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Anyone have some tips for me on how to start off pretty successful as a mage? Ive played many melee and thief type characters but as a mage I almost never even make it out of the starter dungeon safely.

I seem to have issues with trying to get spells to cast successfully the most, and then running completely out of magicka against something as lowly as a rat. Also any tips on what spells to learn/make early, what quests to avoid or look for, would be helpful

Hi there, I am currently playing a Battlemage character and I found it very hard to rely on destruction magic for combat early on, because your skill is not that high yet, and in the first dungeon the spell they give you (shock) is not the most efficient one in terms of spell point cost. My suggestion is to start with one of your weapon skill as high as possible (short blade or blunt weapon), and rely on that skill for the first dungeon or your first few levels. Then create spells that has low initial power but very high level up power. Anyway I found it gets much easier later on, because your spell gets much stronger as you level up, and the casting cost is greatly reduced when your skill increases.

Rule number one is: always take the Increased Magery advantage!! The default Mage has 2x Intelligence spell points, which is enough, but a custom class with 3x is better. The default amount of spell points is 0.5x Intelligence which is pathetic considering the spells are so damned expensive to cast in this game.

I recommend beelining it to the exit of the starter dungeon if you're going to have a lot of restrictions on equipment.

Restrict shields, all of them.
Invest some points in dodging.
Get the increased magery.
Restrict heavy armor.
Try to get spell absortion.
Daggers can be your best friends along with illusion spells.
SAVE after killing an enemy.

Thanks for those tips, using certain points from each, i made a battlemage that was able to survive the whole first dungeon!

I got past the starting dungeon with only H2H combat as a wood elf. And I will be honest... I died, alot.

I don't think i die a lot now in the dungeon, i've done it around 30 times already!

Once you get the hang of it you won't die as often. I beat the crap out of a few werewolves using Hand to hand at level two and the only thing keeping me alive was a hidden closet in a dungeon and alot of resting, but sadly I contracted lycanthropy after my last wrestling match with a werewolf. This game can also be brutal to players who use a laptop and never played with a combat system like the one in Arena and Daggerfall.