Levelling and Skill Increases

There is an art to going up levels in Morrowind, so much so that some people tailor which skills they increase in order to gain the maximum benefit. If you increase several skills with the same attribute, or the same skills several times, you can get a multiplier. This also applies to miscellaneous skills, so if you train miscellaneous skills based around the stat you want to improve, then you can gain a higher multiplier without wasting the multipliers for your next level by gaining more than ten points before resting.

A lot of skills can be increased very easily using tricks and occasionally exploits. Using some of these may ruin the game's difficulty curve, but none are actually cheating, just a bit cheap.

Combat:
Most combat skills increase quickly anyway, but to get to the highest levels more easily, buy a 'training weapon', like an iron weapon when your main weapon is daedric. This will do much less damage, meaning you have to hit more to kill a foe, and so will improve your skill more rapidly. The same effect can be obtained by tapping the attack button instead of holding down for bigger blows, or by turning off 'always use best attack' and purposefully using a weaker attack.

Hand to Hand:
Find an enemy you can defeat easily. Knock it out, but instead of killing it, wait until it gets up again, and then start hitting it again. This saves time looking for additional beasties to practise your skills on.

Armour Skills:
Again, find a wimpy foe, and just stand there letting it hit you. If you can, activate a constant effect heal item and then just leave the computer for a while. When you come back, your armour skill will be higher.

Magic:
Magic skills can also be increased using 'training spells'. Use the spellmaker to make a spell that only costs one or two magic points to cast, and sit in a safe room casting it over and over again. Boring, yes, but it will give you a rapid boost to your skills.

Enchant:
Enchant can be hard to increase if you do not realize that recharging improves your skill as well. I soultrap every monster I find, and then use them to recharge items, only keeping grand soul gems for actual enchanting use. See the enchant FAQ for more details.

Alchemy:
To increase alchemy, just root about in every basket, barrel and sack you can find. You will often find large piles of saltrice, scuttle, kwama eggs, marshmerrow and other fatigue restore items. These can be repeatedly made into restore fatigue potions very easily and cheaply, giving you a source of income and a rapid boost to skill.

Athletics:
The first tip is to run everywhere. Second, try finding a small lake or pool. Now jam yourself into a corner so you are facing the wall and not moving, but are still hearing the footstep sounds. Now switch on auto-run and leave the computer for a few hours. Voila - high athletics skill.

Acrobatics:
Jump everywhere, instead of just running, and your skill will increase quickly. Just make sure you are not in third person, because this looks absurd. For even better improvement, find some steep stairs, like the ones in Balmora Mages' Guild, and  bind jump to a mouse wheel, if you have one. Now run up the stairs, spinning the mouse wheel as fast as you can. You will get dozens of jumps in on one small staircase, and so you can increase your skill very easily.

Sneak:
To increase sneak, you need a reasonable initial skill, or a long term invisibility spell. Find an immobile NPC (there is one in a house in Seyda Neen), and get behind them. Make sure your sneak icon is lighting up every so often, and then weigh down the sneak key. Leave the computer...