjoyment, so I can only speculate:

1. Movement: Having Athletics as a Miscellaneous skill is painful, some of this can be alleviated by making it a Major skill and/or putting a priority on leveling it up. In my experience, 60 Athletics is the minimum for vaguely tolerable.

There is an artifact that significantly boosts speed and is easy to get even for a low level character.

I find having a constant effect 1 Levitation + Fortify Speed ring very useful. Not only does this allow you to cross oceans, which is more than occasionally necessary, but it allows you to instantly dispel the levitation.

The interactive map is quite good for finding your way. I used the "fast travel map" and thing marked it up with the various landmarks as I came across them. Helps quite a bit.

The 3 teleport spells, Almisivi, Divine and Recall are all terribly useful. I take notes if I'm in X city, Divine teleports me here, Almsivi there. etc.

2. Alchemy is the single most powerful skill in the game.

3. Fatigue: is a pain. Early on, I use alchemy to create potions with both Restore Health and Restore Fatigue. A constant effect Restore enchanted item is a high priority for me.

4. Lighting: personally, I find carry torches and lanterns a pain, with the exception of a few rare unique lighting sources they tend to go out pretty quickly, and do not operate when you switch to spell mode. I make acquiring a long duration Night Eye Spell an early priority, as well as a constant effect Night Eye Item. I find 30 Night Eye works well, making unlit spaces comfortably lit while not causing blindness in well lit rooms. I usually put a constant effect 1 Restore Fatigue 30 Night Eye on a robe and never take it off.

5. Charm: I find Speechcraft pretty hard to level up, some of that is no doubt because I usually only have it as a Minor or Misc. skill. Instead I find a custom spell Charm 20-50 for 2 seconds is a lot easier. Adjust as to your purpose and Illusion skill.

6. Birthsigns: personally I find the Atronach the best birth sign. Your mileage may differ.

7. Maximum Magicka: Bretons are a lot more durable than High Elves, but only the High Elves can bring the truly god like magical smack down. There are artifacts which will reduce or essentially eliminate the -Resistances of High Elves. In any event when you go magical, be very, very careful about Reflect.

8. Custom Spells: If you want to use magic as your primary method of dealing with hostiles, you need to make custom spells the vanilla versions sold by the merchants are of limited utility.

9. Items: there are a lot of really stupendously powerful artifacts out there, it depends on how you want to deal with a hostile world. As for armor, exclusive of artifacts, the real choices are between glass (light) armor and daedric (heavy) armor, the medium armor options are inferior to both. As for weapons, exclusive of artifacts, I have found with limited exception, that the "bound spell" version is imminently superior to all other options. Daedric weapons have the highest damage profile and bound spell versions have the advantage of never needing repair and having no weight (quite a bonus since normal daedric weapons are hella heavy).

Wearing Exquisite clothes also seems to increase people's disposition toward you, so dress for success.

If you could tell us what you liked about the other games or what frustrates you about Morrowind we'd be better able to advise.