If you’re diving into The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, understanding how to set up your character’s stats and skills is crucial for success. Many new players struggle with character design, leading to unnecessary difficulty. This guide will help you create a strong character capable of tackling the challenges in Daggerfall.
Basic Info
In Daggerfall, your character’s stats and skills are pivotal in shaping your gameplay experience. Properly managing these aspects can make the difference between a frustrating experience and an epic adventure. Here’s a detailed look at the game’s attributes and skills to help you create an effective character.
Recommended Starting Attributes
On the left side of the character creation screen, you will find Daggerfall’s eight attributes, all beginning at 50. You can click on any attribute and use the “up” and “down” pointers near the zero counter to alter the attribute. Here’s a breakdown of how to set up your attributes for a strong start:
- Strength: Set to 75. This will increase your combat effectiveness, allowing you to deal more damage.
- Speed: Set to 75. Speed affects how quickly you can move and attack.
- Intelligence: Keep above 50. Your magicka supply is determined by this attribute (3 * INT), which is crucial for spellcasting.
- Agility: Currently under testing and not as useful. Focus on other attributes for now.
- Willpower: Found to be unreliable. Despite its intended purpose of resisting spells, it often fails.
- Endurance: Not a priority. It affects health regeneration and hit points per level, but other attributes are more critical.
- Personality: Can be dropped to 10 with minimal impact. It affects conversation but doesn’t influence combat or survival.
- Luck: Keep at 50 initially. It subtly affects various game mechanics and can be adjusted as you level up.
Essential Skills
The middle of the screen features twelve empty slots divided into Primary, Major, and Minor Skills. Selecting the right skills is essential for survival and success. Here’s a recommended setup for a well-rounded character:
- Primary Skills:
- Long Blade or Blunt Weapon: Choose one for reliable combat.
- Destruction: Essential for offensive magic.
- Stealth: Helps with avoiding unnecessary combat.
- Major Skills:
- Restoration: Useful for healing and recovery.
- Running: Increases mobility.
- Another weapon skill (Long Blade, Blunt Weapon, Short Blade, Archery, Axe): Provides versatility in combat.
- Minor Skills:
- Thaumaturgy: Useful for utility spells.
- Alteration: Provides additional magical versatility.
- Mercantile: Helps with trading and getting better deals.
- Illusion: Useful for various magical effects.
- Mysticism: Offers a range of useful spells.
- Dodging (in Daggerfall Unity only): In official releases, it’s bugged and makes hitting enemies harder.
Skills to Avoid
While many skills might seem useful, some are better left unchosen for your first character:
- Giantish/Nymph/Daedric/Dragonish/Spriggan/Orcish/Centaurian/Impish: These pacify specific enemies but are often unreliable and leave enemies in your path.
- Swimming: You’ll soon gain a spell to swim perfectly and breathe underwater.
- Climbing: A spell for walking on air makes this redundant.
- Lockpicking: Unfair mechanics make it frustrating and unreliable.
- Jumping: Levitation spells cover this utility.
- Streetwise/Etiquette: Useful in conversations but not essential for survival.
- Backstabbing/Critical Strike: Helpful but not necessary for beginners.
- Hand-to-Hand: Less effective than weapon skills for beginners.
- Medical: Spell-based health regeneration is more efficient.
- Pickpocket: Limited practical use, especially for beginners.
Strategy for New Players
Never rely entirely on magic for combat. Most enemies in Daggerfall have high magic resistance, making it easy to deplete your magicka without results. A balanced approach with strong combat and magic skills is key.
New players should focus on developing strong combat abilities and essential magical skills to handle various challenges. Avoid over-specializing and ensure a well-rounded character to adapt to different situations. Utilize spells for utility rather than direct combat initially, and gradually increase your magical prowess as you level up.
By following these guidelines, you’ll create a character well-equipped to survive and thrive in the vast and dangerous world of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall.