I usually play an overpowered jack-of-all-trades character in my TES games.

So here`s my question. How do you make one in Daggerfall?

Depends on your definition of jack-of-all-trades. Mine would be: A character who is able to join and make top rank in every guild along with 1 temple (in which case building a character would be quite simple).
What's your definition?

Be High Elf; choose among Long Blade , Destruction, Illusion, Criticals, Dodge, Backstab and Stealth for your top skills. Lockpick is annoyign and easily replaced by one of the spell schools.

Give yourself 3x magery, bonus to hit all, expertise in Long Blade; weakness to paralysis (voided by you Elf immunity);

Join Temple of Arkay and Mages Guild for horror-show magic item making (Arkay has the best soul gems merchant imo).

Go detonate stuff :flamethrower:

That + being able to effectively use every armor, weapon class and spell.

I'm afraid that the word "every" makes this definition a little too ambitious for me. I think that if I could wear most of the armor and effectively use half the weapon skills and spells I could still call myself a jack-of-all-trades. But look at this character.

Race: Nord (resistant to frost)
Primary: Long Blade, Short Blade, Mysticism
Major: Stealth, Critical Strike, Restoration (these 6 skills will cover "rank" for all 5 guilds and half the temples)
Minor: The other 4 weapon skills and 2 of anything else
(Maxing out Speed and Agility will make the weapon skills "effective". No matter where you put the other magic skills you're going to have to sit in a hotel room and spam spells for half your life in order to make them "effective"....which is one of the major reasons I don't like your definition. I can see a pure mage resorting to this but not a jack-of-all-trades).

Advantages:
1) Immunity to Magic....(which gives you immunity to disease, poison, and paralysis)
2) Immunity to Fire
3) Immunity to Shock
4) Increased magicka 3x Intelligence

Disadvantages:
1) Critical weakness to Disease......(doesn't hurt since I'm immune to magic)
2) Critical weakness to Poison........(same as above)
3) Critical weakness to Paralysis.....(same as above)
4) Critical weakness to Frost...........(hurts very little since I'm a Nord)
5) Forbidden material--Silver.......(silver armor is essentially non-existent)
6) Forbidden material--Adamantium....(same as Mithral)
7) Takes Damage from Holy places.....(join Arkay and this doesn't matter)

This could give you 29 hit points per level and leave the dagger at 0.3

This looks like a good thread to ask a question. I'm not really interested in a challenge. I want to talk to people and explore to my heart's content without struggling. What is the best build to give my character a cake walk so I can concentrate on the RP aspect and exploration instead of struggling?

I'm in the ciry of Daggerfall right now playing a Redguard warrior.

I'm also quite new to Daggerfall, but I've read quite a few guides already full of tips and tricks.

One trick you can use (at character creation) is when you make a custom class, and allocate the stats for that class, you can automatically give your character 75 points in each attribute. Start with strength, you can click it as high as 75, then it stops. You'll notice that there is a -25 next to the stat (meaning you need to take 25 point off of other stats to make up for it) but if you press the U key, it brings it back to 0 without removing the points from strength. You can do this to all the stats, pressing the U key every time, and have a very strong character by the time the die roll adds even more points.

I read that if your character uses physical combat, then Speed, and Agility is more important than Strength. Being strong is basically useless if you always miss.
You also want your Willpower to be decent or else you will get your ass kicked by enemy spells. (should be decent if you exploit the U key glitch)
Endurance isnt as important as the one stated above but when making the custom class, make sure to add at least 20 or more hit point in the top right of the screen. This will help your health more than endurance will.

Its suggested every character get 3x magic for an advantage, even if your not using magic very often. If you dont, your spell points will be so low its worthless to even try casting spells.

I would also focus on either Long Blades or Blunt Weapons (or both, since they have the strongest weapon types: DaiKatana & Warhammer). Get expertise advantage in the weapons you use. Note: Long Blades are the most common weapon in the game to find, so being able to take advantage of this by being able to use them is good.

Alteration is very important because it give you the water walking, and water breathing spells. Mysticism is arguably the most useful because of the Mark/Recall spells will help you get out of dungeons without getting lost. Restoration is also important for obvious reason.

As was said earlier, some disadvantages that dont hurt too much include:
Forbidden Material: (Choose Silver & Orcish - They are so rare, many people never find a whole sets worth)
Critical Weakness: Disease (You get diseases easier, but the effects of the disease aren't any worse for having this, so just cure it with a spell, temple) <---((Actually make getting vampirism/lycanthropy easier if you want it))

I also personally chose: Forbidden Armor Type: Leather & Chain (there is only one type of leather and chain armor, and they are the two weakest types in the game, all other armor is plate using different metals)
((Also, using the background questionaire, I was able to get mostly a full suite of iron plate armor, so this is already better than chain and leather))

And I also chose Darkness Based Magic: Weakened (this means my magic is weaker when Im outside during the day. This isnt as bad as it sounds because 90% of the game is in the dungeons, and its considered night in there)

----------

So, I ended up remaking my character siniliar to this, and escaped Privateer's Hold once again. I would suggest just remaking a character if you think your character might be flawed considering you havnt done anything yet. I think it will make things much easier in the long run.

The build I posted above is, except for the Minors, a cake walk build for a warrior. (Level advancement WILL require fighting).
For Minors I would choose from: Alteration, Blunt Weapon, Running (for ease of level advancement), Dodging, Backstabbing, Jumping, Climbing, Medical

Immunity to Magic is a MUST (for a cake walk character). This gives immunity to Disease, Paralysis, and Poison allowing you to take Critical Weakness to those 3 things with no detrimental effects while lowering the dagger significantly. (Even with Disease immunity you can become a vamp or werebeast).

To elaborate on some of Jymjak's (good) advice:

Willpower is needed for offensive spells in order to overcome the target's willpower. Warriors don't use offensive spells. Willpower is also used to defend against spells. With the immunities I listed a warrior would not need Willpower. (But, for some reason, Imps will still hurt).

During the 12 questions get the ebony dagger. EXPERTISE in short blade, or anything else, would only be helpful for the first few levels assuming that, as a warrior, Speed and Agility are maximized first.

Get Water Breathing and Water Walking in the same spell to enable normal movement through water.

There is nothing wrong with choosing Leather and Chain as Forbidden Armor Types but they don't lower the dagger much and "use up" Disadvantage spots better used for Critical Weaknesses.

A little playing advice:

Join the Mages Guild (it's far and away the most advantageous guild to join) and make 5th rank as soon as possible to be able to enchant items. Enchanted items for such things as Levitation and Cure Health/Fatigue are far superior to spells. (You can buy magic items at 3rd rank).
Doing the "Guard the dude while he's in a 3 hour trance" quest will reward you with a magic item.

A "1 pt. per 2 lvl." Open spell will open any outside door. Specifically store doors after hours.

Buy a ship. (Costs 100k in Daggerfall city) They are good for storage and, when outside, are a safe place to rest.

Don't join a Temple that duplicates the Mage guild perks.

Thanks to both of you for helping me out! :bowdown:

No problem! :foodndrink:

Like I said, I'm new to this chapter of the series myself, so I still make A LOT of mistakes. I might as well share what I end up having to learn through trial and error.

I tried to make my character immune to magic but it only gives me immunity to disease. Forbidden armour only allows me chain. Am I doing something wrong?

Hmm, thats wierd. Do you have the DaggerfallSetup (which comes with all the patches and bugfixes)? Or did you get the vanilla version of the game? I'm not sure what would limit it otherwise.

If you choose a High Elf then can you get infected by Sanius Lupus? I want to be a lycanthrope so I`m worried about the immunity to disease.

Also I`ve noticed every character I start has a spellbook in his inventory. What is it for and is it advisable to sell this? Because it weighs 0.75 kilograms.

Oh and how do you find the dungeons for your quests? I fast travel to the place where I`m supposed to go but have trouble finding the dungeon.

High Elves get immunity to paralysis, not disease, so you're fine there. Also, Vampirism and Lycanthropy are magical diseases and are thus unaffected by any resistance, immunity or weakness to diseases.

The spellbook holds all your spells. DO NOT LOSE IT! Without it you cannot cast spells, and you can never get a new one!

The dungeon entrance is usually a http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y217/Jormungandr83/Daggerfall/fall_050.png. It may take some searching to find it, especially in the rain or at night.

Thanks.

One more thing. I can`t seem to be able to swim up or down. I try using page up and page down, nothing`s happening. How do I do this?

Swimming is one of those things that is very difficult without magic. Go get a water-walking and water-breathing spell and it'll be much easier. I never have a character who doesn't buy those spells, and they are easy enough for people with no skill in Alteration.