Morrowind:Glitches

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These are some of the glitches that occur in Morrowind. The list is very incomplete as the number of bugs in Morrowind is quite high. Before trying any of these glitches out for yourself, it is highly recommended that you save, since some of these are well known to either kill the player or cause the game to crash.

All Versions[edit]

These will work on any version of Morrowind.

Selling-to-merchants Bug[edit]

Curiously, player-selling-to-merchant prices are sometimes improved by using a Drain Mercantile spell effect on the player character, sometimes in combination with Drain Fatigue, and having a somewhat lower Disposition. This is widely regarded as an outright bug. The Disposition for best results will usually be between 40 and 80, but varies widely as a factor of your stats versus those of the merchant at any given time.

An effective routine for selling is to first either raise Disposition to this range (if it's not already there), or lower it with repeated use of Intimidate (each failure will lower it a little, and a success will raise it, until you close the dialogue window and reopen it, whereupon you'll see a marked drop), then use Drain Mercantile and possibly also Drain Fatigue (or just run and jump a lot to get your Fatigue near 0). Do a test sale after each raise or lower to help determine what the best present range for this merchant is. For buying, you can wait for Fatigue to recover and use Fortify Personality enhancements to temporarily raise Disposition to at or near 100 without Persuasion (which would permanently change the Disposition), plus a Fortify Mercantile effect if you have one. A related exploit is that if your selling offer is not too excessive you can repeatedly press the "Offer" button and it will eventually be accepted, as the Disposition drops further and the inverse nature of the selling bug kicks in even more. If you are only being offered 60% of nominal value you can probably get 75% this way.

However, one's ability to negotiate better buying-from-merchant prices (often much better) is boosted with abnormally high Mercantile skill. Necessarily, the Drain Mercantile to get a good starting price suppresses the ability to haggle your selling price to even better profit. For particular vendors (they all have their own stats, which interplay with your current ones), it may be more productive to use the above Drain Mercantile method to get better sell-to-merchant prices to begin with, or to use very strong Fortify Mercantile to get better ability to negotiate a low sell-to-merchant price to a better one; experimentation is required to best "work" each merchant, and it may shift with that merchant over time as your own stats change. Regardless, values of about +50 on the Fortify and −50 on the Drain are probably within reason for not straining roleplay plausibility to the breaking point.

It's not clear if this bug affects all versions of the game. A simple test is to save your game at a merchant with a high Disposition, offer the merchant a semi-pricey item, like a 200-gold cuirass, and note the starting bid the merchant offers. Offer it again while affected by Drain Mercantile. Then reload the game, reduce the merchant's Disposition by a dozen points or so, and offer the item again with and without Drain Mercantile, and then try it again with Disposition dropped another 20 or 30 points range. If you get notably better opening sell-to-merchant bids with any combination that logically shouldn't work, your copy of the game has this bug, and these tests should at least for that merchant indicate what combination of Disposition and Mercantile reduction to shoot for when selling.

You may find it most expedient to enchant a "selling ring" and a "buying ring" to respectively boost or reduce both Mercantile and Personality to improve average prices, without trying to individually "work" each merchant.

  • PC Only The Morrowind Patch Project, version 2.4, addresses this issue. Turn on the "Mercantile fix" patch in the bugfixes section.

Moving NPCs[edit]

During the duration of your gameplay, all of the NPCs in the game slowly move a little forward and to the right over time. It is related to their idle animation. This especially seems to happen to the NPCs that allow you to travel e.g.: silt strider operators, guild guides, and boat operators. It may even happen that when you travel through the Mages Guild, the guild guide will spawn inside or very close to you. Certain silt strider's operators will eventually move so far they will either fall off the platform they are standing on, or in some cases float above the ground for a while (technically, they still have a toe on the platform). This mainly happens in Suran, Balmora, and Ald'ruhn. Those on high platforms can fall to their deaths, and those near water can fall in and eventually drown. Other problematic NPCs are those near doorways and in narrow passages, who can eventually block your travel into and out of the area (Ranis Athrys in the Balmora Guild of Mages being a prime example).

  • PC Only Patch for Purists fixes this bug.
    • If you are playing without the patch, you can instead install the Idle Animation Fix, which does not require an .esp.
  • On PC You can reset the NPC positions in your current area with the ResetActors (RA) Console command.
    • There have been rare instances where this command does not work, such as with Erranil, the guild guide in Ald'ruhn Guild of Mages. To fix her, enter the following in the Console while standing inside the guild hall: Erranil->Position 2600, -700, -382, North

Werewolf/Vampire[edit]

There is a way that you can become a werewolf and a vampire at the same time, but note it only works if you have completed the Main Quest on the Bloodmoon expansion and have received Hircine's Ring. First, you must become a vampire and then equip Hircine's Ring. The result is a werewolf's attributes and a vampire's attributes combined. If you either let the game idle or pan around your body with the camera, you will see a werewolf's body with a backwards head, corresponding to your race and gender. ?

Argonian and spear bug[edit]

As an Argonian, you can move quicker by having a spear in your hands, moving forward and tapping the Run button. You need to be in third person to do that. ?

Cartoon Walls[edit]

If you get enough speed (well over 100) on your character, you can run through objects such as walls and doors. Be careful running through interior doors that lead to other cells, because there is often no floor on the other side. If you have levitation, this is handy for taking a shortcut through tall and winding towers, like the Telvanni Council Chambers passage to the Hermitage. At speeds slightly too slow to pass through, you can become stuck in a wall or object; you can use the console command TCL to escape.

Escape Census and Excise Office[edit]

There are two ways:

It is possible to escape the walls of the Census and Excise Office before even entering the first building. On your left after crossing the gangplank of the ship you start on, there is a tree. If you run between the wall and the roots of the tree, you can escape over the wall. Although there is no practical purpose for this, it might be interesting to walk around with a character who has no health bar and has not yet learned to jump, pick items up, or sleep.

To the left of the barrel containing Fargoth's ring you can continually jump into a corner to get out. Once you get out you will be able to do everything you normally would, except saving your game. When you commit a crime, the guards will not arrest you because you're, technically, not yet released from prison. However, if your bounty reaches 5,000 gold or more, you have earned yourself a death warrant, in which case the guards will attack you. You cannot save your game until you turn your release forms over to Sellus Gravius.

Falling Through the Floor[edit]

In many locations, sometimes one falls through the floor and ends up swimming beneath the geometry. This usually happens when jumping onto a static object like a bridge or rock (not actual terrain), but can also happen when running into walls, objects, or even hills extremely fast (see Cartoon Walls). If you are extremely unlucky, you will fall into endless geometry which will kill you instantly, or send you flinging back to where you fell in, also killing you. Recall, Intervention and Levitation help in escaping if you did not die in the process. At other times you may find a 'stairway to heaven' effect, where you walk up an invisible hill in mid-air. Most of the time these issues can be rectified by reloading the game or using the command "FixMe". Another way of getting out if you landed in water after falling is to swim straight down, this will teleport you to any random building in your area. This will also happen to you at random points in Vivec.

In Sargon, if you jump off the ledge in the last chamber, the one with Nerer Beneran, it is possible to fall through the floor into the water below. From there you can see through the floor as if it were transparent and then levitate back up into the room. ?

Mysterious Shadows[edit]

Shadows are naked and pass through certain surfaces (and beast race shadows are missing their tails). All weapon shadows are the specific item's "iron" variant. This is visible in both interior and exterior cells.

Redoran Canton Disappearance[edit]

Sometimes, a glitch occurs that causes the entire Redoran Canton in Vivec to disappear. The only things remaining are the doors that lead to the interior cells, which can be reached by levitation. The exact cause of this isn't known, but it isn't limited to the Redoran Canton. Among the other places where it occurs frequently are Ebonheart, Fort Frostmoth, Balmora, Caldera and even the main compound of Ghostgate. Strangely enough, the Canton (or whatever has disappeared) tends to reappear given enough time. It has also been reported to occur with some rooms in Tribunal:Mournhold, except it's just the floors that disappear; NPCs are present when you enter, and fall with you, into water or into a void, depending on the room. ?

This is now thought to be due to lag; the game isn't loading in time. As you are playing, just give it a bit to load it, and the missing area should reappear in time.

See Red[edit]

If you take damage at the same time as you leave a cell, when the next area loads, the edges of the screen will be stuck on red as they are whenever you take damage. This is particularly common for vampires escaping from the sun. The effect will last as you walk around and enter new areas, and even after resting. You can undo this by taking damage in any way.

Water Goggles[edit]

If you have your head halfway above and below the surface of the water and can see the actual water line in first person, you can see underwater as clearly you would in air.

Water Breathing Without Magic[edit]

You can swim and look around underwater as long as you like without breathing, as long as you are very close to the surface, as if you had a whale's blowhole. If you've been swimming deeper, you do not need to return to the surface for air, only close enough to the surface that the drowning progress bar goes away.

Invisible Entry[edit]

Normally, you cannot enter a room (cell), by clicking on the door, while invisible, and stay invisible. However, you can cast invisibility just before you enter a room you want to be invisible in, and immediately (before the cast animation is finished), click the door. When the new cell loads, you'll be invisible. ?

Texture Glitch[edit]

During an ash storm, heavy fog, or while you're underwater, if you have a magic item, it will be glowing so white that you can barely see the rest of the body.

Safely Steal Things by Jumping[edit]

With this glitch, you can steal things in front of anyone, and not get reported.

  1. Find something to steal in an interior cell with a low ceiling.
  2. Stand on top of a surface near the item you are stealing.
  3. Jump up and, when your head hits the ceiling, pick up the item you are stealing.

As the game considers you on a different level when your character goes slightly through the ceiling, NPCs will neither see nor report your theft. This works best on containers/items placed on a counter or table.

Joining Multiple Great Houses[edit]

If you're already a member of a great house, you are told you cannot join another. This is mostly true, but there are ways around this.

House Hlaalu can be joined even if you are a member of another house. Once you're named Hortator of House Hlaalu, talk to the duke in Ebonheart about the "Camonna Tong". He'll see that you're Hortator, recognize that you dealt with his brother in one way or another, and name you Grandmaster of House Hlaalu. Sort of. What actually happens is, he raises your rank in the house twice (which means Retainer if you're not a member), and a journal entry is created which 'completes' the Dealing with Orvas Dren quest. The reason this works is because one option for this topic doesn't check to see if you're a house member, only if you're Hortator. As a result, you get promoted, which makes you a member, and are able to do the House Hlaalu quests (all save the Dealing with Orvas Dren quest, which is already 'complete' in your journal).

You can stand there with the Duke and continue to promote yourself two steps at a time by bringing up the topic over and over, until you actually are the Grandmaster.

Warning: There might be some glitches because of your 'illegal entry' into House Hlaalu. One such problem will be building your second stronghold. Duke Dren will grant you only one Construction Contract, so you'll need a console code to give yourself another: player->additem "bk_stronghold_c_hlaalu" 1 or pickpocket his spare. You will also need codes to allow you to build a stronghold once one is built. Complete the stronghold fully for one house, then use set stronghold to 0 before starting the second stronghold.

  • It should be worth noting that the great house strongholds are all tied a single variable, named simply "stronghold." As such, using the command set stronghold to 0 will wipe your first stronghold off the map. However, as you complete the second stronghold's quests and the stronghold grows, so will your first stronghold (For more information, please see the discussion page).
  • PC Only The Morrowind Patch Project fixes this bug.

Sea Creatures on the Land[edit]

Sometimes the game spawns sea creatures (Slaughterfish and Dreugh) on the land as well as in water. This only happens along the coast, and usually in proximity to other land mesh problems, like Kollops floating in the water instead of on the sea bed, and unrooted seaweed. Attacking such an out-of-place creature may be problematic, so attempting to Soul Trap it may be wasted effort. Try an area-of-effect magical attack if a direct one fails. ?

Ash Creature Underwater[edit]

The Ash Creature spawn location in the Construction Set

Off the Bitter Coast west of Seyda Neen, you may encounter a leveled Ash Creature at the bottom of the sea near the entrance to Aharunartus. This is due to a misplaced enemy from the in_6th_all_lev-2 leveled list, which spawns above the surface of the water and then sinks to the bottom (map).

Permanent Bound Items[edit]

Create an item with the effect desired bound item as a "Constant Effect". After equipping and removing the enchanted item a few times the bound item will stick, a new bound item will be added to your inventory by the enchanted item the next time you equip it. Remove the enchanted item and the new bound item will disappear, the old one will stay though.

  • You might have to damage and/or unequip the bound item first, it won't stick so easily when it's in top condition and equipped.
  • When you want to get rid of the bound item, you can do this with the console command "player->removeitem", since you still can't drop the bound item.
  • Trying to use the "player->removeitem" command on a bound item that is not at 100% of its condition will cause the game to crash. ?

Take Damage When Jumping Through Doors[edit]

If you jump at just the right time before you open a door (open the door while in mid-air), you will take damage and fall on the ground when you proceed inside the building you are going into. This may also cause the "See Red" glitch to occur. ?

Permanently Summon Dwemer Centurions[edit]

The Dwemer Animunculi spell cannot be used for spellmaking purposes and thus cannot be affected by the Soultrap glitch (see below), but it is possible to create permanent Dwemer Centurions by conjuring a Centurion using the spell, waiting an hour in game (with "Autosave" enabled), and reloading the autosave. The process can be repeated as many times as desired to create a whole army of Centurion followers. The same glitch affects the summon spells for creatures that are exclusive to the Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions. ?

Soultrap Glitch[edit]

While this is commonly called the Soultrap Glitch, in actuality, it can be used with any spell that has a target setting and duration of 1 second. This glitch works in all editions of the game. It will not work if the spell does not hit anything, like if you launched it into the sky.

  1. First, buy Soul Trap and a non-destructive spell, e.g. any Fortify Attribute. It does not work with scrolls.
  2. Next, make a new spell with whatever beneficial spell effect you want, for 1 second on self.
  3. Then, on the same spell, have Soul Trap on target for 1 second.
  4. Cast the spell and try not to hit anybody. Presto! Whatever spell you created is now Constant Effect.
  5. This can also be used on NPCs and Creatures. Place the area of effect that isn't Soul Trap high enough so that it can affect the desired targets with the spell. Example: Command Humanoid or Creature, area of effect: 50, target, for 1 second; Soultrap, area of effect: 0, target, for 1 second. Shoot near the desired target, not at them, and that character is your mind slave for life. An affected NPC can still speak to you and offer any services they previously offered. If you used it on a shopkeeper, you can sell things to them as you travel, until their Encumbrance limit is reached (and it will probably be much lower than yours). Note that their available dialogue options may change radically if you move them to a different city. Alternatively, use a Calm Humanoid/Creature effect to make hostile NPCs friendly or to permanently tame wild animals.
  6. Using this with Summon spells will allow one to produce creatures that never disappear and will follow the summoner until they are killed. You might want to use the glitch on the summoned creature to increase their speed so they can keep up with the player, by using Fortify Speed 100 on target as the area-of-effect component before the Spell Trap. This even applies to creatures of the same variety, so one could potentially have an entire army of Dremora and/or Golden Saints follow them into battle (though bow-using Dremora will run out of arrows quickly). This is especially efficient for players that tire of being outnumbered by hostile creatures in the wilderness or got on the bad side of the Ordinators. Apart from when they are killed, they only stop following if the summoner departs from their line of sight by entering/exiting a building (usually only two to three at a time will follow you through, and only if close), outrunning them to another outdoor cell, or using a spell to teleport or levitate yourself away. However, they will resume following if their summoner comes back to wherever they were left behind.

Some people have had problems with this cheat. If this does not work for you, another option is to change the first effect to 2 seconds and cast the spell directly beneath you.

Permanent spells to be careful with Reasons
Absorb with area affect Absorbs chosen attribute of every NPC and creature in range and, depending upon magnitude, may give the PC an attribute stat of several hundred temporarily, enabling the PC to overwhelmingly dominate any interaction in the game.
Chameleon Makes it impossible to speak to NPCs. If you are on an Xbox, if you turn the Xbox off after doing the perma-Chameleon spell you can still talk to NPCs and you will be visible again. However, nothing and no one will fight you, but will instead run away.
Command with area affect May eventually cause the PC to gather so many followers that the game lags or crashes. (See also Summon, below, and the Soultrap Glitch section, above.)
Levitate Makes it impossible to rest without a bed.
Reflect This seems to do the opposite and reflect things back onto you.
Water Breathing If you're playing the Tribunal Temple faction, make this effect permanent only after the Pilgrimage of the Seven Graces quest.
Water Walking There are many times when you must swim under water to get somewhere or find some treasure. Also, see previous item.
Jump When you cast Jump too many times it can make you jump through the sky, and can also make it very hard to walk around.
Fortify Acrobatics See Jump, above.
Fortify Speed Running too fast can cause the game to glitch (e.g., PC running through walls), or completely crash.
Fortify Strength At extremely high levels, most weapons will break in very few hits.
Summon Summoning too many creatures may make the game unable to render all of them properly, causing low frame rates and possible crashes. Additionally, some creatures will leave permanent non-removable corpses when killed, and summoning a large number of creatures using this method while indoors can cause them to jam doors shut, leaving the player trapped in a secluded area. Furthermore, provoking one of these creatures into attacking you will also cause all summoned creatures that are nearby to turn on you, and the chances of guards assisting you are slim. However, any creatures you summon after this occurs will come to your aid against their precursors.
Sanctuary There are times when you may want (or need) to be attacked, and if this is too high it becomes impossible.
Personality Hostile NPCs may not engage you as they should.

Also note that, with the Bloodmoon expansion installed, if you change into Werewolf form and then change back into human form, the enchantments will be removed. This does not apply to the use of Hircine's Ring; character attributes/skills return to their boosted levels after the effect wears off.

Corprus Exploit[edit]

If you contract Corprus and then sleep or wait repeatedly, your Strength and Endurance will be permanently raised by one point for each day that passes. It is suggested that you sleep directly in front of Divayth Fyr, as some your other attributes will drop by one point per day until you get cured. Alternatively, you can Restore those attributes with spells, potions, or shrines/altars, and you can function almost normally, even with the Divine Disease. Be aware, though, that you will need extra Disposition points to complete many Quests, to combat the disgust NPCs have towards Corprus. Unfortunately, these "permanently" raised stats can still be reduced and not be restorable to that unusually high level. For example, Bonewalkers can temporarily Drain your Strength, and you cannot regain it using shrines/altars, unless it is below 100. However, if you let the Bonewalker's spell end (30 to 60 seconds) before you kill it, your Strength will be restored. This does not apply to Greater Bonewalkers, which instantly Damage your attributes rather than Drain them, again resulting in a reduction you cannot reverse to a result above 100. It should also be mentioned that the endurance upgrades will not count towards increasing your maximum health upon leveling up.

Item Ownership Contamination[edit]

After agreeing to pay a bounty to the guards or Ordinators, many non-stolen items can be removed from your inventory along with the stolen ones. For instance, this affects the Keening artifact and all soul gems bought from Elbert Nermarc in Tribunal. This is because all items of that ID will have the "owned by" flag after one is stolen, as can be seen with the ToggleFullHelp console command. This can also result in items having multiple owners and items of the same type to permanently have the same owner, regardless if stolen or not. There is currently no known fix for item owner contamination. There is however a way to reduce it with Morrowind code patch. After said patch feature is installed, guards will only take an item of that ID once.

All items removed from your inventory will be found in the nearest evidence chest. ?

Net Magicka Gain[edit]

You can use a combination of Fortify Magicka and either Fortify or Drain Intelligence to gain Magicka that will persist after the spell effects expire. When your Intelligence stat changes, the ratio of current/total magicka is preserved, and when the Fortify Magicka effect begins or ends, the magnitude is simply added/subtracted from the current point total. As an example, if you fortify your Magicka by M, then double your Intelligence (in effect doubling your magicka), you are effectively seeing an effect of 2M from Fortify Magicka. However, when the Fortify Magicka effect ends it only removes M from your current total, and when the Fortify Intelligence effect wears off, only M/2 is effectively removed.

Using Fortify Intelligence
When creating spells to exploit this, the key is to ensure the Fortify Magicka effect begins before the Fortify Intelligence effect begins, and also ends before the Fortify Intelligence effect ends. This does not increase your normal maximum Magicka, so once the extra points are used they are gone until the process is repeated.
Using Drain Intelligence
You can use a reversed version of this for better magicka gain. In this case, the Fortify Magicka effect needs to outlast the Drain Intelligence. Create a spell to Drain Intelligence to 1 (not 0), and Fortify Magicka by the maximum, in that order. This spell may cause the ratio of current/total magicka to approach 100 to 1. The outcome when the spell expires is somewhat unpredictable (subject to variance based on your base Intelligence score and how much magicka was in your pool at the moment of casting), but can be enormous— generating in the order of thousands of surplus magicka points. Magic resistance lowers your gain in this method. Adding Weakness to Magicka before the drain will negate the resistance. ?

Net Fatigue Gain[edit]

(Confirmed not to work on Xbox)

The same principle of current/total Magicka explained above also applies to Fatigue. Fatigue behaves differently from Magicka only in that it draws from more than one attribute; a character's maximum fatigue is the sum of their Strength, Willpower, Agility, and Endurance. As it can with Magicka, a custom spell may achieve an extremely high current/total Fatigue ratio, which the game preserves after the spell expires. Create a spell to briefly lower the character's maximum Fatigue level by draining all of these attributes down close to 1, and subsequently applying a brief Fortify Fatigue effect. This can generate thousands of surplus Fatigue points that, unlike those granted by super potions, are not doomed to expire and will persist quite naturally until spent— no sudden collapses into negative fatigue exhaustion.

Surplus Fatigue affects various skill checks in Morrowind; surplus of this magnitude will drastically improve spell failure calculations, bartering prices, persuasion attempts, the cost of enchanting items, performance in jumping and falling, and dodging and landing blows.

If your Fatigue is high enough, jumping and landing can cause you to gain health, even above your normal maximum. ?

Weapon Switching Glitch[edit]

If you have a weapon with Constant Effect enchantments that fortify your stats, rapidly cycling weapons may cause those stats to be boosted permanently. Artifacts like Keening and Sunder can boost your attributes, Skull Crusher can increase your attack, even Bound Weapons can raise your weapon skills permanently.

Self-unequipping Spells[edit]

When you acquire an enchanted item that has a Cast when used or Cast once enchantment on it, the spell you had equipped (selected) will be unequipped. ?

Refreshable Uses Glitch[edit]

This glitch involves items that have a set number of uses (such as security and repair tools), and certain vendors that sell restocking quantities of them. If you sell one of these items to a corresponding vendor that restocks them, and you have already used up some of that item, the vendor will then continually restock an additional instance of this item with the same number of uses that you had left on it. If you buy that item back from them, however, its uses will have been reset to the maximum amount when you look at it in your inventory. This can be somewhat exploited if you were to sell multiple instances of an item with 1 use left on it to any particular restocking vendor you might prefer - you will then constantly have available a bulk amount of drastically cheapened tools (because of the 1 use left), that will simply refresh themselves back to full use once you buy them. ?

Alternate Creature Fatigue/Magicka Values[edit]

When a creature is first loaded by the game, its Fatigue and Magicka values are taken as fixed values straight from the game data. If you save and reload the game, however, all creatures that already exist have their maximum Fatigue set to the sum of their Strength, Willpower, Endurance, and Agility, while their Magicka is set to twice their Intellect.

For most enemies, this results in a massive drop in maximum Fatigue. Whether this results in more or less Magicka varies enemy by enemy. Note that this bug applies only to creatures, not NPCs. ?

Infinite Arrows[edit]

Equip a bow or crossbow (doesn't matter which) then one arrow or bolt (better if it's enchanted). Aim at an enemy and draw the bowstring back, open the inventory and remove the arrow, your character will still shoot the bow and the enemy will be hit by this arrow, re-equip the arrow/bolt and do it again, this can get quite tedious and in some cases not worth it.

If you have the Bloodmoon expansion, you can also do this with the Ebony Arrow of Slaying from the Thirsk treehole, you will be able to kill any creature without a Reflect, Spell Absorption or Resist Magicka in one hit. This will be fixed if you have the newest patch for the PC version.

A less tedious variant is to go into your inventory (apparel or misc.) before starting to shoot. Shoot until opponent is dead. Before selecting the corpse, go into your inventory/ weapons and drop (not unequip, drop) your arrows (bolts, throwing knives,...). Select the corpse and dispose of it, then pick up your arrows. If you left your inventory while looking at weapons, the game decrements the arrows as you shoot, but it doesn't do it if all or weapons wasn't selected - it updates the count when the corpse is selected. If you drop them first, it ADDS the number you shot to your inventory instead of subtracting. You can then pick up the full count that you dropped. Note that this lowers your weight by the weight of the arrows shot. Doing it with certain items (Darts of Judgement, probably any other unique arrow) will crash the game. ?

Xbox (Non-Game of the Year)[edit]

These will only work on the non-GotY Xbox version of Morrowind, unless otherwise noted.

Duplicating Quest Items[edit]

If you find a quest that upon activation puts an item somewhere (for example, Big Helende's dispel potion formula) and keep asking about the item you're supposed to get, more and more will generate. Note: This only happens when the item is spawned in a container of sorts. ?

Immortal Enemies[edit]

If you attack an NPC with a probe (by pulling the attack trigger to maximum with a weapon equipped and then switching your weapon to a probe via the inventory went menu), the NPC will lose all his health, according to the health bar (meaning this also happens in GOTY), but they will remain alive. Both the NPC and the player will go to Hand-to-Hand combat (the probe will read zero uses). You can pull out a Daedric longsword and slash the NPC multiple times but he still won't die.

  • A similar effect occurs with the White Guar, which automatically cannot die in the game. You can bring its health down to zero and then access it and dispose of the 'corpse', but it is still moving and its soul cannot be trapped. Sometimes if you do this and then permanently command creature you have an immortal slave. ?

Moving When Over-Encumbered[edit]

When you're over-encumbered, it is possible to move though extremely slowly and not in the direction you are facing. Look down at the ground, go into sneak mode, and then enter the third-person view mode and try to move. You should get the "You are over-encumbered." message and the character will tense up like he/she is trying to move. Now stop trying to move and you should notice a slight change in position. Keep repeating this and you should be able to detect the same rightward shift. If you continue to do this for quite some time, you should be able to travel short distances even when carrying massive amounts of loot. Another method is to pull out a weapon, swing it, and in mid-swing quickly move to one side. if you did it right, your character will almost slide backwards. Depending on your race, your movement may be in a different direction, and more or less noticeable. ?

Infinite Alchemy Apparatus[edit]

  1. Acquire two of any alchemy apparatus
  2. Enter the create potion window
  3. Click on the apparatus 3 times
  4. Exit inventory window
  5. Repeat until satisfied ?

PC[edit]

These glitches will only work on the PC version, and some of them only on specific patch versions.

Falling Through the World[edit]

If you Quicksave in the middle of a jump, when you land, you may fall through the floor instead of landing. The specifics of when to do it when jumping is unknown, but it does seem to work regardless of jump height/distance (which are determined by Acrobatics skill).

Of course, falling through the world can cause other problems. If the cell you're in has a water base, you land in the water and can swim around, but must levitate or turn off collision in order to get back up to where you were before. Otherwise, you fall for a while, and then are instantly teleported back to wherever you entered the cell once you reach the "bottom" of the cell. This may kill you on impact, since you are still falling when teleported.

This glitch does work outdoors.

Reusable Scrolls[edit]

You can take any scroll, equip it in the magic menu, then drop it, and it will still appear as the active magic. You can then cast the scroll, repeat the process, and then cast it again and again.

Summoned Item Bug[edit]

You know the bound spells which summon Daedric armor or weapons? Usually this only lasts around 30-60 seconds, but it is possible to get past this:

  1. Use the spell to summon the item.
  2. Take it off your body and put it in your inventory.
  3. Take it out of your inventory and place it on the ground.
  4. Rest for at least 1 hour.
  5. Pick it up off the ground after resting and there you go! It will now last forever.

Note: This will not work in patched versions of Morrowind, with Tribunal and/or Bloodmoon installed, or on any Xbox version. In The Xbox GotY version, or any patched PC version, the following message appears when you try: "You cannot drop summoned items". In the original Xbox version, you just can't pick up summoned items. You may sometimes be able to make a summoned item permanent by repairing it. ?

Leveling Glitch[edit]

Obtain any level you desire. Get your endurance over 100 with enchantments and then train your Heavy Armor skill to 100, Seanwen is the master trainer for this skill. He can still train this skill more, providing you have over 100 endurance, though it never actually rises above 100. He will also only charge you a 75 gold fee per training session after 100. This glitch works with every other master trainer in the game, and on the Xbox version. ?

Weapon-switch Crash[edit]

When you are in the middle of an attack animation, and attempt to equip/change/unequip weapon using the hotkey binding, the game will crash.

  • This is also possible on Xbox, when holding the X button and Right/Left Trigger at the same time to instantaneously switch between weapons.

Floating People Glitch[edit]

Sometimes when you see someone standing on a stairway or a ramp, if you look at their feet, they will not be touching the ground, but floating about six to twelve inches off the ground. Sugar Lips Habasi tends to do this when pacing about and will be unable to travel down the stairs and just floats above them instead.

Light Effect Glitch[edit]

On the PC version of Morrowind, using multiple Light effects (from spells, items, or potions), all at once or several back to back, can have unintended effects or even the opposite of the intended effect. As you move towards a wall, character, or other object, it may be colored red, green, or blue, or it may actually get darker. From that point on, Light magic will cause such a prismatic or darkening effect until you save and reload the game, or just quit and load a previously saved game. ?

Permanent Levitation Glitch[edit]

It is unknown exactly what causes this, but sometimes when a Levitation spell wears off the player does not fall to the ground. The player can continue to fly around indefinitely, as if they had a constant effect levitation. To resolve the issue, save the game and reload it. You should correctly fall to the ground.

Once your savegame starts exhibiting this issue it will always occur 100% of the time you levitate. To permanently fix it, cast a levitation spell, fly a bit up in the air, and wait for it to wear off. Once it wears off, verify you're still flying in mid-air. Open the console, and input DisableLevitation. Wait for your character to fall to the ground, open the console again and input EnableLevitation. Save and quit the game and restart. The issue should now be resolved.

If you have the Tribunal expansion installed you can travel to Mournhold and the effect should disappear. ?

Item Duplication Glitch[edit]

Somehow the cursor can grab the items when game is paused by opening the alchemy window, or the shortcut menu. Drop the item on the ground you want to duplicate, then open either the alchemy window or shortcut menu. Open any sub-menu where you can select an item, then grab the item you want to duplicate, then close the alchemy window or shortcut menu. Open any container, The item should be in your inventory. Click inside the container, and there should be another one of the item in the container. Drop the both items and save and load the game, and the item will be successfully duplicated. If you drop the ghost item in your inventory, the glitch will not work. However, this glitch makes the weight value change. Each time you duplicate the item, the weight value is decreased by the item's normal weight. Transforming a werewolf can solve this problem. If you are duplicating a large number of items, ex. 10,000+ gold, the item amount will appear glitched until you pick up the item in your inventory and put it back.

  1. Drop the item or money you desire to duplicate.
  2. Open the shortcut menu and click any number, and open item/magic list, or open the alchemy menu.
  3. Grab the item/money you dropped and close the shortcut menu/alchemy menu.
  4. Find a container and open it, then there are two same items, one is on your cursor, another is in your inventory.
  5. Drop both items from your cursor and inventory.
  6. Save and Load.

Non-glitches[edit]

These are things that look like glitches, but aren't.

Overflow Loot Bag[edit]

In this game, each interior cell can hold only a limited number of items. In the console version, each cell can hold up to 256 items, while the item-per-cell limit is increased to 1024 for the PC version. The 256th (or 1024th) item placed in an interior cell will generate a sack labeled Overflow Loot Bag on top of the last dropped item. After an Overflow Loot Bag has been generated, any items dropped in the cell will appear in the loot bag. See the Overflow Loot Bag article for more information.

Alternate pickpocket[edit]

  1. Cast Mark spell just in front of target NPC.
  2. Cast Frenzy Humanoid spell on him/her and kill.
  3. Cast Almsivi or Divine Intervention spell.
  4. Recall with sneak mode.
  5. Quickly open the target NPC's inventory and take or add the items.
  6. Close and cast Restore Health spell on him or her before their laying motion completely finish.
  7. Do the same as step 3 (also during the target NPC is in laying motion).
  8. Cast Chameleon spell on self if you have low sneak skill, do the same as step 4
  9. Calm Humanoid spell on target.

Helseth and his Royal Signet Ring are little bit different situation because of his ring's effects. You must leave the throne room after casting first frenzy spell to disable the Restore Health effect which makes Helseth back to life and keeps him attacking at later step. If Helseth absorbed frenzy spell, leave the throne room and reenter.

  1. Cast Mark spell just in front of King Hlaalu Helseth.
  2. Cast Frenzy Humanoid spell (his level is 35) on him.
  3. Cast Almsivi or Divine Intervention spell. (To disable Royal Signet Ring effect and prevent him from revival when you return.)
  4. Recall spell and kill the Helseth. You must get Helseth hit you first otherwise all guards will attack you.
  5. Quickly cast Almsivi or Divine Intervention spell before Helseth lie down.
  6. Recall with sneak mode.
  7. Quickly open the Helseth's inventory and take the ring.
  8. Close the inventory and cast Restore Health Other spell on him before Helseth completely finish his lying motion.
  9. Cast Almsivi or Divine Intervention spell (during Helseth is in lying motion)
  10. Cast Chameleon on self and do the same as step 6.
  11. Calm Humanoid Spell on Helseth. ?