DAGGERFALL - Hints & Tips (1) From Brian Burke Having played Daggerfall extensively over the last few weeks herewith a few 'pearls of..'...there are loads of FAQs on the Internet but there's nothing like personal experience and these tips are mainly derived from my own and a couple of friends at work. We even have our own E-Mail Conference on the game! The manual contains lots of tips and is well worth keeping to hand. It's indispensable during the early stages of the game. HOW DOES IT RUN I find the whole ambience much better than Arena although the music starts grating after a while and sometimes is buggy. This usually corrects itself when entering or leaving a building or moving elsewhere in a Dungeon. The scenery is terrific. I have a 450Mb install but have to wait now and then for the hard drive to catch up with my travel rate, particularly when running. This latter is much improved when running from WIN95 after disabling reference to Windows from the Properties menu via the Shortcut. CHARACTER CREATION. ROLL YOUR OWN. Be a Frankenstein and create your own alter ego. It's so much better than taking a default character. I set off with a Spellsword and after reaching level three, became disenchanted with the number of spellpoints I had available. I restarted and created a Custom Character who had x3 spellpoint per Intelligence point. I felt much better, even though the character is weaker. Just need to get the dumb-bells out! Be prepared to have a couple of tries to get a character you can live with. It's a long game and you need to be comfortable with your character. DAGGERFALL - FIRST STEPS After exiting the opening dungeon, the Privateers Hold, it's off to Daggerfall. Select the `W' key, click on the flashing red blob and, well just RTFM. If you haven't picked everything up you can return to `the Hold' and recover it (beware the regenerated monsters), after selling your other treasures. Head for Blue (Temples & Guilds - be careful which ones you join if your game is release 1.04.191 or higher. In the earlier releases you could join as many as you like, but now you're restricted to one Temple and one Knightly Order ), Green (Taverns) and Orange (Shops) buildings. Even if they're closed the name is entered on your map. General Stores will buy most of your surplus gear. Use `Info' mode to establish when shops open and close. Quests can be obtained from a variety of sources. Temples, Guilds or just from plain ordinary folk. Just ask for `Work'. When you've undertaken your first quest you'll receive a letter from Brisienna, Lady Magnessen, asking you to meet her. You should do this within the time period. Whether you follow her advice is up to you. The FAQs say don't and suggest you need to be at least Level 4/5 before undertaking any `main game' quests. Others suggest higher levels - up to Level 14! RESTING THE NIGHT AWAY I've subsequently discovered that you can rest in Daggerfall for free by joining the Fighters Guild, go upstairs 2 flights and have a doze. Even better. if you join the Knights of the Dragon you can rest in any Tavern for free. There's a downside in that rewards from this order are not as good, long-term, as the Temples or Guilds. You are best resting at night as, if you go outside in Daggerfall at least, the dreaded spirit of King Lysandus yells `Vengeance' and despatches you to `Restore Game' land. You may also come across Wraiths and the like. As your levels advance you can kill these annoying creatures. Resting anywhere else in a town gets you arrested for vagrancy. If you do need to hang about, say on a Guard Quest duty, then select the Loiter option. LOITERING WITH INTENT Even if a place is closed, and Armourers and the Mage Guild are late starters (11.00am to 23.00pm), clicking on the door, via Info Mode, will put that name on your map. Select the `Loiter' option from the Rest menu to wait (up to a max of 3 hours per) until the place opens. Once you've entered a shop you can just hang around (via Loitering) and, once closing time has passed, just help yourself to the goodies. Loiter until the morning and go sell your ill gotten gains, keeping the good stuff of course. Buy the `Orc Strength' Spell to help in this venture. It comes in useful in Dungeon crawling as well. CARRY THAT LOAD First thing to buy is a Wagon & Horse, the latter is pretty pricy, around 1000 gold. This way you can store loads and put any promotion points onto Intelligence, for spell points, rather than strength. You can buy a Wagon without a horse. The Wagon will be left behind at the entrance to any Dungeon and you may unload (Remove) your Inventory into it whilst remaining in the Dungeon. A horse speeds up travel movement. Use the `T' key to toggle between Foot & Horse travel. As described above - use the Orc Strength spell to help carry stuff back to the Wagon. PROMOTIONS - MOVING ON UP There's apparently a bug that prevent you gaining any more levels if you reach 100 in any discipline. I've not experienced it but I've taken note and restricted my Intelligence to 99. You can cast spells any time so practice often when roaming dungeons. Use up your spell points bearing in mind just which skills you need to increase to achieve your next promotion. Andy Backer gives the following formula - Raise each of the three Primary skills, plus the top 2 of the Major skills and the highest Minor skill by at least one point, having in total an increase of a further 9 points combined to achieve a Level increase. I'm not sure the above is strictly true at earlier levels. I certainly achieved my Level 1 to 2 without satisfying the above rules, although I certainly had 9+ stats improvements overall. Further levels (now Level 10) seem to indicate an overall gain of 17/18 points over Primary/Major and the top Minor gain. You can train to develop these skills in the Guilds and Temples, don't ignore the other skills though, to achieve a balance. If you want to just swing your weapon around don't do it in town, go into the area well outside the city limits and practice away. Best to do it on a quest in a dungeon really, might as well earn some cash while you're at it! When visiting a trainer, after spending your 3 hours with them just select `Loiter', rest for 3 hours a further 3 times and you're ready to train again. Have a Stamina spell ready and you can keep boosting your Endurance. If you don't get a "your xxxx skill has improved" message after the first 3 hours you either need to try that skill again or it's too soon to train. I found this happens at around 15% skill level. When you reach 50% skill level you know as much as the Trainer! You can only move up now by use of the skill. REPUTATION You do need to be well respected to move into the main quest. A friend went around killing anyone who insulted him and wiped out the guards who came to arrest him. It wasn't until he was arrested at about Level 7, charged with murder and imprisoned for 432 days that his reputation improved from Scoundrel to Admired (go figure that one!) and he finally received a letter from the Prince of Wayrest. A letter I'd had since Level 3. Don't rest in town, don't be caught stealing, don't even wave your sword around. I did & I'm still trying to rid myself of an Undependable tag. Maybe I need to kill someone too! PILE IT HIGH & SELL IT DEAR A tip that I picked up from a friend, who in turn received it from UNCA (Andy Backer of Computer Games - Strategy Plus) is that of the many Graveyards and Crypts - go to Copperston Crypt, clean it out, go outside and return to clean it out again, repeat until bored or your Wagon is full to earn pots of gold. Then go buy some spells or armour. Does wonders for your Merchandising skill too. There are only 2 Thieves in the Crypt, in the room to the left at the bottom of the stairs. Once they're dead click on the skeleton in the coffin to open a secret door to the west. In the room at the end are a further 2 piles of goodies on the floor. You may come across some rats or bats but otherwise it's easy pickings. Don't think that this can replace going on quests for gaining levels or experience, it doesn't, it just complements it. You won't enhance your reputation if you don't carry out quests. Unlike ARENA there's no negotiation when Buying or Selling. It's that price or nothing. This is related to your Merchandising status and your Etiquette skill levels. Gone is the useful `Repair for a price of 13' bug. You do improve slightly, i.e are offered better prices, with use as your Merchandising skill increases, so keep hammering that Copperston Crypt. Shops vary in quality as you will see when entering. Sell your stuff at a poorly equipped shop to gain the most cash. SPELLS r US Buying spells - once you've bought them you then see, with horror, just how many spell points you need to cast them. My most reliable spells in ARENA were Shield, Free Action, Shalidor's Mirror, Light and Heal. Fireball takes 70 points, Heal around 50. The former 3 are well over 150+. The cost of spells is dependent on the quality of the Mage Guild you buy them from, and status of your Merchandising skill. The Spellpoint cost per spell is dependent on your class of Mage i.e. Illusion, Alteration etc. The good news is that as your character level increases and your class skill improves the spellpoint cast cost does reduce. You can fire a Fireball through a door to kill the baddie the other side. The Fireball spell isn't as effective in Daggerfall as in other RPG games at close range but is at long range. Negotiating round the dungeons, and houses, needs the Levitate spell as when you're looking for someone that's where they are if not downstairs, so this is the first spell you need really - 51 points (or thereabouts) spell cost. There's a spell called RECALL, not listed in the manual, that has two parts to it. One sets the place you teleport back to (Anchor), and the other invokes the actual teleport. Useful for escaping baddies or for returning to dump treasures in your wagon. The `Light' spell is a great disappointment and can even get in the way. Learn to live without it. Chameleon and Shadow Form are cheap spells and allow you to approach unseen thus adding to your Stealth skills. Other vital spells are Invisibility, Heal and Levitate. @~More next issue