How do you cast spells outside of combat

[katsuragi]

I want my cleric to heal some guys so I don't have to rest 8 hours after every fight

[DeLastOne]

You simply cannot. Rest or heal in town is the solution. Or enter a combat. Or drink potion

[Mr. Delightful]

Yep, nap to heal.
Make sure you don't run out of supplies though; need those to camp.
Also, the heal spell eats a spell component, so have a full stock of those as well if possible.
I have a on-going Lets Play if you want to take a look: https://youtu.be/UvBWnkVqTr4

[katsuragi]

Lol... I just picked this up again to fool around and I immediately ran into this problem again so I came here to find I'd already asked this 2 years ago. What is this? Darkest Dungeon? What a ridiculous arbitrary restriction. Sure.. yeah... makes sense to eat up another 8 hours instead of snapping off that spell.

[Wizard of Woz]

Originally posted by katsuragi:

Lol... I just picked this up again to fool around and I immediately ran into this problem again so I came here to find I'd already asked this 2 years ago. What is this? Darkest Dungeon? What a ridiculous arbitrary restriction. Sure.. yeah... makes sense to eat up another 8 hours instead of snapping off that spell.

Well since time basically has no meaning in this game, what does it matter?

[Terrorblade]

Is there any way to pre-buff your wizards outside of combat? The game uses a D&D inspired battle system with many of the feats and classes, which means incredibly frail wizards as well. In other games you could easily pre-buff with stuff like Stoneskin and Mirror Image, which would let your caster survive melee. But here I can't find a way to do that, and if a combat encounter puts enemies close to your mage they're pretty much toast.

Any ideas on how to make spellcasters more tanky and survivable?

[Wraith_Magus]

The thing is, the developer of this game clearly liked 4e D&D, and made a sort of Frankenstein of 3.5e and some 4e mechanics (this is also why, for example, it scales past level 20, it has AC ascend based on level, and before a lot of players asked for things to be more 3e-like, spells were based on cooldowns instead of spell slots and so on). 4e was based on a system of JRPG-like at-will, per-fight, and per-day abilities rather than the spell slots. (Also, the game was originally just an arena mode, and the adventure mode was a player request...)

Hence, no, you cannot pre-buff your casters. You cannot cast any spells outside of combat (and there are no rituals). You have to consider your buffs purely from a "is it worth casting mid-fight" perspective. Also, even spells that are supposed to be hours/level like Mage Armor expire at the end of combat. (But then, so do most status effects, making many spells like Restoration redundant.)

[Mr. Delightful]

Originally posted by Pukisawa:

Is there any way to pre-buff your wizards outside of combat? The game uses a D&D inspired battle system with many of the feats and classes, which means incredibly frail wizards as well. In other games you could easily pre-buff with stuff like Stoneskin and Mirror Image, which would let your caster survive melee. But here I can't find a way to do that, and if a combat encounter puts enemies close to your mage they're pretty much toast.

Any ideas on how to make spellcasters more tanky and survivable?

Well, it’s not literally casting a spell, but you CAN prebuff before a battle, if you’re willing to burn potions. In Low Magic Age, potions last until the end of the NEXT battle, so you could drink a Mage Armor, Bear’s Endurance, Cat’s Grace, and Fox’s Cunning potions on your mage for a big buff.
Also, the stat buffs (aside from Mage’s armor from memory) stack with any existing enhancement bonuses active from gear on the characters; I guess they are internally typed as an alchemical bonus?

It’s not exactly what you’re asking for, and I agree, it would be cool to cast spells out of combat, maybe even be able to set your mages to auto cast long duration buffs ahead of time, but the above potion solution provides a way to toughen up your mages a bit, in case their getting focused fired down quickly.

[Terrorblade]

Originally posted by Mr. Delightful:

Originally posted by Pukisawa:

Is there any way to pre-buff your wizards outside of combat? The game uses a D&D inspired battle system with many of the feats and classes, which means incredibly frail wizards as well. In other games you could easily pre-buff with stuff like Stoneskin and Mirror Image, which would let your caster survive melee. But here I can't find a way to do that, and if a combat encounter puts enemies close to your mage they're pretty much toast.

Any ideas on how to make spellcasters more tanky and survivable?

Well, it’s not literally casting a spell, but you CAN prebuff before a battle, if you’re willing to burn potions. In Low Magic Age, potions last until the end of the NEXT battle, so you could drink a Mage Armor, Bear’s Endurance, Cat’s Grace, and Fox’s Cunning potions on your mage for a big buff.
Also, the stat buffs (aside from Mage’s armor from memory) stack with any existing enhancement bonuses active from gear on the characters; I guess they are internally typed as an alchemical bonus?

It’s not exactly what you’re asking for, and I agree, it would be cool to cast spells out of combat, maybe even be able to set your mages to auto cast long duration buffs ahead of time, but the above potion solution provides a way to toughen up your mages a bit, in case their getting focused fired down quickly.

Thanks, I'll try messing around with potions a bit more!

And yeah, what irritates me the most is that some combat encounters spawn your party in a tiny room mixed in with enemies. It's not so much a problem with battles on the campaign map as it is with dungeons (which have those tiny little tight rooms) There's no pre-battle preparation phase like in other turn-based games, that would let you buff up and tweak your party's formation. And there's no out-of-combat prebuffing either like in real-time/RTS D&D games like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. So we're stuck with this halfway thing that's neither here nor there.

It's kinda funny watching your mage being placed right next to an orc blademaster who then starts first due to high initiative, and one-shots the mage instantly. I wish the dev would add pre-buffing... or at the very least increase the minimum size of dungeon rooms, so your squishy casters have a bit of room to maneuver and aren't spawned right next to enemies who instagib them.

Quite frustrating, overall. Apart from that the game's great!

[Wizard of Woz]

Originally posted by Pukisawa:

Originally posted by Mr. Delightful:

Well, it’s not literally casting a spell, but you CAN prebuff before a battle, if you’re willing to burn potions. In Low Magic Age, potions last until the end of the NEXT battle, so you could drink a Mage Armor, Bear’s Endurance, Cat’s Grace, and Fox’s Cunning potions on your mage for a big buff.
Also, the stat buffs (aside from Mage’s armor from memory) stack with any existing enhancement bonuses active from gear on the characters; I guess they are internally typed as an alchemical bonus?

It’s not exactly what you’re asking for, and I agree, it would be cool to cast spells out of combat, maybe even be able to set your mages to auto cast long duration buffs ahead of time, but the above potion solution provides a way to toughen up your mages a bit, in case their getting focused fired down quickly.

Thanks, I'll try messing around with potions a bit more!

And yeah, what irritates me the most is that some combat encounters spawn your party in a tiny room mixed in with enemies. It's not so much a problem with battles on the campaign map as it is with dungeons (which have those tiny little tight rooms) There's no pre-battle preparation phase like in other turn-based games, that would let you buff up and tweak your party's formation. And there's no out-of-combat prebuffing either like in real-time/RTS D&D games like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. So we're stuck with this halfway thing that's neither here nor there.

It's kinda funny watching your mage being placed right next to an orc blademaster who then starts first due to high initiative, and one-shots the mage instantly. I wish the dev would add pre-buffing... or at the very least increase the minimum size of dungeon rooms, so your squishy casters have a bit of room to maneuver and aren't spawned right next to enemies who instagib them.

Quite frustrating, overall. Apart from that the game's great!

I put my wizard in the middle of my party and have never had this issue.

[Wraith_Magus]

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

I put my wizard in the middle of my party and have never had this issue.

It kind of defeats the purpose of a formation system if you cannot have any formation other than a 2x3 rectangle because your party is too stupid to figure out how to walk into a room without walking around the orc berserker and leaving it right next to your squishy wizard.

I don't see why it's so hard to make rooms large enough to actually fit the party and some monsters at the same time, or why we can't have something like the hallways that led to the room being generated as part of the battle map. This was something they could do generating maps for the old "Gold Box" games on Commodore 64...

[Wizard of Woz]

Originally posted by Wraith_Magus:

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

I put my wizard in the middle of my party and have never had this issue.

It kind of defeats the purpose of a formation system if you cannot have any formation other than a 2x3 rectangle because your party is too stupid to figure out how to walk into a room without walking around the orc berserker and leaving it right next to your squishy wizard.

I don't see why it's so hard to make rooms large enough to actually fit the party and some monsters at the same time, or why we can't have something like the hallways that led to the room being generated as part of the battle map. This was something they could do generating maps for the old "Gold Box" games on Commodore 64...

News flash, some rooms are small. It is almost like rooms come in different sizes or something..

[Wraith_Magus]

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

News flash, some rooms are small. It is almost like rooms come in different sizes or something..

Wow, that's almost like it's a good reason to follow my suggestion and have hallways outside of just the room too, hunh, Captain Obvious?

[Wizard of Woz]

Originally posted by Wraith_Magus:

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

News flash, some rooms are small. It is almost like rooms come in different sizes or something..

Wow, that's almost like it's a good reason to follow my suggestion and have hallways outside of just the room too, hunh, Captain Obvious?

So your party is even more confined? Yeah makes perfect sense...

[PrimeSonic]

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

Originally posted by Wraith_Magus:

Wow, that's almost like it's a good reason to follow my suggestion and have hallways outside of just the room too, hunh, Captain Obvious?

So your party is even more confined? Yeah makes perfect sense...

When given a 2x3 grid up against a wall, does it make sense to put the Fighter up against the wall surrounded by everyone else while the Wizard is in the front corner closest to all the enemies?
Of course not.

If the game supported a "marching order" or at least let you arrange your units within the confined space, you'd at least be able to ensure that your squishy Mage isn't on the front lines while the Tank is in the back row.
Even if all your had to work with was the 2x3 grid and knowledge of which wall or corner you're on, it would be enough.

[Wizard of Woz]

Originally posted by PrimeSonic:

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

So your party is even more confined? Yeah makes perfect sense...

When given a 2x3 grid up against a wall, does it make sense to put the Fighter up against the wall surrounded by everyone else while the Wizard is in the front corner closest to all the enemies?
Of course not.

If the game supported a "marching order" or at least let you arrange your units within the confined space, you'd at least be able to ensure that your squishy Mage isn't on the front lines while the Tank is in the back row.
Even if all your had to work with was the 2x3 grid and knowledge of which wall or corner you're on, it would be enough.

I don't get what point you are trying to make. You can already set your formation. In all the time I have played, I have maybe had 1 or 2 enemies spawn right next to my wizard. But that's because I keep them in the back middle.