Morrowind:Morrowind for Oblivion Players

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Contents 1 Main Characteristics 2 Combat 3 Leveling and Training 4 Magic 5 Potions 6 Stealth 7 Transport 8 Speechcraft 9 Merchants

Guideline: This article should only contain the major differences between the two games accompanied with links to relevant articles in the Morrowind namespace, and provide useful tips for adopting.

This is a list of differences to help you start your adventures in Vvardenfell on a good note. For more tips, see Hints and Starting out.

[edit] Main Characteristics

• No quest compass showing you where you have to go. You'll have to note directions to various places, use the sign posts or a bit of searching to find where you have to go.
• Fatigue and Luck play a role in almost anything you do: Combat, spell casting, creating potions, even trading goods.
• Travel is quite different, as there are no horses or fast-traveling. There are various means to get you from A to Z quickly but is limited in destinations, see Transport for information.
• All rewards in form of gold, Artifacts and Items are level-independent, and therefore fixed.
• Many caves and ruins have fixed-level inhabitants. Exceptions are Creatures, Daedra, Undead, Guards and Ash Creatures, which are level-dependent.
• No AI dynamics and schedules. NPC locations are almost always fixed within a limited radius, and NPCs, even ones in combat with the player, cannot leave their cell unless they are following.
• Disposition affects the prices you'll get from merchants, rumors you'll hear or if a given Guard or NPC will attack you on sight.
• Unlike Oblivion, guilds and other factions tend to play to a more esoteric group of heroes. Due to level requirements for advancement through factions, advancing through a guild uncharacteristic to your playing style may be very difficult without a large dependency on trainers. For example, an Orc Warrior would have a very difficult time advancing through the Thieves Guild, where as in Oblivion one could become leader of all the factions with relatively little difficulty no matter what race and class you were.
• Skill Perks are absent, though stat/skill increases in general are worth more.

[edit] Combat

• There are more types of weapons and armor (and there's an unarmored skill, too). For example, daggers and longswords are not governed by the same skill.
• Combat is more random: you are not guaranteed to hit your opponent; when you do land a hit, the amount of damage is variable.
• In unpatched versions of Morrowind, there is no health bar indicating your opponent's health.
• Random encounters with hostile monsters, particularly low-level ones such as cliff racers, are much more common. Conflicts with multiple creatures are common. At low levels, this can be particularly troublesome.
• Blocking attacks occurs automatically; it is not controlled with a button as in Oblivion, although your position affects the rate of blocking. You cannot block with a weapon, you must have a shield equipped.
• You can perform 3 different attacks, depending on which way you are moving when you hit the attack button. Each attack does different amounts of damage depending on the weapon. There is also an option to always use the best attack for your weapon, set under "Options".
• There are no power attacks, holding the attack button will simply cause a successful hit to reach the higher damage range of your weapon.

[edit] Leveling and Training

• The skills are different, and even for skills that appear in both games, the governing attribute is frequently not the same.
• Trainers are much more common (although a larger fraction of the trainers only offer services to guild members)
• In Morrowind you choose 5 Major Skills, which receive a large bonus and 5 Minor skills, which receive a smaller bonus. You get a level by getting 10 skill ups in any combination of major and minor skills.
• Skill increases after you reach ten major+minor skills continue to count towards that level's attribute bonuses, making it easier to get high multipliers. You can train an unlimited number of times per level. For details, see Level.
• You restore your health/magicka by sleeping, not waiting. You do not need to use a bed to rest, you may do so simply by resting outside city limits and out of range of hostile enemies. The amount of health and magicka restored is determined by how long you sleep and your stats. While resting out in the wild, your sleep may be interrupted by a hostile creature attacking you.

[edit] Magic

Although the magic in Oblivion is very similar to that of Morrowind, some spells and effects have been changed a bit. Key differences include:

• Significant spells that are not present in Oblivion: Mark/Recall, Levitation, Jump, and Divine/Almsivi Intervention.
• Magicka doesn't regenerate constantly, it is replenished by sleeping, potions or absorption, making pure magic a less viable alternative to physical combat. Playing a Mage depending solely on Destruction for killing will take careful planning. See here for a detailed strategy and helpful balancing mods.
• Casting spells can fail, unlike in Oblivion, failure rate is influenced by your skill rating in the relevant school of magic, your Willpower and your Fatigue. Instead of the cost of spells, skill level influences the chance of spell failure, using the following formula:

( [Luck / 8] + [Willpower / 4] + [Spell Skill * 2.5] - [Magic Cost * 1.25] ) * ( 0.6 + [0.4 * Current Fatigue / Max Fatigue] )

• Spell effectiveness is not decreased by wearing armor.
• Spells are available to anyone that is willing to pay their price, largely independent of Rank or Faction. See Spell Merchants, some of which are Spell makers for custom spells.
• Spells take much longer to cast. They must be readied just as a weapon must be drawn, and they must cast just as a weapon must attack.
• Enchant is a skill which you can use yourself anytime, anywhere and for free, but with a chance to fail. You can also pay Enchanters.

[edit] Potions

Overall, potions and alchemy can be far more powerful in Morrowind than Oblivion

• You can drink an unlimited number of potions at the same time, in "Inventory Time". These potions stack as well.
• Potion strength is influenced by your Intelligence; boosting Intelligence past 100 is a well-known exploit that can be used to create super-powerful potions
• Potion creation can fail in Morrowind.
• You can make potions using the unknown effects of ingredients.
• Similarly to Oblivion, you can collect samples from plants and animals. Restocking Merchants can be pushed to have unlimited supplies.
• Poisons affect the player, and can't be used to dip weapons.

[edit] Stealth

• There are no red icons warning you that you are about to commit a Crime.
• No minigame-style security, lock-picking chances are based on your agility, security level, luck and lockpick quality. Many options for use of spells, scrolls and enchanted jewelry to open locked areas and chests, as well as many Keys. Doors/containers can be trapped as well as locked; you need a probe or telekinesis to remove traps.
• Sneak is toggled on/off differently. Xbox: double-click the left control stick. PC: You cannot toggle sneaking - hold down the Ctrl key instead. There is no sneaking "eye" that tells you whether or not you are being observed, instead there is a sneak icon. The icon is placed directly to the right of the magic icon on the HUD.
• Stolen goods can be sold to any merchants -- but trying to sell an item to the merchant from whom you stole it will get you arrested.
• Trespassing is not illegal, you may sleep in any bed, provided you are not seen attempting to do so.

[edit] Transport

There is no Oblivion-style fast travel in Morrowind: it is not possible to freely travel instantaneously in real time between any two known exterior locations. There are also no horses. Therefore, you'll potentially spend more time walking in Morrowind. However, there are several alternative means of transportation:

• Paid travel services between fixed locations: silt striders, boats, gondolas.
• Instant travel between Mages Guilds is available through Guild Guides.
• Instant travel from any location to nearby "safe" spots: Almsivi Intervention, Divine Intervention (these work from interior locations, too).
• Mark and Recall, instant travel to chosen spots.
• A network of Propylon Chambers surrounds the island, with instant travel, if you have the right index.
• Custom Jump and Levitation Spells can make for very fast travel.

[edit] Speechcraft

Persuasion is very different in Morrowind compared to Oblivion. First of all, there is no persuasion mini game. Second, it is much more dependent on your speechcraft skill. With a speechcraft skill of 5, you are not going to successfully admire anyone. When you want to persuade someone, you have 4 choices:

• You can admire an NPC. If done successfully, this will permanently raise his disposition. If it fails however, the NPC will like you less.
• You can intimidate an NPC. Just like Admire, successfully doing this will raise his disposition. The NPC will pretend to like you because you are intimidating him. The stronger you are, the better is the chance of success. However, once the conversation is over and you talk to this NPC again, his disposition will have dropped to even less than what it was before you intimidated him.
• You can taunt an NPC, to anger him. Taunting, no matter if you fail or succeed, will lower the NPC's disposition towards you. If you manage to do several successful taunts the NPC will end the conversation and attack you. Because the NPC attacked you first, you will not get a bounty for killing him. The guards won't come to help you however.
• Bribing is similar to Oblivion's bribing, but there are some differences. Instead of a fixed amount, you can choose between 10, 100 and 1000 gold. Also, there is still a chance that the NPC won't accept your bribe, and his disposition will drop. You can bribe an NPC as often as you like, as long as you have the money.

[edit] Merchants

• Merchant's gold is not a fixed amount, it goes up and down when you buy and sell, respectively. So if you sell an item that is worth 600 to a merchant that has 600 gold, you will be unable to sell anything to them without first buying something or waiting for the gold to reset.
• Merchant's gold resets every 24 hours.
• All items will appear in the sell window, but if you attempt to sell an item that the merchant doesn't buy (such as ingredients to a smith), you will get the text "I don't buy that item".