I'm a little confused, I know that your health goes up 1/10 of your base endurance each time you level...

But isn't your Magicka supposed to raise based on your intelligence each time you level as well?
Because I got my base Intelligence to 100, and now I'm leveling up, but my Magicka is staying at the same amount.

I'm wondering this because I found this spell (Fingers of the Mountain) and it requires 1852 magicka to cast and right now my total magicka is 328, and that is including all my armor being enchanted to fortify Intelligence and magicka, PLUS I have the magicka manifold greater power spell which fortifies magicka by 50, but it still isn't even close to what that spell requires.

So yeah I'm wondering if my magicka is supposed to be getting higher with each level, (I'm level 27 right now)

And if anyone can tell me how you are supposed to cast those insanely high cost spells that would be great.

Oh I should mention that I don't plan on using console commands either!

Magicka does not increase on level-ups. Only racial ability, birthsign, static intellect value, enchanted gear, and fortify magicka spells/potions can increase your magicka pool, sorry. bliviongate:

EDIT: I just started a high-elf today with a magicka pool starting at 300 as a level 1 in no gear. He is really, really weak against magic though!


Oh, if your destruction skill is not 100 the cost for that spell will decrease as you raise the skill. It caps at skill level 100 though, I think. Spells cost a LOT less at 100 skill.

Good to know, thanks.

Fingers of the mountain is a leveled spell and goes up significantly in cost depending on your level. This makes Fingers of the Mountain one of the least cost effective spells of the game.

Getting your destruction skill to 100 should reduce the amount of magicka needed to cast the spell to 710 magicka^{http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Leveled_Spells#Finger_of_the_Mountain}. However, at that point you're just better off creating a more cost effective spell at the spell making altar.

Magicka is very different in how it is calculated than health. Magicka is simply this: Your intelligence attribute x 2 + any boosts from race, birthsign or equipment. A naked Nord born under the warrior with 50 intelligence has 100 magicka.

As said above, casting cost goes down (a lot) as your skill in the relevent magic school goes up.

To further elaborate on the magicka cost decrease, say your Destruction skill is 0. A fireball spell with a base cost (that is before calculating the cost based on your skill level) of 100 would cost 140 to cast. Now say you were at level 100 in Destruction. Now the fireball spell would only cost 20 to cast. The spells seem very expensive to cast at lower skill levels, but they become much easier to cast at higher levels.

Total magicka is simply double your Intelligence + boosts, as Acadian points out, but the rate of regeneration is also a factor. Health doesn't regenerate on its own, but Magicka does, and for spells in general, what you need is the ability to repeatedly cast them, which requires enough in the pool for the first cast, and then fast enough regeneration to do it again. Regeneration is increased by Willpower, and your total pool - i.e. Willpower directly changes the percentage of your Magicka you regenerate each second, as Intelligence (+boosts) changes the size of the pool. (Atronach birthsign is of course an exception, as you trade regeneration for absorption).

Finger of the Mountain is not a typical spell, because there are actually a series of them, and the one you get depends on the level at which you do the quest. Only the lowest-level version is worth getting, with a small amount of damage, but a magicka cost that's reasonable, and you stop getting that one once you're past level 5.

Since this is given in the first part of the Mages Guild quest-line, it's OK for characters that do that one first. If you do other quest lines first, you normally ignore that spell.

Remove any patches from your game and use the permanent enchantment glitch to raise you magicka and intelligence.

I think you can temporarily fortify your intelligence and magicka to get away with casting some larger spells.

Fortify Magicka. You can enchant clothing with a permanent boost, or you can use spells and/or potions to increase your magicka temporarily to a level high enough to cast big spells like that.

And, as pointed out earlier, the cost of casting will go down as your skill goes up.

I would think that the targeted shock spells sold by Adrienne Berene and Vigge the Cautious would be more magicka-friendly than "Fingers" for the high-level mage. They should cost basically the same as a custom-made spell of the same magnitude.

If you use the unofficial oblivion patch it will make fingers of the mountain a more reasonable spell. In Vanilla the spell actually costs more to cast than one you would make at the altar if that was even possible. The Unofficial patch fixes that.