In discussions about Bishop-building, I recall people saying things like, "once you get Psionics (or Wizardry or Alchemy) above Divinity, then you can't train-up Div. anymore". Well, since my level 10 Bishop is currently in a state where Wiz. and Alch. are in the high 80's, Psi is in the 60's and Div is a paltry 34, I was hoping there was a way around this .. and it turns out there *is* a nice trick for boosting Div, namely casting "Make Wounds" repeatedly.
To elaborate, every time you are "in control" of a battle (i.e. against wimpy mons., or when you have paralyzed, webbed, "insaned", or otherwise incapacitated your foes) have all your bashers and snipers do defense and/or heal, and cast "Make Wounds" at lev. 7 (or highest green/yellow lev), with your Bishop. I have found that if I do it 3 or more times in a battle, I almost always get a Div. boost after the battle ... that is why my Div is at 34 .. it was at only 20 when I started gaming last night.

A couple of other things ... 1) I am pretty sure (although I have not tried it) that any other spell that is "Priest-only" (i.e. only in the Priest spellbook) will do the same trick .. I stopped looking for such spells after I found "Make Wounds" since it is cheap and at least moderately useful. 2) Does anyone know if you can raise a skill by more than 1 point per combat round? I have always assumed not, and so after 4 shots of "Make wounds" I turn my bashers and snipers back on and let them do the mopping up.

I thought about putting this in the tips thread, but I thought it was a bit too focused on Bishop dev., which I have seen talked about quite a lot in this forum recently. Should I move it into tips?

[ 01-22-2004, 11:04 AM: Message edited by: sponkly ]

The folks that say it's "impossible" to train Divinity after Alchemy, Psionics and Wizardry are higher were probably thinking of a slightly larger piece of cheese than casting spells during battle. ;) They want cheese like repeated Knock Knock on big locks, for example.

I dunno about "per combat round", but you can get more than one skill point per battle. So you can basically use up all your spell points and reap the rewards afterwards.

And also power level doesn't matter for gaining skill points, only the number of times you use the given skill, so using in your case make wounds more times at a lower power level would raise the skill faster.

I agree, it is a good tip. Make Wounds is such a weak spell that I hadn't thought of using it for training.

Horpner

That's a total lie, from whoever you heard. For spells that share different spellbooks (i.e. heal wounds, and such), the domain that will increase depends on which one is higher. So, for example, you are a bishop who just learned Summon Elemental. You have pretty high skills in Wizardry AND alchemy. However, alchemy is higher, so the points will go to alchemy, not wizardry. I guess that is what the person meant.

Also, I have a divine bishop, it used to be only Wizardry and Divinity schools in good ol Crusaders for bishops, and I still stick to that.

Make wounds is only a level 1 spell. Higher level spells will boost your skill faster, presuming of course that you can actually cast them. Take a look in your manual for all the distinct priest spells and keep casting the strongest spell you can.

I train in battle a lot early, so by the time my Bishop is L8 or so, in addition to Knocking, Charming, and Mindreading, i'll have pumped all my realms into the 60's. The best thing is to cast the highest level spell at the lowest power level. Specific to Divinity, for:
Fire--Lightning (unf gotta have Div up already)
Air--Whirlwind Good, but still need 45 Div.
Water's great: Holy Water early, Rest All, and Super, one of my fave Water spells
Earth: just keep throwing Armorplate at PL1, so you can do it more often. (if you Knock much, don't worry about Earth)
Mental is bereft, but you prolly got that if you Charm much. (or ID) (Or Mindread/Insane/etc)
Divine: well, Hello, your very own Realm!!! Make Wounds is one of my faves, and Guardian Angel, then Magic Screen. You gotta throw MS at full power to get good protection, though.
Banish shares with Wizardry, so it's good to have that up so you can GET Banish, 'cause it really grinds up the Undead, esp you got Powercast.
One interesting thing, once you get any wearable Mana regen item, you can work your way around the realms, casting all L1 spells at PL1; your mana will be endless.

I usually also do this (til i got around 90 in all realms) in conjunction with Reflextion training, in the Swamp, where i can exchange Mana Stones and get big mobs of shooters. (usu around L13, no regen items yet)

@dplax Actually power level _does_ make a difference in advancing but you get the best mana/advance ratio at lvl 1. Some checks indicate that casting 3 times a spell at pl 1 does you about the same good as once at pl 7. So, if mana doesn't matter, but real life time does, it can make sense to use pl 7 spells (you really don't want to fight 3 times as many rounds for the same result?)

Sorry if my meaning was ambiguos. I actually meant what ferro had written, I just meant that if you cast more times at a lesser power level you will get a greater increase in skill for the same amount of spell points.

I think using spells on power level 7 improves your power cast skill much more than lower power levels. Power cast is really important, so you might consider that when training your bishop...

Cheers
Philipp

Thanks to all who replied .. I have a better understanding now, and here are a few specific replies.

Ahhh .. I understand now ... I tried to do some of that cheesy training at first, but I found it reduced my enjoyment of the game .. too much like work! Even the "Make wounds" trick I posted above gets old fast .. make an already boring battle even more boring. I want to get on with the plot! About the only "cheese-training" I do now is cast all my non-combat spells at max-power before sleeping. Each to their own I guess ...

Ok .. I meant per battle ... but are you sure .. I cast "Make Wounds" 11 times in one battle and I only got 1 Divinity point ... maybe the others went in Divine Magic? I will keep a closer eye on this in the future

Your magical realm - divine, psionic, alchemy & mage will always advance slower than the six elements. Also the spell level does seem to run into the law of diminished returns - you won't get much out of level 1 spells when you've already got a lot of skill in that realm. I'm not 100% certain on that but it seemed that way to me.

BTW - The messages you get at the end of a battle only pertain to the last skills raised. For example, shield or stealth can go up multiple times in a long battle but you only see acknowledgement for the last point gained. Not sure is everyone knows this, I certainly didn't and felt cheated. You can follow the skill point increases during battle by monitoring your character stats.

The other point I want to add is that the only advantage I can see for a Priest is faster leveling. In my current party he is L11 and has some good spells (Heal All, Set Portal, etc.) but Bishops can get them a level later. Are there any Priest only spells that make it worth taking them to the end? I don't generally get lev 7 Div spells before game over when using a Bish.

Well, if you read carefully, it just says "Skill whatever raised to whatever" (or something like that, I can't check right now). That is, it doesn't just say "You got one point in skill whatever" but just gives the current level of the skill raised. So it's actually accurate... or, so I feel, I remember thinking the same thing before I started a solo and had a level-0-to-100 stealth training and really needed to check if your stats can go up more than 1 point per fight...

Cheers
Philipp

Pyrates is correct. The messages give final numbers for raised stats.

Does anyone use Dispel Undead or Pray for a Miracle? I keep forgetting these uniquely Priest spells when battling. They may be too weak or we'd hear more about them is my guess.

Yep, I do use that bishop ability (that's what you mean, right?) to "command undead back to their graves " [img]smile.gif[/img] It's pretty useful, often the undead would become paralysed, that's really good... You just don't battle so many undead, and not really meany tough ones.

What's Pray for a Miracle? Sounds fun, am I missing something?

Cheers
Philipp

That's a priest only ability. Once in a battle a priest can pray for a miracle, if the gods respond it's always beneficial, but unpredictable as well (hurt enemy, heal pc, guardian angel, rest all, bless, shield, or even turn undead (if you fight undead), so a priest can turn undead twice in a battle (if he's really lucky that is).
The turn undead ability is way underpowered though imho. paralysis is the only reason why to use it, and that happens too infrequently. Usually there's something better to do in a round, except at very low levels.

Wow, that sounds fun !!! Is it good? Man, I've never played a priest, but maybe now I need to try...

Well, turn undead isn't that strong, right. But I have 2 bishops in my party, and that does a lot to even strong enemies. I wouldn't want to miss it...

Cheers
Philipp

Well, it's another case of luck, adding to critical, etc. Very early in the game I got a lvl 3 armorplate&enchanted Blade&detect secrets (?). That was far before anyone could cast those spells, so i made a quick run to gregor ;) Fighting Nessie, my mage got guardian angeled right before nessie started chewing on him (damn those extended attacks in the back rows), saved his life. A couple of times, being low on coins, pennies from heaven were useful too [img]smile.gif[/img] It is part of the priest, and it definitely pushes it's usefulness in the beginning, but later on it's useless.

With 2 bishops i'd rather cast banish twice ;)

Ferro - Only tried two bishops once, very powerful party (never tried 2 fighters for same reason!). Are they different races?

I haven't tried Miracle yet, but Dispel Undead had no effect on a Morax. I'll try ghosts instead.

Edit: added last lines

[ 01-25-2004, 08:59 AM: Message edited by: Ziggurat ]

I haven't played two bishops either, it was my comment to pyrates. The best use i ever got from turn undead was on the head at the monastery coffins. Morax are undead, so it should work, but if you're not of much higher level it won't help much (and some resistances work too i'd guess).

Two Bishops was one of my first few Duos. One Hobbit and one Human, the Human one changed to Lord and the Hobbit to Ninja at L22, Ascended at L25.
Banish absolutely rules, if you got any skills at all, and add Powercast...When you use the special attack, you get no skill increases anywhere, and it's a lot like Dracon Breath, in that it gets useless fairly quickly. Whereas Banish just grinds them up once you get up around PL5 and beyond.

Hi all,
I was trying to figure out what spells I had to choose for my bishop at level up before getting to Arnika, as well as a good way to train skills. Here are some ideas I came up with:

1) Create the Bishop character with at least 1 more point in Divinity and Wizardry than in Alchemy or Psionics.
2) Choose Heal wounds when creating Bishop. This will help Divinity.
3) Find Bless. This will help Divinity.
4) Find Light. This will help either Divinity or Wizardry
5) Find Stamina. This will help Divinity.
6) Find Divine Trap. This will help Divinity.
7) Choose Cure Lesser Condition at level up. This will help Divinity.
8) Choose Missile Shield at level up. This will help Wizardry.
9) Choose Mind Stab at level up. Make sure Psionics stays below Divinity.
10) There is no real need to work on Alchemy before getting to Arnika. Just add points to it when levelling up, and keep it below Divinity and Wizardry.

-> Once you get to Arnika, you will have a chance to go crazy with improving your wizardry skills (knock knock on vault) before you make your fortune in alchemy. After you rocket Alchemy past all the other books, Knock Knock will no longer help wizardry, and Stamina will no longer help Divinity. Divinity also gets a boost from identifying all those potions you mix. After Arnika, I don't care which book gets better that the other, because after that, they're all pretty good.

-> There are too many spells available in Arnika to mention. Buy all spells available and frequently use the spells that are in the weakest realms.

-> Also, once you get to Arnika be sure to pick up Charm and Mindread. Use them whenever you visit a merchant.

-> Detect Secrets doesn't get better with Power Levels, so cast it more frequently at lower levels for faster skill improvement. Same with Bless.

I know lots of people don't like to train. But if you do it in this order, you will be able to have all 4 books into the mid-70's or even higher before you leave Arnika. Even better, you will only have used 4 spells from levelling up, leaving the rest for when you need all those level 6 and 7 spells.

I've only won the game once, what do you veterans think of this plan?

Don't pick any low-level spells, so you can learn all the ones that have no books sooner.

Yes its pretty easy to practice very sepcific class/realm spells.

The standard recommendation is to practice psionics and alchemy first.
Then for say divity boosting cast spells Specific only to the priest.
There is lightning, which also boosts fire, restall for water and one of them death type ones or cause wounds.

Just an FYI. I went to Rapax Rift with my party at Level 18 and noticed that one of my Mages had not trained Knock Knock at all. So I found the seven tumbler lock there and started casting Knock Knock Level 1 for probably an hour real time. My powercast and Earth Skill went sky high. I probably raised powercast at least 15 points and my Earth was going up between 3 and 5 points each time through. So it might be good to wait to train so that you can build powercast. By the way Bishops are tough as nails. I dont know why I ever played a Mage?