[armakh]

One thing that no one has mentioned yet is that when you go to Arnika, you'll find a great sam sword, bloodlust. It is great for melee, but it's cursed, so you won't be able to use a ranged weapon. This gives you ample opportunity to cast your combat spells in place of a ranged weapon. And you'll likely use bloodlust unil you can beat the temple in the SE wilderness-a very substantial portion of the game. Your sam should easily become your best hybrid spellcaster. If you go the route to train magic, you may be a little frustrated with him for a while, but with patience, properly developed sams are very potent.