The Arch-Mage's Handbook - A Practical Guide to Morrowind's Magic System

A comprehensive collection of comparative and practical information about Morrowind’s magic system, all in the one spot.

Introduction

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, and here I am playing Morrowind again. This time, I wanted to make a ‘Pure Mage’, i.e. a character who almost solely casts spells to achieve their ends, which is a type of character that I had never played through for long. High levels of Reflect on various enemy critters & non-regenerating Magicka were a turn off, and I’m not one to use gameplay altering mods. This meant that in past playthroughs, I usually defaulted to Cast When Used items if I wanted to use magic beyond the odd utility spell.

I quickly came to the realisation that to make the most of ‘Pure Mage’ play, I should try to learn as much as I could about Morrowind’s Magic System, both through in-game testing and research.

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Spells

https://en.m.uesp.net/morrow/hints/mweffects.shtml?fbclid=IwAR2se5arXDjFJXaFfkh95cQI1vXdgGt1S1k0eIf-iOtQ03b01I6xM6O-nq4

What I almost immediately found out is that Morrowind’s magic system is pretty bloody complicated! According to the UESP wiki, across the 6 different spellcasting magic skills in Morrowind [Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion, Mysticism and Restoration] there are 141 SEPARATE MAGICAL EFFECTS, of which 19 are not available to be used for Custom Spellmaking [e.g. Vampirism]. As well as this, Custom Spells seem to follow one spell-cost formula, and Base Spells seem to follow a different one.

It is therefore quite difficult to discern exactly what types of magic are effective and what aren’t. The UESP wiki provides comprehensive information on EACH spell effect, but to fully wrap one’s head around EVERY spell effect requires reading EVERY article and trying to remember all of the information (that or spending countless hours learning through experience & jotting down notes in game). There are some decent Mage guides that I could find online that focused broadly on character creation and/or gameplay, but not so much on the COMPARISONS between spell effects, on Base vs Custom spells, on specific spell combinations that could be useful, or on how best to deal with Magicka reserves & Reflect in the late stages of the game.

Are there times to make use of Base Spells over Custom spells of the same effect, or the other way around? Are there spell effects that are more useful than others at achieving effectively the same thing? Is it worth trying to use disabling type spells, such as Damage Strength or Demoralize Creature, over just ‘trying to kill things’? Should I even bother at all with offensive magic against certain opponents, and instead just ‘whack them with a stick’ because it’s easier?

These are the sorts of questions that I wish to answer in this guide. The aim is to provide comparative and practical information about Morrowind’s magic system, all in the one spot. By practical information, I mean not only descriptions of various magical effects, but also how best to use them, and examples of Custom spells that include them.

What this guide is NOT trying to be, is ‘yet another character build & gameplay basics guide’. The information provided here mainly concerns breakdowns of spellcasting mechanics, skills, spells and magical effects , which all assume a prior level of knowledge when it comes to playing the game. Enchanted Cast When Used Items are omitted almost entirely until close to the end of the guide, as these can be used to supplant spellcasting & render it largely obsolete. Character Building & ‘Recommended spell & item’ sections are also included, but nothing as concrete as a gameplay guide with a laundry list of linear instructions.

https://pastebin.com/pJ1Kpvtt

For those who are interested in an introduction to Mage Character Creation or Enchanting: TedTheViking’s Mage guide is a great resource for Mage Character ideas, as well as Enchanting in a practical context. It was initially written as an r/Morrowind post, and despite the Reddit account having since been deleted, some kind soul managed to archive the guide before it was lost to the void forever.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLobdprIgcqJ82TKnySC6yIzP9CO9ixyz_

Another series of guides that can be useful for Pure Mages, are the ‘Morrowind Mechanics’ Youtube Series by Lyle Shnub. These short tutorials break down particular mechanics in Morrowind (hence the title), including several spell schools and effects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij6g8DIXKgI

And finally, from CoffeeNutGaming, here is a well set out & easy to follow video outlining the creation of a Mage character in Morrowind.

As for ‘this’ guide, it will be split up roughly as follows:

Part 1: A general section on Spellcasting and related skills. This includes ‘how spellcasting works’, some comparisons between Base and Custom spells, some strategies for managing Magicka use (including Restore Magicka potions and the Atronach Sign), and a short guide to Alchemy (given that it relates to Magicka management, and so deserves further elaboration).

Part 2: An in-depth look at each of the effects available for Custom Spellmaking (from all 6 Magic skills), where to find them, and their useful applications in-game. There will also be a brief look at the effects that cannot be used for Custom Spellmaking.

Part 3: An attempt to put the information from Parts 1 & 2 together, with character building tips, gameplay tips and strategies given for ‘Pure Mage’ type characters at different stages of the game. Because ‘Early/Mid/Late Game’ is a convenient categorisation tool (thanks, Chess!), I’ll define these as:

- Early Game = Levels 1-10,
- Mid Game = Level 10 onwards but only the Base Game (Vvardenfell) content,
- Late Game = The Expansion Content (Tribunal + Bloodmoon), as both expansions are more difficult than the Base Game regardless of the level that they are attempted at.

Part 3 will include the following subcategories within ‘Early, Mid and Late Game’:
- Baseline Spellcasting Chance,
- Useful Base Spells to purchase,
- Useful Base Spell Effects derived from these purchases,
- Examples of useful Custom Spells,
- Other general Mage advice, applicable to each stage of the game.

Author’s note:

Sorry in advance for the lack of images in this guide. My previous Skyrim Steam Guide contained a whopping 200+ images that all had to be converted into Steam screenshots… and I didn’t feel like repeating that process again for a ‘not-strictly-gameplay-related’ guide (especially one that ended up exceeding 45,000 words!!). Instead, there are links to any images that I felt 'had' to be included within the guide, of which there are not very many. Perhaps at a later date, I’ll add some images to break up some of the more gameplay-related sections in the Steam version.

I’ve also created a downloable text only ‘Pastebin’ version of this guide, which includes web links to various important images that were included in the Steam version. It can be found here:

https://pastebin.com/gESy9SXp

(Pastebin version is currently 1.4, perhaps one day I’ll get around to updating it and battling through Pastebin’s bizarre content filter…)

In addition, supporting this guide is: A low-budget Let's Play Series on Youtube! Which I will slowly complete when I have the time, and should at least hopefully provide some visual examples of the concepts outlined in the guide (sorry about the video quality, I ain't planning on becoming a Youtuber any time soon lol...).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iunJ45vuaiY&list=PLwL02R7TbehZb-0YJPyH7yCv2BRLq0S0-

Also, there are spoilers. Loads of spoilers.

---

(Current version is 1.5, update history in Conclusion & Thanks)

Contents

Part 1: Spellcasting & Magicka Mechanics

Chapter 1: Spellcasting Overview
1.1 Chance of Casting Success
1.2 Damage Formula
1.3 Spell Cost for Custom Spells

Chapter 2: Spellmaking & Base Spells vs Custom Spells
2.1 Spellmaking Introduction
2.2 Base Spells vs Custom Spells

Chapter 3: Magicka Management – General Tips
3.1 Finding Restore Magicka Potions
3.2 Buying Restore Magicka Potions
3.3 Making Restore Magicka Potions
3.4 The Atronach Sign & Spell Absorption

Chapter 4: Alchemy – A Short Guide
4.1 Having ‘Enough Skill to Know What You’re Doing’
4.2 Alchemy Equipment
4.3 Ingredients
4.4 Putting it all together

Part 2: Spell Effects

Chapter 5: Spell Effects By School – Introduction

Chapter 6: Alteration Custom Spell Effects

Chapter 7: Conjuration Custom Spell Effects

Chapter 8: Destruction Custom Spell Effects

Chapter 9: Illusion Custom Spell Effects

Chapter 10: Mysticism Custom Spell Effects

Chapter 11: Restoration Custom Spell Effects

Chapter 12: Unavailable Custom Spell Effects.

Part 3: Gameplay Tips and Strategies

Chapter 13: Planning Ahead
13.1 A Smooth Progression
13.2 Mage Character Building Overview
13.3 Mage Character Build Examples
13.4 Overview of Chapters 14-16

Chapter 14: The Early Game (Levels 1-10)
14.1 Useful Spell Purchases
14.2 Early Game Spell Effects
14.3 Useful Custom Spells
14.4 General Early Game Mage Tips: Items, Magicka Management and Alchemy

Chapter 15: The Mid Game (Levels 10+, Base Game only)
15.1 Useful Spell Purchases
15.2 Mid-Game Spell Effects
15.3 Useful Custom Spells
15.4 General Mid Game Mage Tips: Spellbook Management, Constant Effect Items & Dealing with Reflect

Chapter 16: The Late Game (Tribunal & Bloodmoon)
16.1 Useful Spell Purchases & Introduction to Prep Spells
16.2 Master Trainers
16.3 Late Game Custom Spells
16.4 Boss Killing Strategies & Enchanting Overview
16.5 Optimised Enchanted Item Sets
16.6 Example Item Set 1: Vvardenfell Arch Mage Set (Base Game items only)
16.7 Example Item Set 2: The ‘Can’t Touch This’ Mage Set (Expansion items included)

Conclusion & Thanks

Part 1: Spellcasting & Magicka Mechanics

Chapter 1 (1.1-1.2): Spellcasting Overview

Morrowind’s skill system is divided into 27 skills, which themselves are divided in 3 specialisations (Combat/Magic/Stealth). Magic (https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Magic) contains 6 skills that directly relate to spellcasting and spell effects (Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion, Mysticism, Restoration), and then 3 more skills that either indirectly relate to spellcasting & spell effects (Enchanting, Alchemy) or don’t relate to spellcasting at all (Unarmoured).
Experience gains for all 6 spellcasting skills occurs in set amounts, by simply ‘casting any spell’ from that school (independent of the chance or magnitude of the spell). From the UESP wiki, there are 3 relevant Spellcasting Formulae used in Morrowind. Here is a breakdown of how each formula plays out in practice, taken from the ‘Spells’ wiki link below.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Spells

1.1 Chance of Casting Success

% Chance of success is (Spell's skill * 2 + Willpower / 5 + Luck / 10 - Spell cost - Sound magnitude) * (0.75 + 0.5 * Current Fatigue/Maximum Fatigue).

Spell skill (+2% per skill point), Spell Cost (-1% per Magicka point cost), and Fatigue Level (75% to 125% modifier applied after everything else, depending on Fatigue level from 0-100%), have the greatest influence on spellcasting chance. Willpower and Luck contribute slightly, though on the order of 10x or 20x less than Spellcasting skill.

Major Skills start out at 30 (before bonuses), Minor skills start at 15 (before bonuses), and Miscellaneous skills start out at 5 (before bonuses). As 1 spell skill point adds a 2% increase to spell chance (multiplied by Fatigue modifier), this means that Minor skills have a 20% increased spell chance over Miscellaneous skills (10 points higher), and that Major skills have a 50% increased spell chance over Miscellaneous skills (25 points higher).

In addition, casting several smaller-magnitude spells has a higher chance of achieving the same ‘net effect’ as casting one larger-magnitude spell, given that spellcasting chance relates directly to Magicka cost. Casting several small magnitude spells takes more time, however, which can be a downside.

An Example of the Spellcasting Formula in practice: A character with 50 Willpower, 40 Luck and 30 Destruction, tries to cast Fire Bite (6 Magicka Cost). The chance of spell success for this character is (30*2 + 50/5 + 40/10 - 6) x (0.75 to 1.25) = 85% chance at full Fatigue, and 51% chance at 0 Fatigue. Thus, for most characters to have a high chance (i.e. above 80%) of casting small spells at level 1, they should endeavour to choose relevant Magic schools as Major Skills (i.e. 30-45 skill points to start with), and cast spells with a full Fatigue bar.

1.2 Damage Formula

Spell Damage is: Damage * (1 - ( Resistance - Weakness )/100).

Certain enemies are more resistant or vulnerable to certain spell effects than others. For e.g. Dark Elves, which make up the majority of NPC’s in Morrowind, are 75% resistant to Fire. Most undead enemies are resistant or immune to Frost, Shock and Poison damage. For the specific stats of particular NPC’s and creatures in Morrowind, check out the UESP wiki links below.

https://en.uesp.net/morrow/monsters/mwmonsters.shtml

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Creatures

Elemental Damage & Resistances (Fire, Frost, Shock, Poison) are treated separately to Magicka Damage & Resistance, unlike in Oblivion and Skyrim. Having 100% Resistance to Magicka, does NOT protect the character from Elemental Damage, nor does it protect against spells with no Magnitude (such as Paralysis and Silence, though high Willpower provides resistance against Paralysis). The same goes in the other direction for Weaknesses; ‘Weakness to Magicka’ does not translate to a Weakness to Fire Damage, though a ‘Weakness to Fire’ certainly does.

As Weakness to Magicka is itself a ‘Magicka’ spell: Those with 100% innate Resistance to Magicka, CANNOT have their Magicka Resistance lowered with a Weakness Spell. However: Those with 100% elemental resistance, but NOT Magicka Resistance, CAN have their resistances lowered by Weakness spells.

Magical Weakness & Resistance effects are covered in greater detail in Chapters 8, 11, 14, 15 and 16.

Chapter 1 (1.3): Spellcasting Overview

1.3 Spell Cost for Custom Spells

Spell Cost (the amount of Magicka a spell takes to cast) for Custom Spells is:

( { Min Magnitude + Max Magnitude } * {Duration + 1 }+ Area ) * Base Cost / 40, rounded down. Non-custom spells may have a different cost than their custom equivalent.

Another way to look at the above formula is:

{[2*Average Magnitude]*[“Duration in seconds” + 1]*[Base Cost/40]}
+
{[Area*Base Cost]/40}, rounded down.

Separating it out like this identifies a few things.

First: The cost for increasing the Area of a Spell only depends on its BASE COST, and NOT its’ Magnitude. Increasing the Area of a 1pt Fire Damage Spell from 0ft to 50ft, costs the same flat amount of Magicka as it does to do the same thing to a 100pt Fire Damage spell. It’s therefore ‘usually’ quite cheap to ‘improve’ a single target spell to one that affects an entire room of people, though obviously this might not be the best way to deal with every situation.

Second: For a lot of spells, the TOTAL magnitude over time is the Magnitude x Duration. E.g. 100 pts Fire Damage for 1 sec, and 1 pt Fire Damage for 100 sec, technically both deal 100 Fire Damage total. Given that cost increases with “2x Average Magnitude”, vs “Duration +1”, spells that heavily favour Duration over Magnitude are up to ½ the cost for the same net total effect.

In the above example, for On Touch Fire spells:
100 pts Fire Damage for 1 sec = 50 Magicka,
50 pts Fire Damage for 2 sec = 37 Magicka,
25 pts Fire Damage for 4 sec = 31 Magicka,
10 pts Fire Damage for 10 sec = 27 Magicka,
1 pt Fire Damage for 100 sec = 25 Magicka,

There are diminishing returns as duration is increased further and further beyond a few seconds. Spells themselves take 2 seconds to cast, so if one plans to chain several spells together on the same enemy, then custom spells of a 2-5 second duration (e.g. ‘25 pts Fire Damage for 4 secs’) tend to strike a nice balance between Magicka cost & usefulness in battle.

In addition: Adding a 50ft Area of Effect (AoE for short) to ANY of the fire spells increases the cost of the spell by a flat 50*5/40, or 6.25 Magicka, rounded down.

Third: Because of the ‘rounded down’ moniker added to the end of the calculation, the most ‘efficient’ Custom spells from a cost perspective, are those that cost ‘1.999 Magicka’ (i.e. slightly under 2 Magicka), as these will be rounded down to 1 Magicka! A Custom Spell enthusiast therefore should try to make as many ‘useful 1.999 Spell Cost’ Custom spells as possible, as these will all be effectively cast at almost half their intended cost.

One final thing: On Target Effects add a 1.5x cost modifier over On Touch and On Self Effects. E.g. Fire Damage 100 pts On Touch costs 50 Magicka, whilst Fire Damage 100 pts On Target costs 75 Magicka. It gets more strange however, if multiple effects are added to the same spell.

Rather than simply multiplying each effect added by 1.5x their ‘On Touch’ cost, adding any new On Target effect will introduce an additional 1.5x multipler, that then multiplies the new effect based on ‘the cost of everything before it’.

Consider 3 scenarios:

1. A Fire Damage 100 pts On Touch spell costs 50 Magicka. Adding a 100 pts Frost Damage On Touch effect brings the new cost to 50x1 + 50x1 = 100 Magicka. Ergo, there are no additional multiplier costs associated with adding the 2nd On Touch effect to a spell.
 50 + 50 = 100.

2. A Fire Damage 100 pts On Target spell costs 75 Magicka. Adding a 100 pts Frost Damage On Target effect brings the new cost to 75 + (75)x1.5 = 187 Magicka. In theory, adding two 75 Magicka cost effects together, should equal 150 Magicka … but that’s not what happens!

3. A Fire Damage 100pts On Touch spell costs 50 Magicka. Adding a 1pt Frost Damage On Touch effect brings the new cost to 51 Magicka … but simply changing the 1pt Frost effect to On Target, raises the cost to 51x1.5 = 76 Magicka.

In short: Adding multiple effects to any On Target spell is extremely inefficient. Keep all Custom On Target spells to a single effect only, and save the multi-effect spells for On Touch or On Self.

Chapter 2 (2.1): Spellmaking & Base Spells vs Custom Spells

2.1 Spellmaking Introduction

Spellmaking services (used to make Custom Spells) are offered from a variety of merchants around Morrowind, notably within Mages Guilds (e.g. Estirdalin in Balmora Mages Guild). Spells in Morrowind can have up to 8 effects attached to the same spell, with the cost of each effect contributing to the final cost of the spell. Custom Spells can range from 0 to 100 points in magnitude, though there are some mods and patches, such as the Morrowind Code Patch, that allow for magnitudes of Custom spells to be raised above 100. The rest of this guide is written under the assumption that these ‘magnitude enhancing’ features are not included.

https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Spellmakers

When creating a spell at a Spellmaker, the spell’s Chance of Casting Success is displayed underneath its’ cost, before factoring in the Fatigue modifier. Given that Fatigue adds a 75-125% modifier onto casting chance, this means that spells displaying a success chance of 80% or above, will in fact have a 100% chance of being cast at full Fatigue. For more info on Chance of Casting Success, see Chapter 1.1.

For On Touch and On Self spells, there is no extra net Magicka cost that comes with adding multiple effects to the same spell, vs. casting individual spells with the same effects. For e.g. 2 separate effects in Restore Health 100 pts for 1 sec on Self (50 Magicka) and Restore Fatigue 100pts for 1 sec on Self (10 Magicka), costs the same amount of Magicka to cast either as 1 combined spell (60 Magicka total), or as 2 separate spells (50 Magicka + 10 Magicka). The tradeoff for combining effects into 1 spell, is that high cost multi-effect spells have a lower overall chance of being cast, compared to cheaper individual spells with single effects.

For any spell including an On Target effect, the 1.5x multipliers end up compounding in strange ways, adding increasingly more Magicka to a spell’s cost with each new effect added. As such, it is arguably not worth creating multi-effect On Target spells (see Chapter 1.3 for more info).

All spells bought from spell merchants can be called Base Spells. In order to make a Custom Spell of a particular spell effect, a Base Spell with that effect must be purchased first. For more info on where to purchase certain Base Spells and Effects: see Chapters 6-11 (which break down individual spell effects for each of the 6 spell schools) and Chapters 14-16 (which break down locations and times to purchase various spells within the Early/Mid/Late Game).

In the case of effects containing ‘Attribute’ or ‘Skill’ in the title (e.g. Fortify Attribute): the same effect can be added multiple times to the same spell. For e.g. Fortify Intelligence 100 pts for 1 sec, can be added 8 times, for a net total of Fortify Intelligence 800 Points for 1 Sec within the one spell. Note that this cannot be used to cast the same effect at a lower Magicka cost (e.g. 2 instances of Damage Strength 50 pts for 1 sec on the same spell, is the same cost as Damage Strength 100 pts for 1 sec), which means that stacking Attribute/Skill effects is only beneficial for creating spells above 100 Magnitude.

For non-Attribute/Skill effects, the above does not apply. For e.g. The same type of Summon cannot be added multiple times onto the same spell, meaning that ‘Summon 8 Dremora’ is not a feasible spell. That said: one can add up to 8 ‘different’ effects to the same spell (which could be different ‘types’ of Summon), and ‘then’ cast multiple different spells to, say, summon multiple of the same type of creature.

For e.g. casting 3 different Custom spells (Let’s call them ‘Twin Summon 1’, ‘Twin Summon 2’ and ‘Twin Summon 3’) that each summon “1 Clannfear + 1 Dremora”, will result in summoning 3 Clannfears + 3 Dremoras or 6 Summons total, all active at the same time.

This logic also applies to different ‘damage-over-time’ spells, which use the same effect, but have different names. For e.g. The Custom spells ‘Firebolt 1’ and ‘Firebolt 2’ , which both deal 10 pts Fire Damage for 10 secs, will stack with each other & together deal 200 progressive Fire damage to a target.

For ‘1 second duration’ Custom spells: Ensure that the duration is increased up to 2 secs and then back down to 1 sec when making it, using the ‘Duration’ slider in the Spellmaking screen. There is a bug which sets certain On Self spell durations to ‘instant’, if the duration is left at 1 sec (which also occurs with Enchanted Cast When Used items, and arguably breaks the game, as it allows for rapid-fire use of Cast When Used Items to heal self and/or damage enemies in a ‘machine-gun’ fashion). Increasing & decreasing the slider ensures that they instead last ‘1 second’, which is enough time to buff oneself & open the Inventory screen to perform another action, or ‘Jump once’.

For Custom spells that use effects from multiple schools: the spell school type for these ‘multi-school’ spells, is considered to be the effect with the lowest chance of being cast. Rather than a spell belonging to ‘multiple schools’ simultaneously, a spell can only belong to one school at a time, and therefore casting such a spell does not level multiple spell schools at the same time.

As a rule of thumb, the ‘most expensive effect’ in a multi-school spell will dictate the type of school that the spell belongs to, given that Magicka cost directly relates to spellcasting chance. However, considering that spellcasting chance ‘also’ depends on the user’s magic skills, it is actually possible for a multi-school spell to switch schools, depending on the caster’s skill levels (and therefore spellcasting chance to cast effects from various schools).

For e.g. Say a caster has a Custom Spell, ‘Cripple’, that does: Damage Strength 10 pts for 10 sec on Touch, and Burden 1pt for 30 sec on Touch.

This spell will more than likely be treated as a Destruction spell, given that ‘10pts for 10 sec of Damage Strength’ (44 Magicka) is a lot more expensive than ‘1pt Burden for 30 secs’ (1 Magicka). However: if the caster has 60 Destruction skill and only 10 Alteration skill (and thus has a ‘+100% higher chance’ of casting Destruction spells over Alteration spells), then ‘Cripple’ will be classed as an Alteration spell.

This interaction has ramifications for very expensive Custom spells that contain effects from more than 1 school … as it means that to cast them successfully, multiple spell schools have to be buffed. More info in Chapter 16.3.

Chapter 2 (2.2): Spellmaking & Base Spells vs Custom Spells

2.2 Base Spells vs Custom Spells

Base spells and Custom spells use different spell cost formulae. There doesn’t appear to be any easily accessible online documentation of exactly ‘what’ the Base Spell cost formula is (as opposed to the ‘Custom formula’ listed in Chapter 1), though I suppose it does exist buried somewhere in the code.

At the very least, ‘some’ idea of the formulae can be gathered by comparing the cost of Base and Custom variants of ‘the same spell’ & correlating them with each other. Here is a list of spells of various magnitudes and durations, taken from each of the 6 spell schools:

- Ondusi’s Open Door (Open Lock 50 pts on Touch): Base Cost 15, Custom Cost 30.
- Tinur’s Hoptoad (Jump 20 Points for 10 secs on Self): Base Cost 30, Custom Cost 30.
- Water Walking (60 Seconds on Self): Base Cost 9, Custom Cost 9.
- Summon Ancestor Ghost (60 Seconds on Self): Base Cost 21, Custom Cost 21.
- Bound Dagger (60 seconds on Self): Base Cost 6, Custom Cost 6.
- Turn Undead (50 pts for 10 secs on Touch): Base Cost 5, Custom Cost 5.
- Fire Bite (15-30 pts Fire Damage in 1 Sec on Touch): Base Cost 6, Custom Cost 11.
- Fire Storm (1-10 pts Fire Damage in 10 Sec in 10ft on Target): Base Cost 23, Custom Cost 24.
- Greater Frostball (2-40 pts Frost Damage in 10ft on Target): Base Cost 10, Custom Cost 17.
- Lightning Bolt (10-50 pts Shock Damage for 2 sec in 10ft on Target): Base Cost 34, Custom Cost 49.
- God’s Fire (11-60 pts Fire Damage for 10 secs in 10 ft on Target): Base Cost 135, Custom Cost 148.
- Absorb Health (5-52 pts in 1 sec on Touch): Base Cost 11, Custom Cost 23.
- Dispel (100% on Self): Base Cost 25, Custom Cost 50.
- Almsivi Intervention (Teleport Self to nearest Tribunal Temple): Base Cost 8, Custom Cost 18.
- Recall (Teleport Self to Mark): Base Cost 18, Custom Cost 43.
- Soul Trap (60 secs on Touch): Base Cost 6, Custom Cost 6.
- Night Eye (20 pts for 30 Secs): Base Cost 6, Custom Cost 6.
- Paralyse (5 sec on Touch): Base Cost 10, Custom Cost 10.
- Calm Creature (30 pts for 10 secs on Target): Base Cost 23, Custom Cost 24.
- Cure Common Disease: Base Cost 15, Custom Cost 37.
- Hearth Heal (Restore Health 20-80 pts in 1 sec): Base Cost 13, Custom Cost 25.
- Regenerate (Restore Health 1-5 pts for 20 sec): Base Cost 10, Custom Cost 10.
- Rest of St. Merris (Restore Fatigue 1-10 points for 20 sec): Base Cost 6, Custom Cost 5.

Some trends from the above information:

For spell effects with No Magnitude or Duration (e.g. Almsivi Intervention, Cure Common Disease), Base Cost is significantly cheaper than Custom Cost, somewhat varying but ‘at least’ under half the Custom Cost. As such, it is always better to use the Base versions of these spells.

For spell effects with Magnitude and No Duration (e.g. Open Lock), or spells with a Magnitude and a very small duration (1 sec, e.g. Fire Bite), Base Cost tends to be around half the cost of the Custom variant of the same spell.

For spell effects with Duration Only (e.g. Summon Creature, Paralyse), spell cost is the same for Base and Custom variants.

For spells with Both Components (Magnitude AND Duration): As the duration increases beyond 1 sec, the cost difference between Base vs Custom spells approaches the same value. Oddly, for some spells, the Custom variant is LESS costly than the Base variant! (e.g. Rest of St Merris).

Given all of the above, this author’s estimate for the Spell Formula for ‘most’ Base Spells is:

[2xAverage Magnitude]*[Duration]+Area] * [Base Cost/40], rounded down.
In other words, “Duration + 0” instead of “Duration + 1”. This would mean that Spells with Magnitude and a Duration of 1 second, would cost around half that of Custom equivalents. Then, as Duration increases, Custom and Base spells approach the same Magicka cost. There appears to be some exceptions to this (e.g. Almsivi Intervention, Rest of St. Merris), but it holds for most cases.

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Spells#Cheap_Spells

There are also some Base spells for which the Spell Cost is deliberately lower or higher than normal. A notable example is Rilm’s Gift: A duel Cure Common and Blight Disease On Touch spell that is sold at some Tribunal Temples. The spell itself costs 30 Magicka, despite the ‘Base’ variants of the same 2 spells adding to 115 Magicka.

Chapter 3 (3.1-3.2): Magicka Management - General Tips

Magicka does not regenerate in real-time in vanilla Morrowind, which means that unlike in Oblivion and Skyrim, one cannot simply ‘wait for an hour’ or ‘not cast anything for 30 seconds’ in order to get their Magicka back. For characters that do not have the Atronach sign, resting for several hours is ‘the free way’ to replenish Magicka, at a rate of ‘15% of Intelligence value’ per hour of resting (e.g. a character with 40 intelligence, will restore 6 Magicka per hour of resting, or 24x6 = 144 Magicka per 24 hrs, independent of whether they also have racial/sign bonuses that Fortify Maximum Magicka).

It is quite tedious to have to stop and rest after ‘every’ single engagement however (particularly for characters with Fortify Maximum Magicka bonuses!), not to mention that this method is not helpful if Magicka runs out mid-combat. As such, it is a good idea to have some strategies for Magicka management as a Mage ... and realistically there are only two options, one of which is only consistently available to Atronach users: Restore Magicka Potions, and Spell Absorption.

If you are planning on playing a Pure Mage type character, and don’t have any Magicka regeneration mods installed, then it is best to get acquainted with the play style known as: “carrying around & consuming a boatload of Restore Magicka potions”. The sooner you adapt to this play style, the less you will be worried about being ‘efficient’ with Magicka use & spell selection, and the game will be more enjoyable for it. Alchemy can help greatly in this regard (see Chapter 4), as restocking ingredients allow for the continual creation of Restore Magicka potions that are both extremely lightweight (0.1 lbs each), and of a much higher magnitude than can be purchased in game.

3.1 Finding Restore Magicka Potions

To start with, it’s best to try and obtain ‘free’ potions and save money. The best place to find Restore Magicka potions at the start of the game, are within Mages Guild Supply Chests. 4 out of the 5 Mages Guild Halls (Balmora, Ald’ruhn, Vivec, Sadrith Mora) contain a Supply Chest, and within in each chest is a collection of equipment for ‘Guild Members’ (i.e. ‘you’ once you’ve joined the Mages Guild). Included in each of the 4 chests, are 10 Standard Restore Magicka potions, which restore 50 Magicka each.

Once you’ve made use of these 40 potions of Standard Restore Magicka, which can happen quite quickly (as a reference, this author used around half of these 40 potions clearing out the Puzzle Box Dwarven ruin for the first part of the Main Quest), then the chests will have to restock. This is where things get tricky. According to the UESP wiki, the chests are marked as ‘Organic and Respawning’, meaning that they ‘may’ take up to 4 months (120 in game days!) for the contents to respawn. There are other reports that say it should only take 30 days.

During one playthrough, the chests were observed respawning their contents, once, after around 14 days. During another playthrough, the chests still had not yet respawned by Day 98, after being looted on Day 1. Either way: It appears to take a long time for Supply chests to restock their supplies. As such, Supply Chests make for a great initial source of Restore Magicka potions, but are certainly not a reliable source of potions for a dedicated spellcaster.

3.2 Buying Restore Magicka Potions

Restore Magicka potions can also be purchased from certain shops. Your standard Alchemist probably sells at least one variety of one Restore Magicka potion. However, there are only a select handful of Alchemy merchants in Morrowind that sell ‘a restocking supply’ of Restore Magicka potions.

Restocking Merchants in Morrowind sell ‘effectively’ infinite amounts of their restocking items, which ‘restock’ every time the Barter window is closed and reopened. Restocking merchants are of particular use to Alchemists, and just about all Alchemy merchants sell restocking supplies of certain ingredients. More on Alchemy and Restocking Merchants is covered in Chapter 4.

In a roundabout way, Restocking Merchants are inadvertently Morrowind’s solution to a ‘finite’ Magicka system. They grant the ability to make and/or purchase ‘infinite’ Restore Magicka potions and ingredients from select merchants. That is, given enough money … which Alchemy can also help to create (more in Chapter 4!).

Below is a list of (most of) the merchants in Morrowind that sell restocking Restore Magicka Potions. These merchants also effectively provide the only ‘constant supply’ of Restore Magicka potions for characters specifically avoiding the Alchemy skill. Lloros Sarano & Nalcarya are arguably the two easiest options to reach & increase Disposition for. “2 Cheap Restore Magicka potions per transaction”, and “1 Exclusive Restore Magicka potion per transaction”, appear to be the only Restocking options, with ‘Exclusive’ being the most cost-efficient option (175 gold for 200 Magicka, vs 15 gold for 10 Magicka). For characters with not enough Magicka to make the full use of an Exclusive potion: 12 Cheap Restore Magicka potions costs 180gp (vs 175gp for 1 Exclusive) and restores 120 Magicka, meaning that Exclusive potions are more cost efficient than Cheap potions for restoring more than 110 Magicka at a time (not to mention 1 exclusive potion weighs a lot less than 10 cheap potions!).

Lloros Sarano (Ald’ruhn Temple, Cheap x2)
Dileno Lloran (Vivec High Fane, Cheap x2)
Lalatia Varian (Ebonheart Imperial Chapels, Cheap x2)
Nilvyn Drothan (Ghostgate Temple, Cheap x2)
Niras Farys (Sadrith Mora Telvanni Council House Chambers, Cheap x2)
Nalcarya of White Haven (Balmora Alchemist, Exclusive x1)
Anis Seloth (Sadrith Mora Alchemist, Exclusive x1)

Chapter 3 (3.3): Magicka Management - General Tips

3.3 Making Restore Magicka Potions

In this short section, we’ll cover Alchemy information specific to making Restore Magicka potions. For more general information on using Alchemy, once again, head to Chapter 4.

Skilled Alchemists with high quality Alchemy equipment, have the potential to make Restore Magicka potions that replenish more Magicka than even Exclusive varieties. Alchemy ingredients with the ‘Restore Magicka’ effect include:

- Comberry, Daedra Heart, Frost Salts and Void Salts from the Base Game,
- Adamantium Ore from Tribunal,
- Belladonna Berries and Heartwood from Bloodmoon.

Some info about these ingredients:

- The only two ingredients from the above list with ‘Restore Magicka’ as their first effect, are Void Salts and Heartwood. All other ingredients have it as their second effect, meaning that 30 Alchemy is required to VIEW THEM IN GAME as Restore Magicka ingredients. It turns out, it is possible to make Restore Magicka potions at 'any' skill level, even if the effects are not visible. More in Chapter 4.1.
- All of the Base Game ingredients, and none of the Expansion ingredients, can be found at Restocking Merchants.
- Adamantium is very heavy (which affects the weight of crafted potions), and Heartwood is very rare (found occasionally on Spriggans, making it difficult to use consistently).
- Belladonna can come in Ripened and Unripened varieties, which themselves can be mixed together to create a ‘4 effect Magicka Potion’ (Resist, Restore, Fortify, Drain). However, as these can only be picked from plants (which ‘regrow’ only every 30 days), they are in limited supply.

Given all of the above: The most ‘consistent’ method of producing Restore Magicka potions, involves using Base Game Ingredients. Comberry (1gp each, Ajira in Balmora Mages Guild restocks 5) and Frost Salts (75gp each, Nalcarya in Balmora restocks 5) are the cheapest combination of restocking Restore Magicka ingredients, and can be used to make Restore Magicka potions at ‘any’ Alchemy skill level, even if the effects only become viewable from 30 Alchemy onwards. Void Salts can also be ‘eaten’ to restore a whopping 1 point of Magicka … yay?

For characters lacking Alchemy skill & sick of wasting ingredients: Ajira provides Alchemy training up to 48, which is more than enough to begin making Restore Magicka potions consistently. Alternatively, eating restocking ingredients will increase Alchemy skill slowly, and Ajira sells cheap restocking ingredients that can be used to create Restore Fatigue potions for money & skill gain.

Once again, for more Alchemy information, check out Chapter 4.

Chapter 3 (3.4): Magicka Management - General Tips

3.4 The Atronach Sign & Spell Absorption

Mages with the Atronach sign cannot rest to restore their Magicka. They instead have the unique ability to absorb the Magicka from 50% of incoming spells (the effect is called ‘Spell Absorption’ for obvious reasons, see Chapter 10 for more info), regardless of whether said spells are beneficial or harmful. This means that Atronach users can effectively ‘restore’ their Magicka, via making use of (cheesy) artificial scenarios in which spells are deliberately cast at them to be absorbed.

There are two ‘controllable’ absorption methods worth mentioning.

The first is the Ancestor Ghost method. Ancestor Ghosts are the cheapest summon, and also happen to cast a spell, which itself contains 3 components, that will replenish 120 Magicka if all components are absorbed. A ’15 second Summon Ancestor Ghost’ Custom spell costs 5 Magicka, and should be lengthy enough for an Atronach user to summon said Ghost, punch it several times (fists are not ‘Normal Weapons’, more on that in Chapter 12), and then have it cast its’ spell around 3 times before the duration runs out.

If all components of the Ghost’s spell land (i.e. aren’t absorbed), or the Ghost runs out of Magicka, then it will proceed to melee attack the user (and can be ‘resummoned’ in order to ‘kill it off’, or simply waited out). There is therefore a 1/8 chance that a Ghost’s spell won’t be absorbed at all, as all 3 components will hit the user and the Ghost will proceed to start melee attacks (50% x 50% x 50% = 12.5% or 1/8). 7/8 times however, the user is guaranteed a bunch of Magicka back!

One caveat: If the user is 100% Resistant to Magicka (e.g. Breton with Saviour’s Hide Cuirass equipped), then Ghosts will refuse to cast anything & instead default to using melee, meaning that Resist Magicka items/spells will have to be removed in order for a Ghost to ‘replenish your Magicka’.

The second is the Shrine Buff method. Tribunal Temple Shrines and Imperial Cult Altars are found around Morrowind; most often in Temples and Imperial Forts, but sometimes in Ancestral Tombs. These provide certain ‘extremely long duration’ or ‘extremely restoring’ buffs, provided that a small donation is paid (the donation becomes cheaper and eventually ‘free’ as one advances through the ranks of either Faction).

The majority of ‘Shrine buffs’ have had their Magicka cost artificially reduced to 1 Magicka, meaning that absorbing these buffs only restores 1 Magicka to Atronach users.

However! There are some notable exceptions.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Shrines
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Spells

By matching the Shrines (e.g. Shrine of St. Aralor) to their buffs in the ‘Cheap Spells’ spell list (e.g. Aralor’s Intervention), it becomes possible to check whether or not a Shrine’s buff has had its’ Magicka cost reduced to 1. The shrines that are ‘missing’ from the Cheap Spells list (and thus have not had the Magicka cost of their buffs changed, which has been verified through in-game testing) are:
- Shrine of St. Rilm (Rilm’s Grace),
- Shrine of St. Seryn (Seryn’s Shield).
- Shrine of St. Veloth (Almsivi Restoration),
- Shrine of the Tribunal (Almsivi Restoration),
- Imperial Cult Altars (Restore Attributes).

The full list of the locations for these Shrines can be found in the ‘Shrines’ UESP link. Here are some notable locations:

Shrine of St. Rilm: Balmora Temple, Gnisis Temple, Holamayan Monastry, Ghostgate, Vivec High Fane Interior.

Shrine of the Tribunal: Balmora Temple (upstairs), Ald’ruhn Temple (upstairs), Gnisis Temple (upstairs), Fort Darius, Ald Velothi Outpost, Sadrith Mora Telvanni Council House Chambers, Vivec Hlaalu/Redoran/Telvanni Temples.

Imperial Cult Altars: Ald’ruhn Mages Guild (arguably the best location of the lot!), Buckmoth Fort, Ebonheart Imperial Chapels, Fort Darius (Gnisis), Moonmoth Fort, Pelagiad (Fort), Wolverine Hall Imperial Shrine, Vivec Foreign Quarter Canalworks, Royal Palace Imperial Cult Services (Mournhold), Fort Frostmoth Imperial Cult Shrine (Solstheim).

Shrine of St. Seryn and Shrine of St. Veloth are only found at Holomayan, Ghostgate, and Vivec High Fane Interior (i.e. the same locations as St. Rilm), excluding some Ancestral Tombs containing Shrine of St. Veloth (though these are not reliable destinations to travel to).

Molag Mar is a key Temple location that lacks any shrine, though it is a destination within Divine Intervention range of Wolverine Hall (containing an Imperial Altar), whilst Wolverine Hall is within Almsivi Intervention range of Molag Mar (see Chapter 10 for more Intervention spell info).

In summary then:

If you’re an Atronach user, you should make quick use of the shrines to St Rilm (Balmora/Ghostgate/Gnisis/Vivec High Fane), the Tribunal (Balmora/Gnisis/Ald’ruhn/Ald Velothi/Sadrith Mora Telvanni Council/Vivec Great House Canton Temples), or Imperial Cult Altars (Imperial Forts/Cult Services including Wolverine Hall, Ald’ruhn Mages Guild, Mournhold & Fort Frostmoth), to replenish your Magicka while in town.

Certainly less contrived than summoning a Ghost and punching it, right?

Chapter 4 (4.1): Alchemy – A Short Guide

Alchemy is one of the most powerful skills in Morrowind; potentially ‘the most powerful’ when taken to its’ extreme, and is thus a notorious temptation for players who wish to become powerful. For those who can resist temptation (the sweet scent of Ash Yams… ehem where was I), Alchemy should nonetheless be a priority for any character that plans on playing as a ‘Pure Mage’. At the very least, Alchemy grants the ability to make Restore Magicka potions with restocking ingredients, which simultaneously renders Magicka a lot less tedious to manage, and allows for very powerful spells to be cast one after the other during the Late Game.

Alchemy experience is gained in set xp amounts, either by eating an ingredient (0.5 xp) or by making a potion (2 xp upon success). The quality of ingredient or potion created has no bearing on skill gain; much like the 6 magic skills in Morrowind, increasing Alchemy skill simply comes from ‘using it over and over again’.

Here’s a short ‘how to Alchemy’.

4.1 Having ‘Enough Skill to Know What You’re Doing’

In order to make potions in Morrowind, it helps to know what an ingredient's effects are. Unlike Oblivion and Skyrim, ingredient effects can only be revealed in the inventory screen by reaching certain skill thresholds. These are 15/30/45/60 Alchemy (or 1 effect per 15 Alchemy skill), and includes the effects of the potions themselves. Which means that if you have less than 15 Alchemy skill, you won't be shown the magnitudes & durations of in game potions, and you won't be shown what any of the ingredients do! Hooray!

Despite this, IT IS STILL POSSIBLE TO MAKE POTIONS; it is just that the ingredients shown in one's inventory screen will still display the thresholds revealed by your skill level (which could well be, 'none'). If your character has less than 15 Alchemy skill, then you effectively have three options to raise it.

The first option is ‘eating random ingredients’, which increases Alchemy at ¼ the rate of potion making if an ingredient’s proc effect is ‘successful’. The formula for ‘ingredient success’ is:

(Alchemy Skill + Int/5 + Luck/10)*(0.75 to 1.25 Fatigue Modifier)%

Thus, for a character with 40 Intelligence/Luck and 5 alchemy skill, ingredient proc effect has a (5 + 40/5 + 40/10)*1.25 = 21.25% chance of success. Not very high, but at least high ‘enough’ such that in theory, Alchemy skill can be raised from 5 to 15 by consuming copious amounts of ingredients bought from Alchemy vendors (in testing, it took about 70 Small Kwama eggs from Ajira to increase Alchemy from 5 to 6).

More info on eating ingredients & other Alchemy related mechanics can be found in this great video. Thanks again, Lyle!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbWLiz36Uy4

The second option is to just 'make potions anyway', which can be done 'if' the effects are known ahead of time. Food items (Saltrice, Bread, Crab Meat, Kwama Egg, etc) make good 'blind potion creation' candidates, as they're cheap and typically have Restore Fatigue as their first ingredient effect, even if it is not displayed on the inventory menu due to lack of Alchemy skill.

The Alchemy success chance in Morrowind is:

(Alchemy Skill + Int/10 + Luck/10) % .

Notice that this formula is independent of both Fatigue modifier, AND equipment quality. This means that at low skill levels, the chance of success of potion making even with an Apprentice’s Mortar & Pestle is not very high, but at least should generate more XP overall than simply eating ingredients.

For e.g. A character with 5 Alchemy + 50 Intelligence + 40 Luck, will have a 5 + 5 + 4 = 14% chance of making a potion, i.e. 6 out of 7 potion attempts will fail. Meanwhile, consuming ingredients has a (5 + 10 + 4)*1.25 = 23.75% success rate at Full Fatigue vs 14%, but will only generate ¼ xp relative to potion making.

The third option is training. Training services in Morrowind are offered very liberally: So liberally, in fact, that there’s no limit on the amount of training that you can receive per level. So long as you have enough gold, people will train you, until you know what they know.

If you wish to purchase training, there are basically only two Alchemy trainers worth mentioning in Morrowind:

Ajira (Balmora Mages Guild), who trains Alchemy up to 48,

Abelle Chriditte (Valenvaryon Propylon Chamber), who is the Master (100) Alchemy Trainer.

There are others who train Alchemy ‘slightly’ higher and ‘slightly’ lower than Ajira (we’re talking 1-2 skill points difference), but given how easy it is to raise Ajira’s disposition to 100 by doing early Mages Guild quests, and thus make training services cheaper, you may as well just stick with Ajira to start with.

Chapter 4 (4.2-4.3): Alchemy – A Short Guide

4.2 Alchemy Equipment

Next, you’ll need some equipment. The four types of equipment used to make potions are:
- Mortar and Pestle (which is the only thing you ‘really’ need, affects the quality and price of potions),
- Alembic (reduces negative effects, does not affect price, does nothing if potion has no negative effects)
- Retort (increases positive effects, does not affect price, does nothing if potion has no positive effects),
- Calcinator (increases magnitude of all effects, but does not affect price).

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Alchemy

Aside from ‘success chance’, the relevant formulae for Alchemy can be found in the UESP link above. I won’t add the effects of Alembic/Retorts/Calcinators (because it gets weird, just read the link), but suffice to say that they mainly effect Potion Strength (though oddly enough, ‘not’ duration), and by a fairly insignificant amount in comparison to the other factors listed in the 3 formula below.

Potion Strength = (Alchemy + (Intelligence / 10) + (Luck / 10)) * MortarQuality / (3 * EffectBaseCost)
Potion Duration = (Potion Strength * 3)
Potion Value = (Alchemy + (Intelligence / 10) + (Luck / 10)) * MortarQuality

Alchemy skill, Intelligence, Luck, Base Effect Cost (see Chapters 6-11) and Equipment quality, all play a role in determining Potion Strength. The higher the Base effect cost, the weaker the magnitude of the potion (e.g. Fire Shield has Base Cost 3, while Resist Fire has Base Cost 2, so Resist Fire potions will be 1.5x stronger than Fire Shield). Meanwhile, increasing Alchemy skill/Intelligence/Luck/Equipment Quality will all increase the magnitude of crafted potions.

Alchemy Skill, Intelligence, Luck and ‘Mortar Quality’ are the only factors that influence Potion Value. From a profit perspective: the type of potion effect & auxiliary equipment used (i.e. Alembic/Calcinator/Retort), do not influence Potion Value ... so a Mortar & Pestle is all you need to make potions that you intend to sell, and any effect will do! If you wish to make potions to use ‘yourself’ however, then the potion effect + other 3 pieces of Alchemy equipment are of course more relevant.

A Journeyman's Alchemy Set & Master Alchemy set can be purchased from Ernard Thierry in the Caldera Mages Guild … and his Master set can be ‘borrowed’ from upstairs (in a similar fashion to how one can ‘borrow’ Galbedir’s Soul Gem collection…).

A Grandmaster’s Mortar and Pestle (which will allow for the most ‘profitable’ potions to be created) can be sold or ‘borrowed’ from Nalcarya of White Haven (Balmora), and a full Grandmaster Set can be purchased from the aforementioned super trainer, Abelle Chriditte. This crazy cat can be found chilling in the middle of nowhere (Valenvaryon, east of the Urshilaku Camp), living in an old fort with 13 Orc friends (12 of which are not as hospitable as she is).

Bloody Malacath worshippers.

4.3 Ingredients

Next, you’ll need some ingredients. Random ingredients can be found on the corpses of appropriate creatures (e.g. Frost Atronachs tend to carry Frost Salts), and ingredients picked from plants respawn every 30 in-game days (this was reduced to ‘3 in game days’ in Oblivion, and then increased back to ’10 in game days’ in Skyrim). For more immediate, consistent supplies of ingredients, it’s best to look for Restocking Alchemy Merchants.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Restocking_Alchemy_Merchants

Above is the list of merchants in Morrowind that restock certain Alchemy ingredients. Put simply: if you purchase a set of these restocking ingredients, they will be ‘restocked’ upon the next trade attempt. This allows for effectively infinite quantities of particular ingredients to be purchased from particular vendors.

Fun fact: In the vanilla game, if you ‘sell’ a vendor back a set of restocking ingredients, they will have more in stock for the next barter attempt. So for e.g. Ajira sells 5 Comberry, and if you purchase 5 Comberry, re-engage the trade, then sell her ‘back’ the 5 Comberry, she will now have ‘10 Restocking Comberry’ available for the next trade. This ‘trick’ can be done to increase a merchant’s restocking reserves to silly proportions, and is ‘essentially’ an exploit, though at least only an exploit that reduces bartering time (the ‘restocking ingredient’ bit is just ‘part of the game’, after all!). This ‘increase in stock’ only lasts so long as the cell is revisited every 72 hours, otherwise the stock is reset.

Moving past ‘yet another way to break Morrowind’…

Chapter 4 (4.4): Alchemy – A Short Guide

4.4 Putting it all together

Here is a short list of potentially useful potions that can be made using Restocked Ingredients. Note that Fortify Intelligence and Fortify Luck both affect potion strength … which opens up ‘another’ way to break Morrowind.

If you don’t want to completely break the game: simply don’t drink Fortify Intelligence/Luck potions, and then proceed to make ‘more’ Fortify Intelligence/Luck potions, with the old potions active. OK? OK.

The following list is by no means an exhaustive list of useful potions, and rather includes ‘potions with generally useful effects’. For more information on effects, head to Chapters 6-12:

Fortify Agility: Ectoplasm + Roobrush (Danoso Andrano, Ald’ruhn Temple).
Fortify Intelligence: Ash Yam + Bloat (Aunius Autrus, Wolverine Hall Imperial Shrine).
Fortify Willpower: Bloat (Aunius Autrus, Wolverine Hall Imperial Shrine) + Wickwheat (Dralval Andrano, Balmora Temple). Notably, Ash Yam + Bloat + Wickwheat fortifies 'both' Intelligence and Willpower.
Fortify Luck: Corprus Weepings (Folvys Andalor, Ald’ruhn Temple) + Corkbulb Root (Tusamircil, Sadrith Mora Mages Guild). Also Restores Health!
Fortify Strength: Ash Yam (Aunius Autrus, Wolverine Hall Imperial Shrine) + Dreugh Wax (Pierlette Rostarard, Sadrith Mora Apothecary).
Fortify Speed: Kagouti Hide + Shalk Resin (Pierlette Rostarard, Sadrith Mora Apothecary).
Reflect: Comberry + Hound Meat (Ajira, Balmora Mages Guild).
Resist Fire: Black Anther (Ajira, Balmora Mages Guild) + Fire Petal (Pierlette Rostarard, Sadrith Mora Apothecary).
Resist Frost: Black Lichen (Pierlette Rostarard, Sadrith Mora Apothecary) + Fire Salts (Nalcarya, Balmora Fine Alchemist)
Restore Fatigue: Saltrice + Chokeweed (Telis Salvani + Llarara Omayn, Balmora Temple)
Restore Health: Marshmerrow + Wickwheat (Dralval Andrano, Balmora Temple).
Restore Magicka: Comberry (Ajira, Balmora Mages Guild) + Frost Salts (Nalcarya, Balmora Fine Alchemist).

And last on this list: ‘The Economy Potion’ (Restore Fatigue): Small Kwama Egg + Crab Meat (Ajira restocks both).

For a more detailed breakdown of the Economy potion, see Chapter 14.4’.

Early Game Mages that have completed Ajira’s Mages Guild quests, should have no issues raising her disposition to 100, making her an excellent merchant to engage in trade with. The combined ingredient cost for the ‘Economy Potion’ is only 2 gold, which is ‘definitely less’ than the value of the resultant Restore Fatigue potion (sold to Ajira at 100 disposition), and can be mass produced at any Alchemy skill. Meaning that one can effectively turn Morrowind into ‘Small Business Simulator 2002’ , using this ingredient & potion combination, and never worry about money again.

Similar ‘business ventures’ are possible using the Alchemy skill in Oblivion and Skyrim.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzhcK9NFUVk
In Oblivion: free food ingredients from Farms can be used to mass produce Restore Fatigue Potions (and plants ‘regrow’ every 3 days in this game...), which can be sold for lots of profit & used to powerlevel Alchemy to silly levels early in the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvtSBzHLYt4
Meanwhile in Skyrim: an expensive multi-effect potion can be mass produced using Blue Mountain Flower, Lavender (both found around Whiterun), & Hanging Moss (found in Solitude Catacombs). This similarly generates a ton of profit, and can be used to powerlevel Alchemy.

Isn’t Alchemy a fun skill in Elder Scrolls games…


Finally, ‘somewhat’ related to Alchemy:

Sujamma is an alcoholic beverage (which makes it a ‘potion’ … that’s close enough to Alchemy, right?) that Fortifies Strength & Drains Intelligence 50 pts for 60 sec, and can stack ad infinitum. It is sold as a Restocking item at various bartenders, such as Dulrea Ralaal at the Eight Plates in Balmora.

If you ever feel like this poncy spellcasting sh*t is tedious, just grab a big stick (could be a Bound weapon if you’re feeling fancy), drink a keg’s worth of Sujamma, and then whack stuff. You’ll break the stick in a few hits, but your opponents will also be very dead.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OF2fUihc7OI

‘Drunken Valhalla Rampage’ is arguably the most tried and true method of killing anything in Morrowind, effective right up to the levels of ‘magic immune’ Helseth & ‘mostly magic immune with potentially stratospheric HP’ Gedna Relvel. And it was mildly sad (but completely understandable) that Sujamma was completely nerfed or removed in later Elder Scrolls games.

Part 2: Spell Effects

Chapter 5: Spell Effects By School - Introduction

Given that there are 141 spells effects in Morrowind, and the fact that UESP articles exist on each effect, it would make little sense to try and go into ‘each and every effect’ in grand detail (as at that point the guide might as well just be linking to a bunch of UESP articles).

Instead, this guide will contain a short summary for each effect that can be used for SPELLMAKING (through Chapters 6-11) as well as COMPARATIVE and PRACTICAL information for various effects.

Chapters 6 to 11 are organised via the following format:

‘Spell School’. A short introduction to the Spell School (e.g. Alteration).

‘Starter Spells’. Spells from said school that casters would expect to start with at the beginning of the game, assuming that they start with certain Skill Level/Willpower/Luck thresholds. For more information on general spellcasting mechanics & formula refer to Chapter 1, and for more specific information on Base and Custom spells see Chapters 14-16.

Then, for each spell effect within a particular school:

‘Effect’. The name of the Spell effect (e.g. Burden). For effects with ‘Attribute’ or ‘Skill’ in the title, purchasing a spell for any one Attribute/Skill, is enough to allow for Custom Spellmaking for ‘any’ Attribute/Skill of that effect. For e.g. purchasing Fuddle (Damage Intelligence) grants the ability to create any Custom Damage Attribute spell.

‘Base Cost’. This will list the ‘Base Effect Cost’ for the vast majority of spell effects (e.g. Fire Damage Base Cost is 5), and the ‘Base Spell Cost’ for spells with No Magnitude or Duration component, as there is essentially no reason to create Custom variants of non magnitude/duration spells (e.g. Almsivi Intervention costs 8 Magicka).

‘Usefulness Rating’. This author’s personal, subjective, and ‘hopefully’ informed opinion on how ‘useful’ a spell effect is, at the function (or functions) that it is suited for. This is subjective, so no doubt some people will disagree. There are inevitably collections of spell effects within the same category that are arguably more useful than others, and perhaps even some ‘Medium rated’ spell effects that are overall more consistently useful than ‘High rated’ spell effects. Rather than get bogged down in the mire of S-F ranked tier lists: If the guide can at least provide a quick heuristic as to ‘the usefulness’ of an effect in ‘most’ cases, then the ‘High/Medium/Low’ rating system has done its’ job.

Usefulness Rating is roughly evaluated via the following criteria:

High = A consistently useful effect, with little alternatives. An example would be Fire Damage, i.e. one of two damage effects with the cheapest Magicka cost in the game (along with Frost Damage, which is also High).

Medium = A somewhat useful effect that is either niche, ‘or’ has alternatives in other schools. Examples would be Rally Creature (which is niche, in that it’s ‘only’ useful against fleeing opponents, which is not a common occurrence), and Shock Damage (whilst any form of elemental damage is definitely not ‘niche’, Fire and Frost Damage are cheaper alternatives).

Low = A not very useful effect that is both niche, ‘and’ has alternatives in other schools. An example would be Fire Shield, which is not only inferior to Resist Fire (which does effectively the same thing) in terms of Base Cost, but also deals very little damage (which is essentially its’ ‘niche’), and so has little use at all.

None = Not useful at all. There are very few examples of ‘completely’ useless Spell effects, but one that stands out is ‘Resist Corprus Disease’. Even with 100% Resistance to Corprus via spells, this does not prevent contraction of Corprus as part of the Main Quest.

Note also that this rating relates to my perceived usefulness of the effects for SPELLCASTING purposes, and NOT necessarily for Racial/Starsign Powers & Abilities, Potions (which can be made en-masse and stacked), or Enchantments. Enchanted items are covered in more detail in Chapters 15 and 16.


‘Location:’ A place where a cheap base spell variant can be purchased, as opposed to all locations where a spell effect can be purchased (which adds unnecessary complications in an already complicated guide!).

‘Description’. A short description of the effect (usually 1 paragraph), as well as some potential applications. Some descriptions are longer than others, mainly because an effect may be nuanced (e.g. certain Illusion effects can influence multiple in-game factors). A selection of effects (e.g. Command, Intervention Spells) have been given elaborate descriptions.

Regarding Locations. The vast majority of spell effects can be found by purchasing base spells from a handful of locations. These are:

- The 5 Mages Guilds (Balmora, Caldera, Ald’ruhn, Sadrith Mora, Vivec),
- Balmora Temple,
- Ald’ruhn Temple,
- Wolverine Hall (Sadrith Mora) Imperial Cult Shrine.

After these 8 locations, 5 more standalone merchants sell the remaining spell effects.
3 of them are within ‘Mages Guild’ towns. These are:
- Erer Darothril (Sadrith Mora Thieves Guild, i.e. Dirty Muriel Cornerclub) for several effects.
- Llaalam Madalas (Sadrith Mora, Mage shop, requires Telvanni ranking) for Rally Creature/Humanoid. For those not of House Telvanni, the next best option is Ebonheart Imperial Chapels (Synnolian Tunifus, Lalatia Varian).
- Llaros Uvain (Caldera, Governer’s Hall) for Damage Magicka.

The remaining 2 are found elsewhere. These are:
- Felen Maryon (Tel Branora, Upper Tower Therana’s Chamber) for several high level summons. You will need Levitate to reach him.
- Laurina Maria (Mournhold Palace: Imperial Cult Services) for Fortify Skill. You will need to travel to Mournhold via Asciene Rane (Ebonheart Grand Council Chambers, easily reached via Divine Intervention to Ebonheart) in order to reach her. Once in the Reception Area (near Effe-Tai, the Argonian who can teleport you back to Vvardenfell), head outside to the Courtyard, and then to the northwestern end to reach the Shrine. Alternatively, using Divine Intervention in Mournhold will land you straight outside the Shrine.

Therefore: The entire list of spell effects that can be used for Spellmaking, can be found within the 5 Mages Guild towns (either in Guilds, Temples or standalone Shops), Tel Branora (Felen Maryon), and Mournhold (Laurina Maria). Ebonheart contains transportation to Mournhold (Asciene Rane) after witnessing a Dark Brotherhood attack & notifying a guard + Apelles Matius, and Rally Creature/Humanoid (Synnolian Tunifus, Lalatia Varian) can be purchased in the Ebonheart Chapels for non-Telvanni characters.

For Spell Effects that cannot be used for Custom Spellmaking (as they cannot be purchased anywhere), refer to Chapter 12.

Finally, to start things off, here is a link to an image taken from the UESP, showing all of the spell effects available for Custom Spellmaking.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Spells

It’s also worth noting that offensive effects, i.e. ‘effects that can kill opponents’, can only be found within Destruction (various damage types), Conjuration (various summon types) and Mysticism (Absorb Health). For mages that wish to ‘kill things using spells’, it is therefore ‘definitely’ worth investing heavily into at least 1 of these schools.

Let’s get into it shall we!

Chapter 6 (A-O): Alteration Custom Spell Effects

Alteration is primarily a utility school of magic in Morrowind. It focuses on manipulating the natural world, providing a wide array of effects that are useful in a variety of circumstances. Some effects are borderline useless, whilst some effects are downright broken, so much so that they were omitted from later Elder Scrolls titles (RIP Jump and Levitate).
Alteration has a handful of Base Spells that are useful on their own (e.g. Open Lock spells), however most effects are best used within Custom Spells. More information on Base and Custom spells can be found in Chapters 14-16.

Starter Spells: Shield (5 pts for 30 sec on Self, 25 Alteration/60 Willpower or 30 Alteration minimum), Water Walking (for 60 sec on self, 25 Alteration minimum).


Burden
Base Cost: 1.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Estirdalin).
Description: Increases target encumbrance by M points for D seconds. Inferior to Drain and Damage Strength, though 1pt of Burden ensures that ‘any’ opponent with their Strength reduced to 0 will be unable to move (some creatures technically carry ‘no items’, meaning that having 0 strength will not stop them from moving). As such, it may be worth adding a 1pt Burden effect for medium durations (e.g. 30 seconds) to Custom Damage Strength spells that are to be used on creatures.


Feather
Base Cost: 1.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Estirdalin).
Description: Reduces target encumbrance by M points for D seconds. Feather is inferior to Fortify Strength (by a factor of 5) in terms of ‘adding to total carry weight’, though is at least an option for casters lacking Restoration skill. Like Shield, Feather is a good example of an effect that is quite useful as a Constant Effect enchantment on certain items, but is not cost effective as a ‘limited duration’ spell effect & is outclassed by other effects.


Fire Shield
Base Cost: 3.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Uleni Heleran).
Description: Provides % Resist Fire, and 10 pts Fire Shield = 1pt Fire Damage each time caster is hit in melee. Damage dealt is negligible, and the effect is more costly and inferior to Resist Fire. In addition, damage dealt only appears to effect one enemy per combat session, making this spell ineffective at dealing damage to multiple enemies simultaneously. There have been reports that in certain versions of Morrowind, Elemental Shield spells can deal significant damage and hit multiple enemies, but these results were not replicated by the author (using OpenMW 0.45).


Frost Shield
Base Cost: 3.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Uleni Heleran).
Description: Provides % Resist Frost, and 10 pts Frost Shield = 1pt Frost Damage each time caster is hit in melee. Damage dealt is negligible, and the effect is more costly and inferior to Resist Frost. In addition, damage dealt only appears to effect one enemy per combat session, making this spell ineffective at dealing damage to multiple enemies simultaneously. There have been reports that in certain versions of Morrowind, Elemental Shield spells can deal significant damage and hit multiple enemies, but these results were not replicated by the author (using OpenMW 0.45).


Jump
Base Cost: 3.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Vivec Mages Guild (Sirilonwe).
Description: Increases target’s jumping height by M times for D seconds, but does not affect fall damage. Best combined with Slowfall or Levitate (which can both alleviate fall damage). A hilarious spell effect when used well, and it is a shame that Bethesda removed this effect from later titles (... it is completely understandable why this happened, but much fun was lost as a result).

(Shameless plug)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=823166091

In the author’s opinion, if you’re looking for a fun spell effect that successfully advertises Morrowind’s unique magic system, you’re looking at it right here.


Levitate
Base Cost: 3.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Marayn Dren).
Description: Causes target to ‘walk in mid air’ for D seconds. This effect has two uses: It allows the player to ‘fly at walking speed’, and it prevents a target from sprinting (meaning that it can be used as a cheap ‘Slow’ effect, with some ‘interesting’ caveats if they die in vanilla versions of the game, see Chapter 15.3). Each M point in Levitate only results in a very minor increase in movement speed (in addition to being a lot less efficient than Fortify Speed), meaning that unless a character is not skilled in Restoration, 1pt Levitate is sufficient for just any custom spell.

For character's with Low Athletics, 1pt Levitate can provide a small movement speed boost while swimming, given the way that Levitate interacts with Athletics & the fact that Levitate movement speed is the same while walking OR swimming. There are some places where Levitation is unusable (mainly locations within the Expansions, such as Mournhold). Much like Jump, Levitate has a multitude of creative (broken) uses, and it is a (completely understandable) shame that Bethesda removed it from later Elder Scrolls games.


Lightning Shield
Base Cost: 3.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Uleni Heleran).
Description: Provides % Resist Shock, and 10 pts Lightning Shield = 1pt Shock Damage each time caster is hit in melee. Damage dealt is negligible, and the effect is more costly and inferior to Resist Shock. In addition, damage dealt only appears to effect one enemy per combat session, making this spell ineffective at dealing damage to multiple enemies simultaneously. There have been reports that in certain versions of Morrowind, Elemental Shield spells can deal significant damage and hit multiple enemies, but these results were not replicated by the author (using OpenMW 0.45).


Lock
Base Cost: 2.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Caldera Mages Guild (Medila Indaren).
Description: Locks a door or container by M points. Lock is a niche effect, but can be used effectively without much investment. Even a 1-point Lock is enough to prevent NPC’s and opponents from opening a door, or prevent potential witnesses from walking into a room to witness a crime (once again, completely understandable that this effect was removed from later games!). Lock can also be used to practice Security skill; just be careful not to unlock owned containers whilst in view, else you’ll have committed a crime.


Open
Base Cost: 6.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Marayn Dren). J’Rasha (Vivec Foreign Quarter Waistworks) sells Wild Open, which can be useful for ‘chance-opening’ 51-80ish point locks.
Description: Opens a locked door or chest. One of a handful of Alteration effects best used in Base Spell form, except for a Custom 100pts Open Lock spell. Casting Open spells will break Sneak, making Security a superior option for ‘stealthy lockpicking’. However, there are ways around this: Telekinesis allows for On-Touch spells to open locks from range (and potentially out of sight), and 3 sec of 100% Chameleon grants space to open any lock without committing a crime.

Chapter 6 (S-W): Alteration Custom Spell Effects

Shield
Base Cost: 2.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Marayn Dren).
Description: Increases Target’s Armour Rating by M points for D seconds. Shield provides diminishing returns compared to Fortify Armour skill at higher levels, and is also inferior to summoning multiple pieces of Bound equipment at low levels (see Conjuration). This effect therefore is most useful for non-Conjuration Mages that don’t wear armour, or for providing a little extra protection ‘on top of’ armour. Like Feather, Shield is a good example of an effect that is very useful as a Constant Effect enchantment on certain items, but is not cost effective as a spell & is outclassed by other effects.


Slowfall
Base Cost: 3.
Usefulness Rating: Medium (will happily admit personal preference on this one).
Location: Vivec Mages Guild (Sirilonwe).
Description: Slows the target’s rate of descent and completely negates fall damage, even with only 1pt of Slowfall. A niche effect, Slowfall is best combined with Jump spells as a cheap alternative to ‘Fortifying Acrobatics to 125’ (which also completely negates fall damage, but at a higher cost), or as an alternative to casting Levitate as an ‘air brake’.
Be wary however, that Slowfall decelerates a user’s horizontal velocity in the event that they perform a ‘super Jump’, so it may be best to hold off using a Slowfall effect until ‘just before’ hitting the ground. Levitate is also … kinda more fun. As is slamming into the ground at ‘fixed wing aircraft’ speeds and surviving the landing whilst gaining Acrobatics skill.


Swift Swim
Base Cost: 2.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Marayn Dren).
Description: Allows the target to swim more quickly in water. Very much inferior to Fortify Speed, which has a base cost of 1, and also works on land. Additionally, Levitate appears to fortify movement speed in water at a greater rate than Swift Swim, making Levitate a superior 'fast swimming' option to Swift Swim for those not skilled in Restoration.


Water Breathing
Base Cost: 3.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Marayn Dren).
Description: Allows the target to breathe underwater. When the effect resets, so does the breath meter, meaning that short duration, custom variants are quite Magicka efficient. The Alchemy ingredient Luminous Russula can also be consumed for short bursts of Water Breathing.


Water Walking
Base Cost: 3.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Marayn Dren).
Description: Allows the target to walk on water. Useful for covering large distances over water, as it is quicker to run than it is to swim. In the majority of cases, the Base Water Walking spell is useful enough in its’ 60 second form (as this effect is typically used for ‘long distance travel over water’), and shorter Custom variants are not required. It is also a useful custom target effect for escort missions over water (e.g. the Zainab Hortator escort mission), as NPC’s are easier to track & move more quickly while Water Walking.
Downsides: Cannot enter the water whilst this effect is active (except for in rare cases such as sloping terrain), and the user will take fall damage from hitting the water as if it were land.

Chapter 7 (B-C): Conjuration Custom Spell Effects

Conjuration is both an offensive and defensive school. It allows the user to summon various armour and weapon items, summon various creatures (primarily Undead and Daedra), and perform a smattering of Crowd Control (Command Humanoid/Creature & Turn Undead). ‘Bound Weapon’, ‘Bound Armour’ and ‘Command’ have been used to lump together various spell categories into one. Summon Spells are left as individual categories (as individual summons are good for different things), though they all share the property of ‘summoning the thing for X seconds’.

A fun Morrowind quirk: The default Summon AI will not attack a target unless the ‘caster’ attacks the target first. Which means that unfortunately, summons cannot be trusted to attack on their own volition, or chase down targets on their own. It is best then to combine summons with ranged attack spells, or alternatively, a ‘Call to Arms’ Custom Spell: a low magnitude/duration, cheap, offensive effect (e.g. Turn Undead), that ‘attacks’ all targets in a large radius, springing Summons into action. The ‘Call To Arms’ spell is explained in more detail in Chapter 14.

More information on Creatures and Summons can be found here:
https://en.uesp.net/morrow/monsters/mwmonsters.shtml
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Summon

It should be noted that Conjuration is the school that benefits the most from Custom Spellmaking, as it allows for several normally long duration spells to be converted into cheaper, short duration alternatives (e.g. Summons or Bound Equipment for 15-30 secs instead of 60 seconds), which are generally sufficient for skirmishes with 1-2 opponents. More info on Base and Custom Spells can be found in Chapters 14-16.

Starter Spells: Bound Dagger (60 secs on Self, 20 Conjuration/60 Willpower or 25 Conjuration minimum), Summon Ancestor Ghost (60 secs on Self, 30 Conjuration/40 Willpower or 35 Conjuration minimum).

Bound Armour
Base Cost: 2.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Locations: Sadrith Mora Dirty Muriel’s Cornerclub (Erer Darothril), Balmora Mages Guild (Estirdalin), Aldruhn Mages Guild (Heem-La).
Description: Summons a piece of magical Light Armour and automatically equips it. All Bound Armour pieces come with a 5-10pt Enchantment, and have a fixed Armour Rating of 80 regardless of skill. There are 5 pieces in total: Cuirass/Helmet boost armour skills (which is a borderline useless effect given the fixed Armour Rating of Bound Armour), Boots increase Speed, Gauntlets increase Agility/Hand to Hand, Shield increases Block skill.

Custom Bound Armour spells provide extremely efficient means of physical protection for mages in the early & mid game, much more so than Shield. A Custom Spell with all 5 pieces of Bound Armour + a Bound Weapon costs ~6 points Magicka per 10 seconds of duration, and provides 56 Armour Rating along with a ‘Daedric’ weapon.


Bound Weapon
Base Cost: 2.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Masalinie Merien). What a nice lady.
Description: Summons a weapon of Daedric Quality to the user. All Bound weapons come with a 10pt Enchantment to their respective weapon skill, which when combined with the +10 Agility from Bound Gauntlets, allows for an effective 12% bonus hit chance from Bound equipment. There are 6 Bound weapons in total: Battle Axe (2 handed, highest DPS Bound Weapon), Dagger, Longsword, Mace, Longbow and Spear (2 handed by default). A Custom Spell with all 5 pieces of Bound Armour + a Bound Weapon costs ~6 points Magicka per 10 seconds of duration, and provides 56 Armour Rating along with a ‘Daedric’ weapon.


Command
Base Cost: 15.
Usefulness Rating: High, with nuance.
Location: Tel Branora, Upper Tower (Felen Maryon).
Description:

Persuades the target to fight & follow in a similar manner to a Summon for D seconds, if M is equal to or greater than the target’s level. ‘Creature’ works on all creatures (including Undead/Daedra/Dwemer automatons), ‘Humanoid’ works on all NPC’s (and does nothing to the player in the event that it is Reflected). Despite being a ‘non elemental-spell with a Magnitude’, Command is not affected by Resist Magicka, nor can it be resisted by Willpower.

Command is an expensive and tricky effect to make use of, as it somewhat requires knowledge of the level of the target to use efficiently. Its’ high Base Cost also makes it a poor choice of spell to add an Area of Effect to. Despite this, it has several creative uses, though some of these uses can be mimicked using cheaper spell effects.

1. Command can be used to break up a cluster of enemies, by ‘defecting’ some of them & getting them to attack each other (3 second duration spells are sufficient for this). In later games, Frenzy effects can incite fights between opponents, however because of the way Frenzy works in Morrowind (i.e. only increases Fight value, and does not affect their Faction), Command is your only option for this particular interaction.

2. Command can be used to land Multiple Sneak Attacks on the same enemy (accomplished with similar ~3 second duration Command spells used for ‘defections’). Simply sneak behind a creature/NPC, land a sneak attack, command them for another ~3 secs, and repeat. However, this technique is also possible using Calm spells, which are generally cheaper.

3. Command can be used to move useful NPC’s or Creatures that are temporarily blocking doorways. This can be useful as some useful NPC’s (e.g. Mages Guild guides & Silt Strider/ship captains) will migrate slowly forwards over the course of the game, often blocking doorways or falling off of ledges. After the Command effect has worn off however, these NPC’s will most likely return to their ‘starting point’ unless they have been moved beyond their original cell, making this more of a temporary solution in most cases.

4. Finally, Command is useful for ‘escorting’ creatures/NPC’s overland. Want Creeper or a Mage Guild Guide at your stronghold? Use this effect to meticulously escort them! The ‘Command of the Third Corner’ spell (learnt from the Troubles of the Third Corner quest from the Tribunal Temple) is an overly cheap, 30 sec duration Command Humanoid spell, that may be useful for this purpose. ‘Aryon’s Dominator’ is also a notable artifact with Command spells (see 16.4), though it will require fortified Enchant skill to use consistently. ‘Command escorting’ can be ‘somewhat’ mimicked by using Frenzy/Calm/Rally effects to ‘lure’ NPC’s/Creatures overland, however these are a lot more unreliable than using Command.

If you happen to ‘lose’ a Commanded target that has been relocated, check their default location, and then check the Deadric shrine of Assarnatamat (NE of Balmora, SE of Caldera), as this is the default location for ‘lost’ characters.

For more silly Morrowind interactions, check out corprus hunk’s video below & associated YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHhDcKZ2vVs&list=PLXsNZLALCZPvkrob_RMD-EijT6CfZNZzW

Chapter 7 (Summons A-H): Conjuration Custom Spell Effects

Summon Ancestor Ghost
Base Cost: 7.
Usefulness Rating: High
Location: Ald’ruhn Mages Guild (Heem-La).
Description: The cheapest Summon in the game. Ancestor Ghosts may only have 23 HP and deal mediocre damage (1-10 pts Damage Health spell, 1-5 pts melee), but they sport immunity to Normal Weapons, Frost, and Poison damage, making them a great early-game ‘distraction summon’. They will not be aggravated by the caster’s Frostball spells (as they are immune to Frost) and can be used by Atronach users to ‘recharge’ their Magicka (see Chapter 4).


Summon Bonelord
Base Cost: 23.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Tel Branora, Upper Tower (Felen Maryon).
Description: Bonelords sport 90HP, immunity to Normal Weapons, and 75% resistance to Frost, Poison and Shock. They can hit reasonably hard (8-24 pts Melee), at least once they decide to stop spamming their pathetic little speed drain spell. Being the same base cost as Flame Atronach however, on top of being harder to obtain, relegates Bonelord to little more than a novelty summon.


Summon Bonewalker
Base Cost: 13.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Masalinie Merien).
Description: Essentially a junior, melee only Bonelord. Sports 60HP, 75% resistance to Frost/Shock/Poison, a decent punch (4-12 pts melee), and a pathetic little drain spell. Does not have immunity to Normal weapons however (unlike Ghosts, Scamps & Atronachs), so will get killed rather quickly in early melee.


Summon Clannfear
Base Cost: 22.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Tel Branora, Upper Tower (Felen Maryon).
Description: A relatively strong, junior melee Daedra. 113HP but no armour or resistances, and hits reasonably hard (6-18 pts melee). Can be an effective summon to combine with Dremoras during the mid-game, as they’re both melee-only tanks.


Summon Daedroth
Base Cost: 32.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Sadrith Mora Dirty Muriel’s Cornerclub (Erer Darothril).
Description: A slow but versatile Summon, Daedroths are best used alone to avoid complications with spells hitting allies. Daedroths come with 180 HP, a variety of spells (Poison + Shock bloom can be cast in quick succession to deal ~100 damage), and a very respectable 12-36 pts melee (they hit hard). Bring the fight to them (‘Call to Arms’ spells can be useful here), and their mixed damage should handle a variety of opponents.


Summon Dremora
Base Cost: 28.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Sadrith Mora Dirty Muriel’s Cornerclub (Erer Darothril).
Description: A very decent mid-level melee Summon. Dremora sport 160HP, and spawn holding a random weapon. If this weapon happens to be a Daedric Battle Axe, then they’ll hit like a truck! (not so much if it’s a Dreugh Club, however). A great summon to conjure en-masse using multiple Custom Spells (alongside Winged Twilights & Golden Saints), as unlike most other Daedra summons, they cannot accidentally kill each other with splash damage from spells. They can also be ‘farmed’ for items (by looting the corpses ‘just’ before they disappear), though this is obviously an exploit, and may crash the game.


Summon Flame Atronach
Base Cost: 23.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Caldera Mages Guild (Medila Indaren).
Description: The cheapest ‘ranged summon’ in the game, and also one of the cheapest summons that simply ‘deals damage straight away’ (rather than ‘tries to debuff enemies first’). Can provide decent fire-damage support, hits reasonably hard (7-21 pts melee) and comes with immunities to Fire & Normal Weapons, meaning that they will not be aggravated by your own Fireball spells. They do not fare well at tank duty past the Early Game however (75HP is fairly low), and like all ‘ranged’ Summons, they tend to hit other summons with spells (meaning that they are best used alone). ‘Call To Arms’ spells or ‘your own Fireballs’ can be useful for initiating this summon into fighting from range.


Summon Frost Atronach
Base Cost: 27.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Uleni Heleran).
Description: Similar to Flame Atronach; provides decent Frost-damage support with Frost/Normal Weapons immunity, hits reasonably hard (9-27 pts melee), but still does not fare too well at tanking for its’ spell cost (105 HP). Tends to hit other summons with spells.


Summon Golden Saint
Base Cost: 55.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Tel Branora, Upper Tower (Felen Maryon).
Description: The strongest (and most expensive) summon in the game, at least that can be converted into Custom Spells (the Expansions contain some unique summoning spells that cannot be converted into Custom spells, see Chapter 12). Golden Saints sport 250HP, a random weapon/shield (which can sometimes include the fabled Daedric Tower Shield), immunity to Normal Weapons, and 50% resistance to Fire/Frost/Shock. They sport a 400-magnitude Soul (should you choose to ‘trap’ one for Enchanting purposes), and can be ‘looted’ in a manner similar to Dremora (see above). Double the cost of Dremora, but also a lot hardier, Golden Saints are the best summon to use in groups against very tough opponents. Just be sure to stock plenty of Restore Magicka potions before deciding to summon an army of them!


Summon Greater Bonewalker
Base Cost: 15.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Uleni Heleran).
Description: Ah yes, the infamous Greater Bonewalker. These serve as a decent low-level tank summon, sporting 100 HP, 5-15 pts melee, 75% resistance to Frost/Poison/Shock, and are only slightly more Expensive than their Bonewalker cousins. They will spend almost all of their time disabling opponents, and almost none of it dealing damage, so they cannot be depended upon to ‘kill things’. However! They can halt just about any opponent in their tracks with progressive Damage Strength spells, making them the best ‘crowd control’ summon in the game. For those not skilled in Destruction, Greater Bonewalkers provide an effective ‘Damage Strength’ alternative.


Summon Hunger
Base Cost: 29.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Uleni Heleran).
Description: Hungers are weird. They spend the majority of their time spamming Disintegrate Armour/Weapon spells, which are amongst the most useless spells in the game. Simultaneously however, they have a Paralysis Spell, and are immune to all forms of Elemental damage (i.e. everything except Absorb/Drain/Damage Health). And when they ‘do’ finally decide to enter melee combat, they hit pretty damn hard (11-33 pts melee). As such, Hungers are best used as anti-mage Summons, or simply as a damage soak for Fire/Frost/Shock/Poison damage attacks. Much like Ancestor Ghosts, they will not be aggravated by your ‘own’ Elemental Damage spells (as they are immune), making them a great little tank Summon (170 HP along with the immunities) for trigger-happy mages.

Chapter 7 (Summons S-Turn): Conjuration Custom Spell Effects

Summon Scamp
Base Cost: 12.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Caldera Mages Guild (Medila Indaren).
Description: Scamps are a nice low-level summon. They pack a reasonable punch (5-15 pts melee), are immune to Normal Weapons, 75% resistant to Poison, and 50% resistant to Fire/Frost/Shock. They only have 45 HP however, so they are quickly superseded by other, more durable Summons.


Summon Skeletal Minion
Base Cost: 13.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Caldera Mages Guild (Medila Indaren).
Description: Similar to Scamps, Skeletal Minions are quite fragile (only 38 HP), and so are best used at low levels. They do not hit as hard as Scamps, nor are they resistant to Fire damage. They are immune to Frost and Poison damage however, so much like Ancestor Ghosts, Skeletal Minions can serve as an early frontline Summon for mages fond of spamming Frost spells (though at almost double the spell cost of Summon Ancestor Ghost, it’s easier to just ‘use Ghosts’...).


Summon Storm Atronach
Base Cost: 38.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Sadrith Mora Dirty Muriel’s Cornerclub (Erer Darothril).
Description: Storm Atronachs are slow, strong summons, and should be used in a similar manner to Deadroth (i.e. on their own to prevent splash damage from spells). They sport 200 HP and a whopping 15-45 pts melee, as well as Shock spells and Shock immunity. They are however more expensive than Daedroth, and only cast one type of offensive spell (whereas Daedroth cast two), so there are limited scenarios in which they are preferable.


Summon Winged Twilight
Base Cost: 52.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Tel Branora, Upper Tower (Felen Maryon).
Description: A close second to Golden Saints, Winged Twilights are expensive, strong melee summons. They sport 220HP, 15-45 pts melee (making them the strongest unarmed melee summon along with Storm Atronachs, though a lot more likely to ‘use’ melee given that they can’t cast any spells), 50% resistance to Fire/Frost/Shock, and 75% resistance to Poison. If you’re looking for Summon to tack onto expensive Custom spells, Winged Twilights + Golden Saints make for a great combination. Just be sure to stock plenty of Restore Magicka potions before deciding to summon an army of them!


Turn Undead
Base Cost: 0.2.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Ald’ruhn Temple (Folvis Andalor).
Description: Temporarily increases the Flee rating of Undead by M points (higher magnitude = greeting chance of fleeing). The cheapest Crowd Control effect in the game, though obviously only effective against Undead. 100 pt Custom variants are preferable to ensure that Undead are definitely ‘turned’, and given the effects very cheap Base Cost, it’s extremely easy to add a 50ft radius to any Turn Undead spell (and make ‘an entire tomb’ temporarily flee in terror).

Given that Turn Undead is also the cheapest ‘offensive’ effect in the game, it can be used to create a ‘Call to Arms’ spell; a 1 Magicka cost, 50ft area On Target spell, designed to inflict ‘hostile effects’ on as many targets as possible, in order to provoke Summons into attacking enemies (which by default in Morrowind, will only attack targets that the caster has attacked). Be aware however, that ironically, Call to Arms (a Turn Undead spell) does not provoke summons into attacking Undead, and some other hostile action will be required.

Morrowind is a funny game, isn’t it?

Chapter 8 (Da-Di): Destruction Custom Spell Effects

Destruction is the ‘lower enemy stats in creative ways’ school. Whilst some forms of damage may be used defensively (e.g. Damage Strength), most forms of damage are offensive in nature (by definition). If you like blowing things up, Destruction is for you!
Destruction has a number of useful Base Spells, given the number of high magnitude/short duration ‘damage spells’ that can be purchased. More information on Base and Custom spells can be found in Chapters 14-16.

Starter Spells: Fire Bite (15-30 Fire Damage on Touch, 20 Destruction/60 Willpower or 25 Destruction minimum).

Damage Attribute
Base Cost: 8.
Usefulness Rating: High for Strength, Medium for Agility/Intelligence, Low for all others.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Estirdalin).
Description:

Permanently lowers one of the Attributes of the target by M points for D seconds. This spell effect is very diverse, capable of lowering particular target attributes to accomplish different goals (Damage Agility = lower hit chance and more stagger, Damage Intelligence = lower Magicka reserves, etc.). The big caveat, however, is that with a Base Cost of 8, it is the same cost as Damage/Absorb Health, and is more expensive than Fire, Frost and Shock damage.

For efficiency reasons then, this limits the use of Damage Attribute to essentially ‘targets with well over 100 HP’ (of which there are a lot within the Expansions), as it is otherwise preferable to simply use damage spells to ‘kill’ a target at a lower Magicka cost. Damage Strength is the most universally useful, as it potentially immobilises a target whilst lowering their Fatigue (targets that are over encumbered will continue to sprint towards you and waste Fatigue, because ‘Bethesda reasons’). Damage Agility also decreases hit chance and makes a target very prone to being staggered (which can be useful against ‘not-100%-Magicka-Resistant’ boss monsters when combined with Damage Strength), and Damage Intelligence reduces the target’s Magicka reserves (particularly Bretons & High Elves, who both have Fortify Maximum Magicka bonuses linked to their Intelligence values).

The other 5 Attributes are not as useful to ‘damage’. Damaging Speed is inferior to Damage Strength for ‘slowing & immobilising targets’, Damage Willpower/Endurance will only lower a target’s Fatigue by a small amount (as well as make a target ‘slightly more vulnerable’ to Paralysis in the case of Willpower), Damage Luck will only have a noticeable effect in very large magnitudes, and Damage Personality has no effect on combat stats.


Damage Fatigue
Base Cost: 4.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Estirdalin).
Description: Permanently lowers the ‘current’ Fatigue of the target by M points, which affects their ability to cast spells/hit the player with weapons. Note that this affects current Fatigue, not Maximum Fatigue, so a target can restore their Fatigue by simply ‘not sprinting or attacking’. It also has a Base Cost of 4, making it only slightly cheaper than Fire/Frost damage, and the same cost as Absorb Fatigue (which both Damages Fatigue ‘and’ Restores the caster’s Fatigue).

In vanilla Morrowind, if a target's Fatigue is reduced below 0 via spells, they will ‘not’ pass out on the ground, and require a physical punch to knock them out. Patched versions of the game have since fixed this, allowing Damage Fatigue spells to knock out a target on their own. Damage Fatigue is overall a useful effect for knocking out an opponent without killing them (there are quests in each Expansion where this is useful) and complements Hand to Hand skill well, though is overall slightly inferior to Absorb Fatigue.


Damage Health
Base Cost: 8.
Usefulness Rating: Medium, High if ‘Absorb Health’ is altered by Morrowind Code Patch or similar.
Location: Caldera Mages Guild (Medila Indaren).
Description: Permanently lowers the target’s current Health by M points. Damage Health is affected by Weakness/Resistance to Magicka, and provides a costly damage option against opponents with Elemental Resistance (e.g. Hungers). However, it is also the same cost as Absorb Health, which additionally heals the user. As such, Damage Health is best used by mages not skilled in Mysticism, and/or as a ‘guaranteed’ expensive damage effect during the Mid and Late Game. Damage Health is also preferable to Absorb Health against opponents with Reflect, IF Absorb Health has been altered by the Morrowind Code Patch, OpenMW, etc., as reflected Absorb Health spells will properly damage the user & heal the target. In unpatched Morrowind, reflected Absorb Health effects instead damage & heal the Reflect user, in effect doing ‘nothing’ (and thus render Damage Health comparatively less useful).


Damage Magicka
Base Cost: 8.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Caldera Governer’s Hall (Llaros Uvayn).
Description: Permanently lowers the target’s current Magicka by M points. This effect is needlessly expensive (as much as Damage Health!), though it can at least be combined with Damage Intelligence to cripple the Magicka reserves of creatures, as their Magicka values are typically not tied 1:1 with Intelligence. Against NPC's, Damage Intelligence is sufficient by itself.


Disintegrate Armour/Weapon
Base Cost: 6.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Caldera Mages Guild (Medila Indaren).
Description: This effect reduces the condition of equipment, in a pre-determined order. It has a magnitude of 6 (higher than Fire/Frost damage), and the combined condition of an enemy’s equipment can often exceed 1000 points (particularly Heavy Armour). As such, this effect only really has one use: Pickpocketing the Armour/Weapon off of a target without killing them, as the value of items is tied to pickpocketing chance (and 0 condition item = 0 value!). To do this: Spam Disintegrate until target’s items are no longer equipped, Calm them, then Sneak/Pickpocket them. Disintegrate ‘can’ be used to damage one’s equipment for Armourer practice, but you can accomplish the same thing for free by, you know, ‘fighting stuff’ or ‘standing still whilst cliff racers peck at your armour’.

Chapter 8 (Dr-P): Destruction Custom Spell Effects

Drain Attribute
Base Cost: 1.
Usefulness Rating: Depends (Low except for ‘certain quirks’).
Location: Caldera Mages Guild (Medila Indaren).
Description: Temporarily lowers one of the target’s Attributes by M points for D seconds. Except for extremely short durations (which aren’t practical the majority of the time), this effect is inferior to Damage Attribute. Drain Strength is at least superior to Burden, and Drain Strength ~100pts for X secs can act as a brief ‘immobilise’ against most opponents (though similar results can be achieved with ‘Calm 30pts for X secs, which is a cheaper spell). 



As for quirks: In the unpatched version of the game, Drain Intelligence 100pts for 1 sec replenishes the caster’s entire Magicka bar … because Bethesda reasons (obviously this was not intended). Drain Strength/Agility/Willpower/Endurance (briefly lowering Maximum Fatigue) can be combined with a high power Fortify Fatigue spell (effectively increasing Fatigue to ‘several times its’ maximum’), to create a pseudo ‘Fortify Just About Everything spell’ (given the way Fatigue values work in conjunction with most actions in Morrowind). 



Drain Fatigue
Base Cost: 2.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Uleni Heleran).
Description: Temporarily lowers Fatigue of the target by M points, which affects their ability to cast spells & hit the player with weapons. Note that this affects current Fatigue, not Maximum Fatigue, so a target can restore their Fatigue by simply ‘not sprinting or attacking’.
Drain Fatigue has a Base Cost of 2, which is quite cheap. However being a Drain effect, it can only ‘temporarily’ lower Fatigue by up to 100 pts, and most NPC’s and creatures have several hundred Fatigue points. As such, it is borderline useless, save for ‘briefly’ accelerating the rate at which a target can be knocked out when combined with Hand to Hand, Damage Fatigue or Absorb Fatigue.


Drain Health
Base Cost: 4.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Uleni Heleran).
Description:

Temporarily lowers the target's Health by M points for D seconds. The main use for this effect is as a ‘Power Word: Kill’ variant (Hello fellow D&D nerds!), in that a 1 sec version of the spell can be used to ‘execute’ opponents under a certain Health threshold. There are several caveats however.

Drain Health is only ‘slightly’ cheaper than Fire/Frost damage (Base Cost 5 vs Base Cost 4), and low-mid magnitude Base Damage Spells (such as Fire Bite) cost less than a Custom Drain Health spell of similar magnitude (due to the Base vs Custom spell cost difference for low duration high magnitude spells). In addition, the net cost of a Drain Health spell cannot be lowered simply by playing around with Magnitude/Duration ratios, as ‘the Magnitude’ is ‘the Damage’ that this effect temporarily inflicts. As such, Drain Health is most useful for high-magnitude, 1 sec duration, ‘execute’ type Custom spells, during the Mid Game.

Drain Health is affected by Weakness to Magicka, meaning that a “Drain Health 100 pts for 1 sec + Weakness to Magicka 100 pts for 1 sec” spell, will execute any opponent with less than 200HP & and no prior Resistance to Magicka (i.e. ‘most opponents’ in the Base Game!). It is also quite cheap to increase the area for both of these effects to 50ft each, making a ‘Power Word: Killing Field’ spell a deadly and efficient Mid-Game Destruction spell. Damage Health & Absorb Health effects can further be added onto ‘Power Word: Kill’ type spells to increase their magnitude, however these effects must be limited to 1 sec in order to deal damage within the time window that Drain Health is active, and multi-effect spells become less useful against opponents with high amounts of Reflect (see Chapter 15).


Drain Magicka
Base Cost: 4.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Aldruhn Mages Guild (Heem-La).
Description: Temporarily lowers the target's Magicka by M points for D seconds. Inferior to Damage Magicka & Intelligence, which lower Magicka permanently, and can be converted into 'damage over time' variants (unlike Drain, which is limited to a fixed magnitude independent of duration).


Drain Skill
Base Cost: 1.
Usefulness Rating: Depends (Low except for ‘certain quirks’).
Location: Sadrith Mora Dirty Muriel’s Cornerclub (Erer Darothril).
Description: This effect is useful for bugging out the Unpatched game in certain ways, but outside of this is almost useless. Drain Skill can be used to lower a particular skill temporarily for Training purposes, making it cost next to nothing, by first lowering said skill by 100 points for 1 sec and thereafter paying 1gp to ‘train it from 0 to 1’. Drain Mercantile can also cause Mercantile to break, as at certain low Mercantile/Disposition thresholds, items begin to sell for ‘more’ money rather than less (because Bethesda reasons). As a combat effect however, Drain Skill is garbage, and it is more efficient to lower Fatigue or Attributes permanently through Damage effects, in the event that you wish to debilitate someone using Destruction spells.


Fire Damage
Base Cost: 5.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Estirdalin) but preferably Arrille (Seyda Neen).
Description: Fire Damage M points for D seconds. Fire Damage is one of two bread-and-butter damage effects for Destruction mages thanks to its’ low Base cost (the other being Frost Damage), and is useful in both Base and Custom spell variants. Fire Damage spells are affected by Weakness/Resist Fire (but not Weakness/Resist Magicka), and are not very effective against Dunmer, Goblins (Tribunal) & certain Daedra/Automatons, but are almost always effective against Undead, typical Creatures (particularly those that inhabit Solstheim), and Human opponents that aren’t Dunmer. Fire Damage On Target spells move at 125% the speed of standard On Target spells (i.e. faster).


Frost Damage
Base Cost: 5.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Estirdalin) but preferably Arrille (Seyda Neen).
Description: Frost Damage M points for D seconds. Frost Damage is one of two bread-and-butter damage effects for Destruction mages thanks to its’ low cost (the other being Fire Damage), and is useful in both Base and Custom spell variants. Frost Damage spells are affected by Weakness/Resist Frost (but not Weakness/Resist Magicka), and are not very effective against Nords, Undead, certain Daedra & Creatures of Solstheim, but are almost always effective against human opponents that aren’t Nord (such as Dunmer, of which there are a lot in Morrowind!), and the majority of foes encountered in the Tribunal Expansion. Frost Damage On Target spells move at 80% the speed of standard On Target spells (i.e. slower).


Poison Damage
Base Cost: 9.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Estirdalin).
Description: Poison Damage M points for D seconds. Poison has the highest Base Cost of any damage type, even more than Absorb and Damage Health (both Base Cost 8). In addition, a lot of opponents are resistant or immune to Poison (such as Undead, Argonians and Redguards), and progressive Poison damage can be halted completely with the Cure Poison effect. Thus, outside of certain Enchanted Cast When Used items (e.g. Ring of Toxic Cloud) and certain traps vs. ‘players without a Cure Poison’ spell (e.g. Poison Trap), Poison as a spell effect is borderline useless.

Chapter 8 (S-W): Destruction Custom Spell Effects

Shock Damage
Base Cost: 7.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Estirdalin). Lightning Bolt can be purchased from Nelso Salanim (Sadrith Mora Telvanni Council House Entry).
Description: Shock Damage M points for D seconds.

Shock Damage serves as a ‘mid-cost’ damage type, being more expensive than Fire/Frost and less expensive than Damage/Absorb Health. Whilst there are not many opponents that are resistant to Shock (mainly Nords/Undead/certain Daedra), there are sadly almost no opponents that are simultaneously both resistant to Fire+Frost, and not resistant to Shock (e.g. Hungers are immune to Fire/Frost/Shock/Poison, several Daedra are resistant to Fire/Frost/Shock). There are actually only two types of enemy in the entire game that fit this description (i.e. resistant to Fire/Frost but not Shock), both found on Solsthiem: Third-regeneration Spriggans (which are also 100% Resistant to Magicka, making Shock 'the best damage type' against them!), and Hircine’s Aspect of Guile.

As such, Frost Damage is generally a better damage type than Shock Damage to use against Fire resistant opponents, and vice versa, with one notable exception. The ‘Lightning Bolt’ spell is an efficient, mid-game Base Shock spell (10-50 pts for 2 sec in 10 ft on Target, 34 Magicka), which is both cheaper than Custom Fire/Frost equivalents (35 Magicka for a similar Custom Fire/Frost spell vs 34 Magicka for Lightning Bolt), and for which Fire/Frost Damage have no Base equivalents (Greater Fireball/Frostball are 2-40 damage for 1 sec, with the next most powerful Fire/Frost damage spells for sale being ’10 sec’ varieties).


Weakness to Common Disease
Base Cost: 2.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Caldera Mages Guild (Medila Indaren).
Description: This effect reduces the target’s resistance to Common Diseases by M%, making them more likely to contract Common Diseases. As an offensive spell effect, this is completely useless, but when used on the ‘player’, it does have one niche use: It increases the chance of being infected with Porphylic Haemophilia (Vampirism). If the player has completed the Corprus quest, then this effect provides the ‘only’ method of catching Vampirism.


Weakness to Fire/Frost
Base Cost: 2.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Marayn Dren).
Description: These effects reduce the target’s resistance to Fire/Frost damage (which have been lumped together because Fire/Frost Damage have the same base Cost), and the Weakness effect ‘itself’ is affected by Weakness/Resist Magicka (meaning that against targets with 100% Resist Magicka, this has no effect). Against 100% Resist Fire/Frost targets, Weakness to Fire/Frost will eliminate that immunity, meaning that this effect can be used to ‘universalise’ Fire/Frost damage. Weakness spells only need to last for the duration of the first tick of a damage spell, meaning that if lumped onto the same Fire/Frost spell as the spell's FIRST effect, 1 sec of Weakness is sufficient to amplify damage.

For custom spellmaking: The breakpoint where 'Weakness X% for 1 sec + Fire/Frost damage' becomes more economical than simply 'Fire/Frost' damage vs non resistant targets, are instances where the 'Fire/Frost' component of the 'Weakness + Fire/Frost' spell exceeds 20 magicka cost. Which is 40 Fire/Frost damage for 1 sec, or 1pt Fire/Frost for 80 seconds at the most extreme end.

E.g. Weak to Fire/Frost 25%/50%/75%/100% Weakness + 40 Fire/Frost costs 25/30/35/40 total magicka, which costs the same as, and deals the same damage as, 50/60/70/80 Fire/Frost Damage on their own. Above that, it'll be more efficient (e.g. 100% weakness + 50 fire/frost costs 45 magicka & deals the same damage as 100 fire/frost, which costs 50 magicka). And below that, Fire/Frost damage on its' own is more efficient, not to mention that short duration Base Spells have reduced magicka costs compared to Custom (e.g. Frostbite & Fire Bite deal 15-30 damage for 1 sec and cost 6 magicka, vs 11 for their custom equivalents).

One caveat: Spells with multiple components are easier to stifle with Reflect, as each component is calculated separately. More info on Reflect can be found in Chapter 15.4, and examples of Custom Spells/Items utilising Weakness to Fire/Frost components can be found in Chapter 16.


Weakness to Magicka
Base Cost: 2.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Marayn Dren).
Description: This effect reduces the target’s resistance to Magicka effects (which is ‘everything’ that doesn’t include Fire/Frost/Shock/Poison damage, and non-magnitude effects such as Paralyse and Silence), and the Weakness effect ‘itself’ is affected by Weakness/Resist Magicka (meaning that against targets with 100% Resist Magicka, this has no effect). Weakness spells only need to last for the duration of the first tick of a damage spell, meaning that if lumped onto the same Damage/Drain/Absorb Health spell as the spell's FIRST effect, 1 sec of Weakness is sufficient to amplify damage.

One caveat: Spells with multiple components are easier to stifle with Reflect, as each component is calculated separately. More info on Reflect can be found in Chapter 15.4, and examples of Custom Spells/Items utilising Weakness to Magicka components can be found in Chapters 15 and 16.


Weakness to Shock/Poison
Base Cost: 2.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Marayn Dren).
Description: These effects reduce the target’s resistance to Shock/Poison damage, which have been lumped together because: Given that Fire/Frost Damage effects are cheaper, and Weakness to Shock/Poison cost the same as Weakness to Fire/Frost, there is almost no reason to use these effects. Better to stick with Fire/Frost Weakness + Fire/Frost Damage combos, or Magicka Weakness + Damage/Drain/Absorb Health combos.

Chapter 9 (A-C): Illusion Custom Spell Effects

Illusion magic ‘alters the perceptions and thoughts of living beings’, which translates to ‘provides utility and crowd control effects in creative ways’. As a utility school, Illusion is arguably less consistently useful than Alteration (as Illusion only affects ‘living’ beings and not the physical environment), though none the less provides some of the most powerful spell effects in the game. Because Illusion effects are quite nuanced, longer descriptions have been provided compared to typical spell effects listed in other schools.

Illusion benefits significantly from Custom Spellmaking, as a lot of Illusion effects are useful as high magnitude/short duration variants, often with large AOE’s attached. More information on Base and Custom spells can be found in Chapters 14-16.

Starter Spells: Chameleon & Sanctuary (both are 10pts for 30 sec on Self, 25 Illusion/60 Willpower or 30 Illusion minimum).


Blind
Base Cost: 1.
Usefulness Rating: Low in Early/Mid Game, High in Late Game if the game is patched.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Arielle Phiencel).
Description: Causes the target’s vision to be obscured by M% for D seconds. This has three effects: It decreases the target’s chance to hit (or ‘increases’ chance to hit if the Morrowind Code Patch isn’t installed because Bethesda reasons), it lowers the target’s ability to detect Sneak, and it raises the target’s Flee rating (if they are 100% blinded). Blind is a hostile effect however, and so cannot be used on friendly NPC’s to steal things without incurring a bounty (meanwhile Chameleon, with the same Base Magnitude, increases Sneak chance by the same amount). In addition, Sanctuary increases the caster’s ability to dodge attacks, by the same magnitude as Blind lowers opponent hit chance.

Sanctuary, however, has a cap of 100 points, whereas Blind can achieve magnitudes above 100% (and thus can lower hit chance by more than 100%). This means that as a ‘hit chance reducing’ effect, Blind is superior to Sanctuary at very high magnitudes … which are certainly possible to achieve in the Late Game! High Magnitude Blind complements Summons particularly well, as they too will avoid being hit by a Blinded target. A ‘beyond 100%’ blinded Boss Monster swinging aimlessly at a flock of your summoned minions is a satisfying sight to behold.


Calm Creature/Humanoid
Base Cost: 1.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Marayn Dren).
Description: Temporarily decreases the target’s Fight value by M. ‘Creature’ works on all creatures (including Undead/Daedra/Dwemer automatons), ‘Humanoid’ works on all NPC’s (and does nothing to the player in the event that it is Reflected). Despite being a ‘non elemental-spell with a Magnitude’, Calm is not affected by Resist Magicka, nor can it be resisted by Willpower.

Given that 70 Fight rating is the threshold whereby creatures/NPC’s cease attacking the player, a 30pt Magnitude Calm spell is sufficient to calm all opponents (or 1 pt Magnitude if Morrowind Code Patch is not installed, because again, Bethesda reasons). In addition to this: further attacks on a target do not increase its’ Fight rating, meaning that a Calmed target will remain passive & walk around aimlessly for the spell’s duration, no matter what happens to them, in a similar manner to a ‘Daze’ effect (hello again, fellow D&D nerds!).

For this reason and several others, Calm is arguably the most broken Crown Control effect in the game. It also has some interesting interactions with Summons.

Here’s a short list of said uses & interactions:

- Calm Spells have a cheap base cost, making it easy to slap a 50ft radius onto them,
- Calm Spells can be used in a similar manner to Paralysis: to briefly incapacitate an enemy and/or disengage from combat,
- Calm Spells can be used to talk to hostile NPC’s, which can have some specific uses (e.g. Qorwynn the ‘hostile’ Master Enchant trainer in Indoranyon can first be Calmed, and then repeatedly Intimidated to permanently reduce his Fight rating, thereafter rendered non-hostile even once Calm has worn off),
- Calm Spells can be used to land Sneak Attacks on oblivious targets in a similar manner to Command (whilst being a lot cheaper),
- If a hostile target is Calmed: Anything summoned ‘afterwards’ will not attack the target, until the target’s Calm spell has worn off & the target becomes hostile again,
- If something is Summoned first and ‘then’ a hostile target is Calmed, Summons will continually pursue & attack the target whilst it wanders around aimlessly.

Examples of various Custom Calm spells can be found in Chapters 14-16.


Chameleon
Base Cost: 1.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Arielle Phiencel). Shadow Weave provides both Chameleon and Sanctuary effects.

Description: Increases the transparency of the target by M% for D seconds. Unlike Invisibility, performing actions does not break Chameleon, and unlike Sanctuary, it does not affect the user’s ability to dodge attacks. Chameleon has several effects: It increases Sneak chance, it makes it harder to opponents to see you (at a high enough magnitude the user is effectively undetectable), and can ‘freak out’ NPC’s that you engage conversation with (lowering their disposition by 5 per conversation attempt). Enemies may also flee from combat if they cannot detect the caster.
Put all of this together, and you can get up to a long list of cheeky and game-breaking shenanigans with 100% Chameleon active. A few seconds is often enough.


Charm
Base Cost: 5.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Marayn Dren).
Description: Temporarily increases the target’s Disposition towards the caster. Charm does not affect Fight value, so it cannot be used to stop all opponents from attacking (unlike Calm). It is also 5x the Base Cost of Fortify Personality, which achieves essentially the same effect (2 points Personality = 1 point Disposition, so 2.5x more cost efficient than Charm). This essentially leaves Charm as a more expensive alternative to Fortify Personality for casters lacking Restoration skill. The Base spell is also horrendously expensive, both to buy and to cast.

Chapter 9 (D-N): Illusion Custom Spell Effects

Demoralize Creature/Humanoid
Base Cost: 1.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Uleni Heleran).
Description: Temporarily increases the target’s Flee by M points, similar to Turn Undead (see Chapter 7). ‘Creature’ works on all creatures (including Undead/Daedra/Dwemer automatons), ‘Humanoid’ works on all NPC’s (and does nothing to the player in the event that it is Reflected). Despite being a ‘non elemental-spell with a Magnitude’, Demoralize is not affected by Resist Magicka, nor can it be resisted by Willpower.

Much like Calm and Turn Undead, Demoralize is a crowd-control effect that can easily be cast in a large AoE and send multiple opponents running for the hills. Unlike Calm however, 100 pt Custom variants are preferable to ensure that creatures/NPC’s are definitely ‘demoralised’ (Calm only requires 30 pts for the same Base Cost), which means that Demoralize is overall more expensive to use. Consider combining Demoralize with Rally or Calm in order to stop certain opponents from escaping.

Be aware that Demoralize Humanoid is in fact a Mysticism effect, when it clearly should be an Illusion effect. For simplicity’s sake, this guide lumps these effects & spells together into the Illusion sections.



Frenzy Creature/Humanoid
Base Cost: 1.
Usefulness Rating: High for Frenzy Humanoid, Low for Frenzy Creature.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Uleni Heleran).
Description: Temporarily increases the target’s Fight rating by M. ‘Creature’ works on all creatures (including Undead/Daedra/Dwemer automatons), ‘Humanoid’ works on all NPC’s (and does nothing to the player in the event that it is Reflected). Despite being a ‘non elemental-spell with a Magnitude’, Frenzy is not affected by Resist Magicka, nor can it be resisted by Willpower.

Despite being ‘temporary’, Frenzied targets will ‘usually’ continue to attack the player after the effect wears off, making it a ‘mostly’ permanent effect (breaking line of sight or causing the target to Flee will break the effect). Unlike later Elder Scrolls games, Frenzy is also not counted as a hostile spell (aaah Bethesda …), meaning that it can be used much like Taunt to incite fights with NPC’s, without getting into trouble from witnesses. Given that friendly NPC’s typically have a Fight value of 0-30, 80 pts of Frenzy for 2 seconds On Touch is enough to provoke a hostile response from just about any NPC in the game.

Frenzy Creature by contrast is almost useless (as most creatures are hostile to begin with), though it can be used as a janky alternative to Command to ‘escort’ certain friendly creatures overland (e.g. Creeper). If you wish to become friendly with a previously Frenzied target permanently (temporary friendship can be achieved with Command or Calm), you will have to exit the cell containing said Frenzied target for ~72 hours, in order for their Fight value to reset to normal.


Invisibility
Base Cost: 20.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Caldera Mages Guild (Eraamion).
Description: Causes the target to be completely undetectable. This lasts until the duration of the spell expires, or until the caster performs an action that isn’t simply ‘moving’. Casting spells, swinging weapons, talking, and interacting with the world (doors, containers, switches, etc.) all break Invisibility.

Invisibility can be safely used to bypass hostile dungeons (such as the Corprusarium), to ‘nudge’ stationary NPC’s (as they will not turn around to talk to you), and as a stealth boost (which makes it easier to pinch items from shelves). It cannot be safely used to pinch items from containers however (as the container must be opened which breaks Invisibility), nor will it stop the user from incurring a Bounty if they attack someone. For elaborate Stealth manoeuvres, 100% Chameleon offers a more costly (by about 5x the Magicka per second) but safer alternative.


Light
Base Cost: 0.2
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Caldera Mages Guild (Eraamion).
Description: Causes a target to light up by M magnitude for D seconds. Notice that ‘terrain’ and ‘world objects’ are not included in this list, making this spell essentially useless for lighting up dark areas, unless the target of a Light spell is ‘yourself’ or ‘a creature/NPC’. Given that Night Eye has the same base Cost as Light, it is arguably the superior alternative.


Night Eye
Base Cost: 0.2
Usefulness Rating: Medium or High, depending on ‘availability of Gamma setting’.
Location: Ald’ruhn Mages Guild (Orrent Geontene).
Description: Raises ambient light levels for the target by M points for D seconds. Night Eye is superior to Light when exploring dark areas in most circumstances, and can be used to somewhat counteract the vision impairment of Blindness. However it does have some drawbacks. First, it makes certain objects, such as jewellery, more difficult to see on certain backgrounds. There’s also a completely free alternative to Night Eye in Morrowind: The Gamma setting in the options menu!



In unmodded versions of Morrowind, manipulating the Gamma Settings in the menu, and brightness settings on monitors/displays, is sufficient to view dark areas without the help of Night Eye spells. For modded/OpenMW, there may well be no gamma setting, or ambient light levels might be intentionally lowered, in which case Night Eye is extremely useful.

Chapter 9 (P-S): Illusion Custom Spell Effects

Paralyse
Base Cost: 40.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Estirdalin).
Description: Immobilises the target for the duration. Paralysed targets cannot do anything other than drink potions or eat ingredients (which creatures/NPC’s rarely choose to do), making Paralysis an expensive, but reliable, crowd control effect. Certain creatures and Vampires are immune to Paralysis, and Resist Magicka has no effect on the duration of Paralysis (though Paralyse can be resisted with high Willpower).

As it has a high Base Cost, Paralyse does not lend itself well to Custom Spells with a large AoE, and it can also be Reflected (unlike Calm/Frenzy/Demoralize effects). Thus, Paralyse spells should be kept to single-target, and casters should be ‘very’ careful using Paralyse against opponents with Reflect (i.e. a lot of Daedra & Creatures/NPC’s in the Expansions). For more powerful ‘area crowd control’ spells, Calm is a superior option to Paralysis.


Rally Creature/Humanoid
Base Cost: 0.2.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Sadrith Mora, Mage Shop (Llaalam Madalas) for Telvanni members, else Ebonheart Imperial Chapels (Synnolian Tunifus, Lalatia Varian).
Description: Temporarily decreases the target’s Flee by M points. ‘Creature’ works on all creatures (including Undead/Daedra/Dwemer automatons), ‘Humanoid’ works on all NPC’s (and does nothing to the player in the event that it is Reflected). Despite being a ‘non elemental-spell with a Magnitude’, Rally is not affected by Resist Magicka, nor can it be resisted by Willpower.

Rally is a niche effect, as it only has relevance vs. fleeing NPC’s and creatures (which is not a common occurrence), but it’s a cheap effect that works as intended ‘most’ of the time. Given its’ cheap Base Cost, 100pts Rally in 50ft on Target spells are preferable, unless you wish to only stop ‘specific’ enemies from running away.

Enemies that are close to death can be prevented from fleeing, enemies who would typically run from a player using Invisibility/Chameleon can be prevented from fleeing, and creatures/NPC’s being ‘escorted’ overland via Frenzy effects can be prevented from fleeing. Enemies fleeing from Levitate, however, cannot be consistently prevented from fleeing, contrary to the UESP wiki. If you’re going to play the aerial archer & would rather that your opponents stop running away, it is easier to simply move down to ground level in order to lure opponents toward you, before flying into the air again.


Sanctuary
Base Cost: 1.
Usefulness Rating: Low in Early/Mid Game, Medium in Late Game.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Arielle Phiencel). Shadow Weave provides both Chameleon and Sanctuary effects.
Description: Increases the target’s ability to dodge physical attacks, by adding M points to the target’s Evasion % (caps at 100). At low magnitudes, Sanctuary is not a reliable method of defence against physical attacks, and it is probably better for casters to instead focus on Shield or Bound Armour (which reduce damage rather than evade it). At 100 Magnitude however, when combined with Fortify Agility effects, Sanctuary can make the user essentially invulnerable to physical attacks. An example ‘Late Game Sanctuary + Fortify Agility Custom Spell’ can be found in section 16.3.


Silence
Base Cost: 40.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Ald’ruhn Mages Guild (Orrent Geontene).
Description: Prevents the target from casting spells for the duration. It has the same Base Cost as Paralysis, however unlike Paralysis, it cannot be resisted at all (not by high Willpower or Resist Magicka). As such, Silence serves as a niche crowd control option against Paralysis resistant casters (such as high level mages or Vampires).


Sound
Base Cost: 3.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Ald’ruhn Mages Guild (Orrent Geontene).
Description: Lowers the target’s chance of casting spells by M% for D seconds. Compared to Silence, Sound does not ‘remove’ the ability to cast spells, only ‘reduces chance’, which means that a target who is heavily affected by Sound can waste their Magicka trying to cast spells. There are more cost efficient methods of reducing Magicka however (Damage Intelligence for example), leaving Sound as ‘an even more niche’ crowd control option than Silence vs. spellcasting enemies.

Chapter 10 (Ab): Mysticism Custom Spell Effects

Mysticism is a weird but versatile spell school, containing offensive, defensive, and utility spell effects. Notably in Morrowind, Mysticism contains the Teleportation spells, which much like the joys of Jump and Levitate, were removed from later Elder Scrolls titles (bloody fun police). At the very least, Teleportation effects were ‘in essence’ replaced with ‘Fast Travel’ in later games … though at the same time, a lot of the school’s effects were moved to other schools. In Oblivion, Absorb Health was moved to Restoration, and by the time of Skyrim, Mysticism was removed from the game completely, with the remaining effects sent to other schools (Detect/Telekinesis moved to Alteration, Soul Trap moved to Conjuration).

But! This is Morrowind, where Mysticism is its own school, with its own set of unique spell effects, some of which are amongst the most useful in the game. More information on Base and Custom spells can be found in Chapter 14-16.

Starter Spells: Detect Creature (50-150pts for 5 sec on Self, 30 Mysticism minimum).


Absorb Attribute
Base Cost: 2.
Usefulness Rating: Medium, with nuance.
Location: Wolverine Hall Imperial Shrine (Aunius Autrus).
Description: Temporarily transfers an Attribute stat from the target to the caster, for M points for D seconds. As this effect is temporary and not cumulative, it operates as a ‘Drain+Fortify’ effect.

Absorb Attribute can be an interesting effect to employ as an AoE vs multiple targets. Namely:

- AoE Absorb Strength spells can temporarily increase/decrease the user's/opponents' melee damage,
- Aoe Absorb Agility spells can temporarily increase/decrease the user's/targets' hit chance & resistance to staggering,
- AoE Absorb Intelligence can temporarily increase/decrease the user's/targets' Magicka reserves, which can potentially 'save Magicka costs' for spells cast thereafter (see Fortify Intelligence in Chapter 11).

This mechanic can even be used for 'self-buffing' when applied to multiple summons. A theoretical '8 summon' spell for a few seconds can provide a batch of 'stats' to be temporarily harvested by an AoE Absorb Attribute spell, which would technically be cheaper than an equivalent 'Fortify Attribute' spell if it hits more than 2 targets (Fortify Base Cost = 1, Absorb Base Cost = 2).

That said: Both of these methods require either multiple enemies, or multiple 'summons', to make effective use of (the 'summons' method being rather gimmicky). Fortify Attribute is more consistent & easier to use in populated areas, as is Fortify Skill/Magicka (which would typically used for self buffing in the event that Fortify Attribute is not sufficient). For those skilled in Mysticism at least, Custom AoE Absorb Attribute spells provide a roundabout method of 'buffing' certain attributes, and synergises well with a spellsword playstyle (e.g. Absorb Strength -> additional Damage with melee weapons).


Absorb Fatigue
Base Cost: 4.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Wolverine Hall Imperial Shrine (Aunius Autrus).
Description: Permanently transfers Fatigue from the target to the caster, by M points for D seconds. As this effect is permanent, it operates as a ‘Damage+Restore’ effect. It has the same Base Cost as Damage Fatigue, making it a slightly superior option for debilitating a target via removing their Fatigue.

In vanilla Morrowind, if a target's Fatigue is reduced below 0 via spells, they will ‘not’ pass out on the ground, and require a physical punch to knock them out. Patched versions of the game have since fixed this, allowing Absorb Fatigue spells to knock out a target on their own. Absorb Fatigue is overall a useful effect for knocking out an opponent without killing them (there are quests in each Expansion that require this) and will completely warp the outcome of a Hand to Hand fistfight.


Absorb Health
Base Cost: 8.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Wolverine Hall Imperial Shrine (Aunius Autrus).
Description: Permanently transfers Health from the target to the caster, by M points for D seconds. As this effect is permanent, it operates as a ‘Damage+Restore’ effect. It has the same Base Cost as Damage Health, making it the superior ‘expensive damage effect’ against opponents resistant to Elemental Damage.

Absorb Health is arguably the strongest offensive spell effect in the game, and the Base Spell is amongst the best Early Game spells available as well (enabling a ‘Drain Tank’ playstyle from level 1 when combined with Custom Bound Armour spells). It is also frankly ridiculous when given an AoE, capable of restoring the caster’s health from near death to full in seconds whilst simultaneously nuking multiple targets.

Absorb Health is also preferable to Damage Health against opponents with Reflect, in UNPATCHED versions of the game. Patched versions of Morrowind (Code Patch, OpenMw, etc.) alter Absorb Health spells to properly damage the user & heal targets that successfully Reflect it, rather than ‘do nothing’. As for patched versions of the game, Damage Health is a better alternative vs high Reflect enemies.

If you’re after a method of consistently practicing Mysticism in a ‘not contrived’ way, Absorb Health has you covered.

Chapter 10 (Al-D): Mysticism Custom Spell Effects

Almsivi & Divine Intervention
Base Spell Cost: 8 Magicka. Superior to Custom variants.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Wolverine Hall Imperial Shrine (Aunius Autrus), Ald’ruhn Temple (Lloros Sarano).
Description:

In simple terms, Almsivi Intervention transports the user to the nearest Tribunal Temple (Ald’ruhn, Balmora, Gnisis, Molag Mar, Vivec, Mournhold), and Divine Intervention transports the user to the ‘nearest’ Imperial Cult Shrine (Buckmoth Fort, Ebonheart, Gnisis, Moonmoth Fort, Pelagiad, Wolverine Hall, Mournhold, Fort Frostmoth). Some special quest locations (e.g. Dagoth Ur’s facility, Clockwork City, Mortrag Glacier) disable Intervention and Recall spells.

In practice however, Intervention spells are a little bit more complicated…

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/File:MW-map-Almsivi_Intervention.jpg
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/File:MW-map-Divine_Intervention.jpg

Here are the ‘actual’ Divine and Almsivi Intervention Zones. Notice that some areas are technically ‘nearest’ to certain Intervention points, but still port to other zones.

For example, Gnaar Mok (the ‘G’ square close to ‘K’ and ‘A’ on the centre-left of the map) is closest to Ald’ruhn Temple, but using Almsivi Intervention in Gnaar Mok will instead teleport the user to Balmora.

Similarly, the southwest regions of the Grazelands close to Falensarano (marked by an ‘F’) are Divine Intervention portal zones to Moonmoth, despite being closer to both Buckmoth & Wolverine Hall.

It has been reported that Intervention spells will take the user to the last ‘exterior’ cell that they visited. For example, if one enters the Balmora Mages Guild, takes the Guild teleport to Vivec Mages Guild, and then uses Almsivi Intervention … the user will teleport to Balmora Temple, not Vivec Temple, as the last exterior cell visited was within Balmora. The author has not had personal success replicating this (for example, repeating the Balmora/Vivec procedure above teleports me to Vivec Temple and not Balmora), but it may well happen in other games.

In addition to the above, some interesting points arise from studying the maps:

1. Almsivi Intervention allows for travel to Balmora & Ald’ruhn Temples, whilst Divine Intervention allows for travel to Wolverine Hall (Sadrith Mora); all locations that are close to Mages Guilds.

2. All three Great House Strongholds are within ‘Mages Guild adjacent’ Almsivi or Divine Intervention zones. Bal Isra --> Ald’ruhn, Odai Plateau --> Balmora, Tel Uvirith --> Wolverine Hall.

3. Divine Intervention from Molag Mar Temple will teleport the user to Wolverine Hall in Sadrith Mora, and vice versa. This means that: All Almsivi port locations ‘except’ for around Vivec (the southern tip of Vvardenfell, blue area on Almsivi map), and around Gnisis (the northwestern regions of Vvardenfell, purple area on Almsivi map), allow for an easy trip back to a Mages Guild. Gnisis and Ald’ruhn can also be travelled between via Silt Strider (and I guess one can walk/jump/fly/Gondola from Vivec Temple to the Foreign Quarter).

4. An imaginary line separating the Gnisis/Ald’ruhn (purple/red) Almsivi zones, runs diagonally SW to NE, with Maar Gan, Falasmaryon and Dagon Fel falling ‘just’ on the Ald’ruhn side.

5. Want to get to Mournhold or Ebonheart quickly? Take a trip to Vivec Mages Guild, Almsivi Intervention to Vivec Temple, then Divine Intervention to Ebonheart. You’ll appear just outside of the Imperial Chapels and Grand Council Hall (which contains transport to Mournhold).

6. Want to get from Seyda Neen or Ald Sotha to Balmora quickly? Divine Intervention to Pelagiad from the northern half of Seyda Neen/Ald Sotha, walk a ‘little bit’ north of the main street that runs through Pelagiad (which actually runs east-west, despite the cells running north-south), and then Almsivi Intervention to Balmora.

7. For whatever reason, Ghostgate is not an Almsivi port location, despite being a prominent Tribunal Temple quest location. The quickest route to Ghostgate is to Divine to Buckmoth Fort (which might first require a trip to Ald’ruhn Mages Guild or Almsivi to Ald’ruhn Temple) and then walk southeast along the Ghostfence line.

Finally, not shown on the maps above: Divine Intervention within Mournhold or on Solstheim will take you to a nearby Imperial Cult Shrine with an Altar, where it is possible to receive a blessing and ‘restore’ your Magicka as an Atronach mage (see Chapter 3.4 for more info). Almsivi/Divine locations in Vvardenfell also typically contain useful Shrines for Atronach mages (besides Molag Mar, though this is of course within Divine Intervention range of Wolverine Hall).

So yeah: Almsivi and Divine Intervention, folks. Not to be underestimated, and especially useful if you have a Mark set up outside of town!


Detect Animal
Base Cost: 0.75.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Arielle Phiencel).
Description: Allows the target to detect all living creatures in radius M feet for D seconds. Unlike Oblivion and Skyrim, Detect Animal only displays detected creatures (and not NPC’s) as small red circles on the mini map. A 100pt for 1 sec Detect Animal spell may be useful for determining the approximate location of creatures in dangerous caves or dungeons, before they can be seen (and can be cast multiple times without being seen, so long as the caster remains out of line of sight). As the effect only shows as a dot on the minimap however, it does not provide any additional information about a detected creature (such as ‘exact’ location, size, etc.).


Detect Enchantment/Key
Base Cost: 1.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Arielle Phiencel).
Description: Allows the target to detect all Keys/Enchanted items in radius M feet for D seconds. Much like Detect Animal, Detect Key/Enchantment displays detected items on the mini map (keys = green circles, enchantments = blue circles), and a 100 pt for 1 sec variant is sufficient for determining the approximate locations of Keys/Enchantments. Given that NPC’s often carry keys and enchanted items with them, Detect Key/Enchantment spells can ‘sometimes’ be used as pseudo ‘Detect NPC’ spells (though obviously they cannot detect NPC’s that are ‘not’ holding keys/enchanted items).


Dispel
Base Cost: 5.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Sharn gra-Muzgob).
Description: Removes all temporary magical effects from the target caused by ‘spells only’, with an M% chance of success (thus 100% Dispel removes temporary effects 100% of the time). This works for all temporary effects, regardless of whether they are positive or negative (e.g. Bound Item, Drain Fatigue, Levitate, Fortify Intelligence, etc.), though it cannot remove permanent effects (such as Damage Attribute or Diseases). 



A ‘half price’ 100% Self Dispel (cost 15 Magicka, custom cost for 100% on Self/Touch is 30 Magicka) can be purchased from Sharn gra-Muzgob in the Balmora Mages Guild. Dispel on Self can be used to remove excessive buffing from spells (though sadly not excessive buffing from potions/items/abilities) or Custom damage-over-time spells that have been Reflected (another reason to use damage over time spells!). Meanwhile, Dispel on Touch/Target can be used to debuff enemy spellcasters, using spells such as Bound Equipment or Summons (though as this ‘must’ be a custom spell, it will be quite expensive and arguably not worth it).

Chapter 10 (M-T): Mysticism Custom Spell Effects

Mark/Recall
Base Spell Cost: 18 Magicka. Superior to Custom variants.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Vivec Mages Guild (Sirilonwe).
Description: Customisable teleport spells, useful for setting and returning to a ‘home base’. Mark places an invisible marker at the caster’s location (white circle on minimap), and only one Mark may be placed at a time (new Marks override old Marks). Recall will instantly teleport the user to their Mark. Followers and Summons do not follow the user if they decide to teleport (unlike Followers in Skyrim with Fast Travel), meaning that Mark/Recall cannot be used for escort missions.

For those wishing to facilitate Mark/Recall during the middle of an adventure, or perhaps interested in setting up a home base outside of a major town (e.g. a Great House Stronghold), it is a good idea to familiarise yourself with the Almsivi/Divine Intervention spells (see the comprehensive description for Intervention spells earlier in the chapter).


Reflect
Base Cost: 10.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Masalinie Merien).
Description: Gives an M% chance to reflect incoming hostile spells back at their original casters. Spells can only be reflected once, meaning that Reflect cannot be used to protect the user from ‘a Reflected spell’. 



Reflect can be a very nice Constant Effect to have on Enchanted items, however, it is extremely expensive as a spell effect and comes with a major caveat: Reflect effects are MULTIPLICATIVE, stacking based on ‘missing’ Reflect. For e.g. Robe of Drake’s Pride (25% Reflect) combined with Wraithguard (20% Reflect) does not provide 45% Reflect total, but rather provides 25% + (20% of 75% = 15%) = 35% Reflect total. In OpenMW however, Reflect is currently ADDITIVE, meaning that the above combination will indeed result in 45% Reflect (this is due to be fixed in the upcoming OpenMW 0.48).

Thus, in practice, the only way to obtain 100% Reflect is to have one, single, 100% Reflect effect. This is only possible through ‘extremely powerful’ spells (similar to Spell Absorption, see below), ‘extremely powerful’ custom potions (via Alchemy being boosted into the thousands), or via the Royal Signet Ring (which is a stupid item that comes with 100% Reflect amongst other things, see 16.4 for more info).

Soultrap
Base Cost: 2.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Masalinie Merien).
Description: Traps the soul of a creature (not an NPC) in a cloud of smoke that surrounds them. Kill the creature whilst the smoke is active, and their soul will be transferred to any spare Soul Gems of appropriate size in the user’s inventory. An obviously mandatory effect to have for those wishing to make Enchanted items with Soul Gems, and also a great way to raise money (as filled Soul Gems are extremely valuable in Morrowind).

More info here: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Souls

Soul Trap as an effect is also famous for its’ ‘glitch’ in the Unpatched game (though technically it can be done with 'any' effect , not just Soul Trap): By adding 1 sec Soultrap on Target (or 1 sec ‘any other effect’ On Target) to any beneficial On-Self spell, the effect becomes permanent (because Bethesda reasons). This ‘trick’ can be used to summon permanent armies, raise stats to stupid levels, and so on.

More info on a similar glitch 'and more' can be found here (On Target Glitch, Reverse Magnitude Enchanting, Two-Stage Enchantments). Credit to SR71 for his research:

https://www.supercheats.com/xbox/walkthroughs/morrowind-walkthrough02.txt
http://www.oocities.org/morrowindenchant/faqboard.htm
https://vivec720.tripod.com/enchantments_sr71.htm

Obviously, using Soul Trap in this way is an exploit to the nth degree, and can easily crash the game, but hey, this is Morrowind: we treat you like an adult here. Go break the game if that’s what you want to do. Just don’t whinge about how broken Morrowind is afterwards, because no one will care. =)


Spell Absorption
Base Cost: 10.
Usefulness Rating: Low, ‘Special’ during Late Game.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Masalinie Merien).
Description: Gives an M% chance to Absorb incoming spells (hostile or not, and including Reflected spells), returning the Magicka cost to the caster. As a permanent spell effect received from an Ability or Enchanted item, Spell Absorption is amazing, particularly the 50% received from the Atronach birthsign. As an effect to create spells out of however? Overly expensive garbage. Spell Absorption does not stack additively, only multiplicatively based on ‘missing’ Spell Absorption.

E.g. An Atronach user (50% Spell Absorption) who wears a Necromancer’s Amulet (25% Spell Absorption) will have a total of 50% + (25% of 50% remaining) = 62.5% Spell Absorption, not 75%. Which means that in practice, the only way to obtain 100% Spell Absorption is to have one, single, 100% Spell Absorption effect … which costs a lot of f***ing Magicka!

In short: Make as much use out of Item/Potion/Atronach sign Spell Absorption effects as you can, but stay away from making any Custom spells out of it. As a proof of concept, a 100% Spell Absorption Custom Spell can be found in Chapter 16.3, and it is rather silly.


Telekinesis
Base Cost: 0.2
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Ald’ruhn Mages Guild (Orrent Geontene).
Description: Allows the user to interact with containers & doors (including using Picks, Probes and On-Touch Open/Lock spells), pick up objects, or operate switches, from a distance of M feet for D seconds. This has a number of uses, including: setting off traps safely from a distance (which are almost exclusively ‘On-Touch’ effects), stealing objects from vantage points behind cover (particularly during some Thieves Guild quests!), and opening locked doors/containers from vantage points behind cover.

The Base Telekinesis spell should be sufficient by itself, though longer range versions may be useful for ‘longer range’ mischief. Just be aware that Open spells break Sneak, whereas picks and probes don’t.

Chapter 11 (C): Restoration Custom Spell Effects

Restoration grants the ability to cure afflictions, restore stats, fortify stats, and resist offensive magic. A little Restoration skill can go a long way for just about any character, even if it’s just to ensure that Health and Fatigue remain topped up.

As with Destruction, Restoration has a number of useful Base Spells, notably the Cure Spells & Restore Health spells of various magnitudes. In the Late Game, Restoration skill is essentially mandatory for creating the highest calibre of Alchemy & Enchant related items, but also for casting ‘prep spells’; short duration fortify skill spells that enable very high cost spells (or series of spells) to be cast thereafter.

More information on Base and Custom Spells can be found in Chapters 14-16.

Starter Spells: Hearth Heal (Restore Health 20-80 pts on Self, 25 Restoration/40 Willpower or 30 Restoration minimum).


Cure Disease
Base Spell Cost: 15 for Cure Common Disease, 100 for Cure Blight Disease. Rilm’s Gift (30) and Vivec’s Touch (10) cure ‘both’ ailments On Touch, for significantly cheaper Magicka cost than the standalone Base and Custom Variants.
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Ald’ruhn Temple (Folvys Andalor) for Rilm’s Gift. Telis Salvani (Balmora Temple) sells both On-Self variants (Cure Common Disease, Vivec’s Tears). Vivec’s Touch is available via opening a secret panel on the Grace of Justice Pillar in Gnisis Temple & touching the Ash Mask inside.
Description: Removes Common/Blight Disease from the target. For quests that require NPC’s or creatures to be cured of disease, the special Base variants (Rilm’s Gift, Vivec’s Touch) are vastly superior to custom variants. For self-cure: Cure Common Disease On Self is reasonably easy to cast, but Cure Blight Disease On Self is not, and it is arguably more efficient to simply carry Cure Blight Disease potions with you (Scrib Jelly + Ash Salts homemade variants weigh only 0.1 lb). After completing the Corprus component of the Main Quest, the player is immune to all Diseases.


Cure Paralysation
Base Cost: 100.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Ald’ruhn Temple (Folvys Andalor).
Description: Removes Paralysis from the target. Given that spellcasting itself is impossible while Paralysed, this effect has no use as an On Self spell. It is, however, useful in ‘extremely’ rare occasions for curing allies of Paralysis, which requires a Custom On Touch variant (as the Base Spell only works On Self). For self-cure, drinking Cure Paralysis potions or eating Corkbulb Root (coupled with sufficient Alchemy skill to avoid ‘failing at eating’) will activate this effect while Paralysed.


Cure Poison
Base Spell Cost: 5 Magicka for Balyna’s Antidote.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Sharn gra-Muzgob).
Description: Removes any Poison effects from the target. Instant Poison damage cannot be cured, and health lost from Poison damage is not restored. Despite this, Cure Poison can be a useful effect to have for dealing with Poison traps (which deal low magnitude + long duration Poison damage), and can situationally be useful against Daedroth (who cast Poisonbloom).

Chapter 11 (Fortify Att-Mag): Restoration Custom Spell Effects

Fortify Attribute
Base Spell Cost: 1
Usefulness Rating: High for all Attributes except Willpower, Endurance and Luck. Willpower/Luck are Medium, Endurance is Low.
Location: Ald’ruhn Temple (Lloros Sarano).
Description:

Temporarily raises a target’s Attribute by M points for D seconds. Skills and ‘Derived’ Attributes (Health/Magicka/Fatigue/Encumbrance) that are tied to ‘normal’ Attributes, are also affected.

Fortify Attribute can be used in two ways: As Low Magnitude/Mid Duration spells (e.g. 10 pts for 60 seconds), or as Very High Magnitude/Short Duration spells (e.g. 8 of the same 100 point for 1-3 sec effect can be added to the same spell, for a net ‘Fortify Attribute 800pt for 1-3 sec’ spell). Just about all Fortify Attribute variants have a consistent use that is almost unmatched by other effects, besides Willpower, Endurance and Luck:

Fortify Strength can be used to increase encumbrance for mid/long periods (1 point Strength = 5 points Encumbrance), or to very briefly fortify melee damage (1 Strength = 1% base increase to melee damage). Consuming obscene amounts of Sujamma (which Fortify Strength and stack, see 4.4 for more info), is a ‘fun’ way of dealing obscene amounts of melee damage via Fortifying Strength to stupendous levels, though this will simultaneously ruin the condition of melee weapons after a few hits.

Fortify Intelligence can be used to increase Magicka reserves (similar to Fortify Magicka, but 5x more efficient) for mid/long periods, or to vastly increase success chance at Enchanting or Alchemy (via Fortify Intelligence ~800 pts for ~1 sec, so long as the duration is increased to 2 sec and then back to 1 sec, otherwise the duration will be instant). It also has the added effect of reducing the 'Total Magicka % cost' of a particular spell, and thus can be used in effect to 'save Magicka costs'. For e.g. a 50 Magicka spell costs 50% total magicka is cast by 'Character A' with 100 Intelligence (50% total magicka), and by 'Character B' with 100 Intelligence + 100 Fortified Intelligence for 3 sec (200 Int total, 25% total magicka). Character B will have 75 Magicka remaining once the Fortify effect wears off, whereas character will still only have 50 Magicka. This mechanic comes in handy for high-power ‘prep spells’ (see Chapter 16.3 for more info).

Fortify Willpower is best used as a ‘Fortify Spellcasting Success Chance’ steroid, as every 5 points in Willpower = +1% chance at casting spells (thus Fortify Willpower 800 points for 3 sec = 160% increased chance to cast any other spell). However: Fortify Skill is more specific and targeted in this regard (not to mention 10x more efficient, as 5 points in Fortify skill = 10% chance instead of 1%!) and so is a superior effect to Fortify Willpower once the effect is available (Fortify Skill can only be found in the Expansions).

Fortify Agility increases chance-to-hit, and dodge chance, by 1% for every 5 Agility, and resists the chance that the user will be staggered. There are other effects that individually target hit chance and dodge chance (though not simultaneously), and there is no other effect that increases resistance to staggering.

Fortify Speed directly increases movement speed and jump distance. It can be used for sustained or quick bursts of movement speed, depending on duration and magnitude.

Fortify Endurance affects maximum Fatigue & regeneration rate, however it is inferior to Restore Fatigue in practice, and is thus arguably the least useful of the 8 Fortify Attribute effects.

Fortify Personality increases the disposition of NPC’s toward the user (1 point per 2 Personality) … however in the event that a target’s Disposition would be theoretically increased ‘beyond 100’ (not physically possible), it will decrease back down ‘from 100’ in the event that a Fortify Personality effect wears off. E.g. a caster uses Fortify Personality 100 pts for 1 sec, and then talks to an NPC. After the effect wears off, the NPC’s disposition will be ‘at most’ 50 towards the user once the Fortify Personality effect ends (dropping from 100 to 50 thanks to the 100 Personality ‘loss’).

As such, this effect is best used as a cheap, short-duration ‘likeability’ buff (such as the ‘100 pts for 1 sec’ variant mentioned above!) for talking to certain NPC’s that require one-off conversations to accomplish something (e.g. Ranis’ Mages Guild Dues quest). Fortify Speechcraft plus Admire and/or Bribery is preferable for getting NPC’s to permanently like you. Interestingly, Fortify Personality effects from Constant Effect items (specifically to 150 Personality and above), have the added effect of 'pacifying' the vast majority of enemies in the game, as those with a Fight Value of 90 and below will not attack if they have 100 Disposition with the player. More on that in 16.5.

Fortify Luck affects a number of things, however only by a small amount (10 points Luck = 1% extra chance to do lots of things). Other Fortify Attribute and Fortify Skill spells are more useful for specific purposes.


Fortify Fatigue/Health
Base Cost: 0.5 for Fatigue, 1 for Health.
Usefulness Rating: Low.
Location: Balmora Temple (Llathyno Hlaalu).
Description: Temporarily raises the target's Fatigue/Health by M points for D seconds. After the spell expires, Health/Fatigue will be restored to their former value, minus any Health/Fatigue that was lost whilst the spell was active. And it is this here caveat that makes both of these effects not only near useless, but also dangerous, and they can leave the user ‘unconscious’ (negative Fatigue) or ‘dead’ (negative Health) once their effect wears off.

Fortify Fatigue at least has a certain 'quirk' that can be exploited: In the event that the user's Maximum Fatigue is reduced to near 0 (which would require damaging or draining their Strength, Willpower, Endurance and Agility to near 0 ... not the safest idea), Fortifying Fatigue thereafter will drastically effect anything relying on the Fatigue modifier, which includes essentially 'any skill check in the game' (though notably NOT: weapon damage, Enchant charge use, Enchant success chance in 'non OpenMW' games, or Alchemy success chance). As such, in an odd way, Fortify Fatigue can operate as a universal 'Fortify Skill' spell.

As a combat effect however, it is simply safer & more reliable to Restore both Fatigue & Health, than it is to temporarily fortify them.


Fortify Magicka
Base Cost: 1
Usefulness Rating: Low for Early/Mid Game, Medium for Late Game.
Location: Balmora Temple (Llathyno Hlaalu).
Description: Temporarily raises the target's Magicka by M points for D seconds. After the spell expires, the caster’s Magicka will be restored to its former value, minus any lost by casting spells while the spell was active.

At the very least, the consequences of leaving the user with ‘negative Magicka’ are not as dire as negative Fatigue/Health, but given that this effect has the same Base Cost as Fortify Intelligence (which is 5x more effective at raising Magicka if one’s Magicka bar is full), it’s probably better to just Fortify Intelligence instead.

In the Late Game, Fortify Magicka has a niche use, as it can be attached to high-level ‘prep’ spells & temporarily increase Magicka reserves. This helps to more easily cast high magnitude Fortify Intelligence spells, and retain enough Magicka in reserve to cast an extremely high Magicka spell after that. Examples can be found in 16.3.

Chapter 11 (Fortify Skill-Resist): Restoration Custom Spell Effects

Fortify Skill
Base Cost: 1
Usefulness Rating: High.
Location: Laurina Maria or Crito Olcinius (Royal Palace’s Imperial Cult Services, Mournhold).
Description:

Temporarily raises a target's Skill by M points for D seconds. After the spell expires, skill will be restored to its former value. Now ‘this’ spell effect has a multitude of uses, and is arguably the most powerful utility spell effect in the game (outside of ‘Fortify Intelligence’ within the context of the ‘Alchemy loop’). Similar to Fortify Attribute (see above for a longer breakdown on how to use a similar effect), Fortify Skill can be used to increase certain skills by small amounts for long durations, or very large amounts for only a few seconds.
Some examples:


Fortify Athletics/Acrobatics can greatly enhance manoeuvrability. An Acrobatics of 125 is sufficient to completely avoid fall damage.
Fortify Alchemy/Enchant 800 pts for 1 second allows for extremely powerful potions/items to be made, whilst the game is paused via the Inventory Screen,
Fortify ‘X Weapon skill’ will greatly increase accuracy with a particular weapon type, though if fortified above 100, then it will not result in any skill gain (making Fortify Agility/Attack arguably better long-term alternatives for increasing hit chance at low skill levels),
Fortify ‘X Armour skill’ will greatly increase the Armour Rating granted by any worn armour (excluding Bound Armour), or ‘no armour’ in the case of Unarmoured, and at a more efficient Magicka cost than Shield,
Fortify Speechcraft 100 pts for 1 sec should be sufficient to Admire your way into making any NPC like you, or Admire/Taunt your way into making any NPC attack you,
Fortify Security 100pts for 3 sec should be sufficient to open just about any magnitude lock with an Apprentice level lockpick,
Fortify ‘X Spellcasting Skill’ is required to cast very high magnitude spells at 100% chance, and in this guide various versions of this spell have been given the label ‘Prep Spells’. See Chapter 16 for more info.

The caveat, of course, is that this spell effect is only available in the Expansions, most easily via the Imperial Chapel merchants within Mournhold. The other caveat is that: Fortify Skill can very easily be used to break what little of a power curve Morrowind has, by allowing for stupendously powerful Enchanted Items and Potions to be created at low levels (again, Fortify Skill 800 pts for 1 sec is essentially one step down from the ‘Fortify Intelligence Alchemy loop’).

The simplest way to achieve this at low levels, is probably to create a ‘Fortify Enchanting 100 pts or 1 sec’ spell (10 Magicka), then thereafter make a ‘Fortify Enchanting 100 pts or 1 sec’ Cast When Used item, and use this as a jumping-off point to create further Fortify Skill Cast When Used items. And I guess after that, potentially Constant Effect items with the help of Golden Saint souls (which can ‘also’ be farmed from Cast When Used items).

You have been both informed and warned.


Resist Common/Blight/Corprus Disease
Base Cost: 2 for Common, 5 for Blight and Corprus
Usefulness Rating: Low for Common/Blight, None for Corprus.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Masalinie Merien).
Description: Resist Common/Blight/Corprus Disease by M% for D seconds. Fun fact: It’s actually cheaper to just ‘Cure’ yourself of Common/Blight Disease, than it is to use Custom Resist Disease spells to become 100% immune to them for a handful of seconds. Resist Corprus as an effect meanwhile does NOTHING, given that the only time the player can contract Corprus is via a scripted event. It appears that the only point of having the ‘Resist Corprus’ effect in the game, was to display ‘100% Resist Corprus’ on the effects bar of the Nerevarine after the completion of the Corprusarium quest. In short: Don’t bother with anything listed here. Cure your diseases instead.


Resist Element (Fire/Frost/Shock/Poison)
Base Cost: 2.
Usefulness Rating: Medium for Fire/Frost/Shock, Low for Poison.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Sharn gra-Muzgob).
Description: Resist Element M% for D seconds. This effect stacks additively, and 100% magnitude provides immunity to an element. Whilst it isn’t possible to add Resist Element several times to the same spell, it ‘is’ possible to cast different spells with the same Resist Element effect, and for them to stack (similar to casting multiple spells with the same Summon attached, and summoning multiple summons of the same type). High amounts of Resist Element for short periods can save you from a lot of hurt, however it is probably easier to rely on items or racial bonuses with Resist Element for more consistent protection, and instead use Magicka reserves to heal yourself. Resist Poison is only really useful against high magnitude/short duration Poison spells; in the case of long duration Poison spells, Cure Poison is a far more economic option.


Resist Magicka
Base Cost: 2.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Balmora Mages Guild (Sharn gra-Muzgob).
Description: Resist Magicka M% for D seconds. This effect stacks additively, and 100% magnitude provides immunity to all offensive spells that are ‘not’ Elemental Damage, Paralyse or Silence.

As a means of ‘combat protection’, Resist Magicka has little use when used as a SPELL, as Elemental Spells/Paralysis tend to be more dangerous to the player. Resist Magicka is famous for one particular gimmick: a 100% Resist Magicka for 1 sec spell allows the player to quickly equip items with substantial negative effects (The Boots of Blinding Speed being the key one), and suffer no consequence from doing so.

Resist Magicka Constant Effect items on the other hand, can be quite useful to Mid and Late game characters, as it allows them to cast Damage/Absorb Health and/or Damage Attribute spells at high-Reflect enemies, and not worry about incurring any harm from Reflections.


Resist Paralysis
Base Cost: 0.2.
Usefulness Rating: Medium.
Location: Wolverine Hall Imperial Shrine (Scelian Plebo).
Description: Increases the chance to ‘completely resist’ a Paralysis effect, by M% for D seconds. This effect does not affect the duration of a Paralysis effect; rather it operates in a fashion similar to Willpower, increasing the chance to ‘block’ a Paralysis effect. For Bethesda reasons, the Base spell variant of this spell is ‘a lot’ more expensive to buy and cast than it should be, so Custom spell variants are mandatory if you wish to use this (and are thankfully also quite cheap!).

Chapter 11 (Restore): Restoration Custom Spell Effects

Restore Attribute
Base Cost: 1.
Usefulness Rating: High for Strength, Medium for everything else.
Location: Ald’ruhn Temple (Folvys Andalor).
Description: Restores a Base Attribute permanently, by M points for D seconds. This is one of those spell effects that has a small, barely used niche … but by Azura do you thank yourself for making Custom Restore Attribute spells in the event that one of them gets Damaged (or Drained whilst an attribute is Fortified, for those without the Morrowind Code Patch).

Damaged Strength is ‘by far’ the most crippling Attribute to a player (Greater Bonewalkers say hello!), as this also lowers encumbrance (which unlike Skyrim, STOPS the character from moving rather than simply slowing them down). Because Base Attributes only range from 0-100, Restore Attribute spells need not have a high magnitude to be effective. It is ‘very’ worthwhile making Custom ‘Restore Attribute 13pts for 2 sec spells’ (1 Magicka cost each), for each of the 8 Attributes, in the event that they get lowered whilst out adventuring.


Restore Fatigue
Base Cost: 1.
Usefulness Rating: This is Morrowind; what would you expect this rating to be?
Location: Balmora Temple (Telis Salvani).
Description: Restores Fatigue by M points for D seconds. Fatigue level affects just about every action in the game, and so having a full Fatigue bar as often as possible (by, say, Restoring it!) is definitely a good idea. Custom variants of Restore Fatigue spells are superior to Base versions: in the case of Rest of St. Merris, it’s actually ‘more’ expensive than a Custom variant of the same magnitude/duration. 13pts Restore Fatigue for 2 sec costs 1 Magicka, and spamming this spell over and over is the most Magicka-efficient way to quickly Restore Fatigue using spells. If you wish to Restore Fatigue faster or for longer periods than this … consider making other Custom variants! Or alternatively, create a Constant Effect Restore Fatigue item, and never worry about Fatigue ever again.


Restore Health
Base Cost: 5.
Usefulness Rating: Healing is for the Weak /s
Description: Restores Health by M points for D seconds. There are a number of Base ‘1-2 second Duration’ Healing spells that can be found at various base game spell merchants (from 3-12 points for 2 Magicka, up to 20-80 pts for 13 Magicka), that are all around half the Magicka cost of Custom equivalents. Custom Restore Health spells therefore only become more preferable at higher magnitudes, as they can more quickly restore Health than the Base variants available in game (e.g. Restore Health ~100pts for 2 secs). See Chapter 14 for more info on Base Restore Health spells.

Chapter 12: Unavailable Custom Spell Effects.

Finally, here is a list of the spell effects in Morrowind that ‘cannot’ be used for Custom Spellmaking. This could be due to an effect being:
- perceived as unbalanced for Custom Spells (e.g. ‘Restore Magicka on a spell’ would be silly),
- unavailable for purchase in game as a Base Spell (e.g. Fortify Attack),
- incongruent with the concept of ‘Spellmaking’ (e.g. Vampirism).


Absorb Magicka (Mysticism)
Base Cost: 8
Description: Permanently Absorbs Magicka from the target, for M points for D seconds. Works in a similar fashion to Absorb Health, in that this is effectively a ‘Damage+Restore’ effect. This effect cannot be purchased as a Spell, but is available on some items, including the Mace of Molag Bal (see Chapter 16.4) and Scroll of Manarape (which are ‘restocking items’ sold by Maren Uvaren of Tel Aruhn).

Absorb Skill (Mysticism)
Base Cost: 2
Description: Temporarily absorbs the skill of the target and transfers it to the caster, for M points for D seconds. This effect is unused, and can only be found on a test item in the Construction Set: Clutterbane.

Call Bear (Conjuration)
Base Cost: 30
Description: Summons a Grizzly Bear to the Caster’s side. This spell is gifted by Korst Wind-Eye in Skaal Village, for completing The Ristaag quest. It cannot be used for Custom Spellmaking.

Call Wolf (Conjuration)
Base Cost: 30
Description: Summons a Grey Wolf to the Caster’s side. This spell is gifted by Korst Wind-Eye in Skaal Village, for completing The Totem of Claw and Fang quest. It cannot be used for Custom Spellmaking.

Corprus (Destruction)
Base Cost: 2500
Description: Corprus is a special disease with unique properties, which exacerbate over time. Aside from some buggy/unintended methods of catching Corprus, it can only be caught & cured during the Main Quest, and cannot be used for Custom Spellmaking.

Cure Corprus Disease (Restoration)
Base Cost: 2500
Description: ‘Cures’ the target of Corprus disease. As this spell is not available at all in game, it cannot be used to cure Corprus, let alone be used for Custom Spellmaking.

Damage Skill (Destruction)
Base Cost: 8
Description: Permanently lowers a target’s skill by M points for D seconds. This effect can only be found on ‘Elvul’s Black Blindfold’; an Enchanted Cast When Used glove with Damage Marksman 20 pts for 60 seconds.

Fortify Attack (Restoration)
Base Cost: 1.
Description: Increases the target’s chance to hit by M points for D seconds. A number of Enchanted Items (mainly weapons, e.g. Sunder and Keening) carry this effect, and it can also be found on the Orc Berserk power, the Warrior Birthsign, and the spell Mephala’s Skill (a reward for finding all 26 Sanguine items for the Threads of the Webspinner quest). The Webspinner quest is rather silly, in that it is ‘only’ possible to complete by looking up online walkthroughs, as some neutral out-of-the-way NPC’s hold Sanguine items with ‘no’ in-game information indicating this fact. Despite all of this, it cannot be used for Custom Spellmaking, and so Fortify Agility/Skill are more useful alternatives.

Fortify Maximum Magicka (Restoration)
Base Cost: 1.
Description: This effect increases the Intelligence multiplier used to calculate a character’s Maximum Magicka by F. For example, 0.5x INT will increase the Intelligence Multipler for Magicka calculation from 1.0 to 1.5 (meaning 150 Magicka at 100 Intelligence). This effect is only obtainable through certain races (Altmer, Breton), certain birthsigns (The Mage, The Apprentice, The Atronach), and the Mantle of Woe artifact found on Solstheim.

Remove Curse (Restoration)
Base Cost: 15.
Description: This effect removes the effects of a Curse from the target. As Curses were never implemented in Morrowind, this can only be found in the Construction Set, and has no use outside of mods that specifically enable Curses.

Resist Normal Weapons (Restoration)
Base Cost: 2.
Description: Increases the % resistance to Normal Weapons, which is a weird list of ‘mostly’ unenchanted, ‘mostly’ low quality weapons, including: Adamantium, Bonemold, Chitin, Huntsman, Imperial, Iron, Nordic, Riekling, Steel and Wooden weapons (but NOT Creature or Humanoid Fists!). This effect can be found on certain Enchanted items (Necromancer’s Amulet, Marara’s Ring), but is not available as a spell. Several NPC’s (Vampires) and creatures (Werewolves, certain Undead and certain Daedra) are resistant, or even immune, to Normal Weapons (those immune will display a ‘This Weapon Has No Effect’ message when struck with a Normal Weapon).
More info here: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Normal_Weapons

Restore Magicka (Restoration)
Base Cost: 5.
Description: Restores Magicka by M points for D seconds. Available in potion and scroll form. Obviously it would be extremely dumb if this effect were available in spell form…

Restore Skill (Restoration)
Base Cost: 1.
Description: Restores a lowered skill to its’ base value. This spell effect is only found in game on the ‘Almsivi Restoration’ and ‘Restore Attribute’ Shrine buffs, and has almost no use in game (as no opponents use Damage or Drain skill on the player). It was perhaps added to the game to restore any bugged effects of Drain Skill items, such as the sword Fury.

Stunted Magicka (Destruction)
Base Cost: 1
Description: Prevents the target from regenerating Magicka from sleeping, or from regenerating in real-time if mods are installed (e.g. Fair Magicka Regen mod). It is a permanent effect received by those under the Atronach Sign.

Sun Damage (Destruction)
Base Cost: 1.
Description: Causes the victim to take progressive damage from being outside during the day (6 am to 8 pm), and is modified depending on where the sun is in the sky (weakest at dusk/dawn, strongest at noon/1pm). It is not affected by Resist Magicka effects. Players experience this effect if they are a Vampire, or if wearing the Mantle of Woe artifact found on Solstheim.

Summon Bonewolf (Conjuration)
Base Cost: 45
Description: Summons a Bonewolf to the Caster’s side. This spell can be obtained by completing the Bloodmoon Main Quest as a Werewolf. It cannot be used for Custom Spellmaking.

Summon Centurion Sphere (Conjuration)
Base Cost: 25
Description: Summons a Centurion Sphere to the Caster’s side. This spell can be obtained by reading the Secrets of Dwemer AmniculiI; a book found in Galom Daeus Observatory (home to the Berne Vampire Clan). It cannot be used for Custom Spellmaking, though the book that the spell is learnt from, is required to complete the Telvanni Stronghold.

Summon Fabricant (Conjuration)
Base Cost: 10
Description: Summons a Verminous Fabricant to the Caster’s side. This spell can only be found as a Cast When Used effect from Barilzar’s Mazed Band; a ring obtained by completing the Tribunal Main Quest.

Weakness to Normal Weapons (Destruction)
Base Cost: 2.
Description: Decreases the % resistance to Normal Weapons, which is a weird list of ‘mostly’ unenchanted, ‘mostly’ low quality weapons, such as Adamantium, Bonemold, Chitin, Huntsman, Imperial, Iron, Nordic, Riekling, Steel and Wooden weapons (but NOT Humanoid Fists!). This effect can only be found on the Mantle of Woe artifact found on Solstheim.
More info here: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Normal_Weapons

Part 3: Gameplay Tips and Strategies

Chapter 13 (13.1): Planning Ahead

13.1 A Smooth Progression

So far, this guide has covered: An overview of how spellcasting works in Morrowind (including relevant formulae), some tips on how to manage Magicka use as a Mage (including use of Potions and the Atronach sign), a short guide to using Alchemy, and breakdowns of each spell effect by school for spellcasting & spellmaking purposes.

Between Base Spells, Spell Effects, Custom Spells, and Restocking Merchants, there are a lot of things mentioned in this guide that involve MONEY and SKILL LEVEL. Unless one plans on circumventing the game’s economy, and thereafter buying ‘every single possible spell effect and Custom Spell’ at the start of the game along with a boatload of training (which isn’t hard considering Creature Merchants/Stealing/’Economy Potions’, but is nonetheless a surefire way to ruin the fun as it leaves little to look forward to afterwards) … then it is a good idea to pace things out.

In this author’s opinion, there are certain Base/Custom spells, that are favourable to purchase & use at certain stages of the game. So what are ‘the stages of the game’?

Well, using the tried and true descriptors of ‘Early/Mid/Late Game’ (thanks again, Chess!), here is how I would define ‘Game State’ in Morrowind.

Early Game: From exiting the docks at Seyda Neen, to around level 10. Aside from those who decide to avoid levelling for the challenge (such as this guy: https://www.reddit.com/r/Morrowind/comments/8f5g3h/the_level_3_challenge/ ), or those use ‘the Internet’ or ‘prior knowledge’ to figure out how to collect top-tier equipment from the get-go … then it’s expected that a ‘normal’ Morrowind character will leave Seyda Neen, arrive at Balmora, join the Guilds, and start questing/levelling up in an organic way. During this time, money can be scarce, and so it is a good idea to consider which Base Spells/Spell Effects are the most cost effective, which Custom Spells are worth making, and how best to approach the issue of Magicka.

Mid Game: From around level 10 onwards, but ‘not’ counting the Tribunal or Bloodmoon Expansion pack content. By now, money should be less of an issue as the rewards are reaped from looting/questing/etc. whilst at the same time, Undead/Daedra/Dwemer Automatons/Ash Creatures encountered in the wild begin to become more powerful, with some of them warded with an ability considered to be the bane of Pure Mages: Permanent Reflect. More powerful spells and spell effects are therefore required, along with more powerful Restore Magicka potions, and perhaps a spot of training. It is assumed that the Expansion content, which is more difficult and thus more demanding of higher quality spells & potions, is not encountered during the Mid-Game (aside from the odd Assassin attack).

Late Game: The Tribunal/Bloodmoon Expansion pack content. Whilst typical enemies in the Main Game (i.e. on the island of Vvardenfell) cap out at around levels 20-25, typical enemies within the Expansions can easily exceed level 40, often with double or triple the stats of their Main Game counterparts (Health/Damage per hit/etc.), and sometimes sporting 40-60% Reflect. And a higher calibre of competition requires a higher calibre of spells and potions. Whilst ‘technically’ one can complete the Expansion content whenever they like, this guide assumes that the Expansion content, and all of the goodies and difficulties that come with it, are left until last.

Chapter 13 (13.2): Planning Ahead

13.2 Pure Mage Character Building Overview

As already alluded to in this guide, a ‘Pure Mage’ can be defined as a character that almost exclusively uses spellcasting to achieve their ends, and is thus skilled in all Spellcasting schools. A decent ‘Pure Mage’ template then would be as follows:

Race:

Breton is a popular choice for a Pure Mage, given their 50%xIntel Magicka boost, 50% Magicka Resistance, 50 pts once/day Shield power, and appropriate skill/attribute profile. Hard to go wrong with Breton.

High Elf/Altmer is the other obvious choice for a Pure Mage, given their 150%xIntel Magicka boost and appropriate skill/attribute profile. They are however quite weak to various forms of magic, especially Magicka (which includes Damage/Absorb/Drain Health) and Fire, and so must be especially careful using spells against opponents with Reflect in the Mid and Late Game.

Dark Elf/Dunmer is a versatile race capable of adopting multiple play styles, including a Pure Mage. 75% Resistance to Fire provides a safe elemental option to use against opponents with Reflect, and a racial Destruction boost doesn’t hurt either. Given their lack of Magicka boost, the Apprentice or Atronach signs are recommended for Dark Elven mages.

Finally, Nord and Orc/Orsimer are surprisingly decent choices for Pure Mages, though they will require a bit of work and supporting stats/signs to assist them through the Early Game (Atronach sign, favoured Willpower & Magic specs highly recommended!). Both have innate resistances of some kind (100% Frost + 50% Shock for Nord, 25% Magicka for Orc) which can help to deal with magic & Reflected spells in the Mid/Late Game when combined with other equipment, and both start with decent Strength and Endurance (and thus have decent starting Health). Nord and Orc Males also have high Weight (1.25 for Nord, 1.35 for Orc), which grants them slightly increased running speeds.

Attributes & Specialisation:

Magic specialisation is obviously recommended, as it not only increases all starting Magic skills by 5, it allows them to level faster as well. Willpower is also highly recommended, as it affects spellcasting chance & every little bit helps in the Early Game. After that: Intelligence will grant more starting Magicka (though will be inevitably maxed at some point, so it is not mandatory to take it as Favoured), Endurance will grant more starting Health & Health per level (which both influence Maximum Health in the short and long term), and Luck affects spellcasting a ‘little bit’ + makes it easier to max out other Attribute points in later levels (as less points will be spent levelling Luck 1 point at a time).

Skills:

By the definition already laid out earlier, a ‘Pure Mage’ uses all 6 spellcasting skills (Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion, Mysticism, Restoration), and it is highly recommended that they also make use of Alchemy for Magicka management. These 7 skills should therefore be Major or Minor by default.
After these 7, the remaining 3 skills are less crucial to a Pure Mage, and depend on what auxiliary abilities you’d like your Mage to have in the Early/Mid Game. Some decent choices:

- Athletics (perhaps even as a Major skill) is quite useful in the Early and Mid Game as a Mage, as it equates to higher movement speed and thus an easier time kiting opponents with ranged spells (e.g. Fireball).
- A weapon skill or two might be handy for backup/attribute levelling purposes (Blunt Weapon, Short Blade, Marksman and/or Spear are good choices).
- Acrobatics increase Jump height, though this won’t be noticeable until the skill is quite high.
- Unarmoured/Light/Medium Armour may be good choices Early Game, depending on what you wish to wear for protection (remember that Light Armour skill will not affect Bound Armour). Remember that Unarmoured in the unpatched game is bugged if it is not combined with at least 1 piece of Light/Medium/Heavy armour.
- Speechcraft and/or Sneak may be useful if you wish to play more of a Thief style early on.

It is recommended to refrain from taking Security, Heavy Armour or Enchant as Major/Minor skills. Security should be easily covered by Alteration & Telekinesis/’Shenanigans’ spells, Heavy Armour is too heavy to be of practical use to an early game Mage (unless you’re prepared to move veeeeeery sloowwwwlyyyy), and Enchant as a skill is both a pain in the butt to level naturally (and thus easier to just ‘purchase training for’) & relatively useless unless fortified to obscene levels. This is not to say that these skills should ‘not ever be used’ by a Pure Mage; rather they are not worth the Major/Minor skill slots in the majority of instances.

Birth Sign:

Pure Mages like having more Magicka (der), which narrows the choice down to 3 signs; the Mage (50%x Intel as bonus Magicka), the Apprentice (150%x Intel as Bonus Magicka, 50% Weakness to Magic) and the Atronach (200%xIntel as bonus Magicka, Stunted Magicka, 50% Spell Absorption).

Personally, I would recommend the Atronach over the other two signs for anyone playing a non-modded/vanilla game, and then either of the other two if some variant of a Magicka regen mod is installed (e.g. Fair Magicka Regen mod), or if playing a Mage for the first time (as Atronach can be a little tricky to get used to for a beginner, see Example Character 1 below for a ‘beginner mage’).

The main reason is that Atronach is … kinda overpowered, albeit a bit finicky. The sign grants enough Magicka for basically ‘any’ race to potentially play as a competent Mage character, and unless some variant of a Magicka Regen mod installed, resting to replenish Magicka takes a long time (potentially 20+ game hours for Bretons/High Elves with the Apprentice sign to restore a Magicka bar from 0 to full). Which means that defaulting to potions at some point is simply just ‘less tedious’, and you may as well go for Atronach at the same time.

Chapter 13 (13.3): Planning Ahead

13.3 Mage Character Build Examples

Here are 4 examples of ‘Pure Mage’ builds. I wouldn’t call these ‘perfect’ builds by any means, but they should be solid enough to utilise the concepts outlined in 13.1 and 13.2.

Example Mage Character 1: “The Breton Wizard”

Breton, Magic, Willpower/Intelligence, Apprentice.

Attributes: Str (30F/40M), Int (60), Will (60), Ag (30), Spd (40F/30M), End (30), Per (40), Lk (40).

Majors: Conjuration (45), Restoration (45), Mysticism (45), Alteration (40), Destruction (35).

Minors: Alchemy (25), Illusion (25), Unarmoured (20), Blunt Weapon (15), Spear (15).

Starting HP: 30 Female, 35 Male.

Max Level: 55 + 55 + 55 + 60 + 65 + 75 + 75 + 80 + 85 + 85 = 690 skill level ups, or Level 70.


The Breton Wizard is almost identical to the stock ‘Mage’ Class with a few skill changes. All 7 important Mage skills are taken as Majors/Minors, with Short Blade & Enchant replaced with Blunt Weapon (for Bound Mace/Staff use) and Spear (for Bound Spear use & to better level Endurance naturally). All 7 Major skills should see plenty of use, with slightly less emphasis on Illusion in the early game compared to the other 6 (Alchemy can be increased from 25 to 30 fairly easily).

The Breton/Apprentice sign combo provides a safe 3xIntel Magicka pool with virtually no downsides (the weakness + resistance to Magicka cancel out), and is a great combo for anyone playing a Mage for the first time, and/or using the Fair Magicka Regen Mod.


Example Mage Character 2: “The Altmer Glass Cannon”

High Elf, Magic, Willpower/Intelligence, Atronach.

Attributes: Str (30), Int (60), Will (60), Ag (30), Spd (40F/30M), End (30F/40M), Per (40), Lk (40).

Majors: Destruction (45), Conjuration (40), Illusion (40), Mysticism (35), Athletics (30).

Minors: Alchemy (30), Alteration (25), Restoration (20), Marksman (15), Spear (15).

Starting HP: 30 Female, 35 Male.

Max Level: 55 + 60 + 60 + 65 + 70 + 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 + 85 = 705 skill level ups, or Level 71.


Similar to the Breton Wizard, all 7 important Mage skills are taken as Majors/Minors, however more emphasis is placed on ranged combat & avoiding being hit entirely. Conjuration (Summons), Illusion (Crowd control via Calm and Paralysis), Destruction (Fireballs) and Athletics (Running!) all support a ranged playstyle in the Early & Mid game, with Alteration & Restoration taking more of a back seat.

The Glass Cannon also sports a whopping 4.5x Magicka pool, at the expense of several Magic Weaknesses + Stunted Magicka. Spear & Marksman are basically filler for Agility/Endurance training; from Balmora, Devil’s Spear from Ravirr & restocking Iron Throwing Knives from Thorek in The Razor Hole make good ‘practice weapons’.

In a nutshell: the Altmer Glass Cannon follows the motto that ‘offense is the best defense’, and is a risky but rewarding Mage build.


Example Mage Character 3: “The Dunmer War Wizard”

Dark Elf, Magic, Willpower/Intelligence, Atronach.

Attributes: Str (40), Int (50), Will (40), Ag (40), Spd (50), End (30F/40M), Per (40F/30M), Lk (40).

Majors: Destruction (45), Mysticism (40), Conjuration (35), Alteration (35), Restoration (35).

Minors: Athletics (20), Illusion (20), Alchemy (20), Light Armour (20), Long Blade (20).

Starting HP: 35 Female, 40 Male.

Max Level: 55 + 60 + 65 + 65 + 65 + 80(x5) = 710 skill level ups, or Level 72.

The Dunmer War Wizard is a well rounded Pure Mage build, with decent durability & mobility in addition to the 7 relevent magic skills. Destruction & Mysticism receive a small boost to begin with, meaning that the War Wizard can easily make use of Greater Fire/Frost balls & Absorb Health right from level 1. Light Armour, 20 Athletics & 50 Speed add decent survivability, and Long Blade is useful both as a backup weapon early & to potentially make use of Ebony Scimitars in the Tribunal Expansion.

The main downside to this build compared to the other 3, is that there are no Endurance related skills within Major/Minor slots. It is therefore recommended to purchase some training if you wish to raise Endurance (1 session per level is enough for a x2 boost), or alternatively, don some Medium/Heavy armour and let some critters nip at your heels until gaining a skill rank or two.


Example Mage Character 4: “The Orc Shaman”

Orc, Magic, Willpower/Endurance, Atronach.

Attributes: Str (45), Int (40F/30M), Will (55F/60M), Ag (35), Spd (30), End (60), Per (25F/30M), Lk (40).

Majors: Conjuration (35), Mysticism (35), Restoration (35), Destruction (35), Athletics (30).

Minors: Medium Armour (25), Alchemy (20), Alteration (20), Illusion (20), Blunt Weapon (15).

Starting HP: 52 for both sexes.

Max Level: 65 + 65 + 65 + 65 + 70 + 75 + 80 + 80 + 80 + 85 = 730 skill level ups, or Level 74.


The Orc Shaman is technically a ‘Pure Mage’ by the definition outlined in this guide, albeit an atypical Pure Mage. Practice spells are highly recommended for training magic skills in the Early Game, particularly for Alteration & Illusion, which are chosen as Minors as they are primarily out-of-combat utility schools that at least carry less risk in the event of spell failure.

Whilst the Orc Shaman’s magic skills & Intelligence are noticeably lower than its’ Breton/Altmer counterparts, it makes up for this with higher starting HP and higher max HP later on (52 HP + 60 Endurance) … meaning that unlike most Pure Mages, it is not afraid of getting hurt. High Willpower & Endurance also ensure that it won’t get tired as easily from running around, and the Male variant has a surprisingly fast run speed thanks to high Athletics + 1.35 Weight.

The Orc Shaman in particular shines as a ‘Drain Tank’: Its’ combination of high HP, high armour rating from Custom Bound Armour spells + Medium Armour (Bonemold Pauldrons + Greaves are enough to complement Bound Armour), and the base Absorb Health spell (plus Custom variants down the track), allow it to quite easily brawl with similar level opponents at close range, even on Max Difficulty. For harder hitting opponents, it can fall back on ranged Destruction/Conjuration spells & fast running speed as well.

The Orc Shaman can also pivot into a ‘Battle Mage’ playstyle by supplementing spellcasting with Blunt weapons & the ‘Berserk’ power (nothing says ‘poncy ivory tower academic’ like an angry Orc with a Warhammer, right?). With 100% Resistance to Magicka, the Drain Agility effect from Berserk is also nullified … which is easier to achieve for Orcs via equipment than most races, given their 25% Resistance to Magicka.

Nords are also suited to using this build, receiving +10 Blunt Weapon, a once/day 30pts Shield Power and Frost Immunity/Shock resistance, at the expense of Magicka resistance & the Berserk power. The female Orc variant also has the distinct honor of being 'the most hated character build in Morrowind', starting with an amazing 25 Personality. Which it so turns out, prevents them from joining a number of factions at level 1 (Thieves Guild, Imperial Legion, Imperial Cult, Tribunal Temple) ... so it might be worth grinding out 10 Personality-related skills for the first level to bump it up to 30. Bribing vendors should at least raise Speechcraft a bit, and Caius offers Speechcraft training.

Finally, the Orc Shaman showcases how powerful the Atronach sign can be. 3x Intel Magicka and ‘Magicka regeneration at various Shrines’ ensures that even a 30 Intelligence Orc can become a veritable spellcaster in the Early Game, and Intelligence should increase quickly enough to not be a hindrance come Mid & Late game.

Chapter 13 (13.4): Planning Ahead

13.4 Overview for Chapters 14-16

The rest of this guide will outline play tips for Early, Mid and Late Game (as defined above), using information elaborated on earlier in the guide via the following categories:

‘Baseline Spellcasting Chance:’ These short sections provide a rough idea of ‘feasible spell levels’ during Early/Mid/Late game, given typical attribute/skill values for a Mage character at each stage of the game. These values are punched into the spellcasting formula along with scaling spell & skill costs, to give a sense of ‘success chance’ progression.

‘Useful Spell Purchases:’ These sections cover useful Base & Custom Spell purchases at certain stages of the game. Base Spells that are useful on their own will come under the label of Spells, whereas spells purchased purely for their effect will come under the label of Effects.

Early Game Base Spells & Effects prioritise cost-efficiency and consistent usefulness, whilst Mid and Late Game Base Spells & Effects prioritise power & diversity of effects as well as cost (as it is assumed that Magicka management is less of an issue by this stage). In the majority of cases, it is best to prioritise Base Spell purchases that are useful right away, over Spell purchases purely for the purpose of Custom Spellmaking. Notable exceptions include spells that can be converted into useful ‘1 Magicka’ cost varieties easily, such as Levitate and Restore Fatigue.

‘Spell Effects:’ These sections outline the spell effects made available through purchasing all of the ‘useful spells’ mentioned during each stage of the game. These will be organised by school.

‘Useful Custom Spells:’ These sections list some useful Custom Spells to make at certain stages of the game. Early Game Custom Spells will prioritise cost over power, with more powerful (but costly) spells to be suggested at the Mid & Late stages of the game, when spellcasting skills are higher and resources are more plentiful.

‘Other Useful Tips:’ Finally, this section provides various types of advice relating to ‘Pure Mage Play’, depending on the stage of the game. This includes Magicka management, Spellbook Management, overviews of Alchemy & Enchant skills, dealing with Reflect, and Late Game Enchanted item sets.

Chapter 14 (14.1): The Early Game (Levels 1-10)

Sellus Gravius has given you the Package for Caius Cosades, and you are free to go! It is assumed that ‘at some stage’ the player will head to Balmora, visit the local merchants, and join at minimum: the Mages Guild, the Tribunal Temple, and the Imperial Cult (in Fort Moonmoth). Assuming that all of this happens, here are some recommended tips for the Early Game.

Baseline Spellcasting Chance:

An example Mage character with 50 Willpower, 40 Luck, and 35 Spellcasting skill (typical attribute/skill levels for a level 1 mage), can cast a ‘4 Magicka’ spell with 100% success rate at Full Fatigue {(35*2 + 50/5 + 40/10 – 4) = 80*1.25 = 100% chance}, and 60% success rate at 0 Fatigue (80*0.75 = 60%). Watch that Fatigue bar!

Every 5 points in spellcasting skill above 35 for this example character, allows for spells worth another 10 Magicka to be cast at 100% with Full Fatigue (so 40 skill = 14 Magicka at 100%, 45 Skill = 24 Magicka at 100%, etc.).

Every 5 points in spellcasting skill, also results in a 12.5% increased chance to cast more difficult & expensive spells at Full Fatigue (so at 35 skill, a 24 magicka spell will have a 75% chance of being cast, then at 40 Skill a 87.5% chance of being cast, and at 45 skill a 100% chance of being cast) .

Conversely, every 5 points of skill below 35 for this character, will result is a 12.5% reduced chance to cast ‘4 magicka’ spells at Full Fatigue (e.g. casting with 30 skill/50 Will/40 Luck has a 30*2 + 50/5 + 40/10 - 4 = 70*1.25 = 87.5% chance, 25 skill = 75% chance, 20 skill = 62.5% chance, 15 skill = 50% chance).

To cast a 1 Magicka cost ‘Restore Fatigue’ spell at 100% chance at 0 Fatigue, a 50 Willpower + 40 Luck character requires around 60 Restoration {(60*2 + 50/5 + 40/10 – 1) = 133*0.75 = 99.75% chance}, which is very high for the early game (max starting Restoration skill is 45 on a Magic focused Breton). Having some Restore Fatigue potions for ‘emergency spellcasting’ is therefore a good idea early on.

14.1 Useful Spell Purchases

Base Spells that are immediately useful out of the gate should be first on the priority list to buy, with some notable exceptions being spell effects that can be easily converted into ‘1 Magicka’ Custom spells (e.g. Levitate and Restore Fatigue). The main challenge of the early game is figuring out which spells to buy, given that the combined price of purchasing ‘every base spell in Morrowind’, is several 10,000’s of gold.

The following lists distill this choice down to a selection of spells which could be considered ‘consistently useful’ during the Early Game. It is recommended that players bribe ‘most’ spell merchants on the list in 10 gold increments (except where it is stated that they are difficult to bribe), until their Disposition is 90+, to lower the cost of spells. Unfortunately, to bribe the relevant merchants to lower their prices & proceed to purchase ‘all’ of the Spells outlined in 14.1, ‘still’ costs around 6,000 gold (depending on Personality/Speechcraft/Mercantile). Whilst there are several ways to make this sort of money early on in Morrowind (such as with Alchemy, see 14.4), this still may take a while to accrue, and is not helpful for those ‘specifically’ trying to avoid breaking the game’s economy early on.

For those who wish to earn their money as honestly as possible, I would prioritise purchasing the following over the other spells:

- Arrille’s spells in Seyda Neen (Frostbite/Fireball/Hearth Heal),
- Fire Bite from Estirdalin (Balmora Mages Guild),
- A Base Levitate Spell (Marayn Dren, Balmora Mages Guild), to convert into the ‘Float’ and ‘Slow’ Custom varieties outlined in 14.3,
- Balyna’s Soothing Balm + Balnya’s Antidote from Sharn gra-Muzgob (Balmora Mages Guild),
- ‘Rest of St. Merris’ Restore Fatigue spell (Telis Salvani, Balmora Temple) to convert into a Custom 1 Magicka cost Restore Fatigue variety (see 14.3),
- Night Eye from Orrent Geotene (Ald’ruhn Mages Guild),
- Summon Ancestor Ghost (for a 15 sec Custom variety) + Greater Fire/Frost Balls from Heem-La (Ald’ruhn Mages Guild).

Useful Base Spells on their own are listed under Spells, whilst spells purchased for their effect alone are listed under Effects.

Seyda Neen. Give Fargoth his ring to increase merchant Disposition.
Spells: Fireball, Frostbite, Hearth Heal (Arrille, difficult to bribe). Mages with 30 Restoration or more will start with Hearth Heal.

Balmora Mages Guild. Join the Mages Guild in Balmora (Ranis Athrys) to increase merchant Disposition.
Spells: Fire Bite (Estirdalin), Paralysis (Estirdalin), First Barrier (Marayn Dren, only for non-Conjuration Mages who cannot reliably cast Bound Armour spells), Ondusi’s Open Door (Marayn Dren), Water Breathing (Marayn Dren), Water Walking (Marayn Dren), Balyna’s Soothing Balm (Sharn gra-Muzgob), Balyna’s Antidote (Sharn gra-Muzgob), Strong Resist Magicka (Sharn gra-Muzgob). Mages with 25 Destruction or more will start with Fire Bite, Mages with 25 Alteration or more will start with Water Walking.
Effects: Levitate + Calm Creature + Calm Humanoid (Marayn Dren), Bound Boots + Bound Helm (Estirdalin), ‘Bound Weapon Spells’ + Soultrap (Masalinie Merien, difficult to bribe). Mages with 20 Conjuration/60 Willpower or 25 Conjuration or more will start with Bound Dagger.

Balmora Temple. Join the Temple in Balmora (Feldrelo Sadri) to increase merchant Disposition.
Spells: Veloth’s Grace, Heal Companion (Telis Salvani).
Effects: Restore Fatigue + Restore Attribute (any) (Telis Salvani).

Caldera Mages Guild.
Spells: Brevusa’s Averted Eyes (Eraamion).
Effects: Lock + Bound Gauntlets + Summon Flame Atronach + Summon Scamp (Medila Indaren).

Ald’ruhn Mages Guild.
Spells: Night Eye (Orrent Geontene), Telekinesis (Orrent Geontene), Greater Fireball (Heem-La), Greater Frostball (Heem-La). Night Eye is an extremely useful spell for navigating dark areas & caves, and Greater Fireball & Frostball are the best ‘ranged spells for kiting’ in the Early Game. For best results, combine with ‘Slow’ (see 14.3).
Effects: Summon Ancestral Ghost (Heem-La). Mages that start with 30 Conjuration/40 Willpower or 35 Conjuration or more will start with this spell.

Ald’ruhn Temple.
Spells: Almsivi Intervention, Orc’s Strength (Lloros Sarano, difficult to bribe).
Effects: Turn Undead (Lloros Sarano).

Wolverine Hall (Sadrith Mora) Mages Guild.
Effects: Summon Greater Bonewalker + Frenzy Humanoid (Uleni Heleran), Chameleon/Sanctuary + Detect Animal+Key+Enchantment (Arielle Phiencel).

Wolverine Hall (Sadrith Mora), Imperial Shrine. Join the Imperial Cult at Fort Moonmoth (Somutis Vanis) or Ebonheart (several) to increase merchant Disposition.
Spells: Absorb Health + Divine Intervention (Aunius Autrus, difficult to bribe). Absorb Health is arguably the best close-quarter combat spell in the Early game, simultaneously dealing reasonable damage & healing the caster. For best results, combine with ‘Skirmish Suit’ (see 14.3).

Sadrith Mora Dirty Muriel Cornerclub.
Effects: Bound Cuirass + Shield (Erer Darothril, difficult to bribe).

Vivec Mages Guild.
Spells: Mark & Recall (Sirilonwe).

Vivec Canalworks.
Spells: Wild Open (J’Rasha, Healer, Foreign Quarter Canalworks east).
Use Ondusi’s Open Door for Locks up to 50 pts (except for maybe those 10pts and under, for which you may as well try with Lockpicks), and use Wild Open for Locks in the 51-80 Range (and hope that you get lucky!). I wouldn’t bother attempting to open 90+ Locks with Wild Open, as it is extremely unlikely that this will work without lots of Restore Magicka potions and/or save scumming.

Chapter 14 (14.2 - 14.3a): The Early Game (Levels 1-10)

14.2 Early Game Spell Effects

Below is a list of the ‘Spell Effects’ learnt via purchasing the spells outlined in 14.1.

Alteration

Levitate, Lock, Open, Shield, Water Breathing, Water Walking.

Conjuration

Bound ‘Armour and Weapons’, Summon Ancestor Ghost, Summon Flame Atronach, Summon Greater Bonewalker, Summon Scamp, Turn Undead.

Destruction

Fire Damage, Frost Damage. Keep it simple stupid.

Illusion

Calm Creature/Humanoid, Chameleon, Frenzy Humanoid, Invisibility, Night Eye, Paralyse, Sanctuary.

Mysticism

Absorb Health, Almsivi Intervention, Detect Animal/Key/Enchantment, Divine Intervention, Mark, Recall, Soultrap, Telekinesis.

Restoration

Cure Poison, Fortify Attribute, Resist Magicka, Restore Attribute, Restore Fatigue, Restore Health.

14.3 Useful Custom Spells

Using the effects listed in 14.2, here are some useful Custom Spells for the Early Game. These spells emphasise cheap Magicka cost (and thus ‘success chance’) over magnitude & duration, and in theory should be cheap to make once all of the ‘Useful Spells’ have been purchased.

Alteration

Float: Levitate 1pt for 11 sec on Self (1 Magicka). Useful for navigating Telvanni towers & tall caves.

Slow: Levitate 1pt for 16 sec in 10ft on Target (4 Magicka). This spell is both amazing and terrible (at least in the vanilla game). It is amazing due to what it provides for its’ Magicka cost (i.e. budget pseudo crowd control with a reasonable AoE for hitting bunched targets), and it is terrible due to the fact that if something dies with an induced Levitate effect active, they will FALL THROUGH THE MAP BOUNDARY AND INTO THE VOID, leaving a small but crucial window to loot ‘Slowed’ targets before they Bethesda-Hax out of existence. Better yet: wait until the 16 sec effect wears off (i.e wait for the target to drop to the floor and run normally), before ‘finishing’ a kill with a Greater Fireball/Frostball.

Footnote: The 'corpse falling through floor' bug only seems to appear in vanilla PC versions of the game, and was not replicated in OpenMW.

Conjuration

Skirmish Suit (Melee): Bound Cuirass/Helm/Gauntlets/Boots/Shield/’Weapon of Choice’, for 20 sec on Self (12 Magicka). Temporarily converts a fledgling Conjurer into a genuine melee threat for 20 seconds, with 56 Armour Rating and a Bound Daedric Weapon of choice, for the Magicka cost of 2 Fire Bites. Be aware that this spell must completely wear off before it can be recast!

Skirmish Suit (Magic): Bound Cuirass/Helmet/Gauntlets/Boots/Shield, for 24 sec on Self (12 Magicka). A ‘Skirmish Suit’ but without the weapon and for a slightly longer duration, which is more practical for protection whilst casting spells. Works very well in conjunction with the Absorb Health spell, enabling a ‘drain tank’ play style early on. Be aware that this spell must completely wear off before it can be recast!

Duracell Battery: Summon Ancestor Ghost for 15 sec (5 Magicka). This spell is of particular use to Atronach users, who can punch the ‘battery’ and absorb its’ ‘charge’. Otherwise, it serves as a cheap distraction/tank in the Early Game.

Modified Summon X: Reduced duration versions of standard Summoning Spells (which normally last for 60 seconds i.e. longer than necessary). 15 seconds is enough time for a ‘short Skirmish’, and is recommended for Flame Atronachs (18 Magicka for 15 sec, which is quite expensive for an early game spell but thankfully Atronachs deal damage quickly) and Ancestor Ghosts (5 Magicka, ergo the Duracell Battery spell above). 30 seconds is enough for ‘extended’ Early-Game fights, and is recommended for Scamps and Greater Bonewalkers. It is strongly recommended to follow up any summoning spell with a ‘Call to Arms’ spell (see below), to ensure that said summons attack stuff rather than stand around dawdling.

Call to Arms: Turn Undead 1pt for 2 sec in 50 ft on Target (1 Magicka). Fire this spell at the ground or a wall to spring summons into action, by inflicting ‘hostile effects’ on all enemies in a huge radius. Be ‘very’ careful not to cast this spell near neutral NPC’s, else you’ll know about it...

Repel Undead: Turn Undead 100 pts for 10 sec in 50ft on Touch (11 Magicka). Temporarily scatters ‘all types of undead’ to every corner of the tombs that they inhabit, within a radius comparable to large portions of said tombs. Anything summoned ‘before’ undead have been turned will chase down fleeing targets.

Destruction

In the Early Game, Base Spells (specifically Firebite/Frostbite/Fireball/Greater Fireball/Greater Frostball) pretty much cover a Pure Mage’s Destruction needs. Custom Destruction spells come into their own in the Mid-Game, though a 1 Magicka ‘practice’ Destruction spell is recommended in the ‘Multi School’ section below, and can be used to finish off targets on 1-2 HP from range.

Chapter 14 (14.3b): The Early Game (Levels 1-10)

Illusion

Ceasefire (Humanoid/Creature): Calm Creature OR Humanoid (not both, make 2 different spells), 30 pts for 5 sec in 50 ft on Target (15 Magicka). Basically a short-duration ‘Mass Paralysis’ spell, useful for disengaging from groups of opponents from range. Will not affect neutral NPC’s as Calm is not a hostile effect.

Ya Mum: Frenzy Humanoid 80pts for 2 secs on Touch (12 Magicka). This spell will ensure that NPC’s with a Fight value above 0 (which is ~99% of NPC’s) will attack the player, and will also ‘continue’ attacking the player even after the effect wears off. Given that Frenzy is not a hostile effect (what were 2002 Bethesda thinking here…), this spell operates as an ‘insta-taunt’ for those low in Speechcraft, and may be useful for ‘friendly neighbourhood assassination attempts’ or to ‘liberate’ items off of certain neutral NPC’s (mmm, Auriel’s Bow…), without incurring any bounty.

Shenanigans: 100% Chameleon for 3 secs on Self (20 magicka). You are almost completely undetectable for 3 seconds and can thereafter carry out just about any other single action in front of others that you wish (open a lock, steal something, cast a spell, etc.). Go have fun.

Mysticism

Sonar Ping (Animal/Key/Enchantment): Detect Animal OR Enchantment OR Key (not all 3, make 3 different spells), 100 pts for 1 sec on Self (7 Magicka for Animal, 10 Magicka for Key/Enchantment). Cast the spell, then quickly open up the Local Map, to see if the ‘Ping’ has detected anything. To ensure that the duration is 1 second, the effect must be increased to 2 sec, and then back to 1 sec, when the spell is being made. Alternatively, have the Map already open by clicking the top right corner to pin it, ‘then’ cast a Sonar Ping spell. From personal experience: If you happen to have misplaced an enchanted item within your house/home base (such as, say, a Sanguine item), this spell is a lifesaver.

Soul Trap (Ranged): Soul Trap for 30 sec in 4 ft on Target (4 Magicka). This version is more practical than the 60 sec On Touch base version of the spell, as it’s cheaper and can be used from range. 30 seconds is ‘usually’ enough time to kill most creatures, and if not, the spell can always be recast for only 4 Magicka. Be aware that Golden Saints will attempt to Dispel themselves while soultrapped.

Restoration

Bottle o’ Water: Restore Fatigue 13 pts for 2 secs on Self (1 Magicka). A cheap, spammable Restore Fatigue spell, to be used whenever Fatigue is necessary (i.e. ‘for most actions performed in the game’).

Bottle o’ Gatorade: Restore Fatigue 4 pts for 53 sec on Self (10 Magicka). A longer-lasting spell that will steadily Restore Fatigue even while running or swimming. Best used before heading into a battle that requires a lot of kiting opponents with spells.

Mend ‘Attribute’ (one spell for each of the 8 Attributes): Restore ‘Attribute’ 13pts for 2 secs on Self (1 Magicka each). Cheap, custom Restore Attribute spells, to be used in the event that any Attributes are Damaged (or bug out due to Drain+Fortify effects).

Make Friends and Influence People: Fortify Personality 100pts for 1 sec on Self (10 Magicka). Make anyone love you for ‘one conversation’, which is sufficient if you only wish to talk to an NPC once! To ensure that the duration is 1 second, the effect must be increased to 2 sec, and then back to 1 sec, when the spell is being made.

I Can See Clearly Now…: Resist Magicka 100% for 1 second on Self (20 Magicka). Cast this spell if you wish to maintain vision while using ‘those boots’. Use the method listed above to ensure that the duration is 1 second.

Crafter’s Insight: Fortify Intelligence “100 or 800” pts for 1 sec on Self (Cost 10 or 80 Magicka depending on Magnitude). Use the method listed above to ensure that the duration is 1 second.
The main use for this spell early on, is to increase the chance & magnitude of making potions using Alchemy. This type of spell is a bit of a Pandora’s Box, and it is with spells like this that you must ask yourself: “How far do I want to push this?”

Potion success chance/value/quality scales 1:10 with Intelligence, and 1:1 with Alchemy skill. Thus, 100 intelligence is effectively equivalent to 10 Alchemy skill, whilst the 800 Intelligence variant (which costs 80 Magicka and has about a ~40-50% chance of being cast at around 50 Restoration) emulates an 80 Alchemy skill boost.

In combination with Restocking Ingredients, this type of spell makes it rather easy to create some silly concoctions whilst power levelling Alchemy. Whilst I would recommend that any Pure Mage ‘at least’ create the 100 pt for 1 sec variant if they wish to use Alchemy a little more effectively early on, I would advise ‘against’ using the 800 pt variant early in the game. At least the 100 pt variant ensures ‘a little bit’ of item & economic balance.

Crafter’s Brew (requires Expansions & Fortify Skill, see Chapter 11): Fortify Alchemy 100-800 pts for 1 sec on Self. Essentially the same spell as above (Crafter’s Insight), but a ‘lot’ more potent for creating potions (as even 100 Alchemy > 800 Intelligence). I would strongly advise against using this spell ‘at all’ until base Alchemy is close to (or at) 100, as it not only prevents Alchemy skill from increasing in the vanilla game (as skills don’t level if they’re fortified above 100), it’s also a surefire way to remove a lot of challenge. This spell is not quite the ‘Fortify Intelligence feedback loop’, but it comes close.

This author recommends using this spell almost exclusively to create Restore Magicka potions during the Late Game. If you want to instead use it to become an early game god, then by all means go ahead, but you have been warned.

Crafter’s Charm (requires Expansions & Fortify Skill, see Chapter 11): Fortify Enchant 100-800 pts for 1 sec on Self. See Crafter’s Brew, only this time with Enchanted items. Can just as easily break the power curve of the game, though at least it can be argued that this sort of spell is ‘necessary’ for creating high-end Enchanted Items, given the way that the Enchant skill works in Morrowind. 800 Enchant is enough to consistently make Constant Effect items that are below ‘Daedric Tower Shield’ level (which requires around 1200 Enchant!).

Multi-School

This section, in later stages of the game, is reserved for Custom Spells containing effects from multiple schools of magic. There are no suggestions for ‘multi-school’ Custom spells for the Early Game, though it is suggested to make ‘Practice Spells’ for each school.

Practice Spells are 1-Magicka-Cost spells, which can be used at (just about) any time to gain experience in a particular school. It is recommended to preface all practice spells with either ‘AA’ or ‘ZZ’, to place them either at the top or bottom of your spell school list.

Some examples of practice spells:

ZZ Practice Alteration: Lock 1pt on Touch (non-Hostile).
ZZ Practice Conjuration: Bound Shield for 1 sec on self.
ZZ Practice Destruction: Fire Damage 2pts in 2ft on Target (Hostile, so don’t hit NPC’s in towns with it).
ZZ Practice Illusion: Night Eye 1pt for 1 sec on Touch (non-Hostile).
ZZ Practice Mysticism: Absorb Health 2pts on Touch (Hostile, so don’t hit NPC’s in towns with it).
ZZ Practice Restoration: Restore Health 3-4 pts on Self.

Chapter 14 (14.4a): The Early Game (Levels 1-10)

14.4 General Early Game Mage Tips: Items, Magicka Management and Alchemy

For the Early Game, a plain robe & some potions (from various Mages/Fighters Guild supply chests, more on that below) are enough to get by as a Pure Mage, with perhaps a backup weapon thrown in for good measure. Be aware that equipping a lot of armour will affect your encumbrance and thus movement speed, and that Bound Armour spells provide decent protection for no added weight.

The Mentor’s Ring is also nice to get for its Intelligence/Willpower boost, and can be found just a few minutes walk from Seyda Neen, to the northwest along the coast (just past the dead tax collector and Tarhiel, bless his crazy little heart). Arrille’s Fireball spell or Fire Bite should be enough to handle the ghosts within the tomb (if not, you can always buy some other spells from various Mages Guilds & return via Silt Strider later), and Hearth Heal can be cast whilst tanking the trap on the Urn.

For Atronach Mages in the Early Game, it’s very useful to know where easily accessible ‘Magicka Shrines’ are (see Chapter 4), and to (perhaps) have a Summon Ancestral Ghost spell to ‘recharge’ Magicka (see 14.3). Temple Shrine blessings (Rilm’s Grace from St Rilm, Almsivi Restoration from St Veloth/Tribunal) cost 35 gold, and Imperial Cult Altar Blessings (Restore Attributes) cost 25 gold. However! By joining both the Tribunal Temple and Imperial Cult (which can be done at several locations, such as Balmora Temple and Moonmoth Fort), this cost reduces to 5 gold per Temple blessing and 10 gold per Cult blessing.

For non-Atronach Mages in the early game, it is definitely worth resting after difficult encounters if your Magicka is low. Resting after ‘every encounter’ however can get tedious, so it is best to get your hands on some Restore Magicka potions as soon as possible.

Joining the Mages Guild will allow access to 4 Mages Guild Supply Chests, and effectively 40 Standard Restore Magicka potions. These chests can be found in Balmora, Ald’ruhn, Sadrith Mora, and Vivec (Fighters Guilds in these 4 locations also contain Supply Chests with Restore Fatigue/Health potions), and whilst this supply should last a fair while, it does not restock in any useful amount of time (reports vary from 14 to 120 in-game days from when the chest was looted!). After exhausting the 40 Supply Chest potions, there are two more ‘reliable’ options for obtaining Restore Magicka potions.

First option: Buying ‘restocking’ Restore Magicka potions from certain vendors. Lloros Sarano (a Redoran priest in Ald’ruhn Temple, whom also sells some useful spells) will sell 2x Cheap Restore Magicka, and Nalcarya in Balmora (Fine Alchemist) will sell 1x Exclusive Restore Magicka. Exclusive is by far the more cost-efficient option (175gp for 200 Magicka vs 15 gp for 10 Magicka), however they are individually expensive, and restore 200 Magicka (which could get wasted on some characters). Exclusive potions take 5 seconds to restore their full amount, so for characters with under 200 Magicka, it may be worth using them ‘just’ before casting 1-2 costly spells to get the full benefit.

Second option: Making Restore Magicka potions using ‘restocking’ ingredients. To do this efficiently requires a number of things. The first thing required is ‘having a decent enough Alchemy skill to make potions consistently’, so as to not waste ingredients. This of course makes things difficult for characters starting out with low Alchemy, but is helped by the fact that potions can be created AT ANY SKILL LEVEL, regardless of whether desired effects are visible in the inventory screen, so long as the effects are known ahead of time. Small Kwama Eggs & Crab Meat from Ajira for Restore Fatigue potions are a good starting point.


The second thing required is decent Alchemy equipment, which can be purchased or ‘borrowed’ from Ernard Thierry in Caldera Mages Guild (Journeyman set isn’t that expensive, Master set is ‘upstairs’). Nalcarya also has a Grandmaster’s Mortar and Pestle, which ‘can’ be purchased or ‘Telekinetically Borrowed’ by sneaking out of sight, behind the wall in front of the entrance, in a position that obscures vision from both Nalcarya and the Guard in the corner of the room.



The third thing required is a collection of ingredients. In addition to restocking Small Kwama Eggs and Crab Meat, Ajira sells restocking Comberry, whilst Nalcarya sells restocking Frost Salts. Frost Salts are quite expensive, whilst the other ingredients are only 1gp each.

The final thing that is optional (but recommended) is a Fortify Intelligence 100pts for 1 sec on self spell. This spell is relatively easy to make & cast (10 Magicka), and doesn’t provide such a benefit as to ‘break the power curve and economy of the game’ (it effectively provides a +10 Alchemy boost). Fortifying Intelligence by 800 pts for 1 sec however (which effectively provides a +80 Alchemy boost), or even fortifying Alchemy 100+ points for 1 sec, are both spells that can ‘easily’ break the power curve and economy of the game.

“There are a few ways you can do this and the choice, is, yours …”

Chapter 14 (14.4b): The Early Game (Levels 1-10)

Putting this all together, I would do the following:

1. Find some decent Alchemy equipment. The ‘highest tier of equipment’ available within ‘easy reach’ includes the Master set from Caldera Mages Guild + Nalcarya’s Grandmaster Mortar and Pestle, else a Journeyman set can be purchased from Ernard in the Caldera Mages Guild.

2. Make yourself a Fortify Intelligence 100 pts for 1 sec spell. This will increase potion making chance/magnitude/value by a flat ’10 Alchemy skill’ to the relevant modifiers. If you want to aim higher, then of course aim higher, but be warned that ‘aiming higher’ may break the power curve of the game.

3. Go to Ajira, and begin mass purchasing 5x Small Kwama Egg & 5x Crab Meat. If you wish to speed up the process, you can purchase a batch on a first barter attempt, then sell it back in a second barter attempt, and then a third barter attempt window will include double the batch (i.e. 10x each ingredient, followed by 20x each ingredient, etc.). This is … kind of an engine exploit, but at the very least, it’s only speeding up a process of clicking through barter windows. The Restocking Ingredients ‘themselves’ are not an engine exploit; they’re there by design!

4. Once you have a nice collection of eggs and meat, begin mass production (even at 5 Alchemy skill, the potions should still be created ... you just cannot view what they do). This will not be a 100% success rate, ‘unless’ you decided to use the power-curve-breaking versions of the Fortify spells listed above. Either way, mass production should yield some potions to sell, ‘and’ some increases in Alchemy skill (unless Alchemy was fortified above 100). Even with a minimum of: a Journeyman Mortar and Pestle, 15 Alchemy skill, 140 Intelligence (40 + 100 Boost) and 40 Luck, a Restore Fatigue potion will have a 15 + 14 + 4 = 33% success chance of being made, and a value of 33 per potion … which is enough money to purchase at least another 10 batches of Crab Meat + Kwama Eggs. Congratulations: You can now run a profitable business by flooding the Balmora Trader & Alchemist market with ‘Crab & Kwama Tonic’ (or not, if you’d rather not circumvent the economy of the game so quickly).

5. You can repeat the same process for Restore Magicka potions, only this time with Comberry (Ajira) and Frost Salts (Nalcarya). As the ingredients for these potions are more expensive than ‘Crab & Kwama Tonic’, it is better to keep & use these rather than sell them.

If you follow all of the steps above, you should now have some homemade Restore Magicka potions! All potions made via Alchemy, will have a magnitude 1/3rd of their duration (e.g. 5 pts for 15 sec), with a few points of magnitude added on top of this if using a high level Calcinator + Retort.

It is inevitable that eventually, homemade Restore Magicka potions will exceed the ‘total’ magnitude of Exclusive potions … but should not exceed their ‘Restoration rate per second’ unless Alchemy is pushed will into the hundreds via Custom Fortify Alchemy spells (Exclusives restore 40 pts/sec for 5 secs, whilst a Restore Magicka potion made with 100 Alchemy/Intelligence and a full Grandmaster set is around 16 pts/sec for 40 sec). It may, therefore, be worth keeping both homemade and Exclusive varieties of Restore Magicka potions on hand, and saving the odd Exclusive potion for ‘quick bursts’ of Magicka restoration.

Chapter 15 (15.1-15.2): The Mid Game (Levels 10+, Base Game only)

Factions have been joined, spells have been bought and made, magic skills have been improved … and wild Scamps and Ghosts are swiftly becoming wild Dremora and Skeleton Champions, which means that Flame Atronachs and Greater Fireballs don’t quite cut it anymore. The Mid-Game (level 10 onwards but not including the Expansion Content) contains many adventures and challenges. Increased competency in magic has allowed for the whole of Vvardenfell to become open to exploration, requiring new spells and spell effects to handle new scenarios. It is assumed that the Expansion Content, which contains enemies well above the level of competition found in Vvardenfell, is left until last, i.e. until ‘the Late Game’.

Baseline Spellcasting Chance:

An example Mage character with 80 Willpower, 40 Luck, and 50 Spellcasting skill (typical attribute/skill levels for a level 10-20 Mage), can cast a ‘40 Magicka’ spell with 100% success rate at Full Fatigue {(50*2 + 80/5 + 40/10 – 40) = 80*1.25 = 100% chance}, and 60% success rate at 0 Fatigue (80*0.75 = 60% chance). Watch that Fatigue bar!

Every 10 points in spellcasting skill above 50 for this example character, allows for spells worth another 20 Magicka to be cast at 100% with Full Fatigue (so 60 skill = 60 Magicka at 100%, 70 Skill = 80 Magicka at 100%, etc.).

Every 10 points in spellcasting skill, also results in a 25% increased chance to cast more difficult & expensive spells at Full Fatigue (so at 50 skill, an 80 magicka spell will have a 50% chance of being cast, then at 60 Skill a 75% chance of being cast, and at 70 skill a 100% chance of being cast).

Conversely, every 10 points of skill below 50 for this character, will result is a 25% reduced chance to cast ‘40 Magicka’ spells at Full Fatigue (e.g. for 40 skill/80 Will/40 Luck, 40*2 + 80/5 + 40/10 - 40 = 60*1.25 = 75% chance, 30 skill = 50% chance, 20 skill = 25% chance).

Once again, to cast a 1 Magicka cost ‘Restore Fatigue’ spell at 100% chance at 0 Fatigue requires around 60 Restoration {(for an 80 Will character, 60*2 + 80/5 + 40/10 – 1) = 139*0.75 = 104.25% chance, 99.75% with 57 Restoration}. If your character has low Restoration skill, or does not yet have a Constant Effect Restore Fatigue item (more on that in 15.4), then having some Restore Fatigue potions on hand is a good idea.

15.1 Useful Spell Purchases

Most of Morrowind’s ‘immediately useful’ Base spells should have been purchased in the Early Game (see 14.1), though there are still some that are of use that haven’t yet been purchased. The vast majority of spell purchases in the Mid-Game however, are to learn effects for Custom Spells. It is assumed by this stage that money is not much of an issue (the spells listed below have a combined cost of over 15,000 gp), and so spell purchases should instead be dictated by Skill Level in the relevant Spell School (as expensive spells require a lot of skill to cast).

Useful Base Spells on their own are listed under Spells, whilst spells purchased for their effect alone are listed under Effects.

Balmora Mages Guild
Spells: Dispel (Sharn gra-Muzgob).
Effects: Burden + Damage Attribute (Estirdalin), Weakness to Fire/Frost/Magicka + Summon Bonewalker (Marayn Dren).

Balmora Temple
Spells: Absorb Fatigue, Cure Common Disease, Vivec’s Tears (Telis Salvani).

Caldera Mages Guild
Effects: Damage Health (Medila Indaren).

Ald’ruhn Temple
Spells: Rilm’s Gift (Folvys Andalor). Alternatively, the ‘Vivec’s Touch’ spell can be acquired from the ‘genuine’ hidden Ask Mask in Gnisis Temple (by activating the secret panel on the Grace of Justice pillar & touching the Mask inside), and is even cheaper to cast than Rilm’s Gift.

Wolverine Hall (Sadrith Mora) Mages Guild
Effects: Drain Health/Magicka + Summon Frost Atronach (Uleni Heleran), Demoralise Creature/Humanoid (Arielle Phiencel). Drain Magicka is nigh useless as an effect, but as the only base spell in the game with a Drain Health effect is ‘Drain Blood’, this effect is learnt as well.

Sadrith Mora Dirty Muriel Cornerclub
Spells: God’s Fire + God’s Frost (Erar Darothril). These are the highest power Base Destruction spells in the game (dealing on average around 350 damage over 10 seconds!), and are also very difficult to cast (135 Magicka), making them only useful to mages with 90+ Destruction skill. Don’t miss!
Effects: Summon Daedroth + Summon Dremora + Summon Hunger + Summon Storm Atronach (Erar Darothril).

Sadrith Mora Mage (Shop)
Effects: Rally Creature/Humanoid (Llaalam Madalas). This service is unfortunately only available to members of House Telvanni. Otherwise: Synnolian Tunifus and Lalatia Varian in the Ebonheart Imperial Chapels sell Rally Creature/Humanoid spells.

Sadrith Mora Telvanni Council House, Entry
Spells: Lightning Bolt (Nelso Salenim). Found down the bottom of the Council House Entry, Lightning Bolt is a surprisingly cost-effective mid-power Destruction spell. Despite being a Shock spell, it is even slightly more cost effective than Custom Fire/Frost equivalents (10-50 pts for 2 sec On Target Fire/Frost Custom spell costs 35 Magicka, Lightning Bolt costs 34 Magicka).

Vivec Mages Guild
Spells: Tinur’s Hoptoad (Sirilonwe).
Effects: Slowfall (Sirilonwe).

Tel Branora, Upper Tower
Effects: Command Creature/Humanoid + Summon Bonelord + Summon Clannfear + Summon Golden Saint + Summon Winged Twilight (Felen Maryon).

15.2 Mid-Game Spell Effects

Below is a list of the ‘Spell Effects’ learnt via purchasing the spells outlined in 15.1. It is assumed by this point that the character knows the Spell Effects learnt during the Early Game, and that both sets of Spell effects (14.2, 15.2) are used for Custom Spellmaking in the Mid-Game.

Alteration

Burden, Jump, Slowfall.

Conjuration

Command Creature, Command Humanoid.

All Summoning spells should be purchased, if anything to allow the character to experiment. If money is an issue, then it would be best to prioritise:

- Summon Clannfear
- Summon Daedroth
- Summon Dremora
- Summon Golden Saint
- Summon Hunger

Destruction

Damage Attribute, Damage Health, Drain Health, Drain Magicka (only because it’s attached to ‘the Drain Health spell’), Shock Damage, Weakness to Fire, Weakness to Frost, Weakness to Magicka.

Illusion

Demoralise Creature, Rally Creature, Rally Humanoid.

Mysticism

Absorb Fatigue, Demoralise Humanoid, Dispel.

Restoration

Cure Blight Disease, Cure Common Disease.

Chapter 15 (15.3a): The Mid Game (Levels 10+, Base Game only)

15.3 Useful Custom Spells

Using the effects listed in 14.2 and 15.2, here are some useful Custom Spells for the Mid Game, organised by Spell School. It is assumed by this point that Magic Skills have been practiced (or at the very least ‘can more easily be practiced’), and that Magicka is more plentiful. As such, Custom Spells in the Mid-Game begin to prioritise quality of life & magnitude/duration over simply just ‘cost-efficiency’, and so quite a few spells on this list will require high levels of the relevant skill in order to be cast.

Alteration

Locksplitter: Open Lock 100 pts on Touch (60 Magicka). Guaranteed to open any lock. To open locks under the cover of ‘stealth’, combine this with the ‘Shenanigans’ spell (14.3).

Hover: Levitate 1pt for 58 sec on Self (8 Magicka). A longer duration ‘Float’ spell, useful for navigating large caverns, or for medium-long distance travel through the air.

Leap of Faith I / II / III: Jump 100 pts for 1/3/5 Sec on Self (30/60/90 Magicka).

Let’s talk about Morrowind’s ‘Fast Travel System’ and how to break the laws of physics, shall we!

(shameless plug, again)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=823166091

Jump spells fortify the user’s Jump height, but do nothing to help with fall damage. Tinur’s Hoptoad (the base Jump Spell) can be useful for short bursts of ‘improved manoeuvrability’, however for ‘long distance travel’, higher magnitude Jump spells offer a unique solution to Morrowind’s lack of Fast Travel.

Jump 100 pts for even 1 second is enough to leap great distances in a single bound … and if you wish to increase that distance, simply cast a 3 sec and/or 5 sec version, ‘before’ a 1 sec version, and ‘then’ jump. For an ‘almost completely unencumbered’ character with around 50ish Acrobatics skill:

- 100 points Jump (1 sec variety) is enough to travel a handful of cells in one jump, e.g. from Balmora to Caldera, or one end of Vivec to the other.
- 200 points Jump (cumulative 3 sec + 1 sec varieties) is enough to travel around 10 cells in one jump, e.g. from Balmora to Ald’ruhn, or from Sadrith Mora to Tel Vos,
- 300 points in Jump (cumulative 5 sec + 3 sec + 1 sec varieties) is enough to travel the length of Vvardenfell.

Realistically, there is very little practical reason to cast sequential 90 + 60 + 30 Magicka spells in order to ‘leap the length of the map’ (besides the Sanctus Shrine Vow of Silence quest … trolololol), but casting 60 + 30 Magicka spells to travel large fractions of it is indeed useful. Particularly for navigating to and across the Sheogorad region!

What goes up, must also come down. Fall damage from even a 100 point Jump spell straight up in the air, is ironically possible to ‘survive’ with high amounts of Acrobatics and high Health, thanks to the way that fall damage is calculated in Morrowind (i.e. a flat HP number rather than a % of maximum HP). To ‘completely avoid’ damage however, it’s best to combine Jump spells with some form of ‘Brake’ (explained below).

Just ignore the ramifications of ‘Newton’s First Law of Motion’ on ‘Your Internal Organs’ in either of these scenarios involving instant deceleration, and enjoy the damn video game. =P

Leap Brake (fast): Levitate 1pt for 2 sec on self (1 Magicka). Will stop the caster in mid-air. Difficult to pull off in a hurry as a spellcaster, though none the less possible in ‘most’ circumstances (just need to start casting as soon as the ground comes into view!). This spell can also be spammed for short bursts of flight, though it will require continual recasting in order to remain airborne.

If you are ever afraid that you will ‘not hit the brake in time’, an Enchanted Cast When Used item can be used to brake instantly. Alternatively, one can use this spell in combination with the ‘slow’ Leap Brake (below), or recast the ‘fast’ brake every 5-10 seconds whilst falling from any extreme height above the ground.

Leap Break (slow): Slowfall 1 pt for 11 sec (1 Magicka). Easier to pull off for spellcasters, Slowfall 1 pt ‘marginally’ reduces air speed whilst jumping, but ensures a soft landing so long as the effect is active. A downside is that the user will not gain any Acrobatics skill from ‘landing’ extreme jumps … though this lack of skill gain will also occur if the user ‘dies from slamming into the ground’.

Chapter 15 (15.3b): The Mid Game (Levels 10+, Base Game only)

Conjuration

Defector I (Creature/Humanoid): Command Creature/Humanoid 10 pts for 3 secs on Touch (30 Magicka). 3 seconds of Command is long enough to guarantee that creatures/humanoids will ‘defect’ to your side temporarily, and continue to attack hostiles once the effect wears off. 10 Levels of Command should be sufficient to ‘defect’ wildlife creatures & a variety of bandits, but will most likely fail against tougher opponents.

Defector II (Creature/Humanoid): Command Creature/Humanoid 20 pts for 3 secs on Touch (60 Magicka). A higher power version of Defector I, this spell is capable of ‘defecting’ just about any opponent found in the Base game aside from Ascended Sleeper/Dagoth priests, special Daedra (e.g. Staada), and NPC’s of high standing (e.g. Leaders of Guilds/Factions).

Skirmish Suit II: Bound Cuirass/Helmet/Gauntlets/Boots/Shield, for 60 Seconds (30 Magicka). Basically an extended version of Skirmish Suit I, providing 56 Armour Rating to spellcasters that don’t wear armour for X seconds. A ‘much’ cheaper alternative than a Shield spell of the same duration and magnitude. If you wish to use a weapon as well, simply cast one of the 60 sec Base versions!

Modified Summon X: Similar to Early Game, these are reduced duration versions of standard Summoning Spells (which normally last for 60 seconds i.e. longer than necessary). Given that summons are borderline useless in the Late Game unless spammed en masse, you may as well purchase every Summon Spell & have a bit of an experiment in the Mid Game.

Here are some recommended Summon spell variants:

- Summon Daedroth for 15 and/or 30 secs (26/50 Magicka). The most ‘bang-for’buck’ solitary summon in the game. Use Daedroth in a similar manner to a Flame Atronach: Summon + Call to Arms, then let it barrage opponents with spells (with both Shock ‘and’ Poison, mmmmm), with the odd melee slap thrown in if spells aren’t enough. Daedroths move slowly, so it’s best to summon one right in the middle of combat (i.e. at point blank range), or bring the fight to them. Remember that Daedroth spells are capable of hitting other summons and yourself, so they are best summoned alone and not in groups.

- Summon Clannfear for 30 secs (34 Magicka). This Daedra is pure melee, and will charge at anything tagged with a Call to Arms spell.

- Summon Dremora for 30 secs (44 Magicka). This Daedra is pure melee, and will charge at anything tagged with a Call to Arms spell. Slightly more expensive than Clannfear, but hits harder in ‘most’ instances (i.e. ‘when it spawns with a decent weapon’), and comes with 20% Reflect.

- Summon Dremora + Summon Clannfear for 20 seconds (53 Magicka). A relatively cheap ‘Twin Summon’ spell, useful for mobbing difficult Mid-Game opponents quickly, or adding more melee summons to the fray alongside single 30 sec variants (as more than 1 of the same type of summon is possible… so long as they are attached to different spells). A 30 sec twin ‘Dremora+Clannfear’ spell costs 78 Magicka.

- Summon Hunger for 15 and/or 30 secs (23/45 Magicka). This spell summons an ‘Element Immune tank’, which is useful for trigger-happy Destruction Mages. Hungers take forever to actually damage anything (bloody useless Disintegrate spells…), but they can provide a nice distraction for a while (170HP isn’t too shabby), and will not be aggravated by the user’s elemental Destruction spells.

- Summon Golden Saint for 15 and/or 30 secs (45/86 Magicka). The strongest summon in the game, but also the most expensive. Summoning a Dremora & Clannfear together for the same duration is even less expensive than a Saint (Base Cost 55 for a Saint, vs. Base Cost 22 + 28 = 50 for Dremora/Clannfear). Saints are best used in the Mid-Game either to fight Spellcasters (as they are 50% resistant to Fire/Frost/Shock spells), to support a Dremora/Clannfear duo … or to farm Grand Souls from (it’s also possible to ‘farm items from them’, but this is obviously an exploit that may crash the game). If you plan on ‘sacrificing’ any Saints for Grand Souls, be aware that they can cast a 100% Dispel that removes Soul Trap, so it’s best to Soul Trap a Saint ‘just’ before they die (or alternatively, use less than 4 spells to kill them, that way they won’t cast anything!)

Repel Undead II: Turn Undead 100pts for 20 sec in 50ft on Target (31 Magicka). A more powerful version of Repel Undead I, now with range! Temporarily scatters ‘all types of undead’ to every corner of the tombs that they inhabit, within a radius comparable to large portions of said tombs. Summons that are summoned ‘before’ undead have been turned will chase down fleeing targets.

Chapter 15 (15.3c): The Mid Game (Levels 10+, Base Game only)

Destruction

Given that enemies' HP bars have exceeded the capacity for Firebite and Greater Fireball to adequately deal with… it’s time for Custom Destruction spells to shine! Spells of various magnitudes, durations, damage types and ranges, can all be useful for specific situations, with a variety of examples listed below.

As there are quite a lot of spells in this list that are both useful in combat, ‘and’ quite similar to each other in name & function, it is worth making use of various quickkeys ‘in addition’ to previous/next spell buttons. More on Spellbook Management in 15.4.

Arcane Bolt (Fire/Frost/Health) I & II: 10 points of damage for 9 seconds on Target (37 for Fire & Frost, 60 for Damage Health). 6 different spells that all stack with each other: two deal Fire Damage, two deal Frost Damage, two deal Damage Health. For e.g. Arcane Bolt (Fire) I and Arcane Bolt (Fire) II will deal 10x9x2 = 180 progressive Fire Damage to a target if cast one after the other.

These spells therefore allow for a slow, but cost-effective, method of knocking out less mobile targets from range. Arcane Bolt (Health) I & II are useful against creatures resistant to all forms of Elemental Damage (Scamp, Hunger, Winged Twilight, Golden Saint, Steam Centurion), and also very useful for Bretons, as they will only take half damage in the event they are Reflected (and even less if they have Resist Magicka spells or equipment on hand!).

Elemental Grasp (Fire/Frost): 54 points of Fire/Frost damage for 2 seconds on Touch (40 Magicka). A pair of mid-power On Touch spells with a decent punch (total 108 damage), that can be chained over and over on the same target. Great for swiftly taking out Mages, enemies that do not pose ‘too much’ of a melee threat, or enemies that are incapaciated with Paralyse or Calm (the Base Paralyse or ‘Ceasefire’ spells + 2 Grasps = 216 damage dealt to a target in safety).

It's worth noting that spells of 'Elemental Grasp' strength (40 magicka cost) represent the breakpoint where 'weakness + fire/frost' spells are equivalent in magnitude & cost to 'fire/frost' on their own. For Fire/Frost damage spells above 40 Magicka cost, consider combining Weakness 100% for 1 sec with Fire/Frost effects for higher damage overall. Just be careful of Reflect! More info on Reflect + Weakness/damage spells in Chapters 8 (Weakness effects), 15.4 and 16.3 respectively.

Power Word: Kill: Weakness to Magicka 100% for 1 sec On Touch, Drain Health 100 pts for 1 sec On Touch (60 Magicka). Executes all ‘not Magicka resistant’ opponents (i.e. ‘not Orcs or Bretons’ in the Base Game), that are 200HP or under. If the spell is Reflected, then not to worry if you yourself are over 200 Health (or have Resist Magicka), as everything is returned to normal after 1 second!

Power Word: Kill is an immensely silly Mid-Game Destruction spell that can be easily complemented with a ‘Power Word: Killing Field’ variant (50ft on Touch), for a mere 67 Magicka. Against opponents with more than 200HP, it is a good idea to ‘soften them up’ first with other spells (good ‘softening spells’ include Lightning Bolt, Arcane Bolt, and Leech Bolt (see below)).

Beyond dealing with opponents around the magic ‘200HP threshold’, Power Word: Kill & Drain Health spells in general begin to lose a lot of value. A significant number of enemies in the Expansions have well over 200HP, and several enemies also have over 40% Reflect (making ‘multi-effect’ spells or ‘weakness chains’ a lot less likely to succeed). In which case, Fire/Frost/Health damage spells dealing damage in the several hundreds (often accompanied with Weakness to Fire/Frost effects, but not always), are a lot more useful, and examples are provided in Chapter 16.3.

In the Base Game however, most opponents are ‘definitely’ within the 200HP threshold. So enjoy this spell while you can!

Remove Nuisance: Fire Damage 15 pts for 3 sec on Touch (15 Magicka). There is a certain ‘creature’ in Morrowind that tends to swarm the player en masse at the worst of times, and it so happens to have ‘exactly’ 45 HP. Use this spell to swat any that come your way, along with any other annoying wildlife.

If you would like to ‘Remove Nuisances’, a 50ft On Touch version costs 21 Magicka. You’re welcome.


Illusion

Ceasefire II (Creature/Humanoid): Calm Creature OR Humanoid (not both, make 2 different spells), 30 pts for 20 sec in 50 ft on Target (49 Magicka). A longer duration version of Ceasefire I, this spell operates as a ‘Mass Daze’ spell, as opponents will remain calm even while being attacked (and you thought Frenzy Humanoid in Morrowind was silly…).

As such, Ceasefire II is quite simply a broken crowd-control spell for its Magicka cost, and is just as effective against packs of Kagouti as it is against packs of Maze Werewolves. It is not surprising in the slightest that Bethesda changed Calm to a levelled effect with a cap of level 25 in Oblivion, when spells like this can exist in Morrowind. But hey, we’re not playing Oblivion are we, so please enjoy this silly spell.

Be aware that this spell will also prevent your Summons from attacking targets if it happens to hit them, and anything summoned ‘after’ this spell takes effect will not attack Calmed targets. Thus, if you wish to combine Calm with Summons, it is better to use…

Clouded Mind (Creature/Human): Calm Creature OR Humanoid, 30 pts for 30 sec on Touch (46 Magicka). A single-target spell that completely debilitates ‘any’ opponent for 30 seconds, regardless of their resistances or level. Including Almalexia. For 46 Magicka.

If an opponent is calmed ‘after’ summoning a horde of monsters, they will continue to attack the target, as it wanders around aimlessly contemplating life (while it lasts, anyway).
Please enjoy this equally silly spell.

Rally the Plebs (Creature/Humanoid): Rally Creature OR Humanoid, 100 pts for 20 sec in 50 ft on Target (31 Magicka). A niche spell, useful for coaxing fleeing opponents or summons into attacking again. Be aware that this does ‘not’ appear to consistently work against opponents fleeing from a Levitating player.

Rout the Plebs (Creature/Humanoid): Demoralise Creature OR Humanoid, 100 pts for 10 sec in 50 ft on Touch (56 Magicka).

Temporarily sends ‘all types of creature/humanoid’ running for the hills within a large radius around the caster. In essence, this spell is ‘Repel Undead I’, but for ‘everybody’, at 5x the cost. Summons that are summoned ‘before’ enemies have been demoralised will chase down fleeing targets.

Be aware that AoE Demoralise Creature spells will also send your Summons running for the hills, making ‘Clouded Mind’ a better crowd control alternative to use against creatures when utilising Summons. Be aware also that Demoralise Humanoid is in fact a Mysticism effect, when it clearly should be an Illusion effect. For simplicity’s sake, this guide lumps these effects & spells together into the Illusion sections.

Chapter 15 (15.3d): The Mid Game (Levels 10+, Base Game only)

Mysticism

Leech Bolt: Absorb Health 15 pts for 4 sec on Target (45 Magicka). A useful single-target spell, best used at short to medium range. Can be used to restore a bit of Health off of a weak enemy, or soften them up for a Power Word: Kill.

Leech Field: Absorb Health 5 pts for 10 secs in 50ft on Touch (32 Magicka). Being swarmed by a large pack of annoying little beasties and bandits? Cast this at an enemy whilst surrounded, then proceed to run around like a headless chicken whilst getting all of your Health back. Deals enough damage (eventually) to knock out most wildlife in the Base Game.

Leech Vortex: Absorb Health 20 pts for 5 sec in 50ft on Touch (58 Magicka). See Leech Field, but with higher power & less duration.


Restoration

Booster Shot: Restore Health 99-100 pts on Self for 2 secs (74 Magicka). Need Health in a hurry? This spell has you covered. It restores around 4x that of Hearth Heal (and obviously Restores Health quicker), but also costs ~6x the Magicka.

Booster Shot II: Restore Fatigue 99-100 pts for 2 sec on Self (14 Magicka). Need Fatigue in a hurry? This spell has you covered. It restores around 8x that of Bottle o’ Water (and obviously restores Fatigue quicker), but costs ~14x the Magicka.


Multi-School

Cripple: Damage Strength 10 pts for 10 sec on Touch, Burden 1pt for 34 secs on Touch (45 Magicka). Guaranteed to stop just about any opponent in their tracks, by lowering their strength from 100 to 0. Bretons, Orcs & other Magicka resistant opponents may require more than 1 iteration of this spell. The 34 second duration ‘Burden’ effect also ensures that creatures that are not carrying any items, are overencumbered by 1lb. Given the high cost of Damage Strength, this will most likely be classed as a Destruction spell.

Leeching Grasp: Weakness to Magicka 100% for 1 second On Touch, Absorb Health 45 pts for 2 seconds On Touch (74 Magicka). A terrific close-quarter combat ‘dueling’ spell that can be chained over and over on the same target, dealing & healing a total of 180HP. Two casts of Leeching Grasp should be enough to defeat any opponent in the Base Game that isn’t a Boss Creature (e.g. Vivec), provided that nothing is Reflected. Given the high cost of Absorb Health, this will most likely be classed as a Mysticism spell.

Chapter 15 (15.4a): The Mid Game (Levels 10+, Base Game only)

This section is designed to build upon section 14.4, which details Magicka Management & Alchemy strategies for the Early Game.

Spellbook Management

Purchasing and creating lots of spells can lead to the conundrum known as ‘a clusterf*ck of a spellbook’. This issue is compounded by the fact that Morrowind only offers 9 quick keys, which limits the amount of spells that can be switched between in the heat of battle, without laboriously accessing the menu each time.

Two things that can be done to help manage this issue, is to delete spells, and to cleverly name spells. Shift clicking a spell in the menu brings up the option to delete it, and if a Base Spell is deleted, it can be purchased again later from the original spell vendor (in the event that deleting it was an accident).

Spells are also listed in alphabetical order, and so the previous/next spell keys (= or - by default, but this can always be changed to say, Z and C) will switch to the previous/next spell in alphabetical order. It is a good idea then to group similar spells together in your spellbook, by giving them similar names, or at least similar ‘first letters’ in their name. The letters ‘AA’ or ‘ZZ’ at the start of spell names can also be used to place desired groups of spells at the very beginning or very end of your spellbook.

Organised spells are easier to find, and also save on quick key space, as both the quick keys and previous/next spell keys can potentially be used to navigate between spells in real time. You will notice that the Custom spell names listed in this guide typically have similar first names & ‘typings’ within brackets … exactly for this reason.

For example, there are 4 ‘Leech’ spells listed in the Mid Game section: Leech Bolt, Leech Field, Leech Vortex, and Leeching Grasp. All are Absorb Health spells of Touch/Target varieties and various magnitudes/durations/areas/costs. To access all 4 in combat, simply assign ‘one’ of them to a quick key, and then navigate up or down the spellbook to the others using previous/next spell keys.

Using this technique, a Mage can effectively have several 10’s of spells within ‘quick key access’, as opposed to just 9. Want to access Summons quickly? Give all your Custom Summon spells the same starting letter (e.g. ‘AA Daedroth 15’), then put your ‘most used’ on the quickbar and navigate up and down from there. Want to jump across large tracts of Vvardenfell? Chuck a ‘Leap of Faith’ on a quick key and navigate up & down if you need extra ‘launch thrust’ or ‘a brake’. Want to switch between damage types in combat? Assign a damage type spell to a quick key (e.g. 1, 2, 3 for Fire/Frost/Health damage), and then use the previous/next spell keys to navigate to similar damage spells.

It takes a bit of practice to get used to, but it makes mage combat a ‘lot’ more fluid.

For those who'd like to further improve their spellbook and also like using mods, this mod can help:
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/46071

An organised mage is a happy mage!


Constant Effect Items

Whilst a Mage in the Early Game can get by with little more than some potions and a Robe, it helps to start thinking about other items in the Mid Game. In particular, Golden Saints will begin appearing in Daedric ruins and certain Ancestral tombs around level 20, which means that for those with the coin and/or a ‘Crafter’s Charm’ spell or similar, it’s time to consider Constant Effect items.

To create an item yourself (as opposed to paying an arm and a leg at an Enchanter), simply fortify your Enchant skill to silly levels (see Crafter’s Charm spell in 14.3), and then go nuts! A full breakdown of Enchanting, including Cast On Used/On Strike items and Enchanting values/item slots/useful effects, can be found in section 16.3.

For all effects that are not ‘Restore X’, Constant Effect enchantments remain static with the value assigned to them when equipped … which means that the most efficient ‘non restoring’ Constant Effect items, have a ranging magnitude from 1 to X, and can be re-equipped until they provide a favourable magnitude (with ‘X-1’ being the highest possible value).

Enchanting, much like Alchemy, can very easily break the power curve of the game. For those wanting to restrain themselves in the Mid Game, there is one type of Constant Effect item that drastically improves quality of life without being ‘too’ powerful: A Constant Effect Night Eye + Restore Fatigue Belt. Constant Effect Night Eye 1-20 pts (re-equipped until 19 Night Eye is reached) plus Restore Fatigue 4-4 points (Restore effects are reapplied every second making a range less useful), requires a total of 40 Enchant points, i.e. enough to fit onto an Exquisite Belt.

This belt can be worn by beast races (in the event that your Pure Mage is Argonian or Khajiit), and ensures that Fatigue remains topped up even while running or jumping, whilst granting enhanced vision in all but the darkest environments. This item (or something similar) should ‘definitely’ be your first custom made Constant Effect item, and this guide highly recommends that you utilise it in the Mid Game.

Chapter 15 (15.4b): The Mid Game (Levels 10+, Base Game only)

In addition to ‘The Belt’, there are a number of Constant Effect Enchanted Artifacts in the Base Game that are useful to Mages. Typically they enhance magical abilities or provide magical resistance, and some of them are useful right up until the end of the Expansions. These include:

Mentor’s Ring: Fortify 10 Intelligence + 10 Willpower. Already mentioned in 15.4 but worth mentioning again here. Easy to acquire in the Early Game and quite useful before more powerful Enchantments are available.

Necromancer’s Amulet: Fortify 25 Intelligence, Restore Health 1pt, Spell Absorption 25pts, Resist Normal Weapons 25%. Worn by Archmage Trebonius, and acquired legally by defeating him in a duel to become Archmage of the Mages Guild. Can also be acquired at any time by taunting him or via ‘Ya Mum’, though be aware that this might stuff up the Mages Guild questline.

Denstagmer’s Ring: Resist Fire/Frost/Shock 30%. Found in Falas Ancestral Tomb just SE of Gnisis down the river.

Ring of Phynaster: Resist Poison/Shock/Magicka 20%. Found in Senim Ancestral Tomb SE of Dagon Fel (and south of Sorkvilde’s/Vacant Tower).

Redas Robe of Deeds: Feather 50pts, Detect Animal 25pft. Found in the Redas Ancestral Tomb just SE of Molar Mar. The Redas Robe reduces the carry weight of its user, and makes it possible to operate with effectively ‘0 encumbrance’, which greatly increases manoeuvrability.

Mara’s Blouse (Shirt): Resist Magicka 10%. Gifted to the player by a stranded pilgrim (related to an Imperial Cult quest) in the upper reaches of lower Berandus (South of Gnisis), in exchange for a Divine Intervention scroll.

Cuirass of the Saviour’s Hide: Resist Magicka 60%. Found in a 100 Lock cabinet on the top floor of Tel Fyr.

Ebony Mail (Cuirass): Resist Fire 75%, Resist Magicka 20%, Shield 50 pts. Reward for becoming Archcanon of the Tribunal Temple from the shrine of Mt Assarnibibi, and arguably the best Cuirass in the game (and thus an incentive to train in Medium Armour!).

Dragonbone Cuirass: Resist Fire 100%. A lot heavier than Ebony Mail (50lbs as opposed to 20lbs), this is found in Mudan Grotto SW of Ebonheart.

Daedric Greaves: Feather 50pts. This item/quest is only available to those with the rank of Mouth in House Telvanni, and is a reward for ‘obtaining’ Auriel’s Bow off of Ralyn Othravel, for the clinically insane Mistress Therana. Provides Daedric-level thigh protection for only 4lbs of net weight, in an item slot with typically low Enchant values.

Wraithguard (Right Gauntlet): Shield 10 pts, Reflect 20%, Resist Fire/Frost/Shock/Poison/Magicka 10%. Obtained from Vivec as a final part of the Main Quest. A ‘left handed’ version can also be found via a ‘backdoor method’ involving the murder of Vivec, though be warned that this version is bugged in unpatched games.

Azura’s Star: An invulnerable Soul Gem capable of holding any Soul, rewarded for the Shrine of Azura quest (Shrine is directly east of Molag Mar on the coast, ‘hut’ is on an island NW of Dagon Fel). Combined with restocking Summon Golden Saint scrolls (Folms Mirel, Caldera Mages Guild) or summoned Golden Saints from spells, Azura’s Star ensures that it is always possible to capture and use a Grand Soul for immediate enchanting purposes. It’s also capable of holding the Souls of ‘Tribunal Gods’, should you choose to endorse Cast When Used or Cast On Strike items (see Chapter 16.4 & 16.5 for more on Enchanting).


You will notice that the above list does not include the Boots of Blinding Speed. This is because I don’t like them; they render the game’s movement mechanics & related skills/attributes virtually moot, and are a crutch for lazy braindead players (he says while endorsing Alchemy business ventures & training services). Low encumbrance combined with Acrobatics/Jump is miles more fun anyway.

Want to use them? Go find them yourself.

Chapter 15 (15.4c): The Mid Game (Levels 10+, Base Game only)

Finally, there is Reflect.

Permanent Reflect is a feature unique to Morrowind, and a feature largely removed from later Elder Scrolls games for obvious reasons; it is a deterrent to using powerful offensive spells, which sucks if you’re a Pure Mage. Even with 100% Reflect (possible with Royal Signet Ring, see 16.4), players are ‘still’ vulnerable to being damaged via their own Reflected spells, as spells can only Reflect once (i.e. off of opponents and back onto the player).

Many enemies and NPC’s in Morrowind come with Permanent Reflect, including: Atronachs, Dremora, Golden Saints, Winged Twilights, Dwarven Spectres, Ash Ghouls, Ash Slaves, Advanced Steam Centurions, Hands of Almalexia, Royal King’s Guards, Gaenor, King Helseth, Riekling Raiders, Karstaag, and all Aspects of Hircine.

The Base Game enemies listed above typically have 20% permanent Reflect, increasing all the way to 40-60% for various Expansion enemies/NPC’s, 60-100% for Gaenor, and 100% for Helseth. Even 20% is problematic for spellcasters, as there is still a small chance that a group of spells are reflected one after the other, wasting Magicka (which is already annoying to manage) and damaging the caster.

For e.g. a Dremora has a 1/125 chance of reflecting 3 spells in a row. If these 3 spells are ‘Elemental Grasp (Fire)’, that Dremora has now reflected 108x3 = 324 damage, or 486 damage if the caster is a High Elf. Randomness is clumpy, and given enough time, something like the above will happen to a Mage and inevitably ruin their day, especially if they haven’t saved the game for a while.

A Pure Mage ‘must’ therefore have some countermeasures for dealing with Reflect. Aside from ‘avoiding confrontation’ (which can be done without compromising quest completion in ‘most’ cases), here are some suggestions for dealing with perma-Reflect enemies:

1. Use physical weapons. The ‘Captain Obvious’ answer (just hit them, doofus…) but nonetheless worth mentioning. For best results, combine with Sujamma (see 4.4). This is one of two options for killing Helseth, who is effectively immune to offensive magic via 100% Reflection.

2. Use Summons to kill them. Less reliable than direct damage spells, but also safer. Melee Summons (Clannfear, Dremora, Golden Saint, Winged Twilight) are preferable to spellcasting summons (Atronachs, Daedroth, Hunger) for obvious reasons. This is one of two options for killing Helseth, who is effectively immune to offensive magic via 100% Reflection.

3. Use Calm/Demoralise spells. Technically these spells can be reflected, but will not affect the caster in any way, and so can be safely combined with physical weapons and/or summons.

4. Increase your own resistances to various damage types (Fire/Frost/Magicka being the key 3). If you wish to retain ‘offensive spellcasting’ capability as a Pure Mage, then this is the most reliable option, but also the trickiest as it requires obtaining items that boost resistances.

5. Use offensive spells with a single effect vs opponents with High Magnitude Reflect, rather than spells including weakness effects. E.g. An Advanced Steam Centurion with 60% Reflect, has a 60% chance of reflecting a single effect spell, but an 84% chance of reflecting ‘one component’ from a weakness + damage spell (which either severely reduces damage dealt or blocks all damage completely).

If a resistance is boosted to 100%, this acts as a Magic Immunity. This will completely mitigate any damage (or any ‘negative effect’ in the case of Resist Magicka) that is reflected back at the caster, and opponents will also refrain from casting spells of these types at you.

Here are some ways of obtaining ‘immunities’ via certain item/race combinations and items found in the Base Game. Sets including Custom Resist items can be found in Chapters 16.5 and 16.6:

100% Resist Fire: Ebony Mail + Denstagmer’s Ring, or Dark Elf + either of these artifacts. High Elves with Dragonbone Cuirass + Denstagmer’s + Wraithguard can achieve 140-50 = 90% Resistance to Fire.

100% Resist Frost: Not possible with only Base Game items, highest is 40% from Denstagmer’s Ring + Wraithguard. Nords start with Frost Immunity, whilst High Elves have a 25% Weakness to Frost (resulting in maximum of 15% Resistance to Frost from Base Game items alone).

100% Resist Shock: Denstagmer’s Ring + Phynaster Ring + Nord. Non-nords with Rings + Wraithguard can achieve 60% Resistance to Shock with Base Game items alone, whilst High Elves can only achieve 35% Resistance to Shock.

100% Resist Poison: Phynaster Ring + Wraithguard + Redguard. Argonians start with Poison immunity. Non Redguards/Argonians with Ring + Wraithguard can achieve 30% Resistance to Poison.

100% Resist Magicka:

Bretons: Cuirass of Saviour’s Hide, or Ebony Mail + Phynaster Ring + Mara’s Blouse or Wraithguard.

Orcs: Cuirass of Saviour’s Hide + Phynaster Ring. Ebony Mail + Phynaster + Blouse + Wraithguard yields 85% Magicka Resistance. It’s worth noting that an Orc with 100% Resistance to Magicka, completely resists the Drain Agility effect from the Berserk Power.

All other races besides Altmer: Cuirass of Saviour’s Hide + Phynaster + Blouse + Wraithguard. Replacing Saviour’s Hide with Ebony Mail gives 60% Magicka Resistance. The maximum that High Elves can Resist Magicka using Base Game items alone is 50% with Cuirass of the Saviour’s Hide, 10% with Ebony Mail, and 10% Weakness with Dragonbone Cuirass.

In a nutshell: Bretons, Orcs, Dark Elves & Nords have an easier time dealing with Reflect thanks to their natural resistances (Poison damage is nigh useless to use yourself, sorry Redguards & Argonians). Meanwhile for High Elves, it is extremely difficult to come up with the resistances necessary to be safe from Reflected spells (besides Fire Damage), so it’s better to use methods 1-3 from the above list when dealing with Reflect (2 & 3 involving spellcasting only).

Chapter 16 (16.1-16.2): The Late Game (Tribunal & Bloodmoon)

Assuming that the progressions outlined in this guide have been followed, the most difficult content i.e. ‘The Expansions’ have been left until last. Here you will find the most challenging opponents in the game; High HP, Elemental/Magicka Resistance & perma-Reflect are abound, meaning that only the most dedicated Mages are capable of casting the calibre of spells necessary to maintain spellcasting’s validity in the Late game (as opposed to defaulting to ‘Whacky Sticks’ and Cast When Used items, which are ‘far’ easier options in Morrowind).

But fear not, dear reader! For the rewards attainable at the limits of spellcasting in Morrowind are many. It just might take a bit of training and a boatload of Restore Magicka potions to get there.

Baseline Spellcasting Chance: An example Mage character with 100 Willpower, 50 Luck, and 100 Spellcasting skill (typical attribute/skill levels for an ‘Elite’ mage) can cast a ‘145 Magicka’ spell with 100% success rate at Full Fatigue {(100*2 + 100/5 + 50/10 – 145) = 80*1.25 = 100% chance}, and can cast a ‘150 Magicka’ spell at 100% with 100 Base Luck. To cast spells beyond 145-150 Magicka at 100% chance therefore requires Fortify skill spells and/or items.

16.1 Useful Spell Purchases & Introduction to Prep Spells

By this point, assuming that all spells from Chapters 14 & 15 have been purchased, any remaining spell purchases should be to learn effects for Custom Spellmaking.

All Spell Effects listed in Chapters 6 to 11, contain details of merchants that sell these effects. The majority of the remaining effects are arguably pretty useless, but there are some that are particularly effective at very high magnitudes in the Late Game. These are:

Blind: Sadrith Mora Mages Guild (Arielle Phiencel).
Fortify Magicka: Balmora Temple (Llathyno Hlaalu).
Spell Absorption: Balmora Mages Guild (Masalinie Merien).
Fortify Skill (assuming that this hasn’t already been purchased): Laurina Maria or Crito Olcinius (Royal Palace’s Imperial Cult Services, Mournhold).

Fortify Skill in particular is crucial for not only enabling the creation of top tier crafted Enchanted Items & Potions (see 14.3), but also ensuring that 150+ Magicka spells can be cast at 100% success rate. Fortifying a spellcasting skill by 100 points allows a spell that costs ‘200 Magicka above the character’s current 100% threshold’ to be cast, meaning that for any extremely expensive Custom spells, it is a good idea to accompany them with ‘Prep’ spells.

Prep Spells are essentially short duration spells that briefly fortify a spellcasting skill by 100-800 points for 3+ sec, allowing for a high power spell (or series of spells) to be cast after that. Prep Spells are of the Restoration school (being Fortify skill spells) and ideally should cost as little as possible in order to achieve a desired spellcast (or series of spellcasts).

Prep Spell Sequence Example: Fortify Conjuration 100 pts ‘prep spell’, followed by ‘Summon Dremora + Clannfear + Winged Twilight + Golden Saint all for 30 sec’. The ‘multi summon’ spell costs 247 Magicka, requiring over 100 Conjuration to achieve 100% casting chance. Hence the prep spell!

Recommended Prep spells & accompanying high level Custom spells are outlined in 16.3.

16.2 Master Trainers

Late Game Custom spells typically require skill levels approaching 100 in order to be cast consistently, which means that it might be a good idea to patch up any ‘skill deficiencies’ with some visits to Master Trainers.

If you feel guilty bypassing hours of magic skill practice though adventuring/casting thousands of practice spells, then you can of course ignore the list of trainers below. I’d personally just visit them and at least train all magic skills into the 90’s; you made it this far, you deserve it.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Master_Trainers
Above contains the entire list of Master trainers. The 6 spellcasting trainers are listed below:

Alteration Master Trainer: Seryne Relas, Tel Branora. Found in her house just east of the main tower.

Conjuration Master Trainer: Methal Seran, Ald’ruhn Temple downstairs. Requires Adept rank (40 skill) in the Tribunal Temple faction to purchase services.

Destruction Master Trainer: Leles Birian. Found wandering around just east of Piernette’s Farmhouse, which is directly north from the Vivec Arena Canton & directly southwest from the Suran siltstrider. Tends to wander around a bit during training sessions.

Illusion Master Trainer: Erer Darothril, Sadrith Mora Dirty Muriel’s Cornerclub. Not only does Erer sell a large collection of decent spells, he’s also the Master Illusion trainer. What a great bloke.

Mysticism Master Trainer: Ardarume, Sadrith Mora Gateway Inn West Wing. The West Wing is accessible from the North Wing.

Restoration Master Trainer: Yakin Bael, Vos Chapel. Possibly the most annoying trainer in the game, Yakin has a tendency to wander around the entire chapel in between sessions, including through the locked door downstairs. Do yourself a favour and unlock the door before beginning any training.

Chapter 16 (16.3a): The Late Game (Tribunal & Bloodmoon)

16.3 Late Game Custom Spells

Spells listed in Chapter 14 & 15 can of course be used in the Late Game; the spells listed below additionally assume the following:

- Skill levels in the appropriate magic school are close to 100, and that Restoration skill is sufficient to cast accompanying ‘Prep Spells’ where necessary.

- High quality Restore Magicka potions are available to replenish any spell costs. For reference: Custom Restore Magicka potions made with a Grandmaster Set, 100 Base Intelligence, 85 Base Luck, and 900 Alchemy skill (100 base + 800 fortified via Crafter’s Brew), Restore 96 Magicka/sec for 280 seconds (magnitude/duration will fluctuate a few points for the reader, depending on Luck). Given that casting a spell takes around 2 seconds, that’s around 192 Magicka being restored in between spell casts, which should be more than enough to chain several expensive Custom spells together with 1 potion active.

- The total Magicka available to cast spells ‘without’ any buffing from Prep spells or potions, is about 400-500 Magicka. This is obtainable with around 140-150 Intelligence (Necromancers Amulet + ‘one other decent Int item’) and 2.0x Int Magicka fortification (Breton Apprentice, High Elf Mage, Atronach of any other race), or alternatively by wearing the Mantle of Woe as any character. More on Enchanted Item Sets can be found in Chapters 16.4 - 16.6.


Alteration

There are arguably no Alteration effects that provide any unique usefulness by being converted into high level Custom spells beyond 150 Magicka. Useful Alteration effects with variable magnitudes (e.g Jump, Open Lock) tend to cap out around 100 pts, and rarely require long durations (if any duration at all). The most promising candidate is Shield, though as a high cost Shield spell itself requires high Restoration skill for a prep spell, it makes more sense to instead opt for a Fortify Armour Skill spell of double the magnitude for the same cost (Base Cost 1 for Fortify Skill vs Base Cost 2 for Shield).

As a hypothetical anyway, here’s a ‘high level shield’ spell example:

Tenth Barrier Prep. Fortify Alteration 300 pts for 3 sec + Fortify Intelligence 100 pts for 3 sec (80 Magicka), into:
Tenth Barrier: Shield 100 pts for 60 seconds (610 Magicka). 100 bonus Armour rating for 60 seconds, which again, can more easily be achieved with Fortify Heavy/Light/Medium Armour 100 pts + Unarmoured 100 pts for 60 seconds (depending on equipment makeup). The prep spell contains a ‘Fortify 100 intelligence’ boost in addition to 300 Alteration, to temporarily boost Magicka above the 610 required.


Conjuration

Defector Prep. Fortify Conjuration 100 pts for 9 sec (50 Magicka), into:
Defector III: Command Creature/Humanoid 70 pts for 3 sec (210 Magicka). 70 Levels of Command Creature is enough to defect pretty much any creature or humanoid in the game. Maze Werewolves included.

Goon Squad Prep. Fortify Conjuration 100 pts for 9 sec, Fortify Magicka 100pts for 9 sec, Fortify Intelligence 90 pts for 9 sec (145 Magicka) into:

Goon Squad 1-4: Summon Dremora + Winged Twilight + Golden Saint for 45 seconds (313 Magicka).

In Morrowind, summons individually do not compete with enemies found in the expansions … but you can call forth LOTS of summons, so long as you have the Magicka. 


The idea behind the ‘Goon Squad’ spells is simply: Fortify Conjuration above 100 for ‘4 spell casts’, and then summon up to 12 melee summons (the best type of summon to conjure in groups as they don’t hit/kill each other with friendly fire). For the lazy ‘Elite mage’, combine with ‘Clouded Mind II’ or ‘The Goggles Do Nothing’ (see below).

Longer duration ‘Goon Squads’ are also possible, though these will most likely require prep spells that Fortify Conjuration even further, and also might require the caster to have more than one ‘900 Alchemy Restore Magicka potion’ active, to ensure that Magicka regeneration keeps up with the demands of casting 4 expensive summon spells in a row.

Go have fun conjurers, and don’t lag out!


Destruction

The ‘God’s spells’ are named appropriately to complement the ‘God’s Fire’ and ‘God’s Frost’ spells, which are powerful On Target Base Destruction spells. For more info see 15.3.

God’s Blizzard: Weakness to Frost 100% for 1 second in 50 ft on Touch, Frost Damage 60 pts for 5 sec in 50ft on Touch (118 Magicka). An example of how powerful weakness + damage combinations can be, and an illustration of why such a combination is preferable to using Drain Health against tough opponents in the Late Game. God’s Blizzard deals a total of 600 damage to ‘not Frost resistant’ targets over 5 seconds, which is not so useful in Bloodmoon (where a lot of creatures/humans are immune to Frost), but terrific against a lot of Tribunal opponents.

God’s Infernal Grasp: Fire Damage 100 pts for 3 sec on Touch (100 Magicka). The Late Game cousin to 'Elemental Grasp (Fire)', dealing massive damage to a single target in a short time. This spell is quite useful during the Bloodmoon Main Quest missions, as it is less likely to accidentally hit & kill any 'allies' (compared with other Custom Spells with large Aoe's attached, which will 'definitely' hit and kill allies). With plenty of Restore Magicka potions + high Spell Absorption or Reflect, this spell is also capable of taking out a 'HP glitched' Gedna Relvel (given enough time, that is).

God’s Inferno: Fire Damage 60 pts for 8 sec in 50ft on Touch (141 Magicka). A Fire damage equivalent of ‘God’s Blizzard’ without the weakness component, that is ‘slightly’ weaker but also more effective at hitting creatures with Reflect (e.g. Riekling Raiders), and so should be used alongside Resist Fire equipment (see Chapter 15.4). God’s Inferno deals a total of 480 damage to ‘not Fire resistant’ targets, which is not so useful in Tribunal (where a lot of creatures/humans are resistant or immune to Fire), but terrific against a lot of Bloodmoon opponents.

God’s Wither: Damage Strength 10 pts for 20 sec in 50ft on Target (141 Magicka). Stops a small army in their tracks from a distance & significantly neuters their melee attacks with 200 progressive Strength damage. After which you can throw leaf litter in their face from 6ft away and call them silly names. You’ll want 100% Resist Magicka before shooting this at anything with Reflect.

God’s Wither II: Damage Agility 10 pts for 20 sec in 50ft on Target (141 Magicka). Lowers a small army’s hit chance by a significant amount from a distance & makes them incredibly easy to stagger with 200 progressive Agility damage. For best results, combine with God’s Wither. You’ll want 100% Resist Magicka before shooting this at anything with Reflect.

God’s Cleansing Prep. Fortify Intelligence 300 pts for 3 sec, Fortify Destruction 300 pts for 3 sec (120 Magicka), into:
God’s Cleansing Palm: Damage Health 100 pts for 11 sec on Touch (480 Magicka). A single target, 1100 damage nuke. Save this for boss fights, or Advanced Steam Centurions (the magic resistant bastards…). You’ll want 100% Resist Magicka before shooting this at anything with Reflect.
God’s Cleansing Void: Damage Health 100 pts for 11 sec in 50 ft on Target (735 Magicka). See above, but now with added range, and a giant area. You’ll ‘definitely’ want 100% Resist Magicka before shooting this at groups of enemies with Reflect.

Chapter 16 (16.3b): The Late Game (Tribunal & Bloodmoon)

Illusion

Clouded Mind II (Creature/Human): Calm Creature OR Humanoid, 30 pts for 60 sec on Touch (91 Magicka). See Clouded Mind I, now for 60 seconds.
To combine with ‘Goon Squads’, summon them first, and ‘then’ use Clouded Mind II. After that, kick your feet up for a bit. Go grab a drink. Get some fresh air. Just come back before the Calm wears off & your cockyness gets punished if your minions haven’t finished the job.

Mephala’s Deceit: Chameleon 50% for 57 sec (145 Magicka). Combine this spell with ‘Mephala’s Skill’, in the event that you have completed the Thread of the Webspinner quest, for a total 100% Chameleon effect. Otherwise, you can create a ‘Mephala’s Deceit II’ spell of exactly the same magnitude/duration to complement it.

100% Chameleon is super dumb. If you feel like being completely undetectable for around a minute, all it takes is 2 spell casts & no prep spells required. Enjoy.

The Goggles Do Nothing Prep. Fortify Illusion 100pts for 15 sec (80 Magicka), into:
The Goggles Do Nothing 1-3: Blind 100% for 67 sec in 50ft on Touch (341 Magicka). Want to completely neuter all melee opponents? Here’s a collection of spells that will do just that. Blind is subject to Resist Magicka, and three casts totalling 300% (or 150% vs Bretons & Almalexia) is sufficient to reduce the hit chance of pretty much any melee opponent in the game to 0. Hands of Almalexia included.

100% Blinded opponents can still cast spells, and will more than likely continue trying to fight you rather than run away, contrary to UESP reports. So after you’re done blinding an opponent and you’re confident that the enemy has exhausted their Magicka, summon a few Goon Squads, and then … kick your feet up for a bit. Again.


Mysticism


Leeching Grasp II: Weakness to Magicka 100% for 1 sec in 50ft on Touch, Absorb Health 28 pts for 9 sec in 50ft on Touch (144 Magicka). ‘Technically’ this is a multi school spell, but by this stage of the game, Destruction skill should be sufficiently high such that this spell will be classed as Mysticism. This little beauty absorbs a total of 504 Health in a 50ft radius, and doesn’t even require a prep spell with around 100 Mysticism skill.

Isn’t Absorb Health fun.


Restoration

Whilst technically all of the ‘Prep spells’ mentioned so far are ‘Late Game Restoration spells’, they have been included alongside their accompanying spells for easier reading.

Back in the Alteration section, it was mentioned that a ‘Prep + Fortify Armour skill 200 pts’ skill spell will outclass a 100 pts Shield spell of the same cost. Well, it gets better, because you can just as easily cast a Fortify Armour skill ‘300 pts’ spell (as opposed to 200 pts) for the same duration.

Skirmisher’s Warden Prep. Fortify Restoration 400 pts for 3 sec, Fortify Intelligence 300 pts for 3 sec (140 Magicka), into:
Skirmisher’s Warden: Fortify ‘Armour Skills’ 300 pts for 60 seconds (915 Magicka). These 3 armour skills could all be the same type of armour (e.g. 100x3 Heavy Armour), or all different types of armour (e.g. 100 Heavy/Medium/Unarmoured), depending on the equipment that you’re wearing. Either way, you should be able to boost your armour rating significantly with this spell, much more so than 100 pts Shield.

For reference: To block the maximum amount from a 100 damage hit (rarely exceeded even in the expansions) requires an armour rating of 300 (i.e. 3x the damage), and to block the maximum damage per hit from Karstaag (from 80 up to 125 x 1.5 from 100 strength = 187.5 max damage) requires an armour rating of 187.5 x 3 = 563 rounded up. Ergo, there’s basically no point going for an armour rating above 563. Unless you can coax Vivec into punching you.


Multi-School

Lastly, here are some truly ridiculous spells that push the limits of what can be achieved via spellcasting, without resorting to Alchemy feedback loops.

The following two spell groups are essentially proofs of concept, and whilst they are certainly powerful, they’re primarily included as an educational tool for those wishing to experiment. Given their extreme cost, they require multiple prep spells simply to cast them.

First, we have Event Horizon.

Event Horizon Prep 1. Fortify Magicka 100 pts for 7 sec, Fortify Restoration 100 pts for 7 sec (80 Magicka), into:
Event Horizon Prep 2. Fortify Magicka 100 pts for 5 sec, Fortify Intelligence 600 pts for 5 sec (210 Magicka), into:
Event Horizon Prep 3. Fortify Mysticism 800 pts for 3 sec (160 Magicka), into:
Event Horizon: Spell Absorption 100% for 33 seconds (1700 Magicka).

And there you have it. 100% Spell Absorption, i.e. ‘the buff that Ring of Equity grants you’, in spell form, for about 30 seconds. A similar spell can be created for 100% Reflect, though it should be noted that 100% Reflect is obtainable permanently via the Royal Signet Ring (see Chapter 16.5).


Second, we have Chim Dodge Reflexes.

Chim Dodge Reflexes Prep 1. Fortify Magicka 100 pts for 7 sec, Fortify Restoration 200 pts for 7 sec (120 Magicka), into:
Chim Dodge Reflexes Prep 2. Fortify Restoration 500 pts for 5 sec, Fortify Illusion 300 pts for 5 sec (240 Magicka), into:
Chim Dodge Reflexes Prep 3. Fortify Illusion 400 pts for 3 sec, Fortify Intelligence 400 pts for 3 sec (160 Magicka), into:
Chim Dodge Reflexes: Sanctuary 100 pts for 42 sec, Fortify Agility 600 pts for 42 sec (1505 Magicka).

A 1505 Magicka cost spell, containing effects from two different spell schools, requiring Fortify Restoration AND Illusion 700 pts in order to be cast successfully.

The reward: An evasion increase of 220% for 42 seconds and a hit chance increase of 120%, which ‘should’ be enough to consistently hit personal melee attacks whilst evading ‘all’ enemy melee attacks, including those from the Hands of Almalexia and Gaenor (assuming a Base 100 Agility to begin with, bumping it up by +600 to 700 Agility).

500 Bonus Agility apparently isn’t enough to evade the Hands. 



SCIENCE.

Chapter 16 (16.4): The Late Game (Tribunal & Bloodmoon)

The spells outlined in 16.3 include a variety of deity-tier methods of dealing with tough opponents in the Expansions. Here is a quick summary of them:

1. Nuke them with damage, i.e. the ‘Leech’ and ‘God’s X’ spells.
2. Damage their Strength and/or Agility to 0, i.e. ‘God’s Wither’.
3. Summon an army of minions to fight for you, i.e. ‘Goon Squad X’ spells.
4. Defect individuals to your side to temporarily fight for you, i.e. ‘Defector III’.
5. Calm them whilst they wander around aimlessly, i.e. ‘Clouded Mind/Ceasefire’. To combine with ‘Good Squads’, summon them first.
6. Blind opponents up to 300% (because ‘100%’ isn’t enough for some people), and then enjoy the airswing circus. To combine with ‘Good Squads’, summon them last.
7. Spell Defense: If you’re up to the challenge, the Event Horizon spell (100% Spell Absorption).
8. Physical Defense: Fortify Armour skill (and ‘maybe’ Shield), or if you’re up to the challenge, the Chim Dodge Reflexes spell (100 Sanctuary + 600 Agility).
9. 100% Chameleon. Because given the list above, why not?

Lucky last in the guide, let’s talk about Enchanting properly.

There are three different types of Enchanted items in Morrowind: Constant Effect, Cast On Strike, and Cast When Used.

Constant Effect items have already been somewhat covered in section 15.4, and are fairly self explanatory: They have an effect that is Constant, and require a Soul of 400 charge or above to make (in other words Golden Saints, Ascended Sleepers, or ‘Tribunal Gods’).

Cast On Strike items operate similar to Cast When Used items (explained below), only they are exclusive to weapons, and activate when a weapon strikes an opponent.

Cast When Used items are exclusive to Morrowind, and can be used to cast On Touch or On Target spells, which depletes their charge. This charge depends on the Soul Gem used to create them, and unlike Magicka, will slowly regenerate over time, at a rate of around 3 charge points per minute. Mmmm.

From a quality of life perspective, Cast When Used items are superior to spellcasting, and render it nigh obsolete given enough items. They require absolutely no skill training to use, hence why this guide so far has ignored them or treated them with contempt. =)

That said, having high Enchant skill ‘does’ lower the cost to use Cast When Used and Cast On Strike items, and so training in Enchant skill can be a good idea (the skill itself is horribly slow to level; do yourself a favour and buy the damn training). Ajira trains Enchant to 48, and the Master Enchant trainer (Qorwynn from Indoranyon) is normally hostile, requiring a Calm spell/item (and optionally, Intimidate to lower Fight rating permanently) in order to receive training from. At 110 Enchant skill, all Cast When Used & On Strike items, no matter how powerful, use only 1 charge per cast.

If you wish to create your own Cast When Used items to supplement, or outright replace, spellcasting, by all means go ahead. As for powerful Cast When Used items that can be found in game, here’s a collection of the better ones. Most (but not all) are only available (or at least more easily available) via ascending the ranks of House Telvanni:

Ring of Fire Storm: Fire Damage 1-50 pts for 10 sec in 20ft on Touch (approx 5 uses). Can be found as rare random loot in Bandit Caves, and is also a reward for completing the Slave Rebellion quest for Therana’s Mouth in House Telvanni … provided that you kill the Slave Leader, Elledal-Lei, and not set him free. This quest essentially presents a moral dilemma: free the slaves, or murder them in cold blood in return for shiny objects (for that is the Telvanni way!). This item can potentially be obtained at level 1, and it is rather silly. Just be aware that it can also be Reflected.

Ring of Toxic Cloud: Poison Damage 2-60 pts for 10 sec in 20ft on Touch (approx 5 uses). Can be found as rare random loot in Bandit Caves, and is also a reward for completing the Slave Rebellion quest for Therana’s Mouth in House Telvanni … provided that you kill ALL the slaves. This item can potentially be obtained at level 1, and it is even more silly than Ring of Fire Storm; it can kill Golden Saints & Gaenor in 1-2 shots. Just be aware that it can also be Reflected.

Vampiric Ring: Absorb Health & Fatigue 20-30 pts for 10 sec On Touch (approx 2 uses). Found on the Skeleton War Wizard at the top of Ald Redaynia in the Sheogorad region, next to the Bittercup. Another silly item, though unlike Fire Storm & Toxic Cloud rings, it only holds enough charge for 2 uses at low Enchant skill (as opposed to 5).

Amulet of Admonition: Paralyse 30 sec on Target, Frost Damage 1-2 pts for 30 sec on Target (approx 5 uses). This item is a reward for completing the ‘find me 3 books’ quest for Baladas Demnevanni of House Telvanni. It holds the longest duration Paralysis enchantment in the game.

Amulet of Shadows + Ring of Surroundings: Chameleon 80% for 60 seconds (Amulet, found SW of Ald Velothi after finding the ‘lost ring’ for Synette Jeline), and Chameleon 20-30% for 30 seconds (Ring, reward either for Larrius Varro’s quest at Fort Moonmoth, or within a locked chest in the Tower Shack at the Dren Plantation). Taken together, these 2 items provide 100% Chameleon via Cast When Used items. Which is obviously very silly.

Aryon’s Dominator: Command Creature 15 pts for 120 sec on Target, Command Humanoid 15 pts for 120 sec on Touch (approx 2 uses). A reward for completing the Mages Guild Monopoly quest for Master Aryon of House Telvanni. Can be used to ‘escort’ various creatures and NPC’s overland (such as, say, the Mudcrab Merchant to Tel Uvirith), though with only 2 uses at low Enchant skill, it might be a good idea to Fortify Enchant skill before casting any spells with the item.

Aryon’s Helper: Summon Flame Atronach for 120 sec, Summon Frost Atronach for 90 sec, Summon Storm Atronach for 60 sec (approx 5 uses). A reward for completing the ‘Recruit a Mouth’ quest for Master Aryon of House Telvanni. Summoning 3 Atronachs at the same time is rather effective … but also has its’ flaws, as all 3 Atronachs will most likely hit each other with their spells whilst fighting at close range. 



Speaking of Mouths…

Ring of Equity: Spell Absorption 100% for 30 seconds, Reflect 70% for 30 sec (approx 2 uses). The Reflect component is ignored, as the 100% Spell Absorption component overrides it. This is a reward for the ‘Ring of Equity’ quest for Fast Eddie, your personal Mouth within House Telvanni. It only has 2 uses and uses a stupendous amount of charge, so it might be a good idea to Fortify Enchant skill before using the item.

And finally, some example high-level Base Game Cast On Strike items:

Black Hands Dagger: Absorb Health 10-25 pts for 30 sec On Strike, Blind 10-50% for 30 sec On Strike (approx. 10 uses). Reward for executing Severia Magia for Eno Hlaalu, Grandmaster of the Morag Tong. No other On Strike enchantment in the game comes close in terms of ‘total damage output per strike’, though it is of course possible to create your own On Strike Enchantments that deal more ‘damage output per second’ (over multiple strikes, see 16.6 for more info).

Mace of Molag Bal: Absorb Strength 1-15 pts for 30 sec On Strike, Absorb Magicka 1-20pts for 30 sec On Strike (approx. 10 uses). Reward for killing Menta Na in the cave of Kora Dur (east of Kogoruhn), as a favour for the Daedric prince Molag Bal (Daedric Shrine quest from Yansirramus, east of Tel Aruhn). A 45lb lump of metal that deals ‘reasonable’ damage … but whose main selling point is that it Absorbs ~300 Magicka over 30 seconds per strike. This makes it a great complimentary weapon for any mage proficient in Blunt Weapon, who can simply love-tap an opponent once with the Mace, and then proceed to kill them with the Mace and/or ‘their own Magicka reserves’.

Chapter 16 (16.5a): The Late Game (Tribunal & Bloodmoon)

The Expansions ramp up enemy difficulty & item quality to another level, and it is a good idea to make use of Azura’s Star + Golden Saint souls, to Constant Effect enchant as many items as possible (high quality Base Game Enchanted Items are covered in 15.4). Before getting into that: there are two magical artifacts that are of great use to Mages, one from each Expansion.

Royal Signet Ring: Reflect 100%, Resist Magicka 100%, Resist Paralysis 100%, Restore Health/Fatigue 10 points. Found on King Hlaalu Helseth in the Mournhold Royal Palace, who is essential for part of the Main Quest (and so best left alive until after ‘The Mad God’). Easily the best defensive item in the game, the Signet Ring renders the user basically immune to all magic (which means ‘the King’ will be immune to magic), and quite difficult to kill in melee. It can be ‘coaxed’ off of its’ user with no penalty by Taunting him into attacking you … and if you decide to dispense with Taunt & just murder everyone in the room, then the ~5000 gold bounty can easily be removed by travelling under the cover of Invisibility/Chameleon to a Thieves Guild back in Vvardenfell (or via Recalling to a prior placed Mark). Be warned that wearing this ring can make the game rather boring.

Mantle of Woe: Fortify Maximum Magicka 5 x Intelligence, Fortify Conjuration 50pts, Drain Personality 100pts, Weakness to Normal Weapons 20%, Sun Damage 20 pts. Found on Tymvaul within the cave of Rimhull, just SW of Skaal Village on Solstheim. The Drain Personality & Weakness to Normal weapons effects can be resisted via 100% Resist Magicka, however the Sun Damage cannot (though this damage type does nothing at night, or when inside a building or cave). The Mantle of Woe drastically increases the Magicka reserves of the user (500 points at 100 Intelligence), which can come in handy for Late Game mages who wish to expand their Magicka reserves ‘even further’ without having to resort to using (notoriously game-breaking) Fortify Intelligence potions in order to do so.

Because Morrowind is silly (in case you haven’t already noticed), humanoid characters (which means ‘the player’) have 18 simultaneous equippable item slots. Here is a list of all of these item slots, as well as the Base Item capable of holding the highest Enchant value for that slot:

Clothing only (8 items & 620 Enchant points total)

Robe - Exquisite Robe (40 pts)
Shirt - Exquisite Shirt (60 pts)
Pants - Exquisite Pants (60 pts)
Skirt - Exquisite Skirt (60 pts)
Belt - Exquisite Belt (40 pts)
Left Ring - Exquisite Ring (120 pts)
Right Ring - Exquisite Ring (120 pts)
Amulet - Exquisite Amulet (120 pts)

Non-Clothing only (7 items & 505 Enchant points total)

Helmet - Telvanni Cephalopod Helm (100 pts)
Cuirass - Daedric Cuirass (60 pts)
Left Pauldron - Nordic Mail Pauldron (10 pts)
Right Pauldron - Adamantium or Nordic Mail Pauldron (10 pts)
Shield - Daedric Tower Shield (225 pts, highest Enchant value item in the game)
Greaves - Glass Graves (10 pts)
Weapon - Ebony Staff (90 pts)

Clothing OR Non-Clothing (3 items & 160 Enchant points total, items cannot be worn in same slot)

Left Glove or Gauntlet - Extravagant Glove (20pts) or Daedric Gauntlet (60 pts)
Right Glove or Gauntlet - Extravagant Glove (20pts) or Daedric Gauntlet (60 pts)
Shoes or Boots - Exquisite Shoes (40pts) or Deadric Boots (26.3 pts)

Regarding Weapons: These can be Enchanted with either On Strike OR Constant Effect enchantments. The Ebony Staff has the highest Enchant points at 90, and the Ebony Scimitar is a close second at 80. Ebony Staves can be found in several locations and occasionally on Dremora or Golden Saints, while an unenchanted Ebony Scimitar can only be procured via ‘collecting’ one off of a High Ordinator.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Plugins

The Helm of Tohan is also available via an official Plugin from a quest in Dagon Fel (ask for ‘latest rumours’), and has an Enchant value of 150, taking the possible ‘non-clothing only’ total to 555.

Daedric Tower Shields meanwhile, have a 1/20 chance of being dropped by a Golden Saint … and that is the only legitimate way to obtain one. Good luck!

So: Whilst it might not be desirable to do so (given the power of a lot of artifacts found in game), it is possible therefore to create and wear 18 Custom Enchanted items, totalling an Enchant point value of 620 + 505 + 160 = 1285 Enchant points, or 1335 points including the Helm of Tohan.

So what does this actually ‘mean’?

A magical effect with a Base Cost of 1 (e.g. Restore Fatigue), will have an Enchant point cost of 5 points per point of average magnitude. Thus, a Restore Fatigue 2-2 point Enchantment will have an Enchant point cost of 10, a Restore Fatigue 1-7 point Enchantment will have an Enchant point cost of 20, etc.

As mentioned in 15.4: For all Enchantments except for Restore Enchantments, it is worth attaching a variable magnitude to the Enchantment (from 1 to ‘X’), and then requipping the item continually until a high value is obtained. For whatever reason, the highest value possible via requipping a variable magnitude item, is 1 point lower than the highest magnitude (so for e.g. A Resist Magicka 1-7% Exquisite Belt, can provide a maximum of 6% Resist Magicka on a lucky re-equip).

In addition: When adding a second enchantment to an item, the Enchant point cost from the first effect is added again. This means that under most circumstances, it is not efficient to add more than one type of Enchantment to an item.

With all of this in mind, let’s consider some ‘interesting’ Custom Effect Enchantments that can be placed onto the available gear, via the ‘useful’ Base Cost 1 Effects, which in this author’s opinion include: Feather, Chameleon, Sanctuary, Fortify Attribute, & Fortify Skill.

Chapter 16 (16.5b): The Late Game (Tribunal & Bloodmoon)

Clothing only item slots

Robe - Exquisite Robe (1-15 pts, 14 max through reequipping)
Shirt - Exquisite Shirt (1-23 pts, 22 max)
Pants - Exquisite Pants (1-23 pts, 22 max)
Skirt - Exquisite Skirt (1-23 pts, 22 max)
Belt - Exquisite Belt (1-15 pts, 14 max)
Left Ring - Exquisite Ring (1-45 pts, 44 max)
Right Ring - Exquisite Ring (1-45 pts, 44 max)
Amulet - Exquisite Amulet (1-45 pts, 44 max)

226 ‘1 Base Cost Effect’ points total at max from Clothing only item slots.


Non-Clothing only item slots

Helmet - Telvanni Cephalopod Helm (1-39 pts, 38 max), OR Helm of Tohan with Plugin (1-59 pts, 58 max)
Cuirass - Daedric Cuirass (1-23 pts, 22 max)
Left Pauldron - Nordic Mail Pauldron (1-3 pts, 2 max, easier to just select 2-2)
Right Pauldron - Adamantium or Nordic Mail Pauldron (1-3 pts, 2 max, easier to just select 2-2)
Shield - Daedric Tower Shield (1-89 pts, 88 max if you’re darn lucky)
Greaves - Glass Graves (1-3 pts, 2 max, easier to just select 2-2)
Weapon - Ebony Staff (1-37 pts, 36 max)

188 ‘1 Base Cost Effect’ points total at max from Non-Clothing only item slots (208 with plugin).


Hybrid item slots

Left Glove or Gauntlet - Daedric Gauntlet (1-23 pts, 22 max)
Right Glove or Gauntlet - Daedric Gauntlet (1-23 pts, 22 max)
Shoes or Boots - Exquisite Shoes (1-15 pts, 14 max)

58 ‘1 Base Cost Effect’ points total at max from ‘hybrid’ item slots.


Hypothetically then, through extreme luck & many hours re-equipping, it is possible to obtain 226 + 188 + 58 = 472 ‘1 Base Cost Effect’ points total at max from all 18 item slots (492 with Helm of Tohan Plugin). This could be a combination of 1 point effects, or all slots dedicated to 1 type of effect.

To add some perspective to this number:

- 100% Constant Chameleon (i.e. invisible to everyone at all times) is quite easily possible & understandably breaks the game,
- 100 Constant Sanctuary + 100 Fortify Agility (enough to consistently evade just about all melee attacks except from Werewolves, Hands of Almalexia & Gaenor) is difficult but definitely possible,
- 150 Personality (Fortified to a minimum of 50) is definitely possible, effectively pacifying the majority of hostile creatures & NPC's by raising your Disposition with them to 100, which can be nice if you wish to roleplay 'Jesus',
- Various combinations of Constant Fortify Attribute/Skill into the hundreds are possible,
- Enough Feather points to reduce encumbrance of item sets down to 0 is possible, even item sets containing Heavy Armour items,
- Constant Resist Fire/Frost/Shock/Magicka (Base Cost 2) are effects that can be worth adding to various items (assuming that 100% resistance from other sources e.g. Royal Signet Ring are not being worn) though having a higher base cost reduces the ‘hypothetical points total’ by slightly more than half (accounting for the rounding, e.g. 1-15 or 14 max on an Exquisite Belt becomes 1-7 or 6 max). As mentioned in 15.4, Resist Magicka 100% in particular allows for Drain Health + Damage Attribute/Health spells to be used without repercussions from Reflect.

As for ‘what exactly’ to put onto various Late Game enchanted items, besides Restore Fatigue and ‘maybe’ Resist Magicka 100% (both available from Signet Ring) … that is totally up to you!!

If you’re stuck for ideas, 16.6 and 16.7 outline a couple of ‘example’ gear sets for Late Game Mages, which were used during the making of this guide. Whilst armour items are included, these are primarily for their enchantments, though the added protection is of course rather nice.

Chapter 16 (16.6): The Late Game (Tribunal & Bloodmoon)

16.6 Example Item Set 1: Vvardenfell Arch Mage Set (Base Game items only)

This is the item set that the author used to enter the Late Game. Some items/enchantments can be interchanged where necessary to accommodate for various races, and these are highlighted in italics.

Clothing only item slots

Robe - Redas Robe of Deeds (50 Feather, 25ft Detect Animal).
Shirt - Mara’s Blouse (10% Resist Magicka).
Pants - Exquisite Pants with either: Fortify Intelligence 1-23 pts (up to 22), or Resist Magicka 1-11 pts (up to 10).
Skirt - Exquisite Skirt with either: Fortify Intelligence 1-23 pts (up to 22), or Resist Magicka 1-11 pts (up to 10).
Belt - Exquisite Belt with Night Eye 1-20 pts + Restore Fatigue 4-4 pts, described in 15.4.
Left Ring - Denstagmer’s Ring (Resist Fire/Frost/Shock 30%)
Right Ring - Ring of Phynaster (Resist Poison/Shock/Magicka 20%)
Amulet - Necromancer’s Amulet (Fortify Intelligence 25 pts, Restore Health 1 pt, Spell Absorption 25 pts, Resist Normal Weapons 25%).

Non-Clothing only item slots

Helmet - Telvanni Cephalopod Helm with either: Fortify Intelligence 1-39 pts (up to 38), or Resist Magicka 1-19 pts (up to 18). Tohan Helm via plugin can be either: Fortify Intelligence 1-59 pts (up to 58) or Resist Magicka 1-29 pts (up to 28).
Cuirass - Ebony Mail (Resist Fire 75%, Resist Magicka 20%, Shield 50 pts), or Dragonbone Cuirass (100% Resist Fire)
Left Pauldron - None.
Right Pauldron - None.
Shield - Daedric Tower Shield of Feather 1-89 pts (88 max with persistence and/or luck).
Greaves - Therana’s Daedric Greaves (Feather 50pts).
Weapon - Ebony Staff with Fortify Intelligence 1-35 pts (34 Max), OR one of the following On Strike Enchantments:

1. Weakness to Magic 100% for 1 sec On Touch (adjust duration up to 2 sec then back down to 1 sec) + Absorb Health 100 pts On Touch (leave duration untouched), both in 50ft radius. This requires 74 Enchant points, and so can also fit onto an Ebony Scimitar.
2. Weakness to Magic 100% for 1 sec on Touch, Damage Strength 13pts in on Touch, Absorb Health 100pts in on Touch, all in 15ft radius. This requires 89 Enchant points. A Weakness 100% + Damage Strength 10 pts + Absorb Health 83 pts (all in 15 ft) equivalent can fit onto an Ebony Scimitar.
3. Weakness to Magic 100% for 1 sec , Weakness to Fire 100% for 1 sec, Fire Damage 100 pts. This beauty is ‘pretty much’ the highest DPS Cast On Strike Enchantment in the game (it can be slightly improved but at the cost of area). The Weakness to Magicka amplifies the Weakness to Fire effect (to 200%), which in turn amplifies the Fire damage to 300 per hit. If the WEAKNESS durations are moved up and down (to last 1 second), but the DAMAGE duration is untouched, then this Enchantment is effectively INSTANT, and can fire off ~3x a second with swift strikes, and the WEAKNESS EFFECTS STACK (resulting in exponentially increasing amounts of damage per strike, from 300 up to 1000+/strike with quick successive strikes ... enough to kill boss creatures in a handful of blows). 44ft radius for all components fits onto an Ebony Staff, 19ft radius for all components fits onto an Ebony Scimitar. A ‘Shock’ version in 10ft can also fit onto an Ebony Staff, and may be preferable for Nord mages, as it hits targets more consistently than a Fire staff.


Hybrid item slots

Left Gauntlet - Fist of Randagulf (Fortify Agility 20 pts)
Right Gauntlet - Fist of Randagulf (Fortify Strength 20 pts) or Wraithguard (Shield 10 pts, Reflect 20%, Resist Fire/Frost/Magicka/Poison/Shock 10%).
Shoes - Exquisite Shoes with either: Fortify Intelligence 1-15 pts (up to 14), or Resist Magicka 1-7 pts (up to 6), or Fortify Enchant 1-15 pts (up to 14) if using an On Strike weapon.


From an armour skill perspective, the ‘Vvardenfell Arch Mage set’ is all over the place, with 30% of armour ratings being derived from Unarmoured (lack of Pauldrons + Shoes), Heavy Armour (Gauntlets, Greaves, Shield), & Medium Armour (Ebony Mail), and the final 10% from Light Armour (Telvanni Cephalopod Helm, though the protection offered by this item is basically negligible). But! The Enchantments are top quality, and that’s what matters.

The set provides the following bonuses:

- Night Eye 1-20pts (up to 19) & Restore Fatigue 4 pts (i.e. ‘the Belt’),
- Up to 188pts Feather, which is ‘just’ enough to reduce the weight of all other set components (which includes a lot of Medium & Heavy Armour) down to 0,
- Restore Health 1pt & Spell Absorption 25pts (i.e. Necromancer’s Amulet),
- Fortify Agility 20pts (Randagulf Left),
- Fortify Strength 20pts (if Randagulf Right is equipped),
- Reflect 20% (if Wraithguard is worn),
- 50pts Shield (60pts if Wraithguard is worn),
- 100% Resist Fire (Ebony Mail/Denstagmer’s Ring, up to 90% total for High Elves with Dragonbone/Denstagmer’s/Wraithguard accounting for 50% Weakness),
- 50% Resist Shock (Denstagmer’s + Phynaster Rings, up to 60% with Wraithguard),
- 30% Resist Frost (Denstagmer’s Ring, up to 40% with Wraithguard),
- 20% Resist Poison (Phynaster Ring, up to 30% with Wraithguard),
- Between 30-100% Resist Magicka, depending on enchantments & items worn. Mara’s Blouse + Phynaster Ring provide a guaranteed 30%, Ebony Mail 20% (total 50%, which is enough for Bretons to reach immunity), Telvanni Helm + Exquisite Pants OR Helm of Tohan provide up to 28% (total of 78%, which is enough for Orcs to reach immunity), Exquisite Skirt + Exquisite Shoes + Wraithguard provide 26% (total of 104%, i.e. immunity for all races excluding Altmer).
- Between 25 - 175 Fortify Intelligence, depending on enchantments & items worn. Necromancer’s Amulet provides a guaranteed 25, then Exquisite Pants (up to 22), Exquisite Skirt (up to 22), Telvanni Helmet (up to 38) or Tohan Helmet (up to 58), Ebony Staff (up to 34) and Exquisite Shoes (up to 14) can potentially provide further bonuses. For those wanting 100% Resist Magicka, Bretons and Orcs are advantaged with this particular item set, as less items are required to reach the 100% threshold.

In short: A well rounded mage set, focusing on Resistances & Fortify Intelligence (i.e. extra Magicka). All items can be found or created from the Base Game content, though Fortify Skill certainly helps!

Chapter 16 (16.7): The Late Game (Tribunal & Bloodmoon)

16.7 Example Item Set 2: The ‘Can’t Touch This’ Mage Set (Expansion items included)

And finally, this is the item set that the author used toward the conclusion of the Late Game.

Clothing only item slots

Robe - Redas Robe of Deeds (50 Feather, 25ft Detect Animal) or Mantle of Woe (Fortify Maximum Magicka 5.0 x Intelligence, Fortify Conjuration 50pts, Drain Personality 100pts, Weakness to Normal Weapons 20%, Sun Damage 20 pts).
Shirt - Exquisite Shirt with Fortify Intelligence 1-23 pts (up to 22).
Pants - Exquisite Pants with Fortify Agility 1-23 pts (up to 22).
Skirt - Exquisite Skirt with Sanctuary 2-2pts + Fortify Agility 1-15 pts (up to 14).
Belt - Exquisite Belt with Night Eye 1-20 pts (up to 19) + Sanctuary 1-7 pts (up to 6). A doozy to equip with the correct stats, though eventually 6 Sanctuary & 19 Night Eye was obtained.
Left Ring - Exquisite Ring with Sanctuary 1-47 pts (up to 46).
Right Ring - Royal Signet Ring (Reflect 100%, Resist Magicka 100%, Resist Paralysis 100%, Restore Health/Fatigue 10 points).
Amulet - Exquisite Amulet with Sanctuary 1-47 pts (up to 46).

With luck and persistence, it is possible to obtain 46 + 46 + 6 + 2 = 100 Sanctuary with Clothing items alone; the highest value possible in Morrowind.


Non-Clothing only item slots

Helmet - Helm of Oreyn Bearclaw (Fortify Agility & Endurance 40 pts). Obtained from the Malacath Shrine quest at Assurdirapal, west of the Sanctus Shrine in the Sheogorad region.
Cuirass - Ebony Mail (Resist Fire 75%, Resist Magicka 20%, Shield 50 pts).
Left Pauldron - None.
Right Pauldron - None.
Shield - Daedric Tower Shield of Feather 1-89 pts (88 max with persistence and/or luck).
Greaves - Therana’s Daedric Greaves (Feather 50pts).
Weapon - Ebony Staff with Fortify Intelligence 1-35 pts (up to 34).


Hybrid item slots

Left Gauntlet - Fist of Randagulf (Fortify Agility 20 pts).
Right Gauntlet - Fist of Randagulf (Fortify Strength 20 pts).
Shoes - Exquisite Shoes with Fortify Intelligence 1-15 pts (up to 14).

This set builds upon the ‘Vvardenfell Arch Mage set’ , with the ‘Heavy Armour’ Oreyn Bearclaw Helm replacing the ‘Light Armour’ Telvanni Cephalopod Helm. Other than that, the armour items are virtually the same, though the Clothing items have been changed substantially. The Royal Signet Ring alone provides Reflect 100%, Resist Magicka 100% and Restore Health/Fatigue 10 pts, which frees up several item slots to accommodate another class of enchantment: Evasion enchantments, specifically Sanctuary and Fortify Agility.

After a lengthy amount of time spent re-equipping items to get ‘the best magnitudes’, the set provides the following bonuses:

- Night Eye 1-20pts (up to 19 on an Exquisite Belt),
- Up to 188pts Feather, which is ‘just’ enough to reduce the weight of all other set components (which includes a lot of Medium & Heavy Armour) down to 0,
- Restore Health & Fatigue 10 pts (Royal Signet Ring),
- Fortify Strength 20pts (Fist of Randagulf),
- Fortify Endurance 40pts (Helm of Oreyn Bearclaw),
- Reflect 100% (Royal Signet Ring),
- 50pts Shield (Ebony Mail),
- 75% Resist Fire (Ebony Mail),
- 100% Resist Magicka (Royal Signet Ring),
- 100% Resist Paralysis (Royal Signet Ring),
- Up to +70 Fortify Intelligence (Exquisite Shirt/Shoes + Ebony Staff),
- Up to 100 Sanctuary (Exquisite Ring/Amulet/Skirt/Belt),
- Up to +96 Fortify Agility (Exquisite Skirt/Pants, Helm of Oreyn Bearclaw, Fist of Randagulf).

To put some perspective to these numbers:

- 170 Intelligence, or 510 Magicka on an Orc Atronach (the author’s ‘guinea pig mage of choice’) with Redas Robe equipped, and 1360 Magicka with Mantle of Woe equipped.

- Immunity to all Magic bar reflected Elemental magic & ‘Sun Damage’ from the Mantle of Woe, with 75% Resistance to Fire (the most practical elemental damage type for Solstheim),

- 100 Sanctuary & 196 Agility, i.e. enough evasion chance to avoid the majority of melee attacks from any opponent that isn’t a Werewolf, A Hand of Almalexia, or Gaenor.

- Restore Health/Fatigue 10 pts a second, which is enough to regenerate through most stray damage,

- An encumbrance of only 10-20 lbs whilst wearing the Redas Robe when accounting for other items (repair hammers, potions), and thus insane manoeuvrability when combined with 100 Speed/Athletics/Acrobatics.

https://imgur.com/LDM7tmM

https://imgur.com/kYATCxg

An item set worthy of the Purest Mage.

Conclusion & Thanks

Well, dear reader, here we are at the end. I know that it has probably been a slog reading all of this, but if you have made it this far, you'll hopefully have learnt something. Which was the whole point!

This guide was an on and off project spanning about 4 years (a 25,000 word Skyrim guide was written in the midst of this one collecting electronic dust half-completed in a google doc folder), and I hope you’ve enjoyed it & found it useful.

As Morrowind is now over 20 years old, this guide was written from the perspective of someone standing on the shoulders of giants.

My sincere thanks to:

Those kind enough to offer feedback & improvements on the guide. Namely:
- WingedKagouti, for providing corrections to the Alchemy sections regarding skill level & potion creation.
- Archo, for offering a wealth of advice & critique that resulted in changes to: Spell Chance, Elemental Shields, Levitate, Swift Swim, Damage Intelligence, Damage/Drain Magicka, Absorb Attribute, Fortify Fatigue, and Fortify Intelligence sections.

The OG Morrowind team (Michael Kirkbride, Ken Rolsten, Mark Nelson, Todd Howard, etc) , for designing a game that will most likely never be repeated in terms of magic customisation & diversity (for admittedly obvious reasons), such that ‘jumping the length of the map’ is a perfectly normal outcome of spell experimentation. An amazing history of the game’s development can be found here:
https://www.polygon.com/2019/3/27/18281082/elder-scrolls-morrowind-oral-history-bethesda

And an interview/response with Doug Goodall, who quit Bethesda not long after Morrowind's release & declined to be interviewed for the polygon article, can be found here: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:Douglas_Goodall_Interview

The UESP wiki and the community who keep it running. Greatest fan wiki on the planet. https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Morrowind

Lyle Shnub for his Morrowind Mechanics videos, which helped me rehash & relearn some things when I was getting back into Morrowind & starting out with this guide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOL2IxnnfYU&list=PLobdprIgcqJ82TKnySC6yIzP9CO9ixyz

saiyangenxz, specifically for this video, which provided inspiration for the ‘prep spell’ concept. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyzm-1Dece8

corprus hunk, for his bizarre and amazingly scientific inquiry videos into Morrowind’s mechanics. The ‘Pacifist Run’ of the main quest is one of the most clever and hilarious game completion runs to exist on the internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDT2JKoznV0

Strat-Edgy Productions, specifically this video, which is my favourite ‘Morrowind primer’ video of the many that are on Youtube, and should be required viewing for anyone considering playing Morrowind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kP6LMx4j2g

Zerokid, not for anything Morrowind related, but for his amazing tome of a Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow guide, which was originally a giant text document that he ENTIRELY REWROTE in a new GameFAQ guide format. His guide puts this one to shame in terms of length and depth, and it is user guides like this that inspire me to keep writing.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gameboy/367023-pokemon-red-version/faqs/64175/introduction

Valve & Steam for hosting the guide. I know Morrowind is not exclusive to Steam, and that there are other guide sites out there that are arguably better … but my other guides are on Steam, so here’s another one to add to the pile.
(a final bout of shameless self promotion)
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198140992345/myworkshopfiles/?section=guides

u/TedTheViking for his original mage guide (RIP the user account), for which this guide takes a lot of inspiration from. Hope you’re doing well out there, mate!

---

Version 1.5 (finally)

- Date: 27-04-2023
- Updated: Loads of grammatical/spelling fixes.
- Updated: A few title changes/edits.
- Updated: Loads of spell effects sections updated, including Drain Attribute, Weakness to Fire/Frost/Magicka, Light, Night Eye, Silence, Dispel, Reflect, and Fortify Fatigue/Health.
- Updated: Tweaked some Custom spells in light of new info.
- Updated: A few extra explanatory sections added here and there, including Fortify Willpower for Alchemy & clarification of a few concepts.
- Updated: Mace of Molag Bal added to Enchanted Items list.
- Updated: Added some 'glitch tutorial' links in the Soul Trap section, because that seemed the most appropriate place to put them...

---

Version 1.4

- Date: 01-08-2022
- Updated: Alchemy section (thanks WingedKagouti!).
- Updated: Spell Chance, Spellbook, Elemental Shields, Levitate, Swift Swim, Damage Intelligence, Damage/Drain Magicka, Absorb Attribute, Fortify Fatigue, and Fortify Intelligence sections (thanks heaps Archo!)
- Updated: Levitate section (for the 2nd 'again') & 'Slow' Custom spell section, 13.3 Character build section (added a Dark Elf build template).
- Updated: Let's Play series link added (Orc Shaman playing on OpenMW 0.45 with No Mic and swanky 2002 era resolution & graphics).

--

If anyone has any suggestions or additions for the future, leave a comment on the Steam guide, and I’ll happily make amendments. Education is the goal of all of this in the end.

For now, go, dear reader, your time has come. Create the mightiest Mage that Tamriel has ever seen, and purge the n’wahs from Morrowind.

The Flying Rodent, aka u/rodeoaddict

[lmacconn]

"Solea Nuccusius" in Moonmoth Legion Fort (near Balmora, check the Fort's basement) sells "Drain (skil)" spells.

[Sweepwinguser]

Hi there, as a hint in storing spells as 1 spell (spells not in your current spell "inventory" won't be able to be customized), collect 8 spells with each dmg.1 dur.1 on touch/self in one spell and rename it to sth. like library restoration, library destruction ...

[The Flying Rodent]

Hey @blprice61, thanks for the kudos!

I am aware of the OpenMW 'optional nerfs' to Enchant. The main issue that still stands however is that it takes next to no skill investment to use enchanted items half-well. Even with the insta cast & money making issues aside, it's not difficult to find and use a number of very powerful Cast When Used items at early levels if you know what you're doing. Which output similar magnitude numbers to spells requiring close to 100 spellcasting skill + a very large magicka pool to use consistently. It's kinda still 'cheating' even with the nerfs.

That said: if you're after a consistent method of recharging Cast When Used items, Azuras Star + soul trapped Ancestor Ghosts (23Hp, easy to kill) are a good way to go. This is also the best method to 'naturally' practice Enchant skills AFAIK.

Anyway. Glad to hear you're getting mileage out of the guide. Even with your use of cheap enchanted imitations on the side. ;)

[blprice61]

Outstanding work! This has become my manual for all things mage related.

Not sure if you've noticed, but OpenMW 0.48 has, in the advanced tab, a couple of things that may change your mind a bit on 'on use' enchantments - in the graphics tab, you can turn on animations for on use enchantments, slows them down to spell casting speed so no more machine gun. In another tab, you can choose to reduce the cost inflation of filled soul gems, it seems to be enough to slow down the 'instant billionaire' route.

Lastly, I may have found a non-game-breaking use for the 80% chameleon amulet.... it recharges *very* slowly and has a *huge* 'battery' capacity. So, if you have enchant as a major skill, getting 5xp per loaded petty soulgem used to refill it is a somewhat less tedious route to leveling the skill naturally. Of course if you actually use it very often in play for its chameleon effect... eh well lol.

In any event, absolutely awesome job, thank you.

[Tiberivs]

Bro really wrote a PHD thesis about Morrowind's magic system. 10/10

[Mornim]

Amaizing.

[The Flying Rodent]

Looks like I might need another update!

@viel_asis I'll add some additional info on Calm interactions with MCP. Sounds like you're describing what's happening, which is that a calmed target is being forced to 'stop combat' until the effect wears off in the vanilla game (which would explain why Calmed targets don't retaliate to aggression), and that this interaction is removed with MCP.

@Other Cheers for the explanation mate. I might add in a ''mechanics" sup-chapter somewhere that covers projectile/AoE behaviour. Probably in Chapter 1, given that's where On Target interactions are introduced.

[Other]

Opposing spell projectiles can also hit the projectiles from your spells, triggering both effects at whatever intervening point they meet. This makes it harder to affect opposing casters (plus all Atronachs and some Daedra), since they will often be shooting spells at you. Of course, you can use this defensively as well - if you time it right and aim well, you can use a projectile that cost you one mana to block and explode an expensive ball spell that an Atronach fired at you. If you get even luckier, you might be able to explode it close enough to the source to catch the sorcerer that summoned the Atronach ...

[Other]

Targeted spells produce a projectile that fire from the caster in the direction the camera is facing. When it hits something, it produces its effect. For a spell with no AoE component, hitting anything but a creature wastes the spell (as you would expect). For AoE spells, though, you can still affect things when this happens. If the projectile encounters a rock, door, or other solid object, it triggers at that point, and if any creature is within the AoE range, it can be affected. Less intuitive is that water counts as solid for this purpose, so hitting the surface of a body of water will trigger the projectile, and it will be only the AoE component that can affect submerged targets. Casting underwater means the projectile triggers as soon as it leaves your hand, so the maximum reach underwater is the AoE radius of the spell, and it always affects targets in a sphere around you.

[Other]

Excellent Work! I've been playing magic-oriented Morrowind characters for years, and still learned some things. I do have several comments, but I'll break them into sections so I type less and you have an easier time responding.

Two things that might deserve discussion in the early chapters:
- the behaviour of targeted spells with respect to terrain (especially water) and opposing spell projectiles
- the behaviour of AoE effects on the caster

To expand on those:

AoE spells the player casts never affect the player. This is desirable when it keeps you from being caught in your own Fireball, but it means that you won't benefit from an AoE buff or healing spell you use on your goon squad (unless you add a self-targeted line as an extra effect). I don't know for sure if this is true for other casters - most users of AoE effects (like Atronachs) are immune to the spells they use, so catching them in the blast radius wouldn't do anything either way.

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