I'm going to be starting a new character and i'm curious as to what people feel will help me avoid becoming over-powered. By this I mean I don't mind being strong but I want to feel like when I enter a cave or dwemer ruin I still have to have my wits about me so I don't get killed. My character will be pure mage, no armor. Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, Conjuration are going to be my main skills and i'm still debating what to do with enchanting.

So far my thoughts are as follows...

Breton mage putting point into mostly magicka and stamina. I'm thinking of capping my health at 150 or 200. I'm leaning towards 200 because I did that on my warrior and it works well, keeps things challenging but not overly frustrating.

Master difficulty of course but I am avoiding the following perks because I feel they give me too much of an advantage:

Destruction: Impact, Intense flames, Deep Freeze, Disintegrate

Alteration: Not avoiding any perks but I am not going to use the Paralyze spell.

Conjuration: Twin souls, and i'm not going to use the dremora lord spell.

Enchanting: This is tricky, part of me knows i'll need some enahcnted gear but I also don't know what limits to set on perks and/or enchants. The dual effects might be overpowered and it might be a need i'm not sure.

I'm not going to loot and sell armor/weapons. Only things I will loot are gold and alchemy ingredients. Any enchanted Items i will disenchant or throw away.

I'm not sure what to do with potions. I want to avoid using them entirely because you can just spam them but i'm not sure how it will work with a low magicka pool.I did have a char i never used heal potions on so i'll stick to that.

I wish there was an animation for drinking potions to balance them.

I'm not using any of the starter standing stones that give a bonus to leveling rate, and i'm thinking the in-game caps for magic resist and the dragon hide spell won't get overpowered because of my low health pool.

The goal here is to keep the game challenging and avoid becoming overpowered, while still allowing me to have a strong character capable of holding his own.

Any omissions feel free to bring up and give me your suggestions please. I'm talking strictly from a combat sense here as I have no interest in "hardcoe" styles like eating and sleeping schedules.

Thanks in advance.

No 100% of any school.

No 100% meaning the enchantments to make spellcasting cost me nothing?

I did have that in mind I left it out, any ideas on what to cap my enchantments out at for that?

Yes the 100% Fortify.

I would say maybe 70%?

Being a mage is all about power. If you reach high level and are still a bumbeling doofus who can't throw a fireball to save his life, you fail at character development and progression.

I think you missed the point of my thread. Thanks for not contributing.

I'm thinking since i'll be going so heavy into magicka I will cap it at 50% on my enchants so I can still cast a bunch but not endlessly.

For enchanting dual is ok, just don't put all 5 points into the bottom of the tree. Maybe go 60% max, 40% for extra challenge, 20% if you really don't want much of an improvement at all. Then go up the middle only to get to the dual enchants. Dual is nice for using magicka use reduction on 2 seperate schools and using 60% or below will keep it from becoming too overpowering where you aren't using much magicka at all. Dual enchants are also nice for putting things like carry weight and sneak on boots at the same time. It's just nice to have, but not essential so that's up to you.

If you don't want to use paralize I would recommend also staying away from the calm spells since they can trivialize probably 90% or more of the content in the game. I only use them to keep from killing enemies that would be friendly but are under someone else's control. I never use it on agressive enemies because it just makes everything way too easy. You can just stroll right through most dungeons without doing a thing.

You will always be over or under powered in Skyrim. If you try to play a balanced character, you'll probably have about as much fun in gameplay as you are figuring out this formula.

Noooo, I think I got your point just fine, you just don't want to take it into consideration.
The "you contribute nothing" card is the realm of children.

Be careful with disintegrate. I hear Ash-Piles really bloat up save files.