The rule that shapes everything
Start with the two facts that make Daggerfall a different kind of game, because every other decision on this page follows from them.
There is no resurrection. When your health reaches zero the run ends and you are back at the load screen with your last save. That is it. No gravestone, no walk back from the dead, no penalty other than losing the hour. Every experienced Daggerfall player builds their whole play style around this one fact: save before you go inside, save before you fast travel, and never treat a dungeon as a place you can retreat from.
There is no difficulty setting. New players burn their first evening hunting for a difficulty slider that does not exist. The Reflexes step at the end of character creation looks like one, and it is not: it only affects your own skill-advance rate in the DOS version. Enemy speed is always maximum. Nothing slows down for you.
Do not walk into your first dungeon with a full inventory and a single save slot you have never reloaded. You will die, you will lose the hour, and you will lose everything you picked up since that save. Save to a spare slot before you descend. Every time.
What you get instead of a difficulty curve is a world that does not care. There are 4,229 dungeons across 19 types, and at the start only Privateer's Hold and Common Cemeteries are marked on your map. Everything else you find out by asking, by taking quest rewards, by looting dungeon maps off corpses, or by walking into the wrong barrow and learning what lives there. Accept that early, because the new players who burn out are the ones hunting for hand-holding that the game never promised.
The creation screen, in order
Character creation is seven steps long and it is the only build system in the game. Spend the twenty minutes it deserves, because there is no respec and no second chance short of starting over.
Step one: the eighteen classes, or custom
There are 18 predefined classes plus custom builds. Pick a predefined class for your first character. The presets are not traps and they are not optimal, but they are coherent, and a coherent starting build beats a clever one you cannot finish. Read the full breakdown in our character creation guide if you want the reasoning behind each one.
The custom option, if you take it
A custom class is 3 Primary, 3 Major and 6 Minor skills, with up to 7 advantages and 7 disadvantages. Here is the counter-intuitive part that catches everyone: advantages slow your levelling and disadvantages speed it up. Advantages add skill advancement requirements, so picking a rich list of them makes you weaker for far too long. Pick your advantages for what they do, not for how many there are.
Attributes and the reroll
Each of your eight attributes starts somewhere in the 10 to 75 range at creation. Every attribute also receives a random 0 to 10 bonus and 6 to 14 free points on top, and you may reroll as many times as you like until you are happy. Reroll until the character sheet makes sense to you. It costs nothing but two minutes.
How levelling actually works
This matters more than any single stat. Your level is not driven by experience, it is driven by skills: Level = floor((S - S0 + 28) / 15), where S is the sum of your 3 Primary, top 2 Major and top 1 Minor skills and S0 is that same sum at character creation. Level two needs only two points. Each level grants 4 to 6 attribute points and HP. The practical ceiling for a focused build is level 29 or 30.
The consequence for hour zero: do not spread yourself thin. The six skills you picked are the only ones that will ever raise your level, so every wasted point in a minor skill is a week of your life. Pick a shape and hold it.
Hour one: leaving town
You start in one of the three kingdoms as a stranger with a letter and no local contacts. Emperor Uriel Septim VII has sent you to Daggerfall to find out why King Lysandus' ghost is haunting the city, and to recover an undelivered letter to Queen Mynisera. That is your main quest and it is long, so you are not touching most of it yet.
Report to exactly one quest giver
Your first stop is Lhotun in Castle Sentinel, level 5, mandatory. Morgiah in Castle Wayrest at level 3 and Cyndassa in Castle Daggerfall at level 5 are also mandatory. Helseth in Wayrest (level 4), Aubk-i in Castle Daggerfall (level 3) and Elysana in Castle Wayrest (level 6) are optional. Do all three mandatory ones, ignore the optional ones, and move on. Optional quests are worth nothing to a character whose six skills are still crawling.
Your first dungeon is on the main quest
Privateer's Hold is the first link in the required chain and it is one of only two locations marked on your map at the start. Run it, take the reward, and do not get ambitious. Our dungeon guide covers floors and traps when you are ready to go deeper.
Sell your starting kit, all of it
Whatever the character starts carrying is not your build. Take it to a shop, sell it, and buy four things instead. This is the first real decision of the game and most players get it wrong by keeping the starting weapon because it is familiar.
Gold is the one item you will always have a use for, because shops buy it back. Sell junk, sell duplicate weapons, sell anything heavier than the thing it replaces, and bank the result. You are not poor, you are carrying the wrong weight.
Gold is heavy
This is the mechanic that changes how you travel in the first hour, and almost nobody hears it until they are already encumbered.
| Constraint | The number | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Carry limit | Strength × 1.5 kg | Your encumbrance ceiling, and it only moves when you put attribute points into Strength. |
| Weight of gold | 400 gp per kg | One kilogram of gold is 400 gold. A horse's 1,000 gp price is 2.5 kg of your capacity. |
| Fatigue pool | Strength + Endurance | Fatigue is stamina, not magic. Running, jumping, climbing and swimming all drain it. |
| Spell points | 0.5 × Intelligence | A separate bar. It regenerates only after 8 hours of rest. |
Because gold is heavy and spell points are tied to Intelligence, a character who hoards coin is a character who cannot fight, climb or cast. Bank your gold rather than carrying it. The banks are open 08:00 to 15:00, and that narrow window is a real constraint on your day, not a footnote.
Fatigue is the bar people misread as mana. It is drained by moving, not by thinking. If you are suddenly unable to sprint and jump with plenty of spell points left, you are out of fatigue, and the answer is a Stamina potion or a night's rest, not a temple.
Your first dungeon
A level 1 to 3 character in a random dungeon is a death sentence, and the honest verdict is that you should not try to be brave here. Monsters scale with the dungeon's own level, not with yours, there is no resurrection, and the loot on the first floors is not worth the reload.
Run Privateer's Hold, and run it shallow
Clear what the quest needs cleared, take the reward, and leave. Do not push deeper floors hunting a better weapon. A common cemetery is even safer if you want practice with no stakes.
When you should worry
Vampires only start appearing from level 9. That is the real danger gate for a new character, not the first dungeon. Below level 9 you can die to an unlucky orc in a corridor, which is survivable. From level 9 up, the encounter types that reliably end runs are on the table. Keep something in reserve and read our vampires and lycanthropy guide before you cross that line.
The dungeon economy
Dungeon spawns freeze once you pass level 17, which means the first dozen or so dungeons you clear are not wasted time. Later in the game, clearing a dungeon twice can produce nothing at all. Map fragments come from quest rewards, enemy loot and promotion rewards, so your map fills in as a reward rather than a purchase.
Selling and shopping
Every shop in Iliac Bay keeps different stock and keeps it at different hours. Knowing the four that matter saves you an entire afternoon of walking.
- Weapon Smith
- Open 09:00 to 20:00. The only shop that buys, sells and repairs weapons and armour. This is your main income and your main supply.
- Alchemist
- Open 07:00 to 22:00. Ingredients and metals only. Never potions. See our alchemy guide for the full list.
- Bank
- Open 08:00 to 15:00. Put gold here so it stops eating your carry weight.
- General Store
- Sells a horse for 1,000 gp and a cart for 150 gp. This is where transport is bought.
- Temple
- Potions. The only dependable early source. Alchemists will not sell them and neither will general stores.
- Dark Brotherhood
- Potions for members, and the poison cauldron from rank 3. Read the guild rules before you walk in.
Buy this first
| Priority | Item | Where | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bow plus arrows | Weapon Smith | Ranged damage while you learn a weapon. Nothing else gives you a safe opener. |
| 2 | Stamina potion | Temple | Refills fatigue, the pool you actually burn on every fight and every climb. |
| 3 | Cure Disease potion | Temple | Cheap insurance against dungeon rot. 100 gold, worth every piece. |
| 4 | One decent blade or mace | Weapon Smith | Replace the starting weapon. Do not carry two. |
| 5 | Cheap armour, repaired not new | Weapon Smith | Secondhand armour plus repair beats new armour you cannot afford. |
| 6 | Lockpicks, candles, bandages | General Store | The consumables you will actually regret not having. |
Skip this
| Skip | Reason |
|---|---|
| Potion hunting in shops | Alchemists do not sell potions. Stop checking. Temples and the Dark Brotherhood do. |
| Purchasing dungeon maps | Maps come from quest rewards, loot and promotions. You will not out-buy the reward system. |
| A cart | 150 gold for slower travel and more to lose. The horse is the better buy. |
| Fancy jewellery | Pure weight until you can afford to be seen as rich. |
| Training skills early | Training costs 100 gold × your level, takes 3 in-game hours and costs 30 fatigue. Defer it. |
| Anything from the Thieves Guild | They will not admit you until you have committed crimes. Read our guild guide first. |
The guild question
There are six joinable factions, and three of them will turn a new player away. Read this before you walk into a guild hall expecting a welcome.
- Fighters Guild: the natural first join for a fighter. It takes you without ceremony and gives steady paid work.
- Mages Guild: requires genuine magical aptitude. If you did not build toward spellmaking, you will not get in on request.
- Thieves Guild: will not admit you unless you have already committed crimes. Pickpocket or rob first, then apply, and live with the wanted posters.
- Dark Brotherhood: entry conditions are their own, and the rewards are not beginner-friendly.
Promotion is not instant in any guild. You need reputation and skill thresholds and then a 28-day wait. Joining at hour six means your first promotion lands well after hour ten. Join for the steady income and the rank perks, not because you expect a title by morning.
Skill training at a trainer is a deliberate, expensive purchase: 100 gold multiplied by your level, 3 in-game hours, and 30 fatigue, and a trainer can only ever raise a skill to 51. At level 4 that is 400 gold for one training. Bank the money and train when a specific skill is blocking something.
The horse and the map
At some point in the first ten hours you should buy the horse, and the correct moment is when 1,000 gold stops being the number that decides what else you can afford.
Why the horse is not optional
A horse costs 1,000 gold, there is no riding skill to train, and horses never tire. It immediately doubles your practical map size. In a game this large, that is the single biggest quality-of-life jump available to you, and it costs less than one dungeon run's worth of good loot.
Fast travel, and the two modes
Fast travel is instant in real time. That surprises people. Choose the mode carefully, because they do very different things for you.
- Cautious
- Takes longer, but fully restores health, fatigue and spell points and arrives in daylight. This is your default, and your only practical way to refill spell points without waiting 8 hours of rest.
- Reckless
- Faster, and restores nothing. Use it when you are healthy and you just want to get somewhere.
- Blocked
- Fast travel cannot be started if enemies are nearby. If it refuses, something is close enough to hear you. Deal with it first.
Cautiously fast travel to the town you are already standing in. It costs you nothing, it takes about an in-game hour, and it fully restores health, fatigue and magicka. This is the free full heal that veterans use instead of sleeping.
The ten-hour checklist
If you do nothing else on this page, do this in this order. Each block is roughly one sitting.
| Hour | Goal | Do this | Do not |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-1 | Creation screen | Pick a predefined class. Reroll until the attributes make sense. Concentrate your 3 Primary, 3 Major and 6 Minor skills. | Do not stack advantages. They slow levelling. |
| 1-2 | Leaving town | Report to Lhotun in Castle Sentinel. Take Morgiah and Cyndassa later. Find Privateer's Hold. | Do not chase optional quest givers yet. |
| 2-4 | First dungeon | Run Privateer's Hold shallow. Take the reward and the map fragment. Save before you enter, not after. | Do not push deeper floors for loot you cannot use yet. |
| 4-6 | Selling and shopping | Sell the entire starting kit. Buy a bow, arrows, Stamina and Cure Disease potions, one real weapon. Bank the rest. | Do not buy potions from an alchemist. They do not sell them. |
| 6-8 | Guild | Join the Fighters Guild for steady work. Start accumulating reputation and the skills it ranks you on. | Do not expect a promotion. The 28-day wait is real. |
| 8-10 | Horse and fast travel | Buy the horse for 1,000 gold. Learn Cautious travel and use it as your heal. Start banking gold rather than carrying it. | Do not buy a cart. Buy the horse instead. |
| 10+ | Level 10 to 15 goals | Push toward level 9 and past it, because that is where vampires begin. Fill out the mandatory quest chain. Collect dungeon maps from rewards and promotion loot. | Do not enter a dungeon above your level without a save you are willing to lose. |
The level 10 to 15 target
Between level 10 and 15 you should have a horse, a guild rank, a working potion supply, a growing map of marked dungeons, and a clear sense of which of your six levelling skills are pulling and which are dead weight. Your level is coming from three Primary, two Major and one Minor skill, so if your level has stalled, the fix is in your skill spread, not in more grinding.
Beginner shortcuts
Three things are verified, cheap and worth knowing on day one.
- Cautiously fast travel to your own town. Full heal of health, fatigue and magicka in about an in-game hour.
- Pickpocket dungeon NPCs. Effectively unlimited practice, because the population regenerates and the game does not police it.
- Reload your save. Loot containers and corpses reroll, so a re-run of a cleared dungeon gives you a second roll at the same chest.
Read our cheats and code list before you go further, and keep our combat guide open next to you during your first dungeon, because the fight system rewards positioning more than gear.
Beginner questions
Does Daggerfall have a difficulty setting?+
No. Classic Daggerfall has no difficulty option at all. The Reflexes step at the end of character creation only sets your own skill-advance rate in the DOS version, and enemy speed is always maximum. Stop looking for a difficulty slider; there is nothing to find.
What happens if I die in Daggerfall?+
The run ends. There is no resurrection and no autosave of any kind. When your health reaches zero the game drops you back to the load screen and you reload your last save. That is why every experienced player saves before every dungeon and before every fast travel.
What should I buy first in Daggerfall?+
Settle your carry weight before you buy anything else, because gold weighs 400 gold per kilogram and your limit is Strength times 1.5 kg. Then buy a Stamina potion, a Cure Disease potion and a bow with arrows from the weapon smith, who is open 09:00 to 20:00 and buys, sells and repairs.
Which guild should a new player join in Daggerfall?+
Fighters Guild for a fighter, because it takes you without ceremony and gives steady work. The Mages Guild needs real magical aptitude first, and the Thieves Guild will not admit you unless you have already committed crimes. Remember that every promotion needs reputation, skill thresholds and a 28-day wait.
Still deciding? Start with the character creation guide before you sink gold into a wrong-stat build, then read the guild guide so your first application is not wasted.
Start the run tonight
Daggerfall is free to play in your browser, no download and no install. Create the character, report to Lhotun, and do not open a dungeon until you have saved to a second slot.