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I thought I'd share my character with you to see if you have any feedback. I need to point out really early on that I am a roleplayer and have no interest in exploits or powerplaying. I have nothing against those things - they are just of no interest to me.

After a few false starts, I finally got a character that I am happy with:
Name: Mordwyn
Race: Dark Elf
Class: Shadowthane (see below)
Speciality: Stealth

Major Skills:
- Long Blade
- Unarmored
- Sneak
- Alchemy
- Security

Minor Skills:
- Short Blade
- Marksman
- Armorer
- Medium Armor
- Speechcraft

I wanted a character that did not use spells except on magical items and potions. This will make the game harder. After playing Daggerfall I suspected that Morrowind would get too easy if I combined magic and melee, and I just prefer stealth play. I started out with a great idea for an assassin-type called a Soulstealer, who killed people for their souls to put in soul gems for rich mages, but I ditched that idea when I found that you need to have magical abilities (i.e. spells) to enchant items. If enchanting allowed you to use scrolls then this would have worked. So I ended up with a "Shadowthane", who is essentially a cross between a samurai and a ninja (excellent Morag Tong material I suspect).

My skill selection and placement might look a bit weird. The first thing to realize is that if you don't pick any magic schools there isn't a whole lot left. Also, I wanted to have major/minor skills that made sense but did not level-up really fast - I dislike the idea of putting key skills into miscellaneous skills just to prevent levelling. I also wanted to avoid purchasing training, instead relying on using the skills to raise them.

Here were my thoughts regarding skills, including those I chose to leave as miscellaneous skills:

ACROBATICS - Wish I'd made this a minor skill because it rises slowly unless you jump everywhere and it is pretty useful in dungeons.

ALCHEMY - My only source of magic save for enchanted items that I find. I made it a major skill because it rises quite slowly and it is not much use under 30.

ARMORER - I picked this as a minor skill and I am finding it hard to raise. I'm spending more money on repair hammers than I would spend on training, but I have zero money problems anyway.

ATHLETICS - Rises very quickly because I run when not in town or dungeon. That's why I did not pick it as a skill.

BLOCK - Rises too fast, plus I hate how the shield blocks your view. Also, I wanted to use the dai katana.

ENCHANT - Great skill, but of little use to someone who has no magic schools because you cannot enchanct without spells.

HAND-TO-HAND - My favorite skill in Daggerfall has been nerfed beyond recognition! Not only does it suck, it rises SO fast.

LONG BLADE - Dai Katana is my main weapon. I partly like the DK because big slow weapons raise the skill slower.

MARKSMAN - I like this skill because it seems to rise much slower than other weapon skills. It's also good to have a ranged attack. I picked it as a minor skill, but I sort of wish I'd made it a major.

MERCANTILE - I'd pick this if it fitted the character better and I had room. It is near impossible to raise as a miscellaneous skill.

MEDIUM ARMOR - Heavy Armor didn't make much sense for the character and Light Armor raises agility, not endurance. I think a lot of the medium armor looks cool. I dislike how fast this skill rises.

SECURITY - Made this a major skill because it raises slowly and needs to be high to be useful.

SHORT BLADE - Picked this because I had room and I did not want to use just one weapon skill because it would get too high too fast. I would have preferred Spear but this made more sense for the character. I dislike how fast it rises.

SNEAK - Slow to raise if you don't use it unrealistically. I made this a major skill because it is useless below 30.

SPEECHCRAFT - I talk to almost every NPC so it is not hard to raise this. My main reason for picking it was to taunt people so that I could kill them without breaking the law. Unfortunately, I am finding that they do not always attack even with a successful taunt.

UNARMORED - My plan was to leave my head and feet uncovered. I don't like the look of helmets - I prefer to see my face! The feet helps with sneaking. I thought that if I picked two armor skills and mixed armor then they would both rise slower, but this skill still rises too fast. If I started over I would not even take this as a skill because it doesn't really contribute much to my overall AC.

Right now my character is looking suitably samurai-like with a Dai Katana and a red robe that matches his red hair. He's finding the difficulty level to be about right - the fights are not pushovers but he can still take on four foes at once. He just took out a shack full of bad guys with his DK and it felt really good.

Despite all my deliberate attempts to arrest my character development I am still levelling a bit too fast for my liking. Level 1 to 2 felt really good, but the levels just flew by once I started going into dungeons. The main problem skills seem to be Long Blade, Short Blade, Medium Armor and Unarmored - all of which rise too fast. Right now I am using my bow nearly all the time in an attempt to avoid levelling again!

If I could be bothered to start over I would probably make Marksman a major skill, drop Unarmored to miscellaneous and take Acrobatics as a minor skill.

Thanks for reading! What do you think?

Couple of things maybe worth mentioning.

First, enchant. It's actually useful for any character, because it -also- affects how many charges an item goes through when you use it. A high enchant skill will make your magic item's power stretch much farther. For a character who doesn't use any magic spells, magic items that last a while would probably be very handy.

Mercantile - not too hard to raise. Every time you buy or sell something, try to squeeze an extra few coins out of the shopkeeper. Every successful attempt, no matter for how little, adds to the skill.

Alchemy - actually raises pretty quickly once you start buying lots of ingrendients and have the skill at a point where you don't fail more then half the time.

Unarmored, btw, does get decent when you get it to high levels. You can expect ~75 AC when unarmored with 100 in the skill.

Your character looks good to me for the most part, though I wouldn't have doubled up the weapon and armor skills.

I'd certainly like to have a good enchant skill level, but I just have a problem with the way it works:
1. You need to have spells to be able to enchant. If I am playing a non-magic-user, why would I learn spells? I thought that an NPC enchanter would solve the problem, but it still seems like I have to learn spells to be able to add enchantments.
2. Raising enchantment would be pretty tough without making tons of trash items. Using magic items causes it to raise, but it seems to go up only slowly. I'm all for slow levelling, but this skill just seems to slow to raise without training.

Thanks for the comments.

Well, even if you're not going to cast spells, I could still see learning a few for the purpose of enchanting items. There are probably less then a dozen that would be worthwhile.... levitate, heal, restore fatigue, mark, recall, the interventions, waterbreath, waterwalk, shock damage, paralyze. But your call.

Raising is time consuming, but not too bad. It admittedly consists of standing around and repeatedly invoking every item you have, then sleeping to build their charge back up, then repeat. I can see why you'd want to skip that

If you want to keep in character, what you could do is, when you wanted to get an item enchanted, buy the spell, go to the enchanter, use it to enchant and then delete it.

You could consider yourself as having written down the spell for the enchanter.

-Cross

Soulstealer

Good point about only needing a few spells. Your comments made me think of my Soulstealer character again, which I thought was a good idea from an RP point of view. Here's the Class Description I did:

"Soulstealers kill to obtain souls, which they use to make powerful magic artefacts. They sometimes work alone, but often they are employed by rich mages to hunt for the soul of a specific creature or person."

With my current thinking, the character would look something like this (my original had no magic schools, but I think at least Mysticism is important):
Class: Soulstealer
Race: Dark Elf (best combination of stats)
Speciality: Stealth (Magic would be good choice too)
Sign: The Lady (my preference, but a more magical sign could be good)
(Breton/Apprentice a decent alternative)

Major Skills:
- Long Blade (or Short Blade)
- Mysticism (for Soul Trap, but opens the door for other spells)
- Enchant
- Alchemy
- Stealth

Minor Skills:
- Security
- Marksmanship
- Medium Armor (my preference - any armor type good)
- Acrobatics
- Speechcraft
Alternatives: Illusion, Block, Mercantile, Conjuration

Obviously, the skills are just my preference. A Nightblade could just as easily be a Soulstealer without changing skills.

If I ever feel like playing a more magical character I might give this a try.

If stealth is your game you might wanna throw in alteration. Its got stuff like invis, chameleon, levitate, jump, waterwalk.

limorkil, your 'Shadowthane' looks similar to the class I made.

Out of interest ( ) ...

Class: 'Ninja' ( )
Specialisation: Stealth
Preferred: Agility, Speed

Major:
Sneak
Marksmanship (throwing stars)
Long Blade (longsword or katana)
Unarmoured
Acrobatics

Minor:
Security
Speechcraft (intimidation)
Athletics
Illusion
Alteration

I'm applying my interpretation of a Ninja to a male Khajiit born under the Steed. So far, so much fun!

How can you have a ninja without the 'Flipping-Out and Cutting People's Heads Off' skill?!?

http://www.realultimatepower.net/

S_S