A guide for Mage-tank, or How to become incible by level 25.

Character race: elves of course, put your start point in : Harm, minor healing, shield of protection, and the last 2 point to constitution, it is useful to have 3 at healing rate


First of all, never, NEVER take any follower, they will only slow down you progression, and they are of absolutely no use to this type of characters.

I strongly recommend that you use you first 2 level up, to learn disarm and unlocking. Unlocking is one of the most useful spell, and learning them will improve your balance in magic and so the damage made by harm. The trick is to have 20 in willpower and 100 in magic as fast as you can.

The necessary spell are ; Harm, Minor Healing, and the entire Conveyance school. All other spell are useless, so learn any you want just to raise your magic to 100.

The make a lot of xp quickly, once you have leave the first city go to black root as fast as you can, there accepte the mission of finding Liam(?) in his remote workshop in the wood.
You will find his body by following a road starting at his workshop, if you continue on the road you will find a void portal spawning monster at an incredible rate, monster level 15 or 30.

The trick is to attract those monster ONE at a time (a least in the beginning), lure them away, and then kill them with harm before they reach contact with you. Not only does Harm do a LOT of damage for very little fatigue, but it is also very, very fast, your character will cast it almost as fast as you can click with your mouse. Every time you kill one, heal yourself if necessary and then use the “sleep one hour option� , it will recharge your fatigue in 2 sec without using any potion. Remember that your outdoor…. Believe me I have done it, and you xp really, really fast. In the beginning, you should level up for every 3 or 4 monster you kill. Remember to save after very monster killed, you will die at the first mistake…

By the time the portal run out of monster you should be something like level 25. At this time you must have 20 in willpower and a balance of 100 in magic.

With 100 in magic the shield of protection grant you +50 to damage resistance, as well as a lot of AC, and elemental resistance. Your Harm spell will kill any monster level 7 or bellow in one shot for 5 fatigue… and any level 15 or 20 NPC, in about 2 shot….

To be really invincible, you must collect some equipment, first a mystical leather armor, +24 AC, +30 damage resist, and some ER and FR to. You can find it easily in either the ancient maze, or the dead great dragon’s lair.

Enchanted War boot available at any magic shop, some magical gantlet, I suggest the one who does 3 Ca, and +2 to dex, a magical helmet as well.

For the jewelry, one Amulet at +40 to magic resistance (I forgot its name), and 2 arcane rings.
For each ring you will gain +20 to all elemental resistance, and +20 magic resistance as well.

With that equipment, which is not so difficult to obtain, you very simply, have 95% in all resistance, which make you virtually invulnerable.

I know with that king of resistance shield of protection will cost more than 1 fatigue every ten second, that is why you must equip yourself with a mage dagger. It should regenerate its mana fast enough to prevent the spell from pumping in your fatigue. I suggest you keep your shield up all the time, in case of surprises attacks.

From there, I suggest you put your point in constitution until you have a heal rate of 6, then in dex until 18 to become master of dodge. Why would you need to be master of doge with 95% in damage resistance?. Well simply because the programmers forgot to include a fatigue damage resistance, so even with 95% in all resistance you can still be stun,that being your only weakness but not specific to this character, I suggest you always carry around 25 greater mana potions, for big combat and places where you can’t rest. You can also put some point in charisma just for the fun. I also suggest that you leave int at 8, you will never need to maintain more than 2 spells.

I deduce this guide from one of my character who had almost the same start as the one described here. When I entered the dark elfe city, I was already level 42; I didn’t even bother to go find the requested amulet, I killed the guards, (beware that there are several hidden elves Bowman who will atack you, if you attack the two visible guard). And it took about 5 minutes and 4 potions to wipeout every single one person in the town by my own and retrieve the note.
The level 45 assassin thief last about 10 sec in front of me, barely costing me 10 hit point.

Anyway, whatever the type of hero you play, remember that follower are good for nothing except stealing your xp, costing money in equipment (I took Raven with me because I didn’t want my cute lesbian sorceress to be all alone, but, God it cost me so much in arrows but it was worth it in the end…), and using much computer resources, if you don’t have the creme de la creme in CPU and Ram, the game will become unplayable with 2 or 3 follower.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Eliane on 2001-09-10 05:46 ]</font>

 

Thanks for the tip, Eliane! :smile:

 

I'd have to agree...

But I would also add that Dog the dog is a worthwhile addition to my cause. As the only NPC who doesn't make a habit of committing ritual suicide* (on hard difficulty)or lugging around every single thing they find lying around, Dogmeat/K-9/Worthless Mutt is my favorite weapon. He also seems to give you all of the experience he claims.

I play with practically the same setup you described, except I find my character (a spoiled rotten only child, prone to fits of boredom) to grow disgusted with the constant attacks from things that he considers "beneath him."

You know what I mean. Ailing wolves, kites, and such. Dog can clear the whole field just as quickly as I can, when I let him. Also thanks to his speed, he nearly always becomes the primary target when facing something that is potentially dangerous.

Of course, as you've already pointed out, dangerous for a high level mage means something that can actually manage to inflict ANY damage at all; meaning something with enough Hit Points to survive the first round. A rarity in itself.

If I cast my first Harm spell and notice that Harm won't be enough to do the job in one round I just whip out Tempus Fugit and watch Dog clean house at a ridiculous rate.

In honesty, by the time I raised my melee and dodge skills up to par, I had to ask why I even bothered. My character would have better benefitted from charisma and persuasion for exploring dialogue trees. With the exception of Dog, (and I will concede that he is also unnecessary, but he fits well with my play style.) I completely agree that the only real contributions of humanoid followers are as mobile storage spaces and snide comment dispensers. (For a 100% magick aptitude character. Techies might enjoy NPC storage space, and understandably so. Also the dialogue is enjoyable, but my character is...well, he's a jerk. Not evil, mind you, but a jerk.)

At first I tried to play with the NPCs. I did, really. Most of the ones I acquired were dead well before 15th level, so there was no resurrecting them. No great loss.

Virgil fed himself to a bear, and Sogg (this one's my favorite) actually managed to cut himself in half with his own sword. Both deaths occured instantly, so White Necromancy was of little use.

Their deaths were more along the lines of comic relief than anything. They were too absurd in execution to be upsetting. In fact the only tragedy at all was in my wasting 5 Character Points to get enough Charisma to convince Sogg Meadmug, vanquisher of Sogg, to join me.

I am almost finished with the game now, and I'm looking forward to playing a more "socially acceptable" character the second time around. Probably a Diplomat / Thief with a bent towards technology. Him I can see having friends. My mage just doesn't seem like much of a people person.

 

For comic relief I once placed some dynamite on a npc and he ran straight towrds me and blow himself up. Also managed to chop off my own arm with a pyro axe.
Oh and using a really high tech explosive weapon with 100% magic app is not advisable :smile:

 

OK, I am actually looking for both the mystical leather and the arcane rings for my sorcie char that I am designing. Is the mystical leather always to be found in the dragon lair or is it randomly generated? And where can I get my grubby little hands on some arcane rings? Are they randomly generated in stores or do I go somewhere else?

 

i was tank at lvl 25 WITH followers using NO weapons ( only magic ) and i was human too

 

Using Eliane's template and a background giving a constitution and strength boost, I was at level 31 after about 6 hours of game play. I spent a lot of time at Liam's cabin, going from level 6 to level 20 - those lizard's are no fun at below level 15. I died many many times. I used Dog for the wheel clan and let him stay dead when he ran afoul of the big crystal spider. Generally the fights are cakewalks. With 100% magic the unlocking cantrip works on 1000/1000 chests, like the 2 in the Tarant magic shops guarded by the hellbane hound. I wasted one mage while she was asleep and got the other before he could summon that whatever that thing is. Good plan Eliane. Even better than my half-ogre at str 24 with master level dodge and melee. (He ran away with the circus). I am in Stillwater on my way to Quintarra and the ever delightful Raven. since I'm ugly with low charisma she'll probably be mean to me. It's so peaceful without having to hear Virgil whine about needing help, I'm seriously wounded etc. ... This game is really a lot of fun ...

 

gut buster fun

Ahh I needed a laugh...after five minutes, and numerous strange looks from co-workers in my office, I've finally dulled to a soft chuckle. Perhaps they spent too much time in the past playing Fallout using the jinxed trait. Just think what Sogg would have looked like in 3D cutting himself in half.

*edit

Perhaps he became the swarm monkey trainer?
_________________
I am awed by your abilities! Let the BLOOD FLOW!
Rojo
DIENET

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Rojo on 2001-09-27 20:39 ]</font>

 

You probably mentioned this in you rather lengthy post but anyway:
The best background for a mage is only child - you only need to spend 3 points in willpower to get all the spells available (provided your an elf, that is). And who needs charisma anyway? *shrugs*

 

Another suggestion

If you want to save points for other stuff get the first level fire spell that adds to your dex. Keep 2 of them up and your 10 dex is 18, 3 and you can have an 8 dex go to 20.

To my mind that fire spell is THE most overpowered spell in the game. The fact I was able to get melee mastery with 10 dex and one spell first level spell is absurd. With an intelligence potion you can probably become a melee master with 2 dex.

 

Another handy spell

The 4th level Black Necromancy spell, Create Undead, is a very useful spell. I killed the mayor of Blackroot and his guards. Two of the guards are level 35 ogres, with leather armor and broadsword. I made one of these into an undead, and he follows me around now. He's quite the killing machine (24 strength, melee master). The only downside is that I can't access his inventory, and he won't continue to level up. I've heard the creating an undead Brute Fang is another very powerful companion.

 

stun 'em!

My first elf sorceress found dark helm in shrouded hills and with this buggy helm i had +100 magic attitude mage on 7th level (and i was very evil -100 >). Harm was doing enormous amount of dmg, so i got bored very quickly.
Started mage without any damaging spells, and ended up with being throwing master (also fast char), lots of useless spells, used mainly shield of protection and stun. And at ~30 level i had 95% dr, so i was invincible (for monsters). And 4 follovers that followed me were just for fun, i dragged attention of monsters, they jump on me, i stun them, allow my looser crew to deal with a bit and after their turn i start shooting azram's stars all over the place.

 

The strongest character I made was an fighter elf w/ mastery melee/dodge, full tempral and white necro, and 20/21 str/dex . Basicly he was unstopable because in turnbased by the time his uber long turn was over everything was kissing the floor. I think his max reached speed was like 75 or so.

 

really helped alot, thx

 

hey, I'm Jinxed!
_________________
I am awed by your abilities! Let the BLOOD FLOW!
Rojo
DIENET

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Rojo on 2001-09-27 20:39 ]</font>
[/quote]

 

What's that suppose to mean? I mean jinxed trait?

 

the jinxed trait was from fallout and one of my favorites. I'd say every mage character needs to complete his/her own Arcane Set ASAP. Strigy Pete has the helm,sword,shield. The bow is in the Ancient Temple. The gloves are in the Caladon sewers. Sadly, I can't remember where I got the 2 Arcane Rings from, and I know I've found 4 Arcane leather armours before...somewhere...oh yeah, the Arcane Great Sword (wins my vote for best magickal weapon) is in The Bog.

 

The jinxed trait was from fallout as already mentioned. It had the effect of making you and everyone else around you critically fail a lot more than normal (although there was at least one way to avoid failing yourself).

 

I love the picture thay put describing it.