I went through the first gate closing last night at level 2. It was easy. The only problem I had was that I hacked some of my guards in the dark area and they started chasing and attackingme. I died from that but when I reloaded I ended up having to kill them as well as the scamps. Still wasn't a problem once I figured out who was attacking me.
What Joe Joe described seemed to be a similar strategy to what I was talking about, although a spell like detect life might make it even better (you'd have your spells ready before the enemy even sees you hopefully). It would be even better if the enemies never saw you (invisibility/chameleon), or you fortified your speed and ran past (or away from) any enemies. It depends on the quest, but if all I have to do is get an item buried deep in a cave, I don't necessarily have to fight each and every enemy in the cave to claim my prize. I imagine that it would be true that in the beginning of the game, it would be tough to play as a mage though. I'd have to play the game to know exactly how tough (what spells are available and how powerful are they, how/when can you create better spells, how many spells can you cast consecutively, etc.). I guess if I wanted to be a pure mage, I'd probably start out doing a lot of non-combat oriented quests to improve my stats and get some gold. Spells from the Schools of Restoration, Conjuration, Illusion, and I think maybe Alteration could be used without fighting an enemy (I think), so there would be plenty of things to "practice" on in order to level up and improve your Intelligence and Willpower attributes (2 attributes important for magic). I guess you could also train these skills, although I read that Bethesda limited the amount of times you could train per level, probably due to balancing issues in Morrowind. I'm not saying it would be easy or even fun, but there's probably some ways to make it through the game as a pure mage. Of course, I'll probably be playing with mods, so it probably won't seem so difficult (or unrealistic I should say) if I decided to play as pure mage.
You could hold block and then press space bar and that will be a yield, that always stops your allies from fighting you. Though, I'm curious about how you had guards pularal. When I went through the first gate, there was only one guy alive and he was ready to leave until I asked him to fight with me. I don't even know what happened to him, I don't think he died, he just got stuck somewhere because I seem to recall one gate closing where an ally who I thought was dead was there with me. Update on where I'm at in the main quest SPOILERS: I've been collecting allies to help defend Bruma and certain objects that Martin needs to open an Oblivion gate to get to Cameron and take back the amulet of kings. The last thing you need is a great Sigil Stone which means you need the enemy to open a great Oblivion gate. So his plan is for Bruma to stop closing gates because they need to open 3 minor gates before a great one can open and then while He leads the army against the Daedra and their siege machine attacks Bruma, you have to go and get that sigil stone. END SPOILERS I keep saying, this would make an absolutely awesome movie.
just wondering how many hours everyone is in so far. I am currently right at 30 hours in with only about 150 left.
oops that was my mistake. I meant to say I was on the part where you have to take back the Kvatch Castle, after the first gate. I had all the Guards with me for that part and I accidentally attacked them.
Ok, I have a question for others who have done this mission. Is it time sensitive? I didn't have much healing potions, so I kept waiting for an hour to regain my health. I wonder if it would have been possible to save the Count if I just blasted through it?
no, its not time-sensitive...i dont think very many of the missions are, so far the only time-sensitive ones i can remember doing are the first thieves guild mission (where you meet at midnight) and that crappy paranoia mission (where you meet the guy behind the church at midnight)
I'm probably the only moron here who didn't realize this but I just figured it out last night and it makes a HUGE difference. I'll go ahead and spell it out in case there are any other idiots out there. In the original Morrowind if you mix up a potion with bad effects and click on it you drink it getting the nastiness. This time around you use it to poison your weapon and it's effects are conferred on the first person that you smack. A time extended damage health potion, for instance, makes a huge difference in fights.
That is so strange because I just figured that out last night as well. I won't give any spoilers but I will say the artist quest in Cheydinal is unlike anything I have seen in any other games. It is really cool.
I just don't have the resources to cast long lasting defensive spells at this point with any significant magnitude.
Poisoning your weapon? With potions? I'm not clear on that. Also, weapons: SPOILER I know of only one of the 'uber' swords, Umbra, which you can get at pretty much any time. Umbra is a chick in the Vindasel dungeon and her sword - while powerful - also has the ability to soul capture. Very useful. It is included in a quest for LVL 20 characters, but you can go in the dungeon and get it at any time. In addition, if you do it while you are on the quest - but just dont complete it/give the sword up - Umbra will not cost you anything in weight, because quest items weigh nothing. Also, one of the Sigil stones gave me a great enchantment so that's another solid weapon right there. END SPOILER Anyone else know of some good weapons to find?
Interesting... Umbra was a tough dude you had to kill to get his sword in Morrowind. He wanted to die fighting but nobody could kill him.
Just noticed something interesting. Maybe some of you already know it, but... I was bored, so I decided to create a spell that torched myself for fun (yeah, I know... shut up). I just wanted to see what it would look like. Well the effects weren't exactly spectacular... I created a fire spell that had 3 magnitude and 1 sec duration on myself repeatedly. I wasn't really impressed with the effects - I was hoping for a blast that would be cool to observe from 3rd person view. But then I was poking around my character stats and noticed my destruction skill had gone up. So I sat there for about 2 or 3 minutes and kept casting the spell over and over on myself... I looked again... I'm close to increasing skill level by blasting myself repeatedly with a weak spell. lol. Cool, now I don't have to go anywhere and fight things to increase my Destruction skill.
Yeah I can safely say that's the first time I've seen..well, you know what as a secret weapon against bad guys. Anyway, just as a quick progress report, I've finished the Kvatch closing, moved Martin to safety, and begun my search for the amulet. Also gotten about 2/3 of the way through the Mage and Fighter guild quests. Can't get into the Thief guild quests though. Can't really say why. Level 18, maxed out Endurance and Strength. Also gotten a really nice shield from Chorral (7 pt. Endurace buff, 12 defense rating, and it reflects damage back on the attacker), my first piece of ebony armor (the Ebony Cuirass, it looks pretty sweet), and a ring that raises my overall defense by 18%. Invaluable for a melee character. Just a note for melee characters: if you get your hands on a glass longsword, hold on to it. Great damage for not a ton of weight (21 damage for 40 weight I believe it is).
Yeah, I think I blundered with the switch from heavy to light armor mid-stream... I just decided to start the reclaiming of Kvatch quest and by the time one Clanfear is done with me, my armor is shot. I keep having to run back to a city to repair after any fight just about. Not good... hehe.
I've run across quite a few nice pieces of light armor. It just doesn't offer enough protection for my tastes. Mithril later on will work for you though. Just gotta make it that far.
Well I actually have a spell that lowers resistance by 100 for 12 sec, then does 8 damage for 8 seconds. I usually just start of with one of those, and sit back and watch my mana regen. Once they get close, I have touch spell that does 25 dam over 3 sec, usually finishes them off with 1-2 of those. For necros, I found that turn undead is a super useful spell. Also the DOT spells do a lot more damage/mana.
I've got a glass blade, but I'm level 13 so I'm not doing 21 damage, not yet. But I enchanted it so it also doles out 30 shock damage. What pisses me off though is I could have had more glass blades because where I got mine was a quest where I ended up fighting guys who all used glass weapons. I only took one thinking I could come back later, but I should have taken the weapons and armor and tossed them in a corner because when I went back, all the bodies were gone. Where did you find the ebony curiass BTW? I've got this thing called the cuirass of battle. I believe it's dwarven, anyways, it boosts your heavy armor skill, but it's become a pain because it's enchanted and I'm not a master armorer yet, it costs a buttload to repair, so I need to find some strong heavy armor that isn't enchanted so that I can fix it myself. My whole outfit is dwarven. I've got these guantlets of might that boost your strength by 8 points, actually, I have 2 pairs. I've got some dwarven greaves that give me 20 % fire resistence. I have matching boots and a helm, the helm is cool: I don't wear that helm anymore though because I've got the Helm of Oreyn Bearclaw, straight outta Morrowind. It's ugly as hell though, just a big animal skull. But it's got good armor rating and it boosts your agility and endurance. DoD, your story about the self burning ring reminded me of something that happened recently near the end of the fighter's guild quest, slight SPOILER: When you and Oreyn are trying to take down that blackwood company, you capture one of their mages and interrogate him. He has 3 secrets to give up, but you can only get 2 of them. One of the secrets he won't give up and when you ask him about it, he suddenly flames up and dies. Checking his body, I found a ring of silence which does like 300 fire damage to self and lowers fire resistence.
