Fighting underwater as mage??

[Mouse]

How? lol. For weak enemies i just summon a dagger and start spamming, but right now i'm fighting a dreugh warlord and he oneshots me. My usual fire and frost spells obviously don'[t work.

[Glerk]

have you tried making a large aoe spell and casting it above the water where it would hit the dreugh warlord?

[psychotron666]

Touch spells should still work fine

[piccolo255]

Useful buffs:
* Shield (Alteration), to raise your armor rating, and with it damage reduction.
* Bound <armor> (Conjuration), same as above.
* Sanctuary (Illusion), to raise your evasion.
* Fortify Health (Restoration), so you can survive the hit.
* Summon spells (Conjuration), to get a meat shield. Not sure how useful they are underwater, though.

Useful debuffs:
* Blind (Illusion), to lower it's hit chance.
* Demoralize Creature (Illusion), to make it run away and get free attacks in.
* Paralyze (Illusion), to freeze it in place.

Other advice:
* If your hit chance with the dagger is good enough, you can often stun-lock enemies. A hit at full swing makes enemies stagger. (Not sure if it works on the Warlord, though.) With a fast enough weapon, you can spam full swings.
* Buy/make an enchanted dagger or a short sword with paralyze spell. IIRC, the dude on the ground floor of Balmora Fighters Guild sells one. Very effective against enemies with no magic resistance, and according to the UESP, Dreugh Warlord doesn't have any.
* Use "On Touch" scrolls for a quick kill.
* Finally, wait a few levels. "Latest advice" topic in the game also occasionally says that if something is too challenging, run away and come back later, when you're stronger. It also gives you something to work towards.

[Mouse]

Originally posted by piccolo255:

....

I spent about an hour trying to beat it and then gave up. Its weird, it has a regular attack which does very little damage but then occasionally he does a hit which instantly drains my entire health and fatigue. I tried using bound armour and shields but it makes no difference. Not sure what the deal is.

I did not realise that on-touch spells worked underwater, ill have to make some. Anyway thanks, ill be better prepared next time. Its the first enemy i have had problems with, mainly because all my spells i use regularly don't work against it!!

[piccolo255]

Originally posted by Mouse:

Its weird, it has a regular attack which does very little damage but then occasionally he does a hit which instantly drains my entire health and fatigue.

The UESP page ( https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Dreugh_Warlord ) on the Warlord says it has three attacks. Two deal up to 10 damage, while the third deals up to 120 damage. That third one is likely what kills you.

Originally posted by Mouse:

I tried using bound armour and shields but it makes no difference. Not sure what the deal is.

Effectiveness of Bound Armor will depends on your armor skills. If the relevant armor skill is too low, the AR bonus won't amount to much. Shield spell should work, but depending on your health, it may not be enough.

Referring back to UESP ( https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Combat#Damage ), you'd need armor rating equal to damage to reduce it in half, so in this case 120 AR would reduce the damage to 60. Maximum damage reduction is 75%, obtained with AR three times as large as the damage (~360 AR in this case), and it would still reduce the damage only to 30. For a low level mage, 30-60 damage may still be deadly.

Originally posted by Mouse:

Its the first enemy i have had problems with, mainly because all my spells i use regularly don't work against it!!

Yah, underwater combat is annoying. No ranged spells, no ranged weapons, slowed movement, bad visibility, attacks can come from any direction, danger of drowning, aggro range is ridiculously large...

Not to mention, Morrowind (with a couple of exceptions) doesn't do level scaling. Sure, at higher levels stronger creatures start spawning at random spawn points, but the strength of a specific creature is fixed -- a rat is a rat, whether you fight it when you're level 1 or level 50. The flipside of this is that it's entirely on you to judge if you can defeat an enemy, and since quest enemies tend to be fixed, it's easy to get in over your head early on.

Anyway, for the Warlord, I'd suggest to come back when you have 200+ HP, so that you can tank a couple of hits -- or bring a Paralyze On Strike enchanted weapon :)