Daggerfall:Traveling

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This page contains lots of hints and tips related to anything related to moving or traveling in the game (such as fast-traveling, running, levitating, etc.). This includes various loopholes related to traveling and lots of various statistics.

Skywriting

The simplest method of skywriting in the game is accomplished through "laying eggs" by levitating your character and dropping items to leave little floating treasure piles. By laying lots of treasure piles, you can have your character write messages, draw pictures, etc. Unfortunately, when you leave a town or dungeon that you have skywritten in, the location resets. When you return, your writing is gone.

But, if you own a ship, the whole grid/square location on which your ship rests acts like a house and saves any item you drop in or around your ship, for as long as you own your ship. So, by skywriting at your ship location, what is written is much more permanent.

Fast-Travel Loophole

There is an interesting loophole (or bug) involving fast travel in the game. There are two methods for fast travel: reckless and cautious. If you choose reckless, it will take less time, but when you arrive at the destination your health points, fatigue, and magicka will be the same as what you had when you left. If cautious is chosen, it may take twice as long to travel, and you always have your health, fatigue, and magicka fully charged. Also, if you are not a vampire, you will always arrive during daytime. The loophole here is that if you are inside a town, you can fast travel to the town you are already in! By choosing cautious, and fast traveling to the town you are currently in, you can fully recharge yourself of health, fatigue, and magicka. If you fast travel during the daytime, the game clock will advance about one minute; if it is nighttime, you will arrive the next morning. So, you can have practically unlimited magicka during the daytime outdoors. There are only two drawbacks. First, you always arrive at the edge of the town. So if the town is huge, like the Daggerfall city, you need to run around town again. Second, you cannot fast travel when there are enemies nearby. However, you can always run to the other end of the town, lose the enemy, and then fast travel to recharge yourself.

This is ideal for training your magic skill. Some hints involve custom practice spells. After you used up all spell points to practice the six schools of magic, you rest in a tavern to recharge the magicka. This isn't necessary. Just make sure it is still daytime, fast travel to the same town you are in, choose cautious, and you will arrive fully recharged, ready to practice magic again. If you have a couple of quests pending, and cannot waste time staying in a tavern, this is the trick. After discovering this trick, you may end up using the inn or the fighter Guild for resting less frequently.

When you have high skill levels in the six schools of magic, you really need this trick to get enough spell points to practice spells. If you are the type who swears never to cheat, here is a small variation. Run outside the town toward any direction. You can also view some scenery along the way. Then fast travel back to the town. It will take less than one hour in game clock, and you will never recover the same amount of magicka by resting one hour.

Another use for this trick is for dungeons. If you happen to arrive during the daytime, you can use the trick to strengthen yourself. You can cast all kinds of spells on yourself to fortify the attributes, fast travel to the same dungeon, have magicka fully recharged, cast more spells, and repeat until satisfied. If you do it quickly, the spells you just cast will not expire until you are deep in the dungeon. Then, you can rush to the dungeon door, with all kinds of spells active, and with full magicka. Some recommended spells for this occasion are: Troll's Blood (regenerate health), Orc Strength, Jack of Trades, Shield, Invisibility, etc. Since you have "free" spells for use, make use of them. This will make you very powerful and "brave" during the first few minutes inside the dungeon. A custom made health regeneration spell is strongly suggested as well. Long duration is more important than large magnitude, since you can carry it "free" into the dungeon. There is only one drawback. Since you must do this outside the dungeon, you better know where the dungeon door is after you fast traveled. Otherwise, all your spells will expire before you step inside the dungeon. It is still a good exercise though.

Relative Speeds of Traveling Modes

A few interesting measurements:

• Running Speed = 19 mph
• Walking Speed = 10 mph
• Sneaking Speed = 4 mph
• Running Horse Speed = 20 mph
• Running Cart Speed = 15 mph
• Levitate Up/Down Speed = 2 mph
• Levitate Up While Jumping Speed = 4 mph
• Speed Cheat Running Speed = 120 mph
• Speed Cheat Walking Speed = 72 mph
• Speed Cheat Sneaking Speed = 36 mph

Please note that these are the lower speed limits as calculated and are approximate only. For example, the speed cheat running speed could be as high as 160 mph (faster than a speeding arrow, able to jump city walls in one bound)!

On a realistic note, the running/walking speeds are a bit on the high side. A world-class 100m sprinter might reach as high as 25 mph. A usual walking speed is more around 2-4 mph. Try sneaking around a town and see how long it would take to get around... certainly not plausible in the game.

For these statistics, the measurements were measured with a speed of 100 and a running/stealth skill of 100%.

Getting Directions

Need to map out a town? Easy. Pick on someone, and if they say "go east", for example, then keep on asking them. Eventually they will mark it on your map. If they say "I don't know", they really don't know. This way, you can completely map all locations in a provincial capital (possibly Glenumbra) after asking just three people.

Traveling Guide

Traveling throughout Daggerfall (and there are many miles of it) can be a tedious task for any impatient adventurer ready to slay a dragon. Be patient-- first you have to get there. Precise directions can't be provided, but there are ways to get there more quickly:

When you first come to Daggerfall, you may be amazed by the size of the city. You may find that you only have your walking shoes to get from point A to point B. Murphy's Law usually dictates that the Mages Guild that you wanted to visit is way over on the other side of the city near the West gate and you entered from the East gate.

However, don't simply walk over there if you can't afford a decent horse...

Run and Jump to your nearest destination in the city. The citizens don't seem to mind and you will increase your skill levels as an added bonus. You might as well start building your skills to increase your levels.

A Cart costs 150 septims base cost that can fluctuate with Mercantile skill and the type of store you enter. This type of transportation also includes a horse, but it rides more like a mule. Still, it seems faster than walking and it costs very little Stamina. An added bonus is you can now store all your precious belongings in a much bigger space.

A Horse costs 1000 septims base cost that can fluctuate with Mercantile skill and the type of store you enter. You may find that a horse is much faster than a cart when you want to flee the city guards over slight misunderstandings. Plus, there is little cost to your Stamina levels. Unfortunately, a horse is much noisier sound-wise than a Cart. You may be a bit annoyed at the clip-clop-clip-clop of the hooves.

A Ship can't really take you anywhere in the City, but you can go to your ship, rest in it to recharge your batteries, then click on "Ship" again and you are back in the City. Thus, you can still stay in the city and rest without getting arrested for Vagrancy. An added bonus is that you can store your precious inventory here without taking up space in your Cart. A Ship can be bought through a bank for 100,000gp or 200,000gp in any port city (near a body of water). "Sentinel" the capital city, is a good example.

All these Modes of Transportation can be access by simply pressing "T" on the keyboard. "Foot" requires more specific definitions: "J" for Jump, "P" for Run. If you dislike any of these keyboard commands, customize your own through clicking CONTROLS on the Save/Load game box [press ESC to bring this window up].

Void Ranger Techniques

Most players have experienced the nasty sensation of falling through the floors/walls in a dungeon, ending up in a black expanse named the void. Hopefully the below tips will help you with getting into and out of this void with ease.

Getting In

The easiest way into the void is to cast levitate, and then levitate up to either a corner where two types of dungeon connect, or a sloped passage. The slopes are usually easier. Use "d" to duck down, then go as high as you can. Next, turn around so your back is to the wall, and go up again if you can. Then, back into it and stop just as you touch it. Then hit "d" again and stand up. Usually you stand right through the ceiling/wall. You may have more luck on the slopes.

To Get Out

First and foremost is the trusty Anchor and Teleport method. Do not cast Recall when falling as you will die when you appear. If you cast levitate first, this seems to avoid this nasty consequence. Second, if you can find a sloped passage, use it to wedge yourself back into the dungeon. Duck down, walk up it, and then stand back up. You can also do this by levitating. Duck, float up to a floor. Stand upright through the panel and float up into the room. It usually works best on edges of Dungeon and slopes, and works exactly the reverse of getting in (i.e., ease up to it, wiggle through, etc.).

ALWAYS SAVE FIRST! This can't be stressed enough. Camping in the void is safe, but it's hard to get away from the monsters, and sometimes hard to find all of them in your area. It is unknown if saving in the void is safe; it may need testing.

Deciphering the Overhead Map

The dots of dungeons in the overhead map change to a darker color when you visit them. Tombs are a red color, new Dungeon locations are orange, and visited dungeons are a lighter red. Also, you can zoom in on the map by right-clicking the desired area.

Dungeon Exploration Method

There are many techniques to navigate complex dungeons but the best one is to use the knowledge of how Daggerfall dungeons are assembled.

• Check one's position (red dot) and the exit position (blue dot) in the dungeon layout diagram.
• When crossing to a new internal block the texture style changes, but not always. Sometimes there is a small pause in the game. Check the dungeon layout diagram to be sure to see when a new block is transitioned.
• Thorough exploration:
  • Always explore one block fully before going on to the next block. If possible, you should start from the bottom to the top.
  • If top-to-bottom is not possible, fully explore by following a given direction (such as only taking left-hand turns) until one has exhausted all such turns, then go backwards one decision point trying the right-hand path, until you have fully mapped the dungeon.
• Mark the fastest path to exit on each block with junk if you may not cast teleport.
• Corridors with a very step inclination are usually reflexive connections to the same block.

There will be times in almost any dungeon where you will encounter a locked door, red brick door, teleporter (can be a floating skull or other item), trapdoor (usually with teleporters), water, traps, and magically locked doors.

• For locked doors and magically locked doors, there are a few solutions; try picking the lock, cast an 'open' spell (home-made or standard both work), cast a spell like fireball, or just use your hands/feet to bash the door open. If you use the last, use either a low material item (like iron or steel) or your hands and feet. While using a weapon will open the door faster, it will also damage/wear-down the weapon.
• Water can be overcome with a water walking/breathing spell, or, in some cases, completely avoided if the quest location is not past the water.
• Traps can be found if walking along and your vision starts to sway and you don't have any monsters in the passageway/room/etc and either your health or magicka are drained. If you don't have a 'levitate' spell, don't go on.
• Red brick doors have a few possibilities, but before even going near one you should always save. They can be in a doorway (where another part would connect) or can be in the middle of a room (these are activated by clicking on them). If you enter, you can be teleported, hurt, or nothing at all will happen.
• Trapdoors usually have a series of teleporters in the dungeon. To get through a trapdoor, go through the teleporters until you see a lever, activate it, and go through the teleporters until you're back at the trapdoor. Go down with a levitate spell to avoid having broken legs at the bottom.

After you have played the game for a while, you will start to notice patterns to the dungeons. This is a by-product of the dungeon creation process. Daggerfall dungeons are modular. The Main Quest dungeons were painstakingly constructed by hand, but the random dungeons take pieces of the Main Quest dungeons and sling them together in various forms. This is why players get a strange sense of "deja vu" in the random dungeons. They really have been here before. Once you reach this point, finding quest objects becomes much easier because each module only has one or two object locations.

Levitating Tricks

• Attacking: If your opponent has no ranged attack, just whip out a bow for some target practice.
• Horse Tricks: If you are riding a horse and cast Levitate, the horse flies, and you can go much quicker than if you were levitating without the horse.
• Jumping Tricks: If you jump while levitating you can float upwards about twice as fast as normal. You also increase your jumping skill immensely.
• Flying Without Levitation: A useful bug when playing v2.13. It lets you fly up only without spells or magic items etc. It may be fun or useful only for those without the Levitate spell or if you run out of magic.
  • Hold JUMP button for duration of fly time.
  • Equip your Weapon (some work better than others).
  • Attack the air as quickly as possible.
  • You should now float upwards one jump height at a time. Be careful, there is a height limit (but it is quite high). If you reach it, the game crashes.

Finding Residences at Night

If you have a vampire character you may tend to hang around at night. Finding stores or residences at night is disgusting. You go to a tavern and ask people around which way it is, but you can never have the exact answer. But there is a way. Go to the Mages' Guild (assuming there is one; if there isn't one, this will not work) in the city you are seeking the residence/shop. Visit the teleporter (again, if you have enough rank), select teleport, don't go anywhere, and exit. You hear the night's sound in the guild, and it is dark just like you are outside. Ask someone in the guild the location, and they will mark it on your map. Go out, do your quest. So easy!

Another method of finding someone if no one will talk to you (usually you're hated or a lycanthrope for a period of time) is going into a store, tavern, or house and asking the occupants there for directions. Once you have the general direction, find another building in that area (most preferably a tavern or store for landmarks) and asking again for the same thing. This can help narrow down where you're searching.

Finding Your House

After buying your house, to find where it is check the automap, or you may have to ask someone where it is.