I pulled out my old lvl 40 character and it is still very challenging. Doable lvl 1 on master? Sounds crazy. How did you manage that?
I wasn't aware of that huge leap in terms of difficulty, but I have to admit I did not read any previes/reviews before buying it. Still, it's awesome to visit morrowind again.
I used a three part strategy to get over the steep initial difficulty. First, I got all three words of Unrelenting Force, so I could get powerful enemies away from me if needed, and to kill the grasshopper enemies outright. That meant I got to the island around level 10 or so.
Second, I leveraged stealth and archery heavily, lots and lots of sneaking. I basically put everything into stealth and archery, and worked on smithing/enchanting heavily to maximize damage output. It was hit and run combat until I cleared level 25 or so. I think I explored the entire island while sneaking at one point. Direct engagement usually meant death, which was a frequent occurrence. It helped that ebony gear showed up in my early teens.
And third, I put I also put work into Illusion, using Fury and Frenzy to have enemies fight one another; lots of fights that were too much for me got settled by having the enemies take each other out. I just did clean up duty. I cleared out an entire Reikling cave while never being detected; I used Frenzy and archery the entire time, killing maybe a half dozen guys myself but otherwise letting them do the work.
Around level 30 or so I started to mount the difficulty curve and it got a lot easier, dudes I used to run from I could kill in 4-5 shots. If it had stayed that hard the entire time I'd have bailed, but I really enjoy climbing out of the hole, so to speak, through progression. It felt great to go from being the hunted to the hunter.
Edit: and I almost forgot, alchemy. Invisibility and especially paralysis potions go a long way. Many a Reaver Lord got paralyzed and then clubbed to death while they lay there.
As a bit of an update to my current character, Luna is about to hit level 70, with plenty of skills to keep leveling. Should hit 78 without difficulty. I'm going to hit a couple of the magic mastery quests, purely by leveraging training. It's nice to have new content this far down the road.