Character Creation Guide

Morrowind Character Creation, part I: Choosing a Race

 

Onward to part II: Choosing a Class

Onward to part III: Choosing a Birthsign

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DISCLAIMER/PURPOSE OF THIS GUIDE

WHAT MATTERS IN THE LONG RUN

THE SHORT VERSION

TO BEAST, OR NOT TO BEAST (Argonians)

RACES WITH INCREASED MAGICKA (aka Bretons)

MAGICAL RESISTANCES

RACES WITH GOOD RESISTANCES AND POWERS

• Nords
• Dark Elves
• Redguards

THE RACES I DON’T REALLY RECOMMEND

• Wood Elves
• Imperials
• Orcs
• Khajiits and High Elves

DISCLAIMER/PURPOSE OF THIS GUIDE

I have to say right away that this guide focuses on overall longterm performance. It’s about how to build a character that, once it’s leveled up a bit, should be able to handle any kind of situation you might realistically be expected to tackle in quests not only from the original game, but also in the infinite possibilities offered by the world of mods. I don’t mean to suggest by this that sheer power is everything, or that some races are unplayable. From what I am going to write below, the Khajiit are probably going to look like just about the worst race there is, which in a way I think they are. Nevertheless, a Khajiit is still my highest-level character and one of most favourite ones to play. To have as much fun as possible, the best thing is usually to choose a race that fits with the kind of character you’d like to roleplay. So if what you want to do is to play a brawling Orc, go ahead! From this guide, you’ll find I think Nords have the potential to be a little more powerful fighters, but you don’t have to worry that you’ll be stuck with a hopeless character just because you made a stupid choice early on. This is a single-player game, so you’re only competing against the game, not real people – and all the races are more than good enough to beat the game once your level is high enough. (Oblivion players should note here that unlike in Oblivion, NPCs in Morrowind are fixed-level, not scaled to your level, so if you face someone you can’t handle, just wait until you’ve leveled up some more. Creatures, on the other hand, do become more powerful as you level up, so you do want to ensure you get better items and fighting skills as you increase in level, but no random creatures are too strong for any particular race at the proper level.)

This guide, then, is for those who, like me, enjoy seeing your character on a path to being «ready for anything» your new quest or mod might throw at you, or increase the difficulty slider as you level up. My aim here is a tough, versatile, multi-purpose, well-rounded high level character with few weaknesses – while still being fun to play on the way there. 

Another note: This is based on vanilla mechanics and stats. It is perfect for quest mods and adventures, but of course it won’t necessarily apply if you use major game overhauls that re-balance precisely the races, birthsigns and skills that I analyze here, like, for example, Morrowind: Rebirth – which I analyzed here: Character Creation in Morrowind Rebirth 

 

MY TAKE: WHAT MATTERS IN THE LONG RUN

As a glance at any list of the race statistics will show, race affects many aspects of your character. If you want to choose a race that performs as well as possible, the bonuses to skills and attributes are very important early on. However, class affects skills a lot more than race, and both skills and attributes will improve as you play, level up and possibly train. The only attribute where the initial stat matters in the long run is Endurance, since this affects how many hit points you receive every time you level, and therefore how many hit points you will have at max level. Otherwise, what matters most in the long run is the following: Whether your race can use non-beast gear, whether it gets a magicka bonus, what resistances it has to different types of attack, and possibly what powers it grants you (i.e. spells that don’t cost magicka, but can only be cast once per day.)

It should be mentioned here that my approach is “the long run” – but there is also such a thing as “the short run”. Conversely, paying attention to the short run makes a lot of sense because Morrowind is often hard at first and gets easier as you level up and gain power anyway. To me, that’s a major part of its charm – it takes you from humble and difficult beginnings through an epic rise in power that will make your character a godlike hero. 

THE SHORT VERSION

If you like to play very fair, I suggest an Argonian; if you love to cast spells, play a Breton; if you can’t get enough of sneaking and sniping, consider a Dark Elf or possibly a Wood Elf; if you want to focus on physical hardiness and melee combat, I suggest a Nord, Dark Elf, or Redguard. For a more detailed analysis, read on.

TO BEAST, OR NOT TO BEAST (a.k.a. Argonians)

The first thing to note is that the «beast races», i.e., Argonians and Khajiits, cannot wear full helmets or boots/shoes unless you use mods. That means there’s quite a lot of gear that’s off limits, including one of the most popular items in the game, the Boots of Blinding Speed. Though some consider this a form of glitch abuse, there are several «tricks» to this item that others find very useful. If you want to spare yourself the temptation of abusing these boots, then I suggest you choose the Argonian race, which has several perks including a nice 100% resistance to poison, but which simply won’t be able to put the boots on.

One of the Argonian faces you can choose

If, on the other hand, you would like to at least have the option of using the boots (which can, among other things, greatly speed up the somewhat tedious movement from point A to point B on the map) then you should obviously choose another race entirely. For suggestions, read on.

RACES WITH INCREASED MAGICKA

Except from a very few special magical artifacts, race and birthsign are your only ways to boost your maximum magicka pool. So if you plan on casting a lot of magicka-expensive spells, your safest bet is probably to choose the Breton race, which gets a 50% bonus to its maximum magicka. They do suffer from relatively low initial Endurance, so make a point of raising this stat fast.

A Breton face for the Breton race

There is also one race that gets an even bigger (a whopping 150%) magicka boost: the High Elves. Unfortunately, this race suffers from negative resistance to many types of magical attack, meaning it will take more damage from those nasty spells than any other race. This can be annoying and tends to make the High Elves so frail I wouldn’t really recommend them (unless you’d like that challenge – and of course they can use some of that extra magicka to cast resistance spells, but I’d rather go on the offensive right away).

The other original races in the game do not have innate magicka bonuses, but you can choose a birthsign that increases your magicka and make a great spellcaster out of just about any race – for example, one that has more powerful resistances and powers than the Breton (not that the Bretons’ 50% magicka resistance and the power to add 50 points to armor class for 60 seconds once a day are useless in any way!) Of course, a Breton with a magicka increasing birthsign gets even more magicka to play with.

If you don’t intend to lean as heavily on magicka as on skills to do with weapons, armor, stealth etc., then that’s a reason to base your choice on the race’s resistances, powers and perhaps its initial Endurance instead. So let’s move on to that.

MAGICAL RESISTANCES

These are abilities that reduce the amount of damage you take from magical attacks like spells, traps or creature abilities. You can get temporary resistance from spells, but only special artifacts can boost them permanently, so the resistances comprice race bonuses that are hard to achieve by other means. In my opinion, the resistances can be rated from most to least useful in this order:

1. Elemental attacks, first priority: Fire, shock and frost resistance. These are my favourite resistances because these forms of attack can cause a lot of damage and are quite mana efficient (fire and frost more than shock) meaning your enemies can damage you more before they run out of magicka points. Also, there are relatively many foes that use one of these forms of attack.
2. Elemental attacks, secondary priority: Poison resistance. Poison is not quite as mana efficient as the other elements, and you can also carry «cure poison» potions (or even enchantments or spells) that can end the nasty effects before they run their full course. Therefore, this resistance isn’t quite as important as the ones above. However, there are many enemies that use poison attacks and they can certainly inflict a lot of damage, so poison resistance is still extremely useful.
3. Draining and cursing: Magicka resistance. This resistance protects against debilitating attacks that drain, damage or absorb attributes or health, such as vampires «absorbing» your health, causing you to suffer and them to be healed. Although this resistance covers a wide range of attacks, the debilitating effects on attributes and skills are often not as directly life-threatening as elemental damage, and relatively few enemies use drain or absorb health at very high magnitudes. So magicka resistance is nice to have, but rarely as big a lifesaver as the elemental resistances above.
4. Disease resistance. While catching diseases can be extremely annoying if you don’t know how to cure them, they are not nearly as lethal as elemental damage, and the proper restoration spell or potion will fix the problem. Also, you can become immune to disease anyway by progressing to a certain point in the Main Quest, or by becoming a vampire, so this resistance is much less useful in the long run.

Having established this, it’s time to have a look at the races that have magical resistances and powers to see which ones are good choices.

RACES WITH GOOD RESISTANCES AND POWERS

Nords

Resistances: 100% to Frost, 50% to Shock

Notable powers: Woad (+30 to armor class for 60 seconds)

Analysis: Nords are great! No other race is resistant to 2 of the major damage elements. Their immunity to Frost is only occasionally useful in Morrwind itself, but it can be very useful in the Bloodmoon expansion; and cutting shock damage in half is great for the Main Quest, among others. I trust I don’t spoil too much of the game by letting on that there are also two special artifacts in the game that increase fire resistance substantially; a Nord wearing one of those would be greatly resistant to all the elements except Poison. (Light spoiler/hint: Choose medium or heavy armor skill!) The Nords’ once-a-day powers are not too overwelming, but Nord males do have high initial Endurance, another point in their favour. (You will need to work on that Agility, though, but the same can be said of Bretons, for instance.) Note that a Nord will not be very good at magical or stealth-based skills to begin with, but with patience and perhaps a magica-boosting birthsign you should be able to build up a powerful yet flexible and rounded skillset to supplement their native knack for melee fighting.¹

Dark Elves

Resistances: 75% to Fire

Notable powers: Ancestor Guardian (50% Sanctuary for 60 seconds)

Analysis: Not surprisingly for the Dark Elves’ homeland, Morrowind is rife with foes that use fire damage, especially those annoying Dremora that plague Daedric shrines at higher levels, so being able to resist fire from the start without having to search for unique artifacts is very useful. And if you do find the artifacts, you can become completely immune to fire even if you turn vampire. The Sanctuary power is also a great benefit which gives you a +50% chance to dodge weapon attacks for 1 minute once a day. Combine this with a normal Sanctuary spell or enchantment effect, and you will become very hard to hit with any type of weapon. You may want to play as a male, since females have a low initial Endurance, whereas males are average. Other than that, Dark Elves have few initial weaknesses and are nice allround characters that begin with some small skill bonuses in several areas. They are the only race besides Bosmers with a bonus to Marksman weapons, which is why I suggest either of those races if you want a stealth-based character, but Dark Elves have superior resistance and you can take them in any direction you want besides stealth – they are also skilled at both Destruction magic and Long Blade type weapons, for example.

Redguards

Bold and bald…

Resistances: 75% to Poison, 75% to Disease

Notable powers: Adrenaline Rush (+25 Health and +50 to several attributes for 60 seconds)

Analysis: Redguards have a slightly weaker version of the Argonians’ useful ability to shrug off those Poison attacks employed by lots of enemies. But unlike Argonians, Redguards can wear boots, including those of Blinding Speed. They also have high initial Endurance and their once-a-day power will boost your melee fighting abilities significantly, which can get you out of tough situations (just remember that the +25 health is removed when the effect ends, so make sure you have more than 25 hit points left when that happens). Their +15 to Long Blade is a skill boost so great it actually factors in – the greatest melee skill boost of any race. Although I think the Nords’ resistances are a little bit better in the long run, this is largely a matter of having advantages against different foes. Also, Redguards have better initial Agility and skill and are superior melee fighters in the early game. Initially Dark Elves are better bowmen, though, and of course Bretons are better mages, but as with the Nords, patience can yield a character that can supplement melee skills with stealth and/or magic.

THE RACES I DON’T REALLY RECOMMEND

Wood Elves

Resistances: 75% to Disease

Notable powers: None (well, they can Command one level 5 beast for 10 minutes – or rather, until it gets hacked to bits by other enemies. Not overly impressive, in other words).

Analysis: What distinguishes the Wood Elves is skills, particularly the +15 to Marksman and +10 to Sneak. If you want to start right off as a sniper/stealth-based character, then Wood Elves are a lot better at this early on than Dark Elves. However, their poor resistances and low initial Endurance make them less attractive in the long run.

Imperials

Resistances: None

Notable powers: Voice of the Emperor (charm 25-50 pts)

Analysis: Another race distinguished mostly by its skills, Imperial characters focus on interpersonal stealth-type skills and are the only race with bonuses to Speechcraft and Mercantile. If persuasion fails, their charm power gives them a plan B for making people like them. Nice way to gather intelligence and perhaps money right away, but other races will catch up in skills in the long run.

Orcs

Resistances: 25% to Magicka

Notable powers: Berserk (+20 Health, +100 to Attack, but -100 Agility, for 60 seconds)

Analysis: A fighter-oriented class with significantly poorer resistances than Nords and Redguards. Their power is also a bit more of a gamble than the Redguards’ – the Fortify Attack means your swings are certain to hit your enemy, but the loss of Agility also means you are much more likely not only to be hit by your foe, but also to get knocked down by the hit. Orcs also have slightly below-average initial Agility. On the plus side, they do have high initial Endurance and some of the best armor skills (they are the only race with a bonus to Block and Armorer and are good with both medium and heavy armor). I actually have two fairly high-level Orc characters, but performance-wise, they lose out to Nords and Redguards.

Khajiits and High Elves

See comments above (under «to beast, or not to beast» and «races with increased magicka»).

1And when it comes to stealth, there is an item in the Bloodmoon expansion that makes it easy to avoid detection; like the Boots of Blinding Speed, this power is offset by a negative modifier – but part of this is Frost damage; perfect for Nord resistances. And then there’s that same trick that you can use with those boots…

Onward to part II: Choosing a Class

Skip ahead to part III: Choosing a Birthsign