[Daggerfall] Best Custom Class
Dirk Tebben
This is a character class which takes advantage of loopholes in
Daggerfall's level advancement system to produce a virtually
unstoppable PC (read, kills daedra at level 1). I've named it the
Munchkin in honor of the RPGer personality type.
Special Advantages:
Spell Absorption (general) -- Definitely the best Advantage in the
game, and the foundation of the class. See below.
Increased Magery (3 x INT) -- You'll want as many spell points as
possible, believe me.
Special Disadvantages:
Phobias to All -- These are the most ludicrously overrated
disadvantages, IMO, especially for Munchkins. Take them all
and get tons of freebie points.
Critical Weakness (disease) -- This is essentially never a problem,
in my experience anyway. Make sure you have a Cure Disease
spell and watch out for vampires (vampirism is undetectable
in its early stages).
Critical Weakness (paralysis) -- Ditto. Just get a Free Action or
Cure Paralysis spell. Since paralysis does no damage in any
case, the Critical Weakness only has the effect of prolonging
the paralysis time. Paralysis is hardly even a hindrance to
Munchkins as it doesn't prevent you from casting spells
(stupid, huh?).
Critical Weakness (poison) -- Get a cure poison spell & you're fine.
Magical poison effects, such as spells, should be absorbed
anyway.
Primary Skills: These skills are vital because improving them is what
causes your level to go up.
Destruction -- The reason will become obvious, read on.
Running -- Yes, running. This is the easiest skill in the game to
raise, by a long shot (it goes up practically every time you
rest). Run everywhere.
Jumping -- The second easiest skill to raise; just jump a lot for no
particular reason.
Major Skills: Not as important as Primaries, but they do impact level
raises, and that's what matters.
Mercantile -- A very useful skill, and fairly easy to raise. You
can buy lots of low-cost items and sell them back if you
find your character lagging behind here.
Stealth -- This one goes up a lot, in my experience. You can sneak
around a little if it doesn't.
Critical Striking -- Ideally you should use your weapons very little,
but if you occasionally kill wimpy stuff (like animals) with
a blade, this skill should improve consistently.
Minor Skills: Have no impact on level, as far as the manual knows.
Take any weapon skill (I recommend Long Blade) and the other 5 schools
of magic. Remember that you can duplicate the effects of almost any
skill by magical means, so don't bother getting things like Swimming,
Climbing, languages, etc. Instead create spells or items that give
these powers.
Max HP/Level: 30
At this point, if you've done everything correctly, your Skill Advance
dagger should be just out of the lower red zone, at about 0.3. This
means you increase levels as quickly as possible.
Reputations: I haven't done any careful experimentation with
reputation, nor will I since I'm returning the game today. It might
have a big impact on the main plot.
Career Choices: Always do this manually, if only because you can
control what stuff you get. Take the Ebony Dagger as a starting
weapon, and as much additional training in Destruction and Economics
as you can. I'm not sure what difference the race/class friendships
and childhood nickname make, if any. Choosing Helping Others as
your reason for adventuring endears you to peasants, making them
better signposts.
Attributes: Go for a high INT and WIL above all. Other stats can be
useful, but those two are the most important for mage-types. Every
time you gain a level, these two (especially INT for more spell pts)
should be the ones you raise. You'll want at least a 60 WIL to start
since that's a breakpoint for spell saves.
Skill Point Allocations: Put as much as you can into Destruction, and
allocate the rest however you want.
Reflexes: Go for Very High, especially if you're good at using the
View Mode. Actually this setting seems to make very little difference
anyway.
Gameplay:
- You might have a bit of a hard time in the first dungeon. Save
often and use your Shock spell. You should definitely be level 2 by
the time you leave, or level 3 if you do a lot of exploring.
- The very first thing you should do is find a bank and take out the
maximum allowed loan. The second thing you should do is join the
Mages' Guild.
- Use the Mages' Guild SpellMaker to create your own custom offensive
spells, which I always name Munchkin Blasts. Make them do Area Damage
at Range, at a base of 1 + x per 1 level, where x is the highest value
possible without exceeding your max spell points. You should make a
new Munchkin Blast every two levels or so, as your INT and Destruction
skill improve. Alternate the elemental basis of the spells, so if you
run into a monster that resists your latest Blast you can fall back on
older ones.
- Always fight in the following manner: walk up to the enemy and fire
continuous Munchkin Blasts at its feet. You would take damage too,
except that (here's the glitch) *you always absorb your own spells*.
This means that you can cast a literally infinite number of Blasts, as
long as you are within the spell's damage radius. Especially at higher
levels, it becomes child's play to kill even the toughest monsters with
this method. I find it works best to bind the left mouse button to
"recast spell" -- that way you can keep blasting just by pointing down
and clicking. You may have to unbind this in towns or other places
where you make lots of mouse clicks but don't want to have to keep
aborting spells.
- Use the SpellMaker again, to create a couple of spells that use all
the schools of magic. Some good powers to put in them are Slowfalling,
Levitate, Light, Open, and Heal Fatigue (Destruction gets enough of a
workout). Put three in one spell and two in the other, and make them
as cheap as possible. Anytime you rest and your magic bar is higher
than your health or fatigue, which should be fairly often, cast these a
few times beforehand for a free skill boost.
- Run everywhere you go, and jump a lot. Hey, Munchkins are happy
people. It also incidentally raises your Primary skills, and therefore
your level.
- Carry a weapon, but don't bother fighting with it unless you
absolutely have to (this probably means you screwed up) or you want to
raise Critical Strike. Use your Munchkin Blasts instead.
- As an aside, there is a minor bug in the ItemMaker which occasionally
allows you to put multiples of the same Side Effects into an item.
This means that you can put 5 or 6 "Bad Reputation -- Underworld"
drawbacks into an item, thus getting thousands of free Enchantment Pts.
If you ever need to talk to an Underworld type, just drop the item.
- Guild advancement seems to work like this: you do x number of quests
for the guild, at which point they "promote" you by giving you a Guild
title commensurate with your level. I believe the highest title in the
Mages' Guild is Evoker, which comes at level 9. With a Munchkin PC, I
was able to reach Evoker *with my first promotion*. This gives you an
idea of how powerful the class is. Unfortunately, it also screwed me
over. Read the next note.
- ****VERY IMPORTANT**** If you "skip" titles within the guild, for
example by jumping from an Apprentice to a Wizard, you will NOT get
the benefits from the intervening levels. This is particularly
important in the Mages' Guild, which has several things (like the
ItemMaker) that you definitely want access to. If you jump past the
Guild rank that gives ItemMaker access, you lose it FOREVER. This is
an example of the incredibly shoddy way in which Daggerfall is put
together, IMHO. But if you want to hear that kind of thing, read
my other post called "[Daggerfall] Review".
Anyway, that's the Munchkin. Don't forget to join your local chapter
of the Lollipop Guild!
Sorry. Couldn't resist. :-)
--
[ "Don't be misled! Look directly! What is this?" --Bassui ]
[ "I'm not a cat. I'm a little psycho kitten." --Mioawara Shiro ]
[ Here Lies One Whose Name Was Writ in Water --John Keats' Epitaph ]
[ Dirk Tebben Disclaimer: I have no one else's opinion to use. ]
Jean-Michel Forhan
Dirk Tebben wrote:
>
> This is a character class which takes advantage of loopholes in
> Daggerfall's level advancement system to produce a virtually
> unstoppable PC (read, kills daedra at level 1). I've named it the
> Munchkin in honor of the RPGer personality type.
>
> Special Advantages:
>
> Spell Absorption (general) -- Definitely the best Advantage in the
> game, and the foundation of the class. See below.
> Increased Magery (3 x INT) -- You'll want as many spell points as
> possible, believe me.
<snip>
> - Use the Mages' Guild SpellMaker to create your own custom offensive
> spells, which I always name Munchkin Blasts. Make them do Area Damage
> at Range, at a base of 1 + x per 1 level, where x is the highest value
> possible without exceeding your max spell points. You should make a
> new Munchkin Blast every two levels or so, as your INT and Destruction
> skill improve. Alternate the elemental basis of the spells, so if you
> run into a monster that resists your latest Blast you can fall back on
> older ones.
>
> - Always fight in the following manner: walk up to the enemy and fire
> continuous Munchkin Blasts at its feet. You would take damage too,
> except that (here's the glitch) *you always absorb your own spells*.
> This means that you can cast a literally infinite number of Blasts, as
> long as you are within the spell's damage radius. Especially at higher
> levels, it becomes child's play to kill even the toughest monsters with
> this method. I find it works best to bind the left mouse button to
> "recast spell" -- that way you can keep blasting just by pointing down
> and clicking. You may have to unbind this in towns or other places
> where you make lots of mouse clicks but don't want to have to keep
> aborting spells.
I don't beleive it. The combo spell absorption + explosion at range
is still available. This loophole is really like a cheat: you can cause
lot of damage with no cost in spell points. Well you need to be able to
cats this spell, but you regain what you have spend. They could also
have added a spell that restore spell points.
I think that something is really strange with spell absorption. Just
assume that a spell that cost X spell points to cats hit n persons,
each of these persons having a 100% spell absorption. Then each
persons will gain X spell points. So the spell has costed X spell
points to cast and offered a total of nX spell points. Tell me about
energy conservation (there are surely something to gain with this 8)).
I think it would have been reasonnable that each person gain only
X/n spell poinst (rounded down since ther are always some loss). In
that way, you would gain the full casting cost when receiving a spell
that is targeted at you, and only you, and it will reduce the abuse
of the combo spell absorption + explosion at range.
--
(E-mail : Jean-Mich...@cert.fr)