Hey guys, I am considering making a mage. It seems like it will be alot more fun than my current thief/assassin. So i have a few questions first.


1: Are mages a fun thing to play?
2: If i use Mysty's Balanced Magic mod, will that make it so I can do same damage as my thief?
3: Can i use light armour/heavy armour instead of JUST cloth for my mage?
4: should i invest most of my points into magicka?
5:Are Bretons a good race to be a mage? They are the one that appeal to me most for a mage atm.






THanks guys!


P.S, I have heard people talking about something called CK for modding, what is that?

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1. They are very fun to play, I'm doing one as we speak.

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1. I'm having fun with the mage I just started. Only lvl 11, so I've got lot of hours ahead of me.

2. Playing on PS3, so I have no clue.

3. Why not? Provides more protection than robes early on. If you feel like your mage needs a little armor, put him/her in armor.

4. I'll say "yes" to that. I'm trying to go with a 70/30 for now, and will probably go to 80/20 in favor of magicka at some point in the future.

5. Came down to Breton and High Elf for me, but I wanted pointy ears and went Elf. Bretons are good.

1:Yes very fun thing to play, the spells are fun to use and just being really powerful is great.

2:360 I have no clue.

3:Yes, i am an Imperial battle-mage, joined their ranks and now i wear heavy imperial armor and I am a mage.

4:YES, absolute must, you will be running out of Magicka very fast, i am currently level 20 and have only invested 5 points into health.

5:You can, but i chose High Elf, I have always been one plus they have more magicka, and their Highborn ability that lets you regenerate Magicka faster will save your life in big fights.

They are an enjoyable style. Make sure you get the Impact perk soon as possible in the Destruction tree. Also, use a robe to reduce costs of certain schools. The regeneration rate isn't really helpful but it makes SOME difference when in combat. The reason why is that the regeneration rate is 1/3 of the normal rate outside combat. So keep that in mind and balance your spells.

Use light armour for your wrists and feet to have SOME protection. Unless you intend to make use of the Mage Armor perk in the Alteration school, allowing you to increase your armour rating with one spell. Prerequisite is that you carry no armour.

Personally I only raise Magicka, not Health or Stamina ever. In a pinch, I think it is better to have an extra 50 points of Magicka than an extra 50 points of Health. My playstyle is to (almost) never be hit, and so there is not much point for my character to wear armor, really. I have the 3x mage armor perk, which I think it probably cheaper for 300 AC than building up a skill and spending perks on it.

i have a breton mage that uses one handed sword and one for magic and he is a beast

1) Yes they are great fun , if you are on the pc , remember you can put your spells on shortcuts on the numpad keys , pressing the favourite key twice on one spell makes it dual cast , it's very fluid like that and you rarely have to go in the magic interface menu

2) I use the balanced magic mod , i don't know if you can do as much dmg as a thief because i installed the mod yesterday but it is an improvement over vanilla especially if you plan to use destruction a lot . It's not OP by the way , well so far for me it s not

3) i believe you are penalized in mana cost when using light or heavy armour if you use the balanced magic mod (which is great btw ) . In vanilla you can wear armours and cast without penalties (which makes the pure mage build in robes much less attractive )

4) Advised route is to use a ratio of 2:1 magicka/health , but it depends your playstyle , if you are looking to cast for free in your 2 main schools (thx to master enchanting your gear ) , you don't need much magicka . But if like me for roleplay reason , you want a Mage that actually has to use mana in order to cast his spells , or if for instance you intend to use all 5 schools of magic , then it's important to invest in magicka and focus on mana regen enchantments

5) Yeah , they're a good race becaue they resist 25% magic , so they have potential to perform well against enemy mages . Altmer are at least equal though because of mana regen bonus , and Dunmers are also good candidates with fire resist and destruction slight boost at first

1: Are mages a fun thing to play? Well, I think so!
2: If i use Mysty's Balanced Magic mod, will that make it so I can do same damage as my thief? No, not exactly. Individual spells can't compete with the sort of damage you'd be doing with sneak attacks, but mages can use some strategy and get a lot of spells going at once. Set up a rune, lure the enemy in with a bolt spell, then lay into them with some dual cast dps... and don't forget you have illusion and conjuration spells to play with too. The Balanced Magic mod was designed to make mages a force to be reckoned with in combat, but still keep the player on their toes with plenty of spells to use in combination. It's a totally different play style from a thief, but you should be able to kill anything if you're smart about it.
3: Can i use light armour/heavy armour instead of JUST cloth for my mage? Absolutely! The mod adds a slight penalty to magicka cost for each piece of armor you wear (more for heavy armor than light) to keep things a little more balanced, BUT, I also adjusted magicka regen and spell costs based on proficiency so that even a battle mage in a full set of heavy armor can be an effective magic user, and if you choose to wear a dragon mask - you can still get the bonus armor from your alteration protection spells.
4: should i invest most of my points into magicka? If you're relying pretty heavily on spells to deal damage, then yes.
5:Are Bretons a good race to be a mage? They are the one that appeal to me most for a mage atm. Bretons make excellent mages. Really, you could play as a mage with any race in Skyrim, but Bretons and Altmer have typically been strong magic users in previous games and in Elder Scrolls lore.

P.S, I have heard people talking about something called CK for modding, what is that? The Creation Kit, which is supposed to be released (free to anyone who owns the game on PC) sometime in January. This will allow players to create their own mods, and for those of us working with a bunch of hex values... it means we will FINALLY have some tools to show us what's going on in plain English, and give us easier access to data and scripting. Expect a lot more mods to appear once the kit is out.

I think they've answered everything... But I'd like to make a comment on this..

- You can definitely use light armor/heavy armor if you don't want to be 1 hitted by Draugr Deathlords using bows... But if your gonna be using cloth (0 armor) then invest on Alteration and Restoration skills for survivability.