I used to think of Mental Mutations = Mage, and Physical Mutations = Warrior. This is wrong

[Repsack]

This game is incredible, and i have not seen any other game break the mold in this way. I have had troubles getting a mental mutation character off the ground, but yesterday i realized that all the mutations are completely separate from the skills you unlock.

Maybe this is obvious, ofcourse Skills and Mutations are different things, but this means that everything i really need to be a strong fighter could come from Skills while all the "Mage" stuff can come from mental mutations. While this is probably not fully correct, it is close enough.

So now i am both a Rogue dual dagger wielder, but i also have Beguile and Time Dilation + more good stuff. This is my first mental mutation character i have ever really succeeded with and now i am lvl 10, which is my own personal record

[glass zebra]

If you really want to push the concepts into RPG tropes, you could argue that mental mutations are closer to mage because they scale with ego, while physical mutations usually do not have an obvious stat they scale with (at least not in the same way). This means you can fully focus on ego and go "full mage", while a warrior could take str/agi and get a more limited mutation power from physical mutations (or well.. leveled mental mutations).

You can definitely ignore those things entirely too, since there are multiple ways to boost these things in different way. E.g. adrenal control lets your physical mutations get closer to mental mutation scaling, but there is also two-headed that lets you boost mental mutations usage during combat even further. Without any more comboing, you will still not be able to have e.g. fireballs as your auto attacks like other RPGs do.

Qud also has the technological and food aspects that lean heavily into "magic" and those can be focused fully or comboed with those other concepts. Skills can also boost "magery" in that way, since e.g. tinkering is a rather heavy investment skill mechanic.

[Excellion]

Unless you lean really hard into a specific attribute distribution ("All STR fighter" or "All EGO mage") a mixture of physical and mental mutations works wonders. Personally i enjoy this flexibility since it allows one to go crazy with the builds.

If you want to play around with mental mutations or focus somewhat more heavily on the "Mage" part i would suggest giving these two mutations a whirl:

- Burgeoning
- Light Manipulation

Burgeoning summons a bunch of friendly plants that attack hostiles, with summoned plants getting stronger (and cooldown lower) when levelling the skill. It CAN be a bit tricky to use since some plants have AoE's that can hit you, but there is something incredibly satisfying about summoning a lethal forest every 5 turns.

Light Manipulation is in my opinion the best skill to start with if you're playing in an open area (The Salt Dunes start). It's a 100% accurate ranged attack with infinite range that does very decent damage even at level 1. It essentially guarantees you'll get past the first few levels (Which tend to be trickiest), just by virtue of being an "Can always hit as long as you have LoS" option.

[Repsack]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

but there is also two-headed that lets you boost mental mutations usage during combat even further.

How would you go about obtaining this? 2 headed is a physical mutation, so would that not exclude mental mutations since you will Either be a Chimera or an Esper?

[Excellion]

Originally posted by Repsack:

How would you go about obtaining this? 2 headed is a physical mutation, so would that not exclude mental mutations since you will Either be a Chimera or an Esper?

Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding:

Esper and Chimera are (optional) 1 point mutation options that can be selected during character creation that lock said character to a specific mutation type. You don't have to select either and when you don't, you're free to mix physical and mental mutations as you please.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Repsack:

Originally posted by glass zebra:

but there is also two-headed that lets you boost mental mutations usage during combat even further.

How would you go about obtaining this? 2 headed is a physical mutation, so would that not exclude mental mutations since you will Either be a Chimera or an Esper?

On top of the clarification about morphotypes Excellion made, even Chimeras can use mental mutations e.g. from food. They just can't obtain permanent ones.

[Repsack]

Originally posted by Excellion:

Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding:

Esper and Chimera are (optional) 1 point mutation options that can be selected during character creation that lock said character to a specific mutation type. You don't have to select either and when you don't, you're free to mix physical and mental mutations as you please.

WHAT thats Huuuge!! :OO i didnt know that at all!

[downlowtooslow]

Originally posted by Repsack:

Originally posted by Excellion:

Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding:

Esper and Chimera are (optional) 1 point mutation options that can be selected during character creation that lock said character to a specific mutation type. You don't have to select either and when you don't, you're free to mix physical and mental mutations as you please.

WHAT thats Huuuge!! :OO i didnt know that at all!

Yea this kinda just blew my mind. No idea why it wasn't more obvious from the start. Good grief. Thank you!

[Temos]

This thread was extremely helpful, thanks!