Magic Advice? Kind of alot.

[TheFinkinator]

Im trying to play my character as a battle mage, but Im still fuzzy on how the magic system works in this game, cause all games do it a bit differently.

So I get that Intelligence increases your total magicka, and Willpower apparently increases your chance to successfully cast spells.

So is that all I can do to improve my magic ability in this game? give myself a deeper well of magic to cast spells with and make myself miss less?

If so, its safe to say that the spells in this game need to be upgraded as you play along, as it doesnt seem like you can get any "better" at casting any spells. So you just need to move on to stronger spells like you do in like a classic Final Fantasy game (Fire -> Fira -> Firaga)?

Another question: what benefit do you get for having skills be Major or Minor other than the fact that levelling them up allows you to gain levels? Meaning, since I have destruction as a major skill, and Mysticism as a minor skill, will my character be extra good at destruction magic, kinda ok in mysticism magic, and crappy at say conjuration magic, since thats only a misc. skill? Or do the major skills gain exp faster than minor and misc?

And other than getting multipliers in their respecitve attributes, what is the point of leveling up specific skills anyway? I mean this seems like a really basic question, but for example, Destruction and Restoration both deal with Willpower. So does it make any difference to my character whether I level up 10 times in destruction or 10 times in restoration? will the destruction and restoration spells I cast actually get stronger or cost less magicka or something? or is it just a method of leveling up willpower, and the higher the level of restoration i have the harder it is to level up restoration and the harder it is to level up willpower using that skill? So If I JUST leveled up restoration and nothing else, my destruction spells would be just as powerful as if i leveled up JUST destruction?

I know this is kind of alot, but its just kind of a complex system, and it seems like im missing some fundamental point of it. kinda went crazy but maybe someone could help me out on just a couple of these points.

[Valden21]

Actually, improving magic abilities goes a bit deeper than just improving the requisite stats. All the skills in the game are based on practice. What controls your ability to cast any particular spell is skill in that school of magic. Willpower does have some impact on it, but skill does too, along with some other things. The higher your character's skill, the greater their ability.

For example, your character could have a high-level Destruction spell in their repertoire, but unless your character's skill is high enough to use it, the spell will fizzle out upon use. The This goes for any of the schools of magic.

[TheFinkinator]

引用自 Valden21：

For example, your character could have a high-level Destruction spell in their repertoire, but unless your character's skill is high enough to use it, the spell will fizzle out upon use. The This goes for any of the schools of magic.

alright I figured that higher destruction skill levels were needed to use higher level spells. That wasnt really what I was getting at but that does make my question seem less important.

For example, the basic Fire Bite spell you get early on. is raising my skill level in destruction ever going to make THAT spell do any more damage (assuming the hit connects) than it does for me right now? or do I just need to keep upgrading to new spells?

[Brandybuck]

Well, the missing less part is a bit of a red herring. If you're not fatigued you spells will go off most of the time. Your skills matters much much more than Willpower. It's not like melee where you miss 19 out of 20 strikes. It makes a difference at lower levels, but hard to even notice at higher levels. You can notice it though when you have a high willpower and low magic skills. But by the time you get high willpower your skills will probably be high as well. Of course, Willpower is still good for other things. Intelligence, on the other hand, matters a LOT! It matters so much that you might consider working on your Alchemy to get those Fortify Intelligence potions.

Upgrading magic spells is fine, but the better the spell the more magicka it will cost. Obviously. But in-your-face spellcasting is not necessarily the way to do things in Morrowind. Remember, your magicka does not regenerate except through sleep. Unless you have HUGE magicka reserves, being primarily a destruction mage will be very hard to do. You will tend to run out of magicka in the middle of a fight. If that's what you want to do, train up your Athletics so you can run away. On the other hand, Conjuration is a major offensive set of spells. You can summon one of each type of summon you know, letting you drop a clown posse on your enemies. A bit magicka costly, but you're not constantly spamming it like you are with Destruction. And if you go the bound weapon route, the bound weapons can be pretty sweet at low to mid levels.

Major skills get a better starting bonus than Minor skills. They also improve faster. That said, you can improve any skill you want, you just have to use/practice/train it. For mages it's even better as you can create cheap practice spells and level any magick skill in safety. Even stuff like Damage Self for One Point spells will improve your Destruction. You can master every magic skill without ever leaving Balmora or fighting one mudcrab. It's a bit grindy, so I tend to spam practice spells as I'm out walking around.

So basically, for me, I take the magic skills I want to use most as Major skills, so I get better starting bonuses and can max them earlier, then the rest as Minor skills. I've even sometimes keep a few as miscellaneous skills for better leveling control. Here's a trick: read the wiki and get familiar with how best to control skill leveling, then keep all of your main magic skills as miscellaneous skills, then use your non-magic Major/Minor skills to level when you feel it's time to level up or improve non-magic related attributes.

Finally, the point of the skills is that they are your base chance to successfully cast spells. They matter far more than Willpower does. But a 50 skill does not mean a 50% to cast. It's a bit more complicated than that. Stuff like fatigue, willpower, target level, sun in your eyes, etc. affects it. At skill level 50 with full fatigue and no target, most spells will go off most of the time. The other point of skills is your leveling. Besides just earning a new level, you can improve attributes. The bonus points you get depend on which skills you've used. Every magic skill (except Illusion) helps you improve Intelligence or Willpower, and it doesn't take much bookkeeping to earn +5 each level for those attributes.

But.... you don't really have to worry about that, you can just play the game. Enemies do not level with you, so even a bad mage build and inept spell use won't doom you. The real trick with being a mage in Morrowind is managing your Magicka. For me I tend to use magicka regen mods, but without that you will need to be sleeping/resting all the time. Kill one monster, retreat, sleep, return, kill next monster.

[Brandybuck]

引用自 TheFinkinator：

or do I just need to keep upgrading to new spells?

Just keep upgrading. But don't neglect those early spells. Dropping a Golden Saint summon on the enemy is good. But dropping a Golden Saint AND a petty ghost is even better.

[vennedia30]

Buy weak and cheap spells from vendors and create your own multi effect spells of doom. Experimenting is the key. Go a little crazy and see what happens when you mix various schools and durations and add some AOE. It's great fun. Good luck! Oh, remember to change On Self to On Target, otherwise you may fry or deepfreeze and paralyze yourself XD Same with enchants.

[__-__-__]

One thing to keep in mind is the overall strength of your target and the question of what spell is best to use against a particular target.

At no point in this game do low level creatures stop spawning, sure you can use the Godfire spell to defeat a Kwama Forager but using such a spell against such a low level creature is wasteful overkill whether you've got magicka bonuses or not. The early spells, such as the Fire Bite or Frostbite, should remain useful throughout the game as ways of dealing with low level opponents appropriately.