Magic in Oblivion, am I doing it wrong?

[ElricOfGrans]

I have a level 24 Ohmes-raht/The Lover (from COBL-Races). Not a great mage-combo, but they were originally a thief. I have been doing the Mages Guild quests which, thanks to Fran's Levelled Quests, see me against much lower-level enemies (at first). As such, the Novice-level on Touch Destruction spells I use are doing just fine. I can cast 5-6 spells before I drain my magicka (Destruction *is* only 20), but I can only cast one (almost two) Apprentice-level spells (from other schools I have got to Apprentice). I am already beginning to get to the point where these Novice-level spells are not cutting it (even with a Sneak damage bonus), so I may have to stop the role-play and use my bow to complete the faction's quests. Still, my character was not designed as a mage, so I am not *too* disappointed.

 

For a buzz, I made a Breton/The Mage with all schools of magic as Major Skills. I got her to level 10, had high Intelligence/Wisdom (I use Realistic Levelling, so no +5 concept), and all schools were around 50-60. She had far more magicka than my Ohmes-raht (more than double), but could only cast five Apprentice-level spells before running out of magicka, or two Journeyman-level ones. Half the time I found myself using a dagger to finish things off. This seemed kind of wrong to me. I would have thought that by the time I had all schools at Journeyman I could cast all the Apprentice-level spells I needed, or start to switch over to the higher-level spells. I ended up deleting her and going back to the Ohmes-raht.

 

I use Supreme Magicka for its extra spells, but LAME for the rebalance of vanilla magic. I also have Midas Magic. My Breton did not have many MM spells (I had not found many useful items for creating spells); my Ohmes-raht has the items to create the spells, but not the magicka to cast any of them (one of the *Novice* level Destruction spells costs her over 300 magicka to cast!!). Does this sound right and my expectations are completely wrong, or am I doing something wrong here?