Earning XP

[johnwax]

Something that has never been clear to me in either classic or Unity - Does completion of a quest earn you XP toward leveling, or just increased rep with the quest giver? It seems to be the latter, which means you can't effectively play a non-warrior PC.

Also, I know this has come up before, but having a leveling bar, say next to or under the status bars, would be great.

[mikeprichard]

XP in Daggerfall classic and DFU (as well as all mainline TES games after Daggerfall) is only earned through skill increases, not quest completion. https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Leveling_and_Skills

And yeah, I also hope eventually to see more/more convenient character information, including leveling information, as I've requested here (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1042; see the relevant excerpts from that wishlist below) and others have occasionally requested elsewhere. Probably post-1.0, maybe in a UI overhaul mod, although I think base DFU could stand a few more light-touch quality-of-life UI enhancements at that time as well.

2) Add tooltip info displaying leveling progress in each skill
3) Add tooltip info displaying total skill increases remaining until next level-up

[pango]

Something that has never been clear to me in either classic or Unity - Does completion of a quest earn you XP toward leveling, or just increased rep with the quest giver? It seems to be the latter, which means you can't effectively play a non-warrior PC.

Not quite, they're 36 skills to choose from, many not combat related.
That said, Daggerfall is at its core a dungeon crawler, and it's difficult not ending up in a dungeon sooner or later, so being able to defend yourself, pacify enemies or being very stealthy will be necessary...

Also, I know this has come up before, but having a leveling bar, say next to or under the status bars, would be great.

mikeprichard answered that one already.
I should add that Loading Screen mod contains such leveling bar. It will display only for a moment during loading, but there's that.