Hey there everyone. Being a big fan of both the Might and Magic series and the more recent titles of the Elder Scrolls series, I wanted to give Daggerfall a shot, since it seems to be a pretty good mix of the two. So far, it seems like a pretty interesting, if frustrating game, and I'm still trying to define a build that would suit me without dragging me down.

So I was wondering, do the Backstab and Critical Strike skills affect spells as well? I'd like to make a stealthy and agile kind of mage, and I don't want to waste affinities on skills that I'll never get to use.

I'm pretty sure back stab and critical strike only work on melee and missile attacks.

However, even if you want to play a pure mage, bear in mind that it's very hard to complete the first dungeon without using any weapons. (unless you're willing to rest after every fight to recover your entire mana pool)

Backstab is rather tricky to improve because it only works if you first sneak up on an enemy which requires high stealth skill or the use of an invisibility spell or potion.

Or if you're willing to fight unarmed. (Note that unarmed does work on enemies that otherwise require a certain material to hit; it's like this way in Arena and Morrowind as well, though not in Oblivion until you raise your base Hand-to-hand skill to 50 (IIRC).)

Or, of course, if you are planning on skipping the first dungeon (I believe you press Alt-F11 immediately when the game starts (or after loading a save) and you will be taken to the exit).

Well, if you know your way, you can get to the exit without fighting (running away from enemies), and within two or three minutes or so.
Although I don't recommend it. Most other dungeons are not easier (you can specialise in looting small crypts or clearing houses from all sorts of critters in towns if you want to avoid the real dungeons :-)), and you can improve your stats and get interesting loot in the starter dungeon.
I've never tried to play a pure mage in Daggerfall - interesting idea. You would have to run away and rest a lot, I guess, and for quite a long time, I'm afraid.

Or, of course, you could use an exploit that I believe is the result of a miscoded ability.

If you take, at character creation, the "Spell Absorption" advantage, you will always absorb any spells that you cast (provided you have no other Spell Absorption effects active). This, in turn, means you can create an "Area at Range" spell that uses up almost all of your spell points, and use it constantly; as long as you are caught in the area of your own spell, you will absorb it and be able to cast it again; in the meantime, enemies nearby will be affected by the spell.

Aside from this exploit, the "Spell Absorption" advantage seems to be rather useless; it seems that you can never absorb spells cast by enemies of comparable level; it's as if the game has a check to prevent you from absorbing your own spells, but the programmers got the check backwards.

Other spell absorption effects don't have this behavior; items of "Spell Absorption" allow you to absorb both your own spells and enemy spells, but don't work 100%, while spells can be made to work 100%, but will be expensive to cast. Also note that other forms of spell absorption take precedence over the class advantage.

Yes, the developers messed up this aspect of character creation, but that's Daggerfall for you. It's not even close to the only game mechanic bug I've encountered. Don't trust that the game works correctly; actually *test* to make sure effects work as described. I've been instantly killed by an enemy's arrow having my weapon's enchantment; I've taken large damage from guards after using an artifact to boost my Strength to very high levels; and so on.

(By the way, is Illusion useful at all in Daggerfall, or is it so badly bugged to be worthless? I know the Charm spell is defective, as it doesn't work on non-hostile NPCs, which is the only time its effect would make any sense, but what about invisibility effects?)

Except that, in the case of absorbing your own spell, you just spent that much magic, therefore you necessary have enough magic capacity to absorb the spell you just cast.

(Note that, if your magic skill just increased, I believe using the shortcut to cast last spell will have you pay the old cost, but you'll only get back the new cost; the game isn't well behaved in this regard.)

Edit: Also, the "Spell Absorption" class advantage is the one effect that appears to be bugged; other sources work properly as far as I know.