[QUOTE=Windhunter]
#1- I am lost about what the specifc focus of a scroll is, versus a spelll or potion, or stone. Meaning, what things are temporary buffs and what things are permanant?[/quote]
On a general basis only enchanted armor you equip give permanent bonuses. Certain things will help just by having them in your inventory. Anything you drink or cast, by spell or scroll, is temporary.
Bring up the spell selection and choose the rightmost tab. That one shows your current modifiers, and by hovering your cursor over each you will see a break down of what things currently effecting that aspect, both temporary and permanent.
Temporary effects also show up as icons in the top right corner when you're exploring the world (not viewing inventory, spells and such) and the yellow semicircle above the icon shows how much is left of each spell in % of total. That is, a spell with 5 seconds duration will have as large a duration indicator as one lasting for a minute, but will disappear a lot faster.
[QUOTE=Windhunter]#2- I somehow ended up not being able to unequip a mace I was using to level a minor skill. I got a Dispel Spell- but have no idea how I did that to myself in the first place?[/quote]
If it's a conjured mace it should disappear when the time runs out or if you sheathe your weapon ('F' key). If it's a normal weapon you first have to sheath it before unequipping it or equipping another weapon (which automatically unequips the first one first of course.
[QUOTE=Windhunter]#3- Are any of the spells permanant buffs to a person, place or thing? Or all they all temporary?[/quote]
All are temporary.
[QUOTE=Windhunter]#4- How in the world do you scroll through different spells in combat? I SO wsh this game had the KOTOR interface where you could pause and lock in three actions. With the scroll pad, I end up dead before trying to go from conjuring up a zombie to dealing out a destructive spell.[/quote]
When you bring up the spell selection interface, game time is paused and you have all the time in the world. Also, when you're cursor is over equipment or spells you can press and hold keys '1' to '8' which will show the currently bound items/spells for those keys. Left clicking an item/spell while holding any of those keys will bind that item/spell to that key until the item disappears, you drop it or you bind something else to that key.
Once bound you can quickly select an item/spell by pressing that key while exporing the world.
As a caster the most imoprtant thing is to move, constantly and fast. Make sure you're running and not sneaking. Sneaking makes you a little bit slower, and walking is a lot slower than running. Blocking is also a lot better than just getting hit normally, but you will still lose a bit of health when blocking. The bright side is that your enemy will recoil a bit and being unable to attack again for a short while. This is enough to cast 1-2 spell or attack 2-3 times with a fast weapon.
Use a protective spell from alteration school such as defend, protect etc. They give you Shield N% for a little while. This effect is stackable with armor. So if you have 12 armor and cast a Shield 20% you end up with 32% damage reduction.
[QUOTE=Windhunter]#5- The potions are gone before combate ever ends. Is that just cause Im a level 4? [/quote]
Either you have very few potions or you get hit way too much. Make sure you get a 'Mortar & Pestle' and collect any wild growing fungus or plant you pass by. You can also buy ingredients in a lot of places like The Guilded Carafe in Market District and each mage guild's alchemist. Buy all ingredients you need (mainly with Restore Health, Restore Magicka and perhaps some harmful stuff like silence) first, then if you have enough gold buy the rest as well.
Next, open up your inventory tab and click the 'Mortar & Pestle' and then you can create your own potions. Keep the things you like, sell the rest. You will make more money from selling the potions that the ingredients cost as well.
[QUOTE=Windhunter]Ok, I have read about Magic from some great sites... and as embarrassed as I am to admit this, I'm just not getting it- and thus am really struggling in combat. Its like this total mental block with me.
I'm doing the leveling thing much talked about; thus I am getting 3-5 pts per attribute rather consistently, all going towards Intelligence (68), Endurance (56) and Strength (39). I'm a High Elf, Magic focused hybrid- my major skills in magic are restor, destruct, conjur, and alter. I then have blades and block plus merch. I call it an Elven Knight. I just hit level four; and here are my stats:
Health- 127, Magika- 286, Fatigue- 175; Birthsign=Mage[/quote]
While making sure you're selected attributes all go up by 5 is a good thing, levelling is not necessarily something you want. Whenever you level, so does every other creature in the game!
This means that your skill levels play a very big part in your ability to survive. If you mainly use Destruction spell to kill your enemies, having a destruction skill below 25 at level 5 will make things and at level 10 will make it, well not impossible, but each battle would take so long that you're likely to get bored fast. Conversely, imagine Master level Destruction at level 1 (equally boring to achieve for sure), and you would easily incinerate your foes. Another way to kill your enemies is use Conjuration, Blocking and Healing. Same argument still holds. You'd want a decently high Conjuration skill (and to a much lesser extent Healing and Blocking).
Now, that brings us to Character planning. Conjuration is in my opinion very bad to have as a major skill if you're going to use it! Conjuration skill improvement is off the scales. Below level 25, one to three Conjuration spells is enough to go up one skill level. 25-50 takes about three to ten spells per skill level. So, with Conjuration as a major skill you will go up one character level will as little as 30 spells early on which will most likely mean your other skills fall behind unless they're minor skills and you go out of your way to keep them up. Also, with conjuration as a minor, you can easily provide (after level 25) conjured creatures to train your strength and endurance based skills (weapon skills, hand to hand, armorer, blocking and heavy armor). You'll level your conjuration some as you go along thus getting some "free" points towards intelligence.
Also, you don't mention boosting your Willpower. Willpower improves your mana regeneration. To be more precise, it reduces the time to regenerate your mana, independent from how much mana you have. In other words, intelligence actually also improves your mana regeneration rate (while not decreasing the time). Let's say you have 100 mana and regenerate it in 30 seconds. That's roughly 3 mana/second. You increase your willpower and reduce the time to regenerate it to 20 seconds. Now, that's 5 mana/second. Then you improve your intelligence and get 120 mana. You will still regenerate it in 20 seconds, but that means 6 mana/second.
If you focus on spell casting, you should definitely not have all three Willpower skills as majors. Those are Destruction, Restoration and Alteration. I would at least put alteration as a minor skill. It's faster to level than the other two which means it takes rather little time to keep getting +5 willpower gains.
In your case, early on I'd focus on Intelligence and Willpower, and choose Str and Endurance alternatively as the third attribute.
Exactly how you design your character is in the end based on your preferences, but I'd keep at least Alteration and Conjuration as minor skills. Also, if you will actually use a weapon to fight as well, the weapon class you choose to use should remain a minor. Exactly how many of the skills you use that you choose to put as minor skills depends on how much you want to keep down your levelling.
For example, putting Speechcraft, Security, Marksman, Mercantile, Acrobatics, Armorer and Destruction as major skills for your class would mean that Destruction would make up at least 90% of your character levelling. Thus, unless you work actively towards character levelling your minor skills can sky rocket making the game very easy. Remove Security and Acrobatics and throw in Light Armor and Restoration and allready levelling will a bit faster. Remove Speechcraft as well and throw in Alchemy... you get the point.
If you're anything like me you will probably end up creating a few characters and test them for a little while until it feels good. So, just before you exit the sewers - save the game! Then, whenever you want to try a new character you just have to load that game and modify your character before leaving the sewers.
good luck
Qizatch
