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THE ORDERS
If you chose a character that has certain attributes, and juggle it just
right, you can theoretically join up to 6 orders. They include the Mages
Guild, Fighters Guild, Thieves Guild, the Dark Brotherhood, a Knightly
Order, and a Temple. Of course joining all of these orders will subject
you to a great amount of expectation from each faction, so it is quite a
juggling act. You ask how can you join the Dark Brotherhood and a Knightly
Order at once? Just don't let the Knightly Order find out. After all, the
Dark Brotherhood is a secret organization, and your membership should be
secret as well.
TEMPLES
Chose a Temple wisely. You can only join one, and your membership is
permanent. Pick the Temple that has access to certain exclusive benefits
that will suite your needs. What if you find out you don't like the Temple
that you have joined and want to join another one? There is a way to do
it: get kicked out. Do things which will rile the feathers of the Temple
you joined, and they will eventually disassociate you. Once you are kicked
out, you will not have access to all the benefits that they offered
before. Note that getting kicked out is not an easy task to do. You have
really work at it.
INGREDIENTS FOR POTIONS
Need more ingredients to conjure up your next batch of magical potions?
Certain enemies tend to carry more ingredients. If you kill them, you can
search their body. Harpies and Imps tend to carry a number ingredients.
MAKING MAGICAL ITEMS- SOUL GEMS
It is possible to use a soul gem to increase the magical potential of an
item. First, make sure you have a soul gem in your inventory. Cast Soul
Trap on a monster. Kill the monster while the spell is still active. Now
carry the soul back to a guildhall that has an Item Maker. When making the
item, select the special advantage Soulbound. You will be shown a list of
available souls to use.
COMBAT- IMPACT
Some enemies are considered light in weight, such as skeletons and rats.
When attacking these creatures, try to fight them when they are against a
wall. Your attack can strike an enemy and send it flying back from the
force of your attack . If it hits the wall from the force, it can take on
extra damage. It's quite amusing to see a particularly extra light enemy
take a hard hit, fly back a few feet, hit a wall and die from the impact!
COMBAT- AVOIDING IT
The higher your skill in communicating with particular creatures, the more
likely you can avoid deadly combat and can go about your way in peace.
This skill is listed under Miscellaneous Skills in your Character Sheet
screen. In order to communicate, you must have your weapon put away (who
would want to talk to someone who looks ready for combat?) If you
successfully convince a monster not you attack you, they will go about
their own business. However, if you are truly the devious type, you can
attack with its back turned! Your success in communicating is the % rate
listed by the specific skill. Thus if your skill % rate is 80%, you have
an 80% success rate in attempting to communicate. Every time you attempt
to communicate with other creatures, even if you fail to successfully do
so, your skill in communicating with that particular creature will
improve. Language skills increase at a greater rate if your intelligence
is higher.
CLIMBING DOWN PITS
You see a big pit before you, and you want to enter the abyss. Unless you
know that you can survive a long fall, it is best not to jump straight
down. For those that can cast a Slow fall or Levitate spell, your descent
will be easy. For everyone else, you are going to need a magical item or
potion that will grant you the ability to get down there safely. Often
times, there is more than one way to get to a certain area. Try looking
for another way down before jumping into a pit. Also make sure you can get
back out!
DUNGEON SECRETS- TRAPDOORS
All trapdoors that you find cannot be opened directly. You have to find a
lever, or solve a puzzle to open them. Most of time, the lever is evident
and can be easily found. Other times, the lever could be a chain hanging
from a ceiling or a floating skull. There are one or two dungeons where
lever is one of the torches hanging on the wall! Trying to find the right
torch can be downright mindnumbing!
DUNGEON SECRETS- SECRET DOORS
Secret doors and chambers are often hard to find in dungeons. Unless you
check your automap. Secret doors to hidden areas are shown as empty spaces
in the automap. Rotate the dungeon around to look for these anomalies.
This is also a good way to locate the exit to the dungeon if you get lost.
The exit is indicated by a green marker. It's hard to see, so you have to
look carefully.
DUNGEON AUTOMAP
You can left click on a piece of the dungeon to make it flash. Clicking on
the gray bar at the bottom of the screen produces a cursor. Whatever you
type in there is attached to that piece. To see the description again,
click on the dungeon piece, and its description appears in the bar at the
bottom of the screen. You can right click on a piece of the dungeon to
hide it temporarily. If you are having trouble seeing parts of the
dungeon, this is a good way to reveal the solution to the maze.
ARGH! TOO MUCH INVENTORY!
You may be a burly man/woman/thing, but in the end you can only carry so
much inventory. A wagon can be bought to carry many things, though it
doesn't come cheap. Instead, what you can do is rent out a room from an
inn for a long period of time. This way, you can store excess inventory in
the room while you go out and adventure. Obviously, in the long term, this
isn't very cost effective. One day, you will have to get a wagon, or a
house, or a ship to store all the treasures you gathered from your
adventures. Remember that gold is heavy. Your encumberance will be high,
even if your inventory is low, if you are carrying around lots of gold.
One way to lighten your load is to trade the gold into credit at a bank.
There is a small transaction fee, but a letter of credit stating you have
$100,000 in gold is much lighter than $100,000 in gold!
TAKING PICTURES
For those that want to capture the moment, there is a way to take BMP
pictures anywhere in the game. Simply create a PICS subdirectory in the
DAGGER directory that is installed on your harddrive. Now whenever you
play the game and see something truly spectacular, all you have to do is
press the / key (backslash key) and a BMP picture is taken and stored into
the PICS subdirectory. To view the picture, simply exit the game and click
on the file in the PICS subdirectory. You can now document your adventures
through Daggerfall and share them!
DATE: 10/01/96
TRAVELING- TIP 1
You have several methods of traveling, ranging from foot, horse, to ship.
Each one has a distinct advantage and disadvantage. A wagon is not
considered a mode of traveling, but it can reduce your encumbrance whether
on foot or horse.
FOOT
Walking around can be a leisurely activity, however it can become
tedious, especially in large towns and cities, and can also drain your
character of energy and leave you fatigued. This goes double for running
around. However, running around does build your running skills. This
results in faster travel, when on foot, and is particularly useful when
questing in dungeons and castles, as you cannot ride a horse in these
environments. Your Speed Attribute affects how quickly your running skills
increase.
HORSE
Having a horse can make travel much quicker, especially when you are in
large towns and cities (i.e. Daggerfall, Sentinel are Wayrest are
especially large cities.) Though buying a horse is expensive, once you own
one, it will never die nor will it get sick or fatigued. You can mount a
horse in any outdoor environment. Riding a horse, however, prevents you
from building your running skill, as you are not running on foot.
SHIP
Needless to say, buying a ship is extremely expensive. However, owning a
ship has two advantages, besides being a status symbol! First, a ship can
reduce travel time across the ocean. If you own the ship, travel is free
across the water, otherwise it is quite costly if you use it regularly.
Second, a ship can be used to store all of your belongings and treasures.
You need not worry about pirates and thieves, as your ship cannot be
attacked at sea or docked in a harbor.
TRAVELING TIP- FAST TRAVEL
When you travel from town to town, and from province to province, you can
fast travel to get there quicker.
CAUTIOUS VS. RECKLESS
Traveling cautiously takes longer, but your character always arrives in
daylight, when the city gates are open.
INNS VS. CAMP OUT
Camping out is always free. However, it increases travel time a bit to
account for the need to hunt for your food.
BREAKING DOWN DOORS
When a door has nothing to fear from you, it means that your lockpicking
skills just don't cut it. But there is a way around this. You can break
the lock on the door by beating on it! Use your weapon or foot/hand and
continually pound on the door til it opens. It may take quite a number of
hits before you succeed. There are some notes of precaution. Using your
weapon to break a door open will degenerate your weapon, and eventually
render it useless (then you will have to find a blacksmith to repair it.)
Use your foot/hand as often as possible. However, this method will take
longer to get results compared to using a weapon, and it also leaves you
vulnerable to attack since your weapon is not ready. Be caution in
monster-infested dungeons and castles when attempting to break open a
door. Also, magically held doors will not break down by this method.
BREAKING AND ENTERING
If you want to be a thief at least think like one. Break into houses
during the night. Check around to make sure as few people are around to
see your activities. You may successfully break into a house, but stealing
may set off alarms to the household, and the guards will come after you.
Remember that breaking into a house, and stealing are two different
skills. Also, if a house has a second floor, there might be a door into
the house from the second floor. Breaking and entering from the second
floor will attract less attention.
BAD BEHAVIOR CAN BE COSTLY
It sure is fun to break into people's houses or steal from stores. Or you
may be the immoral type that kills innocent people for no reason. Either
way, you should know that your behavior can have harsh consequences. If
you are caught too often and brought into court, you could be banished
from a town. The result is that you cannot get in for a long period of
time. If you are the type that likes to run away from the law, you can
outrun the guards, and escape from the town. If you do, you can enter back
into the town and the guards will not recognize you. That is, if you do
not pull anything criminally excessive off, like kill a dozen innocent
bystanders. The guards will recognize you if you exit and enter the town
again, and they will chase you down.
STORES AND MERCHANTS
Pay close attention to the text that appears whenever you enter a store.
If the text indicates that the store is of good quality, you want to look
around to find rare items for sale which are hard to come by. There tends
to be high quality items in these stores. However, you should never sell
your inventory to these stores. These merchants tend to be shrewd business
folks, and can often negotiate better than you. However, if the text
indicates that the store is of shoddy quality, you want to sell your
inventory. The merchants that run these stores tend to be worse at
negotiation, thus you will be able to get more money for the things you
sell. Note that if you want to purchase merchandise from a store, click on
the shelves where the merchandise is located.
When buying and selling items, a COST bar appears above your character
portrait. The first number is the base value of the items being exchanged.
The second number is how much gold your character is carrying. Beware! You
will never buy or sell items for the price shown here. However, you can
find out how badly you bargained or how dramatic the economic conditions
of the region are influencing prices. Even in the best of circumstances,
there will be a significant difference between the buying and selling
prices of items.
TAVERNS
If you rent a room in a tavern for many days, you can leave your stuff
there safely. So long as you return before the time expires, your stuff is
safe. When you enter a town, a message appears on the screen if you have a
room at any tavern anywhere in that town. Once every four hours you can
buy food or drink at a tavern. This will restore a small amount of health.
QUESTS- EXTERMINATION
Some quests will have you out to kill creatures that have infested a house
or a tavern. When you attempt to kill these creatures, be aware that there
could be a variable number of them infesting a certain location. Do not
let them gang up on you! You do not have to kill all of the creatures to
successfully complete the quest. Generally, the quest is completed once
you kill about 2/3 of all creatures. Text will generally appear to
indicate that you have successfully completed the quest.
QUESTS-YOU'RE A HITMAN/HITWOMAN
You may be called upon to kill someone. When you discover where that
person may be hiding out, note that the door may be locked. It's locked
for a good reason. He/she knows that hitmen are out there! You may have to
break the door down. Also, you may not find your victim at certain times.
They too have lives, and may be located at different locations at
different times of the day. Often times if you wait at your victim's
hangout, they will eventually come in. One quest has you going after
someone who sleeps in his house at night, works during the day, and drinks
at a tavern after work. He can be found at one of those locations. If you
ask around, someone might be able to direct you to him.
QUESTS- DON'T ALWAYS BE A HERO
Often times, a quest giver will threaten you if you do not take a quest.
Do not take his/her word too harshly, as ultimately his threats will have
little consequence in the game. Make sure that your skills are advanced
enough, and that you have the proper equipment before you accept a quest.
Failing a quest will have a greater negative effect on your reputation
than turning a quest down.
COMBAT- ARCHERY TIP 1
Using a bow and arrow as a weapon can be extremely useful in avoiding hand
to hand combat, especially against creatures that can paralyze you. You do
have a limited supply of arrows, and the number of arrows you can carry
depends on how much encumbrance you can take (check encumbrance level on
your Character Sheet screen.) What do you do when you are deep in a
dungeon and run out of arrows? Try searching the body of dead enemies
which you killed with an arrow. Chances are you can successfully find the
arrows and reuse them. This also goes for arrows which are shot at you.
Check your inventory, and see if you managed to pull the arrow out to
reuse! Now that's recycling! There is a distinct disadvantage when using a
bow and arrow. When enemies manage to get close in and attack you, it will
take a few seconds for you to switch to close range weapon, thus leaving
you vulnerable to the first attack.
DATE: 09/25/96
STARTING OUT AND EXPLORING CITIES
There are over 16,000 locales in the game Daggerfall, ranging from
dungeons, towns, farms, castles, to cities. Some of the most impressive
sites are the main cities in each province. Take some time to explore the
cities of Daggerfall, Sentinel, and Wayrest, each located in their
prospective province by the same name. The main quest will have you
visiting these cities one time or another, so explore them at your
leisure, and enjoy the sites. Of particular visual beauty are the central
castles in each city. It is not recommended to visit the city of
Daggerfall at night. It is haunted by the undead, which are difficult to
kill. You can avoid these creatures by staying indoors at night.
CONTROLS
When you start the game, experiment using the View Interface. This is the
interface used in many 3D action games including Terminator: Future Shock
and the other game equivalent to "Ground Shaker". Basically, your movement
forward and backward are controlled by the keyboard, and your ability to
look around is controlled by the mouse. Most of us here at Bethesda prefer
the View Interface, though Julian Lefay and a few others prefer the Cursor
Interface. Since you are going to be sitting down with the game for a long
time, get comfortable with an interface which you think will be the most
effective and efficient for you in the long term.
BUILDING YOUR SKILLS: TIP 1
Never do anything normal in Daggerfall, because it doesn't build any
skills. Daggerfall is designed so that when you use a skill more often,
the better you get at it. Even simple things like exploring a town and
dungeon can become training grounds. When in a town, always run around.
This builds your running skill. When in a dungeon, sneak around since this
builds your stealth skill.
BUILDING YOUR SKILLS: TIP 2
Always try to build your primary and major skills. Your advancement in
level directly depends upon how quickly you build up your entire group of
primary and major skills. There is a specific formula that is used, but to
go into detail of how it works is like math class. However, what I can
tell you is that since skills advance at a decreasing rate as you become
more proficient at that skill, it will take more effort into building that
skill. However, there are certain skills which you do not use often and
will naturally be lower. Train in guilds to build these skills. They will
initially advance faster, and the faster you advance in overall primary
and major skills, the faster your level advances. Remember, it is the sum
of skill points in the primary and major skill categories that advance
your level.
WHO KNOWS WHAT ABOUT WHAT
It can be trying attempting to get information you need from someone. You
just have to know who to talk to. Certain types of people tend to have
more information about things than others. Folks walking around the
streets tend to know more about specific places in towns and locations.
Scholars in guilds tend to know more about specific objects. Merchants and
the underworld (thieves, prostitutes) tend to know the gossip about
certain people. By the way, prostitutes are generally found in taverns.
And no, you cannot partake of any unscrupulous activities with them.
ETIQUETTE/STREETWISE SKILLS
These two skills play a factor in several things.
TONE OF COMMUNICATING
When communicating with others, you can speak to them in several tones,
which include polite, normal, and bluntly. Your etiquette skill influences
your ability to speak to others politely. The better your etiquette skill,
the more likely those well received from polite conversation will address
your needs. Nobles and knights are just a few examples of those that
demand polite conversation. The more you use polite conversation, the more
your etiquette skill will develop. Your streetwise skill influences your
ability to speak to others bluntly. Thieves and other uncouth sorts will
respond towards this tone better, and in fact prefer it. The more you use
blunt conversation, the more your streetwise skill will develop.
STANDING BEFORE A JUDGE
There are several instances where you must appear in court (i.e. killing
a townsperson, and then surrendering to a guard.) If you deem yourself not
guilty, you have the option to debate or lie to clear yourself. Your
etiquette skill influences your ability to debate. The better this skill,
the more likely the judge will set you free. The more often you debate,
the more your etiquette skill will develop. Your streetwise skill
influences your ability to lie. The better this skill, the more likely the
judge will buy your story. The more often you lie, the more your
streetwise skill will develop.
COMBAT: TIP 1
When engaging in close combat with an enemy, you should move back and
forth often. When you swing your weapon, move in close to strike, then
move back out to give you time to ready your weapon again and to dodge the
enemy's attack. Note that enemies will only engage in combat when you are
close to them. They will not react and swing their weapon if you are out
of range. Of course this only applies to enemies that do not have long
range attacks.
1. As soon as you start the game, get a cart first. Then, when changing
travel modes, select the cart and it becomes a horse! No need to buy one.
2. Money is the key to living it up in Daggerfall, and to get an
unlimited supply of it you have to go where the money is: the banks!
Travel to each country and borrow the maximum amount. You will have a full
year to pay this money back. In the meantime, you can get a boat, a house,
and when you reach the right level, buy all the magic levels that you
want--and STILL have plenty of money left over to get a head start on
repaying your loans in time.
3. Get a boat! First, once you have one you will never need a hotel
again. When outdoors, just step onto your boat and sleep all you want.
Second, no matter who is after you, they can get you at the inns or even
in your own home, but NOT on your boat! It is a foolproof safe haven for
you. Third, you can cut down on travel time. Some places you can get to
faster by boat (most places take longer by boat, but it's worth checking
out--you can shave a full week off your travel time if you check your
options).
4. Recall will save you days of travel time. When accepting a simple
quest, cast your recall spell at the place you must return to, not at the
dungeon entrance. Once you have gotten the object of your quest, you can
use the extra time to wander through the dungeon, or just cast your recall
spell immediately and be teleported right back to the questgiver. With
this one, you should be able to handle up to three times the quests in
less than half the time! Try it and see.
If you chose a character that has certain attributes, and juggle it just
right, you can theoretically join up to 6 orders. They include the Mages
Guild, Fighters Guild, Thieves Guild, the Dark Brotherhood, a Knightly
Order, and a Temple. Of course joining all of these orders will subject
you to a great amount of expectation from each faction, so it is quite a
juggling act. You ask how can you join the Dark Brotherhood and a Knightly
Order at once? Just don't let the Knightly Order find out. After all, the
Dark Brotherhood is a secret organization, and your membership should be
secret as well.
TEMPLES
Chose a Temple wisely. You can only join one, and your membership is
permanent. Pick the Temple that has access to certain exclusive benefits
that will suite your needs. What if you find out you don't like the Temple
that you have joined and want to join another one? There is a way to do
it: get kicked out. Do things which will rile the feathers of the Temple
you joined, and they will eventually disassociate you. Once you are kicked
out, you will not have access to all the benefits that they offered
before. Note that getting kicked out is not an easy task to do. You have
really work at it.
INGREDIENTS FOR POTIONS
Need more ingredients to conjure up your next batch of magical potions?
Certain enemies tend to carry more ingredients. If you kill them, you can
search their body. Harpies and Imps tend to carry a number ingredients.
MAKING MAGICAL ITEMS- SOUL GEMS
It is possible to use a soul gem to increase the magical potential of an
item. First, make sure you have a soul gem in your inventory. Cast Soul
Trap on a monster. Kill the monster while the spell is still active. Now
carry the soul back to a guildhall that has an Item Maker. When making the
item, select the special advantage Soulbound. You will be shown a list of
available souls to use.
COMBAT- IMPACT
Some enemies are considered light in weight, such as skeletons and rats.
When attacking these creatures, try to fight them when they are against a
wall. Your attack can strike an enemy and send it flying back from the
force of your attack . If it hits the wall from the force, it can take on
extra damage. It's quite amusing to see a particularly extra light enemy
take a hard hit, fly back a few feet, hit a wall and die from the impact!
COMBAT- AVOIDING IT
The higher your skill in communicating with particular creatures, the more
likely you can avoid deadly combat and can go about your way in peace.
This skill is listed under Miscellaneous Skills in your Character Sheet
screen. In order to communicate, you must have your weapon put away (who
would want to talk to someone who looks ready for combat?) If you
successfully convince a monster not you attack you, they will go about
their own business. However, if you are truly the devious type, you can
attack with its back turned! Your success in communicating is the % rate
listed by the specific skill. Thus if your skill % rate is 80%, you have
an 80% success rate in attempting to communicate. Every time you attempt
to communicate with other creatures, even if you fail to successfully do
so, your skill in communicating with that particular creature will
improve. Language skills increase at a greater rate if your intelligence
is higher.
CLIMBING DOWN PITS
You see a big pit before you, and you want to enter the abyss. Unless you
know that you can survive a long fall, it is best not to jump straight
down. For those that can cast a Slow fall or Levitate spell, your descent
will be easy. For everyone else, you are going to need a magical item or
potion that will grant you the ability to get down there safely. Often
times, there is more than one way to get to a certain area. Try looking
for another way down before jumping into a pit. Also make sure you can get
back out!
DUNGEON SECRETS- TRAPDOORS
All trapdoors that you find cannot be opened directly. You have to find a
lever, or solve a puzzle to open them. Most of time, the lever is evident
and can be easily found. Other times, the lever could be a chain hanging
from a ceiling or a floating skull. There are one or two dungeons where
lever is one of the torches hanging on the wall! Trying to find the right
torch can be downright mindnumbing!
DUNGEON SECRETS- SECRET DOORS
Secret doors and chambers are often hard to find in dungeons. Unless you
check your automap. Secret doors to hidden areas are shown as empty spaces
in the automap. Rotate the dungeon around to look for these anomalies.
This is also a good way to locate the exit to the dungeon if you get lost.
The exit is indicated by a green marker. It's hard to see, so you have to
look carefully.
DUNGEON AUTOMAP
You can left click on a piece of the dungeon to make it flash. Clicking on
the gray bar at the bottom of the screen produces a cursor. Whatever you
type in there is attached to that piece. To see the description again,
click on the dungeon piece, and its description appears in the bar at the
bottom of the screen. You can right click on a piece of the dungeon to
hide it temporarily. If you are having trouble seeing parts of the
dungeon, this is a good way to reveal the solution to the maze.
ARGH! TOO MUCH INVENTORY!
You may be a burly man/woman/thing, but in the end you can only carry so
much inventory. A wagon can be bought to carry many things, though it
doesn't come cheap. Instead, what you can do is rent out a room from an
inn for a long period of time. This way, you can store excess inventory in
the room while you go out and adventure. Obviously, in the long term, this
isn't very cost effective. One day, you will have to get a wagon, or a
house, or a ship to store all the treasures you gathered from your
adventures. Remember that gold is heavy. Your encumberance will be high,
even if your inventory is low, if you are carrying around lots of gold.
One way to lighten your load is to trade the gold into credit at a bank.
There is a small transaction fee, but a letter of credit stating you have
$100,000 in gold is much lighter than $100,000 in gold!
TAKING PICTURES
For those that want to capture the moment, there is a way to take BMP
pictures anywhere in the game. Simply create a PICS subdirectory in the
DAGGER directory that is installed on your harddrive. Now whenever you
play the game and see something truly spectacular, all you have to do is
press the / key (backslash key) and a BMP picture is taken and stored into
the PICS subdirectory. To view the picture, simply exit the game and click
on the file in the PICS subdirectory. You can now document your adventures
through Daggerfall and share them!
DATE: 10/01/96
TRAVELING- TIP 1
You have several methods of traveling, ranging from foot, horse, to ship.
Each one has a distinct advantage and disadvantage. A wagon is not
considered a mode of traveling, but it can reduce your encumbrance whether
on foot or horse.
FOOT
Walking around can be a leisurely activity, however it can become
tedious, especially in large towns and cities, and can also drain your
character of energy and leave you fatigued. This goes double for running
around. However, running around does build your running skills. This
results in faster travel, when on foot, and is particularly useful when
questing in dungeons and castles, as you cannot ride a horse in these
environments. Your Speed Attribute affects how quickly your running skills
increase.
HORSE
Having a horse can make travel much quicker, especially when you are in
large towns and cities (i.e. Daggerfall, Sentinel are Wayrest are
especially large cities.) Though buying a horse is expensive, once you own
one, it will never die nor will it get sick or fatigued. You can mount a
horse in any outdoor environment. Riding a horse, however, prevents you
from building your running skill, as you are not running on foot.
SHIP
Needless to say, buying a ship is extremely expensive. However, owning a
ship has two advantages, besides being a status symbol! First, a ship can
reduce travel time across the ocean. If you own the ship, travel is free
across the water, otherwise it is quite costly if you use it regularly.
Second, a ship can be used to store all of your belongings and treasures.
You need not worry about pirates and thieves, as your ship cannot be
attacked at sea or docked in a harbor.
TRAVELING TIP- FAST TRAVEL
When you travel from town to town, and from province to province, you can
fast travel to get there quicker.
CAUTIOUS VS. RECKLESS
Traveling cautiously takes longer, but your character always arrives in
daylight, when the city gates are open.
INNS VS. CAMP OUT
Camping out is always free. However, it increases travel time a bit to
account for the need to hunt for your food.
BREAKING DOWN DOORS
When a door has nothing to fear from you, it means that your lockpicking
skills just don't cut it. But there is a way around this. You can break
the lock on the door by beating on it! Use your weapon or foot/hand and
continually pound on the door til it opens. It may take quite a number of
hits before you succeed. There are some notes of precaution. Using your
weapon to break a door open will degenerate your weapon, and eventually
render it useless (then you will have to find a blacksmith to repair it.)
Use your foot/hand as often as possible. However, this method will take
longer to get results compared to using a weapon, and it also leaves you
vulnerable to attack since your weapon is not ready. Be caution in
monster-infested dungeons and castles when attempting to break open a
door. Also, magically held doors will not break down by this method.
BREAKING AND ENTERING
If you want to be a thief at least think like one. Break into houses
during the night. Check around to make sure as few people are around to
see your activities. You may successfully break into a house, but stealing
may set off alarms to the household, and the guards will come after you.
Remember that breaking into a house, and stealing are two different
skills. Also, if a house has a second floor, there might be a door into
the house from the second floor. Breaking and entering from the second
floor will attract less attention.
BAD BEHAVIOR CAN BE COSTLY
It sure is fun to break into people's houses or steal from stores. Or you
may be the immoral type that kills innocent people for no reason. Either
way, you should know that your behavior can have harsh consequences. If
you are caught too often and brought into court, you could be banished
from a town. The result is that you cannot get in for a long period of
time. If you are the type that likes to run away from the law, you can
outrun the guards, and escape from the town. If you do, you can enter back
into the town and the guards will not recognize you. That is, if you do
not pull anything criminally excessive off, like kill a dozen innocent
bystanders. The guards will recognize you if you exit and enter the town
again, and they will chase you down.
STORES AND MERCHANTS
Pay close attention to the text that appears whenever you enter a store.
If the text indicates that the store is of good quality, you want to look
around to find rare items for sale which are hard to come by. There tends
to be high quality items in these stores. However, you should never sell
your inventory to these stores. These merchants tend to be shrewd business
folks, and can often negotiate better than you. However, if the text
indicates that the store is of shoddy quality, you want to sell your
inventory. The merchants that run these stores tend to be worse at
negotiation, thus you will be able to get more money for the things you
sell. Note that if you want to purchase merchandise from a store, click on
the shelves where the merchandise is located.
When buying and selling items, a COST bar appears above your character
portrait. The first number is the base value of the items being exchanged.
The second number is how much gold your character is carrying. Beware! You
will never buy or sell items for the price shown here. However, you can
find out how badly you bargained or how dramatic the economic conditions
of the region are influencing prices. Even in the best of circumstances,
there will be a significant difference between the buying and selling
prices of items.
TAVERNS
If you rent a room in a tavern for many days, you can leave your stuff
there safely. So long as you return before the time expires, your stuff is
safe. When you enter a town, a message appears on the screen if you have a
room at any tavern anywhere in that town. Once every four hours you can
buy food or drink at a tavern. This will restore a small amount of health.
QUESTS- EXTERMINATION
Some quests will have you out to kill creatures that have infested a house
or a tavern. When you attempt to kill these creatures, be aware that there
could be a variable number of them infesting a certain location. Do not
let them gang up on you! You do not have to kill all of the creatures to
successfully complete the quest. Generally, the quest is completed once
you kill about 2/3 of all creatures. Text will generally appear to
indicate that you have successfully completed the quest.
QUESTS-YOU'RE A HITMAN/HITWOMAN
You may be called upon to kill someone. When you discover where that
person may be hiding out, note that the door may be locked. It's locked
for a good reason. He/she knows that hitmen are out there! You may have to
break the door down. Also, you may not find your victim at certain times.
They too have lives, and may be located at different locations at
different times of the day. Often times if you wait at your victim's
hangout, they will eventually come in. One quest has you going after
someone who sleeps in his house at night, works during the day, and drinks
at a tavern after work. He can be found at one of those locations. If you
ask around, someone might be able to direct you to him.
QUESTS- DON'T ALWAYS BE A HERO
Often times, a quest giver will threaten you if you do not take a quest.
Do not take his/her word too harshly, as ultimately his threats will have
little consequence in the game. Make sure that your skills are advanced
enough, and that you have the proper equipment before you accept a quest.
Failing a quest will have a greater negative effect on your reputation
than turning a quest down.
COMBAT- ARCHERY TIP 1
Using a bow and arrow as a weapon can be extremely useful in avoiding hand
to hand combat, especially against creatures that can paralyze you. You do
have a limited supply of arrows, and the number of arrows you can carry
depends on how much encumbrance you can take (check encumbrance level on
your Character Sheet screen.) What do you do when you are deep in a
dungeon and run out of arrows? Try searching the body of dead enemies
which you killed with an arrow. Chances are you can successfully find the
arrows and reuse them. This also goes for arrows which are shot at you.
Check your inventory, and see if you managed to pull the arrow out to
reuse! Now that's recycling! There is a distinct disadvantage when using a
bow and arrow. When enemies manage to get close in and attack you, it will
take a few seconds for you to switch to close range weapon, thus leaving
you vulnerable to the first attack.
DATE: 09/25/96
STARTING OUT AND EXPLORING CITIES
There are over 16,000 locales in the game Daggerfall, ranging from
dungeons, towns, farms, castles, to cities. Some of the most impressive
sites are the main cities in each province. Take some time to explore the
cities of Daggerfall, Sentinel, and Wayrest, each located in their
prospective province by the same name. The main quest will have you
visiting these cities one time or another, so explore them at your
leisure, and enjoy the sites. Of particular visual beauty are the central
castles in each city. It is not recommended to visit the city of
Daggerfall at night. It is haunted by the undead, which are difficult to
kill. You can avoid these creatures by staying indoors at night.
CONTROLS
When you start the game, experiment using the View Interface. This is the
interface used in many 3D action games including Terminator: Future Shock
and the other game equivalent to "Ground Shaker". Basically, your movement
forward and backward are controlled by the keyboard, and your ability to
look around is controlled by the mouse. Most of us here at Bethesda prefer
the View Interface, though Julian Lefay and a few others prefer the Cursor
Interface. Since you are going to be sitting down with the game for a long
time, get comfortable with an interface which you think will be the most
effective and efficient for you in the long term.
BUILDING YOUR SKILLS: TIP 1
Never do anything normal in Daggerfall, because it doesn't build any
skills. Daggerfall is designed so that when you use a skill more often,
the better you get at it. Even simple things like exploring a town and
dungeon can become training grounds. When in a town, always run around.
This builds your running skill. When in a dungeon, sneak around since this
builds your stealth skill.
BUILDING YOUR SKILLS: TIP 2
Always try to build your primary and major skills. Your advancement in
level directly depends upon how quickly you build up your entire group of
primary and major skills. There is a specific formula that is used, but to
go into detail of how it works is like math class. However, what I can
tell you is that since skills advance at a decreasing rate as you become
more proficient at that skill, it will take more effort into building that
skill. However, there are certain skills which you do not use often and
will naturally be lower. Train in guilds to build these skills. They will
initially advance faster, and the faster you advance in overall primary
and major skills, the faster your level advances. Remember, it is the sum
of skill points in the primary and major skill categories that advance
your level.
WHO KNOWS WHAT ABOUT WHAT
It can be trying attempting to get information you need from someone. You
just have to know who to talk to. Certain types of people tend to have
more information about things than others. Folks walking around the
streets tend to know more about specific places in towns and locations.
Scholars in guilds tend to know more about specific objects. Merchants and
the underworld (thieves, prostitutes) tend to know the gossip about
certain people. By the way, prostitutes are generally found in taverns.
And no, you cannot partake of any unscrupulous activities with them.
ETIQUETTE/STREETWISE SKILLS
These two skills play a factor in several things.
TONE OF COMMUNICATING
When communicating with others, you can speak to them in several tones,
which include polite, normal, and bluntly. Your etiquette skill influences
your ability to speak to others politely. The better your etiquette skill,
the more likely those well received from polite conversation will address
your needs. Nobles and knights are just a few examples of those that
demand polite conversation. The more you use polite conversation, the more
your etiquette skill will develop. Your streetwise skill influences your
ability to speak to others bluntly. Thieves and other uncouth sorts will
respond towards this tone better, and in fact prefer it. The more you use
blunt conversation, the more your streetwise skill will develop.
STANDING BEFORE A JUDGE
There are several instances where you must appear in court (i.e. killing
a townsperson, and then surrendering to a guard.) If you deem yourself not
guilty, you have the option to debate or lie to clear yourself. Your
etiquette skill influences your ability to debate. The better this skill,
the more likely the judge will set you free. The more often you debate,
the more your etiquette skill will develop. Your streetwise skill
influences your ability to lie. The better this skill, the more likely the
judge will buy your story. The more often you lie, the more your
streetwise skill will develop.
COMBAT: TIP 1
When engaging in close combat with an enemy, you should move back and
forth often. When you swing your weapon, move in close to strike, then
move back out to give you time to ready your weapon again and to dodge the
enemy's attack. Note that enemies will only engage in combat when you are
close to them. They will not react and swing their weapon if you are out
of range. Of course this only applies to enemies that do not have long
range attacks.
1. As soon as you start the game, get a cart first. Then, when changing
travel modes, select the cart and it becomes a horse! No need to buy one.
2. Money is the key to living it up in Daggerfall, and to get an
unlimited supply of it you have to go where the money is: the banks!
Travel to each country and borrow the maximum amount. You will have a full
year to pay this money back. In the meantime, you can get a boat, a house,
and when you reach the right level, buy all the magic levels that you
want--and STILL have plenty of money left over to get a head start on
repaying your loans in time.
3. Get a boat! First, once you have one you will never need a hotel
again. When outdoors, just step onto your boat and sleep all you want.
Second, no matter who is after you, they can get you at the inns or even
in your own home, but NOT on your boat! It is a foolproof safe haven for
you. Third, you can cut down on travel time. Some places you can get to
faster by boat (most places take longer by boat, but it's worth checking
out--you can shave a full week off your travel time if you check your
options).
4. Recall will save you days of travel time. When accepting a simple
quest, cast your recall spell at the place you must return to, not at the
dungeon entrance. Once you have gotten the object of your quest, you can
use the extra time to wander through the dungeon, or just cast your recall
spell immediately and be teleported right back to the questgiver. With
this one, you should be able to handle up to three times the quests in
less than half the time! Try it and see.