Daggerfall:Quest Related Hints
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The quests in Daggerfall outside of the main questline are varied in form, content, and complexity. These quests can be categorized in several ways. They can be categorized by the type of quest-giver (a guild or the nobles of a province, for example). They can also be categorized by the style of adventure that the character needs to undertake to complete the quest (dungeon crawls, deliveries and puzzle-solvers are examples of these styles). What is included here are various techniques for solving them.
[edit] Quest Sources
Besides the major storyline quests, there are a plethora of quests available in Daggerfall. These quests are available from a number of sources, and vary widely in tone, type, time required and style. The sources of these quests are the various guilds, factions, and various people of Daggerfall.
In general, the objectives of these quests will reflect the interests and goals of the quest-giver. The skills needed to resolve these quests are rarely too specific. However, a few, namely some Mages Guild quests, require specific circinate spells to complete.
- Other Organizations
- Other Quest-Givers
- Innkeepers/Shopkeepers
These quests can also attained from any NPC that offers "talk" from their menu when clicked on. - Nobles
- Innkeepers/Shopkeepers
[edit] Reputation and Quests
When a character engages in a quest for any faction, reputation with that faction is impacted. What is less obvious is the impact various quests might have on reputation with other factions. Noble quests, for example, often involve smuggling, which adversely affects reputation with the Thieves Guild.
- Member Quests: Member quests are only given to the members of a given guild, temple, or order. Also, reputation within the Guilds/Factions determines which quests are offered to a character.
- Non-member Quests: Temples, and the Fighters and Mages Guilds offer non-member quests. Covens are not open to joining by characters, so their quests may be considered non-member quests in most ways.
[edit] Dungeon Crawls
Dungeon crawls are the most common type of Daggerfall quest. Most of the Main Quests, and many others, require a dungeon crawl of some length and various levels of difficulty. Here are some guidelines to dealing with Daggerfall's dungeons.
[edit] Maps
Daggerfall features large, complicated dungeons composed of inter-locking sections. Each section usually intersects with two or three other sections. Each section contains a separate combination of floor and wall textures (visible on the map view), and each usually has several vertical levels.
The map used to view the explored areas of these dungeons requires some getting used to. It can be used in both an overhead (straight-down) mode and an adjustable oblique-angle mode. Both modes can be useful. The map reveals things that are not always visible to the character, including secret doors and closed pits.
[edit] Similarities to Main Quest dungeons
Many of the above-mentioned sections have great similarities to sections of the Main Quest dungeons. The various walk-through's may help exploration of these ares when encountered in other dungeons.
[edit] Doors
Dungeon doors can usually be opened simply by activating them. Others are locked or even magically locked. Some locked doors can be opened by various combinations of levers, wheels and/or other items that need to be activated. These opening mechanisms may or may not be in the immediate vicinity of the door itself, although they will be in the dungeon section. Additionally, a when a formerly locked door is closed it will needed to be unlocked again.
The lock-picking skill, spells and bashing can be used to open locked doors. Lock-picking does not work on magically locked doors. Effective open-effect spells can burn a lot of magical energy, and since a magically locked door may lead to little of value, their use is left to the players discretion. Bashing doors with a weapon wears the weapon in the same way that combat does; having a heavy back-up weapon for this purpose is a possibility.
Some monsters automatically open doors, even some locked ones, if they detect a character. This can be useful, albeit potentially dangerous.
If monsters are partially visible through the cracks around a door, they can be attacked with archery and some ranged spells.
Dungeon doors stay open unless the character closes them. This can aid in navigation, revealing to the player that a section has already been visited.
Trapdoors open in all ways mentionable, from merely walking over them to having to click on them and to finding their specific switch. Trapdoors that look just like the floor are easily spotted on the map. They can not be lock picked.
Hidden doors tend to look like normal dungeon walls that, when moved aside, reveals a normal door or a corridor. They can be lock picked, though some secret doors have associated switches that will open them when toggled. Hidden doors are easily spotted on the map.
Portcullises can only be opened with a switch and are represented as a thin wider portion of a corridor on a map.
[edit] Obstacles
Dungeons have a wide variety of obstacles. There are areas that are drowned; entire sections that are under-water. Rooms and corridors have pit-traps; some open, some closed. Huge chambers contain massive towers that are complicated enough to be separate dungeons in their own right. Corridors can lead to life-sapping death traps. Doors can be blocked by cages, often containing monsters.
All of these obstacles can be overcome. Skills such as climbing, jumping and swimming get a work-out in dungeons. Spells, whether custom-created or Circinate, can also be used to deal with many of these obstacles.
[edit] Dungeon Dressing
In dungeons, one will often run across 2D images that visually appear to be random belts, iron maidens, bottles, and so on. Clicking on these items doesn't normally do anything, as they are just for mood and clutter, unless they have been specifically placed by the game or module.
Quest items disguised as dungeon dressing need to be picked up by being clicked on, whereupon you will receive a message about the quest and the item. They are most often found on the floor.
In dungeon teleports are most frequently disguised as free-standing torches, brick walls (which normally indicate a terminating dungeon connector; they may need to be walked into or clicked), and human skulls. Direnni Tower contains a unique teleport trap that the player will not even initially notice.
There are three kinds of obvious switches with 3D objects: wall-levers, ground-levers, and cranks. (Sometimes, these switches can vanish when viewed from a certain direction; if you think a switch should be nearby, look in an appropriate direction and sway the camera around.) Others are disguised as wall and free-standing torches, animal skulls (usually), and, in one case, a statue. Switches toggle and open otherwise locked doors, portcullises, trapdoors, sliding walls, rising floor regions, and such.
Traps are infrequent but can involve passing or walking over part of a corridor, and are typically connected to dungeon dressing such as the Orcish bust, the iron maiden, leaning coffins, and sometimes to free-standing torch fixtures. One special-mention trap is a hidden pit on the ground. Very seldom, a switch can be trapped.
Blue beams occasionally obstruct doors, but they can only be found in the Main Dungeons, and the switches that toggle them are usually nearby.
[edit] Delivery Quests
Many Noble, Thief Guild, and other quests are basically of the form: take item a to such-and-such person, collect reward. Permutations of this model include: having to go get the item; trading the item for another and taking it elsewhere; and having enemies trying to intercept the delivery.
Most of these quests can be considered as smuggling operations. Most of the time, trouble can be avoided by moving quickly; the enemies spawn at a certain rate, and can often be outrun. When such a quest originates from the Thieves Guild, "townies" that are armored seem to be treated as the authorities, and should be avoided unless the player wants to lose reputation with the Thieves Guild. Doing these types of quests for anyone but the Thieves Guild also lessens the character's reputation with that faction.
[edit] Rescue Quests
Several quests require the character to rescue an innocent. These are usually Noble or Merchant quests. These quests pose a hidden danger; success often means a drop in reputation with the faction that has taken the hostage, namely the Thieves Guild or the Dark Brotherhood. A character that belongs to that faction may drop his reputation therein to the point that expulsion from the faction is the ultimate result. Expulsion from either faction is generally permanent.
Otherwise, these quests involve gathering information, tracking down developed leads and a confrontation. Gathering information and tracking down leads involves dialog with "townies" (a high "Streetwise" skill can help here). At the confrontation stage, the character is usually offered a choice: ransom or fight. Opponents at this stage are Humans, and are generally about the same level as the character.
[edit] Twisting Endings to Quests
For one merchant quest, you are asked to impersonate someone to a duel, to settle some love triangle. You could go find the woman involved, talk to her, and she will pay you not to kill the other guy. While more amusing, it might affect your reputation.
Certain quests can be completed via multiple ways. One involves 4 fake gold. Another involves a deed of house, and gold. If you like, you can provide all possible solutions, and get all quest items. For example, in the deed quest, you can kill the noble, get the deed, the gold and then talk to the merchant. What is the benefit of such?
There is a bug in Daggerfall which gives you extra items. When a quest is complete, all items related to this quest are deleted. But treasure piles are not, even if the only item they contain is quest item. So, if you place the deed, the gold, and whatever other items related to this quest on the floor, place each quest item on its own pile, and no other item in that pile, then talk to this merchant, the quest will be completed. The quest item in the treasure piles must be gone. But the treasure pile themselves can not. So, if you re-examine the treasure piles, you will find the quest items, the deed, the gold, etc. will be transformed into real treasures for you to take.
The same is true for the fake gold quest. Even though it states that you will be paid a certain amount per faked gold, your pay is the same no matter how many gold you bring. So, just drop three on the floor, give one to the merchant, and collect your gold-turned-treasure on the floor.
This can be done to any other quest, like the mummy finger quest. You just drop the finger, letter on the floor when you arrive at the right dungeon. When you finish the mummy, they will turn into treasure. You can do this to any quest, and my game never crashed for this.
[edit] The One and Only Cop-Killer Quest
We all know that one quest can enhance your legal reputation (change you from "common citizen" to "respected", or get out of the "pond scum" status). That is to take a merchant quest. A merchant requires you to escort him to somewhere. If you stay in town, go into a shop, an inn, or a guild house, etc. you will immediately attract attention from the group that wishes to kill him. If it is the law that wants him, you can hand him over to improve your legal reputation. According to my knowledge, this is the ONLY Quest you can safely kill agents of the law without any consequence, as a human. Being a werewolf allows you to attack guards, but not very safely. With a twist from a existing quest, of course.
After you hand him over, the guards will stay wherever they are, and not move, until the next day when the game considers the quest completed. If I stand in front of them, they will attack me when attacked. But, if I stand behind them, they will not know how to turn around and fight me. So, I use these guards as standing targets, and practice archery, back stab, hand-to-hand on them! If I wish to practice hand-to-hand, I will stand behind them; so I am perfectly safe, and improve my back stab skill as well. If I stay away, I use archery. By the way, the only way the guards move is due to violent punches! For me, this beats using the trainer.
Also, my legal reputation does not drop for this "brutal killing". I guess once the criminal in the Quest is caught, the "police" are no longer labeled agents of law, and become "Monsters" for me to kill. Once, I did this in broad day light. There are city guards and town people walk around, but no one said any bad thing to me. If I try to pick their pocket, city guards may try to catch me. But otherwise, they leave me alone. But I have to very careful not to let my arrows hit some "innocent" bystanders.
It is very ironic how this quest can end. You can improve your reputation with whatever guild, still kill all of them, be able to take all their inventory and practice skills in safety. I could not think of any better ending. It also seems that if it is the other guilds who want to catch that person, the same is true. But I do feel other guilds are harder to fight. Because there is no way for me to tell if double crossing can cause any drop in reputation for other guilds, I did not try this. If you have better experience, let me know. Hey, there is no way for me to tell if it is considered double-crossing at all! It is a great feeling to beat the law, isn't it?
[edit] Stolen Item Temple Quest
Many people have had problems in completing the stolen item Temple Quest. This is the quest where you are asked to recover an item stolen by a thief. Although some people have been able to get the location of the thief by asking "Any News", this is not a 100% successful solution. The only sure solution that I know is to go door-to-door. However, this does not mean that you have to actually open the door, locked or unlocked, of every house in town. I have found that the following technique works for me, having used it 4 times successfully.
Set your cursor to "info" mode (F3). From horseback or your cart, ride through town and click on every house. Those that give no information cannot be entered. You will see some houses for sale, but most will simply be described as "Residence". Eventually, you will get one that is identified as "The (name) Residence". This is the house you should enter to find the thief. Apparently, the game selects a house, assigns a name to it, and implants the thief when the quest is started.
If you have done several house-related quests in the town, your map will show several houses as "named" houses. However, I have found that if you click on these in "Info" mode, it will be identified merely as "Residence". (I assume that the name is removed when the quest is completed and removed, but the map is not affected.) Apparently only the houses relating to outstanding quests have names that show up in "info" mode.
[edit] General Quest Hints
- Doing several quests in a row for one particular guild allows you to pick up a new quest at the same time that you clear the previous one.
- There are many different types of quests (dungeon, guard, cast a spell, deliver, etc). Dungeon quests are easily the longest but will help increase skills and will gain many items and gold. The quickest are the guard type quests which can usually be done very quickly and are the best way to quickly improve your reputation within a guild.
- If you take the quest to go kill some Giants, Harpies (or other creatures) for the Fighters Guild, go to a spot to where you can rest and do so. Some Harpies or Giants (or other creatures) will come come to you, so that you can get the quest done faster. You will often have to kill a Giant/Harpy first, then rest. Your rest will then be interrupted (and you should be able to hear the noises of the monster nearby). Kill the monster and rest again as needed until you have enough kills to complete the quest. This is a handy way to speed up this mundane dungeon quest.
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