Playing with a mixed character

Is it advisable to play with a mixed character? i.e. a character that is neither technologically or magically inclined?
I have a pure mage in my game but I'm starting to fancy learning some technology skills and getting him down to 0 aptitude. Is this a good idea?

 

Why not?

Just remember:

1. Most spells lose their damage/effects (like healing spells) with lower magical aptitude. Only a few spells ignore that altogether, like the Temporal College, and spells like Agility of Fire.

2. If you have >0 Magical Apt, you will get additional % of crit failure when wielding/wearing tech-aligned items. Therefore, you can either use magical/neutral items, or increase tech skills/schematics enough to get >0 Tech Apt.

Ideally, something like a Techie fighter/gunslinger with Temporal School would work pretty well.

Just remember, dwarves have to pay 2x fatigue to cast spells!!

 

I can tell you personally the pain involved in trying to play a gunfighter with as little as 2 Magical Aptitude. The more speed you've got, the more chances you get to fail critically. Without a constant healer around, I would've shot myself in the foot unto death. And no time is ever a good time to lose all your ammo.

 

Temporal spells are unaffected by technological alignment.

The coolest magic technologist is by far the mage-gunslinger. He's the fastest gun in the west, guaranteed.

 

How does positive magickal aptitude affect spell performance? I understand that negative magickal aptitude can reduce the effectiveness (and the resistance chance?), but the manual and in-game spell descriptions aren't clear except for the unlocking cantrip.

Does a higher magickal aptitude give you more intense effect, or does it all even out past the baseline?

 

0 MA/TA = 50% effectiveness (or somesuch). The more MA you get, the more powerful your spells will be (not all spells, some have fixed strength).

 

just remember:
100% MA = Vorpal Bunnies

 

Hmm, not exactly.

I did some testing with Harm. It seems that for every 5% magical Apt (5% = 1 point spent on spells), Harm gets 2 points stronger. The minimum damage is 3 (well, of course there should be a minimum threshold), but after MA passes 7.5%, the damage raises up to the maximum of 40 with 100% MA.

 

Looks like the stat boost from the elemental skills are fixed, Shield increases 3 points per 5 mag apt. I can't really test Hardened Hands objectively since it doesn't appear in the damage ratings on character or inventory pages.

 

so besides temporal college, what other spell colleges don't depend on magical Apt? what about the conveyance college?

 

so besides temporal college, what other spell colleges don't depend on magical Apt? what about the conveyance college?

 

Teleportation doesn't care how techy you are. I -think- Unlocking Cantrip does, however. (As for the other three spells, nobody gives a damn. ^_^)

 

Hey, Disarm is pretty useful vs. human enemies.

 

Why is spacial distortion so useless? Teleportation makes up for the entire tree, but still you should be able to get some use out of a rank 4 spell. You can't port through windows, can't even TP across a river. If you could TP behind someone to get multiple backstabs, then it might have good tactical purpose, but if not, then there's just no excuse.

 

Try it in turn-based mode, with a sneaky thief?

 

Sometimes, somebody says something so obvious that you feel like an idiot for not thinking of it yourself.

 

I make captain obvious feel oblivious!

 

It's the really short distance. It'd make more sense if you could use spatial distortion within your scrolling area (making it sensibly reliant on PE).
A related question: is the action cost of casting spatial distortion less than the actual action cost it takes to manually walk/run the same distance?

 

The Summoning College up until Familiar are great for a mixed character; before that the summonings are constant regardless of aptitudes. Ogre and Demon in particular are so powerful they're almost imbalanced.

The Guardian Ogre is a 30th lvl Ogre Destroyer that you can get as early as level 10, when he'll pretty much single-shot everything for the next 10 levels. He's a Melee and Dodge expert who deals 26 bonus damage when he hits. With his low Dex he'll be hitting less often in the late game, but with 58% damage resistance he's still a hell of a meat shield.

Hellgate raises a Demon who's a Melee Master, unknown what the claw's base damage is but it deals 20 bonus damage for strength and strikes at Speed 15. Only 30 damage resistance but 200 hp and +5AC bonus for his Dex. Because of the fatigue cost, going into melee yourself while this thing is conjured is very risky, so it's better suited to ranged fighters or 'passive fighters'. According to the manual he can turn on you when you try to dispel him; I've only seen it happen to a good character who summoned from a scroll. My evil summoner has never had a problem dismissing him regardless of level, fatigue or health conditions, or technical aptitude.

Familiar is reportedly best at high magickal aptitude. At low to negative magickal aptitude you'll get a weak level 5 imp that appears to have unspent character points and no leveling scheme, so I assume it doesn't get any stronger.

For a mixed mag/tech character, Ogre and Insects stay useful throughout the game, Demon can help you face challenges that are otherwise way out of your league, Orc can be helpful if you're concentrating on Summoning from a low level, but you don't need to spend that point on Familiar.