Message 1210 : Newbie Mage's guide to Arda (unofficial) (*Lost*) Written on Fri Jul 22 03:41:37 1994 I have played to mage characters, each with a different philospohy; Shadows is a slashing warrior type with a little magic tossed in for show. This character is different and progressing nicely. So I offer the following advice, for mages who want to act differently than warriors, and still live to talk about it. Starting at level 1. Priority one: get parry and dodge! These skills are expensive, and practicing can be a little elusive, but they are critical. Dodge is cheaper and mages tend to have good dexterity, so it should be practiced perhaps first -- it increases total defense faster than practicing parry. The practices for the first few levels should be used to get dodge to 40% or more (getting higher is not easy without going to tharbad) and getting parry to fair at least (60-70%) with the exception of a couple of basic spells. The emphasis for a low level mage should be defense, so learning armour is strongly advised. 15-30% skill might suffice, as long as it can be cast once in a while. This will increase dodge by 10%, which is nice because it will make battles much easier to survive. Why do I recommend defense and say nothing of weapon skills? If you are fightning something, it will not matter how well you know a combat spell if you keep getting hit. And later on it is tempting to get spells to higher % (because they are more powerful at that point) instead of getting more parry or dodge. You will also find that many mobiles simply cannot hit you if you have a good dodge/parry -- so all you have to do is keep swinging you shortsword until it finally does enough damage. The only problem that I see with this approach is that battles take a long time, and you stand a good chance of fumbling and taking damage that way. However, you can still kill things your level and maybe above, so the experience gain is steady and moderately fast. Priority 2! Learn how to get to and back from Grey Havens!! Learn where the ferry is to north/west part of Grey Havens is. Grey Havens has the best guilds for magic users. Also, the ferry to the guild area (I forget if it is forlond or harlond) is *free* to level 5 and below, so it costs you nothing to explore. Keep your alignment good so you can always get into the gate and get citizenship. Need money? The Grey Havens grocery offers good prices for most goods. The weapon and armour shops also have a moderate budget, so you can sell quite a bit before they run dry. Once you master getting into Shire and back (being able to ride is a plus) you will be able to acquire equiptment on the road to sell or use. Learning create food can make saving money easier too. Priority 3! Use the guilds in Grey Havens! they are much better than Bree. I recommend getting parry and dodge to as high a level as they allow in that city (for a start). Priority 4! Learn invisibility to a dependable level (50-70%) and make an alias for it that you can do fast -- a one-key alias is recommended. Also give serious thought to learning hide. Hide is expensive, and you don't know if it is working at times, but there are few mobiles on Arda that can see invisible and hidden (and fewer players) at the same time (except trolls). There are mobiles that are slow to attack invisible players (wargs for instance) but they will eventually -- but they do not see the hidden. Invis + hide is also nice later on when you learn teleport -- there will be times that it fails and drops you in an unpleasant area -- and having the protection of hide + invis might save your life. Hide is also nice if you don't have the mana or time to invis yourself. A few words about teleport: Its range is shorter than you think, so be careful how far you jump. Trying to bypass the ferry in grey Havens might land you on Snarf's lap. Only locate objects or life for the instance that you need it, and maybe one or two central points (Bree Central or Osse's well, for instance). If you spend the time finding keys for a chain of rooms a certian distance apart, your work will be destroyed when the teleport keys are reset. If you are going to randomly teleport, consider this: You stand a good chance of suffering mobile death, which means lost xp, gold, and eq. If you are trying to escape mobile death, then you might be better off. If you are trying to escape orcs, just remember -- death to orcs costs you less xp than death to mobiles. And you might lose the equiptment anyway if you land in a death trap. If you are randomly teleporting to save time travelling, just consider how dangerous it might be -- with shadows I once went from Grey Havens to elsewhere in Grey Havens; then directly to Fornost, then somewhere north of Rivendell, then south of Rivendell (halfway to the orc caves, in a room with about 6 Uruk-Hai mobiles) then from there to Shire, with successive teleports. I might have gained travel points, but I also nearly died and weas disoriented with every jump. Parting comments: The amount that you practice spells should be researched. spells like detect invisibility or sense life may cost a lot at first, but the cost drops fast and the effect becomes longer with each level, so 17% is all you may need in the end. Spells with high minimum costs should seem reliable when you try them -- examples are shield, strength, breath of briskness, summon, sanctuary. It is pointless to have these spells if it costs you all your mana getting it once. Do not get any attack spells under level 9, with the possible exception of earthquake. At higher levels, the difference between the costs of these spells and the damage the better one does will make you regret getting each successive attack spell. Lightning bolt is good. Colour spray is nice, but nothing once you get fireball. Once you get an attack spell, get it to Superb (80%+). You don't want those to fail. Spells that must be recast often should be well known: armour, shield, bless, strength. About 40% is fine for these, because the cost is generally low. Learn remove poison. Poison kills your mana regen. Without mana a mage dies quickly. Even if you have create food, always carry a little extra (lembas or something that lasts fairly long). If you get hungry and have no mana, it will take a long time to make that first mushroom. Same goes for create water and create light. I think that covers everything I wnted to say...good luck! * iM NN NS 23[0:23]> Message 1397 : How to be a Mage (Ratava) Written on Thu Aug 22 06:11:52 2002 Well I can think of 4 ways: 1) The Dodgy Mage - has high Dex/Per and trains in dodging and/or parrying. Relies on his ability to not get hit (Shield and Bless help here) to cast his spells. 2) The Charming Mage - learns the Charm spell and uses big beasts to protect him from being hit while he calmly casts thorough spells while not engaged at the victim. Has flaws: Tricky to arrange, no good vs multiple beasts, monsters that see the shrouded or that switch their targets or don't assist their mates yet are aggressive to you once you cast that first spell in support of your beast. 3) The Wimpy Mage - the true cowards way is to be invisible/sneaking/hiding and cast spells and then escape (or flee if you care not for where you end up) before the enemy can hit back. This is essentially a backstabbing thief only using spells rather than a piercing weapon. 4) The Quaker - or one can leave aside the mounts and charmed beasts and venture all alone into packs of ravening monsters and use the mighty earth power to devastate them. Faults: no allies, no mercenaries, no charmed creatures, no mount, not anything to help you. Your on your own and on top of that you may accidentally hurt allies who are unaware and walk into the zone of riven earth.