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So as per a lot of people picking up Morrowind in 2022, I did some googling as to the best class, skills, birthsign & race, theory-crafting the character I would play for hours and hours only to ignore a lot of said advice I read online about the chance to hit ratio and how to level your character effectively. I guess I just got caught up in the excitement

I went with a Breton Nightblade with the lover as my birthsign because of a lot of the clips I'd seen regarding the magicka system and it looked uber-fun. Joined the mages guild and started to buff my destruction & intelligence etc. I found a couple of side quests; this nord who got his axe robbed by a witch & this lady who gave me some really cool boots that let me run super fast! Bretons can resist 50% magicka so who cares about blindness right??

So I progressed in the main quest a little, discovered the Morag Tong and then joined the fighters guild. It was at this point I started training with a shortblade and learned very quickly that I could hit literally nothing. NOTHING. Like I went up against a rat, with a glass dagger, a bound sword, literally anything I could find, and I could. not. hit. this critter. After some googling I learned that, yep that's Morrowind; you gotta level your skills if you want to use them effectively. So I kept swinging at the rat, and then swung at it some more, and some more.

Until it killed me.

I had landed no hits, and it killed me.

This happened 3 more times before I quit the game for the night

A day or so later, I booted up again and set out to make some money and find some trainers. I payed both trainers in Balmora to train me in shortblade until I was around level 32. Went out to find another rat or nix-hound and guess what? No hits. At this point I tried everything I could think of; lowering the difficulty, fortifying my strength & agility, nothing worked.

Anyway remember those boots I mentioned? Yeah turns out blindness affects your chance to hit by.......a lot....regardless of if you're resisting the blindness or not; your chance to hit goes down the toilet either way. I removed them in favour of some bound boots and just like that I'm slicing and dicing critters left, right & center

I honestly didn't think Morrowind would be for me given its age and my propensity for following the quest markers and tutorials but something about this experience made me realize how amazing this game is; like OF COURSE blindness affects your chance to hit; your basically flailing around with a blindfold on.

Only downside is none of my buddies really play Morrowind so figured I'd share my little tale here. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

tl;dr - Morrowind is great and I'm bad at understanding how eyesight works.

That's funny! In all my years of playing TES3:Morrowind, I've never actually tried on those boots, so I had no idea they could affect your chance to hit-- although it certainly makes sense.

The really funny thing is that, in the vanilla game, the effect is bugged and actually increases your chance to hit, rather than decreasing it. Long since fixed by the Code Patch and OpenMW, of course.

And I, too, am one of those who've played the game for seven years and never once put on or used those boots.

If you want you could make a resist magicka 100% for 1 second spell and just cast the spell and then wear the boots. This will cure you of your blindness while wearing the boots.

You should also make a 1 point levitation spell if you haven't already as it makes travelling a whole lot quicker while wearing the boots.

As far as trying to kill enemies with a weapon type you aren't good with yet, what I've been doing in my current playthrough is pummel the enemy with my fists until it falls down, then switch to my weapon and start whacking on them. That way I can at least get in a few hits before they stand up again. If necessary, I'll punch them again to make them collapse again, then go back to whacking away with my weapon.