Having trouble deciding on a good "Alchemist" class.

[Rithm Fluffderg]

Bearing in mind I know about the NPC one, but I elect not to use that one because I'm not THAT silly.

The basic idea is to play an adventurer who never really got the hang of all that magic, nor had the physical capability to smash and slash and punch their way through life, nor did they have the cunning to sneak around, being careful not to make a sound. However, they've got a knack for alchemy, and dammit all if they aren't gonna take full advantage of that.

And when I'm bored, I'll daisy chain fortify intelligence potions until I cause the next dragon break, but that's not going to be a normal gameplay event.

This does, unfortunately, mean that I *have* to make alchemy a major skill or else my suspension of disbelief goes out the window. In a way, this forces me to limit my alchemical ventures and not just spam potions all day.

Anyways, here's what I've got so far.

Race: Probably Female Breton or Female Argonian - I tried a Male Altmer before, but not only did it make no sense lore-wise, considering how powerful Altmer are at actual magic-use, I was taking massive weaknesses for strengths I wasn't using.
Birth Sign: The Lady
Specialization: Magic
Favored Attributes: Intelligence, Luck
Major Skills: Alchemy (natch), Blunt (probably gonna restrict myself to staves out of the urge to roleplay), Unarmored (or maybe Light Armor if I choose F. Breton), Enchant, ???? (maybe Mysticism or Alteration?)
Minor Skills: Mysticism (if not a Major skill), Alteration (if not a Major Skill), Mercantile, ????, ????, ???? (additional ???? in case I take Mysticism or Security as a Major skill)

Not *completely* magic-free, but I'm not gonna be running around Vvardenfell without Mark and Recall, also Soul Trap.

Alteration is primarily for dealing with locks, for what it's worth. Of all the spell schools, I'd also say it has the most in common with alchemy, what with magically changing the physical nature of the world.

On the other hand, other than the Open spell, almost everything else it can do that's useful can be replicated by alchemy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So at that point, I might as well take Security, right?

Anyways, thanks in advance. I know the choices I made are *far* from optimal but I don't care about that - I just need help filling in my slots and deciding between Alteration and Security.

[PainkilleR]

How about The Atronach birth sign?

Your character will have a stunted magicka regeneration. Make all magical skills as primary. Roleplay wise your character will be physically weak, and since he won't have any magica to use and because he won't be able to regenerate magica naturally he will consider him self as a looser. But due to his interest in alchemy he will eventually discover a great magical potential (because of magicka potions).

Since you care about roleplaying and not about min/maxing, this character can be fun to play.

[Rithm Fluffderg]

Originally posted by PainkilleR:

How about The Atronach birth sign?

Your character will have a stunted magicka regeneration. Make all magical skills as primary. Roleplay wise your character will be physically weak, and since he won't have any magica to use and because he won't be able to regenerate magica naturally he will consider him self as a looser. But due to his interest in alchemy he will eventually discover a great magical potential (because of magicka potions).

Since you care about roleplaying and not about min/maxing, this character can be fun to play.

You mean make all magical skills as major?

I kinda wanted to avoid playing a traditional mage, though, even if he's alchemy-powered (though what overpowered mage build *isn't* powered by alchemy? lol)

As for the Atronach sign, that is VERY useful for the spell absorption alone, but so is having the boost to Endurance and Personality as it'd help with bartering for ingredients.

So while it is a great suggestion, I kind of ruled out Apprentice, Atronach, and Mage to begin with. If I decide later that I really want to be a powerful mage, I can still use Fortify Magicka potions to compensate for my lack of native magicka.

I just don't want to rely on magic itself as an offensive tool - but rather I want to use alchemy to gain an advantage in a fight, using a staff (and later an enchanted one) to strike at my foes, as I rise through the Mage's Guild with alchemy as my focus.

[The Flying Rodent]

Concerning actions/effects that Alchemy can't help you with: Alteration will allow your character to Jump really far and Open Locks. Security will allow you to Open Locks whilst Steathed, but you can do that using invisibility or Chameleon Potions as well. So if you're forced between those two, I'd pick Alteration.

It sounds like you basically want to play a 'monk' style character with a Robe and Quarterstaff, with a little bit of magic but primarily Alchemy as a focus. If 'Drinking lots of concoctions and whacking things' is going to be your main offensive tool [which, to be fair, is a pretty good offensive tool], then I wouldn't bother with Offensive magic. I'd just go with Support magic skills, like Mysticism, Restoration and Alteration.

If you ever wanted to convert yourself into an 'overpowered mage', Enchant IMO is more efficient at this than Alchemy. You can deck yourself in out in high-level Constant Effect items of a myriad of effects, and win fights with magic rings that might as well be Machine Guns. You can of course take the game-breaking 'Fortify Intelligence' route with Alchemy and make potions that essentially make you invincible and one-hit things, but this generally takes more effort than Enchant does.

I suppose a good question is: Do you plan on buying Training in bulk? If yes, you can potentially convert to a min-max silly thing at any point given enough coin. If not, you probably have to be a little more careful about what skills you select and level up, particularly Endurance, as it'll effect Health on level ups.

Assuming that you don't rule out training 'completely', I'd probably do something like this:

Whatever Race. For extra hilarity, Nords get silly Elemental Resistance, and fit the 'Failed at Magic' persona...
Intelligence and Luck
The Lady [hey, Extra Endurance, why not], or the Atronach for the Spell Absorption more than the Magic reserves.

Major:

Alchemy.
Athletics.
Unarmoured, but ONLY if you have the Morrowind Code Patch installed, or this won't work properly without another armour item equipped. Another option is Medium Armour, which increases Endurance as it levels, and gives you lots of protection if you decide to use the Ebony Mail at some point.
Blunt Weapon.
Alteration.

Minor:

Mysticism.
4 of whatever you like.

If you think you're gonna get training at some point, keep Enchant as a miscellaneous. This skill levels reaaaaaallllyyyy slowly, so it's better to just bulk-buy training if you ever want to increase it. Same goes for Mercantile, unless you decide to bug-out the game by buying and selling the same item to a merchant at wonky prices for hours on end.

The opposite is true for Hand to Hand, which levels reeeeeaaalllyyy fast. If you decide to get proficient in Conjuration, you can summon yourself a pair of Bound Gloves, and go and punch Mudcrabs to level this skill up, EVEN if it starts as a miscellaneous.

For your type of character, I'd recommend any of the following for the last 4: Acrobatics, Conjuration, Enchant, Hand to Hand, Illusion, Light Armour [assuming Unarmored is a major, if you chose Medium Armour as a Major, I'd go Unarmored as a Minor], Restoration, Security [if you decide against Alteration, I'd make this a Major], Short Blade, Sneak, Spear, Speechcraft.

[Rithm Fluffderg]

Not a bad idea to move Enchant to misc - I can use it for intelligence fodder if I ever need to. That being said, my goal is to be able to enchant my own gear without relying on an Enchanter NPC, and with alchemy and the MCP letting me raise my attributes and skills up to 200, I can *do* that.

I'm probably going to level up Luck each level as well.

As for why I wanted to choose between Female Breton and Female Argonian - both of them get 50 intelligence to start out with, which will help with alchemy a bit - and both also start with a +5 to Alchemy. Both of them also have a resistance to something (arguably less useful than if this were Oblivion where magicka resistance applies to *all* magic), and both have 40 speed.

Actually, considering everything, Female Argonian might be the best choice - Common Disease is an annoying inconvenience, and she also gets higher Agility and Strength, which makes surviving a little easier. The downside is, no boots, which means that's an slot I miss out on enchanting. Hmm. Now I'm rethinking it, especially since as an alchemist, I'd *make* Cure Common Disease potions fairly easily.

But yeah, I'm gonna clobber enemies with a staff, then when I get an enchanted one (such Trebonius' Staff, or one I make myself), I'm gonna clobber them with magical damage as well.

I'm also using the MCP patch that adds a cooldown of 3 seconds to On Use enchantments, because I don't want to *completely* cheese the game when I get heavier into enchanting, lol.

ETA:

I decided on a female argonian and I don't regret it.

I am noticing that relying on a staff for a weapon means likely having to carry spares around for when they break mid-battle, because boy that durability goes down pretty quickly. I broke a Silver Staff in the swamp near Seyda Neen because a Cliff Racer decided to attack me out of nowhere, and I had to run back to town because my fists just weren't enough to do the job and I needed a guard to help.

I can't wait until I get a good stockpile of fortify strength potions so I can smack harder. I'm still working on the Balmora Mage's Guild quests for now, relying on Ajira for training both Conjuration and Enchant.

Moving Enchant to misc. was definitely the best thing to do.

Anyways, thanks for the advice :) It's really handy, even if I didn't take all of it.

Having Alchemy as a major skill is actually kind of a nice challenge because I have to actually pace myself and not just sit at the Balmora Alchemist shop and spam Levitation Potions until I have enough money to crash the game (joking)

[The Flying Rodent]

Originally posted by HeroicSkaldZach:

I decided on a female argonian and I don't regret it.

Argonians rock. My favourite character that I've ever made was an Argonian. Who needs boots when you outrun everybody? :)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=823877018

I am noticing that relying on a staff for a weapon means likely having to carry spares around for when they break mid-battle, because boy that durability goes down pretty quickly. I broke a Silver Staff in the swamp near Seyda Neen because a Cliff Racer decided to attack me out of nowhere, and I had to run back to town because my fists just weren't enough to do the job and I needed a guard to help.

I can't wait until I get a good stockpile of fortify strength potions so I can smack harder. I'm still working on the Balmora Mage's Guild quests for now, relying on Ajira for training both Conjuration and Enchant.

Yeah staves have pretty poor durability. Once you find yourself some Ebony Staves [Condition 700 as opposed to 270] you should be relatively ok.

A related note about Fortifying Strength: Dealing extra damage with your weapon also means that it will lose its Condition faster. So it'd be a good idea to habitually carry around some Armourer Hammers [Fighter Guild chests have plenty], and maybe even to buy some training in it to buff up Strength [Wayn in Balmora trains it into the 50's].

Moving Enchant to misc. was definitely the best thing to do.

Anyways, thanks for the advice :) It's really handy, even if I didn't take all of it.

Having Alchemy as a major skill is actually kind of a nice challenge because I have to actually pace myself and not just sit at the Balmora Alchemist shop and spam Levitation Potions until I have enough money to crash the game (joking)

No worries! It's always fun finding a new way to approach playing a game, and being self sufficient is always a nice feeling. Hope she goes well! :)

[Rithm Fluffderg]

Using Fortify Strength potions I made (the ingredients are sort of expensive but I've hit the point where I can now comfortably generate money if I need to) I actually see a substantial increase in the damage I deal per hit.

Carrying around some hammers isn't bothering me much either, and I'm just rocking a Steel Staff and a Silver Staff for now - gonna work my way up to better staves when I can find them though.

Slowly but surely, my Enchant skill is catching up - mostly during levels where I don't actually practice much alchemy.

I'm definitely seeing the benefits of starting with 40 Strength instead of 30, and I'm still glad I chose Female Argonian over... either Breton, really. And with Fortify Personality potions, I really don't have to be bothered by having the lowest personality.

Finally got the Mentor's Ring, had to deal with Bonewalkers, somehow walked away from those encounters. I'm actually using my magic very little, so far only using Waterwalking and Ondusi's Open Door.

I imagine Fortify Willpower potions can help me cast an Open spell with a magnitude of 100 very early on.

There were a couple of times I came close to death, such as skeletons with warhammers or dunmer with dwemer axes almost barely outdamaging my restore health potions, but I managed to survive well enough.

...Actually, in that second case I mentioned, it was more the Flame Daedra I summoned with a scroll that nearly killed me - I forgot it cast spells with an AoE function, lol.

This is actually getting really fun. And between Alchemy, Enchant, and Alteration, I can easily become the leader of the Mage's Guild. And with Enchant, I can also qualify for House Telvanni - because why would an alchemist join any other house, even if Telvanni doesn't seem to care all that much about it?

I'm also going to, eventually, have to travel into dangerous areas so I can pick the rest of the Grandmaster alchemy tools, but that can wait until I have enough potions to temporarily become the Tenth Divine.

Or considering the nature of Mannimarco, would that be the Eleventh?