MONEY, TREASURE AND EQUIPMENT

The only unit of currency is the gold piece. 400 GP weighs about a kilogram. That means that each GP weighs about as much as a penny. Considering that copper and gold do not weigh the same, my guess would be that a GP is a little smaller than a dime.

You start the game with almost nothing in the way of equipment and little or no money. You will have one or two weapons and (maybe) one or two pieces of armor. Your starting equipment is partially determined by the character generation process. It is entirely possible (depending on what restrictions your class has) that you cannot use any of your equipment. In order to arm and equip yourself, you’ll have to find it, buy it or take it away from someone else. This is why it’s a good idea to thoroughly explore Privateer’s Hold (the starting dungeon). There are three Thieves, three Archers, an Orc, and three Skeletal Warriors (not including the random critters that the game will generate if you rest too long). These are the only critters that will have equipment you can take. The rest carry either no treasure (like rats, bats and bears) or no equipment (like imps). Hopefully you will find something you can use. There are also eight treasure piles in the dungeon. If not, you need to go grave robbing, buy it, or go through Privateer’s Hold again (all dungeons reset after you leave).

Let’s talk about the time-honored tradition of grave robbing. If it was good enough for the ancient Egyptians, it’s good enough for you. Graveyards are nifty places. They’re the red dots on the overland map. They have two to four rooms (so you can’t get lost) and only a couple of critters to mess with you. At the beginning of the game, you’ll most likely encounter rats and bats, though you may meet the occasional Thief, Orc or Skeletal Warrior.

The treasures won’t be anything to dance about, but because they reset as soon as you leave, you can raid the same graveyard over and over again. The beasties you encounter will stay the same and be in the same places every time you go in. The only problem you might encounter will be catching a disease from the rats and bats. If this happens, save the game and fast travel to the closest blue dot (they’re temples) to get cured. Then go back to grave robbing. By the time you get Lady Brisienna’s letter, you should have a sizable stash to work with.

EQUIPMENT

Equipment is the stuff you buy or find as treasure. There is quite a lot of it out there and each item has a purpose. Most of it is only good for selling off, but you'll need to know what each thing is and what it does if you want to be successful.

Armor

Armor is what keeps you alive and healthy. It comes in several types, in several styles, and of several different materials. The pieces are the Cuirass, Left Pauldron, Right Pauldron, Gauntlets, Greaves, Boots, Helmet and Shield.

Leather is the lowest protection available. It’s cheap and plentiful. It provides +1 protection to whatever part of your body it’s covering.

Chain is the next highest protection. It’s not quite as cheap as leather, nor quite as abundant, but it’s still easy to come by. It provides +3 protection.

Plate is the most diverse form of armor and where you can really get into style. In increasing order or protection, the materials are:

· Iron (dull gray, +3)

· Steel (shiny gray, +4)

· Silver (silver, +4) - very rare, except for helmets and shields

· Elven (silver, +5)

· Dwarven (gold, +6)

· Mithril (blue, +7)

· Adamantium (flat black, +7)

· Ebony (shiny black, +8)

· Orcish (green, +9)

· Daedric (red, +10)

Your level and your Luck determine what the top-end material is for you. Orcish anything is extremely rare. Logically it would be Daedric since that’s the top end, but at higher levels (15 to 17 and above) you find Daedric all over the place. If you can manage to put together an entire suit of Orcish plate (forget style - just find all 8 pieces), you’re either very persistent or very lucky. Silver armor is available, but extremely rare. In over 2000 hours of playing time I have come across one set of boots, a left pauldron, a right pauldron, gauntlets and a cuirass (that's one of each item).

· Cuirasses come in four styles: breastplate, quilted, skirted and plain.

· Right and left pauldrons come in two styles: gold embossed and plain (except Dwarven because it’s all gold)

· Gauntlets and boots come in one style

· Greaves come in four styles: gold embossed, plain, embossed skirted and plain skirted (except Dwarven)

· Helmets come in a wide variety of styles, but the upper end materials seem to only have three or four.

· Shields come in four different types (Buckler, Round, Kite and Tower) and the material has no effect on its protection.

Weapons

Weapons fall into the following skill categories: Long Blade, Short Blade, Blunt, Axe and Bow. The better the material, the more damage it does.

Long Blade (one handed): Sabre, Broadsword, Longsword, Katana

Long Blade (two-handed): Dai-katana, Claymore

Short Blade: Tanto, Dagger, Short Sword, Wakazashi

Blunt (one handed): Mace

Blunt (two-handed): Staff, Flail , Warhammer

Axe (one handed): Battleaxe

Axe (two-handed): War Axe

Bow: Short Bow, Long Bow

Clothing

In some respects, your character is a bit like a Barbie doll. You can play “dress up” if you want. Since most clothing is hidden by your armor, whether you choose to do so is up to you. I haven’t noticed any difference in people’s reactions whether I’m a walking tank, dressed to the nines, or buck-naked. Most likely this was something that was supposed to go into the game, but it either didn’t make it or it was so buggy that it had to be taken out.

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous items are exactly that - miscellaneous. Except for books and letters (which you can read), potion recipes (which you can use in a potion maker), and dungeon maps (which put a new location on your overland map) these items are usually only good to be sold off (unless you want to enchant them in an item maker).

One odd item that I run across frequently is parchment. It’s a useless item – you can’t read it, you can’t write on it and you can’t sell it. Surprisingly, you can buy it in some stores. My best guess is that these parchments were supposed to be clues to some quests or artifact locations or possibly something you could use to make notes, but it was never implemented in the game. Don’t bother to pick it up when you find it.

Other miscellaneous items include prayer beads, amulets, holy daggers, holy tomes (the design team probably had some arcane purpose for these, but never implemented it), books (contain useful and/or entertaining reading), jewelry (sell it or enchant it – anything else just takes up inventory space), oil, candles, lamps, torches (were supposed to provide light, but it hasn’t worked in any version of the game that I’ve seen), and bandages (healing of some sort, I guess – this was actually implemented in “Redguard,” though you could only get two).

Books

Speaking as an historian (my degree is in History), the perpetual question is "How did this condition develop?" Unlike any other CRPG, "Daggerfall" provides a society with a rich background. This background is supplied in the form of books and treatises on various aspects of history and society, including many humorous pieces. As you will discover, Tamriel did not just spring into existence from nothing. It is replete with histories, legends, myths and all of the things you would expect to find in any society.

There are 90 books available in the game (not including the German version of “Arkay, The God”). You can find them as treasure, read them in Libraries or Guildhalls, or buy them from Bookstores, Pawnshops or General Stores. Some have useful information, but most are simply to provide background and atmosphere to the game. You can sell them at Bookstores, General Stores and Pawnshops.

Ingredients

Ingredients are things that are used to make potions. There are a wide variety of them and most critters carry at least a couple. You can buy ingredients at Herbalist/Alchemy shops. Some ingredients (metals, for example) must be purchased. Most of the rest can be found as treasure.

Magic Items

I saved this for last because almost anything that can go in your inventory except gold pieces, horses, wagons, ships and potion ingredients, can show up as a magic item. Magic items could be weapons, armor, clothing, miscellaneous items or gems/semiprecious stones. The game will have some things show up as enchanted items that you cannot enchant (holy daggers and holy tomes, for example). You can find out what these items do by either casting an "Identify" spell yourself or by having the item identified at any Mages Guild. This service is available even if you are not a member of the Mages Guild.

Wagon

One of your first purchases should be a wagon. You can buy (or steal) one at any General Store. If you buy it, it will cost a few hundred GP, but it will pay for itself several times over. In the original (unpatched) version of the game, wagons had a carrying capacity of 1000 kg. One of the earlier patches reduced that capacity to 500 kg and it was later bumped up to 750 kg, where it remains to this day. 750 kg is about 10 times what you could carry on your own, so it's nothing to sneer at.

If you have the money, go ahead and buy a horse. It makes fast-travel a lot faster and you can move fairly quickly around town without having to fatigue yourself. You can live without a horse, though, because your wagon comes with one. Your wagon remains outside when you enter a dungeon (including one of the three major castles: Daggerfall, Wayrest and Sentinel), but is otherwise always accessible. You may not change transportation mode (to horse, wagon or ship) while you are inside a building or dungeon.

There is a "hole" in the program (I don't call it a bug because Bethesda has been aware of it for some time and hasn't fixed it) that will allow you to bring your wagon into the dungeon. Not physically, of course, but you can have access to its carrying capacity. To take advantage of it, visit any merchant, click on "sell", click on the "Wagon" button, and exit. When you open your inventory again, the contents of your wagon are showing in the left column instead of the right column. It will remain this way until you click on one of your personal inventory buttons (Weapons, Magic Items, Miscellaneous, or Ingredients) or load a saved game. The same trick works if you try to cast an "Identify" spell and look in your wagon (thanks to Jackie Eason for pointing this out to me).

The next time you kill something and take the stuff off the body, the stuff you take will go into your wagon rather than your personal inventory (except arrows and gold). As long as you don't try to access your personal inventory or load a saved game, your wagon will remain available to you without having to return to the entrance.

Ship

In my opinion, a ship is the best investment a player can make after a wagon. It gives you a place to rest, a place to store things, a place to go to when you need to get out of town, a place to experiment with spells and whatnot where you don’t have to worry about killing innocent civilians (not that I've ever been able to blast a townie with a spell) and it eliminates the extra cost when you need to travel by ship. Fast travel will now take the shortest time and you only pay for inns along the way. As soon as you have the money, buy one.

You may only buy ships in seaports (and in capital cities). If you try to buy one in an inland town, you will be politely told to go to a seaport.

There are two kinds of ships:

A large one: two upper decks, a lot of rooms in the lower deck and a large open hold - cost is 200,000 GP

A small one: one upper deck, one lower deck with 5 compartments and a large open hold - cost is 100,000

Both work the same. It’s all a matter of your personal taste, needs and finances.

It is very easy to fall into the void from inside the cargo hold of your ship, so exercise caution when moving around in that area.

Items dropped on your ship will remain after you leave. In the original version of the game you could not rest on your ship, this has since been fixed. When engaged in combat on your ship, follow the same rules you would in town - no kicking doors or walls and no picking pockets. Both actions will bring guards down on you (I guess they patrol in invisible rowboats).

When you are on your ship you are not on the game map (actually, you are, but you're in the far northwest corner and it won't show on the Bay map). If you start swimming you will hit land eventually, but be prepared to be really bored. On the upper deck(s) you are considered to be in the wilderness, though not generally subject to random monster encounters if you rest. Below decks you are considered to be in your house or a room at an inn and can rest safely.

You may only own one ship at a time. Sorry, no shipping magnates allowed in the game. If you wish, you may sell your ship back to the bank, but you will lose all items stored on it. If you have items you want to keep, transfer them to your wagon, your house or your room at the inn (make sure the room’s paid up or you’ll lose everything the next time you leave town).

Houses

Like your ship, you may only own one house at a time. They come in a variety of styles and price ranges. You buy a house from the bank or you can get one from a Knights Guild upon reaching rank 9. If you acquire it from the bank, the house will be in the same town you’re in when you buy it. If you reach the rank of “Paladin” in one of the knightly orders you will be given a house somewhere in that province. Most commonly the house will be in whichever town you were in when you are awarded the rank of "Paladin". There is a guy in the back of the guild that has "Receive House" on his menu. He will mark it on your map for you. Save the game before buying a house. Reload and buy a different one if you don't like the location.

You may sell your house back to the bank and this includes your Paladin House. Like your ship, any items stored inside are lost. You may also rest safely in your house and store items in it. An early patch fixed the bug that would not let your rest in your house.

In your house you may find boxes and other pieces of furniture that appear to function as shelves in a store. DO NOT STORE ITEMS IN THESE BOXES OR SHELVES!!!! The next time you leave town, they will disappear. One of the later patches has supposedly made these boxes and shelves inaccessible, but don't believe it. The major drawback to a house is that it stays in one place while you do not.

Thievery

Oft neglected, but very profitable, is the fine art of thievery. It involves picking pockets, burglary, breaking and entering and shoplifting. In Daggerfall, crime pays and pays well. It's a means of increasing your wealth, a source of equipment and a method of increasing certain skills.

Picking pockets: you pick the pockets of people in the street or critters in the dungeon. It involves a check against your pickpocket skill to see whether you succeed. If successful, what you get ranges from nothing or junk to 5 GP per attempt. Failure brings the guards running.

Burglary: going through someone's house or store and stealing whatever you can find. Some of the stuff will just be laying around in heaps that look like a pile of clothing. This stuff is free for the taking. Other loot can be found in boxes, cabinets, dressers, etc. When you click on it you'll get a message saying it looks like personal property. If you continue, you're burglarizing and the guards will come after you if you fail your skill check. The stuff you steal in this manner is mostly worthless. But doing it increases your skills. If you want to steal valuable stuff, go raid the palaces. They usually have several paintings stashed in crates in the back room.

Breaking and entering: breaking into a residence or store through a locked door. You're attempting to pick the lock and it involves a check of your lockpicking skills. You get one free attempt. A second attempt will usually bring the guards running. You may also attempt to bash the door, again probably rousing the guards. Interestingly enough, bashing on interior doors doesn't seem to bother the guards at all. So if you run into the occasional pesky door inside a building, feel free to vent your frustration on it.

Shoplifting: In a store, click on the shelves and select an item. Then, instead of clicking "buy", you click "steal". A check against your pickpocket skill is made and, if successful, the item is yours. Unfortunately, the check is modified by the storeowner's skills and the weight of the item you're trying to steal. More often than not, shoplifting is not successful and it's almost never successful at weaponsmiths or armorers.

Date: 2016-01-03; view: 643