Bishops and Divinity

[Pyrates]

I think using spells on power level 7 improves your power cast skill much more than lower power levels. Power cast is really important, so you might consider that when training your bishop...

Cheers
Philipp

[sponkly]

Thanks to all who replied .. I have a better understanding now, and here are a few specific replies.

Originally posted by Horpner Sneed: The folks that say it's "impossible" to train Divinity after Alchemy, Psionics and Wizardry are higher were probably thinking of a slightly larger piece of cheese than casting spells during battle. They want cheese like repeated Knock Knock on big locks, for example.

Ahhh .. I understand now ... I tried to do some of that cheesy training at first, but I found it reduced my enjoyment of the game .. too much like work! Even the "Make wounds" trick I posted above gets old fast .. make an already boring battle even more boring. I want to get on with the plot! About the only "cheese-training" I do now is cast all my non-combat spells at max-power before sleeping. Each to their own I guess ...

Originally posted by Ragash: I dunno about "per combat round", but you can get more than one skill point per battle. So you can basically use up all your spell points and reap the rewards afterwards.

Ok .. I meant per battle ... but are you sure .. I cast "Make Wounds" 11 times in one battle and I only got 1 Divinity point ... maybe the others went in Divine Magic? I will keep a closer eye on this in the future

[Holywhippet]

Originally posted by sponkly: Ok .. I meant per battle ... but are you sure .. I cast "Make Wounds" 11 times in one battle and I only got 1 Divinity point ... maybe the others went in Divine Magic? I will keep a closer eye on this in the future

Your magical realm - divine, psionic, alchemy & mage will always advance slower than the six elements. Also the spell level does seem to run into the law of diminished returns - you won't get much out of level 1 spells when you've already got a lot of skill in that realm. I'm not 100% certain on that but it seemed that way to me.

[Ziggurat]

BTW - The messages you get at the end of a battle only pertain to the last skills raised. For example, shield or stealth can go up multiple times in a long battle but you only see acknowledgement for the last point gained. Not sure is everyone knows this, I certainly didn't and felt cheated. You can follow the skill point increases during battle by monitoring your character stats.

The other point I want to add is that the only advantage I can see for a Priest is faster leveling. In my current party he is L11 and has some good spells (Heal All, Set Portal, etc.) but Bishops can get them a level later. Are there any Priest only spells that make it worth taking them to the end? I don't generally get lev 7 Div spells before game over when using a Bish.

[Pyrates]

The messages you get at the end of a battle only pertain to the last skills raised.

Well, if you read carefully, it just says "Skill whatever raised to whatever" (or something like that, I can't check right now). That is, it doesn't just say "You got one point in skill whatever" but just gives the current level of the skill raised. So it's actually accurate... or, so I feel, I remember thinking the same thing before I started a solo and had a level-0-to-100 stealth training and really needed to check if your stats can go up more than 1 point per fight...

Cheers
Philipp

[Ziggurat]

Pyrates is correct. The messages give final numbers for raised stats.

Does anyone use Dispel Undead or Pray for a Miracle? I keep forgetting these uniquely Priest spells when battling. They may be too weak or we'd hear more about them is my guess.

[Pyrates]

Yep, I do use that bishop ability (that's what you mean, right?) to "command undead back to their graves " [img]smile.gif[/img] It's pretty useful, often the undead would become paralysed, that's really good... You just don't battle so many undead, and not really meany tough ones.

What's Pray for a Miracle? Sounds fun, am I missing something?

Cheers
Philipp

[ferro287]

That's a priest only ability. Once in a battle a priest can pray for a miracle, if the gods respond it's always beneficial, but unpredictable as well (hurt enemy, heal pc, guardian angel, rest all, bless, shield, or even turn undead (if you fight undead), so a priest can turn undead twice in a battle (if he's really lucky that is).
The turn undead ability is way underpowered though imho. paralysis is the only reason why to use it, and that happens too infrequently. Usually there's something better to do in a round, except at very low levels.

[Pyrates]

Wow, that sounds fun !!! Is it good? Man, I've never played a priest, but maybe now I need to try...

Well, turn undead isn't that strong, right. But I have 2 bishops in my party, and that does a lot to even strong enemies. I wouldn't want to miss it...

Cheers
Philipp

[ferro287]

Well, it's another case of luck, adding to critical, etc. Very early in the game I got a lvl 3 armorplate&enchanted Blade&detect secrets (?). That was far before anyone could cast those spells, so i made a quick run to gregor Fighting Nessie, my mage got guardian angeled right before nessie started chewing on him (damn those extended attacks in the back rows), saved his life. A couple of times, being low on coins, pennies from heaven were useful too [img]smile.gif[/img] It is part of the priest, and it definitely pushes it's usefulness in the beginning, but later on it's useless.

With 2 bishops i'd rather cast banish twice