Early Game

[The Konrad]

I'm stranded, and I get my ass kicked because I can cast one Magic Missle then I suck.
The Rogue can't tank, even though she tries.
How do I survive the first combat encounters as Magos who is good at diplomacy and casting two spells before needing to rest?

[fourfourtwo79]

I'd actually like a game where magic was ultra rare at best. SKALD is comparably low-fantasy as is (no dwarves, elves and all the other usual suspects).

But I think it would have shined even more if magic was a no-thing and they'd ditched D&D cliché even more. Just a world where suddenly all hell breaks lose and everybody struggles to understand what is going on -- making it even bigger of a contrast in between the game world and what's happening to it.

Basic rule of the thumb: If everything is magical and special, nothing eventually is. Which is why the darker aspects in pirate comedy such as Monkey Island 2 also work so well. It's a light-hearted comedy adventure at heart, full of pirate shenanigans, spitting contests and the character you play being called Guybrush of all things. But then on the occasion, there's actual torture, dark voodoo arts and limbs being torn off. And every time that happens, it's like "Ooooof!" None of the other games in the series have replicated this, mind you, mostly going for the laugh all through.

[The Konrad]

I have no problem with low-fantasy worlds, I pick some other cool class from there.

But clearly they have been overselling the Magos, with all the "cool" ♥♥♥♥ they can apparently do on the mainland while being utterly useless in the real game.
It has to make sense in that universe's setting.

When it comes to survival why would someone go through the arduous training and exhaustive learning to cast magic missle when learning how to use a sling and shooting people with stones is way more effective?

It could be some esoteric hobby of some fancy noble who wants to impress the ladies or something, but then it would be a side feat or something, not a major class choice with huge and here underwhelming rammifications.

[Count von Bunnyhopven]

Publicado originalmente por etalian:

Publicado originalmente por night4:

That doesn't address the many fundamental issues with arcane magic, unfortunately.

Yeah after playing DND you expect magic missile to be a good spell to wipe out all the early rats and crab monsters!

But due to magic system balance, damage spells are pretty bad.

I dont think thats completely true. But Magic Missile is badly priced. Swarm of Gnats in the earth school does the same damage, but cost 40% less mana. It also does a one turn debuff. So its easily twice as powerful as magic missile despite being at the same level.

[gallaghan2000]

Like I said elsewhere, the best fix for magic missile is to lock its use into an actual bow and arrow, keep the auto hit effect, and have it do the damage of both the spell and the arrow. Some of those magic elemental bows would just become ridiculous and it would justify the easier loss of arrows from not having the ability to help recovery. (Lastly, the arrows would actually hit :)

[MagiKarp]

Publicado originalmente por Count von Bunnyhopven:

Publicado originalmente por etalian:

Yeah after playing DND you expect magic missile to be a good spell to wipe out all the early rats and crab monsters!

But due to magic system balance, damage spells are pretty bad.

I dont think thats completely true. But Magic Missile is badly priced. Swarm of Gnats in the earth school does the same damage, but cost 40% less mana. It also does a one turn debuff. So its easily twice as powerful as magic missile despite being at the same level.

Yeah, the only advantage of Magic Missile is the cascade chance but that just makes the higher cost even worse when you're casting 3+ of them. Maybe they could have it do more damage with each cascade?

I think the latest aptitude change should really help the damage spells perform better by making the damage much more reliable.

Now I think they should look at some of the spells' attunement costs and/or maybe tweak how cascade works, maybe have it so if you cast the same spell that triggered cascade the cost is cheaper? This way chaining the tier 2+ damage spells multiple times wouldn't drain so much of your attunement and it would help casters contribute more to the damage when needed instead of mostly being there just to support with buffs, debuffs & CC.

[daveyd]

After the recent patch Magos classes are plenty powerful, IMO.

If you're running out of attunement that fast you may need to restart / rebuild your character.

Max out Intellect (obviously) then put a couple points in either agility or fortitude. Or even presence if you really want to boost your diplomacy.

Acolyte Background gives +5 attunement. Take it.

For feats max out the Arcane font initiate for the two +5 bonuses to attunement.

You'll have just enough starting development points left to take tier one in a school of magic: Earth Magic is recommended for the reasons Count von bunnyhoppen stated.

You'll start out with 35 max attunement. So you could cast 7 magic missiles or 11 swarm of gnats before needing to rest or drink an attunement potion. Should get a few level ups in before you start running out of magic.

[Neo007]

Magos/Magi??? do pretty decent damage now especially with the minimum damage scaling and cascade. As a class concept Battle Magos is still under-realized since you still need to play them as a guild magos to be most effective but major improvement in efficacy.

For example Daveyd's starting build suggestions wont work for the BM as they start with less DP and get fairly underwhelming feats for that loss.

[The Konrad]

You are min/maxing, on normal difficulty. Optimal that may be, but I didn't min/max when I was a wee little lad I played for fun, trying to cause as much mayhem as possible without having a single clue how to use spreadsheets and without having access to any form of internet or guides...
One specific build that is working isn't good enough to rebuy the game.

I had a super intelligent Magos who had 25 Attunement or something, with noble background and high diplomacy skill and he struggled dealing with the rat-men on the ship and with everything else forward.
I had the feeling my magic missle missed, or maybe I clicked next to the rat men, I've lost interest to check.
Air Magic seemed fine.
Maybe my experience would have incredibly improved if I had been able to summon mosquitos instead, but if you need one specific build to have fun the illusion of choices dissolves quicker than our Earth's ozone layer.

[isotropy]

Roland is right around corner just east of the shores starting area.

This is a bit of an old discussion, but I found Kat to the east. Is Roland also on the first map after you wash up on the shore?

[IlluminaZero]

Publicado originalmente por isotropy:

Roland is right around corner just east of the shores starting area.

This is a bit of an old discussion, but I found Kat to the east. Is Roland also on the first map after you wash up on the shore?

No you got to leave the first map - Roland is recruited on the world map on the way to the next major zone.

[omnion1991]

Publicado originalmente por Neo007:

Publicado originalmente por gallaghan2000:

Problem with mages is that 90% of their damage potential is dependent on making them support is what it looks like.

Air - Excels at status infliction later on. Rank 4 thunderclap can easily trivialize fights whose difficulty is based on masses of enemies. Unfortunately magic missile is arguably the worst of the offensive spells despite its range. I personally think High North/Skald/AS should alter this to rely upon an actual bow and arrow, have it auto-hit like a magic missile from dnd/pathfinder and do the damage from both the bow+arrow as well as the spell. this would up the damage to a good value, show that it isn't reliable if you end up with nothing to your name,

Earth - Swarm of Gnats is the cheapest offensive spell at 3 attunement a pop to inflict disorient which penalizes a lot of things, but most importantly dodge by -3, it tends to make kat much more reliable.
Only at level 2, lot of neat stuff, not enough mana.

Fire - the damage path of spells. early on though, it's only a melee strike or an aura strike. Decent for a battlemagos in heavier armor, not so much for a squishy mage without a means to increase the aura range.
only at level 2, less neat stuff, not enough mana.

edit: I got by fine with my magos, but that's probably only because I had kat and rushed roland plus a mercenary as I got used to the leveling as well as what was actually important to pick feat wise.

To be fair, I've played quite a few versions of the demo.

Problem is...BattleMagos can't even use heavy armor...the logic as to why completely evades me ...unlike a BM who can't evade crap

I mean I play on hard with BM and im winning fights its just doesn't feel that satisfying.

Ultimately made a really fun custom class (not BattleMagos though) using console commands for the heck of it, will probably release a proper mod if tools become available.

any chance you could tell me what class to start with if i wanted to make a magic knight, not a battlemagos, a full on heavy armor battle mage. And what console commands to use to make them one from there