In my party I wanted to get away from needing a character who has the Locks skill (right now only Myles has it and he'll be a goner pretty soon [img]smile.gif[/img]

So after having my Bishop and Mage learn Knock Knock, I did the following, which raises Earth magic better than I could have hoped for. Go into the Arnika jail, and go down the tunnel in one of the cells into the bank vault. Park in front of it and cast Knock Knock over and over at it at a low enough level so that it won't actually open (I used 3 circles worth of strength). Rest and repeat - you can gain 2 points to your Earth magic skill per round of spells, not to mention the gains to my Bishop's Alchemy and Mage's Wizardry and Power Cast skills.

Before I started my Mage's Earth skill was 0, when I came out it was about a 50! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Thanks, I'll try that with my next party. I have my Rawulf going up in Earth with Armorplate, but it is slow.

I have priest that leveled up past the 60th in earth just why some basic spell: Armoplast. She cast it all the time and without much effort she get a very high level in Erath. Well you don't need such a level before you get the real spells but I didn't wast 2 hours play time befoer a door.

we have assumed from the beginning that the reason we have access so early to the bank tumblers is for raising skills like "earth" and lock picks.

altho, you level much faster at something if you go risky on it, instead of playing it safe.

like ice3, i find it boring to do the same thing over and over. good thing they gave us so many different ways to raise all of our skills. :D

V***V

Well that is the thing, this does not really take much time. For each "session" of knock knocks (ie, cast them till you're out of spell points in that realm) you will gain 1-2 points and it takes a matter of seconds. And it was fairly exciting thinking of it and then seeing it be so successful for me [img]smile.gif[/img] And I cast Armorplate with my Bishop all the time as well - I also think just resting whenever you need to and always casting your "buff" spells once they've expired after the rest is a nice way to raise skills, not just earth with armorplate. But I will say, for 20 minutes or so in the vault of "boredom", when I got out my chars were just whupping most everything's butts thanks to the spellcasters getting such a huge and fast boost.

Definitely the game is tilted to raise your skills more with spells when they are "needed", ie, heals when someone is actually hurt, any spells cast in combat, or buff spells when they're not already active; but this bank vault method is an exception to that rule and is the fastest way I've seen to raise them.

Also, for mental magic, just repeatedly charm (and/or mindread) any of the store owners, works almost as well as the bank vault does for earth magic.

I posted in reply to a party creation question what I would do in the beginning of the game for magic using chars. Go with 2 bishops; have one learn Alchemy/Divinity, the other Wizardry/Psionics. Use the bank vault and charm methods once you reach Arnika and your party will have a huuuuuge advantage from there on out. Charm is in the psionic/divinity schools, so each bishop will also benefit respectively aside from mental magic; and knock knock is in the wizardry/alchemy schools. So you'd have 2 bishops covering all schools with early jumpstarts that are relatively fast. Plus you will have freed yourself from ever needing to devote a single point to the locks skill (which is truly boring to try to raise through repititon with constantly inspecting locks, takes forever). Or from even needing a char in your party with this skill.

Plus I don't get the armorplate comparison; to get your earth skill to a 60 with that you'd need alot more time than at the vault (won't go up as fast) and it would also be just as repetitive. I am not saying my method should replace casting spells as much as possible when they're needed, but should supplement it and help a party early on. Take 20 minutes or so of knocking and charming and you'll enjoy the next 20 hours of playing time because you'll be so much more powerful as a result...

I used an editor and started off my bishop with 50 points in all the magic proficiencies.

Took me less than 1 minute to raise the stats from zero to 50.

Why even bother playing then if you're going to cheat, may as well give all your chars the quest items as well and just go ascend...

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Gimli:
Why even bother playing then if you're going to cheat, may as well give all your chars the quest items as well and just go ascend...<hr></blockquote>

I think you may have missed the irony here.

I believe that the point is that "practice" and "editor" are similar roads. Of course, the notion of "ethics" in a 1 player RPG is nonsense, but virtually everyone does *SOMETHING* that breaks the "character" of the game in an effort to make play go smoother - saving before doing something risky being the most common.

Nevertheless, I may have to give this a try [img]smile.gif[/img]

M.

Gimli, I think that's the point jsteng is making. It's really the same exact thing whether you use an editor or sit around casting knock knock on a lock and resting. Both are "cheap", as far as I am concerned, the editor is just less of a waste of time.

Gimli:

With 2 bishops why have 1 with alchemy/divinity & 1 with psionics/wizardry?

If dont correctly you can have 2 bishops with ALL.

Knock-Knock - Wizardry
Heal/Cure Lesser Cond. - Alchemy
Charm - Divinity
Mindread - Psionic.

This also adds to your list a high skill in Water, Earth, mental & Divine [img]smile.gif[/img]