Seeking advices about playing pure mage

[alonzobistro]

Ok I started the game based on the idea of playing half bow / half sword ... Found the ranged combat relatively unefficient and the melee combat quite annoying actually .. So I felt like rerolling to a mage type of character ... In my first run I've started by doing Don's camp quests then I got to Harbour Town doing most quests there ...

So my first question is can I follow the same path ? Do I have to save all my LPs for training as a mage or can I allocate some to say strength and a melee weapon ? Any advices or even semi walkthrough on how you did it, actually any input on the matter of playing a mage in Risen will be welcome ...

Thanks in advance ;)

[Ulysse]

Lets assume youll finish with level 29 (I guess 30 is the max level you can get). That means 300 LP. There may be different builds, so Ill start with the one I played myself.

You can complete all Ch1 quests without spending any points in STR, but thats quite annoying, so I recommend to get 50 STR as soon as possible. Then you can find axe +1 ring in the treasure chest in the Don's camp and buy a hammer with 58 damage from local smith. Axe 2 gives you power strike and with 50 str and this hammer you will kill boars and wolves with 1 hit if you use power strike.

To get most exp/gold you should complete all the quests in Dons camp first, then go to town and complete all quests there, then go to monastery.

At the beginning of 2nd chapter you should be level 14 or smth like that. So youll be able to train ice crystal to level 9 or 10 depending on what additional skills youve learned. Anyway, you need to max it ASAP. From this moment your tactics are pretty simple: kill weak opponents in melee, freeze moderate opponents and finish them with power strikes, and kill strong opponents like ogres using only magic.

You dont need to spend any LPs to increase mana, youll get some permanent increases/potions doing quests in the monastery and you can use +2 mana recipe too. You next goal is to get 100 STR and alchemy 3. After that you should create permanent +STR potions and increase your STR to 200. Remember to use apples, extra ogre roots and a couple of permanent potions you can find. When you have 200 STR use the rest of heroes crowns to get some extra mana. After that use all extra LPs to increase axe skill.

I ended up with 200 STR, 120 mana, axe 7, ice crystal 10, seals 4, smithing 2, alchemy 3, scrolls 1. Thats 300 LP and + 100 STR /+80 mana from other sources.

Thats not a pure mage, but increasing mana if you dont use magic crystal is pretty pointless, sou youll have to allocate those LP elsewhere. Pehaps Ill suggest more variants when Ill have more time :D.

[fragonard]

I have a more or less pure mage at the end of Ch4 right now. I say more or less because I started thinking it would be using melee as well as magic. However, after Ch2, I did no melee combat at all, not even once. If I were to reroll, I'd put just 20 points into STR at the very start because I found that that was enough to handle common animals in Ch1 and 2. (with herbs and stuff, you'll get to 45-50 STR eventually) I got 10 magic missile by the beginning of Ch3 and that was all I needed; I was never seriously threatened after that (on normal difficulty)

MM is best IMHO because it's fast enough to use at melee distances and just powerful enough to take down anything with one mana load. I put no LP in mana but used all my permanent potions on it. That's another thing I'd do differently; I ended up with about 140 mana but more would have made things easier.

So, 10 MM and 150+ mana is really all you need for the harder enemies. 30-40 STR will take care of everything else. 190LP should be all you need which you should have at the start of Ch3.

[zonc]

Actually crystal magic is the weakest style. The problem is, that there is no attribute which affects its damage. If you know how to play the game (like train str/dex to 100 only by LPs), magic will be nowhere near bow/sword user.

Close combat is most fun and quite powerful (dificult to take no dmg at all though)
Ranged weps are deadliest end game with 200 dex and 10 lvl archery
Magic is the weakest, however a mage can train as a sword fighter AND use seal magic. Fred who aggros make most fights a laugh, and is fun :)

[fragonard]

Well, weak or not, it's all you need. I guess this is like talking about nuclear overkill capacity; MM can kill every baddy in the game once so what else matters?

edit: actually, the only thing wrong with MM is that it's too easy. You're almost never in danger - the few times I was killed was strictly because of embarrassingly stupid mistakes. I'm going to try a melee character next because I think it will offer a lot more challenge.

[Ulysse]

I cant disagree more.

To get maximum efficiency with a bow you need to spend 195 LPS and find enough heroes crowns. You also need to find a good bow and titans bow is available very late. Assuming youve found it, have bows 10 and 200 dex your able to make 40 shots per minute, and each deals 420 damage (fully empowered shots). Thats 16800 damage per minute. Magic crystal deals 200 damage per hit, but it fires 150 times per minute so 30000 damage per minute (probably top dps in the game).
Ice crystal is only 30*320 = 9600 but its still very potent due to its disabling effect. If you use it right no one ever gets a chance to hit you. Magic also does not limit your mobility during targeting. Bows/crossbows do.

So imo magic is superior, because its easier to master and it can be even more destructive than any weapon or have very potent side effects. You need only 90(105 with alchemy) LP for full training and you can get about 200 mana just with potions, which is plenty even for magic crystal.

[Der_Jonn]

You can actually become a mage without putting anything into combat, but for an easier and faster start I'd recommend putting about 20 points into strength.
You should use a sword and a shield for fighting in early game as not having a shield really sucks and anything but one hand swords is very slow in the beginning. However, putting points into sword is not necessary since the lower levels of swordfighting don't give you anything too crucial (the really important levels are 6,7 and 9, but you'll never reach that much unless you go for some sort of frost battle mage build).

In my opinion the strongest build for a mage is magic missle since it offers a much higher dps than fireball and doesn't need that much more mana.
With fireball you have to always kite opponents, even weaker ones like a group of wolves or gnomes, which can get quite tedious after a while. With magic missle you deal so much damage that you rarely have to resort to hit and run, at least provided you don't run out of mana. But if you're going for a more or less pure mage build, you should have plenty of learning points to spend on mana.
Remember to pick up all the berries you see, you'll need ten of them to brew the permanent mana potion.

[zonc]

So imo magic is superior, because its easier to master and it can be even more destructive than any weapon or have very potent side effects. You need only 90(105 with alchemy) LP for full training and you can get about 200 mana just with potions, which is plenty even for magic crystal.

Well you forgot that mage needs mana, and archer does need only arrows in equipment. Early game mage will run out of it every few steps, and if he starts using perma potions too soon then no one will be able to teach him +mana.
Well if someone likes to brew mana potions or eat 10 plants per minute than he might like the pure mage (I agree that projectile is best crystal)

[Thomac]

Unless you want to become an order warrior, don't spend a single learning point/hero's crown on strength or dex, and in quests where you are given the choice between picking strength and mana, pick mana. While a little strength may help early on it's pretty pointless to waste points on it since once you reach chapter 2 you'll have no further use of it at all, and there are numerous ways to increase your strength without it costing you anything. If you eat a lot of apples, you can raise your strength to 15 but not above that(So try to do this before eating anything else. Apples can be found here and there in the town and monastery, but if you grow weary of scavenging, Caspar in the monastery sells 10 of them and they respawn every time you talk to him), if you'd couple that with Harlok's stew(+2) which you can also find in the monastery and a few stray ogre roots, you'll easily be able to get the 20-ish base strength you need to win most of the fights in this chapter. As Der_Jonn mentioned you simply have to use a sword and shield until you have access to crystals or you'll get your ass handed to you in pretty much every fight, buying a good shield and a helmet in harbortown helps a lot too. Also, as with all PB games the general super-scavenger rules apply; pick everything up(Especially berries and hero's crown in your case) and don't eat plants unless you know you can't or won't use them in potions. If in doubt, don't eat.

Having said that, on to the "semi-walkthrough." It might not be entirely accurate, or even good for that matter, but wth.

Assuming you live through the tutorial area and have done all the quests on the novice's farm, make sure follow Tristan all the way to town; this will net you 300 free exp which is always nice. If you're going hardline mage without spending a single strength point you'll need every experience point you can get. Once in town, the first thing you should do is help Belschwur hand out potions, and then get Martha a roof over her head, this is pretty much necessary in order to become a mage, and lets you speak to Carlos without too much trouble. After that, you should do the regular harbor town quests in whatever order you like, making sure to read all books you can find (In the case that someone's reading already, try waiting or sleeping in a bed until they quit, this will get you +6 wisdom total IIRC). You should also try to learn Alchemy 2 here(IIRC you can't get 3 in town, but if you can, get 3) if you can since it will help you a lot both at this point and later on. There's really not much to say about this as it's pretty straightforward and not much different from what you've done before as a swordsman/hunter/whatever.

After harbor town, simply get to the monastery as fast as possible. Of course you can run around the wilderness killing stuff but at this point you're simply too weak for that and it would only be a drag. Once in the monastery, scavenge the entire place for apples, eating all of them until you have 15 strength, and once you can't find any more, buy the rest from Caspar. After that, head over to Harlok to get the +2 str stew, and then eat any ogre roots you've gathered so far. Then head over to Aric, get a staff (But do not equip it, keep using sword+shield), and fight with Tucker, William, Kato, Kato again, and then finally Aric, being careful not to train str/staff fighting by mistake. It's absolutely critical that you do it at this point since there's a bug associated with Aric and if you don't kick his ass now you'll break the game. The fights may take forever, but as long as you fight defensively you shouldn't have too much trouble. After that, tell Vitus that you've completed your basic training, and he will let you up into the upper quarter of the monastery. After that you've most likely averted the stuck-in-basic-training bug and can go about your business as usual. If you want to solve the "Who killed Hemlar?" quest you may do so but it's not strictly necessary, although I'd definitely recommend it since it will net you well over a thousand XP without too much fighting and make Vitus' test a bit easier.

In either case, once you're in the upper quarter you should speak to Ignatius who tells you he has something to show you. Follow him to the library (There is a +3 wisdom book in one of the mage rooms on the way there, look to your left.) and read all the books there, and then look for a two ring on the wall near what looks like a door. Stand in front of the ring and to the right and use it, this will open the way to the secret library which contains an awful lot of books as well as a few other goodies. Read all the books you can find, and scavenge the library for supplies using the telekinesis orb. After that, head over to the room that contains the levitate orb and levitate/jump to the floor below it. In the room next to the one you fell into is an open locks orb. Use to unlock the door that leads into this room, and then head over to the far side of the library, where you can find two rings placed in the same fashion as the ones that got you into the library. Use the rightmost ring and it will open another secret room containing two books, a chest, and a skeleton. Kill the skeleton, read the books, and loot the chest(Using the open locks orb) for a projectile crystal. Head back to the open locks orb and then open the previously locked door near the entrance of the library (The one to the right of the levitate room) and enter it. You should be able to see a small hole in the wall to your right. If you've got a nautilus scroll simply use it and crawl through, but if you don't, head back to the levitate orb and instead of levitating down the floor, enter the other room connected to this one and levitate over to the other side where you can find a nautilus orb and use that one to crawl through the hole in the previously locked room. Once you've walked through, make sure you read all the books (Do NOT forget the one Abrax might be reading) and speak to Abrax about a test, if the dialogue option is not available, use the lever on the wall to open up a more convenient exit/entrance and talk to Ignatius about... everything... and then backtrack to Abrax and try to complete his test. Oh, and don't forget to get Alchemy 3 while you're here.

You'll need to do a test for every master and I'd recommend you to complete them in the following order; Abrax, Pallas, Ignatius, Cyrus, Vitus, and finally Illumar.

Abrax:
Abrax's test is quite simple, just bring him 6 healing plants and 4 mana plants and that's it, if you want to do it quickly that is. If you want some extra experience you need to head down to Severin's farm and speak to Sirius, but I won't spoil that.

Ignatius:
Ignatius test on the other hand can be really hard as you need to do away with a war cricket and three gnomes, so I suggest you do it at night when everything's sleeping. In either case, you need to find a guy named Nathan who is supposedly investigating a ruin to the west of the monastery entrance (look at the quest map for a more exact location). The ruin's very short and if you've got a telekinesis scroll or a levitate+nautilus scroll it will all be done with in a moment, but if you don't you're screwed and need to buy either of them from merchants.

Cyrus:
Cyrus test is a basic fetch quest, when getting it from him make sure you ask him whether Severin will just hand it over to you, and he'll answer that he'll tear your head off if you don't or something to that effect. Tell Severin the same thing when he asks you why he should trust you, and then run over to Cyrus again for a small reward. Put shortly, a cakewalk.

Pallas:
Pallas test is the easiest one; just talk to him and that's it.

Vitus:
Vitus test is really simple if you're doing or have done the "Who killed Hemlar?" quest. Just run into the cemetery (bribe the guard if need be) and get Wisdom in combat, it's in a locked chest but you can find the key on a (very dead) skeleton in here. You should also make sure you pick up the +4 wisdom stone plate. That's the first part of the test. The second part is to make sure Dalman trusts you, and he can be found shoveling pig manure near Vince ("Behind" Harlok). Hear what he has to say and then coax Taylor into taking over, speak to Dalman again (Can be found at Harlok's place now) and then to Vitus. IIRC he gives you the choice between a strength potion and a mana potion, pick the mana potion. Done.

Illumar:
Illumar's test is to find the ingredients to all scrolls of the first runic seal. If you've done Abrax and Vitus' tests you should be able to finish this one quickly. Talk to whatever novices you can find in the rune-making area, as well as Enzo, and then head over to Rufus in the library and hand him Wisdom in combat, and then ask him for the ingredients to the medium healing scroll. I think that should cover the tests, if you're missing any ingredients then talk to whatever named novices you can find and you'll have them all before long. Done.

Speak to Ignatius about having done all the tests, and he'll invite you into the hall of the holy flame (There are 2 wisdom books here, do not miss them) and the Inquisitor will make you a full mage. When swearing the oath make sure you pick the options that raise your mana instead of strength/life force. After that he'll take you over to the great gate and ask you to fetch crystal discs for him, and chapter 2 starts. After that, head over to Ignatius and learn the first runic seal, then head over to Vitus and learn Projectile Crystal 10 (You should be at least level 12 by this point so you should be able to get it right away. Getting it up to 10 now is absolutely critical and should be your very first priority) and spend the rest of your LP's on mana. Walk back to Abrax and see if you can find a permanent mana potion, you should have at least one hero's crown at this point (There's one behind Bryn near the monastery gate) so make a permanent mana potion if you can, and perhaps a few weak mana potions. Then head out of the monastery and kill everything you can see, as long as you keep your mana up nothing can stop you at this point, not even an elite warrior.

As for runic magic, it's mostly just utility spells; the few offensive spells that exist either cost far too much mana and do way too little damage to be directly useful (Berserker, Inferno), or are found too late in the game to make a difference, and are still less efficient than the projectile crystal(Transformation into ashbeast). So for offense, you should stick to the projectile crystal. Needless to say, the runes that aren't offensive will be used all the friggin time. The Speed, Levitate, Nautilus, Telekinesis, Protection, Joke, and Strong/Medium/Light healing(Nice list eh?) runes are lifesavers, and Light is always nice to have. As for the wisdom required to unlock the seals, you should be able to get 200 wisdom by the end of chapter 3(And well over 150 by the end of chapter 2) without too much trouble, just keep your eyes peeled at all times and look everywhere. You will of course find more of them in dungeons, but do take your time looking for them on the surface too, you'd be surprised to see how many you can find.

In case you need it, the following is a list of useful runes that can be found in the open at any chapter, which can prove useful in chapter 2 since you can't buy some of them yet.
Speed - over by a ledge beyond the vassal tower directly to the east of town, the one on the cliff. Stand on top of it and look down to the east and you will see a pile of stones, levitate over there and you will find the rune. Medium magic healing - after you've walked over the walkway on the way to the town after the novice's farm, walk straight ahead until you see a rope bridge, walk over it and hug the wall until you find a cave with gnomes in it. Walk directly through the cave (and clear it ofc) and then levitate over the chasm to the other side, the rune can be found there. Magical protection - in the northernmost vassal tower to the west. It's in a treasure chest so you may need to use an open lock scroll to get to it. Open locks - the gnome chieftain standing next to the Gyrger has it.
Nautilus transformation - in the secret part of the library in the monastery, up on a shelf. You'll need to use the telekinesis orb to get it.
Levitate - above the weed farm near Don's camp, the waterfall runs through a small woodcutter's camp there. You will need to levitate and perhaps kill an ogre to get there.
Strong magic healing - in the middle of Don's camp, on top of a stone block. It's not directly visible so it might take some time for you to find.
Berserker - in the eastern temple, guarded by a priest over the lava. Can't miss it.
Oh, and don't forget to grab the permanent mana potion in the belltower of the monastery, just hop up on the roof and levitate there. Do keep in mind that while it looks like a good spot to levitate down from, there's an invisible anti-magic field when you're going down the mountain from that point, so unless you want the "Idiot" achievement, don't try your luck. I found out the hard way.

Levitating down from where the Inquisitor is works fine though, it's the fastest way to Eldric earlier in the game.


Well you forgot that mage needs mana, and archer does need only arrows in equipment. Early game mage will run out of it every few steps, and if he starts using perma potions too soon then no one will be able to teach him +mana.Unlike str/dex, you can train mana past 100. I had 350 by the end of the game and started out by using potions. At least try playing a mage before bashing them. You're only making yourself look stupid.

Well if someone likes to brew mana potions or eat 10 plants per minute than he might like the pure mage (I agree that projectile is best crystal)You've obviously never played a Gothic game before; you never eat plants unless you can't do anything better with them (Like brew potions from them). In either case the mana use isn't that bad, as an early mage with projectile crystal at level 10 and about 60-70 mana you might expect to drink a single weak mana potion against an elite warrior if you can't aim for crap, yes. Is that bad? How would an early game fighter or archer fare? Not too well I think.

Also, as a mage with 200+ mana (You can get that around level 20 if you've brewed a few potions, you can get it much earlier if you scavenge and explore a lot), you don't need to care anymore. When you've got 250 or even 300+, you really don't need to care.

[Ulysse]

Well, a frost mage really doesnt need a lot of mana. It costs 10 mana to freeze an opponent so you should feel pretty comfortable having about 100 mana, which you can get without spending any LP. For a magic crystal you probably should have a bit more, I dont know if there is a mana cap, but anyway having more than 200 mana is pretty pointless as its enough to kill any encounter and use large mana potions with full efficiency. And its not G1 and G2 where it was pretty tricky to use mana potions in combat. You have fast slots now and it takes smth like 2 sec to replenish your mana.

I dont agree that a fighter/mage should be built from an order warrior, cause order warriors simply do not have any advantages over mages. In fact, the only skill a mage cant learn is pickpocketing lvl 3. Or at least I dont know how.

Ive finished the game on the hard difficulty and Ive never bought a mana potion (although I brewed some). I had about 200 small health potions in the end and Ive never used medium or large one (I didnt buy these either).

[fragonard]

Patty will teach LP3 to a mage.

Question: It sounds like you have experience with a frost mage so maybe you can tell me what levels of frost skill you need to be effective. Does the higher level add more frozen time or make it faster to cast or what? TIA

[Ulysse]

I mean pickpocketing, not lockpicking.

Speaking about ice crystak, I think you should get lvl 10 ASAP. Ive mentioned how I leveled in one of the earlier posts. Freeze duration and what monsters you can freeze, rate of fire and damage depend on ice crystal mastery level. I would not advise you to go this route as a pure mage, since fights can get pretty annoying because youll have to wait while monsters unfreeze to freeze them again. Ice crystal is good for melee/magic combo.

If you want a pure mage, take magic crystal.

[fragonard]

Right, I just finished a pure mage game with MM and thought I'd try a battlemage type character just to get some melee action. Thanks for the info.

(sorry about the LP, I guess I misread it)

[Thomac]

Well, a frost mage really doesnt need a lot of mana. It costs 10 mana to freeze an opponent so you should feel pretty comfortable having about 100 mana, which you can get without spending any LP. For a magic crystal you probably should have a bit more, I dont know if there is a mana cap, but anyway having more than 200 mana is pretty pointless as its enough to kill any encounter and use large mana potions with full efficiency.Depends on how comfortable you are with running away. Having played with the projectile crystal quite extensively I can say that I'm not really comfortable with 200. Sure, it's more than enough for 90% of the encounters in the game, but for the other 10% (Which coincidentally is 90% of the endgame) it's worth it. In either case as a mage you haven't got anything else to spend those LP's on either aside from smithing, perhaps. Lockpicking can be done with runes.


Question: It sounds like you have experience with a frost mage so maybe you can tell me what levels of frost skill you need to be effective. Does the higher level add more frozen time or make it faster to cast or what? TIAFreeze time, projectile speed, cast rate.


I mean pickpocketing, not lockpicking.

Speaking about ice crystak, I think you should get lvl 10 ASAP. Ive mentioned how I leveled in one of the earlier posts. Freeze duration and what monsters you can freeze, rate of fire and damage depend on ice crystal mastery level. I would not advise you to go this route as a pure mage, since fights can get pretty annoying because youll have to wait while monsters unfreeze to freeze them again. Ice crystal is good for melee/magic combo.

If you want a pure mage, take magic crystal.Agreed fully, especially on the lvl 10 part. For any crystal, that's a given, they're simply not efficient enough at lower levels.

[zonc]

In either case the mana use isn't that bad, as an early mage with projectile crystal at level 10 and about 60-70 mana you might expect to drink a single weak mana potion against an elite warrior if you can't aim for crap, yes. Is that bad? How would an early game fighter or archer fare? Not too well I think.


It doesn't mean a c**p since there is no point in fighting tough opponents early game
Oh wait, you obviously never played a gothic game before!

[Ulysse]

IMO a big part of fun in any gothic game is killing everything that moves in Ch1. Usually its not doable with a mage since their progression is severely limited by chapters, but in Risen you can do that, if not in Ch1 then in Ch2 :D.

[Thomac]

It doesn't mean a c**p since there is no point in fighting tough opponents early game
Oh wait, you obviously never played a gothic game before!No point? How about experience or a sense of accomplishment? Not to mention that you can still take on 6-7 wolves at once with 60-70 mana without getting hit once as a mage, a fighter/archer cannot do that unless he's extremely skilled and kites like mad (Edit: at or around the same level of course -.-).

Troll.

[Der_Jonn]

It doesn't mean a c**p since there is no point in fighting tough opponents early game
Oh wait, you obviously never played a gothic game before!
Wtf? There are many instances in the Gothic games where fighting strong opponents early on is sensible.
For instance in G1 you can kill the golems in chapter 1 to get their hearts, which makes for a very fast start or in NotR you can kill many strong opponents early on with the help of scrolls to get a lot XP and some good/valuable items.

[zonc]

Sense of accomplishment is a subjective thing. I don't really care if I had to take this wolves in 1 or 4 chapter, they will just be waiting there and xp is still the same. And it is even better to wait since there are new armors & weps in later chapters. A mage could reach his max potential (lvl 10 crystal) in chapter 1, and later he will only have more mana. Which doesn't really matter extremally much cause he would have to use pots or sleeping eventually no matter the players skill. If you consider this 'better' than have it your way

@ Der_Jonn in many cases you can just outrun the bastards and collect the treasure they were guarding :D

[RobinHood 13.]

Wtf? There are many instances in the Gothic games where fighting strong opponents early on is sensible.
For instance in G1 you can kill the golems in chapter 1 to get their hearts, which makes for a very fast start or in NotR you can kill many strong opponents early on with the help of scrolls to get a lot XP and some good/valuable items.

As mage In gothic (non-Notr) I used to kill the black troll when I was still circle 2 (fireball or was it fire arrow?). Consumed almost all my mana potions, plants etc.. Did it all the times though.
That one is usually better to wait a bit:D

[Thomac]

Sense of accomplishment is a subjective thing. I don't really care if I had to take this wolves in 1 or 4 chapter, they will just be waiting there and xp is still the same. And it is even better to wait since there are new armors & weps in later chapters. A mage could reach his max potential (lvl 10 crystal) in chapter 1, and later he will only have more mana. Which doesn't really matter extremally much cause he would have to use pots or sleeping eventually no matter the players skill. If you consider this 'better' than have it your wayThat may be true, you reach your maximum damage per second potential really fast, but you can't really say that's bad since it's much higher than than of archers, and only slightly lower than that of fighters (Unless you take blocking into account, then it's equal). Leveling up means you can sustain your fire for longer without drinking a potion, which really matters once 5 elite warriors come your way.

I wouldn't say either is better or worse, the "classes" are pretty much all equal if you ask me, play whatever class suits you, but don't say mages suck without playing one.

[fragonard]

HaHa, the black troll is fun. I always kill him with circle one. 20 goblin skeletons does the job.

[Ulysse]

I wouldn't say either is better or worse, the "classes" are pretty much all equal

Id say that 'styles of combat' are equal in Risen, cause classes are obviously not. You get more quests ,free stat increases and skills you can train if you join the order with no obvious penalties. Currently its mages > order warriors > bandits, or probably mages = order warriors > bandits since seals arent that cool.

[fragonard]

I like having the seals. It's true that you don't really need them since they can be replaced with scrolls but if you can cast them directly, you'll use them more without worrying about running out of scrolls. Levitate in particular I find myself using all the time; jumping off cliffs and exploring wherever I can.

[Thomac]

I like having the seals. It's true that you don't really need them since they can be replaced with scrolls but if you can cast them directly, you'll use them more without worrying about running out of scrolls. Levitate in particular I find myself using all the time; jumping off cliffs and exploring wherever I can.Yeah, not having to think about conserving scrolls is rather awesome. I spent most of my time in speed-mode when doing quests, try doing that on an order warrior.

o_o

[alonzobistro]

Well thanks for all those insightful inputs, I'll have to think that over ;)

Edit : So if I got it correctly, playing a mage in this game mainly consist in spamming the same unique magic attack ? Any other type of spells you can't use like mage armor, invisibility etc ?.. I mean I'm used to play AD&D mages I feel I'll be frustrated in Risen ... So how does it work ? If you choose ice you can't use fire ?..

[cipris]

You can use fire, ice and magic bullets as a mage at rank 1, but at the begining you will not have enough LP to spend in all 3.
I choose fire and i have maxed the fire tree at lvl 14. I can kill anything in chapter 2 for the moment and didn't die once by now.

[fragonard]

Well thanks for all those insightful inputs, I'll have to think that over ;)

Edit : So if I got it correctly, playing a mage in this game mainly consist in spamming the same unique magic attack ? Any other type of spells you can't use like mage armor, invisibility etc ?.. I mean I'm used to play AD&D mages I feel I'll be frustrated in Risen ... So how does it work ? If you choose ice you can't use fire ?..

That's pretty much it. There are just utility spells like open, levitate, etc. The biggest limitation is that there aren't enough LP points to to more than a couple of things. For a mage you can max one crystal and get 200+ mana to go with it. That will take 25 levels worth of LP (adding in utility talents like alchemy, seals, etc.). That's pretty close to the limit; I made it to level 27 and I don't think it's reasonable to expect to get past Level 30.

[Thomac]

If you really take your mage build seriously you could probably get all crystals to level 10 and also have some mana to go with it.

Spend 15 points in alchemy in order to make permanent mana potions, this will net you up to 100 mana (I haven't found more than 20 hero's crown in the game yet, could be more but I'm not sure). Disregarding the points we spent for alchemy that's a net win of 85 LP.
Spend 15 points in smithing in order to be able to make +20 mana rings, that will net you 40 mana. You'll also be able to make the amulet of the mage, which is highly useful as it gives you +2 to all crystal types and +30 mana, which is worth 90LPs, so out of smithing you'll be able to squeeze out 130 learning points, which is a net win of 115.

So from three levels worth of learning points we've gained 20 levels of mana and magic skill increases. Counting the permanent mana potion found in the monastery belltower (+5), the one given to you by Vitus (+5), and the mana bonuses given for becoming a mage (+7) you will easily be able to get 227 mana without going out of your way or spending a single learning point on it. You also get 3(1 base, +2 item) in all your crystal skills so after that you only need to spend 210 learning points after in order to max out all of your crystal skills, so realistically speaking you could max out all your crystal skills by level 24, and max out all other mage skills by level 28.

Heck, I think I'm going to try this out right now. o_o

[Noru]

... You'll also be able to make the amulet of the mage, which is highly useful as it gives you +2 to all crystal types and +30 mana, which is worth 90LPs, so out of smithing you'll be able to squeeze out 130 learning points, which is a net win of 115....

Sorry, not true... The amulet only gives you the +2 to all crystal skills, no extra mana. Please recalculate, as in this way you need 3 more levels to reach that point.

[fragonard]

True, although I don't see why you would need all three crystals anyway. If I were doing that sort of build (and I think I might) I'd put those 70 LP into DEX so I could use the 80 damage bow. I think that might be a good way to conserve mana without risking melee damage.

[Thomac]

Sorry, not true... The amulet only gives you the +2 to all crystal skills, no extra mana. Please recalculate, as in this way you need 3 more levels to reach that point.Oh right, my bad. I must've mixed it up with some other amulet that gave +30 mana. In either case it's still a viable build, 197 mana is bad but not too bad, and if you look hard enough you should be able to find a few more permanent mana potions and thus get over 200 anyway.

[Billythegreat]

There is another permanent mana potion on the top of the SE ruined tower , guarded by some skeletons and 1 undead lord.

[guenthar]

I think a good idea would be to go with 2 crystal magics with one the fireball and the other ice magic. You could then freeze your enemies end then blow them up with your fireball. I think I will take this route and think it will be worthwhile.

PS. I think this will be at least as effective as magic missile but will use far less mp.

[fragonard]

That sounds like a good idea, I might try that on my next build. Do you know if the first hit on a frozen enemy does full damage in addition to unfreezing them? I assume so but I've never tried it.