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alright, i made a custom class (if that makes sense) and i'd like some feed back on the strengths and weakneses of the decsions i've made for my new #1 dude ( his name is Fin and he [&@%!] excellence ). I've decided to ride this one 'till the wheels fall off ( no giving up and starting again). I just hope i made some good choices

ok, forgive the spelling, here goes...

Breton

Birth sign- Mage

Major skills:

Alchemy
Blade
Block
Destruction
Light Armour
Marksmen
Conjuration

Sooo...bad, good or indiferent i respect all your opinions and would like to hear them. thanx in advance

Well, it all depends on your gameplay style, of course. For me, though, having Alchemy as a major skill would come back to bite. With the frequency many folk here utilize that particular skill, chances are others will agree. It could lead to premature leveling and lopsided stats early on.

Alchemy is a no-no, you can level it up super fast so having it as a major is un-needed. Cunjuration follows this too, but not as much. What sort of character is he? A mage?

I'm another person who detests alchemy as a major--the more you use it, the worse it is to pick this skill as a major, since you'll level too fast... Also, not having restoration as a major is a pain, regardless of what else you want to do with your character, since it levels so slowly.

But other than that, it's hard to go wrong with a Breton born under the sign of the mage. Light armor is an excellent choice, since you won't want to overburden yourself dragging around a heavy armor set while leveling with your low starting strength rating. You'll have a versatile character that can do anything, but you'd be best suited to playing as a pure mage or spellsword.

Ok, no alchemy, you can easily level it as a minor skill, and light armor is a bad choice, if your going to use armor use heavy id say.

but as a breton he wouldnt want to lug around heavy armour due to his low starting strength

Q/josh/Q wrote:but as a breton he wouldnt want to lug around heavy armour due to his low starting strength

Starts with 40 strength

Indefferent but I have never really used alchemy, or conjuration or marksman

Mage is a very weak birthsign. With the Breton, you could go with apprentice and you'd only have half the weakness to magicka as other races would experience. Alternately, you could scrap it for the Thief, Lord or Lady, which all have their merits.

You've got two intelligence skills, and no personality skills. Not really a big deal there, since personality isn't exactly a high-priority attribute to begin with. But, if you take other people's advice to drop alchemy, you could pick up illusion instead.

Marksman & Destruction are a bit redundant. In combat, you'll probably favor one over the other. But, I'd probably take Marksman over Security or Sneak for an agility skill.

Ergukrael wrote:Marksman & Destruction are a bit redundant. In combat, you'll probably favor one over the other. But, I'd probably take Marksman over Security or Sneak for an agility skill.

I agree with Ergukrael there, having two range skills is like having to melee skills annoying (as you have to carry around the required weapons, if you chose to) and again like Ergukrael said...you are going to prefer one over the other unless sneak is a Major and you like sneaking around while takin the mobs with crit hit and they have no idea were you at. (so you would prefer marks)

Having block and Conjuration be hard to balance the two...if you conjure a ally then the mob would start attacking the summon...leaving you to damage and not receiving any damage...

Unless your one of those who likes to magic PURE mages...and like everyone esle has said...no alchemy...it levels to easy as a major...and you get the same benefits with it as a minor.

These are a few choices, though not quite good...

Acrobatics/Athletics
Blade
Block
Destruction
Light Armour
Illusion/Mysticism/Alteration
Conjuration

OR

Acrobatics/Athletics
Blade
Block
Marksman
Light Armour
Sneak
Conjuration

Sneak again is a really [&@%!] easy one to level and if you are gonna sneak around there isn't much use with block+conjuration

(took bits from everyone's ideas in the topic, Thanks to those people)

(Delete this one)

I kind of regret having Block as a major skill on my sword-using mage character. It's by far the lowest skill. I'm already Master of Destruction, nearly Master of Light armor, and Block is stagnating at around 53. Caveat: I'm on the PC version and use OOO, which slows down skill gains quite a bit, though I think it's more so because I just don't use Block that much.

I also don't see the logic of having Marksman and Destruction. One of them is bound to suffer.

Ergukrael wrote:Mage is a very weak birthsign. With the Breton, you could go with apprentice and you'd only have half the weakness to magicka as other races would experience. Alternately, you could scrap it for the Thief, Lord or Lady, which all have their merits.

You've got two intelligence skills, and no personality skills. Not really a big deal there, since personality isn't exactly a high-priority attribute to begin with. But, if you take other people's advice to drop alchemy, you could pick up illusion instead.

Marksman & Destruction are a bit redundant. In combat, you'll probably favor one over the other. But, I'd probably take Marksman over Security or Sneak for an agility skill.

Taking the Apprentice with a Breton is a bad idea because it gives you the same magicka as taking an Altmer with the Mage birth sign but the Altmer build would have 25% elemental magic weakness vs the Breton-Apprentice having 50% total magic weakness.

The Mage is not that weak of a sign; it just gives you a no strings attached magic boost. The magic boosting signs are all some of the strongest because they have game long benefits. In contrast, the signs that boost attributes only have an impact in the early levels, and most of the greater power based signs lost a lot of usefulness past level 15-20 as well. The +50 magic is permanent, and a great boost to take if you don't want to have to deal with stunted magicka or a massive weakness to magic.

thanx to you all for the insight.

jdh79 wrote:

Ergukrael wrote:Mage is a very weak birthsign. With the Breton, you could go with apprentice and you'd only have half the weakness to magicka as other races would experience. Alternately, you could scrap it for the Thief, Lord or Lady, which all have their merits.

You've got two intelligence skills, and no personality skills. Not really a big deal there, since personality isn't exactly a high-priority attribute to begin with. But, if you take other people's advice to drop alchemy, you could pick up illusion instead.

Marksman & Destruction are a bit redundant. In combat, you'll probably favor one over the other. But, I'd probably take Marksman over Security or Sneak for an agility skill.

Taking the Apprentice with a Breton is a bad idea because it gives you the same magicka as taking an Altmer with the Mage birth sign but the Altmer build would have 25% elemental magic weakness vs the Breton-Apprentice having 50% total magic weakness.

But I'm willing to accept the tradeoff for the 10 extra strength points the Breton has over the Altmer.

...plus, elves are gay.