Once you get some good enchantments, you can become a god even with the leveled system. However, there are some mods that cap certain enemies at lower levels like bandits, mud crabs etc so you'll kill them easily at higher levels while other enemies remain challenging. There's probably a mod that sets all the monsters to a certain level regardless of your level as well. Basically, get some mods :)

BTmod is quite good, as is no psychic guards.

Lies. Dirty rotten lies. Only half a dozen enemies actually level up. The rest of the scaling is represented with more powerful foes coming at you. The beasties through the Oblivion gates are the best examples of this - stunted scamps give way to Daedroths, but one daedroth is as good as another. And not reaching demi-god? Poppycock! You can enchant weapons with unholy amounts of power, armor that boosts your strength many hundreds of points, sneak right in front of guards in broad daylight and pick any lock with no effort in the end.

As I said before, if you truly want Morrowind, the beauty of games is that you can always go back and play them later ;) The point of the game? Save Cryodil. Reinstate the Emperor. Rise to the head of all the guilds, clear every dungeon, close every Gate. If you're only playing to be able to pwn all the baddies with your Sword of Lameness at level 2 then you're missing the point entirely.

Yeah, I've read many reports of beating the game at level 1 due to the scaling system. The game looks great and I loved Morrowind, but any type of scaling is a huge turnoff for me. :(

Actually you need to be level 2.

There are some mods which do attempt to fix it. I'm saving oblivion until the mods are more solid myself.

So ignore the posts about it being too hard -- I made the mistake of using a premade class.. after re-making as a "Paladin" and a "Predator," (Classes I made) my characters improved tenfold.

Certainly not optimal for certain conditions, but they're definitely keeping me alive a lot longer than "Crusader" and "Witchunter" were..

Paladin:
Heavy Armor
Blade
Speechcraft
Illusion
Restoration
Block
Athletics

Predator
Sneak
Marksman
Conjuration
Mysticism
Illusion
Restoration
Light Armor

That's right. Very few enemy types level with you. Beyond that, humans that you fight level as well. It's not a bad thing, all it does is ensure that you can do quests in any order you want and when you finally get to the main quest, all the big bads aren't 1 hit kills.

It's very easy to make yourself into a tank. Get a full deadric set and enchant it with either fort strength (increasing your damage) or shield (increasing your ability to take damage). I read on another forum that a guy enchanted regular clothes with all shield defenses and ended up with a higher AC than a full deadric set!

After that, enchant your sword with massive damage effect or you can use drain health. DH is temporary, so it's cheap for a lot of points. You can take a sword and give it massive amounts of DH for a duration of 1 second. it drastically lowers the amount of damage you need to do. Now take your enchanted weapons and armor and add in some potions. Max out that skill and create potions that fort str and restore health and magika. You can take 4 at a time so you can be regenerating over 80 hp/sec. Nobody will be able to touch you.

How far is everyone in the game? I really haven't done much quest-wise. I did the mage guild recommendation quests, a handfull of misc quests, closed the Kavatch gate, and beat the arena. Aside from that, I just run around killing things. I'm now at level 23. The leveling system will definitely be beneficial for me.

In MW, I got lost in exploring, fighting, aquiring items and getting mad skills. By the time I got to quests everything was 1 hit kill for me. At least with the leveling, I actually have battles.

I'm level 29 and have cleared some 90 odd locations. Of course, cleared is relative as they repopulate, but there ya go. I've yet to visit Imperial City, Leyawiin or that other town down south. Spoiler: I've gotten Martin to safety and am supposed to look into retrieving the amulet next. I've closed the Kvatch gate and cleared the castle there. Nine Oblivion Gates have fallen to my hand. I have gotten partial recommendations in the Fighter & Mage guilds. I think I will only advance further in the Fighter's Guild and save the rest of the Mage Guild storyline for a more magic oriented character. I haven't played for about a week as I am kind of burned out on clearing out the various dungeons & Oblivion Gates. I think I'll just turn to the main storyline and finish the game.

"Cleric" major skills:
armorer
block
blunt
conjuration
heavy armor
restoration
speechcraft

Armorer, heavy armor & blunt are maxed out at 100. Block is in the 70s and the rest are between 40-60. The game has gotten to the point where I find it pretty easy, unless I am fighting multiple goblins, for some reason. We'll see if the main storyline poses any more of a challenge.

Okay, I need help:

The very first Oblivion Gate that I am trying to close, I get up to the top and do the thing (grab the orb?) and there is a huge flash of light.

Then, my whole screen is in White-out, and I can't see where I am going, except for a few outlines and then the wall.

I try to stumble about, but I can't figure out if this is the game or my comp?

Help please!

after the flash, you should end up standing in front of the closed gate.

I think i've about done everything you can do in the game quest-wise. My dude basically runs shit in all possible ways, though somehow all of the guards in the game hate his guts(perhaps it was the dark brotherhood questline). It took a mere 110 hours. One nice little trick that i didn't try until pretty late in the game is to enchant 5 different pieces of clothing with 20% chameleon. It's like being invisible, except you can attack people and open doors and steal as much as you want without anyone even really knowing you're there. Enemies can't see you and don't attack. You can still manage to wrack up a sizable bounty if you're not careful.

I read about this bug in the forums for some people. No one had a solution, but that was a couple of weeks back.

Edit:Everything does level with you, be it indirectly. That same area that once had wolves will now have bears etc. It maintains the challange without having to strech the imagination of the dev team.

Hmmm, sucks about the white-out, I've never had that happen to me.

Anyone download the Wizard's Tower or Orrery quests? Was wondering whether it was worth it...

I haven't downloaded the Wizard's Tower but the Orrery quest definitely isn't it worth it. It's a 10 minute quest that lets you take +10 to one stat and -10 to another although the actually orrery does look cool.

The Orrery depends how much you value the couple of bucks it costs to get :) I'm happy enough with it, you get some decent kit from the quest NPCs. If you're into eye candy, getting it just to see the Orrery fire up is worth it alone :)

Oh, and that level 2 game finish BS. The main quest isn't terribly long. With some dedicated effort you can finish it in a couple of hours, I'd say. That would, however, completely disregard 1) the other 95% of the game, 2) the difficulty factor being in the player's control at all times. I hardly see how it's any more of an issue than being able to get the ultra EQ in Morrowind and break the game balance. In fact, it proves that the levelling system that Bethesda have used works exactly as intented. Funny that, eh?

How the hell do you make spells? This minor healing spell fucking SUCKS, and as a major skill is Restoration, I should be able to make a better one.

I remember in Morrowind I made a 100 dmg spell at level 1. I had like a 12% chance to land it, but damn when I did.. wooey..

In order to make spells (or enchant items) you need to become a member of the mages guild and use the altar of spellmaking (or enchanting) at the Arcane University. Now, it's not just as simple as joining the guild, you have to do all 7 or so recommendation quests before you can access the AU.

It kinda sucks and is kinda lame but it makes sense in a way. A novice just starting out in the field of magic wouldn't be able to just make up spells at random.

Anyways, screw the healing spells. Use potions instead. I know I keep saying it but it's much more efficient to use healing potions rather than spells. They don't take game time and they don't cost any mana. Also, you can raise your alchemy skills FAST by just making and selling restore fatigue potions.

You don't need to be a member of the Guild to buy spells, either. Talk to the folks in all the guilds. If you're after Restoration, head on down to Anvil or visit any temple.

I'm finally experiencing the scaling, and it does indeed suck! At first, I thought it was a fine concept.. it'll let me do quests at any level, and it prevents me from outleveling a quest and being forced to play the game in a certain order.

It's just pissing me off, now! When I get my ass kicked, it's not like I can say "oh, I'll come back in another level and when I have a better sword." No, because when I come back, those same damn monsters will be there, but they'll be better too! I had this happen with the Arena.. I'm getting my ass kicked by one certain fight (just got Gladiator) and no matter how many levels or pieces of armor or swords or shields I get, they just get tougher. I tried at level 9 with full steel armor, got my ass kicked. Came back at level 10 with half a suit of dwarven armor and a dwarven longsword. Got my ass kicked just as bad. AAAAGGGH. And I'm too damn stubborn to turn the difficulty down.

Thinking it might be time to resort to some mods..

Weird. I thought the scaling system was going to suck at first. But when I started leveling up, I was still able to be almost like a god because of enchantments. I think that's the key: enchantments. I beat the Arena quest with ease, so now I get to face up to 3 minotaurs, which I thought would actually be a challenge, and though it kind of was at first, now I can defeat them with ease. The key I think to being godlike is enchantments. I did a Daedric Shrine quest and got the Goldbrand, and I'm easily taking out people left and right. Also, I think Alchemy helps a ton. I have about 100 Restore Health potions that I always keep on me that restore my health like 30 points a second for 30 seconds. So, if I ever get in trouble, I just down a few of those and I'm temporarily invincible.

I find the scaling system to not be nearly as bad as I thought it would be. And I even started out with a preset class as an assassin.

The leveling system was hurting me for a bit because I had alchemy as a major skill. I wanted my alchemy high so I made a ton of potions and went up several levels without really advancing my combat skills. This was back at around levels 6-10 and I was getting pwned a lot. I rarely got killed but battles were tough. I went back to lots of combat (you can raise combat skills really fast in the arena) and did my best to raise only blade and heavy armor for a while, while also getting the +5 modifiers to boost stats as quick as possible. By about level 13 I was able to hold my own pretty well and by level 18 I was easily taking people out.

Maybe it's just the game that the most difficult part is around levels 7-12. I'm now at level 30 with a full deadric set, deadric longsword and deadric bow. The only time I start hurting is when I face multiple liches (their spells can do major damage)

I have like no gold at all though because I hoard all the equipment I get. I have like 30 sets of deadric armor and since I've been hunting necromancers I have buttloads of deadric maces.

Can you ever buy glass or deadric arrows? I can't ever find them. I'm stuck using elven arrows but deadric arrows would kick ass.

Has anyone noticed that summoned creatures generally suck ass? I was fighting the three minotaur lords in the arena so I summoned a lich. He mostly stood around while I was kicking their asses so I summoned an Xivali. He did better but didn't help much.

I think that's right. I remember first starting the main quest a little after level 7 and it was really tough. I didn't think I'd get through it without cheating. Thinking back on it, I'm not sure how I actually got through it (but I did it without cheating!).

Now I have a full set of Glass Armor (I don't use the ugly helmet though) and a great weapon. I hardly ever have trouble with enemies, including liches and they were hard as hell at first. That's probably because of all my resistance to magic enchantments.

I don't know if you can buy Daedric arrows and Glass arrows or not. I never use Daedric arrows though because they are too heavy. Glass arrows are great but unnecessary since I use poisen/fire/shock/whatever potions that do most of the damage. I just use elven arrows with poison on them mostly.

As for summoning, I think that would be an awesome skill but I'm role playing as an assassin. Right now I use summoning to increase my Marksman skill, but it's good for raising all kinds of other skills. Also, it would be great for soul trapping, especially if you had the skill and enough magicka to summon a grand soul, such as the Xivilai.

By the time you're needing to worry about grand souls and major weapon recharges, you should be rolling in enough phat lewt to pay for the Mages Guild to recharge all your stuff. As was said before - it's really only human (or equivelant) opponents that level up alongside you. Everything else is nice and stable, until the rats are replaced with mountain lions. Once you hit level 10 you're through probably the hardest part of the game. What's so bad about messing with the difficulty, though? Bethesda balanced the game to appeal to the average gamer. As there's no such thing and everyone varies from the perceived norm, mess with it all you like. It's your game, there's no scoreboard.

No. Not true. I was always having to recharge while I was in the oblivion gate, so I was always capturing soul gems. My enchanted weapon would be out by the time I killed like 5 people or so, which would mean wait until I get back to a mages guild or recharge with a grand soul. That's just part of the pattern for me; capturing soul gems as I slay enemies. I never use a mages guild, I think it's a huge waste of gold.

I got Azura's star and enchanted my bow with soultrap. That takes care of the souls.

What level are you at, my man? I get some 10k worth of loot from each gate I go into, easily. Most of my enchanted weapons have 40-60 charges in them. Even spending the full amount to charge them every time has yet to make a dent in my income. Up at 100k and growing!

Well, it would be growing. Some lowlifed fuckfaced crack whore broke into my house today and took my 360. Oblivion disk inside. Hard drive gone. Gamecube and PS2 will probably never be seen again.

I'm depressed.

Am I the only person who doesn't bother recharging his weapons? I just use it as long as it is the highest damage weapon I have, then sell it if something with more damage comes along. I haven't found any enchantment particularly worth keeping over most others. Then again, I do not create my own enchantment, so maybe that's it.

That sucks hulk, find that fucker and string 'em up!

I'm a pretty high level. Level 38 I think. It's been awhile since I last played. I'm actually not sure what the charge on my Goldbrand is. I know it's 3000, but I'm not sure how many uses. But it needs recharged while I'm out there. And it has nothing to do with making a dent in my income. I have over 100k and I own 3 houses. I just choose not to go to the mages guild. Azura's Star is awesome, that's what I use for all my recharging needs. Like I said, just part of the pattern for me. When I'm running low on charge, I capture a soul and use it to recharge. And you're probably about right, over 10k easily, depending on what you keep and what you sell. Actually, not sure, my mercantile isn't too high, so I get the shaft when it comes to that area.

Also, I have a whole bunch of grand soul gems with grand souls inside that I carry with me. This could be a glitch or could be weird feature of Azura's Star, but has anyone noticed that if you have no grand soul gems, but do carry Azura's Star, sometimes the Star creates a grand soul gem with a grand soul (or greater, whatever) inside, rather than actually trapping the soul in Azura's Star? This has happened to me many of times, giving me many grand soul gems.

Edit: by the way, that sucks about your 360, hope you catch the asshole.

I would recommend recharging weapons because it seems to make a significant difference. My weapon has extra 20 points of fire damage and I can definitely tell when it's charged and when it's not.

I used to use a different weapon. One with no charge. The Honorblade of Chorrol; I stole it from the Countess of Chorrol while she was sleeping after I retrieved it for her doing a quest. And although it is a good weapon because it takes no weight, does a lot of damage, etc, it sucks compared to my other weapon with the 20 point fire damage.

It says up the top helpfully when the charge runs out. I made a claymore with 40 fire damage for one second. Has 18 swings in it (charged with a grand soul gem) but it's buff. Drain health is a great thing to put on 'em, though. You can drain 100 points of health for next to nothing, even if you put the duration to 1 second it doesn't come back.

Drain health does come back... it's the "damage (skill, attribute, magicka, etc)" that don't come back and require either potions or praying at a church to restore.

With drain health at 100 though, I can see that it doesn't really matter.

Their maximum health is restored, yes. The current health, however, stays at the lower number unless they heal. It's mentioned in the manual, I believe.

Hmm... I'll have to try this out... if it's true, it seems like that may be an element of the game they forgot to balance... because drain health is extremely cheap...

Only because of the one-second duration. It's treated as a drain spell, and draining anything else for one second (except perhaps fatigue, as they'll drop to the ground IIRC) is pretty pointless.

Drain health is such a cheap shot, I love it.

I guess it could really backfire when fighting enemies with reflect, though, right?

Anyone else having crashes with the Beta patch?

IIRC, reflect only reflects spells and not weapon effects.

I just restarted with a pure fighter char (heavy armor, blade, marksman) who is not going to use any magic at all (getting items enchanted will be ok) and seeing how that goes. I am also going to make a pure mage character as well for when I feel like tossing some spells around.
It should be an interesting mix. I'm going to play the figher as a good character who helps and does good deeds etc, and the mage will be played as a fairly evil character, who will murder and steal and not take crap from anyone.
Should be fun!