Xan has failed twice learning Identify. Is this consistent with AD&D, in that you can never learn a spell you have failed to learn?

He has not reached his limit for known spells.

[ 07-17-2002, 04:50 PM: Message edited by: SnarktheStrange ]

There is no rule preventing you from learning spells that you have previously failed; however, as far as I can recall, Xan's inteligence score isn't all that hot for a mage character. The only mage I know about with an 18 int is edwin and he is evil. Then there is Dynaheir who has 17 int and with a tome she can be the best good aligned mage in the game (except that she is an invoker which prevents her from learning summon/conjuration and charm/enchantment spells). But she seriously kicks butt with spells like chromatic orb, magic missles, and aganazaar's scorcher. Anyways back to the matter at hand. Xan's lack of learning potential may be derived from his lack of inteligence, making him only worth-while as an intermediary mage (for use only untill you find someone better). So here's the run of it: You either have really crappy luck as a person(not in the game), or it's the inteligence factor.

Which is not to say that Xan CAN'T learn good spells--his INT simply means that his odds of scribing the scroll aren't that good. Higher INT = better chances. What do you plan to do about that?

Or, you could also cast Luck on him.

Thanks. I'll give him another whack at learning it...I was afraid it was a waste of expensive scrolls.

you could always save your game before scribing the scrolls and reload if you fail and try again. If you consider this cheating then another suggestion would be potions that raise intelligence (If i remember there is a potion that raises your int to 25 (enough to scribe any spell with 100% chance) for 24hours at the carnival it costs only 25gp (although my memory is a bit rusty) you can always drink it when you have a lot of scrolls to scribe and then rest for 24 hours to get back STR.

Yeah, there is a potion to raise int...it also lowers another stat to 3 (I think it's dexterity or something). Although I like Xan and usually keep him, it does seem to me that his ability to learn spells kind of stinks and that really annoys me.