Morrowind:Combat

This page or section is incomplete. You can help by adding to it. Character Creation section needs to be expanded, e.g. recommended birthsigns For more information, see the help files, the style guide, and this article's talk page.

Character Creation

Like the other two specializations, nine skills fall under Combat. These skills are:

• Armorer
• Athletics
• Axe
• Block
• Blunt Weapon
• Heavy Armor
• Long Blade
• Medium Armor
• Spear

In addition to skills, there are two combat-related attributes which characters specialized in combat benefit from: Strength and Endurance. Most of the combat skills are governed by either Strength or Endurance, with Block and Athletics being governed by Agility and Speed respectively. Strength is used to determine a character's weapon damage and both attributes affect Health and Fatigue. Together, these two attributes make you better in combat by making you better at withstanding attacks from enemies and dishing out damage.

Attack Types

There are three basic attacks you can perform. Each depends on how you are moving when you start your attack, not how you are moving when you finish it.

You can bypass this mechanic by turning on "Always Use Best Attack" in the Options menu, upon which you will use the highest damaging attack style for your weapon no matter your character's movement.

Chop

This is the default attack. To Chop, all you need to do is start your attack while standing still, or you can run forward and strafe left or right at the same time (a diagonal movement). You will raise your weapon and do a downward stroke at your opponent. Most weapons deliver the most damage with this attack. The only weapons that do not work very well with a chop are Spear class weapons.

Slash

To perform a Slash, start your attack while moving to the left or right. You will swing your weapon sideways (right to left) instead of downward. This is a good attack to use in close combat, as you will be more likely to dodge your opponent's attacks while moving to the side. Most weapons are good for slashing, the notable exceptions again being Spears. A few, mostly Long Blades, are best used with this attack.

Thrust

To perform a Thrust, start your attack while moving forward or backward. You will attack straight ahead with your weapon. This attack is good for keeping your distance from opponents, especially since you can start it while moving backward, and always keep yourself out of range of their attacks. Most weapons do not do as much damage when Thrusting, but Spears are ideal for it. Most Short Blades also receive a slight advantage with this attack.

Marksman

In addition to the three melee attacks, there are ranged weapons. For these you will either need a bow and arrows, a crossbow and bolts, or a supply of throwing weapons. For bows and crossbows, you must equip both the weapon and the ammunition to use them. Bows and crossbows are two-handed weapons, so you cannot hold a shield or a light while using them. Throwing weapons are not restricted in this manner.

Weapons

There are five basic classes of melee weapons, as well as Hand-to-hand combat and Marksmanship.

Axes

These come in one-handed and two-handed varieties. They are best as Chopping weapons, though fairly effective for Slashing as well. They are by far the most damaging of weapons, but they are also quite heavy, and generally slower in attack speed, and with a narrower range of attack than most other weapons.

Blunt Weapons

Blunt weapons come in a wide variety; from maces and clubs to warhammers to staves, they can be used for a variety of different fighting styles. For damage, warhammers are the best you can get outside of axes, and have the advantage of range as well. Maces and clubs are not nearly as strong as their two-handed cousins, but give you the advantage of faster speed and the ability to use a shield. Staves are mostly useful for their ability to hold powerful enchantments, though they are also faster and have a wider range than any other two-handed weapons. Blunt weapons typically have narrow damage ranges. For example, while a Longsword might have a damage range of 2-20, a blunt alternative will have a range of 8-12. In this way, "charge time" is far less necessary with blunt weapons.

Long Blades

Long blades are good versatile weapons, able to Chop, Slash, and in most cases Thrust with almost equal facility. Long blades are also the most numerous weapon-type in the game, and there are more Artifact-class long blades than any other weapon type. Furthermore, the one-handed weapon with the most Enchant points in the game, the Ebony Scimitar from Tribunal, is a long blade. Long Blades are generally faster in attack speed than axes or blunt weapons, though like axes, they are limited in their range of attack. They come in both one-handed and two-handed varieties. One-handed blades are slightly less damaging and slightly faster, and allow the use of a shield. If you use a two-handed blade you will be unable to block, even if you have a shield equipped in your inventory.

Short Blades

Short blades are by far the fastest weapons available, though they suffer for damage. However, being able to get in twice as many attacks in the same time period may make up for it. They are all one-handed, and their light weight is perfect for those who want to be able to carry a lot of loot, or just stay fast on their feet. They are mostly equally effective at Chopping and Slashing, and slightly better for Thrusts.

Short blades tend to have higher minimum damage and lower maximum damage, so it can be more effective to repeatedly attack with them as fast as possible rather than fully drawing them before each strike. Their fast attack speed also makes them useful for repeatedly inflicting Cast when Strikes enchantments at a higher rate compared to slower weapons.

Characters who choose Conjuration as a major skill will also start the game with Bound Dagger, which is the most powerful weapon you can have at that moment in the game. That being said, a new character can quickly travel to Balmora to buy the other Bound Weapon skills, so this advantage is limited.

Spears

Spears are great for those who like a different style of combat, as they are generally best used with Thrust attacks, and not very effective for Chops and Slashes, in contrast with all the other weapon types. They have the widest range available, allowing you to keep your distance. They are all two-handed, so you can't use a shield, but if you keep far enough away from your opponents, you shouldn't need one. Spears are also generally lighter than most two-handed weapons (with the exception of staves, over which spears have the clear advantage of higher damage). Unfortunately, spears lack the variety of options of the other weapon classes, as there are far fewer quality spears available. It's also harder to find training in the skill - only 2 people in the entire game offer spear-training.

Spears are a useful weapon for stealth combat due to their longer reach. Because they can hit opponents from farther away, it is easier to get close enough for a sneak attack with a Spear compared to other melee weapons, meaning that Spears can retain the 4× multiplier to melee critical hits while still attacking from a longer distance.

Hand-to-hand

Another option for melee combat is to fight with your bare hands. Attacks with fists deal damage to the opponent's Fatigue instead of their Health, until they become exhausted and fall over, at which point you start dealing actual damage. After an opponent is knocked unconscious, a single punch will typically knock the enemy back to the ground, since their fatigue stays at or below 0 while they are knocked out.

There are a couple advantages to using hand-to-hand. You are far more likely to stagger opponents with hand-to-hand attacks compared to strikes with weapons, which makes the skill surprisingly potent against single enemies. With sufficient skill level, rapidly punching with fists will repeatedly stagger even the most powerful opponents in the game until they fall to the ground, unable to attack back after the first punch. Even if they do manage to get an attack in, opponents are much less likely to hit you due to their depleted fatigue. In general, if you can hit your opponent first, it is typical to avoid taking any damage at all in a hand-to-hand fight against a single opponent. The trade-off is that due to the extra step of attacking the opponent's fatigue, kills with hand-to-hand tend to take longer. Because fights are prolonged against each enemy and you can only punch one enemy at a time, hand-to-hand is much less effective when fighting multiple opponents. For this reason, you will typically take less damage against a large group of enemies by using weapons or magic to fight.

While hand-to-hand is commonly thought of as an alternative to fighting with weapons, it is usually more efficient to make use of the skill in tandem with a weapon or damage spell. Not only does this allow you to more effectively fight large groups of enemies at once, but it also grants you a faster method of dealing damage to downed opponents. While the fatigue depletion and high stagger rate of fists are very powerful, the health damage they deal once the enemy is knocked out is extremely low. The fastest way to kill an enemy with hand-to-hand is to deplete the opponent's fatigue with fists, and then switch to a weapon when the opponent falls to the ground, as the weapon will deal far more damage than fists. If the opponent lasts long enough to stand back up, temporarily switching back to fists and punching the enemy once will knock them back out. That being said, any one-on-one fist fight is essentially over once an opponent is knocked down, fists or otherwise, so using hand-to-hand with a weapon skill isn't necessarily required in a one-on-one fight.

Note that while it is commonly thought of as a useful strategy to use hand-to-hand in tandem with Paralysis (since punching a paralyzed opponent will damage health), this is generally a very inefficient method of using the skill. The most powerful strengths of Hand-to-hand are its high stagger rate and fatigue depletion, neither of which come into effect when punching a paralyzed enemy. When using paralysis, it is nearly always better to use a weapon or damage spell instead.

While the disabling function of hand-to-hand can be duplicated somewhat by using spell effects such as Damage/Drain/Absorb Fatigue or Damage Strength/Agility, hand-to-hand has the advantage of bypassing Magic Resistance and Reflect, which can be found as passive effects on certain creatures such as mid to high level Daedra. Nothing is immune or resistant to hand-to-hand.

This skill is also useful in a few quests in the expansions where you're expected to disable an opponent without killing them, so you may want at least a few levels so that you can land a blow to knock out your target if your supply of fatigue-draining magic is insufficient.

If you knock down an opponent in shallow water with hand-to-hand, they will start to drown. It's a very handy way to take out strong opponents in daedric shrines, as many of the shrines have shallow water.

Marksman

Marksman weapons come in three varieties: bow and arrows, crossbow and bolts, and throwing weapons. Bows, crossbows, and throwing weapons are placed into your main weapon slot, while arrows and bolts get their own Ammunition slot (where they will stay even after switching to another weapon). Unenchanted ammunition that hits an enemy will randomly be added to their inventory where it can later be reclaimed, but be warned that enemies might equip it and fire it right back at you (especially if you are using a Throwing Weapon against an unarmed opponent). The chance of this happening is determined by the game setting fProjectileThrownStoreChance (25% by default). Ammunition that misses is lost forever.

If you throw/fire a ranged weapon directly into an incoming spell, the two projectiles collide in mid-air, and the spell activates as if it hit anything else. You can destroy an enemy's spells before they hit you this way. This also works with spells against spells.

The most compelling reason to use Marksman weapons is the ability to deal damage at range. This allows the player to attack enemies from areas unreachable by the AI, or simply strike or kill an opponent before they can get close enough to attack with melee. A significant disadvantage to using Marksman is the lack of enchantment options. Bows and crossbows cannot be enchanted with custom Cast When Strikes enchantments, which limits their potential compared to Melee weapons. In this sense, Marksman competes with magic as a method of ranged combat because spells can deal a wide range of effects from a distance as opposed to being limited to just straight damage. The main advantages of using Marksman weapons compared to using spells for ranged attacks are the simplicity of managing ammunition compared to managing Magicka in combat, the ability to deal Critical Hits with sneak attacks for 1.5× damage, and the fact that Marksman damage is increased by the Strength attribute.

Bows

These are the most commonly found Marksman weapons. Bows can be found in many places, or you can instantly get yourself the best option weightlessly with the use of a Bound Longbow spell. Arrows are so common you should almost never run out, no matter how bad a shot you are. Arrows in Morrowind take a long time to be pulled down by gravity, so aiming above the target is necessary only for more distant targets.

Crossbows

Crossbows are far less common, with only two varieties in the main game (Bloodmoon adds a third). They have a longer reload time between shots than the other Marksman weapons, but have the unique advantage of having the same minimum and maximum damage (on Crossbows themselves, anyway; bolts still have a small range of damage). This makes them ideal for rapid firing in close quarters, though they can be used for medium-to-long range attacks as well (but be warned that gravity will bring down a bolt that wasn't fully drawn back sooner, making rapid-fire long-ranged combat less than ideal for crossbows).

One disadvantage of crossbows is the relative rarity of their ammunition. You will be mostly dependent on the vendors for your supply, since Bolts are rarely found in great supply in the wild. Luckily, there are vendors that sell an unending supply of bolts.

Throwing Weapons

Throwing Weapons are another option for ranged attacking. Since they don't require a bow to use, you can travel lighter and still hold an item in your other hand. However, they suffer from the same problem as crossbows, in that it can be hard to find a steady supply of quality throwing weapons (indeed, all restocking purchasable throwing weapons aren't especially good). For the sake of determining damage, they are treated as both the bow and the arrow, essentially dealing double the damage listed on the weapon itself. For most throwing weapons, this is not enough to overcome the power added by, say, a Daedric Long Bow, but many of the Throwing Weapons added by the Tribunal expansion can hit for hundreds of damage with sufficient Strength.

It also deserves mentioning that Thrown Weapons move much more slowly than Arrows or Bolts, and succumb to gravity sooner. Somewhat comically, the Boots of Blinding Speed can give the player enough speed to outrun a weapon they have just thrown.

Chance to Hit

Combat in Morrowind is relatively straightforward. Your chance to hit can be generalized as (Attacker's Hit Rate - Defender's Evasion)%.

Hit Rate

(Weapon Skill + (Agility / 5) + (Luck / 10)) * (0.75 + (0.5 * (Current Fatigue / Maximum Fatigue))) + Fortify Attack Magnitude + Blind Magnitude

In essence, your Hit Rate is equal to your Weapon Skill, increased by 1% for every 5 points of Agility or 10 points of Luck you have. This is then multiplied by somewhere between .75 to 1.25, depending on how much Fatigue you have left. Having full Fatigue will increase your accuracy by 25%, and being depleted of fatigue will decrease your accuracy by 25%. Finally, your hit chance is increased by a flat amount from Fortify Attack effects (such as from the Warrior Birthsign), and because of a glitch, Blindness effects.

• Your Hit Rate is increased by the magnitude of Blindness you have rather than decreased. Therefore, the Boots of Blinding Speed can be a very good and easy source of accuracy, as the magnitude of it is always that same amount of accuracy. To exploit this glitch, it may be a good idea to find some way of being resistant to magicka. Duration does not need to be any longer than 2 seconds, as the effect will be applied, and then you will instantly put on the boots. And because the magnitude of the resist magicka should be low (for more accuracy) casting the spell or buying/making a potion shouldn't be too hard.
  • The Morrowind Code Patch fixes this bug.
  • OpenMW fixes this bug.

Evasion

((Agility / 5) + (Luck / 10)) * (0.75 + (0.5 * (Current Fatigue / Maximum Fatigue))) + Sanctuary Magnitude

Evasion works exactly the same as Hit Rate, only the defender's Weapon Skill isn't used and evasion is increased by Sanctuary instead of Fortify Attack.

Despite being additive, Sanctuary's effect is capped at 100 and any point over 100 does nothing.

Blocking

Blocking is a simple matter of having a shield equipped. Your chance to block is (Defender's Block Rate - Attacker's Hit Chance)%.

Block Rate

(Block + (Agility / 5) + (Luck / 10)) * (0.75 + (0.5 * (Current Fatigue / Maximum Fatigue))).

That is to say, your chance to evade, but with your block skill also included in the equation. This is multiplied by 1.25 as long as you are not moving forward. This is then multiplied by how charged up the incoming attack is by (PercentCharged / 100) * 1 + 1.

Evasion

This is simply evasion as defined earlier, but without sanctuary having any effect.

You cannot block without a shield, so if you're using a two-handed weapon or want to carry a light instead, you will not be able to block attacks. Blocking will not protect you from spells or weapon enchantments.

You cannot block when paralyzed, knocked down, or knocked out.

Blocking also has a floor and cap. A character's chance to block is no lower than 10% when a shield is equipped and no more than 50%. In-game constants for this are iBlockMinChance and iBlockMaxChance.

Blocking is rolled only after a Hit is confirmed against Evasion.

If a character has a 30% chance to beat Evasion and a 20% chance to beat Block,

• They have a 6% chance of connecting the blow to the enemy, dealing weapon damage, and proccing Cast on Strike enchantments.
  • This is a 30% chance to beat evasion, times a 20% chance to still beat block.
• They have a 24% chance of hitting the enemy shield, proccing Cast on Strike enchantments.
  • This is a 30% chance to beat evasion, times an 80% chance to be blocked.
• They have a 70% chance of missing completely and dealing no damage or effects.

Damage

The Damage a player deals can be described as (Weapon Damage * Strength Modifier * Condition Modifier * Critical Hit Modifier) / Armor Reduction.

Weapon Damage

Generally speaking, you can figure out a weapon's damage by looking at the weapon's description. Each attack type for a given weapon will have its own damage range - unlike some other RPGs, the Weapon Damage isn't chosen randomly from this range, but rather this range is to describe how damage will be if the attack button is pressed quickly or if you let the weapon be pulled back all the way before releasing.

Bows and Crossbows have this damage further increased by the projectile they shoot. How this works is fairly simple - the Arrow/Bolt's damage is added to the Bow/Crossbow's. See the Marksman page for a listing of all projectile strengths.

Throwing Weapons are treated oddly, in that they are considered both weapon and projectile. Simply put, take the Weapon Damage and double it when using a Throwing Weapon.

Note that the damage of any Cast on Strike Enchantments are not affected by how far the weapon is pulled back - they really do deal damage randomly within the range listed.

Strength Modifier

(Strength + 50) / 100

Basically, 50 strength is the break even number. That offers a 100% strength modifier (no gain, no loss in damage). Each point above or below 50 strength is equivalent to a 1% gain or loss in the modifier. So, 0 strength offers a 50% or half damage strength modifier, while 100 strength offers a 150% or 1.5 times modifier.

Condition Modifier

Current Condition / Maximum Condition

Condition is a simple ratio - if your weapon has 50% Condition left (say, 400/800), you will deal 50% as much damage as you would have with a weapon in perfect Condition.

Critical Hit Multiplier

This is equal to 1 for regular attacks, 4 for melee Critical Hits, or 1.5 for ranged Critical Hits.

If you perform an attack without being seen, the game might tell you that you dealt Critical Damage (this is generally called by players a "Sneak Attack" or "Critical Hit"). This is a simple multiplier, but remember that damage dealt by Cast on Strike enchantments is not multiplied.

It is easier to perform multiple Sneak Attacks on a target if you can somehow remove it from combat between attacks (it performs fewer Sneak Checks and is less likely to run away). A Calm effect can help nicely with this, though be warned that you can rack up a new bounty for Assault with each attack if a Guard is in sight (even if the target originally initiated combat).

• Note that due to a glitch in the combat system, if you manage to hit an opponent with a ranged spell while remaining undetected, your first physical attack following the spell may be considered a sneak attack.

Hand-to-Hand

(Hand-to-Hand Skill / 2) * Critical Hit Modifier Fatigue Damage or
(Hand-to-Hand Skill * 0.075 * Critical Hit Modifier) / Armor Reduction Health Damage

Hand-to-Hand uses its own damage formula, which does not take Strength (or Condition, obviously) into account. The above formulas describe the damage dealt by a fully-drawn back punch, with Health Damage being dealt only against targets that have collapsed from a lack of Fatigue or that are paralyzed.

Armor

Armor is used to reduce damage from physical attacks. The strength of armor is known as Armor Rating, or AR. The AR for each piece of armor is BaseAR * ( ArmorSkill / 30 ). The AR for each unarmored slot, including shield, is Unarmored Skill * Unarmored Skill * 0.0065. Equipment slots filled with Clothing (anything without a listed Armor Rating) are treated as Unarmored.

Despite the manual's claim that your cuirass determines 40% of your total armor rating and every other piece determines 10%, your total AR is actually Chest * 0.3 + (Shield + Head + Legs + Feet + Right Shoulder + Left Shoulder) * 0.1 + (Right Hand + Left Hand) * 0.05. In other words, your Cuirass makes up 30% of your total armor rating, while your Shield, Helm, Greaves, Boots, and individual Pauldrons make up 10% each and each Gauntlet/Bracer accounts for 5% each.

If going completely unarmored, you need to know about the Unarmored Bug.

Damage Reduction

Armor affects damage in a more complicated way than the other factors, since how much damage a particular Armor Rating prevents depends on the amount of incoming damage. Physical damage is divided by Min(1 + Target's Armor Rating / Damage ; 4) to calculate the Health loss of the target (i.e. damage cannot be reduced to less than 25% of the original amount). For example, take a character with an Armor Rating of 33 that is hit by an attack inflicting 50 damage; 1 + 33 / 50 = 1.66, which is less than 4 and thus can be used in the equation. The 50 damage would divided by 1.66, resulting in the character losing ~30 health (a damage reduction of 40%). Alternatively, an attack that instead inflicts 100 damage would instead be divided by 1.33 (1 + 33 / 100 = 1.33), resulting in a loss of ~75 health or a damage reduction of only 25%.

Here is a quick list of things to remember regarding Armor:

• The reduction occurs only after all the multipliers are applied to the damage.
• Armor is subject to diminishing returns; each point of Armor Rating prevents less damage than the previous point did for any given amount of damage.
• Greater incoming damage means a given Armor Rating will prevent a smaller percentage of that damage.
• If a character's Armor Rating is more than three times higher than the amount of incoming damage, any further increase to their Armor Rating will have no effect.
• The ToggleCombatStats Console Code displays only damage before Armor Rating is taken into account, not the final damage.

NPCs and Creatures

NPCs have their own attributes and skill levels, and use mostly the same damage and accuracy formulas that the player does, with a few minor differences. NPCs do not "draw back" their weapons--every NPC in the game attacks at the same speed no matter what weapon they use. The portion of damage they would have dealt by "drawing back" their weapon is instead randomly determined. For this reason, opponents that use weapons with high damage ranges such as axes or warhammers are generally the most dangerous type of NPCs to face, outside of enemies with powerful weapon enchantments.

Creatures have the same attributes as NPCs, but they do not use NPC skills. Instead, creatures use a simplified set of three creature-exclusive skills: Combat, Magic, and Stealth. Combat is used to determine the accuracy of all melee attacks made by creatures. This includes basic weaponless attacks, attacks with weapons, and hand-to-hand attacks. Magic is checked when creatures cast spells. Stealth is checked whenever the creature would have utilized the Marksman skill.

In addition to the damage bonus they get from the Strength attribute, creatures also have a base damage range that is added to the damage of all their physical attacks, including attacks made by creatures wielding weapons or fists. For instance, the reason why Vivec deals so much Fatigue damage with Hand-to-Hand is almost solely due to the fact that he has a base damage value of 100-400, which is added to the damage of his punches. This mechanic also makes creatures such as Dremora who wield weapons particularly dangerous, since the base damage assigned to the creature is added to the damage that they already deal with their weapon.

Knockdown

During combat, there is a chance that you (or your opponent) will be knocked down (a.k.a. staggered) by a powerful blow. A knockdown is fairly short and can happen anytime, regardless of health or fatigue levels. Higher damage, such as those from slower but hard-hitting two-handed weapons, increases the chances of a knockdown. While knocked down, you (or your opponent) will not be able to attack nor block, will be easier to hit and will receive more damage. Having higher agility helps protect against knockdowns.

Knockout

When your fatigue drops to zero, you will be knocked unconscious. This is usually due to Hand-to-hand attacks, which damage your fatigue, instead of your health. There are also three spell effects that reduce your fatigue. The duration of your knockout is based on several factors. While knocked out, Hand-to-hand attacks will damage your health, instead of your Fatigue. The same applies to your opponents.

Using Magic with Combat

It is also possible to deal damage using magic. Unlike physical attacks, spell damage does not naturally carry the chance to stagger or knock down opponents, though there are dedicated spell effects that can disable or hinder enemies.

Spell damage is not directly modified by attributes or skill level—instead, these stats only affect the chance that the spell will be cast successfully. The damage range listed on the spell is exactly the damage that will be dealt when cast, modified only by the opponent's resistances and weaknesses. Spell damage ignores Armor Rating, and cannot deal Critical Hits.

The formulas for determining the spell cost, chance of successfully casting, and damage range can be found here.

A list of useful spells for combat can be found here.