Okay, so I'm doing J'zargo's Flame Cloak quest with my mage. She's level 3, with all her points devoted to Magicka. However, whenever I use Flame Cloak on an undead, it explodes, causing me to die. I've been fighting skeletons, so it could be the flying bones that are killing me, but I want to know if the esplosion caused on death is supposed to affect you.

J'zargo's scrolls do hurt you, it can be argued he's trying to get rid of the competition that way. I've never died from them myself but i must say i've always been quite a lot higher in level when doing the quest. Flying bones don't tend to do *that* much damage. My suggestion would be use some kind of health fortify either from gear or potions or maybe fire resistance (or just wait another level or two, leveling goes rather fast in your range). J'zargo is one mean kitty

I died to J'zargo's Flame Cloak, too. It hurts you for every enemy you hurt. I put on J'zargo's Flame Cloak while standing in the middle of 3 draugrs and I died instantly. I think it does 50 damage in adept and 100 damage in master. Or something close to it.

I'm playing on expert, so I'd say 75 or 80 from the explosion and the other 20 or so from flying bones. Or there was another skeleton I didn't see.

Wait a few levels to do the quest, maybe do http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/The_Book_of_Love and get the Lord Stone, that will give you 40% magic resistance.

I did the quest on Adept, with a character who still had beginning 100 Health. I used it on one Draugr at a time (I was very careful about this) and didn't die on any of my attempts. If I had to guess I would say an importatn trick to the quest is making sure you are at full health before casting the scroll and that you aren't taking damage from any other source (such as a mage casting from afar or a second Draugr) during the attempt.