Spell Casters

[Cantilever]

I'm looking to make 3 spell casters for my party I'm a new player so I was wondering what some good combos are and what element and such should be divied amongst the 3, I was looking into 2 bishops and a alch mabey.

[TinyMage]

Bishops take a long time to develop. Basically to have an effective bishop you will need to do some power training. I would recommend 1 bishop and 2 specialists ( 2 of whatever school you like best ).

I see some people recommending specializing a bishop in just 2 schools of magic, but personally I don't see the point of playing a bishop unless you are going to use all 4 schools and go for all the spells. If you do this it is easier with just one bishop. Two is a little redundant ( and boring ).

[ 07-03-2005, 11:16 PM: Message edited by: TinyMage ]

[Scatter]

i disagree with two psionics. It's much more fun if you can wear a bit of armor, for one thing, and three chars with the same School makes for a lot of spellbooks needed to learn alla the spells. The Bishop will cover Psi nicely if you powertrain even only a little. I'd rather have a Priest and an Alchemist, primarily for Soul/Element shields and the Alchemist with the bonus will be mixing big-bux potions much sooner, so you can afford all the spellbooks.

[Random Passerby]

Personally I don't see the attraction in power-training. First, you spend time performing a montonous task, and all you accomplish is taking out a lot of the most interesting parts of character-building (not to mention a good chunk of the game's challenge). For a solo/duo party or iron man game, you need that extra edge, but for a regular playthrough it seems largely unnecessary. A non-power-training bishop should be able to comfortably pursue "three and a half" spellbooks, dumping all their skill points at level-up into 3 spellbooks and just working on the fourth in their spare time; I prefer to skimp on alchemy, as once you manage to work up to 15 alchemy you can use them for some of your potion-mixing to help boost it further, and alchemy is a slow-to-develop book anyway (except for a couple of ocassionally-useful utilities, it's mostly an inferior copy of the wizard spellbook until the very highest levels--levels which bishops take forever to reach due to their high experience requirements). If you need a bishop to cover alchemy, then skip psionics instead--do not skimp on wizardry or divinity for a bishop.

As for specialists: as mentioned, alchemists take a while to really come into their own, although late in the game they're arguably the most powerful specialist caster (but this is quite late and quite arguable, mind you). Mages are great for sheer firepower, and their development is pretty much the reverse of alchemists: they start out with very useful skill bonuses and have a wide range of good attack spells early on (in contrast to all the other casters, except of course bishop), but their highest spell levels are kind of lackluster. I wouldn't recommend a psionic or a priest; psionics are mostly oriented towards offense spells like mages and alchemists, but they run out of spell points very very quickly because their spells aren't spread out very evenly amongst the spell realms, and priests' spellbooks are full of utility spells that are very useful in one certain situation but pretty pointless otherwise. So if you take a psionic or priest, expect them to sit around twiddling their thumbs a lot with nothing to cast.

So, my suggestions:

-Two bishops, both focusing mainly on Wizardry/Divinity/Psionics, plus an alchemist. Wizardry/Divinity/Psionics is about the most diverse combination of 3 spellbooks, and you get a faster-leveling alchemist to cover the high-level-oriented alchemy spellbook.
-A Wizardry/Divinity/Psionics bishop and a Wizardy/Divinity/Alchemy bishop, plus a mage. Huge amounts of firepower early on and plenty of support spells in the bishops, although you're not going to get much use out of alchemy.
-A Wizardry/Divinity/Psionics bishop, plus an alchemist and a mage. Good if you don't like redundant classes, and easier to fill up without needing so many spellbooks as the other two, but lacking a lot of backup utilities; you might want to take along a Lord/Valkyrie with this spellcaster section so you have some backup on divinity spells.

[GMK]

The beauty of the game is almost anything will work.

A bishop and a mix of any two (different) casters will usually do everything they need to, and any preference is just that. Personal preference.

Having said that, my personal preference is for early buff spells, so i'd take priest/alchemist/bishop.

Also if youre looking for something slightly different, dont be scared of bard/gadgeteer. Their items mimic spells, and although they dont have the same range of spells, the ones they do cast are significantly more powerful early/mid game, and late game they can still cause serious havok. But the fact that they miss most of the spells means you will want to keep 2 casters, or one bishop (one bishop will be seriously stretched) to make sure you get all the important spells.

[Sinteuil]

I'm inclined to agree with GMK regarding the bard/gadgeteer, especially for new players. In particular, the bard can cast most of the important priest spells such as heal all, magic screen, and even soul shield (if you're willing to lift the right instrument from one of the NPC's), so he can easily take the place of a priest, while fighting much more effectively. That would leave you with the possibility of three pure casters for the remaining books: psionic, alchemist, and mage. I think this would be highly effective, and fun for a new player, although you'll probably want to bring along a couple more fighter types for protection. As for power training, in my experience it's a must only if you're playing a single bishop and want to master all the spells. The other pure casters can progress well enough with quite minimal training, and this is more suitable for new players. When you're a bit more familiar with the game and know where to find all the spellbooks, you'll see that it's alot of fun to play with a single bishop who learns every spell in the game, but I wouldn't dream of trying it as a new player!

[ 07-04-2005, 06:25 AM: Message edited by: Sinteuil ]

[bladedog]

I had never played either a Psionic or an Alchemist so my last party had both.

I found the Psionic incredibly powerful, but agree totally about the SP usage. On the other hand I found the Alchemist almost totally useless except for making money and casting Heal spells. In fact in terms of offensive casting I was using Acid Splash and Toxic Cloud (of whatever its called) almost exclusively until I got hold of the high level mass attack spells.

Its suprising but without someone with Wizardy and Divinity you play the game very differently. Defeating, for example, the contents of the temeple in the SE wilderness is a very different prospect without Magic Screen. Soul Shield and Element Shield don't cut it alone!

[TinyMage]

Originally posted by Random Passerby: Personally I don't see the attraction in power-training.

If you want an all-spells bishop, you don't have much choice.

And thats the only way I play bishop.

It's really not so bad if you know the fastest way to do it.

If you keep wizardry > alchemy > psionics > divinity you can use knock knock for wizardry. Then use heal for alchemy ( damage yourself with fire or electricity or a cursed item ). Then use divine trap for psionics. Then just keep pumping divinity every level and you should be able to learn heal all at level 11 ( your divine magic should be around 90 so you only need about 51 in divinity ). Then damage your whole party ( with fire or electricity with the trang door thing ) and cast heal all and max divinity.

The slowest part is knock knock, which isn't too bad. Everything else can be cast as fast as you can click or hit shift-m.

[Random Passerby]

Unless your bishop is the only spellcaster in your party, there's not much point in having an all-spells bishop vs. a 90%-of-spells bishop, which you can easily make without powertraining. Particularly since the hardest spells to reach are the level 7 spells, which aren't very useful at level 18--even with maxed skills you need to get to at least level 20 to be able to cast them at a worthwhile power level, and waiting for level 20 bishop in a 6+-man party? Snore. Go spank the Savant and call it done.

[Sinteuil]

Originally posted by TinyMage: Then damage your whole party ( with fire or electricity with the trang door thing ) and cast heal all and max divinity.

At that point, I've always just used the staff of doom. As far as I know, heal all is just as effective for skill training when healing a single member of your party, and it can be done in a safe area like He'Li's where you can rest up if necessary to replenish spell points. Just an idea...