I recently got daggerfall.

I can't get past the tutorial dungeon. I made a breton mage, and I keep getting killed.

The combat seems really slow. I have the reflex on average. and it seems that it takes ten second for my character to swing his sword. Would upping the Reflex fix this?

I heard that DF was an awesome game. I love RPG games, but it just seems ungodly slow.

And how do you use magic? I've only gotten to the bat in the tutorial dungeon, and keep getting killed.

As for the speed it's probably because your mage has low speed and a poor longblade skill, what mage is out there swinging around a sword? I've never been all that sure what reflex even really controls, but I've always put it on very high. Also, if the game itself is running extremely slowly then you may need to increase the cycles in DOSBox (if you are in fact using it).

As for magic, you'll need to check your controls for what buttons you have bound to what, but you need to open your spellbook, select a spell, then use whatever your cast spell button is (the only attack spell you have to begin with is shock which is touch damage, so you have to be in contact with an enemy to use it).

So THAT'S why I never hit anyone! I hate not being the bright apple on the tree. :facepalm:

It is very difficult to play a magic-focused class for your first character. Pick something with more combat finesse, and do magic on the side to get used to it.

And as for the tutorial dungeon: you don't have to fight everything. You are under-armed and equipped for adventure at first, so just focus on getting out alive. If you do it in less than 47 seconds, you can beat my record

Compared to games these days very little was really spelled out for you. You kind of just had to hop in a wing it until you figure stuff out.

If you haven't done so already, and what I found helped immensley for me to get into the game, was to change the controls to mouse view and reconfigure all the buttons to match the modern game.

Second, you can make a much stronger character by making a custom class, just make sure that 'dagger' don't rise too much or else it'll apparantly take ages to level.

As for general game mechanics and rules the Daggerfall section over at uesp.net is very helpful.

If you play as a mage, especially for your first character, be sure to get that mana 3x intelligence. Also it should go without saying that you will need some good intelligence and willpower stats. If you are going light on magic, have some skill in mysticism to teleport yourself around.