The Great Houses, Pros/Cons for joining each?

[Durandal]

What are the benefits and downsides of joining any of the houses? I'm mostly interested in the benefits, as I joined telvanni as a mage character, hoping it would offer some of the best spells and magical services

[Castyles]

Telvanni has the best rewards. Big money and powerful items that you can earn through quests.

Plus they're just cooler, overall. Good choice.

[Valden21]

Originally posted by Castyles:

Telvanni has the best rewards. Big money and powerful items that you can earn through quests.

Plus they're just cooler, overall. Good choice.

I disagree with this, to be honest. I prefer Redoran and Hlaalu to House Telvanni. The House Telvanni faction also has a rank-associated bug where if you advance from Spellwright to Wizard without doing one specific quest, it shuts you out of the two highest ranks. Basically, you can end up as the leader of House Telvanni despite being outranked by all of the other Councillors; considering how cut-throat House Telvanni is, that doesn't really make much sense to me.

Another thing about them is just how inconvenient I find them to be. House Redoran and Hlaalu have all their services centered in just a few towns, which makes getting to them easy if you want to use them. But I feel that getting to any House Telvanni town other than Sadrith Mora to be annoying, given that many of them require multiple boat trips. Preferring isolation is one thing, but the Telvanni Councillors take it to crazy extremes. I also find finding my way around Telvanni towns to be confusing, as opposed to the relatively easy navigation I see in Balmora and Ald-Ruhn.

[Castyles]

Don't hate just because you can't levitate like a normal person.

[masternoxx1]

Don't hate, levitate..
Yes also I am considering Telvanni, they seem somewhat evil with the whole slavery thing and all, however their faction has awesome spell vendors, and I would think that the rewards would be better because they may be more magic items such as rings, amulets etc.
I don't really care about the lizards but why would you enslave such a cute kitty cats tho?

[////]

while in hlaalu you get most disposition bonuses from other factions, while in telvanni you get least disposition bonuses (telvanni are only liked by other telvanni), and redoran is something in between.

[Valden21]

Originally posted by masternoxx1:

Don't hate, levitate..
Yes also I am considering Telvanni, they seem somewhat evil with the whole slavery thing and all, however their faction has awesome spell vendors, and I would think that the rewards would be better because they may be more magic items such as rings, amulets etc.
I don't really care about the lizards but why would you enslave such a cute kitty cats tho?

That's part of the point I'm making. The Mages Guild makes House Telvanni redundant, and they're in good with the other Imperial faction. Joining House Telvanni gets you a disposition drop with all other factions except for the vampires because of their beliefs and traditions, like their continued practice of slavery. Besides, most of House Telvanni's quests are either fetch-quests or the Councillors using you as a pawn in a game of one-upmanship.

[Castyles]

The majority of the quests are either fetch (search and retrieve), information gathering or execute a target anyways.

[Valden21]

Originally posted by Castyles:

The majority of the quests are either fetch (search and retrieve), information gathering or execute a target anyways.

Yeah, but at least with the other two Great Houses, you get the feeling that what you're doing is an important part some long-term goal, and that's not the feeling I get with House Telvanni. With the exception of both Aryon and Divayth Fyr, I always get a "Get outta here, kid, you're botherin' me" feeling from the Telvanni Councillors. It's like they're only giving you a quest in order to get rid of you; the Morrowind equivalent of turning on Frozen 2 and sticking the little kids in front of the TV so you can get some work done.

[Durandal]

Originally posted by Valden21:

Originally posted by Castyles:

The majority of the quests are either fetch (search and retrieve), information gathering or execute a target anyways.

Yeah, but at least with the other two Great Houses, you get the feeling that what you're doing is an important part some long-term goal, and that's not the feeling I get with House Telvanni. With the exception of both Aryon and Divayth Fyr, I always get a "Get outta here, kid, you're botherin' me" feeling from the Telvanni Councillors. It's like they're only giving you a quest in order to get rid of you; the Morrowind equivalent of turning on Frozen 2 and sticking the little kids in front of the TV so you can get some work done.

That's probably accurate, the Councilor's are pretty full of themselves afterall, but fortunately you can just kill them

[Valden21]

Originally posted by NocturneOfSolace:

Originally posted by Valden21:

Yeah, but at least with the other two Great Houses, you get the feeling that what you're doing is an important part some long-term goal, and that's not the feeling I get with House Telvanni. With the exception of both Aryon and Divayth Fyr, I always get a "Get outta here, kid, you're botherin' me" feeling from the Telvanni Councillors. It's like they're only giving you a quest in order to get rid of you; the Morrowind equivalent of turning on Frozen 2 and sticking the little kids in front of the TV so you can get some work done.

That's probably accurate, the Councilor's are pretty full of themselves afterall, but fortunately you can just kill them

Actually, two of them CAN be killed, according to UESP. You need to to have completed the main quest and you need to be the Morag Tong grandmaster to get these quests, but there's Morag Tong writs for both Baladas Demnevenni and Mistress Therana. There used to be one for Neloth, too, but that was cut before the game was released.

[Durandal]

Originally posted by Valden21:

Originally posted by NocturneOfSolace:

That's probably accurate, the Councilor's are pretty full of themselves afterall, but fortunately you can just kill them

Actually, two of them CAN be killed, according to UESP. You need to to have completed the main quest and you need to be the Morag Tong grandmaster to get these quests, but there's Morag Tong writs for both Baladas Demnevenni and Mistress Therana. There used to be one for Neloth, too, but that was cut before the game was released.

What are you talking about man, I'm just referring to how you can advance in rank in Telvanni by killing them, because from their perspective if they couldn't stop you from murdering them then they don't deserve to have their rank and you do

You can literally become head of Telvanni by killing every councilor

[Valden21]

Originally posted by NocturneOfSolace:

Originally posted by Valden21:

Actually, two of them CAN be killed, according to UESP. You need to to have completed the main quest and you need to be the Morag Tong grandmaster to get these quests, but there's Morag Tong writs for both Baladas Demnevenni and Mistress Therana. There used to be one for Neloth, too, but that was cut before the game was released.

What are you talking about man, I'm just referring to how you can advance in rank in Telvanni by killing them, because from their perspective if they couldn't stop you from murdering them then they don't deserve to have their rank and you do

You can literally become head of Telvanni by killing every councilor

In theory, yes you could do that. However, it's not a good idea in practice because you need the other Councillors to recognize your new rank, and they can't do that if they're dead. I don't think your rank in the House would actually advance if you tried to get promoted Klingon-style. You also need them to recognize your status as Hortator, so it breaks the main quest if you kill them before that happens. However, what I was referring to is the fact that once you finish the main quest, there are two Morag Tong quests available where you learn that writs have been issued for two Telvanni Councillors. The Mages Guild also has a quest, available only after finishing the main quest, where you have to kill all Telvanni Councilors.

[HaveFun]

Pros of joining the telvannis: Robe of Drake's Pride. Nuff said

[Valden21]

Originally posted by Beat:

Pros of joining the telvannis: Robe of Drake's Pride. Nuff said

Eh, I've looked at what it gives you. Nothing that can't be reproduced using other, less expensive methods. Besides, that 25% Fire Resistance is irrelevant if you play Dunmer, as they START with 75% Fire Resistance.

Ultimately, it's all down to personal preference, and OP's the only one who should make this decision. I just happen to like House Hlaalu and House Redoran more than I like House Telvanni. Lore-wise, House Telvanni's got a lot of baggage because of how its councilors act and think, which doesn't really suit my preferred playstyle. I've done a House Telvanni playthrough before; I didn't have much fun with it.

[ZirzoR]

Originally posted by Valden21:

Originally posted by Beat:

Pros of joining the telvannis: Robe of Drake's Pride. Nuff said

Eh, I've looked at what it gives you. Nothing that can't be reproduced using other, less expensive methods. Besides, that 25% Fire Resistance is irrelevant if you play Dunmer, as they START with 75% Fire Resistance.

Ultimately, it's all down to personal preference, and OP's the only one who should make this decision. I just happen to like House Hlaalu and House Redoran more than I like House Telvanni. Lore-wise, House Telvanni's got a lot of baggage because of how its councilors act and think, which doesn't really suit my preferred playstyle. I've done a House Telvanni playthrough before; I didn't have much fun with it.

Wrong, Since you are able to get 100% Immunity to any given spell or ability, having +25% as dunmer makes you immune to fire. (Just like the Goblins in TR, anything that NPC's can do, you can do.)

So "Irrelevant" Is hardly the correct work to use, you can use other resources for other resistances if you take this route, also if you are like me and dont abuse enchanting/spellmaking/alchemy combinations having this item is actually nice.

Or if you use mods that removes such abuse. (Either works, if you cant stop yourself from using it)