Morrowind:Level

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A character's level is a measure of their overall experience and prowess. Each NPC has a level which never changes, while your character begins at level 1 and continually increases in level throughout the game. Increases in level result in increased Attributes, and they are achieved through increases in Skills.

[edit] How to Level Up

Each class has five major skills, five minor skills, and seventeen miscellaneous skills. Each time your character increases major or minor skills ten times, they are eligible to gain a level. Miscellaneous skills do not count toward this progress at all, but the ten required increases can be any combination of major and minor. You can check your count of major/minor skill increases toward a level at any time by hovering over the Level line of the Stats menu.

Upon gaining the tenth skill increase, and at each skill increase afterwards, a message will encourage you to "rest and meditate on what you've learned". You will gain a level the next time you rest for any length of time. Using the wait command is not considered resting for this purpose. You must use a bed or other resting object, or rest outside of towns or cities.

While you rest, you will choose three of the primary attributes to increase. Usually one or more of the attributes will have multipliers next to them, meaning that those attributes will increase by more than one point if you choose them. The multiplier for each attribute is determined by the total number of times that skills governed by that attribute have increased since the last level up:

• zero skill increases = no multiplier (1 point)
• 1-4 skill increases = 2x
• 5-7 skill increases = 3x
• 8-9 skill increases = 4x
• 10 or more skill increases = 5x

This includes increases of major, minor, and miscellaneous skills. For example, if you increased Destruction three times and Alteration two times during the past level, you would be able to increase Willpower by three points, regardless of your class. Note that Luck will never have a multiplier, since it does not govern any skills, but it can still be chosen for a one-point increase at any level up.

Note also that the multipliers are determined by counting skill increases since your character last gained a level, not since they last became eligible to gain a level. This is a marked difference between Morrowind and Oblivion, and it means that once you become eligible for a level up, you can delay it as long as you like and continue to increase your skills for higher multipliers on this level up. (By contrast, in Oblivion, the moment your character becomes eligible for a level up, the multipliers are "locked in", and any further skill increases count toward the next level's multipliers. See Oblivion:Leveling.)

Beware, however: While the counts for multipliers continue to accumulate for this level up, the count of major/minor skill increases to determine eligibility for level up will roll over to the next level. In other words, if you increase major and minor skills five times after you become eligible for a level up, your progress will show as "15/10" before the level up, and then "5/10" afterwards. Those extra five increases will not affect your multipliers for the next level, however, so if you instead had ten excess major/minor increases, upon leveling up you would be immediately eligible for another level up, with no attribute multipliers. Fortunately, you would not gain the second level automatically, so you would still have a chance to increase skills and earn multipliers before resting again.

When you gain a level, in addition to increasing three primary attributes, your Health will automatically increase by 10% of your Endurance attribute. If you increased Endurance this level, the Health increase is calculated from the increased Endurance. No rounding occurs; although health is displayed as a whole number in the Stats menu, the underlying value is actually a floating-point number.

[edit] Efficient Leveling

If you want to maximize your attribute bonuses at each level, you can control the skill increases that determine your available attribute bonuses. A perfectly efficient level up is one where three different attributes have exactly ten skill increases each, and the other four have zero; 30 skill increases in a level are possible if you increase 20 miscellaneous skills in addition to the 10 major/minor skills necessary to level up. Alternatively, if two different attributes have exactly ten increases while the other five have zero, and you choose Luck as your third attribute to increase, that's also a level that wastes nothing. It's not easy to eliminate waste completely, but here are some tips.

Pay attention to the major and minor skill set of your class at character creation. Efficient levels ups are much easier when a decent variety of governing attributes are represented among your major and minor skills. Even more important, however, is that all the attributes are represented among your miscellaneous skills. This way you always have the option of increasing skills for the specific attributes you want without allowing your progress counter to run away.

The moment you level up (or begin the game), plan the attribute increases you will want to take at the next level. Then plan a set of skill increases that includes exactly ten in each of those three different attributes (or two different attributes, if you would like to take one point of Luck this level), and includes exactly ten in your major/minor skills. (Or fewer, if you already have some left-over progress.) Consider the equipment and tactics this plan will dictate, and then consider whether it is compatible with what you want to do in the near future (e.g., quests, dungeon crawls, burgling, or shopping sprees).

Endurance is your special friend in the early game. Because it is the only attribute whose value affects the increase of a derived attribute at every level, investing in heavy increases to Endurance in the lower levels can pay serious Health dividends for the rest of your character's life. It's easy, too: Just put on a good ensemble of medium and/or heavy armor and let some rat or mudcrab pummel you as long as you (and the armor) can take it.

Take good notes. Unfortunately, the Stats menu does not actually show you how many specific skill increases you have achieved since your last level up, so you will have to keep track of them yourself. After each level up, write down your proficiency in each skill. Then at any point you can calculate how much it has increased since, and you won't be surprised with a 4x for Strength when you thought you had increased Long Blade ten times.

Be adaptable. Because of the wide variety of ways your character gains experience, accidental skill increases are nearly inevitable. There's no way to engage in combat without gaining experience in at least one of the offensive and defensive skills, for example. When they happen, be prepared to re-examine your plan and start aiming for a different set of attributes. It's often better to take a level up that wasn't quite according to plan than to allow a wasteful one.