CFTeague2's : Daggerfall pages : General Tips/Hints

General Tips/Hints

Character Class selection/Class creation tips
Character creation tips
General playing tips

Character Creation - Class Tips

Never use a standard character class
Unless you want a challenge. The std classes are okay, except than they all go against at least one of the tips below.
Magic user classes want Increased Magery 3x INT
If you're a mage, you depend on your magic, so the more, the better. If you're a partial mage, the extra mana is still handy. But the best part is that with more mana to burn, you will be able to train your magic skills faster
Seriously consider increasing HP/LV up to 20, 25, or 30
Let's face it. If you're 5th level with 170 hps, things will be easier than if you've only got 70 hps
Choose one (or two) weapon skill(s)
If you have 6 different weapon types for your Primary & Major skills, you have to keep using different weapons all the time, or you'll never gain levels. For this reason, I would design a custom class even if I wanted to play a pure warrior.
Skill max limits
I don't know the exact conditions, but it looks like once one of your primary or major skills hits 100, all of your skills will be limited to a max of 95. Some of the easiest skills to advance are running, jumping, and the magic skills. It's not bad to make these your primary or major skills (it will help you gain levels fast), but if you're not careful, you can limit your other skills by hitting 100 before you're ready for it. If you are very careful, and have the patience, you could get all your primary and major skills to 99 before one of them reachs 100. Actually, with an amazing amout of planning, you may be able to get them all to 99, and then advance several at once to 100.
Note: because the limit seems to be based only on your primary or major skills, it's perfectly safe to max out your minor and/or miscellaneous skills. For this reason, I would recommend that you make running a minor or misc skill, because it is SO easy to get it to 100.
Add disadvantages that won't matter in the long run
Like Forbidden material: Iron. This has a fairly large effect, and once you start finding steel items, you don't care about iron. Also, Steel and Silver, and Elvish have pretty large effects. Don't do all 4, unless you want a REAL challenge.
Sabotage PER for good stats
Let's face it. If your character's personallity is poor, and nobody in town likes him/her, that may be annoying when you want to ask people something. If your character's main stats are poor, and he/she is no match for the monsters, that's worse... So, when designing your classes stat distribution, consider taking 5, 10, 15 (or more, I guess) from PER, and adding them to your desired stats. This will make it much easier to start with great stats.

Character Creation Tips

If you want a really high max level, plan ahead
Your level is based on increasing your skills from their starting values. So, if your starting skills are pretty high, then you have fewer "clicks" left to go before you max out your skills, so you will probably be limited to a slightly lower max level. The equation I've seen is 15 "clicks"/level, with the exception that level 2 costs only 2 "clicks". So, if stats max out at 100 (see above note about skill limits - they may be more limited), then an average character should have a max somewhere between 27th and 30th level. By planning ahead, you should be able to get to 30th or 31st level.
Planning ahead is twofold - answer the "history" questions to avoid your primary skills. Instead of studying whatever your class's main weapon skill is "in your spare time", pick a misc skill, like Hand-to-Hand. Battlemages should have "taken advanced classes in" Restoration instead of Destruction, etc...
Another way to plan ahead to maximize your potential level is to spread your initial skill points around evenly for your Major and Minor skills. I believe it uses all 3 Primaries, the highest 2 Majors, and the highest Minor. So, for the Majors and Minors, if you add 6 skill points to your highest skill, that's going to increase your starting value by 6 each. If instead, you spread the 6 points around to your lower skills, then they probably won't pass your highest skill by more than 1 or 2, so you will be increasing your starting value by only 1 or 2. For the Minors, with 6 skills to work with, you might not increase the starting value at all. That will leave you with that many more "clicks" to go before maxing out your skills.
Rolling a character: Be petulant...
The stats you roll can vary a lot - I've seen some bad stats with only 3 or 4 bonus points, and I've seen some nice stats with 12 to 15 bonus points. Holding out for a good roll, and then judiciously using the "save/restore roll" buttons can get your character a good start towards maxing his/her stats.
Focus on one stat and max it out
This is both a creation & a playing tip. While it's nice to be a "rennessaince man" and build all your stats evenly, it will take seemingly forever to get them all to 100. It requires much less patience to pick one stat, dump most or all of your "bonus" points at the start, and keep increasing it when you gain levels. My favorite first 2 stats to max are END (for bonus hp/level - which works best if you get it early), followed by INT (for lots of spell points). But STR (carrying cap & damage), AGI (hit everything/AC bonus), and SPD (run/fight/etc fast), and LUC (aways handy) are also good, and I'm sure others might suggest choosing them.

General playing tips

Save the game often!
As the daggerfall manual says, under The "Replay the Save Game" Strategy, the game will probably be more interesting and more fun if you don't use save files to make sure you have a perfect game. However, if you've played Daggerfall at all, you know it crashes a lot, even with the latest patches. When saving, I recommend you rotate around the save file slots, not saving directly on top of your previous savefile, in case it crashes during the save. Also, I like to keep a save file before I accept a quest, in case there seems to be a problem with the quest (the temple "Exorcism" quest has given me trouble about 60% of the time), so I have the option of going back to before I accepted the quest.
Some of the things that seem most likely to cause it to crash:
- Having too many objects
  Don't try to carry 500 lbs of griffon's feathers - even though your wagon can handle it, the game will crash.
- Talking to lots of people in town
  It's not bad to talk to lots of people, but it's a good idea to save before you start talking to lots of people, and then again afterwards. For a big city, you may want to save a few times.
- Casting "ball" spells at long range
  I don't know why, but about 1/3 of the time I lob a fireball at long range, it crashes.
- Travelling between several places (dungeons/towns/etc)
  Especially large cities and large dungeons.
Get a horse and a cart!
With the horse, you can travel around much faster. And you can turbo around town if you mount up. I've even heard that you can use your horse as a JetSki if you want to swim a long distance. With the cart, you can finally carry enough to really start looting dungeons. In dungeons, you have to go to the exit door to use you're cart, but it's better than nothing. Also, a cart prevents you from accidently exitting the dungeon, because it will ask you if you want to use your cart, instead of exitting automatically.
Spend some time increasing town-skills
Skills like Streetwise and Ettiquite can be handy when you get a quest to "find so-and-so in the such-and-such residence". Also, you want a high Mercatile skill - the easiest way is to sell a lot of items. I used to carry as many lightweight items out of a dungeon as I could carry. Even if I made less money by selling flowers, pauldrons, helmets instead of armor and weapons, I was able to sell 3 times as many, so my skill went up faster.
STEAL!
Rob the town blind. Be careful about how you do it, though. Always wait until after dark, break into the stores, and then change it Info mode. If any door inside the shop is locked - leave it alone. Opening it has a good chance of calling the guards. Only grab things from store shelves. If you go to the "personal possessions" shelves, you're likely to call the guards. Also, if the store's shelves still have buy and steal buttons (like bookstores), forget it. You have to indiviually steal each item, and your chances of getting caught are the same as if the shopkeeper was right in front of you.
At Low levels, the best stores to rob are General stores (horses & books) and Pawn shops (books & some misc items). At higher levels, go for the armor & weapon stores (orcish & daedric items).
Non-mages will want a bow
There will be times when you want to kill someone whose not easy to get to. If you don't have a bow to shoot back with, that archer up on the ledge is going to be very annoying. If you're using the view-based interface (isn't everyone?), bows and spells can be hard to aim, unless you hit <ENTER> to freeze the screen & get an aiming cursor. (Hit <ENTER> again to exit this mode).
Bows can be used as a tractor beam
One of the handiest things about bows, even for mages, is that they can be used as a "tractor beam". It's probably a minor bug, but instead of pushing a monster away when you hit it, a bow will pull it towards you. This can be handy if a quest monster is stuck on the edge of something, and you're worried that it will fall into the void if you hit it. Just shoot it with the bow, and pull it away from the edge. (The funny thing is the arrow that actually kills the monster will push the corpse away.)
Never trust brick wall doors
Brick wall doors can do several things, but one of them is to act as an instant death trap. So, before experimenting with brick wall doors in a dungeon, save the game first. I don't believe I've ever seen a mix of death traps and teletporters, so you're probably safe after the first one turns out to be safe. BTW, the Unoffical Eldar Scroll Pages' Newbie FAQ says that some brick wall doors do nothing, until a switch/lever/etc is moved. It also says that some you have to activate, others you have to just walk into, and others you have to run into.
Floating skulls = teleporters
If you see a skull floating in mid-air, it will teleport you if you activate it. It will bring you neaby to another skull. I have seen at least 1 set of skulls that only worked one way (but that was probably good because one of them was under water - it would teleport you out, but not into the water).
Warning: Falling in the void - don't stop suddenly
If you fall into the void, and aren't lucky enough to land on top of some room, don't just cast a Levitate or Recall spell. You're falling too fast, and the sudden stop will kill you. First, cast slowfalling, and then cast Levitate or Recall. Actually, this applies anytime you are falling from very high - there are a couple of dungeons where I've seen a trap door open into a long fall.
"Poisoned" becomes "Diseased"
If you get poisoned, and are unable to cure it before it "wears out", you will catch a disease. I don't know if this is supposed to be because your immune system was weaken by the poison... But, even if you have Immunity to Disease, you will catch a disease, and need to get it cured.
Sorcerors should join the Mage Guild asap!
If you're a member, the mage guild will re-charge any sorceror, or anyone else who cannot regenerate spell points, whenever you talk to one of the Guild representatives. At low levels, where most monsters don't cast spells, this is your only means of getting spell points, other than potions and mana-batteries (see below). If you're willing to simply hang out in the Mage guild, cast trainer spells, recharge, cast spells, etc, and resting occasionally, you can increase your magic skills much faster than a normal spellcaster who has to sleep to get mana back.
Backstabbing techniques
To train backstabbing, you have to attack from behind. The normal way to do this is to sneak around, find someone who is not aware of you, get behind them, and stab away. It's tricky because the monsters always seem to wake up just as I get almost in range. If you're a mage, they're two good ways to make sure you get more backstabbing opportunies... Invisibility True and Paralysis spells. Invisibility True is expensive until you're quite good at Illusion, so at lower levels, you may want to make a decent, but still fairly cheap paralysis spell. Once the monster is paralyzed, just walk around behind it, and backstab away! Invisibility True is a little trickier, the monsters will pretty much all be asleep when you first encounter them, but after you attack, they will come after you normally. However, if you get out of line of sight (around a corner, or something), they will lose track of you, and you can sneak back around them again.
Fast Train Jumping with levitation
Jumping can be trained by just holding the jump key anytime you have to wait for something (like a store to open, or (for nasty theivin' theives) to close). But you can turbo-train it by holding down the jump key while levitating. Especially if you have a ceiling overhead that will stop you from going too high. Be warned that this turbo-training gives you credit for doing LOTS of jumps, but it also burns out your stamina for that same number of jumps, so keep an eye on your stamina.
The Spellmaker is your friend
The standard spells are nice for ideas, but they aren't optimized for your needs. At low levels, you want cheap spells, and spells that give you a good percentage even at low levels. At high levels, you get the most bang for the buck with spells that are almost totally level based (like a 5% cure posion spell for a 20th level char - no good to a low level char, but it's 100% to him).

Make some training spells
Join the mage guild, use the spell maker, and create some super cheap spells. One good way to reduce the cost is to change the ...per 1 lv to ...per 2 or 3 lvs. Your milage may vary, but I use:

Alteration	Slowfall: 1 + 1 / 2 levels
Destruction	Damage HP at range: 1-1 + 1-1 / 2 levels
Illusion	Shadow: 1 + 1 / 2 levels
Mysticism	Open: 1% + 1% / 2 levels
Restoration	Heal HP or Fatigue: 1-1 + 1-1 / 2 levels
Thaumaturgy	Waterwalking: 1 + 1 / 2 levels

Get a cheap Open spell
In town, this will let you into any building, even if the percentage is only 1%. Be warned however, that any doors inside a building or dungeon do use the percentage, so the cheap Open will be useless for them
Open spells - note 1
In town, if you're using your cheap open spell to break into shops, you may have a problem if the open spell has additional powers. My "TMI" training spell has a cheap Waterwalking, a cheap Open and a cheap Shadow spells on it. If the extra powers are still active from the last time you cast the spell, you will not be able to open the next door by casting the spell again - you need to wait for all the other effects to fade. So, either make a cheap Open spell by itself, or make the durations on the other spells short enough that you can wait them out.
Open spells - note 2
In the dungeon, if you try to use a good Open spell on a locked or magically locked door, it won't work if you're in Steal mode. If you're in steal mode, it will try to use your Lockpicking skill, and (probably) fail. If you're in any other mode, it will correctly use the Open spell's percentages.
Get a RECALL spell
This is VERY handy. Cast it once to place an anchor, and then the next time you cast it, it will bring you back there. Note that you can only use the anchor once, so you need to cast another one after teleporting if you want to keep the anchor at that spot. Everytime I go into a dungeon, I set an anchor at the door. If I get lost, I can recall to it. If I get too much loot, I can recall to it, and access my wagon. But the best part is - if I get into the void, I can recall back into the dungeon. (see above about falling in the void, though...) Other people prefer to place the anchor in town before they leave for the dungeon. Then, when they're done, they can recall back and save the travel time.
Regeneration - the way to go
After 3rd level or so, you get a bigger gain out of a regeneration spell than a normal heal spell. Even something like 1-1 + 1-1/lv for 5 rnds/lv is cheaper than a 5-10 + 5-10/lv heal spell. The only disadventage is it's not an instant heal...
Heal Fatigue - handy
When exploring a dungeon, or running around town, you may find your fatigue getting low before you're ready (or able) to rest. Falling unconscious from exhaustion will get the gaurds mad at you in town. In a dungeon, the monsters eat you while you sleep (you just die). Even a cheap one like 1-1 + 3-4/level is good - you can always cast it 2 or 3 times.
100% Reflection is almost unstoppable!
Spell resistance, Spell absorbsion, and Spell reflection are all fairly expensive spells. But if you're getting up around 10th level or so, and you've got the mana and skill needed to cast a 10%/level reflection spell, you're practically invincable - by the time you hit 10th level or so, most monsters aren't much of a combat threat, unless they cast big nasty spells at you. With reflection, anyone stupid enough to cast a spell at you pays for it.
Resistance is almost as good, and prevents the monster from killing itself before you can soultrap it. Absorbsion, I'm not sure on, but it seems like I took damage a few times while this was still up - maybe if you're already at max mana, it doesn't absorb it?
Identify spells don't seem to work
I've got one that's supposed to give me a 160% chance at my level, and so far I'm 0 for 6 tries. Your milage may vary, but I'd say don't waste your time on this one.
The Item Maker is also your friend
There are lots of cool powers you can add to your items, but I'd suggest that all your armors have at least Featherweight added to them. Also, at least one of your items should have Increased Carrying Capacity: 50% on it. Between these two, you'll find that you can carry a LOT more. Note that once you enchant an item, you won't be able to re-enchant it (maybe you can if MAGICREPAIR is on), so plan ahead when enchanting hard to replace items. Also be carefull about enchanting weapons - if you're not using the MAGICREPAIR option, you won't be able to repair your magic sword when it breaks. (you won't even get a broken non-enchanted sword - you lose the item) Since weapons always wear down, it'll break eventually. I normally keep my best weapon un-enchanted, and then enchant my second best.
Magic items = mana batteries
If you've got a magic item that casts a spell that you can abort (like an attack spell), then you can use that item as a mana battery. Before patch 1.07.212, you get the mana from the spell when you abort it. With patch 1.07.212 or higher, you get the mana from the last spell you cast. So you can cast GODSFIRE, then use your Ring of Wizard's Fire, abort it, and get the mana back for the GODSFIRE spell (and then cast it again if anything survived the first one!).
Train magic skills faster with Extra Spell Points items
If you have access to the Item Maker, one of the powers you can put in an item is Extra Spell Points. There are several variations on this - you can do it by season, by the phase of the moon, when near certain type of monster, or a few other conditions. The most predictiable of them is by season. If you plan on holing up in an inn or in the Fighters' Guild and just casting trainer spells to increase your spell skills, it will go faster if you have more spell points. By building several Extra Spell Point items (amulets, rings, gems, bracelets, marks), I was able to increase my max mana from 300 to 750. You could go higher if you had some trapped souls to increase the capacity of the lesser items (marks especially). This will let you cast two and a half times as many spells before resting.
Be warned that Extra Spell Point items tend to burn out fairly quickly, so I don't recommend them for armor. And I wouldn't recommend casusally travelling around with them. To get the best usage from them, only equip them when you plan on spending a while training. I spent two weeks in an inn, and gained 30 clicks in my spell skills! (See above note about skill limits - you might want to be careful doing this).
Naming Items with the Item Maker
If you want to give your sword (or anything) a cool name, and you have access to an Item Maker, you can change the name of the item, without needing to enchant it. Since Magic Items can't be repaired (unless you turn on that option/cheat), there may be some items that you'd rather not enchant, but you still want to name. (Like for me - my original ebony dagger "Septim's Gift")

Notes:

I have only played characters who had access to magic, and who were at least partially thieves. I don't have too much advice for pure fighters...
The info above is based on my own characters, and my own play style. They're probably lots of neat tricks I never thought of. If you've got some, let me know...