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Time for a bath. You can safely increase your armor skills by wandering into shallow water and letting your character get thumped for a while |
Armor skills (Light Armor, Medium Armor, Heavy Armor, Unarmored, Block) are relatively difficult to advance naturally, since you have to let your opponents pound away at your character; an activity you would normally try to avoid. One of the safest ways to improve these skills is to deck your character out in armor of the skill type you're trying to advance and wade into shallow water where there are some Slaughterfish. Slaughterfish don't do much damage and you can quickly get out of the water to avoid further attack if your character's hit points get too low. While all of the best magical armor items in the game are Heavy Armor, it doesn't make much sense for neophyte mage or rogue characters to use all of their encumbrance points lugging around heavy armor early in the game. You can easily get the competence in Heavy Armor you require later in the game through training, and until then characters with lower strength ratings should stick to Light Armor. You can get decent armor of any type early on in the game since it's affordable in the first couple of cities you're likely to visit, Seyda Neen and Balmora. You can also easily steal the best type of Light Armor in the game relatively easy, as detailed in the walkthrough section of this guide. Of the three armor types, Medium Armor is the least useful, since there are few items of magical Medium Armor in the game and Medium Armor is incapable of accepting powerful enchantments. Medium Armor is one of the few skills with the governing attribute of Endurance, which makes it a good skill to raise early since the quicker you raise your character's Endurance, the more hit points your character will gain with experience levels. The governing attribute of Heavy Armor is also Endurance, however, so there's little reason to choose Medium Armor over, or in addition to, Heavy Armor. Another reason you shouldn't pick Medium Armor is that there isn't a master trainer in the game that can train that skill at high levels. Unless you're determined to role-play a Monk character or non-armor using Mage, Unarmored is a skill with little utility, since you'll be denying your character the use of up to nine additional magic items at any time by not using armor.
If you're creating a custom character and want to create a character that will be powerful very quickly, here are a few suggestions. Unarmored, Enchant and Armorer are probably the least useful skills, and unless you're determined to get your Endurance rating elevated as quickly as possible, you also shouldn't choose Medium Armor. Medium Armor and Armorer are the only skills for which you can't purchase skill points from trainers at high levels, which makes them particularly poor choices for major or minor skills. Destruction (fire, shock and frost damage); Restoration (healing and restoring attributes); and Alteration (levitating, waterwalking and breathing, open locks) are the most useful magic skills. Mysticism (recall, mark, intervention, soul trap) is also useful, although you won't normally use Mysticism spells frequently. Acrobatics is both a useful skill and probably the easiest one to advance, so it's a good selection as a major or minor skill. Of the crafting, thieving and repairing skills, Security is the most consistently useful skill. There's a good magic axe available in the first city in the game, so it's a good skill choice, and Marksman is also very useful.
With those points in mind, the following templates provide good selections of skills for different characters:
• For a warrior character: Axe, Acrobatics, Athletics, Heavy Armor, Marksman (major skills); and Short Blade, Long Blade, Restoration, Speechcraft and Security (minor skills).
• For a mage character: Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, Light Armor, Short Blade (major skills); and Mysticism, Hand-to-hand, Acrobatics, Marksman, Speechcraft (minor skills). Any of Conjuration, Alchemy, Mercantile, Athletics or another weapon skill are worthwhile alternate minor skills.
• For a rogue character: Long Blade, Marksman, Stealth, Acrobatics, Security (major skills); and Athletics, Light Armor, Mercantile, Short Blade, Speechcraft (minor skills). Restoration is also worthwhile considering as a minor skill.
• For a character that will gain levels extremely quickly with minimal effort: Axe, Mercantile, Acrobatics, Restoration, Hand-to-hand (major skills); and Speechcraft, Athletics, Long Blade, Spear, Destruction (minor skills).
• For a capable "Jack of All Trades" character: Axe, Restoration, Long Blade, Acrobatics, Destruction (major skills); and Athletics, Security, Speechcraft, Long Blade, Light Armor (minor skills). Spear is also a good choice, since it's another skill that has Endurance as its governing attribute, so raising it early will maximize the number of hit points your character will ultimately have.
