Morrowind for the XBOX published by BETHESDA software
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Status 6/18/02 -First update, a long one.

Decided last night that I would find that dungeon with the +20 agil/Str gaunts with my custom ranger wood elf. I had found these sweet gauntlets last week with my spellsword dark elf character. But that was at least 30 hours of playtime ago, due to the unfortunate lack of custom map marking trying to remember which ancestral temple out of the 25 or so I had uncovered by lvl 15 is just beyond my capacity. Luckily I did remember the general area where I found these extremely useful items, making the haystack that much more manageable.

Similar to GTA3, starting out with one thing in mind in Morrowind often leads to hours of stream of consciousness style play. Despite having a full compliment of magic rings and amulets as well as very nice light glass armour for my thief at lvl 7, I was without the glass greaves, still wearing ugly chitin greaves with a much lower AC. Since overall AC is determined by a host of factors, including the average of all AC items equipped, even having 1 skimpy item and 6 fantastic items makes a significant impact.

Most items in the game are hand placed, but having played before with a different class character I noticed a small amount of randomization. Most of the world streams, but dungeons and indoor areas pause to load. I believe this small randomization factor happens during this loading and class affects it. I have happened upon many of the same items, but noticed many more daggers with my thief as well as a pair of +5 sneak shoes with this character that were absent in a dungeon I cleared with my spellsword.

I read something on a message board about a nice item in a chest in the temple in Balmora. I usually check as many chests and closets as possible, but there are so many it is easy to overlook one or to. I decided to head back there before tracking down the gauntlets. Indeed there were 2 "Saint Shields" which would be perfect for a heavy armour type, being a thief I decided to steal them and sell them. at 30 lbs each there would be no moving after stealing them due to encumbrance. Thankfully I had stolen a recall amulet much earlier in the game and it was as simple as waiting for the High Elf Enchanter merchant to turn her back for a moment, go into sneak mode, steal both Saint Shields (worth 15,000 gold each) and teleport out unnoticed. Easy money. Without the teleport spell it would have been an endless trek of dumping weight, and picking it back up later.

Thievery is a tad over powered in this game if one has no morals, but it *is* a skill not a simple exploit and it is a hell of a lot more fun than mercantile skill or alchemy, since the risk is more than simple failure. The exploit is simply reloading the game if you get caught stealing and try again. Reloading is somewhat of a penalty, but it is necessary since the AI will take any and all items you have ever stolen when they approach you, even if you stole items virtual miles away in other towns that no one ever noticed were missing. This design of always losing all your stolen goods I suppose was put in place to balance the thief class, unfortunately is has simply lead to workarounds/exploits like reloading constantly.

There is another "cap" in the game which is the total merchant gold. The richest merchant I have found only has 5000 gold , and you can not sell back items for higher than that. Unless of course one engages in the gold making workaround/exploit. Sell the shield for 15000 and be sure to buy 10K worth of items from "Creeper the Skampy merchant" , rinse and repeat with all unwanted items every 24 game hours (the merchant's cash refreshes every 24) until you have dumped all your items. It can be a pain but it is worth doing since spells and training are cash only and many merchants have very little money and craptacular items not worth trading for. Also enchanting items and creating custom spells can get expensive.

I set up a "mark" spot at the merchant's feet so I could sell, run to the inn next door in order to "sleep" for 24 hours, and quickly recall back to his feet without having to run. Considering how many transactions I made last night, this recall set up saved me ~ 30 minutes of play time and the end result was my bank account when from 15K to 50K in an hour or so. Not too shabby. Unfortunately I made 0 progress towards finding the gauntlets I seek.

I decided to head in that general direction, but noticed along the way a few dungeons related to the fighter's guild quest I was given that I hadn't cleared yet. When I received the quests I was lvl 1 and too weak to fight multiple enemies at 1 time. Even being "twinked out" didn't help much with my wood elf having 25 health fighting 3 NPCs with ~ 50 health each + spells. It was time for revenge.

Using my fiend tonto to summon a magic Daederic dagger with "uber stats" and casting a few attack/dodge buffs on myself I charged in, last I had seen of the 3 enemies they were bunched up at the door when I last was there at lvl 1, the game saves this location and they dont return to normal walking paths, which makes zoning into the dungeon that much more dangerous as I didn't have time to go in and cast a spell or prepare my positioning. The "jinksblade" short sword which casts paralyze is very handy for these situations. I busted in and was attacked from all sides, spells, hammers and a summoned Bonewalker all pounding on me. the 10 second paralyze spell works wonders in this case, as I can paralyze all 3 for 10 seconds, get my bearings, and switch weapons to the uber dagger and dispatch the magic user first, taking his summoned creature with him.

I lost a surprising amount of health, ~ 80% killing the next 2 fighters. NPCs of one's own lvl seem to have much better health and dodge abilities, and more magika as well. I guess it is a balance thing, since most battles are 1 on 1. I cleared a few more dungeons on my way back to the fighter's guild to report my progress, didn't find much of interest since these tend to be in the 'n00b' area near the starting city. I did happen upon a very cool looking shipwreck, complete with floating barrels, a skeleton, and a partially submerged cabin, lower decks. Not much for gear/gold but graphically impressive to see the angled ship wreck and the interiour levels partially flooded. Almost all shipwrecks in games are level, parallel to plane of the game world floor.

I am getting tired of fighting overworld creatures, Cliff Riders are nice practice for archery but they have buggy movement routines and take forever to get within range. I suppose the size of the game disallows too much variety in overworld creatures, but it would have been better to make more area specific mobs like the ice/fire imps near the mountain etc... It is convenient that the corpses stay around for a while after you kill something, a nice little breadcrumb trail to help you from getting too lost.

During my roaming I recalled reading that there were glass greaves somewhere in Al Rhud, possibly the fighter's guild or a merchant. I didn't recall seeing any particularly rich merchants and after double checking the fighter's guild , nada. Another 35 minutes wasted looking for the perplexingly rare glass greaves. With my spellsword character I tended to seek battle more, but with the ranger/thief I have become completely addicted to stealing. I cant seem to travel to anyplace new without first scoping out all vendors for must have items. I guess I am truly role-playing. Combat is infinitely more fun using magic items , that is the real driving force.

Disappointed in Al-Rhud I headed back to Balmora to continue my progression in the thieves guild. Now that I had money buying a diamond from the Apocethary (quest) was a non issue. Early on my sneak was too low to steal one as they are in plain view of the shop merchant. Along the way of my adventures lvl 1-7 I had found 3 diamonds and there was no longer a need to buy one. Quest completed, without really trying.

The next quest the Cat person gave me required that I get a key from Savant hanging out in a nearby club. I figured with my sneak skill it would be a piece of cake, but he was in plain view of 4 NPCs, I had to distract them , orient their line of site away from him so that I could successfully sneak behind and set up a pick pocket. He did indeed have the key , but even with 68+ sneak skill I would be noticed every time I lifted it, the entire club of 5 NPCs converging on me in full attack mode.

I suppose if I tried hard enough I could have killed them all, but killing enough people causes the bounty meter to go up so high that the moment you leave the building the guards converge on you immediately requesting the 30K or so in fines, + taking all of your gear that has been stolen, in my case 90% of everything I use regularly.

I tried for another 1 hour straight, failing every time, despite a successful sneak icon appearing. There must be a setting on NPCs where you must have a certain level sneak to pickpocket them. Unfortunately like most NPC stats in Morrowind, this info is hidden.

I attempted to converse with this NPC to get the key, but the keyword interface did not result in him even mentioning the key I needed. I resorted to "persuasion" skill using "bribe with 100 gold" which usually is the most reliable tactic for speechcraft. surprisingly it failed the first time, his friendliness rating towards me dropping as a result. Amazing, although logical since this was the mercantile/speechcraft style guild in this town, I imagine they have a high speechcraft skill, and resist persuasion more, maybe a high security skill resists pickpocket as well? Certainly a formula for a great multiplayer online game that , although with so many balance issues it is no wonder the developers did go there.

I bribed him another 400 gold or so and he coughed up the key without me even asking. Another quest complete, although now I am pissed/ perplexed about the pick pocket system.

After clearing a few more lower lvl dungeons and training my mysticism and endurance related skills in order to beef up my level up multipliers I decided to head to the city of Vivec and see what all the fuss was about with the great house vaults. Last time I was in Vivec was to steal the full set of glass armour, including the sweet glass tower shield (which was absent when my other character was there, hmm but the greaves were present)

With my sneak skill even higher it was time to try for the big game. My pick lock skill is still too low for a 75 lock but I heard you can pickpocket a key for the main vault '90 lock + trapped'. At least I can go in the big door and start scoping out the chests to see if there are any with a 60 lock or lower (doubtful) and maybe track down some decent greaves for a change, then back to the main quest of the game. With my spellsword I had advanced 3-4 tiers in the main quest , I had yet to do the first part of the main quest with my ranger, instead focusing on character development/gear acquisition. I also remembered the first 2-3 main quest tasks to be a bit tedious and easy. I hear they get much harder later on, but I am in no rush. Greaves, must get good greaves.

Oh wait, I was supposed to find those +20 gauntlets last night, damn it! never got around to it.

I must resist the urge to start a big pure fighter class with some minor skills for sneak and magic. I can't imagine playing the game without stealing or at the very least murdering a merchant and claiming his shop as your home. The Redgaurd race seems like a good fighter or maybe even Orc or Nord. Gotta stay focused, greaves first, thieves guild quests, +20 gauntlets, then the main quests. New characters can wait, they must wait. Oh yeah also cant forget to work on my mysticism skills and illusion skills which are sorely lacking