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Acrobat - Another tough class to play. This is basically a thief with more
focus on non combat skills i.e. Running and Jumping. Running and Climbing are
easy skills to improve, so gaining levels won't be too hard. You get no armor
besides leather and you can't use any shields. I can imagine that this class
would have a hard time winning the main quest. Lack of weapon and magic skills
is a problem. You must increase that Short Blade skill to have a good chance
in combat; sometimes Hand to Hand just doesn't cut it. Get that Stealth skill
improved as well; you might find it necessary to avoid some enemies instead of
fighting them.

Primary Skills: Jumping, Dodging, Running
Major Skills: Climbing, Hand to Hand, Stealth
Minor Skills: Pickpocket, Critical Strike, Backstabbing, Short Blade, Archery,
Swimming


Thief - Like the Mage and the Warrior, this is the basic class within each
branch of specialization, in this case Thieving based classes. Your main goal
is to build up Stealth, Backstabbing, and Critical Strike. Sneak up on the
enemy and take them out without them fighting back (hopefully). Pickpocket is
a very easy skill to increase, so leveling will be easier.

Primary Skills: Pickpocket, Stealth, Short Blade
Major Skills: Backstabbing, Climbing, Lockpicking
Minor Skills: Critical Strike, Jumping, Running, Dodging, Streetwise,
Mercantile


Burglar - A variation of the thief with an emphasis on Lockpicking. This class
should rob stores like crazy. The only armor available will be plate, which is
odd for a class that uses Stealth. It might make combat a little more doable.
Consider robbing the boxes in Palaces for paintings and selling them with the
help of your higher than normal Mercantile skill.

Primary Skills: Lockpicking, Stealth, Climbing
Major Skills: Mercantile, Dodging, Short Blade
Minor Skills: Jumping, Running, Critical Strike, Pickpocket, Streetwise,
Backstabbing


Rogue - This is a Fighter/Thief class. A Rogue has a better chance at
surviving face to face fighting than the other thief classes. Long Blade is
nice to have as a Primary skill. The rule of thumb for this class is sneak
when you have to and fight when when you have to. The Rogue can do both pretty
well. I recommend building up that Lockpicking skill, not just for locked
doors in dungeons but also for robbing stores.

Primary Skills: Long Blade, Stealth, Dodging
Major Skills: Pickpocket, Backstabbing, Streetwise
Minor Skills: Critical Strike, Blunt Weapon, Lockpicking, Hand to Hand,
Running, Swimming


Bard - A tricky class to play. The Bard is a hybrid of a Mage/Thief/Fighter.
The problem is that he doen't do any of those roles that good. Streetwise and
Etiquette as Primary skills is crippling. They are not useless skills, but
developing them is tough and those slots could have been used for either more
thievly skills or combat skills. You do have some magic capabilities, but you
only get INT in spells points, so magic can't be the focus of your character.
Talk to plenty of peasents, either in a Polite or Blunt tone, to increase your
Etiquette and Streetwise skills respectively. Do your best to increase those
weapon skills as well.

Primary Skills: Etiquette, Streetwise, Pickpocket
Major Skills: Stealth, Short Blade, Hand to Hand
Minor Skills: Lockpicking, Alteration, Illusion, Destruction, Archery,
Restoration


Assassin - A fun class to pick (at least I think so). You get a high Stealth
and Critical Strike skill, plus access to plenty of weapons skills. Work on
perfecting that Stealth skill so that you can spend time improving that
Backstabbing skill. This is the preferrable way to attack, but thankfully the
Assassin is not completely helpless in face to face combat. Definately
consider joining The Dark Brotherhood, and possibly The Thieves Guild.

Primary Skills: Critical Strike, Stealth, Backstabbing
Major Skills: Short Blade, Long Blade, Blunt Weapon
Minor Skills: Axe, Archery, Lockpicking, Pickpocket, Climbing, Dodging


III. Skills


SKills are what largely determine your class. Be especially mindful of where
you place your skills when making a custom class. While none of the skills are
completely worthless, some are less useful than others.

You gain levels in Daggerfall by improving your skills. The rough guideline is
that you need to increase 15 points among any of your Primary or Major skills
and you will gain a level. One exception is in the beginning of the game
where you only need several increases to go up to level 2.

So here they are, all the skills listed alphabetically.

Alteration - A moderately useful school of magic. It has some handy spells for
dungeon exploring (Water Breathing and Water Walking). The latter pretty much
renders the Swimming skill pointless, as long as you can cheaply cast the
spell. Slowfalling is nice to have. Theoretically, a Levitate spell could
serve as a substitute though. For those characters with severe armor
restrictions, the Shield spell is just for you. The standard version sold in
Mage Guilds is expensive to cast, so you may want to make your own version of
it. The Resist spells are helpful, if you know that you will be going up
against a specific spell caster. Overall, a decent school of magic to have.

Archery - Deals with using bows. I'm not a fan of using bows, but sometimes
it is nice to have when there is an enemy on a distant ledge just begging to be
shot off of it. Note that it is possible to retrieve your arrows from the dead
bodies, but they only appear if it took you more than one arrow to kill the
creature.

Axe - Deals with using axes (duh). There's only two types of axes, and there's
no serious benefit of choosing axes as your favorite weapon, unless you want to
have it for role playing reasons.

Backstabbing - The art of sneaking up on an enemy and causing massive damage
before they know what hits them. If successful, the attack will cause a lot
more damage than normal. Since you need to be behind the creature for this to
work, a high Stealth skill is needed before you can really take advantage of
this skill. Backstabbing also applies to using bows, so as long as they are
facing away from you an arrow can do a backstab.

Blunt Weapon - Deals with using maces, flails, and war hammers. The only
serious benefit to using blunt weapons is when fighting with skeletal creatures
like the Skeletal Warrior or a Lich. With any weapon other than a blunt one,
you do half damage against them.

Climbing - Outside of spells, this may be your only way to get over some
obstacles. Walk directly into a wall and after a few seconds the message
"Climbing Mode" appears on the screen and you begin to climb the wall. Despite
what the manual says, you cannot climb down. You will need to cast Slowfalling
or just take the damage from the fall.

Critical Strike - A successful critical strike will result in a great increase
in damage. It develops on its own when you attack. Thieves should have a high
Critical Strike, if only to make combat shorter. Warrior-type characters will
find this developing on its own, and it will likely be at a decent strength at
higher levels.

Destruction - One of the more handy schools of magic. It also has the widest
variety of spells available. All offensive spells are based on some element.
These are Fire, Frost, Lightning, Poison, or Raw Magicka. Some creatures are
immune to certain elements, so a wise Mage will have a variety of spells
to pick from. Shock is the one most beginning spell casters start off with.
Fireball is the classic standard. Some of the more powerful spells i.e.
God's Fire are expensive to cast, so consider improving your Destruction skill
to reduce casting cost.

Dodging - A success means that you dodge the incoming attack. This one is
tough to develop, because it requires you to be in the heat of battle. Plus,
the characters likely wanting to improve this skill have low hit points.
Rats and bats are probably the best creatures to improve this skill with, even
if there's a small chance at catching a disease.

Etiquette - Speaking to people in a "Polite" tone will use your Etiquette
skill. This might be helpful when speaking to nobles, since it's a more
proper tone of voice. Overall, it's not very useful. You can typically get
the information you want out of people by talking with them normally.

Hand to Hand - Martial arts. With your fists and feet, you can hit any critter
in the game. The higher your skill, the more damage you do. If you plan to
use this skill, work on increasing your Strength attribute so that you do more
damage.

Illusion - A not so useful school of magic. Chameleon and Shadow Form are a
poor man's Invisibility spell. You'd best go with Invisibility itself or even
better Invisibility True. Light is a great spell if dungeons are too dark for
you to handle. There aren't many spells to choose from in this school.
Thief-like characters will likely benefit the most from Illusion.

Jumping - A higher skill mean that you can jump farther and higher. Kind of
pointless if you have a Levitate spell, but occasionally you will come across
pits in dungeons that require you to jump over them. If you are bored, jump
from rooftop to rooftop in the towns. It's a good way to develop the skill.
Either that or jump in place before you rest.

Languages - The most useless skills in the game. Ok, they aren't completely
worthless, but the effect they have in very small. According to the manual, if
you click on a critter that has a language while your weapon is sheathed, there
is a chance that they will leave you alone. What I've noticed that simply
fighting the creatures increases my language skills. In a dungeon filled with
orcs, I'll guarentee that your Orcish skill will increase a few times after
fighting a bunch of them. I don't run around dungeons without a weapon in hand
so it seems that simply fighting them can increase the skill. The available
languages are: Daedric, Harpy, Giantish, Nymph, Orcish, Spriggan, and
Centaurian.

Lockpicking - If you are into robbing stores, this skill is for you. Note that
locked doors inside of buildings can freely be bashed down with your weapons or
fists. Be careful that you do not bash the exit door to houses or shops as it
will bring the guards on you. You can't bash magically locked doors though.
When picking a lock, you only get one shot at doing it. Trying it again will
bring guards if it's inside a town. If you must get through the door, pick it
once then loiter for an hour and try again. If you have a ship, pick the lock
then switch transportation modes to Ship and then switch back to Foot. This
will give you another chance to pick the lock without worrying about summoning
guards.

Long Blade - The most variety of weapons in the game fall under Long Blade.
Not much to say here except that the dai-katana does the most damage of all the
weapons in the game.

Medical - This affects how quickly you heal during rest. Tends to develop on
its own quite well. Having a high endurance also affects resting rate.

Mercantile - A high Mercantile skill will give you lower prices when buying and
better prices when selling. This one is particulary useful for thieves since
they will be selling all the loot they steal. To improve this skill faster,
buy and sell items one at a time.

Mysticism - The best school of magic. Recall is probably the most handy spell
in the game. It's a huge time saver, especially when you are traveling far
distances for quests. Open is helpful for those magically held locks, and if
you make your own cheap version, you can open pretty much any outside door with
no problem i.e. shop doors. For characters that will have access to an Item
Maker, Soul Trap is your best friend. Soul Trap some critters into soul gems,
and you can add more enchanment points to an item (plus some added benefits and
disadvantages depending on the creature.) These three spells are reason enough
to have your spell caster improve his or her Mysticism skill.

Pickpocketing - With this, you can pick the pockets of creatures and peasants.
You never get more than a few GPs, but it is an easy skill to develop so
thieves can gain levels pretty fast. Even creatures without treasure can be
pickpocketed. Pickpocketing a certain amount of times will bring you to the
attention of the Thieves Guild.

Restoration - Healing spells mostly. Heal is pretty much the standard spell
that all characters should have access to, be in potion, magic item, or spell
form. The regenerate spells are too slow to have real benefit. Cure Poison is
a must have though. Despite these useful spells, I don't specialized in this
field often, because these effects are commonly found in magic items and
potions.

Running - A high Running skill mean you move faster while running. Again,
this one develops on its own rather nicely.

Short Blade - Covers short bladed weapons such as daggers and tantos. It's a
common skill for non combat orientated classes i.e. thieves and mages.

Stealth - How well you can remain undetected. Get close to critters to improve
this skill. If you have the Backstabbing skill, you will definately need this
skill. I find that a Stealth skill of about 60% will give you plenty of
opprotunities for backstabbing. This one tends to develop on its own if you
frequent dungeons.

Streetwise - Talking to people in a "Blunt" tone will use your Streetwise
skill. Again, like Etiquette, you can usually live without this skill.

Swimming - Only relates to underwater movement. A higher skill gives you more
time to breathe underwater and increases your speed. Spell casters can do