I started a sort of cleric-type character a couple days ago in Daggerfall, essentially a Healer who can wear plate armor and shields (extra spell points and blunt weapons only, etc). I saw this "Holy Touch" spell in the Mages Guild spell shop and thought, BINGO. A turn undead spell, let's do this. The only problem is that it's prohibitively expensive to cast and from my experience so far it does nothing. Once I reached Scourg Barrow I gave it a spin against that first zombie who usually mops the floor with my level 3 characters, and in about 10 or 15 reloads it either saved against it or the spell did nothing.

I tried using the spellmaker later to make a cheaper variant or to optimize the chance of success, but when I choose Dispel Undead as an effect it doesn't let me pick Touch or Ranged for the AOE - only Caster. I don't know, it just seems to me like a Dispel Undead spell directed at myself would accomplish absolutely nothing. Is there anyone out there who have had better experiences with this spell? I mean, Banish Daedra works sometimes, right?

I never use either banishing spells because of their practically-nil success rate.

As I recall, I've only ever had Banish Daedra work because it was part of a quest--spells required for a quest always seem to work, because the quest just checks to see if you cast the spell, not whether it worked. Good example of this is the insomniac quest for the mages guild.

Most Daggerfall spells are just broken, period. :mellow:

True there are many spells that are broken. Of all of them, the one I would like the most would just be Lock. Then I could just lock Liches and Vamp Ancients into little rooms rather than being chased around the dungeon.

Of course, then there are the spells that never made it into the final game, like Diminution and Polymorph. Those would have been fun.