How do you level up (well)?

[Aranel]

I've taken a bit of a break from Morrowind since I got my xbox 360 repaired, though I think I'll be getting back onto Morrowind soon!
Anyways, despite playing the game for a few hours (I have like 3 main different characters, I think the highest is only like level 5 though - and I've logged a decent amount of hours on her, maybe like 16?), I'm not really... leveling up well, I guess? I might I'll be making a new character soon, maybe an altmer since I love magic, but ...does anyone have any good suggestions on how to level up spells like destruction and other skills like long-blade/short-blade, and most importantly:

Speed!

Seriously my biggest issue with Morrowind is how /slow/ you are. In comparison, Oblivion makes you look like the fastest person on the planet, whereas you're stuck at looking at your Nerevarine slowly move around, probably with a wedgie with how they move. D:

[Mattbott]

speed is an attribute you can level up pretty well with short blade. Also, one quirky thing about Mw was you could level up athletics by jumping everywhere and that helps your speed too. I usually stayed in and around Balmora for the first few levels, there are plenty of things to do

with regards to destruction training, if you find a levitation potion you can fly onto a safe area and zap enemies in safety, just make sure they don't have something to zap you back with

but i know what you mean, those first few levels are very hard. What i found most useful was to get an attack and a defense type skill up to about 40 and the game got far easier then. Trainers in Balmora can help your magic skills at the beginning, if you are brave and know the game (or the wiki) then you can get a daedric weapon quite early on which will earn you megabucks and pay for training - tho this might not be how you want to play the game (the enchanter in the Balmora Mages guild has some expensive items to trade)

[Golden Sinner]

In the southwest corner of Vivec Temple Canton is the Shrine of Daring/Shrine to Stop the Moon. If you make an offering of a weak levitation potion (which you can buy from a priest that is on the canton), then you will levitate for 24 minutes of real time. It's faster than walking and has the advantages (and dangers) of flight. You can buy an Almsivi Intervention scroll in Seyda Neen and teleport to the Temple Canton. If you cast Mark on the spot, then you can Recall to it as needed.

I always have Alchemy, Conjuration, Mysticism, Destruction and Enchant as Majors. You can buy cheap ingredients and quickly max out alchemy. Then purchase custom spells to "Summon an Ancestral Ghost for 12 seconds", "Soul trap on target for 10 seconds" and "29 points of Fire Damage on target for 1 second". Cast these in sequence to improve Conjuration, Mysticism and Destruction. You can buy an unlimited number of common soul gems to fill with the Ancestral Ghost souls and then use them to enchant simple items. If you make an item to "Disintegrate Armor 52 points on self" and wear heavy armor, then you can improve Enchant by draining the item and recharging it with the common soul gems. You can also get some armorer training by fixing the armor yourself. By maxing the five major skills this way, you should have your level up in the 30's. Good luck!

[Demiverse]

with regards to destruction training, if you find a levitation potion you can fly onto a safe area and zap enemies in safety, just make sure they don't have something to zap you back with

FYI, you don't need to hit an enemy to level up your Destruction. You can run around spamming fireballs into the sky if you want.

[AddictedtoMorrowind]

Just beware, if you use the levitation then you can't rest on the ground. It should be fairly easy to find a bed though.

[Xibir]

DON'T USE TRAINERS. Yes, it makes for a fast level when you have the coin for it, but it totally will destroy your modifers.

As for leveling your DEX, short blade weapons and a whole lot of running and swimming. If you want to cheap your way out of it, just find a corner and keep running into it. Very easy if you are on a console/using a controller. Just snag a rubberband around the joystick once you have it in the forward direction...walk away for a while...come back! Warning though: If you go away for a long time and happen to max out the skill, you'll have a few levels if I recall correctly, but will only receive multiplier benefits for one level, as stated, if I recall that correctly...been a while.

Just about any school of magic has a spell you can "spam" to level it up. One thing I use to do is make a self damage spell and then use healing spells while making sure to cast Chameleon. Makes a darn effective combo.

[Belthazor]

DON'T USE TRAINERS. Yes, it makes for a fast level when you have the coin for it, but it totally will destroy your modifers.

What? How does using trainers destroy your modifiers? If anything, it makes it easier to get the modifiers you want, since you choose which skills to train and how often. If you mess up your modifiers by using trainers, you're doing something wrong.

Anyway, I've run into some issues with the leveling in Morrowind, which might just be of psychological nature, and I blame Oblivion's need for efficient leveling and Skyrim's lightning fast skill and level increases. I'm trying to play the sorcerer class, but the magic skills increase incredibly slow. Yes, I could create cheap custom spells that cost only 1-2 magicka to cast and then spam them all over the place. That just seems kinda artificial to me and I might as well just pay a trainer for that. But there's the next problem. If I use trainers, when do I stop? I might as well just max out my skills and attributes using trainers. But then I don't feel like my character actually progressed and developed. I'd basically start as a high level character with maxed out skills/attributes.

[Demiverse]

DON'T USE TRAINERS. Yes, it makes for a fast level when you have the coin for it, but it totally will destroy your modifers.

What? How does using trainers destroy your modifiers? If anything, it makes it easier to get the modifiers you want, since you choose which skills to train and how often. If you mess up your modifiers by using trainers, you're doing something wrong.

I think he's talking about training your major/minor skills more than 10x per attribute & level.

Anyway, I've run into some issues with the leveling in Morrowind, which might just be of psychological nature, and I blame Oblivion's need for efficient leveling and Skyrim's lightning fast skill and level increases. I'm trying to play the sorcerer class, but the magic skills increase incredibly slow. Yes, I could create cheap custom spells that cost only 1-2 magicka to cast and then spam them all over the place. That just seems kinda artificial to me and I might as well just pay a trainer for that. But there's the next problem. If I use trainers, when do I stop? I might as well just max out my skills and attributes using trainers. But then I don't feel like my character actually progressed and developed. I'd basically start as a high level character with maxed out skills/attributes.

Sorcerer is one of my favorite classes. It's true that some of the skills (Enchant, I'm looking at you) will raise at a painfully slow rate. There's not much you can do about it short of spamming training or using other pseudo-exploitative methods. Though you might try focusing on one or two skills at a time each level. So you might make a decision that this level, you're going to try to use only your Destruction skill in combat. Destruction in particular will raise quickly. The next level, you might try to use a lot of Conjuration, letting your minions or bound weapons do the work for you.

Take advantage of the fact that it's all based on frequency of use. There's no need to create low-cost, functionless spells just to spam for levels. But there's no harm in using your cheapest spells more often, whenever you can get away with it. Personally, I never use trainers for major & minor skills. Morrowind is all about enjoying the progression of your character, and abusing trainers has the potentiality of taking all that away. There is a happy medium that exists between stat-maxing and pure roleplaying, though it can take a little while to settle into it depending on your character build.

My best advice is to play naturally, and take your skill increases as they come. And savor the fact that you're leveling slower than you might be accustomed to. It won't be long before you become a mortal god.

[Golden Sinner]

If you do the Ancestral Ghost routine I posted, then you get a filled soul gem worth 3k that you can also use to enchant items. So you can gradually max out four of the five Majors of a sorcerer. You could then use water breathing and invisibility to explore the water regions while collecting pearls and other lost treasure. This would improve alteration and illusion. You don't need to spam ridiculous 1 point spells.

[Xibir]

Conjuration is my favorite on Morrowind. Not-so-much for the summoning of creatures, but being able to bound armor and weapons (ridiculously potent ones at that). Once you have that Conjuration skill high enough, you can create a (high-end) spell that bounds all available armor along with your weapon of choice. That can be an expensive spell in every regard, but it will add significant exp to the skill and allows your character to have more "loot space". If I recall correctly, the bound armors count as every armor category simultaneously, so, potentially more skill bumping. It has been a year or so since I last picked up Morrowind so I may be a bit rusty on the mechanics of it.

[Demiverse]

If I recall correctly, the bound armors count as every armor category simultaneously, so, potentially more skill bumping.

Bound Armor is considered Light Armor, even though it's essentially Daedric (which is Heavy).

[Thagar]

you can create a (high-end) spell that bounds all available armor along with your weapon of choice.

High-end? Naaaah. Create a spell with full set + weapon for 15 seconds. It will cost less than 10 mana points and probably has the best mana cost to offence/defence ratio in the entire game. And you should be able to kill about any single enemy during these 15 seconds (assuming you have decent weapon skill level). I would say that high end spells for a conjurer include some additional sanctuary or shield/stats effects.

but it will add significant exp to the skill

Actually the spell cost does not matter when it comes to exp gain, so it is more efficient to have 1mp bound dagger spell for 17 seconds and summon it continuously, than use 6mp 1 minute spell. And even though it is 1 point spell it is efficient and effective to use in game - probably the best way to level up conjuration without exploiting spell-spam method.

If I recall correctly, the bound armors count as every armor category simultaneously, so, potentially more skill bumping. It has been a year or so since I last picked up Morrowind so I may be a bit rusty on the mechanics of it.

According to the wiki it influences light armor leveling, though the helm and the cuirass give you +5 to every armor skill bonuses (so +10 altogether).

And bound boots have +10 speed bonus

@Belthazor
When it comes to trainers I find it natural to exploit them once for few levels for overall attributes increase. I play naturally for, let's say, five levels and after accumulating gold I put it into 2-3 levels by training. It feels more like a training-camp than an exploit for me then

[OblivionDuruza]

I always tend to sit down with a pen and paper when I play Morrowind and Oblivion so that I can record my level-ups towards the specific attribute increases that I want against those towards character level-up (and so slightly adjust my play accordingly). In Morrowind's case, skill trainers are more readily available, cheaper, and less limited than in Oblivion, so making use of them to help coordinate efficient levelling actually makes the practice pretty carefree.

Aside from employing trainers, you might consider some custom spells that include a Heal on Touch/Target effect so that you can continue to wail on an opponent, or have your Destruction spell effects cancelled out by the healing effects. Just keep in mind, multiple-effect spells belong to the school of the effect that you have the lowest chance to cast successfully. Having more information about your stats would help, but perhaps something like this?

[Demiverse]

perhaps something like this?

Is there a reason you set the durations to 100?

[OblivionDuruza]

Not especially, although duration is generally (and in this case) cheaper than magnitude in terms of the magicka cost it adds, as well as the difficulty to cast. I also wanted something somewhat slow-burning so as to allow for the other practices generally involved in experience grinding, like being repeatedly hit or repeatedly hitting an opponent. Certainly shorter durations would work well to, and might suit training Destruction specifically more efficiently.

[Kerr]

You should use trainers, despite what some people say it really is the best way to level. You don't want to sit around for ages grinding a skill before you can do more mages guild quests or what not. It is especially good for skills that aren't used in combat like Speechcraft or Lockpick. That whole you can only train so many times this level thing in Oblivion and Skyrim can be annoying. The level you can train to is based on the attribute that is related to that skill and the skill of the trainer. So if the Attribute is at 67 you can only train the skill up to 67. Also if you use something to boost your attribute this will also boost how high you can train to. So wearing something with +10 to the attribute lets you train higher.

It is worth noting that if the attribute over 100 due to this boost it allows you to keep levelling the skill after it gets to 100. This won't raise the skill but it will count as a skill increase for levelling up. So you could use this to level up indefinitely if you really wanted to. Could have 100 in every attribute, 100 in every major/minor skill, 1000+ health and maximum magicka as a result.

[dem]

Using trainers for your major and minor skill has the drawback that you can level up too quickly. What I do is select a set of minor and major skills that are good for a low level player but I train in miscellaneous skills and use them in the middle to end game. I like to eventually be the head of all the guilds and 100 in all attributes. I train in blunt (strength) which is good for four guilds and illusion(personality) which is good for the mage guild and marksmen(agility.) When an attribute reaches one hundred I train in something that raises a different attribute but is still a miscellaneous skill. It takes awhile to figure it out. A lot of pencil and paper work. This method also takes a lot of money. First thing I do when I level up is train 10 points in a skill then 10 points in a different skill and 10 points in a third skill.

[Kerr]

Most people probably know this already but the attribute that is most important to cap first is Endurance because of how it plays into your maximum health.

[Demiverse]

People also forget to choose the right favored attributes RE max health.

Most powergamers will tell you to choose Endurance and Luck. But choosing Strength over Luck will land you 5 more starting health.

[nightendday]

5 hp is great at low lvl for grinding attributes like STR, END, and maybe AGI/SPD but I really like the +1% to hit and dodge, especially since orc berzerk relies on luck dodging/blocking while AGI is drained until sanctuary is capped with enchant

[Demiverse]

I prefer End/Luck myself, because it means 10 less levels of putting 1 point into luck. I was just mentioning how to end up with a slightly higher max health.

Unless you break the game and level infinitely, of course.