Morrowind:Fortify Skill

	Fortify Skill
School	Restoration
Type	Defensive
Base Cost	1
Availability (Click on any item for details)
Scrolls Shrines Mephala's Skill Magic Weapons Magic Apparel Wizard's Staff Unique Weapons Gauntlets of Glory Unique Clothing Quest Items Ten Pace Boots Amulet of Heartfire Amulet of Heartheal Amulet of Heartrime Moon-and-Star Tribunal:Artifacts Bloodmoon:Artifacts

Fortify Skill, M points for D seconds
Temporarily raises one of the target's skills by M points for D seconds. After the spell expires, their skill will be restored to its former value.

Notes

• The only obtainable spell with this effect in the base Morrowind game was Mephala's Skill, which is a reward of the Threads of the Webspinner quest. However, patch version 1.2 removed the Fortify Short Blade component of the spell, meaning that there is no source for the Fortify Skill effect in the base game.
• Both the Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions add merchants that sell Fortify Skill spells. In Tribunal there are three: Nerile Andaren in Mournhold Temple's Halls of Ministry, and Laurina Maria and Crito Olcinius at the Royal Palace's Imperial Cult Services. Bloodmoon adds Bronrod the Roarer in Skaal Village, Solstheim.
• While not all of the skills can be fortified by stock spells, buying any Fortify Skill spell opens fortification of all skills via custom spells from any Spellmaker.
• If an active Fortify Skill effect increases your skill level to or past 100, you will not be able to advance that skill by training. You can still gain experience by practicing, although your progress bar will not be shown.
• Some skills whose usage is very brief or simply pauses the game can receive full benefit from a custom Fortify Skill effect that has a very short duration. A +100 magnitude, 2 second spell will cost around 10 points. Examples include Sneak (for pickpocketing), Alchemy, Enchant, Speechcraft and Mercantile, and even Acrobatics. This can be particularly powerful using the tip described below.
• In custom enchantments, you can fortify the same skill up to a maximum of eight times. Therefore, you can effectively get +800 to any skill for which there is such a spell. This can be useful if you want to make super-potions or your own enchantments with the aid of an item with stacked Fortify Intelligence, because you only need +800 for 1-2 seconds.

Bugs

• Exploit: If a Fortify Skill effect is cast on a trainer and makes that skill one of their three highest, it becomes one of the skills in which the trainer will offer training. This can be used to unrealistically make them train different skills and train to higher levels. For example, casting a +100 Unarmored spell on any trainer will turn them into a master-level trainer in Unarmored for the duration of the spell.
• If you are under the effect of a Fortify Skill, and are then hit with a Drain effect for the same skill, then when the Drain expires, the skill will not return to its former value, making the Drain behave more like a Damage Skill. The only way to solve this is to remove whatever was causing the Fortify effect, and then apply a Restore Skill effect (from a shrine or altar). You may then put the Fortify effect back on to be returned to your former skill value.
  • The Morrowind Code Patch fixes this bug.
  • OpenMW fixes this bug.

Related Effects

• Restore Skill, Absorb Skill
• Damage Skill, Drain Skill
• Fortify Attribute, Fortify Health, Fortify Magicka