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I have tried to play this game but have been stumped by the cumbersome mechanics. I finally managed to get the melee attack thing swinging with the mouse and killed the rat! Yay! So I walk a little further and find an imp. It can only be killed by magic. My Breton has 201 magic and the only attack spell is Shock (IIRC). The tutorial says, click backspace to open the magic menu, double click on the spell, exit and then use mouse1 to cast. However what happens is that the spell is automatically cast upon closing the menu, and then can't be cast again with mouse1. To cast again, I have to go into the magic menu again, double click, and zap! upon closing, it is cast again. Supposedly, I should be able to have the spell selected and cast it when needed?

OK by using the cumbersome method described above, I can shoot at the imp three times before running out of magic, but I don't see any effect, and the imp doesn't die. I am as close as possible to the imp when I fire, have it in the center of my screen, etc. Unable to attack the monster any further, my character dies. After beating Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, it feels so silly to be unable to get out of the initial dungeon in this game. Help needed!

Actually, steel weapons or better will also do the job. Assuming you haven't picked the ebony dagger during character creation, just go elsewhere and fight some more enemies, and you should find some weapon of steel quality soon enough.


Frankly I can't guess what's the problem here because I never really played the game with the default control configuration. Do you use the cursor mode or the view mode (freelook)?

Just in case, the game can be easily reconfigured to a WASD keyboard-mouse setup that is de rigeur in modern games:

(the quote is from a Daggerfall FAQ I can't link to currently because the forum engine doesn't allow me to post links to external sites)

If you use this control scheme, you use the mouse to activate a spell by double-clicking on it while in the spellbook screen, and then fire the spell by pressing the "Activate Centre Object" key (which is essentially the "Use" key; you can map it to whatever you like). There's also a "reload spell" button that activates the last spell you used when pressed, thus allowing to fire a spell multiple times more easily. Again I forgot what this key is by default but you can map it to whatever you feel like.

I use free view as it is more similar to later games. I will try what you say, using the activate key instead of mouse1. The tutorial seems to have it wrong in a number of things. For example it says to press A to bring up my weapon, while it is B (A makes you turn). Now what I don't understand is why the spell fires off instantly the moment I close the magic menu.

Well, A is the default key for "ready weapon" IIRC. The tutorial does not reflect custom settings.

As for the spellbook, I think that normal behaviour is that when you double-click a spell and have the magicka to cast it, the spellbook should automatically close and you either cast it if its an instant-cast spell (like healing) or it will wait for the action button to be pressed (if it's an offensive spell). In the latter case the message "Press button to cast spell." should appear at the top of the screen.

If you're playing as a caster though, note that default spells are really off. With the relatively high chances that the shock spell will not hit the target, try to stick with weapons you can find in the starter dungeon (remember to dodge often when fighting and you should be fine even as a magicka-user), and once you get out find the nearest Mage Guild, join it and use the Spell Maker to create much cheaper and more potent spells that will improve as you level up (this should be covered in great detail here in the Wiki).

One more thing to address the spellbook issue, make sure that a) the game is patched to the latest version and b) that you haven't mapped a single key to more than one function (such key will be highlighted in red in the control settings menu). Remember that you can map mouse buttons in the control configuration, maybe you assigned some function to the LMB.

Yes, my keys were messed up from a prior gaming attempt. I defaulted them, then reorganized them again to my taste (free view, WASD, even some keys set like later games- R to unsheathe weapon, T to rest, C to cast, etc). I think I have the magic thing figured, except that selected spells still fire once after closing the menu. But after that I can use them at will with recast spell. Shock still doesn't scratch the imp, but now I know I can kill him with a steel sword or something else. I even got out of the dungeon and to a town. I know the game has great RPG potential but the graphics are a little dreary... I mean, to see a face where each eye is a pixel. A big pixel.

It's also a little hard to get around. I was given a mission to kill a guy at the local Kynareth temple. But I already explored all the empty rooms of the temple and talked to everyone, no sign of the guy, where do I go from there? Pointers in later games may be "dumbing down" but they do help.

That's a bit weird, maybe something to do with the mouse you use (or the way DOSBox interprets the signal from your mouse)?


I think it is mentioned somewhere in the UESP Wiki here that instant damage spells have a relatively low chance of hitting, while the continuous damage ones miss much less often (I'm not sure if different creature types have different chances of making saving throws against the player's spells). SO it's generally a good idea to create a custom combat spell with a continuous damage effect once you get access to the spell maker.


You might need to loiter a while at the location before the target shows up - assuming that this is the right place (some towns may have more than one temple dedicated to the same deity).