A character's level is a measure of their overall experience and prowess. Each named NPC has a level which never changes, while your character begins at level 1 and continually increases in level throughout the game. Increases in level result in increased Attributes, and they are achieved through increases in major and/or minor Skills.
How to Level UpEdit
Each class has five Major skills, five Minor skills, and seventeen miscellaneous skills. Each time your character increases any combination of Major or Minor skills ten times, they become eligible to gain a level. Both Major/Minor skills gained by paying a Trainer to teach the skill and those gained by reading Skill Books count towards a level. Miscellaneous skills do not count toward this progress at all (but may count toward bonus multipliers applied to Attributes upon leveling up). You can check your count of Major/Minor (or "M/M") skill increases toward a level at any time by hovering the mouse cursor over the Level line of the Stats menu.
Upon gaining the tenth increase of Major/Minor skills, and at each subsequent increase of any skill type, a message will encourage you to "rest and meditate on what you've learned". You will gain a level the next time you rest for any length of time. Using the wait command is not considered resting for this purpose. You must use a bed or other resting object, or rest outside of towns or cities.
For each level, a short explanation of the character's sudden, if not unexpected, increase in power is shown along with an illustration of adventuring gear, and the attribute multiplier list. While you rest, you will choose three of the primary attributes to increase. Usually one or more of the Attributes will have multipliers next to them, meaning that those Attributes will increase by more than one point if you choose them. The multiplier for each Attribute is determined by the total number of times that skills governed by that attribute have increased since the last level up:
- No skill increases = no multiplier (1 point)
- 1–4 skill increases = 2×
- 5–7 skill increases = 3×
- 8–9 skill increases = 4×
- 10 or more skill increases = 5×
This includes increases of Major, Minor, and miscellaneous skills. For example, if you increased Destruction three times and Alteration two times during the past level, you would be able to increase Willpower by three points, regardless of your class. Note that Luck will never have a multiplier, since it does not govern any skills, but it can still be chosen for a one-point increase at any level up. As with leveling to 10/10, Major/Minor skills gained with Skill Books and Trainers count towards multipliers.
Beware, however: While the counts for multipliers continue to accumulate for this level up, the count of Major/Minor skill increases to determine eligibility for level-up will not roll over to the next level. In other words, if you increase Major and Minor skills five times after you become eligible for a level up, your progress will show as "15/10" before the level up, and then "5/10" afterwards. Those extra five increases will not affect your multipliers for the next level, however, so if you instead had ten excess major/minor increases, upon leveling up you would be immediately eligible for another level up, with no attribute multipliers. Fortunately, you would not gain the second level automatically, so you would still have a chance to increase skills and earn multipliers before resting again.
When you gain a level, in addition to increasing three primary Attributes, your Health will automatically increase by 10% of your Endurance Attribute. If you increased Endurance this level, the Health increase is calculated from the increased Endurance. No rounding occurs; although Health is displayed as a whole number in the Stats menu, the underlying value has one decimal place.
Efficient LevelingEdit
If you want to maximize your attribute bonuses at each level, you can control the skill increases that determine your available attribute bonuses. A perfectly efficient level up is one where three different attributes have exactly ten skill increases each, and the other four have zero; 30 skill increases in a level are possible if you increase 20 miscellaneous skills in addition to the 10 major/minor skills necessary to level up. Alternatively, if two different attributes have exactly ten increases while the other five have zero, and you choose Luck as your third attribute to increase, that's also a level that wastes nothing. It's not easy to eliminate waste completely, but here are some tips.
Pay attention to the major and minor skill set of your class at character creation. Efficient levels ups are much easier when a decent variety of governing attributes are represented among your major and minor skills. Even more important, however, is that all the attributes are represented among your miscellaneous skills. This way you always have the option of increasing skills for the specific attributes you want without allowing your progress counter to run away.
The moment you level up (or begin the game), plan the attribute increases you will want to take at the next level. Then plan a set of skill increases that includes exactly ten in each of those three different attributes (or two different attributes, if you would like to take one point of Luck this level), and includes exactly ten in your major/minor skills. (Or fewer, if you already have some left-over progress.) Consider the equipment and tactics this plan will dictate, and then consider whether it is compatible with what you want to do in the near future (e.g., quests, dungeon crawls, burgling, or shopping sprees).
Endurance is your special friend in the early game. Because it is the only attribute whose value affects the increase of a derived attribute at every level, investing in heavy increases to Endurance in the lower levels can pay serious Health dividends for the rest of your character's life. It's easy, too: Just put on a good ensemble of medium and/or heavy armor and let some rat or mudcrab pummel you as long as you (and the armor) can take it.
Take good notes. Unfortunately, the Stats menu does not actually show you how many specific skill increases you have achieved since your last level up, so you will have to keep track of them yourself. After each level up, write down your proficiency in each skill. Then at any point you can calculate how much it has increased since, and you won't be surprised with a 4× for Strength when you thought you had increased Long Blade ten times.
Be adaptable. Because of the wide variety of ways your character gains experience, accidental skill increases are nearly inevitable. There's no way to engage in combat without gaining experience in at least one of the offensive and defensive skills, for example. When they happen, be prepared to re-examine your plan and start aiming for a different set of attributes. It's often better to take a level up that wasn't quite according to plan than to allow a wasteful one.
Getting all three multipliers to be the maximum five points still need be no more complicated than two steps, one of which is done at character creation.
- At character creation: Ensure that you have at least one skill of each attribute among your Major and Minor skills and two skills of each attribute among your Miscellaneous skills. It is advisable not to rely on Armorer as one of these three skills because the supply of armor and weapons to be repaired is neither sufficient nor reliable. Ensure that three skills that govern Strength, other than Armorer (out of a total of five) are placed as needed.
Maximum LevelEdit
Once you have reached 100 in all Major and Minor skills, you are at your character's maximum level, which varies depending on a few different factors. Major skills start out at 30 and Minor skills start out at 15, which means you potentially have 775 skill increases that count towards level (making level 78 the maximum level possible without cheating). However, most characters have additional bonuses to these skills at character creation, from specialty or race. This makes those skills easier to use from the beginning, but limits the maximum level that the character can attain, which also limits the maximum amount of base health.
Reading skill books will provide extra skill points, the raise counts towards leveling up and contributes to the attribute bonus. With 5 skill books for each skill and a total of 10 major/minor skills, there are potentially 50 skill increases on top of the 775 mentioned above, bringing the maximum level possible without cheating to 83.
There are at least three methods for going beyond this level:
- The easiest way is to equip an item that raises an attribute above 100, such as the Boots of Blinding Speed, as this will enable a character to continue using trainers to skill up skills – such as Hand-to-Hand, Unarmored, and Short Blade, for Speed – and to thus obtain levels from those skills (as long as they are Major or Minor). While one's level may increase this way, the governing attribute of the item will not be affected, since the actual skill remains 100, even though you are allowed to "pseudo-level" it while the attribute max is temporarily raised by the item (e.g. to 300 by Boots of Blinding Speed).
- Going to jail can randomly lower skills, which can then be retrained for additional credit. Also, if Security and Sneak are major skills, they can be randomly raised by going to jail, which will not increase the skill above 100 but will count towards the next level.
- As an alternative to spending time in jail, if one uses a spell or potion to temporarily lower a skill, that skill can be trained at its respective skill-trainer as long as your temporary skill level is lower than their level in the skill (and the trainer's skill level can be temporarily raised if necessary). Though this will never get a skill over 100, it will always count towards your character's next level.
- Another post-leveling strategy that is perhaps less of an exploit is to max your skills and then read books. Many books raise skills when opened for the first time. If your skill is already at 100, the book will give you one additional point towards your character level. There are 5 skill books for each skill which means a possibility of 5 points in each of your 10 major and minor skills or an additional 5 levels. Note some skill books exist in open and closed form in-game and count separately so additional level-ups are possible.
Once all attributes are at 100, additional levels provide nothing except an extra 10 Health each time (though some calculations like vendor discounts factor in character level and scale up slightly). Other than this, the only real use for going beyond your maximum is fixing inefficient leveling (such as hitting the max level without 100 Luck).
MessagesEdit
The following table provides the messages that are displayed when your character levels up; the level in the table is your character's new level.
| Level | Message |
|---|---|
| 2 | You realize that all your life you have been coasting along as if you were in a dream. Suddenly, facing the trials of the last few days, you have come alive. |
| 3 | You realize that you are catching on to the secret of success. It's just a matter of concentration. |
| 4 | It's all suddenly obvious to you. You just have to concentrate. All the energy and time you've wasted -- it's a sin. But without the experience you've gained, taking risks, taking responsibility for failure, how could you have understood? |
| 5 | Everything you do is just a bit easier, more instinctive, more satisfying. It is as though you had suddenly developed keen senses and instincts. |
| 6 | You sense yourself more aware, more open to new ideas. You've learned a lot about Morrowind. It's hard to believe how ignorant you were -- but now you have so much more to learn. |
| 7 | You resolve to continue pushing yourself. Perhaps there's more to you than you thought. |
| 8 | The secret does seem to be hard work, yes, but it's also a kind of blind passion, an inspiration. |
| 9 | Everything you do is just a bit easier, more instinctive, more satisfying. It is as though you had suddenly developed keen senses and instincts. |
| 10 | You woke today with a new sense of purpose. You're no longer afraid of failure. Failure is just an opportunity to learn something new. |
| 11 | Being smart doesn't hurt. And a little luck now and then is nice. But the key is patience and hard work. And when it pays off, it's SWEET! |
| 12 | You can't believe how easy it is. You just have to go... a little crazy. And then, suddenly, it all makes sense, and everything you do turns to gold. |
| 13 | It's the most amazing thing. Yesterday it was hard, and today it is easy. Just a good night's sleep, and yesterday's mysteries are today's masteries. * |
| 14 | Today you wake up, full of energy and ideas, and you know, somehow, that overnight everything has changed. What a difference a day makes. |
| 15 | Today you suddenly realized the life you've been living, the punishment your body has taken -- there are limits to what the body can do, and perhaps you have reached them. You've wondered what it's like to grow old. Well, now you know. |
| 16 | You've been trying too hard, thinking too much. Relax. Trust your instincts. Just be yourself. Do the little things, and the big things take care of themselves. |
| 17 | Life isn't over. You can still get smarter, or cleverer, or more experienced, or meaner -- but your body and soul just aren't going to get any younger. |
| 18 | The challenge now is to stay at the peak as long as you can. You may be as strong today as any mortal who has ever walked the earth, but there's always someone younger, a new challenger. |
| 19 | You're really good. Maybe the best. And that's why it's so hard to get better. But you just keep trying, because that's the way you are. |
| 20 | You'll never be better than you are today. If you are lucky, by superhuman effort, you can avoid slipping backwards for a while. But sooner or later, you're going to lose a step, or drop a beat, or miss a detail -- and you'll be gone forever. |
| 21+ | The results of hard work and dedication always look like luck to saps. But you know you've earned every ounce of your success. |
BugsEdit
- If you have an attribute that is close to 100, and you increase your skills sufficiently that the multiplier would push that attribute above 100, you will lose that multiplier. Example: if your strength is at 96, and you increase your skills sufficiently to get ×5 to strength, you will not get a multiplier on strength at level up, as 96 + 5 = 101. In at least one release version of Morrowind, an earned multiplier of 5 at 95 skill leads to the +5 to attribute option being unselectable and not displayed, even though the attribute itself is displayed on the screen (attributes unselectable by virtue of being at 100 are removed from display on the level-up screen). It is possible to get to 99 with a +4 multiplier, and then to 100 with a +1. Another release version includes a similar bug: while at 95 skill and getting a multiplier of 5, the attribute multiplier on level-up resets back to 1. The aforementioned procedure works around this bug, too.
The Morrowind Code Patch, version 1.8, fixes this bug.
- The largest possible value for progress towards level increase that can be stored in a save game file is 255/10. If you save the game while at 256/10 or above, only the low byte is saved, and the remainder is lost.
