Mage Recommendations

[turloughf22286]

I'm making me a mage in arcanum. Should i get the salve and fatigue restorer skill? I like to be prepared. What other recommendations do you advice?

[fauxpas]

You can, but I personally don't bother as the hit to your magical appitude probably hurts you more than being able to craft helps and you will usually be able to manage your mana by simply waiting for it to recover on its own between battles.


Probably one of the most effective builds for a Pure Mage is high Dex + Harm as the damage is directly determined by your magical app score.

[fauxpas]

Also unless its a function of the unoffical patch, Charm doesn't work the way that it's described, the only time that I see a relationship hit is if the spell is resisted, and not when the spell is canceled.


You can knock yourself out trying to cast a spell, so keep track of each spell's cost, I'm almost positive that the spell will still go off IF your mana is exactly 0 but fizzles if it hits -1 or lower.


You'll want a secondary weapon skill, either melee (to take advantage of the magical daggers/staves that have mana stores of their own) or throwing, I'd personally steer clear of bows due to ammo concerns and guns because of the tech app.

[fauxpas]

Some of your buffing spells can stack so you could get some really crazy stats at the cost of a constant mana bleed from the sustained spell.

[Zomblez]

You really don't need the salves. You will find potions laying around and as long as you rest in between fights, you shoul have no problem. Having both Harm and Heal is super nice. It's a bit of a pain but if you want to play with a companion, I recommend working your way up to resurrect. If I remember right, this is the only way to revive downed allies.

[kevlar871]

+1

[Dao of Yakitori]

Daegon of Aurelium's advice is incredibly good and on point. You should listen to him turloughf22286.

[turloughf22286]

Originally posted by Daegon of Aurelium:

You can get a total of 64 character points in the game, and I wouldn't recommend investing in those 2 schematics. Magickal restorative potions will do you more good than the technological salves will, and you can get a large amount of potions in quite a few ways:

1. Save up your gold and go shopping at wise women (located in Shrouded Hills, Tarant, Ashbury...) and magickal shops, buying whatever potions you feel will come in handy. If you invest in White Necromancy you can only purchase fatigue restorative potions and use only the spells to heal yourself instead. You can also buy a few Fatigue Slowers which will cut down your fatigue usage by half as long as they are active. When you feel you have a large battle coming up and will have to throw many spells, just quaff one of those.

2. Get them from dungeons or other such locations around Arcanum. Not a very reliable method, but you should see a few potions come up in every few chests.

3. Here's how to get unlimited potions every day. Go to Black Root (southeast of Shrouded Hills, at the coastline) and find the magickal shop there. Outside you should see a window leading into the vendor's bedroom. Once it is day and the vendor is in the shop rather than the bedroom, break the window from outside standing some distance away so you don't alert any guards or the vendor. Once the window is broken, you can jump inside. Stand in a corner and use the Unlocking Cantrip spell on the vendor's chest located in front of the bed. If the spell fails, it means that your magickal aptitude is not high enough, so simply use a Fate Point (you get one after dealing with Lukan at the Shrouded Hills bridge) and invest it in "Spell at maximum" and then try casting the spell again. Inside the chest you will find all of the vendor's gold, a 50 mana staff with some spells (once identified), as many potions as you can carry and some useful random scrolls. The chest will regenerate and stay unlocked every day (unless you used lockpicks to pick it, then it will re-lock the next day) as long as you are a reasonable distance away from it - it will not work if you are still on screen when you pass time in the game. If the vendor got hostile while you were unlocking the chest, you will have to stand further away from the chest and attempt it again.

Apart from using potions to restore your fatigue, you may prefer to just rest (hotkey S) instead whenever applicable. Resting for just one hour is usually enough to restore your fatigue to maximum.

Also, something I would recommend to any character: get yourself the Staff of K'an Tau from the Castle S'nel N'fa (link below). It has unlimited Teleportation charges and can be used by ANY character as long as they do not have the Magick Allergy background. Do not use any other spells provided by the staff, otherwise you may deplete all of the charges and be unable to use Teleportation.

http://arcanum.wikia.com/wiki/Staffs#Staff_of_K.27an_T.27au
The Castle S'nel N'fa is located at coordinates [1384 WEST | 640 SOUTH]. You need to be at those exact coordinates to force the location.

Thanks for the advice.

[Drowning witch]

I just finished the game for the first time, on hard. elf mage necromancer master+conveyer. other than those 10 spells, I just had the beauty spell. willpower 18, int+charisma 12.

I was OP quite soon. basically, finished the game as a level 35 with 10 spare points left unused.

[FloridaYeti175]

Half Ogre mage/ melee bruiser you will need a powerful near end game neck item to gain access to teleport but ita a tough build to bring down with white necro spells and any other spells you want really.

[Alphamule]

I wouldn't bother with the healing salve as you can have Virgil heal you if you take him along. Fatigue restore isn't a bad idea, nice cheap way to keep you fighting. Harm is all you need for the first part of the game, easily kills almost anything you encounter. Also, if you don't mind being evil, there is some kind of helmet in... hmm haven't played in a while. The big city on the East coast. There's a castle with ghouls and things running around. Somewhere in the castle is a helmet that will give you a permenant magic increase but will make you evil. Take it off and put it on multiple times as the effect stacks.

Also, I recommend purchasing the Water magic Beauty spell. You get some great discounts at the shops and if you stack the spells you can even take a background that makes you ugly with no real consequence.

[vitamin boost]

Originally posted by Daegon:

Also, something I would recommend to any character: get yourself the Staff of K'an Tau from the Castle S'nel N'fa (link below). It has unlimited Teleportation charges and can be used by ANY character as long as they do not have the Magick Allergy background. Do not use any other spells provided by the staff, otherwise you may deplete all of the charges and be unable to use Teleportation.

http://arcanum.wikia.com/wiki/Staffs#Staff_of_K.27an_T.27au
The Castle S'nel N'fa is located at coordinates [1384 WEST | 640 SOUTH]. You need to be at those exact coordinates to force the location.

So I don't need to branch so deep into the Conveyance tree if I have this staff?! Cool.
Thanks!