Morrowind Character Guide Series: The Healer

Danae -

Foreword

For those who watch my let's plays and livestreams, you'll know that we're all about role-playing and not at all about min-maxing. This series is not about the ultimate [insert class] build, let's face it, sooner or later your character will be a god-killer whether you min-max or not. In addition, we tend to always want to play the same way, with the same style, the same weapons, the same game play. So instead, I want to suggest ways to play a class and mods that can make the experience fresh and more unique. For more general role-playing mod recommendations, you can check this guide.

Skills, Race, and Birthsign


The very first thing you'll need to decide is whether you want to role-play a pure healer, Oath of Hippocrates style where you will refuse to hurt anyone, or if you are a healer that has accepted that violence is very much a part of life, especially in Vvardenfell. Another healer type is the one that uses potions rather than spells to heal.

For the pure healer, go Breton, you'll have great Intelligence, Willpower and decent Personality as well as buffs in many schools of magic.
For the latter, go Imperial female, you will have great Personaity, decent Intelligence and OK Willpower as well as a buff in Hand-to-Hand, blunt and Light Armor.

The Mage for the extra magicka, the Atronach for a chance to absorb spells (you have alchemy so you should be able to make restore magicka potions), or the Ritual if you want to give your character a more religious aspect.

Gameplay and Mods

If your healer is a religious character, like a Priest, check out my Crusader guide for a list of mods related to the Temple and the Imperial Cult. If your Healer does Merida's bidding by cleansing Tamriel of the undead, check the Witchhunter Guide.

Looking the part

  • Better Robes by Moranar for that Better Bodies fit; for vanilla bodies Avenger's Female Robes.
  • Hires Robes by Remiros.
  • CanadianIce's Robe Replacer for both male and female characters. You will need to sign up to her forum to download the mod.
  • Unique Finery Replacer UFR to give unique robes a unique look. Also replaces unique amulets, rings and belts.
  • Defensive Staves: When walking, your defensive staff will show. If you have an actual staff equipped, since it is a two-handed weapon, your defensive staff won't show anymore as soon as you draw you (weapon) staff.
  • If you choose to join the Mage Guild, grab either Melchior Dahrk's or Arcimaestro Antares' robe replacers. The former introduces variations based on magic schools, the latter based on rank.

Diseases and Cure

  • Viceral Discernement by Fliggerty and Bryss Phoenix. This mods adds, among others, spells to detect the health, magicka and fatigue of an NPC. Ideal for a diagnosis.
    UPDATE! OperatorJack's Magicka Expanded got an update an now included detection spells as well.
  • Plaguebearer: People have to get sick before you can heal them, right? With this mod you can spread your disease.
  • Diseases Restored by Half11 gives diseases to creatures that according to lore are... diseased. This means that now, you can actually catch ataxia from a slaughterfish (yay?)
  • Disease Creatures by Denina, does the same but also creates variants for the creatures. For example diseased rats have both Witbane and Rust Chancre in vanilla. Now, you can encounter a rat with one or both diseases. Another example: the slaughterfish now has two variants, the vanilla one and a new diseased one. You also have a choice of 2 esp, one where the name of the creature reflects their health and one where they don't!
  • Blight storm restored by Half11: You have a chance of catching any blight disease when caught in a blight storm.
  • Swamp Fever by Luccar and Rubberman: adds a quest where Hla Oad needs a healer.
  • Book of Diseases: all the information about diseases.
  • Would you like Healing? by Master Jinroku: adds a dialogue topic to all NPCs who will let you know if they need healing.

Combat

As a healer, you have hand to hand skills - we will cover mods for this skill in the Monk Guide. I would stick to staves, and mostly with cast-on-use effects such as calm, damage fatigue, ... nothing lethal basically.

  • Blackjack mod is perfect for non-lethal combat. It does require a successful sneak though, better get those chameleon spells/enchants ready.
  • Alternatively, install Fliggerty's Artifacts and find the Woundhealer: this weapon pacifies without hurting.

I know what you are thinking: how do we survive Vvardenfell? To this I say, with meatshields, I mean friends!

Manage Your Companions

  • First and foremost: Melian Teleportation Mod, you will never lose a companion again. Also lets you have multiple marks, I'd recommend Abot's tweak that limits the maximum number of marks based on your Mysticism skill.
  • We have a new alternative: Customizable MWSE Multi Mark and Harder Recall by Virnetch, I can hostely say it now does everything Melian's mod did.
  • Nullcascade's Easy Escort to make sure followers, even basic npcs follow.
  • Also a must to keep companions alive: Companion Health Bars MWSE Lua Script by Mesafoo.
  • Companion Role-Play Plus: ManaUser is most known for Graphic Herbalism but he's made a bunch of little but nifty mods, you can check out his website. This mod is particular will add dialogue topics to anyone currently following you, allowing you to ask them how they are, to borrow money from them, to ask for their opinion (think magic 8-ball) and wear clothes only, armour only, no helmet...
  • Kill Command by Merlord is a godsend and a lot of fun: press a hotkey of your choice and your companions/pets/summons will attack whoever you were looking at.
  • Diligent Defenders by NullCascade will let your companions attack as soon as they see a hostile. Warning: this makes your companions rather aggressive, they just won't quit a fight.
  • Universal Companion Share by Fliggerty will give anyone that follows you the companion share topic.

Getting Companions

  • Morrowind Comes Alive has some 40 companions to choose from. They have basic companion scripts but do not level up with the player. They make up for this by being generally quite strong. I have a YouTube review right here.
  • CM Partners 2.9 by CutthroatMods. This one adds 100 NPCs, they level up and learn new skills/powers as they do. I especially like the fact that you can pick an alignment for yourself. Full YouTube review here.
  • The Followers by Rubberman. Adds 10 mercenaries for you to recruit. They enjoy state-of-the-art scripts.
  • Arcimaestro Antares' Bigmod lets you request mercenaries from the guilds (for a fee, of course).
    If you would rather recruit regular NPCs, there are a few options:
  • Supreme Follower System lets you tell any NPC to follow, wait to take your place as well as share inventory.
  • NPC Functionality by Casey Tucker. You can ask any NPC to follow, guard, report on their health, skills ans spells. NPCs will agree to follow based on your level, speechcraft and their disposition.

Here are more options that don't quite suit the Healer character:

  • NPC Commands by Horny Buddha. Add many dialogue topics to all NPCs. Topics go from simple follow commands to more risqué take you clothes off, lie down and make love. Taking playing doctor to the next level, I guess.
  • Romance by Fandorn Delavie and the Wiwiland team NPCs will follow you because they love you. One at a time! Get married and have a kid if you want.
  • Live Free by Apoapse. Lets you buy/steal slaves. Once you own a slave, you can tweak their attributes and skills. You can also sell them again.
  • Cortex's Vampire Embrace: Create thralls and fledglings by biting them, a lot.

Healing with plants

If you want to heal (and make a living) with potions, I have a few recommendations for you.

  • Morrowind Code Patch: Potion and alchemy patches if you are tired of exploiting alchemy to get rich.
  • MWSE Alchemy Filter by Greatness7. A must have for any serious alchemist. While in the alchemy menu, lets you filter your ingredients by effects, including mod-added ingredients.
  • If you are not using Poison Crafting by Greatness (you should!), grab the classic At Home Alchemy - Redux Destructor36 and Syclonix that lets you make potions by activating your apparatus (rather than picking it up, then dropping it on your ragdoll).

Ingredients

Potions

  • Want to make more types of potions? Try Tealpanda - Alchemy Essentials. This mod adds new essences to brew and offers re-textures apparatus and ingredients (optional).
    Pick one potion replacer (optional if you have Poison Crafting):
  • JK - Colored Potion Replacer: A very simple potion and icon replacer for vanilla health, fatigue, and magicka potions.
  • Alabaster Potion Replacer by Rubberman: Gorgeous looking potions, harder to identify them at a glance though.
  • AnOldFriend's potions is a lovely looking replacer, not as HD as the previous but more than the first.
  • K Potion Upgrade by Schuwaa, another pretty potion replacer with bubble effects.
  • The most practical, only replaces icons but will make it really easy to identify potions (and scrolls): Erasmus Potions and Scrolls. Install this last if you want the new bottles from previous mods but the icons from this.

Other

  • If you want to do healer quests without joining the Temple and/or The Imperial Cult, try Freelancer by Thomas. Lets you do guild quests without joining the guilds.
  • Apothecary's Demise by MatthiewTheBagel is a quest and a lovely house suited for the healer with herbs character.
  • If you want a simple house with no quest, try The Botanist's Retreat.
  • Consigment Chests Expanded adds a few chests at traders' where you can just drop your goods for sale and come back later to collect your gold, a great way to sell your potions (re-stocking traders basically).
  • Balmora Guilds Expanded by Lucevar includes a couple of quests for the healer.
  • MWSE Containers by Greatness7 with scripted containers that automatically sort your ingredients and potions (also books, scrolls, and arrows).
  • Tizzo's Useful Starting Spell so that you can function as a healer from the beginning.

Handicaps and Goals

  • Be a hypocrite: you won't hurt enemies but happily let your bodyguards do the job. No fighting for you, no lethal spells (that includes enchantments).

  • Cure the greatest disease of all: The Blight! Yup, that means the main quest. Ways to make the main quest more fun: Gavrilo93's Main Quest Overhaul, Trainwiz's Main Quest Enhancers, but also companions like Kateri's Julan, an Ashlander Companion and Jac's Jasmine that will have things to say about most vanilla quests.

Final words

If you want more ideas for random handicaps and goals, check this blog entry with wheels to click, you can find my permadeath modlist (and all the others, actually) here and if you'd like to see many new characters created, join us on Twitch every Sunday for our permadeath runs ;)
Is you healer very different from mine? let me know!
Happy Morrowinding!