Strategy Guide Wiki - The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

You've already learned that casting magic and attacking with weapons is done with the use button. Your currently selected weapon and spell will be displayed on the lower left-hand corner of the screen, and the "ready weapon" and "ready spell" commands are used to get your character ready to use them. This section will delve a bit deeper into the combat system than stuff you should already know.

As you should also already know, the damage dealt by a your character's (physical) attacks are a direct result of the weapon used and your character's strength. Accuracy is tied to your character's skill level with the weapon used and your Agility stat. However, the third and final factor in this equation is your character's current level of fatigue, a subject I've only lightly touched on thus far.

Fatigue essentially represents how tired your character is. Your fatigue drains gradually as you perform physically taxing actions: fighting, runnning, and jumping, specifically. Fatigue slowly restores itself over time as you walk at a normal pace, sneak, stand still, or rest. It can also be restored with spells or potions. When your character's fatigue is at its maximum, he or she will operate at top efficiency. As it begins to drain, however, it will start to adversely affect some of your actions based on the current percentage of your character's maximum fatigue remaining.

The more fatigued your character is, the less likely he or she is to connect with a weapon. This is probably one of the least-noticeable effects of fatigue loss, since the effects generally aren't too severe. This is fortunate in the sense that fighting is a very good way to make your character tired, and you'll thus be waging a lot of combat at 0% fatigue. Being completely worn out won't make you pass out from exhaustion or anything, but it will result in you getting knocked down if you get hit by an unarmed attack (a punch, basically). It also makes you easier to get knocked down by other attacks.

However, the most pronounced effect that fatigue will have on you is that of your spellcasting abilities. On your character's spell menu, each spell is listed alongside its casting cost in magicka and chances for success if cast, which is again something you should already know. However, you might notice that the success percentage for each spell (excepting those spells granted by birthsigns) will be lowered dramatically as your character becomes more and more fatigued. The success percentages given at 100% fatigue will be your character's "true" chances for success.

There are two basic types of attacks and offensive spells: ranged and melee. I say "offensive" spell because a third type of spell can target the caster only, but the best amongst those usually aren't offensive in nature. Bad jokes aside, however, the difference between these two should be readily obvious; melee attacks strike at something right in front of your face while ranged attacks will continue until they either hit something or disappear off the edge of the planet. I mentioned earlier in section II.A. of the FAQ that a crosshairs is provided in first-person view, which is helpful for melee attacks but almost essential in ranged ones.

First, let's talk a little about melee combat. There are three basic types of attacks you can make, each dealing differing amounts of damage depending on the type of weapon your character is wielding: chop, thrust, and slash. Chopping is done by pressing the use button when your character is standing still. Thrusting attacks can be made by using the use command as your character is moving forwards or backwards, and slashing attacks are made when moving at an angle. More conveniently, you may go into the preferences menu in the game options and enable the "always use best attack" option, which instructs your character to always use the ideal method of attack for his or her equipped weapon and frees you from the hassle of having to worry about it. In opting not to do this, be sure to check out your currently equipped weapon in your inventory to see which method of attack will yield the most damage.

Pressing and holding the use button will direct your character to draw his or her weapon back, but an attack will not be made until the button is released. This is important to know in the sense that sneaking up on your target and attacking whilst they are unaware of your presence will convey a 300% bonus (four times that of a normal attack) to the damage dealt. This is obviously one of the main benefits of the Sneak skill (which is discussed in more detail in section I.B. of the FAQ), and furthermore demonstrates the importance of being able to strike quickly when necessary.

Moving onto magic, spells are essentially equivalent to physical attacks in the melee/ranged sense, though they do have different names. Spells that work "on touch" require actual physical contact to made with the target to take effect, while those that work "on target", much like ranged physical attacks, will move forth when cast and will not stop until they hit something or break orbit. And as should be pretty obvious, spells that work "on self" require no targeting whatsoever to be effective.

Magic also introduces three important new words into your Morrowind vocabulary: magnitude, duration, and area. Magnitude is just a fancy way of saying how powerful the spell is (i.e. does this spell do 15 to 30 points of damage, or 25 points of damage?). Some spells, such as paralyzation spells, which have certain set effects don't possess magnitude. Duration, conversely, indicates how long the spell will last. Unlike magnitude, nearly every spell in the game will possess some form of duration. This includes healing and direct damage spells, which can continue to drain or restore its target's health over a period of time. Lastly, area is an effect that will apply only to ranged spells. When the spell strikes something, be it an intended target or any other obstacle, it will take effect at that point and cover the entire range dictated by its area. At area's default (lowest) setting, the spell will affect only what it hits, and will not be mentioned in the spell's description. At its highest setting, you can depopulate an entire city in a single blast. You are thankfully immune to the effects of your own spells, at least the ones intended for someone else. You can read more about spells and spellmaking in section III.B. of the FAQ.

Enchantments are also something I will talk much more about later in the FAQ, but there are several points worth making mention of here. Specifically, as long as we're on the subject of Morrowind vernacular, there are two more words that I should go ahead and explain at this time. They are charge and range. When you use a filled soul gem to create an enchanted item, the value of the soul contained in that gem governs how many charges the enchanted item will have. Each time an enchanted item is used, it uses up a certain number of charges depending on the strength of the item's enchantment. As with fatigue, an items's charges will restore slowly over time, or you can also use filled soul gems that, again depending on the value of the soul within, will either partially or fully restore an enchanted item's charges.

Range, however, is the term I would like to talk a little more about at the moment. When creating an enchanted item, you are instructed to select the enchanted item's range. Possible ranges include: cast once, cast when used, cast when strikes, and constant effect. "Cast once" and "cast when used" enchantments work exactly like spells do, except that the rules of enchanted items apply to them rather than the rules of spells. They will be listed at the bottom of your character's spell menu under the "magic items" sub-header, will show up in the appropriate slot when you cycle through your character's spells (even if the enchanted item is a weapon), must be readied as a spell would be, and is used in exactly the same manner as a spell is cast.

"Cast on strikes", on the other hand, is an enchantment for weapons only. Weapons with this type of enchantment cannot be used as items with other types of enchantments can, but rather a weapon with a "cast on strikes" enchantment will use the weapon's enchantment each time it makes contact with a target, if charges permit. The end result is obviously more often than not a very useful weapon which is at the very least far superior to its unenchanted counterpart. Constant effect enchantments are similar to these types of enchantments, but differ in that they will convey the benefits of their enchantments full-time when equipped on your character, and do not use charges. They are an advanced form of enchantment that are only possible with very powerful souls. For more on enchanting and enchantments, please refer to section III.C. of the FAQ.

Before I wrap this section up, I'd like to speak finally on the rather important issue of potions and combat. As with spells and enchantments, this is an issue I will elaborate much further on in section III.A. of the FAQ, but there is one point concerning them that should be made now. That point is that potions are used not in the main game interface, but through your character's inventory. This is important to note because taking the time to cast a healing spell in the midst of battle is a difficult and often dangerous thing to do. Rather, by going to the menu screen (which effectively pauses the game), you can consume as many potions as you wish instantaneously, all of which will have a cumulative immediate effect. This is the main reason why I, in section I.B. of the FAQ, reccommend that the Alchemy skill be included in any character's skillset- the benefits of potions are clearly obvious!


Last Update: December 11, 2005	Contributors: BTB