after all my expierience with morrowind i have noticed that using weapons and being a fighter is much better than a mage. Personally i think mages suck!!!
I have my reasons=
1. MAges have to use magicka in order to do reasonable damage
2. In order to do near the damage as the best weapons with spells you A. have to have lvl 100 destruction B. have to have alot af money to make the spell C. because the spell does that much damage it will cost so much magicka to the piont where you will only be able to cast it only once or twice at a time (when i fighter can do it infinetely!)D. There is a chance whenever you cast the spell on something it will resist, reflect, or absorb the spell. (unlike using weapons)
3. Fighters have more health than mages
4. Fighters can carry more than mages
5. Fighters have better defense than mages

I think that is enough to prove my point that mages suck.

Sorry - as someone who plays mages in MW, figured I had to get my two cents in.

Advantages playing a mage:

• a) Don't need to even allow others to get close enough to hurt you at low level.
• If you choose the right class and sign, spell points are NEVER a problem (Breton with the Apprentice is always nice - check out the SP when you do that)
• c) If you put your spells in the primary categories, and the weapons and armor in the secondary, you can build up to proper levels and gain more levels while doing so. Also - you start with like seven or eight spells, including such useful things as hearth heal, fire(or is it frost) bite, and several other real useful things.
• d) There are many more things and ways to do things using magic than just bashing things.
• e) Starting out - check out the damage done by a frostbite spell versus what a sword at that level does.
• f) Spells expensive? I just made a spell that increases a skill (yes I have Tribunal and went there) by 100 points, and it only cost me 350 gold. I made an autoopen spell (open lock 100-100 for about the same) - versus how much for a Daedric Longsword?
• g) I got to 5th level before I even pulled my sword with my latest character. BTW - I play with Giants Ultimate mod and difficulty at 100. I beat the creatures and got the Mentor's ring, fought through the bandits in the caves, and beat up just about everything I saw. I also completed the first few fighters and mages quests, including the Telvanni agents. I cleared out several tombs around Balmora, got all through the Blades quests up to rescuing Mehra. I did not use any of the money for training, and did not steal or do anything 'illegal'.

I could go on, but that is the jist of it. Combat mages are fine - just set up your character in the beginning to be one. Don't set it up as a fighter and then try to play a mage. Would you set up a character with no combat skills and a weak race to be a fighter?

I have to agree with the_ragnarok702 that mages aren't as fishes in the water like warriors can be, but being a mage doesn't suck.
My current character is a mage, an Altmer with Atronach sign and the Mentor's Ring (wich gives us 315 pts Magicka at lvl 1) and I really am having fun!
In the beginning, a mage has some good auto-defence skills (and other good spells), but then I'm afraid mages can't do their job as well as the warriors, just because of the magicka question - you may want to sleep to recover it, or just have a magicka regen mod, in my case that's a bit difficult because I am Atronach sign.
Other thing is that any warrior can use enchanted weapons to substitute spells - these enchanted weapons are much quicker than casting a spell. And probably more destructive.

I'll take your points one at a time.

I would rather have a greater fireball spell than a bow anyday - arrows don't do half the damage a good fireball spell does, and are a non-renewable resource in the wilderness. (as well as they take up precious weight capacity).

If you have no imagination, the attack and destruction spells are somewhat weak. But see what happens when you combine duration into a spell - say - damage health 1-50 for 20 seconds, which does 20-1000 damage over a few rounds, and does so at a range that has it die on the way to you. Items are limited by their capacities to what they can hold, spells are only limited by the amount of magika you have and the gold you have for the spells.

My best character had over 1500 magika, with wisdom and intelligence of over 200 and 500 respectively (due to items increasing the base stats). This is without any cheats, creating special items and putting them in mods, or downloading any item that basically took the cap off the amount you could pour into an item.

I am not saying that mages are for anyone, but I am defending their place in the game as perfectly viable characters.

As far as your original statement, you say that a fighter can carry more than a mage. At low level, this may be true, but then it is based on strength, and a mage can increase in strength to the exact level of the fighter over time. If you are talking about starting off, then you are right, but then your damage argument loses potency, because spells at low level do much more damage than the swords you can find.

While I do not say that either is better than the other, you begin with the premise that one would be a fool to play a mage, because, if you will allow for a translation as I do not approve of bad language - they vacuum.

Therefore, I believe I have posted valid reasons to defend my position that they do not vacuum, and it is up to you to say that they are for all intent and purposes unplayable as a character class.

Of course there is another side to this. By the time a fighter reaches level 50 he is practically unbeatable making the game far too easy IMO. Where is the challenge? Keep your nearly naked mage lower than level ten and take on Almalexia. Now that is a challenge!

Where's your 'fighting spirit' guys? Make the game as difficult as you can. Then you can really boast if you manage all the quests in three game days! (Actually I guess it takes about 200).

One thing though technicaly all characters are the same and ther is no difference. This is morrowind. You can crete 2 characters and have them the same excepthve one a mage and another a fighter. It is all based on how you do things.

a few things:
- Defence is not different between mages and fighters since a mage and a
fighter can wear the same armor. Defence is more based on armor and then
skill i which it can be the same.
- It is more based on willpower (or the stat for the spell type) and destruction
(or the skill type of the spell) than anything else for casting since you could
have all the magica in the world and still have a 0 for the casting rate.
- resistances and reflections are no real problem if you are a good mage sine
most of it is done through enimies who have cast them on themselves in which
case you can do the same.
- as for growth of a character magica eventually peaks and health does not.
Due to this people tend to look diwn on magic
- spels if made right can be extremelly powerful. the nstats of the most pwerful
weapon in the gae is only around 100 for damage and then there is a strenght
bonus but you can make really good spells that do 300+
- in morowind money is easy to come by and spells do not cost all that much
when you look at it. (it costs more for a so called "fighter" to get a good
enchantment than it is for a "mage" to get a spell (i still feal that ther is no real
difference since you can be either of a master of both))
- Also if a point is trying to be made you should not use mods that remove in-
game limits such as the removal of the enchantment level and anything else
since not every one uses mods or can
- Also almalexia is resistant to spells and besides you are suposed to kill her
with the sword you are given, but still you ca use protection spells to do it or
even weakness spells to lower the resistances.
- for a lot of magica be born under the sign of the atronoch for an aditional x2.0
inteligenge for magica, or even an altmer for an aditional x0.5 intelegence for
magica. Witrh both you get 450 at 100 int.

As for me i am a mastr thief and mage. I feel that a mage is easyier since you can get really good area attack spells and destroy large groups with ease even before they get to you. you can make really cool spells that have multi effets. I made one that destroys all pieces of armor at the same time, another that gives me a full set of bound armor. You can also combine a weakness to a type of damage and that type of damage to a sell for even more damage. There are many combinations of things you can do and they can do quite alot of damage.

Saldrex, you are right about everything exept one thing. My opinion is that it's better to be a mage. When you are a mage, you can train in strength/edurance and axe/longblade/block to become a fighter. When you are a fighter, you can't become a mage, at least not a strong mage. The reason? Because, if you are a fighter, you probably haven't chosen breton or altmer race, nor atronach, apprentice, or mage birthsign. You would never accumulate enough magicka, that means that with 100 intelligence, you'd have maximum 100 magicka without items. That's pretty weak, not even enough to summon a storm attronach. Mage can have the same amount of health and fatigue as fighter, since there's no birthsign or race with "health bonus X 0.5 endurance".

Practically that means, when you are a mage, you can become anything. When you are a fighter, you will always be a figter.

you can cast all spells woth 100 magica the only real difference is the strenght. They might not be as good since they take a toll o strenght. But being a mage makes half the birthsigns useless since they are only spells that can be used 1 time a day when you are a mage you can do the same infinately and if you know good birthsigns you would get ones that have effects you cannot normally get which make people i know choose the magica signs since ou can cast the others. As fopr the spell yu talked about your spell must be a high level for the atronoch summon. With 100 you can cast a summon for golden saints if you want bt as i said before you get the tole to the strengt wich means less time in the case of a summon

i am also none of the magica bonus races and i knew allbefore i started and oyu really dont need more than 300 magica since there i nothig that yiu would really need 450 or so for since you get such a tole to the cast rate when you go to hight levels like that. If you want attack spells though you can always enchant them to an item and you can enchant some really good ones that way.

My style is almsot always a Fighter/mage. if you want you can keep arguing but thay really support eachother.

I create a Fighter with LongBlade, MY Armor, Athletic, then spell types.

While I have not nearly the magicka, I don't need it, casue i can do quick vicious damge and then hold them off with weapons.

Or I can use levitate to avoid fights. Or I can paralyze and slaughter.

Or the one one I use alot.
Use your mage stuff to summon and golden saint for about 9 seconds, and in this spell have a souldtrap so it is summoned already trapped, then you kill it and get a soul. Then you sell the stuff that is on it(it is hard to get stuff off summoned ones but it can be done.) then get and enchantment. On a peice of equipment for either class.....

So I think neither is better than the other. But together they can't really be killed ever.

I've found that mixing a small amount of mage with everything is good, though it is best to start with a powerful mage. And you can have plenty of magicka if you know the right ways to get some. If you choose High Elf as your race you get Magicka Multiplier of x1.5, the Atronach Birthsign gives you a Magicka Multiplier of x2.5, and the Mantle of Woe (Bloodmoon) gives you Magicka Multiplier of x5.0 giving you a total Magicka Multiplier of x10.0 (without cheating). Then using the Necromancers Amulet (Intelligence+25), Mentors Ring(Intelligence and Willpower+10), and Aeslips Ring (Bloodmoon, Willpower +10, Magicka +75) you can get 1560 Magicka without cheating and not using Self Enchanted items. What kind of spells are you people using, destroy Morrowind for 15 seconds? Besides, if you keep running out of magicka even when you have enough going into the thousands (like above) make five or six "Fortify Intelligence 100 points on self for 30 seconds" or so spells. The Length of time should vary depending on how powerful of a Mage you are, but with that and a few Magicka restoring potions, you'll be fine and you should never run out of Magicka in a big fight.

Besides, where's the fun of using that uber sword that practically reads "Kill all in cell" when you can summon up an army to do all that for you?

I've found that both are pretty much equal. Both have their advantages. So I make custom classes, balancing the two out [much better than a Battlemage.]

Mages don't suck. They are just harder to use. Yes, we all know that magic is very unbalanced in this game but magic still can do thing that others can't. I agree that Destruction is very screwed up, but there are other great things in magic like:

Enchant-regain charge faster, create your own magic items
Alteration-open, levitation, water walking (like jesus!!)
Illusion-effects like blind, silence, invisibility, charm
Mysticism-telicenicisis (that is way off in spelling....)

Mages have their place in this game. Destruction magic does suck, but Mages don't...

yes i agree. mages are just harder to use.

1. when your character is in the first 10-15 levels, an moderate-level npc mage walking around in just a robe and some shoes is still a formidable opponent.

2. soul trapping and selling possesed soul gems has to be the quickest way to extreme wealth in morrowind.

3. resoration is invaluble. forget lugging around those potions and using those tempermental healing items. they both can run out. if you have a restore magicka spell and good restoration magic, you won't have to carry around anything. EVER (unless you like wearing armor or use a weapon).

4. there is a spell to replace most any action in morrowind. so you suck at armorer and you can't fix your heavy weapon? pitch the heavy burdening weapon and forget those repair costs! summon a bound weapon! does someone not like you when they should love you? forget wasting money on bribes and walking the dangerous road of admiring and intimidating which both seldom work! charm them with an illusion spell! with and open lock spell, you can open doors and containers that a theif of your level couldn't dream of doing!


really, the applications for magic in morrowind are boundless. just be patient, and you can achieve anything with magic.

Trust me my character could beat a mage with the exact same stats as my character if not higher but the mage cats spells instead of using wepons trust me i could beat ANY mage!!!!!!!

actually if I remember an old thread correctly someone made one in the editor and it cost less to cast it than the magicka you gained.

Kind of a cheat I guess.

edit: Dang Eiade I guess you type faster than me!

I never play as mages, or any character with magic. Simply because I think it's too hard, chopping anything in your way is much easier.

So when I create a new character, I always get tempted by the barbaric and simply fighter.

I like swords.


That should be funny, considering my avatar....







You really have to have read 8-Bit Theatre to get that.

Hey ragnarock i would like to see you hit a mage tat has 100 sanctuary cast on them. Does not matter the level but i would like you to try to hit one. You underestimate magic. With the right magics you can take down enen the toughest fighter. A mage could easily take a person down. With a dran strenght spell you could be rendered imoble and then taken down by a ranged oponent. As you get closer the magic can get stronger since tough spells are much easier to cast and can be much stroger. Even if somone has resistances a mage could cast a weaknes spell or even use a damage/weakness spel. There is much tha it can do. magic can be a powerful thing but you need to know what you are doing.

Correct grammar and spelling can do powerful things, too.

I'll take my thief any day.

I personly find a balance of the two to be much more powerfull. I also through in the andavtages of using stealth class abilites as well. Primarly I kill by sneeking in view of an enemy an using my bow to kill them off. With my draedic bow it is fairly easy to shoot down one enemy one at a time but in times of numerous attackers I use fire balls. The fire ball allows me to damage several enemies at once instead of a single target. If a large amount of enemys get to close I use a spell called fire blast. It does around 60 to 120 damage to all targets within 40 feet of my main target. In case my magic runs low I have 100 skill level in alchemy allowing me to create great restore magicka potions. If my magic finaly runs out I have a good skill with the sword to cut the remaining enemies down. I also have plenty of restore health and fatigue potions to keep me going. If all else fails and defeat is enevidable I have a few scrolls and items on hand for last resort uses. These include teleporting, invisiblty and summoning creatures for help. By using all three of the major classes wisely I have a powerfull charater.

Yeah, that sounds pretty good.

Try creating your own spells - that's where the true power of the mage comes in. Haven't tried it before, but will see about creating a restore magika spell.

Anyone who says they can beat anything knows not what may be waiting out there for them. The thing about a high level mage, is that not only do you get all of the neat magic stuff, but your fighting abilities climb to where they are equal to a fighter. A fighter's magic can never climb to that of a character that started out as a mage....

The nice thing about morowind is you have the power to combine all. YOu can create any character. You can get al the skills you want no matter what they are under (fighter, mage, or thief). A fighter though is vey basic and it does not mater how you start to become a good fighter. The only real thing that affects you character when it is ceated is the birht sign since you can get everything else later. A good mage is born under the apentice, one i cannot rember, or the atronoch. These signs give bonuses to the maximum magica. One gives aditional x0.5, the other 100% fire weakness and aditional x1.0 (it may be 1.5 i cannot remember which), and finaly the last gives 50 absorb magica stunned magica and aditional x2.0. These are generally the best for any to start out with seeing as how all others can be cast. Thusly haveing magic makes all birth signs pointless except for teh ones already mentioned, the one wit 10 fortify attack, the other with 10 sanctuary. The only ones worth picking are the fortification ones (2 of which i believe are bugged and are horible for that reason and have not bothered to mention). The reason that a so calle "fighter" cannot become a so calld "mage" that is good is based on the reason that they have generally not gotten one of the signs that provide the magica bonuses making them not ablr to cast high level spells that use great amounts of magica. The birth sign is the only real difference between "mages" and "fighters" since all otyhe skills and atributes max the same for them both and all are accessable both.

For just about any part of the game, and certainly during the early phase, a fighter is a lot easier to play. Why? Simply because you can keep swinging a sword, no matter how incompetently, whereas you quickly run out of mana for casting those fireballs. My experience has been that it always pays to start out as a fighter and pick up mage skills later. Even more to the point, don't bother about building mage skills; purchase CE amulets for all your basic needs such as invisibility, levitation, etc.

That said, I agree that playing this way (fighter skills + CE equipment) rapidly becomes too easy to be much fun...

note about battle magick: mysticism spell "absorb health" requires same skill and same mana as destructive "damage health".

Im not a mystic, dont have it as my fav skill and relly on my sword for battle (with alteration and illusion to help in day-to-day life), but I do find it amusing casting something like "absorb 20 hp for 10 seconds" (100% chance to success) and seeng as opponent just dies whereas you are at full hp even if you started battle nearly dead. And in case of reflect I just absorb my own health i.e. nothing happens. Ofcourse black hands dagger does that too but you have to 1)earn it 2)feed with gems.

And ragnarock - you cant really kill ANY mage in the game as real test of skill is multiplayer which is absent here. Im at my "early twenties". And I can kill anyone in morrowind (of those that I meat during beating the game), except Dagoth ur's second incarnation perhaps (he is scripted to be unkillable?) using either magick or blade or bow. So what?

And magick has one more positive side it is fun and has options. Standing face to face with umbra and banging on eachother's helmet can get old.

So ya, I usually put warrior skills above mages, and enchanted items can substitute most of thief/mage skills, but some things are just nice to have.

To the ravaging battle axe swinging anti-mage terrorist, did you ever stop to think that ANY self respecting mage would at least carry around, i dunno, say, thirty different enchanted items with him. Among which of course would be something to cause MASSIVE ammounts of physical and elemental damage even over a long time. Sure you may kill any robe wearing monkish noob in the game but put up againts someone who actually knows what it is to be a mage you (and/or your monotone barbaric club-bearer) would be decimated in (quite) a short time. A true mage doesn't even cast spells anymore because of the sheer power, efficiency, and convenience of enchanted items. One, they are instant firing, no arm waving they just get straight to the hashkicking. Two they don't use magicka and they can be recharged. Three they can be switched off and fired rapidly. I once had about twenty Damage on Target enchantments and I could unload em all in sequence like a semi-automatic pistol. Just read through the spells in the book and see how much of a one sided affair it would be if a Wizard met a Warlord in battle.

Ok I'm glad I got that of my chest. Guys its not that im an ultra mage fanatic or anything, but when I see someone making hot aired and ignorant flames I just have to lay the hammer down. Just kind of re-examine your views and stereotypes on subjects and people before you post. Like I said before, something that a lot of people dont know is that experienced Mages done even use Magicka anymore, and that it somehow stunts their performance in battle. Theres nothing that magic or enchantments cant overcome.

And to address the 'mages are too hard to start off with' whining, just Major in Conjuration and Short Blade and you'll start off with a 100% Bound Deadric Dagger spell for 60 secs that doesnt even cost but like 6 pts to cast, not a prob even if you dont have the Sign of the Atronach (Magicka = 3x Intelligence).

Remember. Think... THEN post.

A mage would paralyse you before you eve saw him due to ring of Invisibility CE. Then he'd cast damage healts 50 pts for 10 seconds dealing you 500 dmg. Then he'd cast it again. And again. And again. That means that sanctuary 100pts is only one thing that a mage has. Also, try combining it with 100% chameleon...

ok most people seem to like fighters,which is understandable,i mean who doesnt like to hack their way through enimies?fair point.
But some of you are almost religiously against mages and magic all together....
hmmm this puzzles me a little...
you mean to tell me that the ones of you this applies to have never used one scroll?
never used a restore health potion?
and never used a spell or enchantment to get you to either the closest temple or fort?
of course you have...so the fact is that magic is a huge part of the game and cannot be ignored.
some fighters seem to like their own custom enchanted swords!!Errr yet again thats magic isnt it?course it is
so the fact is....a fighter you may wish to be but to survive you'll also be at least a wizards apprentice.

Tone it down a bit there ragnarok please. I'll close this if it starts turning into a "OMG TEH WARRIAR IS BETTER TAHN TEH MAGE!!!111!111" flaming thread.

it really doesnt matter because somewhere along the way even the burliest most rugged warrior would submit to the benefits of enchanted items. who could resist Umbra or the Ebony Mail? anyone who thinks a 'traditional' warlord would stick with bland steel or daedric weapons and armor should be snickered and sneered at upon passing an enchanter's house.

*sighs, reluctantly accepting the fact that trying to beat any reason into this ignorant human is about as difficult as, well, beating an uber wizard with a bland orcish warrior guy* notice at NO TIME EVER did I blast the idea of an almighty bloodcraven daedric warlord...


hey I've got an idea! to demonstrate what we mean, Ragnarok, lets take this to the RP forums eh?

plus how the f... oh nevermind, i was gonna let loose with another verbal uzi but why waste my time on an inanimate object such as ragnarok...

If you can use Royal Signet Ring (I suppose that you are using it since you have restore health 20 CE), I can sure use a ring 10 pts restore magicka CE.

And BTW... Damage Health 50pts + Restore Health 20 pts = Damage Health 30 pts. What do you mean by "you wouldn't take any damage from the spell"?

Also, how could you hit me if I cast Levitate 1 pts for 60 seconds and shoot you while levitating 50 feet above the ground?

You think you can hit a mage that is levitating, has 100% chameleon, sanctuary 100pts, and a spell that can kill you in two shots? (I have all the spells I used as an example).

Not mentioning that my mage has axe 100 heavy armor 100, full, enchanted daedric armor, and daedric battle axe wit shock dmg 20 pts when strikes, as a last resort, if you somehow manage to evade all my spells and jump high enough to hit me. Not to mention that I have ring of Invisibility CE... Which means you can't even see me.

Of course, there are warriors that could beat any mage that exists, but there are also mages that can kill any fighters that exist. But one thing's sure - fighter cannot become a mage, but a mage can become a fighter. That kinda makes them a "better" class.

i bet you 100 dollars my character could beat the shit out of yours only if there was a way to tell...................
i would either relect or absorrb all your spells because i wear royal signet ring and am born under the antronach. With out spells you stand no chance. Even if you casted chameleon i could cast sight beacuse i have enough magicka and illusion to cast it plentry of times.

not invincible to weapons.

if someone hit me with a weapon I could just cast santuary 100 points on myself or drain agility 100 points on you and wait for my health to regenerate.