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So I started the game with an alright character but had no weapons I could use, so I had to restart and when I came to, I noticed I had no health bar! I go about my business anyway, killing a rat and an imp before that archer lady killed me instantly, so I reload and check my health: lo and behold, I don't actually have no health, no, but actually have -1056 health! I did have the health regen advantage, so it was probably even lower than that when I started. It took me 64 hours (2.6 days) of rest to restore it all.

A similar bug is described in PATCHED.TXT, but I've never seen it myself. I think because I almost always play as thieves and they generally have a relatively low hit point bonus. Usually when this happens in an old video game it's because it's trying to count too high and resetting to negative numbers. I don't know how you managed to do that, because your attributes look pretty normal. Normally if that happened to one of my characters I would scrap them and start it over again. They've clearly taken too many arrows in the knee.

I guess that storm hit me harder than I thought, huh? I was fine after resting and have been hit and rested many times since. I'm also playing a thief and only have 33 hit points, but imagine the health regen broke it? Maybe it tries initiating the health regen as soon as it starts and that moves it over 33, which in turn resets to negative numbers. Health regen seems pretty pointless in Daggerfall, unless maybe you're at a spot where no enemies can get you but are too close to rest, but I went ahead and got it anyway (offset by some equipment limitations for things I never use anyway, like heavy armor, long swords, axes and blunt weapons).

No, I've played Healer before, which basically takes every advantage that heals you faster, and I've never had this problem. Healer actually heals so fast it's almost one of the most broken classes in the game, or would be if they were any good in combat. My initial guess was that you took an advantage that boosts your hit points, but I double-checked and that doesn't exist, and like I said your attributes are pretty normal, so I have no idea. They were chasing after this bug for a long time before the final version was released, so I guess it's elusive.

I did start as a Healer once test the controls, but didn't know I should have kept it TBH, it's not that severe a bug. AFAIK, it only happens at the start and you just have to rest, so it's not that big a deal, IME. Only advantages I took were general health regen and athleticism, but in Daggerfall, who knows what cause the bug is? Not Bethesda, apparently