Power! Unlimited Power!

As a power fantasy, Morrowind is vastly superior to Oblivion or Skyrim. (Not that Oblivion would be hard to top, given that the optimal strategy is to complete the game at level 1.) Ironically, lacking the polish present in the later games serves Morrowind well here. Instantly obliterating everything the game throws in the player's path isn't conducive to the steady drip-feed of dopamine that characterizes more modern game design.

And obliteration is exactly what the game will allow you to do, if you know what you're doing. If you know where the powerful artifacts are hidden. If you know who sells the good spells. If you know which pieces of equipment can have high-value enchantments placed on them and where to get good souls. There is an enormous power differential between a first-time player and a fourth-time player.

This isn't about cheesing Morrowind's systems, either! The game was intentionally designed this way. For proof, look no further than Erer Darothril. He's a mage in Sadrith Mora who sells the spells God's Fire and God's Frost. Each of these spells does an average of 355 damage. The last real enemy in the base game, Dagoth Ur's first form, has only 300 health. You're supposed to be able to kill the final boss in one hit!

Of course, only a n00b uses the pre-made spells! Why not try Drain Health for 1 second for an instant kill? Damage Strength for permanent paralysis? Why not get more original and forget about Destruction magic? Use Chameleon to take out any enemy without ever being seen. Cast Levitate and just ignore anything without a ranged attack.

Enchanted items are no slouches, either. One of the best Long Blades in the game is a katana called Eltonbrand.

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This is actually quite easy to get, as long as you know how. You acquire it by upgrading its precursor, Goldbrand, which is granted at the end of a simple but extremely well-hidden side quest. With Goldbrand in your possession, knowledge of several college basketball-related Easter eggs will transform the sword. (The mod package I'm using simplifies this process considerably.) Any low-level character can get this weapon, and Morrowind's monsters don't stand a chance against it.

"But wait!" you say. "No one could reasonably get this weapon without a guide!" That's quite true. However, there's another weapon that makes Eltonbrand look like a letter opener. It's actually significantly harder to get, but it's a reward for completing a major quest chain that any player could find.

Behold the Poke of Death.

One hit with the Black Hands Dagger averages 545 damage. Again, this is in a game where the final boss has only 300 health.

Defensive options are just as powerful as the offensive ones. Enchanting your gear with Constant Effect Restore Health and Restore Fatigue will ensure that you never need to worry about those stats again. I've already mentioned the items I'm using for magic immunity. Morrowind is a game where you can kill anything in one hit and become impervious to attack, and that was intentional.

Oblivion and Skyrim have extensive level-scaling systems and are therefore wedded to concepts like "balance" and "fair fights." Consequently, their magic items couldn't be made too strong. The game knows what level you are and tries to spawn enemies that are just strong enough to challenge you. Since the scaling system isn't aware of your gear, gear can't be allowed to have too much of an effect on the outcome of a fight. The only way around this would be to make gear an explicit part of character progression, as in 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, but doing that without a human DM in control would probably shatter any illusion of player agency, which is the polar opposite of Bethesda's game design philosophy.

Morrowind is having none of this nonsense. The enemies are what they are. If you're not strong enough to fight them, that's your problem. Go somewhere else. But if you are strong enough, the enemies aren't going to gain levels to match you. (That would just be silly.) Once you've defined at the outset that you're OK with the player being arbitrarily stronger than anything they might fight, why not go crazy? Why not seed the world with ludicrously powerful equipment that only the luckiest or most knowledgeable players will find? What could go wrong?

Well, obviously Bethesda thought something went wrong, or they wouldn't have introduced level scaling. Level scaling is exactly what you want to get that dopamine flowing, and empirically that's what brings in the cash. I'm sorry to see the old system go, though. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go beat Dagoth Ur to a pulp.