So I'm anxiously awaiting the release of Dawnguard (ps3 user, fml) and I've been doing some serious YouTube scouring, hunting down as many Dawnguard gameplay videos as I can find. There are a few good videos that feature Arvak, the summoned undead horse and I can't wait to grab him. I was wondering though, do I need to have a certain level of Conjuration to be able to summon him? If so, what level?

Also, I apologize if this is a duplicated topic. As you can see, I'm a newbie around these parts!

Good question. POTENTIAL SPOILER: Yeah if you are unskilled in Conjuration, then it takes somewhere around 120 magicka to summon him. So make sure that you've either leveled your conjuration a little or you have some extra magicka in your pool or an item with Fortify Magicka.

So all I should need to do is bump up my Magicka upon leveling and I should be fine? I really don't want to level my Conjuration with this character (2H evil Orc Warrior) for role playing purposes but I can live with a slight Magicka boost.

Or, if your character can enchant use some fortify magicka and put those levels into other stats.

It's an apprentice level spell don't know why bethesda didn't just put it as lesser power ability. But it cost 120 magicka to cast. So putting two more points into magicka wouldn't be too bad.

Cool, thanks for the help everyone.

Hopefully us PS3 users will get our hands on Dawnguard soon!

Bump up the magicka but I ended up putting points into conjuration. I play an assassin and there are times when I just need to have a distraction or a tank on the fly. I hate having followers as they make this class almost impossible to play.

Back on track.. the downside is that Arvak will only stick around for a few seconds before "dying" and you will have to conjure him again. I think it was if you rode him for an x amount of time, his timer will go up to staying around for a minute. I found out with having lower magicka, this can become annoying and even worse for a vampire during the day unless you have mana regen gear/perks. However having him on the fly is the best ever. When I run into encumbrance issues, all I have to do is summon him and fast travel to where I need to go.

Whoa! I hadn't even thought of the benefit of having a horse in an instant at any time and how beneficial that is, especially when over-encumbered (as you mentioned). Thanks a lot man! Good stuff!