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The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall > Guides > Photon's Guides
93 ratings
Easy Start Guide
By Photon
A quick guide to get new players started in TESII with character creation and the first hour of the game, getting them set up to tackle everything from the start to the end.
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Created by
Photon
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Category: Characters, Classes, Gameplay Basics, Walkthroughs
Languages: English
Posted
Updated
29 Aug, 2022 @ 5:21pm
29 Aug, 2022 @ 5:29pm
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Guide Index
Overview
Character Creation 
Comments
Character Creation
Getting Started

First off, play with the Unity Engine following the instructions HERE[www.dfworkshop.net]. There is no reason to use the original, it was too unstable, buggy and prone to crashes when it was running on systems it was designed for, it's even worse now. I've put in over 100 hours on the unity engine version without a single crash.

Character Creation
  1. Home Province - Sumerset Isle. High Elves are immune to paralyze.
  2. Choose from a list of possible classes to play. Select Custom at the bottom.
  3. Set max HP per level to 30
  4. For Skills select the following
    Rank
    Skill
    Primary
    Long Blade
    Primary
    Destruction
    Primary
    Critical Strike
    *
    *
    Major
    Mysticism
    Major
    Restoration
    Major
    Alteration
    *
    *
    Minor
    Thaumaturgy
    Minor
    Illusion
    Minor
    19
    Minor
    Backstabbing
    Minor
    Stealth
    Minor
    Lockpicking
  5. Edit Special Adavantages - Add "Increased Magery, 3X INT" + "Spell Absorbtion, General"
  6. Edit Special Disadvantages - Critical Weakness To - Paralysis, Magic, Frost, Shock. As a high elf you're immune to paralysis, and you'll absorb any spells cast at you.
  7. Choose Your Character's Career Path By Answering 12 Questions. Choose Ebony Dagger when it comes up. The rest don't REALLY matter or have much of an effect.
  8. Dump all your points into INT
  9. When you select where to dump your points, try to keep everything as even as possible. This helps to maximize your potential end game level.
  10. Select Very High

Game Start
  1. Save your game. Ideally, use a map to get out of privateer's hold as fast as possible. It takes about 40 seconds to run to the exit.[en.uesp.net]
  2. Open the map, default M. Travel to tulume, the province directly north of daggerfall. Click F/Find. Type Tulume. Travel there. All provinces's capitals share a name with the province.
  3. You have four interaction options, default F1-F4. Steal, Take, Speak, Look. Do not use the steal option within the city as you will attempt to pickpocket anyone you speak with or lockpick any doors you interact with, failures will summon the guards.. In dungeons, only use the pickpocket option to train your pickpocket on monsters and lock picking skills on all doors.
  4. Speak with random peasants walking around. Ask where the location of one of the two banks is. If they tell you they don't know, find another peasant. If they give you general directions, you can keep asking until they mark it on your map. When they do, open your map, Default Tab. Travel to the bank. If it's not open, use the rest key, R, to LOITER until it's open. Don't rest inside of a town or city without being inside of a tavern with a rented room, or the guards will come. Much like real life, law enforcement in Tamriel hates the homeless for simply existing. Check the time with I, check a building's hours by interacting with the eyeball option.
  5. Speak to the banker. Depending on your starting reputation with them, you can take out a loan for either 50k or 100k. Try 100k, if that fails try 50k. Withdraw a letter of credit for 49500 or 99000. We
  6. Go to a general store. Purchase both a horse and a cart.
  7. Travel to Daggerfall, Daggerfall.
  8. Go directly to the Mages Guild, the blue building in the lower left corner of the map. To your right is a man with a spear. Speak with him to join.
  9. Open your spellbook, delete the 3 spells you currently have. Speak to the man to the left of the entrance dressed in red. Purchase the following spells. Cure Disease, Cure Poison, Fireball, Free Action, Heal, Invisibility, Levitate (Absolutely necessary to traverse many dungeons, both random and story), Open, Recall (One of your most important spells for traversal. Must cast once to set an anchor and another to recall to that anchor. Unlike Morrowind, you must reset the anchor every time you recall to it. Cast this next to a quest giver anytime you take a quest or delve into a dungeon.), Sleep, Soul Trap.
  10. Follow the wall to your right. Go through two doors to see a door to both your left and to your right. Enter the door to your right to see a woman in white blouse and grey trousers. She can craft custom spells for you.
  11. Make the following Spells. 1) Add water walking, add water breathing. You'll use this to traverse any bodies of water within dungeons/anywhere else.
  12. We will now make 2 training spells. 1) Water Walking/Water Breathing/Damage Fatigue 2) Free Action/Light/Open. To train these spells, go to a room where you can sleep (Fighter's guild members sleep for free at the fighter's guild. Knights of a Provinces Order sleep at all inns within the provenance for free, but you will still have to rent a room. It's easier to just do this at the fighter's guild) Just cast these spells over and over until your out of mana, sleep, repeat.

That's all you need for a strong start to the game. You are now equipped via spells to tackle every possible obstacle within the dungeons, and have all the skills necessary to join any of the guilds. If there's anything else you're having difficulty with, feel free to ask in the comments.

Now go have fun.
13 Comments
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(QETH) 15 May @ 5:36pm 
pure cheese
Baraz 29 Apr @ 12:28pm 
You wrote "... Critical Weakness To - Paralysis, Magic, Frost, Shock. As a high elf you're immune to paralysis, and you'll absorb any spells cast at you."

That is no longer true with Unity, unless you choose the option to play with vanilla rules. In Unity, this exploit is replaced, for example, by "A High Elf with critical weakness to paralysis will have 50% resistance to it.".

Spell Absorption only works if you are *missing* enough Spell Points to fully absord the cost of the enemy effect. With Critical Weaknesses, your resistance will be zero, so you will need to make sure you are missing a certain amount of Spell Points. Also, it does not absorb all spells from what I read on UESP wiki.
Dynamite 16 Jan @ 10:02am 
I've been at this for an hour and the Ebony Dagger does not come up in character creation.
Taychee 29 Aug, 2024 @ 5:12am 
Ebony Dagger never comes up???
Stratt76 8 Apr, 2024 @ 7:25pm 
->Satham: had me for a sec too, see second chronological post. It can be a used skill like climbing or running kind of thing if I got it right.
Satham 5 Jan, 2024 @ 6:39am 
what 19 is supposed to be in minor selection?
Unseen 1 Mar, 2023 @ 7:49pm 
Well I joined a temple and can get disease and poison potions now. I played a sorcerer in arena and I felt it was to easy with passwall and force bolt.
Photon  [author] 1 Mar, 2023 @ 4:32pm 
No, optimal play is like 95% melee. It's just to get around within the world and complete quests and deal with frequent problems the game will throw at you, you need a variety of spells from all the different schools
Unseen 1 Mar, 2023 @ 1:37am 
So basically don't play a warrior melee class?
Photon  [author] 23 Dec, 2022 @ 6:37pm 
Best way to make money is to break into stores and steal everything in sight. There are multiple ways to do this. You can enter a store, wait til close, save, reload. You can cast recall in the store, wait for it to close, and recall in. Or you can pick the lock/cast an open spell.