Question

[Shmack]

Hello.

Okay, I just purchased Icewind Dale a few days ago, and have come across a dilema:

How does a mage learn new spells?

My mage is level 3, but I have no idea how I learn new spells... Anyone willing to help me out?

Thanks,
Cheers~
-Shmack

[Larry_OHF]

A mage can learn spells by:
1. Obtaining a scroll (that has a spell written on it), by either purchase, finding, a looting, or by reward.
2. Clicking on that scroll while in your inventory slot to read it's abilities,
3. At the bottom of the explanation of the scroll, you have an option to write the spell into your mage book.
4. If you fail to memorize the spell (it is a game of chance depending on how smart your char. is), you will lose the scroll...it vanishes. I suggest buying potions that raise your Intellegence, which will better insure your success. (Or reset until you get it)...
5. Once you memorize it, save the game immediately!

By the way, Welcome to our site! I am glad you have found us!


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Loyal guardian of the OHF
Devoted member of the Ironworks
Only member of the Elite Bodyguard to Rikard (the fool that takes the bullet)
Ertai's back-up
Memnoch's chief look-out
Member of the Ancients club
Witness of the 4,000th post by Cloudposter

[Axterix]

You can occassionally find spell scrolls. And you can buy spell scrolls from various vendors (like the mage in the tower in Kuldahar).

Give those scrolls that are mage spells to your mage. Right click them in his inventory screen. You'll have the option to scribe them. Scribing them copies them to your spellbook.

A few notes:
You can fail scribing. Spell scrolls aren't overly common in IWD. Save before scribing, of important spells at least. This is especially important as the failure to scribe percentage in IWD seems a bit buggy. You seem to fail more often then you should.

Int determines failure chance. Higher int, less failures. Before scribing a large number of spells, quaff one of the potions of the mind (the purple ones). +3 int.

Specialists get a bonus to scribing spells from their school. They get a lower chance of scribing any other spells. And they can't scribe spells at all from opposition schools.

You can scribe spells you cannot use yet. If your max spell level you can cast is level 4, you can scribe a level 5 spell. One exception to this, if you just have IWD (no Heart of Winter), you cannot scribe level 9 scrolls.

Hope that helps.

[Larry_OHF]

Another thing you may want to consider is buying the expansion pack Heart of Winter, soon. It adds alot mre colorful detail to your existing game, as well as puts more to do in it. There will be a downloadable expansion coming soon, as well. The game has a few minor bugs in it, and so the developers have made a patch that you can download to fix these quirks.
Grab it here...
http://www.tgeweb.com/ironworks/icewind/downloads.shtml


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Loyal guardian of the OHF
Devoted member of the Ironworks
Only member of the Elite Bodyguard to Rikard (the fool that takes the bullet)
Ertai's back-up
Memnoch's chief look-out
Member of the Ancients club
Witness of the 4,000th post by Cloudposter

[This message has been edited by Larry_OHF (edited 06-14-2001).]

[Leafy]

Sometimes when you look at a spell description, it won't have the "write magic" option. even if you're not a specialist mage and if you can already scribe spells of that level. must be a bug of some sort; i noticed this happening to my bard who had a 16 intelligence and couldn;t seem to write Fireball (she was over 17th level!).. turned out, once i drank a potion of genius and then looked at the scroll, the "write magic" appeared. so if you see anomolies such as this, drink potions

[Axterix]

That's due to your int limiting how many spells per level you can scribe. So when you up your int, that ups that limit, and hence you are given the option to scribe. The limits are included inside the manual.