Is it possible to play a pure mage in Daggerfall? I've never heard of any Daggerfall player only using magic...even the mage characters always seem to just end up slashing. Is it possible to actually be just a mage, and not a battlemage/spellsword, in Daggerfall?

Sure. Make a custom class with whatever magic skills you think you'll end up using. I don't know how hard it would be compared to a character that does a ton of melee damage, but it would be interesting to find out.

I'd imagine combat wouldcbe a lot slower since you'll constantly be clicking in and out of your spellbook

That's why there is a "recast" button.

you are going to have a hard time in the first dungeon as the "Shock" spell you start with isnt very good, even if you get 3x int magery put destruction as a major and crank your intelligence and willpower to 70+ your best bet will still be to spring through the dungeon and get through some mages guild quests so you can qualify to use the spellmaker to make some *good* spells

You just have to join the Mage's Guild to use the Spellmaker. No promotion is required.

Forbidden to use *all* weaponry. Sounds interesting, might try it out. Cheap area around caster spells, and lure the enemies in heaps. No mana regeneration, no mana potions lying around -> sleeping like a baby all the time

Let us know how you do it. The easy way, of course, is to play someone that absorbs magic (like a sorcerer) and do nothing but cast fireballs at point blank range... you automatically absorb your own magic, so you can cast fireballs at walls all day without losing any magic points. Let me know if you manage to pull this off without using that particular strategy.

Its fairly doable if you chose a melee skill as a backup. Short blades fit the lore, as well as blunt weapons if you use only staves. Staff have LOADS of enchant points, but you can't use shields.

As a mage custom class, I usually forbid all armor but leather, all shields but buckler and nearly all weapons. Advantages can change, but 3x magery is a must.

yeah on my mage I have blunt as a major skill and then got my short blade trained at the thieves guild

but he said pure mage which implies no weapon skill at all

I cant try it out in a while, playing a newly started character. I never want to mix them up...

Everywhere I have ever looked over the years has said this game is very very hard for straight melee or straight mage players and everything has always said be a bit of each to survive.

Eh, pure melee is fairly easy to do, you just don't have access to levitation or recall, so dungeon crawling can be more difficult. Spellcasters can be very difficult (and vampire ancients and liches and daedra lords), but if you go for a ton of health, you'll be OK.

It's called an oximoron.Where a person disagrees with themselves in one sentence. So melee is fairly easy, and yet the dungeons, half of the game or more, is harder. Well if melee only is harder for half ormoreofthe gameI would say harder. And how you deal with dungeons up to level 5 without magic is beyond me!

I started using magic at level 5 Levitation and water breathing.

I never tried to play a pure mage (allways used ebony dagger as a backup) so i'm going to try one for the first time.

First step create a custom character.

class: Warlock (any name is good)
Race: High Elf
Base Attributes: Int and Will 75, everything else 40
Primary Skills: Mysticism, Alteration, Destruction
Major Skills: Illusion, Restoration, Thaumaturgy
Minor Skills: every physical/athletic skill including climbing and medical
HitPointsPerLevel: 20 (lots of hit points is good and not very expensive, and besides warlocks have unnatural health)

Special Advantages:
acute hearing, athleticism, 3xint spell points,
rapid healing in darkness,
regenerate health while immersed in water,
resistance to magic,
spell absorption in darkness

Special Disadvantages:
damage from sunlight,
critical weakness to fire/frost/shock,
phobia to animals/undead

With all this i got a fast skill advancement of 0.3 so i should gain levels quickly. Damage from sunlight compensates for a lot of advantages but requires playing the game in more careful way.



Second step generate a character.

What i got: Str 50, Int 91, Wil 76, Agi 50, End 50, Per 43, Spd 48, Luc 51,
Damage 0, Max Enc 75, Spell Points 273, Magic Resist 7, To Hit 0, Healing Rate 0


Third step get out of Privateers Hold alive.

For starters my character would be doomed if i didn't know the path to the exit already. His only strength, his spellbook, only has miserable 3 spells.

Shock - does 2-24 pts of damage and requiries 1/4 of my mana pool (60sp) to cast.
Slowfall - worthless in this situation.
Chameleon - this might be useful. It costs 30sp to cast and gives me 4 rounds (1 round is close to 10 seconds) of invisibility, unless i attack someone or interact with things.

My character rests until 18:00 when it's night (because of damage from sunlight), the makes a run for the exit. With a few strategically cast chameleons it's not very hard to leave the dungeon.



Fourth step, fill that spell book with useful spells.

Outside at night i have to decide if i go to Daggerfall. Traveling cautiously and with the sun damage disadvantage, the game always puts me outside town at night but the doors will be closed and the area will be filled with Lysandus ghost legions. I'm not sure i can climb the walls so i decide not to go to Daggerfall right now. Gothway Gardes is just a 5 minute walk bellow Privateers so this is where i'm going. There's a Magic Guild there i can join which will let me buy spells. Now i only need to make money. I will tell you later if it worked or if i only bored myself to death.

Huh, what a bizarrely hostile reply. Then again, I suppose I didn't word that all that well. Whatever. What I meant--or what was supposed to be evident--was that without levitation or recall, dungeon crawling can be more difficult, or rather more tedious. You cannot just warp back to the entrance when you are finished as you could if you could recall, and some parts of some dungeons are more difficult to access without the ability to fly. Still perfectly doable, it just will take longer. Perhaps I should have said "pure melee is fairly easy to do, although you don't have access to levitation or recall." I did not mean to imply that melee characters find dungeons grossly more difficult than magical characters, which seems to be how you took my post. I meant only that the lack of those two spells makes it more tedious than not having those two spells. Hardly a deal breaker.

A pure-magic character, as far as my experience has been, is wholly unfeasible in dungeons without resorting to the "casting fireballs at your feet and absorbing the magicka back" exploit. Offensive magic is weak and tends to drain your whole reserve rather quickly, so you will have to rest a lot (often so much that you cannot finish your quest in time), Purely nonmagical characters, on the other hand, are perfectly doable and enjoyable, and I have a lot of experience with them.

Compared to doing a pure mage, a pure nonmage is a walk in the park.

Pure magic characters are probably the easiest to play as. Just choose "general spell absorption" as a trait, along with 3x magicka (so you can cast some pretty devastating spells), and then when you get out of privateer's hold (by sneaking and chameleon), you can just train all your magic skills (using the absorption "glitch") each time you rest after you join the mages guild, and then you only use ranged area-based attack spells, so that you absorb all the magicka you use up while your enemies get fried as fast as you can tap "q" and click.

This only sort of balances because you can't get magicka back for buffing spells, but over all it's a pretty big advantage to have (especially with a very powerful cast-on-target-area custom spell).

On a side note, does anyone seem to have any trouble "hitting" enemies with "cast on target" spells? My character's projectiles seem to just pass through enemies most of the time, and it can be somewhat frustrating when I'm not playing as a spellcaster with general spell absorption.

Money wasn't a problem. I looted a few cemeteries and made almost 2000 gold. With that money joined the mages guild to get access to the spell maker and created an open spell with chance of 5-10 per level, which costs almost 260 spell points to cast. That spell gives me access to every store after midnight. Right now i have 30000 gold (not bad for level 2) and with this money i'm going to buy a few decent spells.

Not sure how a pure mage can handle dungeons with low level. Spell absortion and a 300 mana pool should make things easier. Resting may be a problem since quests have a time limit and spell absorption not always works, but if it works most of the time it should be ok. Besides there are other useful spells like true invisibility or languages that can avoid or pacify many enemies. This should make for an interesting experience without being too boring, but of course, anything less that 3x int in spell points or spell absorption is not appropriate for a pure mage.

"On a side note, does anyone seem to have any trouble "hitting" enemies with "cast on target" spells?"

Perhaps you have low agility. Using area damage is more expensive but ou can target enemies feet and never fail.

The weakest spell that you can make with the "open" effect will open every door to every building in every town and city. If that is your primary use of the spell, you are very much way past "overkill."

Good luck with the spell absorption. I always find it fatal due to manna-burn.

there is restore magic potions, and you can make them/buy them at temples too. it's not all that hard to overcome the magicka deficient. i wonder why no one ever mentions the potions, it's like lifeblood to a mage.

though i'll be the first to admit that store bought magic potions only recover a handful of magicka, so you'll be chugging like a lush until you play around with lich dust in the potion maker to find a strong recover magic recipe. or is it unicorn horn. i do remember you need silver though.

Potions are usually overlooked in Daggerfall. The temple of Arkay which is worshiped in Illesan Hills (north of Daggerfall kingdom) sell potions at rank 1.

It's hard to play a pure mage at the first levels and i wouldn't recommend it for a first timer even with the help of all the tricks here. Dungeon crawling is hard to with invisibility spells but it's not impossible. I have to say i'm having some fun with it. The trick is to use the mini yellow map to know where blocks end and start and where the edge blocks are. These edge block are easy to use as resting havens once cleaned of the few monsters that are there. The difficulty is remembering what was explored before because exploring the same area twice requires more invisibility spells and mana that has to be recovered with resting areas and before you know it the quest time has expired. This is where potions or enchanted items maybe useful, but enchanted items are only accessible when reaching rank 3 in the mages guild so potions are the best option for low level characters while enchanted items and later custom enchanting items become the best option.


"Good luck with the spell absorption. I always find it fatal due to manna-burn."

Maybe you should use less powerful spells and cast them more times with the Q key.

You can always power level a bit before going to a dungeon... magic skills are easy to powergame.

I'm trying not to grind and find a fun way to go on with a pure game. The absorption trick works very well. Created a weak spell called Fire Bomb which does 2-3 health points of area damage per level (area damage needed for absorption to work) and use this to kill enemies with repeat spell. It looks like spell absorption works every time. This is great because my character can cast Fireballs for free now as long as he is near the blast radius. This makes things a lot easier.

"Good luck with the spell absorption. I always find it fatal due to manna-burn."

Maybe you should use less powerful spells and cast them more times with the Q key.
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I don't get burned by my own spells; I get burned when my magicka level is high and a spell-caster hits me with something that I absorb. This puts me over my limit, which kills.