The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Author's Foreword
Creating Your Character (An Overview)
The Skills
The Races
The Signs
Controls
Magic & Combat
Crime & Punishment
Goods & Services
Coming Soon
Version History, Credits, & Contact Information
Morag Tong Guild
Power Leveling Skills
  
  

Acrobatics

Skill Type: Stealth
Governing Attribute: Strength

Acrobatics is essentially the game's jumping skill. The higher your skill level in Acrobatics, the higher you can jump, and the farther you can safely fall without taking damage. At high levels (around 50 or so), jumping actually becomes faster than walking. At very high levels (at least 90), you can get some serious air, and even easily jump over houses. Acrobatics levels, simply enough, by jumping and taking damage from falling, with the latter doling out more experience. It's a pretty damn easy skill to level, so make it a minor skill if you make it anything. By the by, my favorite place to gain experience in this skill is a building just on the east side of the river in Balmora, on the north side of town. A flight of stairs lead from the streets to the roof, which can be then be leapt from to sustain minor damage. Hop back up the stairs to the roof and repeat until insane.

Alchemy

Skill Type: Magic
Governing Attribute: Intelligence

One of the more generally useful skills in the game is Alchemy. Section III.A. of the FAQ discusses the skill in a bit more detail, suffice it to say that this skill allows you to create potions with a variety of useful effects. In addition to that, this skill has the potential to be rather profitable, since alchemical ingredients in this game literally grow on trees, and the resulting potions can be sold for cash money. Creating potions is the primary method of leveling up the skill, though consuming ingredients directly also contributes a negligible amount of experience (though eating scrap metal was never really a good idea to begin with). Even though your chances of creating potions successfully is a result of your Alchemy skill, gaining experience is by far easy and profitable enough to make it better suited as a minor skill as opposed to a major one. This is also probably the only skill in the game that I would strongly recommend including in any character's skillset, since potions you create are usually far more powerful than the ones you can buy or find.

Alteration

Skill Type: Magic
Governing Attribute: Willpower

Alteration is the school of magicka concerned with the manipulation of the physical world. It encompasses a wide variety of spell effects, many of them invaluably useful. Unlocking/locking locks, water walking, water breathing, shielding, and levitation entail most of the school's actually helpful effects. Including this school of magic as a major or minor skill is never a bad idea, regardless of the type of character you're playing. The fact is that you'll likely be using many effects that fall under the school of Alteration during the course of the game; the only real question is whether you'll possess those effects as spells or as enchantments. Most of Alteration's effects do well either way, though I would suggest the Security skill to any character who passes this one up.

Armorer

Skill Type: Combat
Governing Attribute: Strength

The Armorer skill allows you to use armorer's hammers or repair prongs to repair damaged weapons and armor. All equipment sustains general wear and tear through everyday use, which will eventually diminish its effectiveness and eventually render it unusable until the damage is repaired. Any armor smith will repair your equipment for a negligible fee. And when it comes right down to it, that negligible fee is all this skill really saves you. That's not even counting the cost of the equipment, which is often much more than you would've paid just to have the shit fixed for you. Nothing except maybe light armor breaks easily enough to justify carrying hammers and prongs around with you, and even then they're heavy enough to offset the benefit of wearing light equipment. And did I mention that the Armorer skill levels way too Goddamn slowly? In conclusion, I would strongly recommend leaving weapon and armor care up to the professionals in this game.

Athletics

Skill Type: Combat
Governing Attribute: Speed

Athletics is the art of, well, running. So unless you walk everywhere you go in this game (not recommended), you'll be making use of this skill on a more or less constant basis. Though it should be very obvious, it bears mentioning that this skill levels at a highly uncontrollable pace, which is why I tend to advise against listing it as a major or minor skill. Even without the bonuses conveyed by major or minor skill status, you should find this skill will level up just fine with all the running around the game forces you to do. If not, then you should note that Athletics levels a lot faster by swimming than it does by running. Hop into the river at Balmora and swim into a post until the desired level is reached, or boredom has forced you to commit hari kari.

Axe

Skill Type: Combat
Governing Attribute: Strength

Axe is the strongest weapon skill choice in the game in terms of sheer power. While slow and quite heavy, axes deal the most damage of any weapon type available, and come in one and two-handed varieties. The one-handed versions, or war axes, do less damage, but are a bit quicker to use and allow for the use of a shield. Battleaxes, however, are specifically designed for maximum damage output at the expense of pretty much everything else. Axes are also uber sexy, which is really just my opinion and has absolutely nothing to do with the game itself.

Block

Skill Type: Combat
Governing Attribute: Agility

The Block skill allows you to use a shield to defend yourself in melee combat. Unlike other armor skills, your Block skill relates to your chance to successfully block an attack, which will remove all damage that would've been dealt by it, rather than merely adding to your defense. This skill gains experience by successfully using your shield to defend attacks, thus it tends to get easier to level up as the skill level rises, since you'll be able to block attacks far more often than at lower levels in Block. In my opinion, the success rate of the Block skill doesn't reach a very desirable level until about level 40. Additionally, it's virtually impossible aside from training to level your Block skill without also leveling an armor skill. Based on these facts, I'd strongly recommend Block as a major skill for any character that doesn't plan on primarily wielding two-handed weapons.

Blunt Weapon

Skill Type: Combat
Governing Attribute: Strength

The Blunt Weapon skill covers a very wide assortment of weapons, all of which possess different features. Clubs... well, clubs just suck. Maces are one-handed weapons with a good balance of speed, weight, enchantability, and damage output, much like Long Blade-type weapons. Staves require both hands to wield and are weaker than maces, but are also lighter and quicker. Finally, warhammers are closely equivalent to battleaxes. They are slow, powerful two- handed weapons tailored specifically towards dealing maximum damage, but also possess the unique bonus of being exceptionally good at knocking an opponent off of their feet. Overall, the variety of the Blunt Weapon skill is certainly a pleasant bonus to enjoy, but the other, more specialized weapon skills would likely serve as better choices in the long run to the more decisive player.

Conjuration

Skill Type: Magic
Governing Attribute: Intelligence

Conjuration, as the name suggests, is the school of magicka related to summoning forth physical forces from nothingness. Curiously, turn undead and command (control) creature are two spell effects that fall under this category. But the two real draws of the school of Conjuration are the summoning of bound items and the summoning of creatures. Bound items are ridiculously powerful pieces of equipment that can be conjured, and last for as long as the spell does. Summoned creatures will faithfully fight anything hostile towards you for the duration of the spell, or until they are killed. Summoning creatures, unfortunately, is one of the most expensive spell effects in the game, and bound items should only appeal to the less combat-oriented characters who aren't already equipped with powerful weapons and armor. These two facts and more tend to make Conjuration a school of magicka best suited as a major or minor skill only for the more magicka-oriented character.

Destruction

Skill Type: Magic
Governing Attribute: Willpower

Destruction is the magicka school of attack magicka and attacking things with it. With this school, you've got your basic elemental damage spells, your damage and drain attribute spells, and even spells to lower an enemy's resistances or damage their equipment. Needless to say, the spells that just do direct damage are the most popular. You'll commonly see weapons enchanted with these particular spell effects, and they usually tend to be far more effective than the spells alone. However, the Destruction skill governs both short and long-range attack magicka, making it a bit more versatile on that front. For a skilled mage, the Destruction skill is a viable magicka-based replacement for the Marksman weapon skill. Otherwise, I wouldn't even bother.

Enchant

Skill Type: Magic
Governing Attribute: Intelligence

Enchant is one of those skills that will be useful to any player, but can only be fully utilized by a hardcore mage. Your skill level in Enchant governs your chances of successfully creating enchanted items, the amount of use you can get out of an enchanted item before the charge is spent, and how much you can recharge enchanted items with soul gems (check out section III.C. of the FAQ if you want to know what any of that nonsense actually meant). The skill gains experience by using soul gems to create enchanted items or to recharge them. It also gains a very small amount of experience from actually using them (though this doesn't apply to cast on strikes or constant effect enchantments). Enchant is probably one of the harder, if not the hardest skill to level naturally, especially in the early game. This is why my usual advice for this skill to just leave it as a miscellaneous skill and train it up as high as you can to enjoy its benefits. Failing that, if there was ever any skill that would do better as a major skill rather than a minor one, it's Enchant.

Hand-to-Hand

Skill Type: Stealth
Governing Attribute: Speed

Unarmed fighting is the oddball of all the melee combat skills present in the game. The disadvantages are numerous and quite obvious. This style of fighting, first of all, damages a target's fatigue rather than its health. Health will only be damaged once the target has lost all fatigue and has been knocked down. Secondly is the obvious disadvantage of being unable to bear an enchantment on your weapon (read: your fists). Still, even considering this, some players swear by this skill as perhaps the most effective weapon of all. This is largely due to the fact that once you have knocked your target down, it's rather difficult for them to get back up when facing a skilled martial artist. The relative ease of leveling the skill is another advantage, since all you really need is a single target to wail away on.

Heavy Armor

Skill Type: Combat
Governing Attribute: Endurance

The Heavy Armor skill entails the heaviest and most defensive of all armors available. However, the best armor under this category doesn't really surface until later in the game, so early on Heavy Armor tends to be less than or equal to Medium Armor in terms of overall effectiveness. And while the best Heavy Armor-types around will strongly eclipse any and everything else, it's also (not surprisingly) really Goddamned heavy. This shouldn't be too much of a problem for a powerful fighter, but it's worthy of mention that wearing this type of armor levies an additional penalty on you that makes it easier for you to be knocked down (for more on this, see section II.B. of the FAQ).

Illusion

Skill Type: Magic
Governing Attribute: Personality

Illusion is the school of magicka that alters the perceptions of reality. Spells like charm and invisibility, as well as a myriad of negative status effects are included with this school. As for the former, charm/frenzy and invisibility/chameleon spells tend to be expensive, but extremely effective when used properly. Remaining undetected by your enemies is helpful in any situation, whereas charming them is a hell of a lot easier than bribing them, and a good frenzy spell allows you to easily and legally kill anyone in plain sight. An evasion-raising spell effect called Sanctuary is also included in the mix, but like all the other defensive spells in the game is only useful to the more skilled mages who can actually cast it well. Speaking more on the latter, by far the most useful and popular status spell effect is Paralyze. It fares far better as a weapon enchantment than as a spell and is thusly most often used as such. Therefore I can only reccomend this as a major or minor skill based on the power of the spells I mentioned earlier, which tend to be very expensive spell effects thus leaning this school more into major skill territory. Stealth-types probably have more use for this school of magicka than anyone else, but it can be handy to just about anyone who uses it right. On a final note, if you're having enough trouble seeing in this game that the light-enhancing spells of this school appeal to you, forget it. Your problem is most assuredly related to the brightness and contrast settings on your monitor, or the fact that you actually own an Xbox.

Mercantile

Skill Type: Stealth
Governing Attribute: Personality

Mercantile is the art of haggling. Gain experience in the skill by offering and getting better deals than the base price while bartering (see section II.D. for more on this). I could go on and on about this skill, but I won't. The simple truth is that you do not need to worry about money in this game. You literally possess the capability to buy something from someone and then sell it right back to them for more than you paid for it. And remember that we're talking about a game where if you don't like a deal you're getting, you can just kill the son of a bitch and sell everything he owns to the guy next door. There's really no point in appointing this skill to a major or minor position unless you're just really greedy, or if you just can't think of anything else to put there.

Mysticism

Skill Type: Magic
Governing Attribute: Willpower

Mysticism is the school of magicka bent on manipulating the mystical forces of nature. I'm not exactly sure what that means, only that this school is pretty much regarded as one of the most useful magicka schools. I tend to agree, except only in the case of a mage-type character. Spell absorption, spell reflection, mystical detection of keys, enchantments, and/or animals, and teleportation are infinitely useful effects, but only if you're powerful enough to actually use them. Spells that drain attributes are also available, thus a nice absorb health spell helps make Mysticism a decent half-assed alternative to the Destruction skill. They also make superb weapon enchantments, as well. Soul trapping (used in conjunction with Enchanting- refer to section III.C. of the FAQ for more info) and Telekinesis are two more prominent spells of this school, but both are rather cheap to cast and fare just as well as enchantments than as spells. So in conclusion, if you've got a mage-type character in the works, this is probably one of the main magicka schools to consider including in your skillset. For anyone else, you're best off leaving this one alone.

Restoration

Skill Type: Magic
Governing Attribute: Willpower

Restoration is, as you might have guessed, the school of magicka focused on healing and fortifying your body. Spells that restore health, cure disease, and fortify attributes or resistances are all included with the Restoration package. You needn't be a full-blown mage to make use of this school's useful spells, in fact I'd recommend this skill to just about any player who doesn't feel like relying entirely on other methods of keeping themselves healthy. You're of course advised to still make good use of the other methods available to you- a good health restoration spell can help save those restore health potions for more appropriate situations (you'll quickly learn that restorative potions work a lot better in the heat of battle than restorative spells do). Spells that cure disease or restore damaged attributes can also be of great assistance in the field, but that about does it for the extent of this school's useful spell effects, at least for the novice mage. More skilled magicians might enjoy spells that fortify their resistances, but fortify attribute spells are of limited use due to their overall cost in achieving any kind of a useful effect. Still, you can't go wrong including the magicka school of Restoration as either a major or minor skill in your character's skillset.

Security

Skill Type: Stealth
Governing Attribute: Intelligence

Security is a real nice way of saying lockpicking. This skill governs your chances to successfully unlock doors and chests with lockpicks, and disarm traps with probes. The single disadvantage to this skill is that unlock spells and enchantments are a lot more reliable than carrying around lockpicks is. That being said, having a high skill level in Security is your best bet early in the game to defeat high level locks and the only way besides telekinesis to disable traps. Most traps aren't lethal, but they still hurt. The Security skill gains experience by successfully unlocking a lock or disarming a trap, only so many of which exist within the game. However, there is a lock spell effect, which is essentially the cantrip for this skill. A lock spell is available immediately into the game from the Caldera Mage's Guild (you can travel there from the Mage's Guild at Balmora). After acquiring the effect, merely create a lock spell or enchantment with a magnitude of 1 and level your Security skill to your heart's content. The ease of leveling means that Security fares equally well as a minor skill as it does as a major one, but a stealth-type character will still probably want to go major with it.

Short Blade

Skill Type: Stealth
Governing Attribute: Speed

Short Blade governs the second most common type of weapon found throughout the game (Long Blade being the first- this game is awfully fixated on swords). Short Blade-types include daggers, short swords, and short swords with funny names, like Tanto and Wakizashi. These weapons are by far the weakest weapons available, but they are also the lightest and quickest. They tend to possess high levels of enchantability, making this weapon choice much more of a magical damage-dealer than a physical one. Powerful warriors are probably much better off selecting a more powerful weapon skill, wisely observing the fact that the Short Blade skill is listed in the stealth category instead of the combat one.

Sneak

Skill Type: Stealth
Governing Attribute: Agility

Sneak is the art of moving unseen or unheard. A little sneak icon will appear in the lower left-hand corner of the screen whenever you are holding the sneak button down and are unseen. Any putz can hide behind something or stay far enough away from someone that they remain undetected, but it takes skill to be near someone without letting them know you're there. That's where the Sneak skill comes in. When you reach a point where you might actually be noticed by someone or something, your Sneak skill will dictate how likely you are to remain hidden. It's a constant-effect kinda thing, so if you just stand in one spot and hold the sneak button, the little icon will phase in and out. At lower levels, this skill is ineffective enough that it takes for fuckin' ever to level, and is probably best raised via training. At higher levels, however, the bonuses conveyed by the skill can be substantial. Obviously, the ability to remain unnoticed makes everyday thievery easier, but being able to sneak up on someone will allow you to successfully pickpocket them (just talk to anyone while holding the sneak button down to try) or deal critical damage with an attack. Just about any stealth-type character is best advised to have this as a major skill, but other types could probably stand to be without it.

Spear

Skill Type: Combat
Governing Attribute: Endurance

Spear is one of the more alternative weapon skill choices in the game. Spears and Halberds are two-handed weapons that are just as slow, but don't deal quite as much damage as battleaxes or warhammers. The advantage of these weapons, however, is the extremely high potential for enchantment they tend to possess, eclipsing even Short Blade in terms of average enchantment points per weapon. Of course, the downside is that this is a bonus that cannot be fully recognized until much later in the game, so the Spear skill is somewhat of a late bloomer in terms of usefulness. On the other hand, in conjunction with a character well-versed in the Enchant skill, the Spear skill can be quite deadly much earlier in the game.

Speechcraft

Skill Type: Stealth
Governing Attribute: Personality

The Speechcraft skill directly affects your chances of successfully persuading someone (this is discussed further in section II.D. of the FAQ). In short, given that the skill is nothing more than a simple chance check for an action which can be failed over and over again with little consequence, the importance of the Speechcraft skill more or less amounts to saving you about 30 seconds of your time. Leveling it is as simple as endlessly admiring someone, though it will tend to level a bit on its own if you often tend to get on good terms with someone before doing business with them (which is highly recommended in any event). Still, I wouldn't include this as a major or minor skill unless I was just really desperate to find something to fill a minor slot.

Unarmored

Skill Type: Magic
Governing Attribute: Speed

The fourth, forgotten armor skill is the art of not wearing any at all. Your Unarmored skill is applied to any body part not currently covered with a piece of armor, meaning that unless you're always running around with a full set of armor on (unlikely), you'll be making at least some use of this skill at any given time. Unarmored is a fairly ineffective skill until it reaches higher levels (around 50 or so), at which point it becomes surprisingly good. It will never be as effective as the strongest armors of the other three categories, and is generally a poor choice for a primary armor skill. However, as a secondary skill it can do an excellent job of filling the gaps in any set of armor. The Argonian and Khajit races, unable to wear boots or headgear, should pay special attention to this skill. Aside from that, Unarmored tends to be more useful to players favoring heavy or medium armor, as offsetting the weight issue via one or more vulnerable body parts is generally more helpful to the player whose armor actually weighs something. Keep all this in mind when deciding whether or not to make Unarmored a major or minor skill.
    
Last Update: December 31, 2005 Contributors: BTB