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Daggerfall MainDaggerfall MainDaggerfall Main | Magic | Schools of Magic | Quests | Custom Classes | Favorite Cities | Hand-crafted Dungeons | Known Bugs
Welcome to my Daggerfall web page. Here I want to keep track, for me AND you, of those topics that I feel are important to playing the game "The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall". I am currently at version 1.06.200; you can get the patches from ftp.bethsoft.com/pub/Patches/.
First, some pictures of my dog...
AAAAAGGGHH!! Not the dog pictures!
Seriously, I start with some miscellaneous notes about the game.
Here are the general sections within this page; you can click on them or just scroll down. After each section is a "To Top" button to bring you back up here.
"Fast Travel" map | Shop descriptions explained | Stealing
The "Fast Travel" map shows cities in varying degrees of brown, from dark brown to almost white. The different colors give a gross indicator of the size of the city. The larger cities have more shops, usually a better mix of good and bad shops. The lighter colors are larger cities, such as Daggerfall, Wayrest, and Sentinel, and the darker colors indicate smaller cities, some with no shops.
Taverns are shown in green; these are very small cities centered around a tavern, and usually have no shops.
On the city map, blue indicates temples or guilds; on the "Fast Travel" map, blue indicates a city with just a temple and a few residences, again, usually with no shops.
The dungeons also have colors; the red dungeons are randomly generated maps (a "maze of twisty passages all alike"), and the orange ones are the hand-crafted dungeons. If you kill someone and find a map to a "long lost" site, such as The Nest Of Vojgon or Ruins of Old Lysyna's Farm, these will be hand-crafted dungeons. There is usually a story to be found about these, and some are supposed to hold very powerful magic items. See the Hand-crafted Dungeons page for more information on these dungeons. Also, summoned daedra will send you to a hand-crafted dungeon to kill someone.
Within the game, each shop you enter gives a short description of the shop quality (whether you are entering normally, or are breaking in). These quality rankings give you a general idea of the quality of the goods you can find there, as well as the mercantile skills of the shopkeeper.
The general rule is to buy (or steal?) from the better specialty stores, because they have the best selection. You should sell at the lower quality stores, whether pawnshops, general stores, or specialty stores, since they give the best prices for your goods. There is a little variation within the quality grades when selling, but a higher quality never gives you more than a lower quality.
The descriptions below show the message you get, along with a ranking. I add the ranking to the shop names on the city maps, so I can remember which shops to buy or sell at. I numbered them from 1 to 5, with 1 being the worst quality and best prices, up to 5 being the best quality and worst prices.
The only exception I have found to the general rule is when I wanted to buy a common item, such as a horse and cart. For this, I went to the lowest quality general store, since I knew they would have this.
The other point about the stores is that they get better merchandise as you gain levels (and so do the randomly generated monsters). This is fun, since you could go into a store and buy the best items, and come back after a dungeon crawl and find even better items. The items are randomly regenerated when everything is removed from the shelves (see below), or when you leave the town.
Daggerfall has quite a few features that encourage or allow you to steal goods. For example, you can try to lockpick a door to a house or shop, and I have never had the guards come to arrest me in that case. Also, if you have a spell or magic item with the "Open" spell, the guards are not alerted then either. However, if you try to lockpick an inside door, then the guards are always alerted. Using an "Open" spell (or magic item) does not seem to alert the guards. Also, if you cannot lockpick the door, and try to bash it in, the guards are alerted pretty quickly (more quickly in the daytime).
When you do something illegal, such as enter a shop and click the "Steal" button, the guards are immediately transported into the building. But, you have not lost points from your reputation yet. You can kill the guards with impunity from afar, and not have any consequences. However, as soon as the guard hits you successfully, you get the message "Do you resist the city guards?" At this point, your reputation has gone down. This was discovered by trial and error:
Also, if you do not resist the city guards, and are found guilty, sometimes your reputation goes up! I think this bug has been fixed in 1.06.200, though.
I have never been successful in stealing from the Mages Guild; it is much safer to steal from other shops, sell them (to the same one is fun! -- only because there are no consequences), and then use the money for the Mages Guild.
Anyway, you can steal from stores. The better quality stores have better merchandise, and the specialty stores have better merchandise than the "general" stores.
If you steal everything from the shelves of a store, look at the shelves on another store (such as stealing everything from those shelves also), and return to the first store, it has been restocked. If you leave some items, then the shelves will not be restocked. However, if you leave the town, everything about the store inventories will be forgotten, and thus the shelves will be restocked.
One of my favorite techniques is to find a town with two good-quality shops near each other. Sentinel has a "no defect" weapon store across from a "skillfully crafted" store (just north of the main store section). Many towns have a circular group of shops and inns, sometimes you can find a good mix (such as Singcroft); the bigger towns usually have better quality stores. Anyway, you break into one of the shops, steal everything from the shelves. At this point, you can keep it all, or just keep the best and drop everything else. Then, you walk to the next shop and do the same. Now, return to the first, with all new stuff! I can usually do this a dozen times before getting bored, but sometimes I do this more times because I am looking for something. There is a certain randomness to this, so the more you do it, the better chance you have of finding some good items.
Also, in some towns there are some shops open earlier or later than the "target" shops, where you can sell your booty while thieving, then go back for more! If you take advantage of some of the known bugs (see Moving Items Directly To The Cart and Thwarting Your Encumbrance Limit), then you can sell part of your inventory, save the rest, and when the other stores open sell the rest.
Here's an example: In Newcester, there is a shopping "mall" (a cluster of shops) on the eastern side. On the south side of the mall is a General Store, which opens early and stays open late. Go there first, around 20:00 or 08:00, "Sell" to the shopkeeper, click on "Wagon", then "Exit." This activates the "Moving Items Directly To The Cart" bug. Then, break into the Armor store to the NE of where you are. There are only two shelves, so you won't find too much; also, this is only a "skillfully crafted" shop. Anyway, click on a shelf, click "Remove", and start clicking away. Everything is moving to your cart; remember, if you look at another "tab" or reload your game, this bug is reset. When done, do the same to the other shelf. Now leave, and move to the N to the Weapons store. Break in, remembering to take everything from the main room, the room to the E side, and the one upstairs (if it lets you) -- you don't want to try to pick the locks indoors unless you want the guards to show up.
Now that you have either maxed out your cart or gotten everything, let's go sell what we can. If you run out of room in your cart, just leave it for later. Go S to the General store, which should still be open, and sell what you can. Now, go into your inventory, and click on your "Weapons and Armor" tab, and the "Wagon" button, and move everything from your wagon to your arms; even if you were already maxed out, everything has a zero weight, so of course you can hold it! This is the "Thwarting Your Encumbrance Limit" bug. I usually save at this point. Now, reset everything by talking to the shopkeeper to "Sell," click on "Wagon," then "Exit," and you are ready to break in again. After you get bored of this, go sleep and sell everything that you could not sell to the General Store ... well, back to the Armor shop that you stole most of it from (since there is only one armorer in Newcester). You could also travel to another town that has a "rusty relics" pawnshop or armorer, but that would take a few days to get there and a few to get back. In that time (game time), you could have made three times that much extra money by thieving more!
Any discussion of stealing must include the Thieves Guild. After stealing enough (or getting caught enough? I always break in magically, so I haven't been caught with my current character), you will get a note from the Thieves Guild, "asking" you to join them. This is advantageous, since they have training that you cannot get anywhere else. I currently am a "common citizen" of Daggerfall, but am an active member of the Thieves Guild. I am also a knight; I guess the guilds do not talk to each other.
The quests for the Thieves Guild generally are to smuggle something to another town and bring something back. These are easy to do, and when you go up one level you can sell magic items (about the same mercantile skill as an "adequate" store). There is also a SpyMaster, which I have not gained enough rank to try out yet.
Last edited: February 04, 1997 12:59 -0800
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