[Garak]

Meh, I usually just got a set of bonemold armor and stuck with it - at least until joined the Legion and had to bee in uniform.

[Trull's son]

For some reason I recall orcish armour as being a medium set. Easy to find, maybe not quite so easy to strip from the orc's corpse though...

[Illuyankas]

Yep, it's medium, though staggeringly average as armour goes. I have fond memories of trying to kill the fully armoured orc over above one of the Daedric shrines on that string of islands by the swampy southwest side of the map and failing repeatedly. Then ignoring him and trying to attack and kill the female orc who had an orcish cuirass, boots and greaves without aggravating the other one, running away the first time I managed it. I ended up calling him the Murderator, coming back when I was higher level with a daedric battleaxe and utterly obliterating him. He was more trouble than Umbra that first playthrough.

[POOPOO MCBUMFACE]

I think everyone has an orc that proved a critical wall in their first playthrough. For me, he was the hilariously tragic culmination to a hilariously tragic story... my first time venturing out into Morrowind's wilderness on a proper expedition - eight fucking years ago and I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was doing a handful of early mages' guild quests, among others, and was heading out to the bitter coast to collect mushrooms for Ajira. Needless to say, I got hopelessly lost and quickly found myself outmatched at every turn, exhausted and with my resources spent. One direction, skirting the edge of a Daedric ruin, led me to what I thought would be some form of salvation in the form of a Nord warrior. He demanded money I didn't have and proceeded to beat me to death with a hammer. Going the other way (only now do I know that Hla Oad was literally about two minutes' walk away), I wandered out of the swamp and into the mountains, where I found a strange, dark, squat fortress. Salvation? I could but hope. So I entered, climbing and hopping awkwardly up the side to actually get into the bloody thing. I approached the door, using the last of my healing potions to prepare for anything that might lurk within...
And was immediately OHKO'd as soon as the loading bar finished to the roar of "I SHALL BATHE IN YOUR BLOOD".

I want that sense of danger and excitement back that was my defining Morrowind moment, and probably the first real inkling I got that this was going to be my favourite game ever. I suppose the Oblivion equivalent would be that orc being level 2 and slapping me with a wooden spoon or something? Or I would never have entered, because I would have merrily skipped to Hla Oad (okay, I can't really call proper visibility a downside, but it gave exploration a real magic that games will only be able to ape when they're actually capable of rendering proper 1:1 distance, which would frankly be boring as hell)... or fast travelled back to Balmora after unerringly following the green arrow to the mushrooms... or...

[Silencer]

Agreed...it was certainly a more interesting game to play. Hell, was? Is.

And yeah, I remember the guy by the Daedric shrine - standing proof that low-level characters need to be careful in Morrowind, lol! If you've got Tribunal installed, the best armour for medium is the King's Guard armour, iirc, in Mournhold. Pretty sweet set, too. Hard to get, though. XD

I was always a light armour boy myself, or if I went medium I'd take Bonemould and be done with it, heh. Heavy armour is cool and all, but far too heavy for my usually stealth/magic characters. And then of course there was the absolutely epic ability of mages in Morrowind to enchant clothing, armour, rings, what have you with shield/reflect spells to create non-armour garments that were better than Daedric. Kekkekke.

[Gothos]

OK so I went back home and... no, I just couldn't play a bosmer archer. You couldn't get further away from my playstyle, I think. And, quite honestly, stealth works kinda odd in Morrowind anyway.
So I restarted with a Nord warriory guy - gave him axe, blunt, heavy armor, block and armorer as major, speechcraft, long blade, restoration, athletics and enchant as minor. Not the most powergamey combination, I know, and I'm already feeling the lack of alchemy on a decent level, but I'm pretty strong right now. Got me some steel armor quickly and went on to do some fighters guild stuff out of Balmora, then moved over to Gnisis and taking care of Imperial Legion stuff. I might be switching from axes to blunt as it's favoured by both the fighters guild and the Legion, and Redoran favours armorer and heavy armor so I'll be safe on that front methinks.
So far, I'm strong enough to take on two kwama warriors at level 2, with some creative dodging and nice shock resistance and heavy armor. Doing well financially and I'm working to get as big multipliers on level up as possible - though my knowledge is a bit rusty and going from level 1 to 2, I had x4 on Strength and Endurance :/ though x5 on Agility (got to boost that bitch up cos I'm missing 2/3 of my swings right now. Also, block training needs it).
I've run into some powerful locks on doors in my current Imperial Legion assignment so I think I'll leave that for later now and go wrap up more Fighters Guild contracts. Maybe join Redoran soon, and perhaps Imperial Cult. Do some dungeon exploring.

Side note: playing a char with Personality this low is annoying :/

[Illuyankas]

Make sure to not be wearing a fullfaced helm when you talk to people, the whole vampire trust thing is actually ingame where you get an instance +5 likability bonus if they can see your face. Which makes the Mask of Clavicus Vile a bit silly, but oh well.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

You need a scroll of Ekash's Locksplitter. Unlock 100 points.

[POOPOO MCBUMFACE]

I had a pair of pants enchanted with Open 100 points on touch. I called them the Golfer's Breeches in honour of Mr Woods.

Probably not as offensive as my constant-effect water walking shoes called the Sandals of Jesus.

[Silencer]

EKASH'S LOCKSPLITTER. Ftw. Actually, the one thing that bugged me about Morrowind was the Skeleton Key having only, what was it, 5? Uses. GAH.

[Illuyankas]

Fifty, actually, but making it finite also made it unusable. Especially if you were pumping your alteration to unlock 100 at will.

Also 50 foot wide spells are very bad against Daedra with their inherent reflect chance, and there's a very good chance one of your targets will instakill you, but there are ways around it. Like a Dunmer with the Robe of Drake's Pride only using fire magic, for instance. Also on my last playthrough I totally stole Morgoth's suggestion of Weakness to [element] 100% for one second + Lots of [element] Damaage over x seconds on touch/50' radius with my magical guy. As long as the damage hits it while the weakness is active, it'll count as weakened after the initial effect wears off. Also a pair of pants with 1pt of Slowfall = no more falling damage ever. Just chug those Scrolls of Icarian Flight like there's no tomorrow!

[Silencer]

Ah, of course - it was the Bent Probe that only had five uses, everything else was 25 or 50. I just remember getting the SK and being very disappointed that it wasn't that much better than the Grandmaster's lockpick, to the point of being one of those "save it for when you need it; end up never using it" items. Oblivion made it far more useful in that sense - if a bit more imba-hax (who needs lockpicking skill when you have an UNBREAKABLE LOCKPICK OF DOOM, just mash the "auto-attempt" button until door opens ).

[POOPOO MCBUMFACE]

Illuyankas, on 14 June 2011 - 11:41 PM, said:

Also on my last playthrough I totally stole Morgoth's suggestion of Weakness to [element] 100% for one second + Lots of [element] Damaage over x seconds on touch/50' radius with my magical guy. As long as the damage hits it while the weakness is active, it'll count as weakened after the initial effect wears off.

This reaches absurdly broken levels with weakness to magicka/drain health, if you didn't try that. Weakness to magicka 100% for one second and drain health 100 points for 1 second on touch is ridiculously cheap and easy to cast - 100% chance on something like 35-40 skill - and is enough to kill just about anything in the game in one cast; drain health is as cheap as it is because the target's health returns in full once the effect ends, but if it's enough to bring them to 0 health, it's an instant kill. By the time you're anywhere near needing to upgrade to weakness 200% and drain 200 points, which will kill even Dagoth Ur in one use, it'll be more than manageable. Not only is it cheap, easy and effective (nothing really resists pure magicka damage), but since it's a literally instant kill, it's perfect for stealth kills. I think the only real problem is that it can sometimes cause problems for scripts that fire on death.

The sheer potential for abusing the spell system is one of the things I love most about the game, to be honest. I've never cared about balance in SP games; if I can outwit the mechanics, I should damn well be rewarded for it.

[Trull's son]

Ah messing with the magic mechanics was the best way to play the game. I loved how important Levitation was. Thought I was god for most of my mage playthrough; watching the little people run around while I bombed them from the skies!
I was really confident in my strat of flying and picking the plebes off, so that at the end of the Mage guild quest line I was sure that I would oust that pathetic leader and take over. Easy. When I discovered Trebonius (sp?) could also Levitate, I pretty much shit my virtual pants and was owned. Not as Easy.

[Morgoth]

Considering Skyrim promises at least 300 hours of gameplay, one can hope they've taken a step back towards the Morrowind formula.

@Illy, If you add a reduce resistance to Magika on touch too, next to the chosen elements one it gets even more rediculous.

[Gothos]

can you do that on 'target' as opposed to touch? iirc you have to actually roll a hit on someone for touch to work?

Also, back on the Nord... Champion in the Imperial Legion now, running around doing Redoran stuff now... I haven't even been to Vivec yet. I might drop by Ebonheart and grab me some Shrine Sergeant quests.

[Morgoth]

If you do it on target it gets a lot more expensive. A 2-3 second effect on touch is dirt cheap.

[POOPOO MCBUMFACE]

Morgoth, on 15 June 2011 - 08:01 AM, said:

Considering Skyrim promises at least 300 hours of gameplay, one can hope they've taken a step back towards the Morrowind formula.

Fallout 3 promised 200 endings. Someone at Bethesda has a broken "0" key.

[Illuyankas]

Ah, Morgoth, Magicka resistance doesn't effect elemental damage at all. It's purely for non-elemental effects and damage, like Paralyse and whatnot.

[Gothos]

I seriously abhor having quests to do in the Sheogorad or Molag Amur regions. Really, fuck them! And the Cliff Racers, and Slaughterfish. Fuck them.

In any case, moving forward in the world. I actually took on a Clannfear yesterday, if by mistake by skirting a daedric shrine too close. I also had a scrap with two orcs using two-handed orcish weapons... mew? Please don't kill me? Had to take the bastards one by one. But, I am now Knight Bachelor of the Imperial Legion. And people go around asking me 'Your bidding, sir?' instead of 'Why are you away from your post?', which is good.

Almisivi and Divine Intervention spells are such a godsend, btw. Awesome stuff.

Also, must say I'm really loving my choice of birthsign - Atronach is even great for pure warrior types - can't go wrong with 50pt spell absorbtion!

PS. UESP.net is really hampering my productivity at work.

This post has been edited by Gothos: 16 June 2011 - 06:44 AM