Scratching my head at making an alchemist character

[Rithm Fluffderg]

Not so much for roleplaying (Matthias is taking a break right now because I am burned out on him), but for the fun of playing someone whose magic entirely revolves around making potions and consuming them in order to survive in the world.

Of course, there are some issues.

If I was using GCD, I could just pick Alchemy as a major skill and just go hogwild with it at no penalty, and end up with an insanely intelligent character.

But I'm not using GCD and I consider it a personal challenge to not use it, for the time being.

Morrowind doesn't allow you to poison your weapons, outside of enchanting them with a poison spell. In fact I'm fairly certain that Oblivion is the first game that even lets you do that (I think poisoned weapons exist as a sort of dummy item in Daggerfall, though)

Well, okay, that's fine. I don't need to poison my enemies to kill them. Alchemy has other uses, not just offensive ones.

My biggest problem is the build. Alchemy is such a powerful skill but if it's a major or minor skill, it quickly becomes a burden - you level it up so quickly that you can easily end up advancing 5 levels in 10 minutes, which is not a good thing. But if you keep it as a miscellaneous skill, increasing it more than 10 points per level ends up being a waste of intelligence multipliers anyways. (Though at the same time, this allows you more freedom in leveling up other skills)

Naturally, it's a skill you can control easily enough - you can't "accidentally" level up in alchemy, you have to purposefully use it.

While I said I'm not too concerned about roleplaying, it does feel weird making a character whose primary focus isn't even a minor skill, when it should be a major skill. Even so, I would love to make an alchemist so that they can eventually rise up and become the Tenth Divine. I may be joking.

Eh, my dilemma is: Should I make an alchemist where alchemy is a misc. skill, or should I just eat the fact that I'm going to be gaining levels insanely quickly and let it be a major skill? And for that matter, what should be my arbitrary number for "amount of fortify attribute potions that can be consumed at the same time?"

And even so, what should the rest of my skills even be? I don't plan to stay in town doing nothing, adventuring for rare ingredients and solving problems is a major reason to play Morrowind.

[Rithm Fluffderg]

I should mention that this is what I have so far for an alchemist build.

Race: Breton, Dunmer, Nord, or Orc (it doesn't really matter much since alchemy is independent of magicka, though I may decide solely on starting intelligence. These races were picked for their resistances)
Sign: Lady-- Lover (higher Luck) Boy was I confused. I guess Lady for higher personality and endurance then.
Favored Attributes: Intelligence, Luck
Type: Magic
Major Skills: POSSIBLY Alchemy, Unarmored, Enchant, and maybe Blunt (a walking stick)
Minor Skills: Um... Mercantile and Speechcraft, perhaps? Marksman, too. Maybe I'll swap Marksman into a major and Blunt into a minor.

[////]

blunt (a walkng stick) or short blade. you know, dagger (a knife) could be alchemist's weapon simply because it can also be used as a tool to gather materials. to cut hard roots, branches, and such...

[Thermal Lance]

Well to be honest. I have it as minor skill. Im level 24 and it is around 35-40. I just took it to eventually use it and train it here and there. But sure if you pick up every single crap lying around to make potions well.. it will definatly level up fast.

[baumgartner]

Sorry to see you dropped Matthias .. oh well have fun but next time stick around - the plot gets deeper on all fronts, especialy of you want to attain the formal conclusion as the Nerevarine. Good luck!

[Rithm Fluffderg]

Matthias isn't dropped, he's just taking a break :P I'll get back to him eventually.

[Ryu Oki]

Major, minor, or misc should only matter when you ask 2 questions.

How high of a starting skill do you want in it? Race and major or minor skill designation attributes to this.

Do you want the skill to level your character? Yes, major or minor. No, misc.

Your character can still be alchemy focused regardless of major, minor, misc.

[Daerious]

It really depends on your game play-style -- I know that for me when Morrowind first came out, I had a love / hate relationship with the game as I enjoyed the world but disliked how the leveling system worked as it seemed to 'force' you to break your immersion to acquire the +5 attribute bonuses. Playing again now after almost fifteen years, I am really enjoying the game since I am not worrying about optimizing skills and attributes -- after gaining seven levels with my new character, I believe that only once did I have the opportunity to increase one of his attributes by +3 rather than the typical +2.

As for alchemy, it will not level very fast if you only create potions that you intend to use; however, if you are going to sell your potions to merchants as a source of income, that is a different scenario. My Khajiit character has alchemy as a major skill but, since I have only been creating potions that he intends to use (i.e. restore health, restore stamina, water-walking, levitate, etc.) and limited quantities thereof -- his alchemy skill has only reached rank 41 (six ranks higher than what it started since his specialization is magicka), His combat skills (spear, light armor, unarmored, marksmanship) have been the major source of his leveling advancement. His remaining utility skills (armorer, enchant, mercantile, alteration, mysticism) have increased at most a couple of ranks each.

Being still in the early game (though I have progressed much farther than any of my previous characters ever did when the game was first released), I cannot say with certainty how much alchemy has impacted the difficulty of the game -- there have been several battles which he only managed to survive due to quaffing down a restore health potion or two. On the other hand, there have been a few in which he was almost immediately killed too but one cannot control the curiousity of cats.