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In some custom character builds I've seen, players put certain magic skills in the Major category so they get the starting spells right away. Is this necessary? Is it hard to find these spells otherwise?

*New player here.

Scozzar wrote:

Inkling wrote:In some custom character builds I've seen, players put certain magic skills in the Major category so they get the starting spells right away. Is this necessary? Is it hard to find these spells otherwise?

*New player here.

No no no. Wrong wrong wrong!!!!

It doesn't matter what you put in your major or minor attributes. It all depends on what your birthsign is and what race you are

This isn't entirely accurate; you can receive a number of spells marked as "starting spells" if your chance to cast them exceeds a certain value at character creation. Since chance to cast is directly related to the level of the governing skill in question and your character's Willpower attribute, major and minor skill selection, as well as birthsign and race, can all contribute to whether you receive a particular spell at the start of the game.

As for the actual question; the starter spells can be useful early on, but the effects they have are very common. It shouldn't take very long to locate or create similar spells on your own.

Dlarsh wrote:This isn't entirely accurate; you can receive a number of spells marked as "starting spells" if your chance to cast them exceeds a certain value at character creation. Since chance to cast is directly related to the level of the governing skill in question and your character's Willpower attribute, major and minor skill selection, as well as birthsign and race, can all contribute to whether you receive a particular spell at the start of the game.

What's interesting is that there are one or two starter spells that you will never see, since you cannot get a high enough skill at character creation to reach the required chance for them to show up.

And I'm sure that all the starter spells can be attained later (barring ones gained through birthsigns).

All starter spells are available for purchase elsewhere, but being fairly honest, any mage should realize that the starting spells mostly suck kwama eggs.

Choosing a magical school as a major allows one to have a better chance of casting spells of those schools right off the bat, and some may like having a spell available before they go to another town, because Arille's spell selection is somewhat... lacking.

First of all, welcome to the Forum, Inkling. You could pay a visit to Welcomes and Goodbyes, to get your first feathers...

You know, the game is good as it is. It's got all the ingredients for "millions of hours" of fun. It doesn't NEED anything, in order to be interesting...

There's a load of mods, true, and various mechanisms to make it better, true, but if you're new to the game I would strongly suggest to play it as-it-is, until you get a feeling for it all.

Like with a bicycle: first you learn to ride it... then you learn to ride fast.

Cheers.

Thanks for the tips, everyone.

I decided not to worry about starting spells in my build. Instead, I hopped the stilt strider to Balmora, joined the mages guild, and ported around to a couple other towns to buy whatever spells I could afford from the guild trainers there. (I was greatly assisted by stealing stuff from Creeper's house and selling it back to him.)

I'm guessing Spellmaking will be a valuable tool. I'll check it out in a level or two, once I'm more familiar with the game and have a stronger sense of how I'll be playing.

Dlarsh wrote:Since chance to cast is directly related to the level of the governing skill in question...

Is this certain? The Willpower wiki entry confirms that Willpower affects "your ability to successfully cast spells of any College." It goes on to say that the Governing Attribute mechanic only affects the level-up bonus.

Edit: I see Dlarsh, you said "skill," not attribute. My mistake.