Problems with Vine magic

[Aiax]

Well I just switched both of my priests to paladin and monk. But now I'm not able to learn 6th level Vine magic spell Cure (although when I gave my monk 6th level Spiritcraft, he can learn up to 3th level Vine spells he hasn't learnt yet!), which seems to be the only spell capable of healing this darned Disease. That means when any of the nasties disease me I have to reload. Any ideas how to resolve this messy situation without switching one of my characters to useless Ranger? (I will not be then able to switch him back, am I right?)

[Radek]

You are not right. But let us take things one by one.
1. The magic abilities. Each elite role, except a barbarian, has its own "natural magic ability" - a spell school(s) that belong to the role. It can learn spells up to and including the spell level equal

minimum(spell_school_skill, character_level)

For example, a natural magic for a paladin is Spirit Magic. A level 5 paladin with level 3 spiritcraft will be able to learn spirit spells up to level 3. If you improve his spiritcraft to 7, he will be able to learn spirit spells up to level 5. When he becomes a level 7 paladin, then (with Spiritcraft 7) he will be able to learn all spirit spells.
The spell schools that belong to a particular class are listed in your manual. Paladin - Spirit, ranger - Vine, assassin - Fiend and Moon, etc. One exception: all magic shools are natural for a warlock, not only Fiend and Moon.
Other magic schools are considered unnatural for a particular class. If the character already knows the magic school, he can continue learning that spells but only to a level:

minimum(spell_school_skill/2 rounded down, character_level)

That's why your paladin cannot learn higher level vine spells. He will be unable to learn level 7 vine spells forever. He would need vinecraft 12 to be able to learn level 6 vine spells.

As far as the Cure spell is considered, you CAN return to a previously taken role but only by means of Reset Adventures. Reset Adventures clears your role history. Make your paladin a ranger or a warlock and let him learn the spell. Reset adventures. Now, you will have a ranger or a warlock who has forgotten that he was a paladin or anything else before. Therefore, you can make him a paladin again. Well, this means that you have to begin the game from scratch but not everything is lost. Your characters will keep their money, HP, stats, mana, traits, skill levels and equipment.

[Wyvern]

Welcome to the board, Aiax!!!

Radek gave you a very thorough explanation of your circumstances. I wish this had been made more clear in the manual because so many players miss this aspect of changing roles.

Your best options at this point are to either reload a saved game from before making the class switch or considering resetting the adventures as Radek described. This is done in the Computer Options screen.

There are many advantages to resetting the adventures. You'll be covering territory with which you are already familiar so you can complete them more quickly and you'll have the opportunity to develop your characters more carefully especially for gaining those important spells. When you reset adventures, your characters keep their stats and most of their equipment (no quest items of course). There are players who have regularly played through the first section and reset so as to build very powerful characters which improve the game play later in the game.

Hope that helps! Keep us posted on what you decide to do!

Wyv

[Aiax]

Thank you guys, especially the "minimum(spell_school_skill/2 rounded down, character_level)" line from Radek has been very clarifying. How in bloody hell could I know that. You're right Wyw, when you're complaining about it being not very clearly explained in the manual. It's the same issue as with those "one-hit-point-gain-per-new-level-and-constant-reloading-to-gain-more". Manual doesn't say anything about the actual rule of comparison with average character hitpoints, so until I ran into this forum I was very frustrated with it. But I guess that's just the power of D.W.Bradley games - even though W&W has some serious bugs, its completely owerpowering...

I've got some more minor questions:
- somewhere I found a "Rat skull", can I get rid of it or shall I need it later?
- can I get rid of some of the kees from Serpent Temple?
- what's with that Freyedies guy and his treasury? I think Wyw has posted somewhere that although he loot his gold, nobody noticed it, but some faqs stronly discourage people from that...
- now I know that it is pointless to reload with new level to gain more hit points, but how about ability points? should I reload to gain 2 instead only 1 ability point, or is it worthless?
Thanx

[Bungleau]

Aiax,

As others have said, welcome to the boards. May your journey be more pleasant.

To respond to your questions...

1. I don't recall the rat skull being needed for anything in particular. Other skulls (and spider eggs) have a use later on in the game, but I don't remember using the rat skull for anything. Perhaps Rethpian has a thought on it...

2. Once you've completed the Serpent Temple, I don't think you need any of the keys that you used in there. I confess to being a pack rat -- I keep things much longer than actually needed. If you're a little paranoid about losing them, you can create a "mule" character and leave them with him at an inn.

3. As for Freyedies treasury, it's your choice. The section by Ratscallion is nothing; the real section is where you have to fight the guards. Once you fight them, everyone in the mines is after your skull... I didn't find the treasure in there to be stupendous. Some high level magical items, and some Dragon Plate, but that didn't thrill me a whole lot by then.

4. Check the Best Tips thread for thoughts on ability points. If you're playing the game to max effectiveness, you only put ability points to two or three abilities anyway; you can train almost all the others up at the guilds when you level up. And for another tip, save ankhs until the ability is either 20 (if you can train at a guild), or 18 (if you can't). Otherwise, I consider it wasted.

And I'm not sure about the inability to gain 7th level spells outside your primary spell school. I thought you could, but I could be again mistaken. Or I could be wrong about that... yeeuuccckkk! In any case, aside from certain key spells (cure disease, for example), I focus on the highest level spells available to me at any levelling up.

You might also look for scrolls at the mage guilds or temples. I never leave without an exorcism scroll per person, or a restore health potion.

[Aiax]

Thanks for your time to answer my questions. For anybody willing to answer just one more - I have strong suspicion I keep losing things in the Inn despite the patch installed (I am not sure though, I use Inn rarely, only when the game freezes while I'm in town and I'm restarting it, but I think I already lost two or three things there). Have you experienced such problem too?

[Packrat]

Hi Aiax;

I have lost items at the inn, . .. but I am running without the patch. Now, I check their inventory before I remove them from the party. (I haven't lost anything since I started doing that)

A few things I would like to add about the Serpent Temple etc..

The one other way to learn all the schools, is to become a Zenmaster.. .. It isn't available until almost the end of the game, and it's a great reason to 'reset adventures', after finishing Cet.

Once you reach Zenmaster level 18 and Bushi guild level 5, you can get Enlightenment. This raises the maximum for 'All' skills to 14 , and includes Blessing and Enchants.

If you do plan on doing this, I hope you got the 'Tome of Fire' from the Serpent Temple.

As for being a packrat,.. .. Another thing you can do is to drop questionable items, just outside the east gates of town. There is a chance that they will disappear but, If your going to toss them anyway, at least there's a chance that they'll still be there.

[ 05-25-2002, 07:50 AM: Message edited by: Packrat ]

[Wyvern]

WHile the patch did help/resolve some problems it certainly was not comprehensive enough to tackle all the various loose ends that were left in the programming (there is a nice post in BEST TIPS about what the patch does and what it takes away). I personally prefer to play without the patch. I never had any problems with the game running so for me it was a case of "if it isn't broke, don't fix it".

The Rat Skull - makes a nice paper weight but has no purpose in the game. Generally unimportant items are not something you can collect into your inventory so I suspect that there may have been plans to do something with the rat skull that got lost in the rush to market.

I always favored dropping things outside the west gate of Ishad N'ha but I'm not certain it matters, east or west. There are only a few items that you need from one area to another. For the most part, I think they are fairly obvious, but there should also be a list in the BEST TIPS on what exactly the items are. You can check that to be certain you are accidently risking an important item.

I always like to keep my inventory minimal. I clean out as much of it as I can every time I go to town. This gives me the maximum amount of space to collect new items in which ever area I explore next.

Have fun!!

Wyv