1. your character level will only advance after you have leveled any major or minor skills you have 10 times. for example, heavy armor, destruction magic and athletics are all 3 either major or minor skills. ok say in the course of play you advance h. armor once, d. magic 3 times and athletics twice. now you have a total of 1+3+2=6 major or minor skills advancement. you still need 4 in order to raise your character level.
2. when your character level raises you get to choose any 3 of your primary stats to raise. strength, int., willpower, agility..you get the picture. NOW FOR A TRICK! each skill, be it major, minor or any of the others, have a primary stat basis. i.e. shortsword-speed, restoration magic-willpower, so on and so forth. when your character level is raised, those primary stats of the skills you raised the most get bonuses!! even if the skills were not major or minor. *ok scratch you head and say "ummmm what did he say?"*
now for casters this is great in a way because if you look at page 16 of your lil manual that came with the game you will see that not only are some of the magics primary stats based on intel but also willpower and personality (illusion). what this means is that if you raise those the most BEFORE you hit your 10 skills advance mark, you get bonuses in those stats making it fairly simple to advance at least those 3 primaries quickly because of the bonuses. also jumping in place will raise acrobatics which has a primary stat of strength which btw you will need just to haul crap. I have gotten as much as a +5 bonus at character levelup.
3. another nice trick for casters is to get ya self to balmora and join the mage guild (actually you can join Blades, mage, theives and fighters with no reprocussions I have seen yet). get ya some cash anyway you can, then buy some cheap spells in each magic class. say a wee damage spell for destruction, earwig or something for illusion, bound helmet or boots for conjuration and some kinda small buffs for the others. now go to the spellcrafter and have her create you some 1 point 1 sec self spells. since ya in the guild you can use their beds so sit by the bed and cast, cast, cast. you need 100 in any skill to advance it and these small self spells will be easy to cast and give 5 to 6 points each time you sucessfully cast it. at level 30 skill, I was still getting 3 points each cast. you can advance a skill a level or 2 or 3 each full magica charge. my personality was low being a dark elf so I kept illusion out of the major and minor skills so I was able to raise it 5 times before I moved on to my majors and minors, giving me a +5 to personality bonus on character level.
4. CONJURATION ROCKS!!!! no ifs, ands, or buts about it. period. get it up as fast as possible. doesn't have to be a major or minor skill. this goes for fighter types also. the weapons and armor from bound spells are literally some of the best in game. after you get it up sufficently that you can have a 2 minute bound piece (120 seconds) spell spellcrafted for you, and the chance to cast it is say better that 50%,..well folks you will rule Morrowind for a long while. every armor bound piece has a 85 armor rating WITH stat and skill buffs!!! I mean don't throw away your weapons or armor cause these just temporarily cover up the stuff you are using. but 2 minutes is a long time in this game. I can clear any of the burial grounds I have found in 2 minutes and kill any boss in less than 2 minutes. don't stop to loot, just kill all the mobs first then go back for loot. and bound weapons will hit magical that otherwise are immune to reg weapons. btw its not a bad idea to raise illusion also since its stat is intel, which gives your total magica base. (see item 3..get those bonuses)
anyway I hope these small tricks help. the game is everything I was hoping for and then some. its a definate 10.
edit: one more thing..you need mysticism. this means everyone. need mark to set a portal spot and recall to get ya back to it. then ya need the teleport spell to get you to the temples in the towns. all 3 are based on mysticism. hehe if don't believe me just wait till you start trying to haul those 50 pound dwarven cogs to town to sell
