Morrowind experiences vol. 2

[loinburger]

Of course, you could always just taunt him into a fight, but I have no idea what that would do to your Faction. It might also become impossible to become Archmage if you launch a preemptive strike against Trebonius.

[Dis]

Just got the game. This game is so big I don't know where to start. It'll take a while getting used to the types of classes etc. I'm so used to the D&D system of BG and NWN.

Graphics are damn good. And I was worried my computer couldn't run it. But of course I haven't got to any large towns with lots of people yet.

Any advice?

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Dissident
Any advice?

Pick one of the pregenerated classes first, to get the feel for the game. Something simple, like "warrior" or "mage." I recommend that you build your own character class eventually, but for starters just get a feel for the game.

The skills are broken up as follows:

Armor skills (Unarmored, Light, Medium, Heavy): You don't want more than one or two of these as major/minor skills, since generally you'll pick one style of armor (based on how much protection you want and how much weight you're willing to lug around) and stick with it.
Don't go with Unarmored, even if you're playing a mage or thief character--Light armor doesn't encumber you very much, and the ability to wear enchanted Light armor makes it a thousand times better than No armor.
If you're looking to get into some more combat then pick a class that relies on Medium armor for your first character, since Heavy armor is extremely cumbersome and expensive--it's a good long-term investment if you want to tank, but for getting the feel of the game you'll want to stick with Medium armor instead.

Weapon Skills: Blunt weapons and Long Bladed weapons are the most powerful in the game, Spears have some reach to them (which can be somewhat of an advantage), Short Bladed weapons are fast (I still prefer Blunt and Long Bladed), Hand To Hand is worthless IMO, and Marksman is good if you're not much into magery.

Magic Skills:
Enchant is useless for your first character, it's a long-term investment that's helpful if you're going to be recharging your enchanted items frequently, but it'll take you awhile to get many enchanted items and it will take you a long time to get the skills and items necessary to repeatedly recharge or create items. A mediocre Minor skill for long-term investment, but that's it.
Destruction is pretty self-explanatory and pretty useful, you'll probably want either Marksman, Destruction, or both as major/minor skills.
Restoration is pretty useful, but there's not much need to focus on it. Your restoration spells don't need to be very powerful, so having a high skill level in Restoration won't help you much.
Alteration is a good Minor skill, especially since this school includes the Open spell. Open is the most useful spell in the game.
Conjuration is a good long-term investment, but you won't have the ability to cast many good Conjuration spells early on. (The good ones are rare, and are also some of the most expensive spells in the game).
Mysticism is a must if you're a mage type character (for the Absorption, Reflect, and Resistance spells), but other characters will only use this for the Soul Trap spell. Even for mages this is a long-term investment school. (Thieves may want this school for Telekinesis, which helps you avoid traps.)
Illusion is quite useful, especially for Thieves.
Alchemy is an excellent school for long-term investment, particularly if you're born under the sign of the Atronach (and don't regenerate magicka naturally).

Movement Skills: Athletics is a good all-around skill regardless of your class, since speed never comes amiss and this is also an easy skill to increase. Acrobatics is useful if your Alteration skill is crappy (since Alteration is used for Levitation and Slowfall), but is generally a pretty crappy skill. Its one advantage is that it's also easy to increase.

Thieving skills: Security is generally replaceable by the Alteration and Mysticism schools, since you can Open locked things with Alteration and you can avoid traps by springing traps from far away with Telekinesis. However, it's still good to build up this skill, since you'll save your (often precious) magicka if you use a probe/lockpick instead of Telekinesis/Open. Sneak is easy to increase, and is a must-have for would be assassins.

Talking Skills: Speechcraft is extremely useful, since it's easy to increase and your life is often much easier if people like you. Mercantile is somewhat overkill, since it's difficult to increase and also since you'll be swimming in money later in the game (once you start looting Ebony and Daedric weaponry every other time you kill a demon).

[Dis]

yeah I already chose a wood elf Archer. I want to try an archer type. Although I can't seem to afford much starting off.

I haven't decided if I want to get into spells or use a long blade as a back up.

And about unarmoured. Aren't there some areas that until you get armour they are unprotected? Will light armour cover all those areas? I haven't decided if I want to do light or medium. I do want my character to be fast though.

Yeah I won't get into enchant, although I hear it can be good. I do like casting spells in games. So I figure I might want some.

Thanks for the advice!

now for a little play time

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Dissident
And about unarmoured. Aren't there some areas that until you get armour they are unprotected? Will light armour cover all those areas?

Everything is unprotected (and uses "unarmored") until you've got some sort of armor over it, but it's possible to get any kind of armor for any area of your body (unless you're a Khajit or Argonian, in which case you can't wear boots).

[Dis]

I seem to be missing pants

I'm not sure about all the armour types. I have the gloves and the things tht go on shoulders. I have something that covers upper torso and I have a helmet type thingy. What am I missing?

I still need to do shopping. I think this town will offer more. I need to get to shopping. I have some gold now.

[loinburger]

You need boots, greaves (for thighs), gauntlets/bracers (left and right), pauldrons (for shoulders, left and right), cuirass (chest/abdomen), and a helmet. Also a shield, unless you insist on using a two-handed weapon (or marksman weapons). I highly recommend that if you go toe-to-toe often that you build up your Block skill, since Block is the most important skill for hand to hand combat. If you're mostly just sticking to marksmanship then don't bother with a shield.

If you find some expensive/extravagant/exquisite clothes then put them on in place of your common clothes, it seems to improve the reactions you get from people. (You can't wear shoes with boots, though, nor can you wear gloves with gauntlets/bracers. All other clothing can be worn under your armor, or over in the case of a robe).

[Dis]

ahh OK. I sold all my extravagent and common clothing. I'm naked under my cuirass

[LDiCesare]

I just got the game. I have a few problems with it.
One is soil sometimes vanishes (triangles don't get drawn). I changed resolution down and distance drawn to no avail. Any idea how this can be fixed?
The other is dialogs. Are there any worthwhile dialogs in the game? The most elaborate dialog I got (I didn't go very far yet) was a Khait purring and saying she wants to be my friend (and I hardly understand why). NPC monologs can be find, but is there some ROLE to be played in the game? I mean personality? It looks like it is a lot of kill-them type quests. I made a character I would like to be a diplomat backed as a fighter (diplomacy only gets so far ) and he ends up being a fighter backed by a good speechcraft skill for lack of interesting talks to be done. Are there dialogs in that game or only monologs (by books or NPCs)?
Can you actually talk people into doing something? Am I the only one to find that clicking 77 times on Taunt in order to get the NPC to attack you is silly/boring?
Otherwise, I find the levelling up and character skills system excellent.

[loinburger]

There are quests that can be more easily accomplished through dialogue than through fighting. F'rinstance, there's a Telvanni quest that's a gimme if you're able to get somebody's disposition up to 80 or higher, but if not then you've gotta fight them (and whooo-eee they're a pain in the arse to kill). There's a Temple quest along the same lines, except that the person is actually quite easy to kill--it's just that everybody gets quite pissed at you if you don't solve the problem diplomatically.

Try doing some Faction quests (join the Legion, or the Fighter's Guild, or the Thieve's Guild, or something). Miscellaneous quests are meaningless (they up your reputation and can sometimes get you some cash money or items, but there's no story or background to them), but Faction quests often have some story and/or roleplaying options behind them.

[Chowlett]

Hmm, I just made a nice discovery. One of the folk in the Molag Mar temple has a complete set of restore attrib spells for sale, at the bargain price of 178 each to a temple adept. These could come in quite handy - a lot of the smugglers and Daedra worshippers I'm coming across these days have Damage Strength or similar. And, at only 19 magika for (I think it was) 10-30 for 30 secs, they're damn cheap to cast as well.

[loinburger]

Those're handy to have, but I suggest that you buy them and then Spellmake toned down versions. 10-30 for 30 seconds is usually overkill. Mine were more along the lines of 5 or 10 for 5 seconds. (It only costs a little extra, and saves a load on spellpoints in the long run.)

I found out (the hard way ) that Restore Attribute spells don't work when you're wearing items that have a Constant Effect Fortify Attribute enchantment on them. I don't know how many temples I visited to get my Strength back up before I finally thought to remove my Fortify Strength gauntlet.

[Jon Miller]

I think that mics quests work well with roleplaying, depending on your role

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

BTW, what is this issue with incompatabilities?

I have admantium armor and do now want to lose it

JOn Miller

[loinburger]

In earlier versions of the game you can't have two different plugins alter the same region of the game. This has been fixed, though.