quote:
Originally posted by KraGorn:
No and no [img]smile.gif[/img]
You're confusing spellbooks and special skills. The "cast while silenced" and "turn undead" are special skills of the specialist spellcasters, mental immunity is one of the psionicists and I forget what the mage's are. Special skills only apply to your CURRENT character class, so even changing a Priest to a Mage (not that you'd ever likely want to!) will lose "turn undead".
As it so happens the Priest's skill is "turn undead" while the Bishop's is "dispel undead", not sure how they differ but they are different.
Regarding the Bishop vs. Specialist argument, the Bishop takes longer to level-up since he needs more XP to go from level 'n' to level 'n+1' than the specialist classes. Also, since you'll be studying at least 2 and up to all 4 schools level-up points spread thinner. The result is that you need to "micromanage" (as I saw someone write once) a Bishop to make sure you're continually casting spells from different schools and realms in order to boost points from practice.
If you're willing to take it slowly and are happy to have a lot of "hands on" control then the Bishop undoubtedly ends up more powerful than a specialist ... however he gets there slower and it takes patience. A common thing is to see parties with a Bishop and one other specialist, giving early access to one school's power spells, ie. level 6 and 7 spells, while eventually getting the same spell levels from 2 others schools (this is where the Bishop takes only 2 spellbooks). Some players as you will probably know only use a single Bishop with a more physical party perhaps with a spell-casting Valk or Sam as extra spellpower: a single-Bishop party is definitely slower to progress if for no other reason than they'll be lighter on healing spells than one with a specialist. Such a party is totally viable, many players have used one, but again patience is the watchword.
[ 01-16-2002: Message edited by: KraGorn ]