Daggerfall Unity Optimized Character Creation Guide 

When making a free action spell, you can make it the weakest it possibly can be, because when you use free action it completely removes the paralysis effect from you no matter how long the duration of the spell is. This means that at a low level you can counter paralysis every time for only 5 magicka

I wanted to thank you for being the only person who has a guide for daggerfall unity that actually goes into detail about everything and not just what skills to tag

As a new player to Daggerfall, this video has been a blessing! I started Daggerfall today and went blindly into this game. I had an extreme hard time finishing the first dungeon. But with this build it was much easier and better. This made the game way more enjoyable!

i love how well thought and thorough this build is. It really displays a lot of knowledge of the game mechanics.

3:06 - If i remember right, two MOST LEVELED major skills are taken into account of level formula. Same for one minor skill. It can be any of them as long as it is the highest one. Agility to-hit bonus have been fixed in Unity version, that's listed in changelog. Also agility has one more value - it is governing stat for both critical strike and long blade leveling speed, that you picked as primary skills for your character level progression.

Slight correction on level up. It's not the first first two secondary and first minor. It's the two "highest" secondary and "highest" minor, and this can change as you play. It's looking for the highest values, not the placement of the skills during character creation. Your build is very similar to the "go to" OP fun build I've been using for years. Biggest difference is that I go Breton instead of High Elf with slightly different disadvantages, (Breton absorbing standard magic bolt style spells 80 percent of the time is pretty nice) and I shoot for 90 int, 60 str, 70 spd right out of the gate, relying a little more heavily on magic early game. When leveling I max int asap, equalize STR and SPD, then raise SPD and STR evenly until they're both 80. By the time you hit that, you've probably unlocked enchanting and can buff them both to almost 100 with enchanted jewelry, but I still like to max them out so I don't need to keep remaking magic rings (I refuse to toggle repairs on for magic items, haha. I figure they're busted, so they "should" be a big money sink).

In my build i chose critical weakness to Fire, Frost, Shock and Paralysis, and mitigated them all with my High Elf and the "Absorb Spell General" special advantage, choosing Steel and Silver as forbidden material and taking Phobia to animals will give you enough points to get max hp per level, and get any special advantage you could ever want, especially if you replace phobia to animals with Elven as the forbidden material as it will give you even more points to spend on your special advantages!

I am new to daggerfall and this really helps. It's just what I was looking for. Also, this is a very high quality video and you were concise with describing everything. You're good at making videos, don't stop

As an veteran Daggerfall player i still find getting Daggerfall tips from Raiden a blessing!

This is hands down the best and most informative guide on RU-vid. I loved hearing the why behind picking attributes! Thanks so much for this!

I’m working my way backwards through the elder scrolls game and daggerfall has always been my brick wall cause I couldn’t figure out how to even make it outta the first dungeon, but this build helped me A LOT. Feel like I’m finally getting a good grasp of the game and the different mechanics!

Hey Storm Sage, just wanted to say thank you, and I hope that life has been kind to you and your family. Although I'm not too concerned with optimization as I prepare for my first DFU playthrough, your video helped me a lot with understanding character creation and the nuances involved. At they very least, it will help me from accidentally creating a weak character!

im only about half way through but i gotta say what an awesome well made and informative guide i just picked up daggerfall for the first time yesterday after being a long time fan of TES and this helps a lot

If you really want to optimize stats, you're better off making sure that none of STR, AGI, END and SPD exceed 60 during character creation or leveling. This is because becoming a lycanthrope (werewolf or wereboar) gives you free +40 bonuses to all those stats (active even when not transformed), and this is something you can easily do very early in the game - theoretically at level 2 by getting the lycanthrope hunting quest from the Fighter's Guild, although in practice you'll likely level a few times before it without even trying. Since the Fighter's Guild quest can sometimes troll you by having the quest objective be a bear instead though, it might be easier to just use the werewolf in Cyndassa's main quest which is obtainable at level 5. In order to make it quicker and easier to contract lycantrophy, you may also want to consider taking the Critical Weakness: Disease "disadvantage" (and of course avoiding any disease resistance "advantages"), which lycantrophy will make 100% irrelevant anyway, as becoming a werewolf makes you 100% immune to diseases regardless and even cures any other diseases you have at the time when lycantrophy takes effect. There is practically no downside to becoming a lycanthrope in the game - only the occasional minor inconvenience of automatically transforming during full moons, and having to kill a random city NPC for sustenance (as far as I can tell, this has no significant impact on reputation, and you could even go to a different region to do it if you want). Even these occasional and minor inconveniences can eventually be removed by obtaining the Hircine Ring, which is also very easy and just requires a bunch of money (200000g) for summoning Hircine and doing an easy "kill a wereboar in a random dungeon" quest similar to the Fighter's Guild one except for the target always being a wereboar. By doing this, you'll potentially have STR, AGI, END and SPD maxed (or close to it) before or at level 5, and you can pump any remaining points while leveling into INT.

just "rediscovered" Daggerfall and DL'd the Unity port. LONG ago forgot most of the mechanics of the game, so this was a WONDERFUL video to have come across my feed. TY for this!

Thank you for the guide! It was very helpful! I made over 50 characters and none of them are this well balanced! You definitely gained a subscriber. ⚔️💪

Nice build! Was looking to play Daggerfall for the first time but knew it would be a learning curve especially from the era it is from. Will probably utilize this build in an initial play through to get used to the game and everything. Thank you!

Your videos are very helpful, I got DFU up and running with a nice build to start with now thanks to you.

Thank you so much for this explanation on leveling to start with. Within the first 5 minutes I found the value of a full video. I was so curious about which skills level easily and which ones matter for leveling. Looking forward to the rest of this👍👍

I was in the process of getting ready to replay Daggerfall and was hunting around for character creation advice. This looks great, will give it a whirl. Thanks, subscribed.

such a cool vid, thx! was barely alive when daggerfall came out, but i just cant stop coming back to it

This is so good. Thanks for the guide. I'll be playing this class on my next Daggerfall run for sure.

I am using this guide as a Noob to Daggerfall. I have experience with Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, New Vegas and 4. I missed out on a lot of the older PC games back in the day. So thanks for this guide!

I absolutely dominated the main questline with this character build. Thanks.

I've been playing for a while and making custom classes...I just now learned from you that I can decrease and increase the attributes!!!! 😅 Thank you!!

Thank you for this, about to start out in Daggerfall with my 1st playthrough as this build!

Great video! I’m new to Daggerfall, but im going to give it a try later. Thanks for the help in character creation. I like the advantage/disadvantage system. Wish more games did stuff like that.

Thank you so much for this build. I am new to the game and I found this and it was a load of fun to play around. However I love Orcs in the ES series, so I had to check out the Orc Race mod. The native advantages Orcs get in this mod are resistance to disease and Athleticism. I tweaked this class a bit and turned it into an Orc "Warcryer". Changes were for balancing and/or immersion reasons. I followed your build with the following modifications: Skills: Axe instead of Long Blade Orcish and Alteration instead of Mercantile and Backstabbing Advantages: Expertise in Axe instead of Long Blade Rapid Healing In Daylight/Darkness/Water instead of Athleticism Resistance to Paralysis instead of Disease Disadvantages Forbidden Armor Type: Leather instead of Forbidden Weapon Type Axe Critical Weakness Disease instead of Paralysis Now I know you don't like Rapid Healing. However, with your build I found that 90% of the time I was resting after depleting mana from healing myself. I would agree that if Restoration were not the primary magic domain, then this Advantage is cheap in game. With Mana being the issue the increased speed really doesn't impact my playstyle and gave me the points I needed in the Class Builder lol. I don't know if Athleticism would stack but if it does you could just take that instead but it might be OP? Anyways thought I'd share. :)

If you want to squeeze an extra level out - spread your skill points out for major and minor skills at character creation. Since leveling is based on the highest skills in the category, that gives you a bit more room to grow.

Excellent video, it explains a lot of things I didn't know about the character creator.

Daggerfall was so difficult 20 years ago, now its time to go back and finish this game with a better build Thank you!

Man doesn't just look like the Necromancer from Diablo, he's also as cunning, bloody hell this significantly made Daggerfall more enjoyable for me. I love it! Thanks bro!

thanks for making this, new player here, first elder scrolls game was morrowind. Can't wait to experience all of Tamriel as a Breton Knight.

I gotta say... thank you for your clear explanation... I was not having fun with DaggerFall Unity since I wasted so many hours.

Thank you for this guide, as a Daggerfall noob this is much appreciated!

Thanks a lot for this superb guide. Followed it, and I can say I finally enjoy the game. 🎉 Before that all my chars were very frustrating to play for one reason or another. 😅

Just got Daggerfall Unity and this was so helpful! thanks so much! Also I love your hair!

Great tutorial. Daggerfall is the kind of game that you can lose already on character creation, so I encourage newbies to pay attention to it.

Great guide, you deserve more subscribers for sure ! :)

I just found your channel. played this video, and am immediately greeted by a wizard. at least you look like one.

I'll likely be using this soon! Thanks for sharing!

Battlemage and spellswords are some of my favorite classes

Just installed Daggerfall. Gonna get started tomorrow. I’ll definitely be using this advice on my playthrough. Greatly appreciated!

Thank. Im playing first time and probably will change a thing or two but it gives a good idea what is useful and what is not and why.

You can start with an ebony dagger with the right back ground choices. Makes the 1rst dungeon easy

Thia has been enlightening thank you so much. Subscribed!

This is a great video. I modified your build a little since I like Dark Elves and Catfolk. I also spec in short blade as I go for the ebony dagger during character gen. I prefer thief/mage type builds and always forbid plate armor. Your tactic of lowering wis and agi by 25 and raising str and speed, as well as your take on the trash metals has been invaluable. With the ebony dagger, I can forbid any material which helps. I usually forbid steel, silver, elven. The weaker link in my modified build is that I usually have to lower the max HP number to 20ish in order to keep the leveling bar near the minimum. As a thief, that is fine. Leveling has been a breeze with your guidance and I use Ironman to keep it challenging.

I'm going to start my first time in daggerfall, thank you so much

WOW, just made a new character...crushed flying through the starter dungeon.

HITS BLUNT: "I'ma make a daggerfall video."

Happy to see similar, but not exact tips to other guides. I've played with the absorb magicka builds and yes, they make the game entirely too easy. Can't wait to try this build.

This was really helpful, and to the point.

Really excellent and insightful video. Thanks!

I'm not completely sold on gimping Agility. If I understand correctly, both luck and agility factor into the to-hit chance with the best scenario being an 18% increase. In this example, with Agility at 25 and luck at 50, the max chance would be 13%. The difference there is low, however Agility also formulates into your skill (in your case longblade) as well as critical strike. So those small stacks add up. Also, agility determines the ease of raising all agility based skills meaning that you can raise your longblade skill faster and getting an increase in the hit chance along the way. Agility also contributes to other skills, like stealth for example.

One of the mods I use makes magical regeneration based on willpower, now making willpower not useless 😂 Apparently agility is fixed in unity too so I'll have to take that into account now that there aren't any throwaway skills now.

Can't believe I played this game for decades thinking agility was a super important stat. Lol

wish I had seen this before I started playing xD great video!

Thanks for the excellent guide!

Wish I'd had this info when I was in 6th grade! Would have saved me some grief.

Daggerfall Unity/Character Creation Differences Resistances and Immunities The ordinary Daggerfall Unity character has 50% resistance to all effects: Fire, Frost, Shock, Magic, Poison, Paralysis, and Disease. This can be altered during character creation as follows: Critical Weakness to something reduces resistance to 0%. Low Tolerance to something reduces resistance to 25%. Resistance to something raises resistance to 75%. Immunity to something raises resistance to 100%. As in Daggerfall, the Breton's additional 30% racial resistance to Magic and the Nord's additional 30% racial resistance to Frost are applied after any of the above changes. High Elves High Elves naturally have immunity to paralysis, but unlike Daggerfall, in Daggerfall Unity, this can be reduced through disadvantages. A High Elf with no weakness to paralysis will have full immunity to it. A High Elf with low tolerance to paralysis will have 75% resistance to it. A High Elf with critical weakness to paralysis will have 50% resistance to it. en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall_Mod:Daggerfall_Unity/Character_Creation_Differences

Awesome video!! Thankyou!!

9:15 Immunity to paralysis gives the high elf a 100% resistance, not 150. The critical weakness lowers it by 50. So the result is the same but I thought I'd write the correction here. Source = Interkarma himself on the dfworkshop forums. In any case, thanks for the helpful video.

In my opinion it's not the most optimized build - keep in mind that if you get the lycanthropy & hiracine ring (to avoid the downsides of this disease), then u don't need more than 60 Strength, Speed, Agility and Endurance (because it gives you +40 to these stats). Also, Lycanthropy gives you immunity to ALL DISEASES. So, as a Lycan you can easily achieve 100 points in every base stat (with help of some magic items). Also, if you choose hand-to-hand as your primary skill and u're a Lycanthrope, you can get over 250 h2h and defeat EVERY ENEMY using hands only (there are no monster's immunity to your fists and legs).

Managed to (very stubbornly) roll a 477. Started at 90 STR, 60 INT, 35 WIL, 34 AGI, 53 END, 60 PER, 85 SPD, 60 LUC

hey this was really helpful, thanks. im starting out with no clue about this game and the number of seemingly overlapping skills is really confusing.

I don't understand how regen or rapid healing are gamebreaking. Rapid healing only reduces resting time, and Regen only gives 15 HP per hour. They penalize you a lot on the dagger xp scale too. I thought both were bad options, especially with how much better casting restoration spells is. I agree spell absorbtion is busted though, regardless of whether its achieved through enchantment or special advantage.

First off, thank you for making this easy to follow and concise guide. As a new player to Daggerfall, I can't help but feel very overwhelmed at how big of a game this is and I'm worried about making the wrong decisions, so this did help to alleviate some of those worries. I played Arena and have beaten it twice, the second time this week actually. So now the next logical step is for me to play and experience Daggerfall. Cutting to the chase a little bit - do you plan on making a guide on the background questions for character creation? I think I've seen only one video on the subject, but I sense you know a lot about the game and therefore wanted an expert opinion on the subject (not to discredit the other video I saw, of course). I think you are a criminally underrated channel by the way. I was pretty shocked to see the low subscriber count, and I hope you continue to grow. I noticed you have done a series on Daggerfall as well, so I will definitely check that out to gain more of an insight on how to play the game through the lens of an experienced player. Subscribed :)

Never used magic in the game... just wasn't my style. But thanks to this guide I'm going to give it a go!

Thank you so much. Exactly what I needed.

Hand to hand is the strongest "weapon skill" in the game since: 1.It is the only skill that increases damage as well as hit chance. 2.It hits all enemies from the start ignoring their material resistance. 3.It has no durability so you never have to worry about weapon breaking in combat. 4.At 100 h2h you can deal 11-21 damage which is better than a daedric katana's 9-22. Only 4 weapons have better average damage but they are all two handed meaning you can not equip a shield with them. And since you can enchant to make the skill higher it has the highest DPS in all weapons. The only downside are 1 less enchanting slot compared to a one handed weapon and slightly lower damage at the beginning. But since enchantment slots are more than enough and weapon skills increase quite quickly these two are basically non issue.

Nice video ! Thanks

when your rpg tutorial is given by an actual wizard

Helpful advice here, thanks. Although a High Elf that can't use Elven materials is too Lore breaking for me.

I like to do some roleplaying even when creating a character class and do it so my High Elf is kind of an elitist and won't touch iron because it's beneath him, and dwarven because of personal hangups. I know the choices don't give as many points in the level slider, but I don't like to level that fast anyway. Also, I tend to completely forget that you can move attributes around in the character creation screen and my character's have been starting really average.

Great guide

very nice guide I used the spell absorption character from Zhakaron before but if it makes the game too easy what's the point?

well...now i need to make a new character lol. Great video

Having taken a look at the DFU BIble on the UESP, it seems that Agility and Luck are fairly comparable in utility. Agility and Luck have the same formula for hit chance bonus, the only difference being that Agility governs a number of skills (many of which we use in this build) and Luck gives a bonus to climb chance. With this in mind, is it worth balancing our stats a little by draining some Luck? Or is the reasoning behind lowering Agility to lower the base values of the governed skills to facilitate additional levelling?

How do you have upto +7 damage on the "add bonus points" roll screen? mine is only +4 at 98 strength?

Just started Daggerfall for the first time today, wanted to look up a character guide just to be sure I wouldn't hit any snags on my first playthrough, you know what older games can be like :D This guide was perfect and has set me up nicely, thanks a lot for taking the time to put it together, really appreciate it!!

Question about the Identify spell, since I've only found the effect in the Spellmaker so far, what should the chance for the spell be?

This was great

U made me want to play it now, just from the character creation it seems so much better than Skyrim

When I first made my char, I dumped Str and Maxed Agi as a long blade user because I thought Agi was the best stat to hit stuff. Maxed out luck next. I didn't realize that STR was better than both even with blades. Other than that, this build is pretty similar to what I ran skill wise.

Fantastic build! Thanks a lot from a n00b!

Great guide. I'm still torn on making an rp build, with skills like etiquette.

Great build. My daggerfall is only just installing, I have yet to start. Any advice for dark Elf?

So what about if you want to go a pure mage? And could you maby show how you made your spells set up? (new to Daggerfall spellmaking system) and what about a basic healing spell hehe? Considering you choice to focus on restoration?

Thanks for the tip on the too good character. I have played games before where I got a character to be too good and it took the fun out of the game. Great guide, ty.

Wait.. So does agility not actually effect your Dodge stat much at all? Awesome video by the way. Really good information. Thank you!

So... where can I download daggerfall unity? Tried a few days ago and I couldn't find the file on their website

i've never heard about only those six skill slots adding to your level, did you figure this out through testing?

Thanks for the guide! I have a question though, 12:55 what do I do after getting strength, speed and inteligence up to 100?

​ @Storm Saga Games damn reading your comments...you really know your shit on this game... i appreaciate people like you who make these great guides.

Thank you for this guide. I really appriciate it. I only have one question. Why I don't have the same spells like you? I only have shock, chameleon and featherfall.

Maybe I'm just dumb and missed it but is there a way to check your total attribute points in the reroll phase? Right now I'm sitting here with a calculator and it's taking a long time haha

Thanks

After intelligence, what is the fourth most important attribute?

I had a feeling Stealth didn't require you to sneak to use it like it does in newer games. I frequently see it improving after rests even when I spent the whole time running around like a maniac.

Really annoying that there isn't a way to select what class archetype you want for your background creation. Trying to create a battlemage build and it keeps giving me thief questions.