0. Legal Stuff and version history

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10/17/2012 - Version 1.0. First version of FAQ submitted.

1. Table of Contents
	2. Intro [INRO]
	3. How to become a vampire and choose your bloodline [TURN]
	4. The benefits [BENE]
	5. The drawbacks, and how to deal with them [DRAW]
	6. Clever vampire survival tricks [VSUR]
	7. Other things you should know [MISC]
	8. Outro [ENDS]

2. Intro [INRO]

Ah, vampires. Some love them, many do not. Defined as a person who drinks the 
blood of the living, vampires and their characteristics have been changed and 
reinvented throughout the ages, and The Elder Scrolls series is no exception.

In Arena, vampires were little more than critters you beat up for experience
points. Starting at Daggerfall, the protagonist is given the chance to become
one of these predators of darkness (well, this is usually the case. Sometimes
vampirism is acquired through ignorance or bad luck). Whether it's worth it or
not is ultimately up to the player, though practically speaking the vampires of
Morrowind and Oblivion do not get quite so many benefits as Daggerfall vampires
do, and their drawbacks tend to be harsher. Morrowind vampires in particular
cannot interact with almost any living person without being shunned or
attacked, so once the vampire quests are done and Eltonbrand is obtained there
is very little reason beyond modding and/or roleplaying to remain a vampire.

Daggerfall vampires have it good. Despite what the paper doll may show you no
normal person you talk to will flip out simply because you're a vampire. The
damage from sunlight is not that dangerous for even middle level vampires
provided they have resources, and Daggerfall is the only game in the series in
which the Shield spell blocks the damage from sunlight and holy places. The
abilites they get are strong, and they are the only playable vampires in the
series who are naturally completely immune to certain weapon attacks; vampires
of later games need help from items to null damage from mundane weapons.
Daggerfall has the most bloodlines (even if some suck) which is more than can
be said for Oblivion. Teleportaion, too, is a huge advantage, making the sun
even less of a threat unlike Oblivion vampires who need to wait until night if
they haven't fed, and especially Morrowind vampires who have no means of
eliminating sun damage other than outhealing the damage with spells, potions
and enchanted items with enough Constant Effect Restore Health and who cannot
make use of travel options such as boats, striders or Guild Guides as the
relevant NPCs will be frightened of them. Fast travel is Daggerfall doesn't
even let the sun hurt you while traveling!

This FAQ is the culmination of my experiences with playing Daggerfall vampires,
and the advice contained herein will help you make your vampire character a
more powerful and serious contender in the dungeons while at the same time help
you not get tripped up with the disadvatnages of vampirism. There are both
common knowledge and a few but important strategies that haven't been made
public on any popular sites, until now.

Read now, and know the children of Molag Bal.

3. How to become a vampire and choose your bloodline [TURN]

So how do you become undead?

Sadly, it's mostly up to luck. You have to get hit and take damage from a
physical attack made by a vampire or vampire ancient. That hit must transmit
the vampirism disease, and you must not catch any other disease, or you WILL
DIE when you turn (if you survive the incubation period, anyway). If you do
catch both vampirism and a normal disease you'll have to cure yourself and try
again. This is made even worse by that fact that vampirism has a very low
chance of infecting you so you will need to take lots of hits without dying.

If you have vampirism, you will know when you rest for at least one hour
because you will get a dream about some woman getting killed. After three days,
you will die, three weeks will pass and you'll rise as a vampire in a random
dungeon in the region if there is one. If there aren't any dungeons in the
region (you turn on your ship, for example) you rise where you died. If you
turn while fast traveling you will arrive as a vampire.

What bloodline you have is determined by where you turn, not where you caught
the vampirism. It doesn't matter if you catch it in Daggerfall, if you turn in
Sentinel you will be of the Selenu, not Vraseth. If you have teleportation
choosing your bloodline becomes easy, just get vampirism in a dungeon where
there are lots of vampires and warp to the region of your chosen bloodline.
Teleportation also makes it trivial to escape whatever dungeon you get buried
in when you turn.

4. The benefits [BENE]

Nobody would want to be a vampire if there weren't any perks. Unlike vanilla
Morrowind and Oblivion, vampires in Daggerfall get powerful upgrades and
abilities that make dungeon crawling much easier AND there is no chance that
NPCs will even realize that you're a vampire, never mind attacking or shunning
you for being one. This makes vampirism icing on the cake rather than anything
truly earthshattering.

To wit, all PC vampires get the following:

A) Each attribute except Intelligence gains 20 points (but may not exceed the
limit of 100)

This is amazingly potent. Right there is a net gain of 140 stat points just for
being a vampire. It's the rough equivalent of 28 levelups in terms of gained
stat points, or four and two thirds Oghma Infinitums. Needless to say, this
lets you max out your stats without the assistance of enchanted apparel or
buffs, or at least come very close to doing so.

B) Six skills get increased by 30 points. This CAN exceed the normal max of
100.

Climbing, Critical Strike, Hand-to-Hand, Jumping, Running, and Stealth are the
skills boosted, and luckily none of them are worthless. A Critical Strike above
100 will continue to add accuracy and extra damage to all physical attacks you
make. Hand-to-Hand will do more damage, and when it maxes it will be comparable
to Daedric weapons in pure Damage Per Second while continuing to be always
accessible, weightless, never needing repair, and able to harm any monster
regardless of material immunities.

Stealth only makes combat even easier, whether it leads to brutal Backstabs or
avoiding enemies entirely, and the last three makes your PC able to move around
dungeons faster and better, not to mention it aids in escaping from battle and
the guards.

C) Gains the special vampire only versions of Levitate, Charm Humanoid, and
Calm Humanoid. All bonus spells vampires get have one quarter of their usual
cost, and this cost can be less than the mortal minimum of 5. The star spell
here of course is Levitate, letting you fly over city walls, pits and monsters
alike for a generous discount.

D) Become immune to Paralysis, Disease, and all iron and steel weapons.

To be honest, Paralysis immunity isn't that great, what with Free Action being
one of the cheapest buffs you can cast and items that can cast it for you. And
if you become diseased enough that disease immunity looks really attractive,
then something is very wrong with how you play. The Mages Guild sells the
spells of Cure Disease and Recall even to non-members, so you can cure disease
yourself or teleport straight to a temple.

If enemy humans can't hit you with spells and iron or steel weapons are the
best they can wield, then they can't hurt you period. This doesn't protect
you from non-humans that carry weapons, or humans that have silver or better.
Still, it's something that makes conflict with the leveled class human enemies
a little less painful.

As well, a vampire gets more bonuses depending on which bloodline said vampire
belongs to. These bonuses can complement your playstyle perfectly or be
effectively worthless, so choose your bloodline carefully.

Anthotis	+20 to Intelligence Attribute	Alik'r Desert, Antiphyllos,
Bergama, Dak'fron, Tigonus

Gets you another twenty stat points for a total of 160 points, and it also
means that, depending on what Increased Magery advantage you (didn't) pick at
character generation, you get 10 to 60 extra maximum spell points to play
around with.

Garlythi	Shield Spell		Northmoor, Phrygias

This bloodline has the easiest time dealing with sun and holy place damage as
well as physical attacks due to the discounted Shield spell.

Haarvenu	Ice Storm, Wildfire	Anticlere, Ilessan Hills, Shalgora

Best bloodline period for munchkins. Why? Because you can absorb your own
spells, and even though the Ice Storm spell is discounted you get back the
original, more expensive spell cost when absorbed! This means you can
practically have infinite spell points just by blasting yourself with Ice
Storm, if you have absorption, due to this oversight. However, I understand if
you do not want to abuse that; that's fine, the other bloodlines are there to
be picked.

Khulari		Paralysis Spell		Dragontail Mountains, Ephesus,
Kozanset, Santaki, Totambu

Many many things are vulnerable to paralysis, like liches and all Daedra except
for the Lords. This bloodline gift lets you make your enemies helpless for
less.

Lyrezi		Invisibility Spell, Silence Spell	Alcaire, Isle of
Balfiera, Koegria, Menevia, The Orsinium Area, Wrothgarian Mountains, High Rock
Sea Coast (where your ship is)

One of the weaker bloodlines, Silence is useless for preventing magical damage
as it's a touch spell and casters either blow you up from a distance or empty
all of their spell points into you the moment they enter melee range. Spell
resistance, absorption and reflection are all much better at dealing with
hostile magic. Invisibility is also a disappointment because it wears off when
you hurt something, as it's the Normal type, not the True type.

I recommend that you skip this bloodline and do not get turned on your ship.

Montalion	Free Action Spell	Bhoriane, Gavaudon, Lainlyn, Mournoth,
Satakalaam, Wayrest

...yeah. Lore states that the Montalion clan is supposed to get Teleport which
would make the bloodline gift actually useful, but due to a bug it is instead
the most worthless bloodline in the game. Do not even bother, there isn't even
any comedy value in making yourself double immune to paralysis.

Selenu		Resist Cold, Resist Fire, Resist Shock	Abibon-Gora, Ayasofya,
Cybiades, Kairou, Myrkwasa, Pothago, Sentinel

Since casters do fling lots of elemental spells at you this bloodline is much
better at handling enemy spellcasters than those of the Lyrezi. That said,
spell resistance, absorption and reflection are still better at preventing
magic damage because they don't care what element the spell is.

Thrafey		Heal			Daenia, Dwynnen, Ykalon, Urvaius

Noob friendly bloodline, healing wounds is always nice and sun and holy place
damage becomes less of an issue. Preventing damage is always preferable to
healing it, however, and the other good bloodlines are better at not getting
beaten up in the first place.

Vraseth		Nimbleness Spell	Betony, Daggerfall, Glenpoint,
Glenumbra Moors, Kambria, Tulune

Second weakest bloodline after Montalion. Gee, boosting Agility is nice and all
but Agility by itself is not enough to sway difficult battles in your favour.
This is even assuming you're not wearing something enchanted with Nimbleness,
or that your Agility isn't already maxed out. Haarvenu is better at killing
things, Garlythi is better at not getting pulped, and Khulari is better at not
letting enemies act in the first place and at getting free access to their
backs, where Backstabbing boosts their accuracy. Skip this one.

5. The drawbacks, and how to deal with them [DRAW]

Of course, vampirism isn't a strict upgrade. Bethesda put in downsides for
vampires as well, so that players should have to think about whether they
really want their character to join the ranks of the night creatures. There
are three significant downsides of vampirism, and all of them combine to make
playing as one rather inconvenient:

A) Damage from holy places. While the damage from holy places is thankfully not
that great, it makes loitering and being passed out - and for Fighter Trainers,
resting - a dangerous prospect if you're not on top of your affairs. Lower
level vampires in particular are susceptible to the damage ticks even if they
are rather spread out, simply because they have lower hp and less resources to
draw on.

Even worse, the constant damage ticks will allow guards to identify and attempt
to arrest you even if you're invisible and at the other end of the temple. This
makes life harder for those who prefer to snack on the townspeople.

Fortunately, while business with, and questing for, temples involve going to
holy places (obviously) you need not spend very long in them. Get in, do your 
thing, get out, and if you didn't dawdle then the damage you take will be
minimized. You can even heal the constant damage with regeneration or protect 
yourself from it with the shield spell effect; little facts you'll like
if you need to burn some hours in a temple or Fighter Trainer.

B) Damage from sunlight. Sunlight, as Daggerfall defines it, involve being
outside during the hours of 6:00 to 18:00. Most of what applies to holy places
also applies to being out when it's daytime - constant damage ticks that will
soil your reputation should you catch the attention of the local law
enforcement.

Sun damage inflicts upon you one additional limitation - you can't initiate
fast travel during the day. Sure, it doesn't stop you from making trips that
last more than one day, but if it's not nighttime that map of the Illiac Bay
will refuse to come up. It is this limitation combined with the last drawback,
that creates the dreaded situation known as being stuck in the boonies unable
to travel out or rest/loiter and thus having to wait actual, real seconds of
time waitng in some mud hut for that accursed yellow disc to finally go down.
It tries the patience of the player and it is not fun at all, and Bethesda
really dropped the ball on that one.

In general though, you should treat sun damage as you would holy place damage.
Don't remain outside for longer than you have to, don't break the law, use
shelter, watch your fatigue bar, and heal yourself regularly if regeneration or
shielding isn't already taking care of the damage for you. Banks, after all,
aren't open during the night, and townspeople only walk around during the day,
so chances are you will need to be able to deal with sunlight.

C) Finally, you cannot loiter (WHY?) or rest if you have not killed anything
within the last 24 hours. If your vampire gets hungry when he or she sleeps, or
is hungry when passed out, then neither Health, Fatigue, or Spell Points will
recover from rest.

I can understand not being able to sleep and heal while doing so if your
vampire is not sated. What I don't get however, is not being able to loiter. No
matter how much time passes since the last feeding, vampires are always able to
stand around, goof off, and if it's night, fast travel, but if they're hungry
they can't hit the fast forward button when simply standing around?

It gets worse when actual travel times are taken into account. Dungeons and
cemeteries are not always a stone's throw away, and you can be left with little
time on the clock even if you travel from dungeon to town Recklessly and paying
for inns, with a horse in your possession (which is the fastest way to travel
barring the use of teleportation). If you want to make sure you have time to
rest in town after a feeding, you should first Cautiously travel to the dungeon
or graveyard closest to your destination. This makes sure that you arrive
at night (a bone that the developers did toss to characters that have the sun
damage disadvantage) at a place where you can eat without the law or the Dark
Brotherhood sticking their noses in. After killing something, you then leave
and travel Recklessly, using Inns, to your destination. You'll spend a pittance
to make sure you arrive in town satiated.

If you're clever you can even use quests to feed you without having to make
detours! The Fighter's Guild quest where you are sent to rid a local's house of
a wild animal is the perfect example, as it lets you safely feed in any town
that has a Fighter's Guild or Fighter Trainers. You even get paid for it!
Quests that send enemies after you as long as the quest is active, such as the
quest for witch covens where you have to deliver a potion to a Mages Guild,
will also give you meals in a pinch. If you have a couple hours left on your
feeding timer you can even pull guard duty for the local Mages Guild, as that
will always give you Nightblades or Thieves you eat after you wait a moment.
Avoid trying for quests that involve other towns, as it's random which town,
for example, the temple sends you to, to rid a house of an undead critter. That
defeats the purpose of getting easy guard-free kills and can decrease your rep
with the questgiver's faction should you fail it or don't report back.

One more thing. The towns of Daggerfall, Wayrest, and Sentinel are unique in
that, other than being important for the Main Quests, they all have a Castle in
them that is actually a dungeon! Even better, since they are dungeons you will
never get in trouble with the law or get a possibly unwanted DB invitation
no matter what you do in them! You see those humanoid enemies just waiting
around the entrances and throne rooms, that you can kill? Other than the
usual effects of combat with humans there are no bad things that will happen to
you should you kill them and take their stuff. Nobody cares what happens to the
initially pacified class enemies (primitive game engine and all that), they 
will still give you quests and their personal guards might as well don't exist,
the way the nobles act. This means that you can always safely feed in the towns
of Daggerfall, Sentinel, and Wayrest, regardless of the time of day and even
after Lysandus' ghost has been put to rest. The spectral army is diet food
anyway. :)

6. Clever vampire survival tricks [VSUR]

So if you can't or won't for whatever reason stop at a local joint for some
fast food, and you rightfully fear being stuck in the sun with no way to find
shelter or blood, then how can you deal with the vampire's weaknesses? Well,
believe it or not there are ways to pull your starving backside out of the fire
and back on track, and they are all done with the use of already existing game
mechanics. Use them, abuse them, and you may find that your time as a vampire
is more agreeable and fulfilling.

(This FAQ is (C) Itemloop and hosted only at Gamefaqs.com. If the author of
this FAQ is not credited to Itemloop, email me at Itemloopgfaqs(at)hotmail.com)

A) Get a ship. Everyone should get a ship. They're like houses and rented
tavern rooms, except you can access them via transport menu anytime you're
outside and is therefore far more useful than a building. It is THE major
investment any and every character should make regardless of build or
playstyle, as it's really hard to argue with what is essentially a free
portable room with storage space. Ships also let you travel by ship for free,
but nobody cares about that.

Vampires will especially like their ship, as it grants them almost instant
shelter from sunlight no matter where they are on the map, and the storage
areas below deck is as safe as you can get in this game. However, there is also
an oversight from the developers that lets you feed inside your ship anytime
you want, provided you've made up your mind about the Dark Brotherhood: punch
your door. That's right, go below deck, face the door leading outside and start
abusing it. The inside of your ship is treated as a building interior by the
game, therefore the game thinks you're trying to break and enter into your own
ship!

This summons magical guards from the ether who will try to arrest you. Of
course turning yourself in defeats the entire point of hitting your own door,
but the thing is, your ship doesn't actually occupy the same location you do
when you get off of it. See, both of the buyable ships are located in the very
upper left corner of the map. That means you can't see yourself or your ship
should you bring up the fast travel map. It also means that if you fast travel
directly from your ship, you will physically embark from said corner of the map
(Scourg Barrow will be a *very* long way away...). If you check your location
when on or inside your ship, it will tell you that you're on High Rock sea
coast. Get identifed by the magical guards, and your reputation will suffer;
unlike any region with actual people in it however, your legal rep on the coast
has no effect on the game whatsoever. So feel free to mercilessly massacre
machoistic magical men of law on your vessel; their blood is as good as anyone
else's and literally no one else in the entire game will care.

No one, that is, except the Dark Brotherhood. You ARE killing guards after all,
even if they apparently swim all over the coast. Killing guards on board your
ship is legally speaking the safest way of triggering the invitation. Do be
aware of that, and plan accordingly.

Speaking of the law, any character can escape to their ship if they are outside
and guards come for them. You can't fast travel when there are enemies, but you
CAN change your transportation, even if you get a snack in broad daylight. :)

B) Use teleportation. The best places for an emergency anchor are the cities of
Daggerfall, Sentinel, and Wayrest, as these locations combine fully functional
towns with a dungeon you can feed in. Even though the Teleport spell is one way
only, it is still very valuable even when you do not need an emergency getaway
simply becuase it is instant travel that ignores the presence of sunlight. You
need to report back to your questgiver? Save yourself time and headaches by
putting an anchor right in front of him and when you're done just warp back
instead of bothering to keep yourself fed and watching the clock; this is
exceptionally useful when you can only speak to your questgiver at certain
times of the day and/or when the deadline is tight.

If you are high enough rank in the Mages Guild to be able to teleport, you've
got it made. The Traveler's League practically halves your trip times, and if
you set an anchor at the Guild then you will have two-way teleportation. For
non-vampires this is a gigantic boon, and for vampires a godsend. You
still can't teleport from guilds during the day (I have no clue if the
developers intended that or not) but as long as you can still effectively wait,
that's not a problem.

C) Use items to get you meals. If an item has a soul bound to it, and that item
breaks, then whatever was bound is released into the area and will attack you.
A vampire can take advantage by binding a rat or some other weak critter into
an article of clothing or something else not valuable and then when he or she
needs to feed right now the item can just be used until it breaks. Cast When
Used: Stamina is the cheapest enchant you can put on your meal tickets. Combine
that with Azura's Star and the cost of making the meal tickets is kept at a
minimum.

For vampires who can't be bothered with making meal tickets, or aren't members
of the Mages Guild or Temple of Julianos, an alternative is getting the
Sanguine Rose. The Daedroths that it summons will nourish just fine, the only
hard part is summoning Sanguine in the first place. Get a witch coven to do it
for you (you might have to wait a while) because quite frankly, you will not
want to wait for the proper summoning day, and that's assuming you have access
to a Summoner.

D) Pass out.

No, I'm serious. When your Fatigue zeros out an hour always passes by no matter
what. Usually this is a bad thing, but by brutal exploitation of this game
mechanic, you can force your vampire to loiter whenever you want. Let me
repeat: This makes your vampire pass the time one hour at a time no matter how
long it has been since the last feeding!

There are two things you need to make the most of this unintentional side
effect: a safe place to pass out, and a way to recover the spent Fatigue. The
former is handled by your ship, and the latter is done by spell, item, or
Cautious fast travel assuming it is night. The best way to quickly empty your
red bar is to stand under an archway - the hole that a door would occupy - and
hold down your jump key. You will jump extremely fast and level your Jumping
while you're at it, and your Fatigue will plummet. Since you haven't fed you
will not recover any Health, Fatigue, or Spell Points when you do this, and
every time you collapse one hour will pass. When you're done heal your Fatigue
and go about your business.

Do not do this if you are expecting enemies, or are in a dungeon, or outside,
or in a temple or Fighter Trainer. You will still take sun and holy place
damage while unconscious and even the weakest, most feeble enemy will kill you
dead if it stumbles across you while you're out. But this trick is loitering in
a roundabout way, a workaround without mods or cheats for something vampires
should have been able to do in the first place.

E) Get your wagon to write you letters of credit. Sounds like more lunacy,
right? Well, you know when you sell things to a merchant, and if that merchant
gives you more gold than you can carry he writes you a letter of credit
instead? And when you click your wagon button from a sell or identify screen
and leave without clicking any of your inventory tabs at the very top of the
screen and therefore still have your wagon contents on the left column of
items, you directly have access to your wagon, even in dungeons?

This trick makes use of both a legitimate mechanic and a glitch at the same
time. With the wagon contents on your left side of the inventory screen, if you
click on a pile of gold, it normally goes into your actual character inventory.
But if doing so would overencumber you, it goes into your character inventory
as a letter of credit, ignoring encumbrance. This happens because you've
tricked the game into thinking your wagon inventory is your personal inventory,
and not only does this let you carry far more loot, but it makes the game
consider your wagon space rather than your own space when deciding whether you
can pick up more gold. And when you do, the coding for selling items activates
and the gold becomes a letter of credit. This isn't like later games where
becoming overburdened stops you from moving, a current weight larger than max
weight will not hinder movement in the slightest.

As you can imagine, this trick gets you a lot of letters very quickly, but it
is valuable for vampires because it means they do not have to make nearly so
many bank runs, and banks are only open during the day. Two caveats though:
One, quest items are the exception to the glitch. They behave differently when
being collected and the game will ignore your wagon when checking to see if you
have enough space to pick up the quest item. Ergo, if you know you need to pick
up a specific item for a quest you should make room in your inventory. If you
want to keep your money, however, then you should either make a bank run
beforehand or fill up your personal inventory with junk, so that when you come
across the quest item you can access your personal inventory by clicking any of
the four tabs, then ditching some of the junk.

Two, soul gems in your wagon (this includes Azura's Star) cannnot acquire
souls. They have to be in your inventory for Soul Trap to work properly.
Luckily, soul gems are very light, if pricey, so you won't have much problems
fitting them in your pack.

7. Other things you should know [MISC]

When you turn, you are automatically kicked out of any and all guilds you
joined, but you keep the reputation you have with them. For most guilds this
isn't so bad as you can rejoin and get your former rank back after a month. But
the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood only give you one chance to join, and if
you get kicked out or fail the initiation quest you are expelled forever.
Therefore, if you want to join these guilds as a vampire do not pickpocket from
ANYTHING and do not kill townspeople or guards until you turn.

Legal reputation across the map is wiped. Unless you worked hard to make
yourself liked by every single region then this reset is never a bad thing.
After all, you don't want endless Criminal Conspiracy charges, do you? Keeping
yourself clean as a vampire is a different matter, because there is always the
temptation of offing a townsperson just so you can rest until nightfall.

You might want to get a helmet that hides your face. The vampire faces in
Daggerfall are hideous and look like something Hircine threw up. It makes you
wonder how nobody knows you're a vampire with completely red eyes and blood
dribbling down your cheeks; I call that the "Bleh!" face. Fortunately, the
Bleh! face doesn't cause people to treat you any differently.

8. Outro [ENDS]

As you can see, being a vampire is not as hard as it looks. Hopefully, the
information in this FAQ will make your experience as one of the undead a more
fun a profitable one. It's not every game where you get to play as a vampire,
never mind it being optional.

If you need to tell me anything about this FAQ, my email is Itemloopgfaqs(at)
hotmail.com

Credit to www.uesp.net for reference material.

EOF