Levelling and skills

Daggerfall has no experience points. You get better at a skill by using it, and your level comes from your skills.

§Which skills count

Your level is driven by the sum of:

• all 3 primary skills,
• your 2 highest major skills,
• your 1 highest minor skill.

The first level arrives after just 2 points of gains in those skills. After that, every 15 points is another level.

So put the skills you use every minute in Primary. A swordsman puts a blade skill there, a spellcaster a school of magic, a thief Stealth and Lockpicking: whatever your class does all day is what levels you.

§The level-up waits for you

When you have earned a level, nothing visible happens until you open the character sheet (F5). That is where the level is applied, along with your extra hit points and 4 to 6 bonus attribute points to spend.

If you are several levels behind, each visit to the sheet applies one level. Open it again to take the next.

§How fast skills rise

Each skill raise needs a number of uses that grows with:

• how high the skill already is,
• your class difficulty (see the effort table),
• your level (about 4% more per level).

Practice cheap things anywhere: cast a spell for its school, swing a weapon for its skill, crouch-walk around town for Stealth, climb walls for Climbing, try every lock for Lockpicking. A failed lock attempt still counts as practice.

§The skill cap

Skills stop at 100. Once any one primary skill reaches 100, no other skill can rise past 95. Decide which skill you want to master.

§The other system: the point bar

If you chose the Oblivion-style system:

• Every time a skill goes up by a point it puts points in a 100-point bar: 8 for a primary or major skill, 6 for a minor one and 2 for any other. When the bar is full you level.
• Each level hands you 12 virtue points to spend on attributes, on up to 3 attributes at once. Raising Luck costs 4 points per point.
• Hit points still rise the Daggerfall way, and you still apply the level at the character sheet (F5).
• The numbers above are the defaults, and online they are fixed for the room.

§Look it up

All 35 skills, grouped by what they do, are in Skills.