Daggerfall:Reputation

Reputation is the most important influencing factor in the game. Your reputation determines which people will talk to you, which quests you can get from a Faction, influence goods and services transactions, and if your Skills are high enough, whether you can receive a promotion within the factions you have joined.

The reputation you can have with a faction or person can vary from -100 to 100, and starts for most factions and people at zero at the beginning of a new game.

Improving Reputation
Your reputation can only be affected by doing quests. The outcome of a quest determines the gain or loss of reputation with the faction you got the quest from, as well as the effects on reputation with other factions.

Many factions are aligned with a number of other factions, and they can have allies as well as enemies. In such cases your reputation gain or loss with the faction has an immediate influence on the reputation with the associates and its allies and enemies. For detailed information regarding the organization of a faction, see the "Political Affiliations" section in the faction's respective UESP page.

Temples provide an exception to the rule; it is possible to increase your reputation with a specific deity by giving large donations. A donation of 2000 gold will increase your reputation by one point, 4000 gold gains two points of reputation, and so on. This method however works only for the deity of the Temple. Your reputation with the Temple itself and its associates will not be changed.

Reputation Gain
Most quests give 5 reputation points to the faction if completed successfully, while a few provide 10 points. The reputation gain with the faction's associates and allies, or the loss with its enemies, is half the reputation you get with the quest-giving faction. Numbers are rounded down, so if you get 5 reputation points with the faction, you only gain 2 points with its associates and allies, and lose 2 points with its enemies.

Reputation Loss
A failed quest results in the loss of 2 reputation points with the faction, and one point with its associates and allies. An enemy faction will gain one point of reputation.

In addition, the reputation of your character with any faction or person (positive or negative) will move one point closer to zero every 112 days, with this one-point change tracked separately from any reputation changes resulting from successful or failed quests completed for the faction during that period. In the case of joinable factions (i.e. "guilds", including Knightly Orders, the Fighters Guild, the Mages Guild, etc.), you will not be demoted below your current rank if your faction reputation drops below the minimum threshold for that rank, or even if your faction reputation drops to 0. However, if your faction reputation drops below 0 (e.g. by failing quests assigned by the faction, or by participating in quests that damage your reputation with the faction; see the following sections below), you will be expelled from the faction. After expulsion, if your faction reputation returns to at least 0, you may then rejoin the faction at rank 0.

Special Correlation
Some quests add or remove additional reputation to a certain faction or person, dependent on the direction in which the quest moves. For example, quests for nobles often interfere with affairs of the Thieves Guild. So if you complete the quest for the noble successfully, you will lose a considerable amount of reputation with the Thieves Guild, and its associates and affiliated characters. Such special correlations are mentioned in a quest's walkthrough.

Allies and Enemies
Many factions and people have allies and enemies. If you gain influence with a faction, you also gain influence with that faction's allies (and lose influence with their enemies). However, you do not gain or lose any influence with any factions allied to the allies. 

Allies and enemies affiliations are not always static for factions and subgroups. They are generated randomly at the start of a new game. This is likely related to the background you create for your character. Hence only affiliations that remain unchanged are noted on the wiki.

Allies and enemies affiliations also change randomly every new year, on the mid of First Seed.

Overview of Reputation Gain/Loss for major factions
General
 
Guilds
Dark Brotherhood
 
Fighters Guild
 
Knight Orders
 
Mages Guild
 
Temples
 
Thieves Guild
 

Nobles
Nobles have a very complex reputation system.

If you complete a Quest given by a royal or noble successfully you will gain reputation as shown in the first table in most cases. Depending upon the quest there may be an additional reputation gain with other factions. If you did a quest for any noble, you will also get the same reputation with their associated kingdom as you will get with them personally.

If you fail a quest given by a royal or noble you will always lose reputation as shown in the second table. If you did a quest for any noble, you will also lose the same reputation with their associated kingdom as you will lose with them personally.

Example: If you fail a quest for King Gothryd you will lose 23 reputation points (22 points with his person; one additional point coming from the loss with Daggerfall and its associated faction). You will also lose 23 reputation points with Daggerfall (22 points from the loss with Gothryd and one point from the loss with Daggerfall). With all other factions of Daggerfall you will lose 12 reputation points (11 points from the loss with Gothryd/Daggerfall and one point from the loss with Daggerfall).

An exception to this rule is Lady Bridwell, as she does not belong to any factions. The 22 reputation points lose is with her only. All other royals and nobles are associated with Daggerfall, Sentinel, or Wayrest.
 

Charvek-si, the healer of Castle Sentinel, who also offers noble quests, doesn't fit into this pattern. Completing quests for her will raise the reputation with herself, Akatosh, The Akatosh Chantry and its associates as well as with the city-state of Sentinel, with whom she is allied. The same applies for a failed quest, but in this case for the reputation loss.

Vampire Clans
The reputation gain or loss for vampire clans is for most cases as seen, below. It is noticeable however, that one will always lose reputation with many other factions, regardless of the quest's outcome.
 

Daedra Princes
 

Reputation and Rank Skill Levels
To be eligible for a given rank within a joinable faction (a guild), your reputation with the guild must meet or exceed a given value, your value for at least one of the guild's preferred skills must meet or exceed the "High Skill" value listed below, and your value for at least one of the guild's other preferred skills must meet or exceed the "Low Skill" value listed below.



Within a guild, you must wait 28 days after being promoted in rank in order to be eligible for another promotion. You may skip ranks when promoted; you will be promoted to the highest rank for which you are eligible (according to the above table).

Checking Reputation
You cannot actually check your reputation with different factions inside the game.  You will have to use a save game editor or a similar external tool to extract reputation information from your save games.

Reputation Titles
On the Info screen you can check your characters regional reputation. It starts at 0 at the beginning of a new game and is unique for every Region within the Iliac Bay.

Your regional reputation also ranges from -100 to +100, however it is only visible to you in 13 ranks.

("In the eyes of the law of   you are ... .")



The purpose of the regional reputation is not completely understood. It has apparently no influence on the way you are treated by the regional populace. It has however an influence on the justice of a region. When your regional reputation drops beyond a certain level the town guards will appear shortly after you enter a settlement and try to arrest you. If you are caught you will be accused of high treason, which will result in a severe punishment if the court finds you guilty. Even if the town guards arrest you for smaller crimes like lockpicking or vagrancy, the court will accuse you of high treason. There are several quests that lower your regional reputation for the duration of the quest, or if you fail, even after.

The following table lists all quests in the original game that influence your regional reputation.



Restoring Regional Reputation
If your regional reputation is too low, guards will appear every time you enter a settlement. There are two ways to fix this:

Wait until your reputation has returned to zero. As with all other forms of reputation, regional reputation regresses to the default value of 0 by a single point every in-game month.
Restore your regional reputation by doing quests. There are three quests in the game that can be used to improve regional reputation:
The Escort
Smuggling
A Mix-Up

In The Escort, you can improve your regional reputation by 10 points by turning your employer over to the town guards when prompted to do so. However, this option only presents itself 25% of the time. The low reputation gain makes this the least effective quest for restoring negative reputation, but it is the only quest which can be used to improve positive reputation.

Completing the Smuggling quest will negate any negative reputation, as regional reputation values can never go below -100 and completion of the quest improves your regional reputation by 100 points.

Doing A Mix-Up is the best way to restore your regional reputation, as the +110 bonus for completion will restore any negative reputation to a slightly positive value. Caution: Only complete this quest if your reputation is already negative, as accepting the quest will automatically reduce your regional reputation by 200 points, leaving you with a net loss of 90 reputation.

At Court
If your character is arrested by the authorities, you will be brought to court. You are deemed arrested when you are injured while the authorities are after you. It will also count as being arrested if you injure yourself when falling from a rooftop, take sun damage when you are a vampire, etc.

The crimes you can be accused of at court are listed in The Daggerfall Chronicles. However, the Chronicles lack information on the more obvious crimes like pickpocket or murder. It also does not mention a formula, or anything similar, to work out how long your character will be imprisoned for if found guilty.


 
 

If you are found guilty, you will lose regional reputation according to the table and be imprisoned for a certain amount of time&mdash;the more severe the crime, the longer you will stay imprisoned. While imprisoned, your character's skills will decrease over time.

Characters with a high Streetwise skill may lie to get out of court without harm, while a high Etiquette skill may help to debate one's way out of court. Members of underworld factions like the Thieves Guild or the Dark Brotherhood may have means to bribe the court for certain crimes.