Comprehensive PC Character Guide

[thanateros]

I've been searching around and haven't really found too many sites that have strong commentary on character development, creation, and utilization of skills for different classes.

 

Is there anyone interested in helping me compile some tips and strategies for starting the game and making characters that you don't have to make them 5 times before you have something resembling what you want?

 

For those interested it would probably be broken up by class and focus (magic, combat or stealth). Also a comprehensive guide on how to effectively utilize cross class skills and develop those skills that aren't primary or secondary.

 

I guess this would be a rather ongoing process, and perhaps it might just be well suited to be a thread on the forum. But if anyone is interested in helping me start to gather some things together I'd be willing to do it.

[OddGuy]

Sounds cool. I'd love to help.

[idea assassin]

It sounds like a good idea. The only question I have about it is, how do you make a guide for a class system so open-ended? You can literally cobble together whatever class you want, or at least a resonable approximation. And the class skills and cross-class skills, etc. that work for you might not necessarily be interesting to me. On top of that, once you've leveled a bit, the differences in the character races become purely cosmetic, apart from the ultimately pretty useless race bonus abilites. But it could be a good thing for first timers that don't have a clue what any of that stuff means. So, have at it, I say. I'll contribute my petty observations I've made over time.

[DragoonFurey]

Well I have a few insights I can share;

 

Regarding the class system:

Im going to go through this as a custom class so you get a good feel for what im talking about here:

 

Name: Can be "Fargoth Slayer" if you like because it really dosent matter what you call yourself you only see it when your in menu mode.

 

Disscription: "Berzerker, likes to drink lots of beer." sure that works you'll only see it when you hover your mouse over your class in the menu.

 

Specialization: ok now whatever you specialize in you get a +10 bonus to your starting major/minor skills of that area, Longblade=combat, destruction=magic, security=stealth, ect, ect, keep this in mind because every little boost helps make starting out easier.

 

Favorite Attributes: you get a +10 bonus to these two attributes, I like setting these at whatever my race is weakest at, str/end for bretons for example. but you can also use this to strengthen a already strong attribute rather then use it to balance out your stats. like putting it in willpower/intelligence for a breton.

 

Skills:

I'm just going to list these off as what they are ussed for and how hard they are to train naturaly (not using NPC trainers)

 

Weapons; the higher your weapon skill the more accurate you are and the more damage you inflict with that type of weapon, weapon skills are easy to train you just gotta get into a lot of fights, thankfully morrowind is filled with weak rats and cliffracers.

Armors; determines how much AR you get out of wearing that type of armor, the higher your AR the more likly a enemy is to miss and the less damage you will take from the attack. These are a little hard to train you really have to take a beating for it to go up even 1pt and the higher it is the harder it is to train up.

Armorer: this is ussed for repairing weapons and armor, Just do all your repairs yourself and it will go up in no time, plus you'll save a ton of money over time.

Athletics: determines how fast you run and how quickly running drains your fatigue, this is really easy to train especialy if you never use fast travel - hehe

Block; this is similar to the armor skills only block is ussed for the sole purpose of well blocking attacks and absorbing the damage, this of course means a skilled blocker will have to repair their sheild...alot...personaly i find it useless in the tribunal and bloodmoon expansions but to each their own.

Alchemy: your ability to make potions and identify potions and ingreedents, at lvl 60 you can identify 4 properties, this is really really easy to train just repeadedly but any 2 ingreedents that make any effect from a merchant that restocks them, and make potions like mad. when you need money selll your custom potions for a huge profit.

Enchant: determines how fast items recharge, how many times you can use them and your ability to enchant items on your own, this is HARD to train naturaly and takes ALOT of soul gems to do be sure to get Azuras Star if your going to train this naturaly or try to enchant items on your own.

Destruction/Illusion/Restoration/Conjuration/Mysticism/Alteration: theres descriptions in that game manual thats collecting dust on top of your monitor...anyway these are verry easy to train, but verry time consuming just have a spellmaker NPC make a 1 magicka cost spell of any effect from that school and cast till you need magicka or level up.

Sneak: ussed for stealing stuff, a must for any theif, this is hard to train up you need to get by a npc and hold the sneak key, it levels really slow too on the bright side you can use all that stuff you stole to pay for training it up really high with master trainers.

Security; ussed to unlock stuff, incredibly usefull, but also incredibly easy yet time consuming to train. a spell or enchanted item of lock 10pts will help with your training.

Speechcraft: practicaly a nessesity in morrowind this helps you taunt/admire/intimidate and also get more info from people, its easy to train to just use admire someone and if their disposition gets really low becuase of failing give em a few 100 draks bribe.

Acrobatics: do you like to get to high places? I do thats why i like having lots of acrobatics, acrobatics is easy to train too, just jump everywhere and if you see a big cliff and think you can survive the fall, jump off.

 

That about wraps it up; as for the age old what is the best class, well my opinion is that regardless of the type of charecter you play Combat/Magic/Stealth/JackofAll a way of opening locks Securty/Alteration is a must and you have to have at least 1 weapon and armor for defense, as long as you can attack, defend, and open locks your doing good. you really dont even need to have a lock opening skill as a major/minor you can train it as a misc but i do strongly urge you to have one weapon and one armor skill as a major so you dont suck at combat when your first starting out, if your a mage type this would mean something like destruction/unarmore or conjuration/heavyarmor there are alot of possibilys here so experiment and find what works best for you.

[HornedReaperMJL]

The guide your talking about isnt a too bad idea but like these guys have said it would be hard to cover different character classes when theres hundreds or thousands of possible builds. Personally i find picking a race for better stats completely pathedic since you will easilly upgrade these stats no problem as you go along. The only main concern of your character race should be the looks (oh yeh they gotta look good you know) and the freebie bonus for that race but they are pretty useless except the bretons 50% magicka resistance.

 

I've got some very good made classes they're working well so if you want the info on the skills they used ect i can give you that info. I actually found the builds or similar ones off various sites so i cant take credit for the work.

[Pob]

At high levels what you start with doesn't make much difference as you can usually afford to train the skills up or they train naturally (My level 65 char has 9 skills at 100, all stats bar luck at 100 and all my other skills at at least 50).

 

Personally I would start with 1 armour, 1 weapon skill and the others are your poicks.

 

I find security useful and speech craft 40 ish is handy. I don't ever bother with mercentile. Restoration and Mystiscm are handy (healing/teleporting) regardless of what char you play. All my characters start with alchemy, the ability to make your own potions is useful and also is a source of money.

 

If you pick a magic skill as a major/minor you also get a freebie spell when starting which may be handy whiuch I think is predetermined (always seems to be haerthg heal for restoiration).

 

Stat choices: Luck is a good one as you can never get a multiplier and races, well pick a freebie ability some are more useful than others. I prefer the resist ones like posion for the argonion/redgaiurd or the breton magika bonus

[Acinonyk]

i agree with horned reaper here, that said, attribute raising starsigns are also useless because you will eventually get them( the attributes) high anyway, much better to go with thief or warrior, which provides long lasting and helpfull star sign effects.

[thanateros]

the Atronach sign for any mage is a prime choice, seeing as all you have to do to get over that stunted magicka effect is an ancestral ghost, or just get really good at alchemy and use some potions.

 

Always, at every level put one point into luck....is necessary.

[HornedReaperMJL]

Good point Acinonyx i forgot about saying about the starsigns thats VERY true any starsigns that up your stats are useless you can get 10 stat points on a single stat in only 2 levels and the starsigns barely add anything apart from maybe 20-30 points.

 

The best starsign would have to be the absorb spell one not sure on the name anymore but thats excellent for fighters. That mage one with the +2.0 magick per intelligence or whatever is very good if your a breton because the natural magicka resistance counter acts the signs one.

 

Anyone know how exactly the resistances work? I've sure i've put on boots of blinding speed with a breton BUT i had the star sign to reduce my magicka resistance so it would be nulled down to 0%. Guess i'll have to check this out next time i play it must have been the stunted magicka from the starsign and not the other. But anyway what i want to know is how are the resistances calculated? Are all + ones added then - ones done? How does it work? :huh:

 

As for alchemy i find its best NOT to put it on a major or minor UNLESS your a mage because otherwise you tend to level too fast which i find isnt the greatest idea. I mean by leveling too fast is when i do potion sessions i usually get alchemy 5 points higher or so.

[thanateros]

Well to answer some of the questions regarding how this guide is supposed to work most of what is being posted here as far as strategy seems to be appropriate

 

The point of this is really to talk about ways to consider making a character class and how to go about it. Yes, the character creation is very open ended, but there are just some things you don't want certain classes to have in a skill set. You shoudl also discuss the uselfullness of some of the skills you wouldn't expect to find in one class but find them well suited. Like block as a secondary skill for an assassin, at high skill levels it really helps out a lot when something gets drawn in too close and you need something to hide behind while you pump them full of throwing knives.