My thoughts on a pure mage

[Smoke131]

Well my first attempt at a character was a pure mage. I am on my third attempt at making a decent magick user and this time round I am still not satisfied. I have learned what skills are more helpful compared to others when it comes to a pure magick user and I would like to share what i am going to do for my fourth attempt and why I feel it will make the most efficient mage.

The game was extremely difficult when I attempted this and I knew it must have something to do with my choice of skills. I feel that the best 4 skills for a pure magic user is Meditation, Alchemy, Light Armor and of course Elemental. Now why is that so. Alchemy fixes a huge problem the pure magick user faces, and that is random battles while camping. It is extremely annoying when you face some tough enemies when you haven't even gotten at least 20% of your mana back. Alchemy can get expensive, but once you get it to higher levels, it pays to have it more so than buying potions yourself. Also, it allows one to make use of the numerous reagents/reactants you find all throughout the world.

Meditation makes camping sessions much much quicker, which means less annoying random battles. Also, I feel one should ditch the choice of a weapon skill and rely solely on spells. The reason for this is it frees up more skill points to put in alchemy and meditation, and when meditation gets high enough, you will find yourself using your potions less and less which is helpful as far as money is concerned. I have tried using a weapon with a mage and it just seems to cause more problems than anything else. It seems like a good idea at first, but I found out later that it is just a waste of helpful skill points.



What about statistics? I can't fully recommend anything here because I don't fully understand everything about the attributes. What i do though is I throw everything into intelligence because I want to increase my mana up per level as quick as possible. Also, I make sure stamina is at 14 at character creation. Reason being I can add 1 point to it to make it 15 at level 2 which will give me a 3 HP increase every level. After that I leave it alone. With alchemy, you will have many health poitions anyway.


Well these are my thoughts and please don't misunderstand, I am no expert. I am sure there are some here who can offer even better suggestions and maybe even correct me if I am wrong about my own suggestions. In my honest opinion this is how I feel a pure magick user that wishes to be powerful should be built.

[woem]

You definitely picked one of the harder classes to start off, kudos for your persistence. Here's a couple of things I learned from playing a pure mage:

The important skills (in order) are Elemental Arcane, Alchemy and Meditation. I put meditation as last because it's more important to have a high perception than to have a high meditation skill. With meditation around 10 you should be fine. Note that there is equipment to be found that will up your meditation skill. You don't need to put any skills in any type of armor or weapons since the idea is to never, ever engage in physical combat. After you've maxed out Elemental Arcane (at 31 to cast tier 3 spells at level 6) continue to focus on alchemy and meditation. You might also consider picking up the Druidic axiom which increases your HP and MP regeneration rate.

Talking about perception, it's important to pump all your starting points in it in order to start out with the highest possible mana points. You can start with 75 mana points with high enough perception. After that it's a matter of keeping both your Intelligence and Elemental Arcane high enough to cast the highest possible spells.

What alchemy is concerned I find it important to buy all mandrake root, ambergris and sulfur in the shops. Mandrake root is used in many different useful potions: mana potion, potion of haste and potion of fortified mana for instance. Ambergris and Sulfur are pretty rare and are used for a very powerful potion (if you don't know already what it is, then you will later in the game).

So keep track of your mana points, don't be afraid to pile up on (and use) mana potions and choose your equipment wisely.

[Smoke131]

Thank you. You see I knew perception had an effect on max mana points but I didn't know by how much. Thanks for teling me about that. Also, when I got intelligence up to around 40 i was getting 8 mana points per lvl. Do you know the exact formula for what effect perception has on your mana points? Also, 75 mana starting is a ton! I didn't know that was possible. Also as far as light armor goes, I didn't know if the game offered basic apparel that increase stats. I do however know there is light armor that does. That is why I would keep 1 point in light armor.

[woem]

You definitely don't need as much as 40 intelligence, it's way more important to focus on perception since that will raise both your mana points total and its regeneration rate. Here's my pure mage right before I finished the game. At that time I had 259 mana points and was generation one point every 2 or 3 turns.

[Smoke131]

Thanks for the info! I will focus on perception with my next attempt.

[Turtle]

At that time I had 259 mana points and was generation one point every 2 or 3 turns.

If you had been Druidic instead of Atheistic it would have been a point every single turn above ground.

Also, when I got intelligence up to around 40 i was getting 8 mana points per lvl

With Concentration (EDIT: yes I do mean Perception. Oops.) optimized as Woem describes, it is possible to gain 11 pts/level.

Also as far as light armor goes, I didn't know if the game offered basic apparel that increase stats. I do however know there is light armor that does. That is why I would keep 1 point in light armor.

It doesn't. I think even hats count as light armor. Having said that, you can wear light armor without spending points on the skill. There's no real penalty for a spellcaster that I ever noticed, if you can stand the annoyance of seeing that "Unskilled Armor Penalty" message and the red outlines. You can wait until you find the book if you want--it's up to you!

[woem]

If you had been Druidic instead of Atheistic it would have been a point every single turn above ground.

Yeah but it would have been slower in dungeons and I don't like that. I think this is a personal choice. I also don't really like the concept of a druidic mage, that doesn't make sense to me.

With Concentration optimized as Woem describes, it is possible to gain 11 pts/level.

You probably mean "perception" here. Things are confusing enough already With my stats I was gaining 13 mana points per level. My high meditation probably has something to do with that.

Having said that, you can wear light armor without spending points on the skill. There's no real penalty for a spellcaster that I ever noticed, if you can stand the annoyance of seeing that "Unskilled Armor Penalty" message and the red outlines. You can wait until you find the book if you want--it's up to you!

Exactly. That's why my shoes, hat and cloack are glowing red: I have an armor penalty for wearing them without having the light armor skill, but since no-one can get near me that's really not an issue. And I still get the bonusses those pieces provide.

[Randomizer]

You might want unarmed combat skill purely for opening sealed barrels without taking damage or expending mana for what is usually poor loot.

Hide in shadows breaks from pure mage, but is totally broken as an easy way to hide while you recharge mana or move away from a target. There are items (cloak, ring, and trainer book) if you are luck enough to find or buy.

If you are druidic than you can skip meditation. Mana regeneration is always going to be a problem, but every class has some type of tedium.

[Smoke131]

I am a min/maxer and I have tried both unarmed and blunt weapons and I still prefer using magic to blast open barrels. With perception as high as the above poster suggested and meditation invested in, mana regeneration while camping is insane. So insane that you don't mind doing it real quick just to open a barrel. I am going to avoid any skill that is truly unecessary. I want to invest only in skills that really make my mage a more powerful character. That means I only invested in three skills from the get go Meditation 5 ,Alchemy 5 and Elemental 6 with 1 left over for level up. Cartography I am able to raise from quest in Aridell. That is all a pure mage needs to invest in as far skills go.

[woem]

Why don't you just take a bludgeoning weapon to beat open the barrels? You don't need to be proficient with them to wield and use them...

Also, I tend to stack up my skill points until I'm able to buy 5 levels in alchemy, and then put 4 points in them. Along with 2 rings of brewery that gets me to 15. All in all I've only spent 4 skill points to reach that level, not bad.

[IJBall]

Also, I tend to stack up my skill points until I'm able to buy 5 levels in alchemy, and then put 4 points in them. Along with 2 rings of brewery that gets me to 15. All in all I've only spent 4 skill points to reach that level, not bad.

Actually, you get get there in just two:

Alchemy: Levels 1-5: Bought from Gamfari
Alchemy: Level 7: Reading skill book The Art of Brewing
Alchemy: Levels 8-9: Need to be provided from your level-up skill points
Alchemy: Level 15: Two Brewmaster's Rings on top of Level 9 Alchemy skill

[Arhu]

Greetings!

I ran some tests regarding perception and intelligence as stats, as well as meditation and their effect on mana pool and regeneration. Here are my findings:

Mana Points

At character creation:
1 point of intelligence = 1 mana point
1 point of perception = 2 mana points

During level up:
- You always get 1 mana point
- You get 1 mana point for every 10 point of intelligence you currently have
- You get 2 mana points for every 10 points of perception you currently have
So when you level up, you get 1 + int/10 + 2*perception/10 mana points

Mana Regeneration

Mana Regeneration is governed by Meditation and Perception.

- For every point in Perception or Meditation, the number of rounds ("steps") needed to regenerate 1 point of mana is reduced by 1.
- Mana regeneration is capped at 38 Perception OR 38 Meditation (or when the sum of both = 38), which equals 3 rounds for normal mages and 1 round for druidic mages
- I didn't test regeneration in dungeons, but I think normal mages are capped at 3 rounds and druidic mages at 4 rounds


So what does all of this tell us?

- Druidic mages do have an overall advantage over other mages (nothing new here I suppose). 1 round outside and 4 rounds inside vs. 3 rounds outside/inside.
- If you have 38 Perception or more, you don't need Meditation *at all*. That I found surprising. I suppose it opens up different paths for doing the same thing though (stats vs. skills).
- Even after the regeneration cap, Perception is still twice as good as Intelligence for your mana pool

What this doesn't take into account, of course, is that Intelligence has other inherent effects such as Lore, which seems to be the only way for a pure mage to identify unknown items (or you can pay a hefty price at merchants), and Elemental Resistance.

[Smoke131]

Woem, it taks less time to use my magic against a barrel, even if that means camping to get the mana. If what Arhu said is true about there being a mana regernation cap then I may have to restart my character yet again!

[IJBall]

So what does all of this tell us?...

That is some very cool info there - thanks for testing all that!

What this doesn't take into account, of course, is that Intelligence has other inherent effects such as Lore, which seems to be the only way for a pure mage to identify unknown items (or you can pay a hefty price at merchants)...

But at what level? I think I've taken it up to INT=20 and have still been unable to ID even basic "Unknown" items, at least not without a minimum of one level in Lore.

I thought just high enough INT would allow you to ID unknown items, but I've never seen any evidence of that (at least not without some Lore skill too).

[woem]

One point in the lore skill definitely adds more "lore ability" than one point in intelligence. Even with an intelligence of 33 I wasn't able to identify all items. Although when I equiped the lore ring that gives +6 lore I was able to identify any magic item I came across.