Is my Character any good?

[TheFinkinator]

So I just bought Morrowind the other day. It looks awesome and I think Im going to like it alot. But seeing as ive only played Skyrim before in this series, I dont know much about how the whole major/minor skill, attribiutes thing works. So if someone can help me with just a couple things Id appreciate it.

Heres the character I made. I want kind of a battlemage character I guess (physical and magically offensive), but one that leans more towards physical attacks with magic attacks as supplements.

Dark Elf

Major
Spear
Long Blade
Medium Armor
Destruction
Conjuration

Minor
Mystisism
Hand-to-hand
Athletics
Acrobatics
Security

Attributes: Strength and intelligence

Sign: Warrior

So Ive heard different things about how you should put the skills youre going to use most as major skills, and other things about how you should put the skills you use most as minor skills. I know that leveling any combination of your major and/or minor skills ten times makes you level up. What to the other miscellaneous skills do to effect the game? Ive heard that leveling up miscellaneous skills before leveling up your character will give you some kind of extra bonuses? and What does setting your favorite attributes do? I just chose strength and intelligence because it seemed logical.

Sorry if thats alot to ask. Thanks in advance.

[SaltyPeanuts]

www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Level

Misc. skills, like any skill, belong to an Attribute category (strenth, endurance, intelligence, luck, personality, speed, strength, and willpower) which provide multipliers when you level. 10 points in an attribute category, including major, minor, and misc skills gives a x5 multiplier for that category when you level up. Normal gameplay usually sees 1-3x multipliers based on how much you level points into a Attribute category. For example, Speed is usually 3x multiplier or more due to running everywhere which levels Athletics skill, which belongs to the Speed Attribute. Int, Willpower are usually the most difficult to level unless you intentionally cast many spells, or use 'trainer spells' which are weak spells that cost little mana and have high chance for success. You would make such trainer spells after learning a stronger version of the spell, then using spellmaking to make the weaker trainer spell for practice and leveling purposes.

Basically, if you ignore Misc. skills then you will have a weak character that is high level. Your challenge with that scenario is that harder to defeat enemies spawn at higher level, and you might be weak from low multipliers.

edit:
Having 'Athletics' as a minor skill is problematic since you will most likely level Athletics from simply running around. Too many increases and you will level too fast.

One point concerning Medium armor- Heavy Armour, Medium Armour, and Spear all level Endurance. So you could wear a combination of heavy and medium armour while using a spear to get Endurance multipliers.

Concerning spear and shields- You can always have a shield equipped even if you're using a 2 handed weapon such as spear. If you don't equip a shield then you will actually level unarmored skill which is a Speed multiplier. However you will not block when the spear is readied.

[__-__-__]

Any character and build is viable in Morrowind, it is advised that new players pump up agility but not even that is necessary. You can ignore misc skills if you want to, they can be used to gain extra attribute points when you level but doing so is unnecessary (and many find it to be extremely tedious).

Picking an attirbute as favored gives it a +10 boost, which, I think, will also give a bonus to the skills governed by the selected attribute.

[Daonar]

Leveling in Morriwing is completely different from Skyrim. Morrowind has a concept of ATTRIBUTES - STR, INT, WIS, END and so on; that Skyrim does not. Increasing attributes, in turn, increases your health, mana and other stats.

Thing with attributes is: with each level up, you will increase 3 of your attributes, at your choice. The increase amount will depend on a "multiplier" value and can be anything from 1 to 5. The value of multiplier will depend on how many skills belonging to that attribute you've increased since last level up.

Ideally you would want x5 multipliers for 3 attributes of your choice at level up - that guarantees best character performance ("perfect leveling"). This means you need a certain level of planning on which skills to use between each level up. To get a x5 multiplier for some attribute, you need to increase skills that belong to that attribute 10 or more times between level ups.

Now the tricky part. To level up, you need 10 skill increases for skills belonging to either Major or Minor groups; misc skills do NOT count for level up. However, even if you split these 10 skill increases equally between skills that are governed by 2 attributes, you will only get 3x multiplier each. To get 5x multipliers for 2 attributes, in addition to leveling up major and minor skills governed by these attributes, you need to also level up misc skills that belong to them - so that total number of skill increases for each attribute is 10 or more before you get 10th increase in Major/Minor group and "you should rest..." level-up message.

This way you will be able to choose 2 attributes with maximum 5x multiplier at level up, plus Luck as 3rd one. Luck is special as it does not govern any skills, and thus no multiplier can be applied to Luck. 5/5/1 - with last "1" being for Luck - is quite a viable leveling strategy for many builds.

If you want to get 5/5/5, you'll need to plan your skill-ups even more. However, this can especially beneficial at lower levels, since certain attributes affect how much health/mana/stamina you get, and this is not retroactive. For example, current Endurance defines amount of health gained at level up (you gain Endurance/10 maximum hitpoints). If you gain your first 10 (rather fast) levels with 5x endurance each, you'll increase it by 50 total and increase your health by 30 hitpoints over that 10 level-ups. If you do not - these 30 could-be hitpoints are lost.

It is better to gain your first several levels with 5/5 Endurance and Intelligence modifiers, for best health and mana pools.

[Strolok]

Anything is viable. You'll almost certainly end up overpowered somehow. It's preferred that you only invest in one weapon type as your primary skill since there's no dual wielding, but that's not necessary either. You'll find many magics helpful, although destruction isn't very viable for newcomers.

Create custom spells in the mage halls. They are incredibly helpful. A simple restore attribute spell can go a long way.