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Character Creation Guide
NOTE: I HAVE ONLY PLAYED THROUGH HOL II SO TAKE ALL THIS ADVICE WITH A GRAIN OF SALT.
I'd like to start with a word about enchantment because I will be using enchanting values to compare racial bonuses and penalties. Later in the game, much of your character customization comes from the enchantments you place on your gear. Each piece of enchantable gear has an enchant storage value which determines how much enchantment an item can hold.
For example, a mystic katana has 350 enchantment storage, which means that you can enchant it with up to 350 points worth of bonuses.
Every racial bonus or penalty has a comparable enchantment (except for racial spells, which are really not even worth mentioning) so I will put an value next to each racial bonus that quantifies how much enchantment storage would be consumed to achieve that bonus or penalty (you can't actually enchant penalties into your gear but you can ascribe a value to the penalties based on enchantment value). However, racial bonuses and penalties are not like other enchantments. You can switch out your +50 mercantile rings for +50 light weapons rings situationally but your racial bonuses cannot be switched out so the more situational bonuses are less beneficial and the more situational penalties are less harmful.
In addition, there are some skills that are simply more useful than others and there are some attributes that are more important than others. For example Heavy Armor is more useful than Light Armor and Dexterity is more useful than Strength.
So I will add some commentary with my OPINION of the strengths and weaknesses of each race.
Rasvim:
+5 Strength (125)
-5 Dexterity (-125)
+10 Intelligence (250)
-5 Personality (-125)
+50% Poison Resistance (750)
+50% Disease Resistance (750)
-50% Magic Resistance (-750)
Unholy Word Spell
Rasvim have a net enchant value of 875. The highest net enchant value of any of the races however they are also probably the trickiest races to play.
Rasvim are undead and their hit points are not replenished the same way as hitpoints of other races. You don't eat regular food that you can buy at any inn, you consume rotten and contaminated food and water if you camp, which is a lot tougher to come by than regular food (the create food spell creates regular food); you have to use special heal potions that only work for Rasvim and because of your lack of access to heal spells you will be more likely to use them throughout the game while regular races will eventually be able to use the wands of restoration that you find throughout the game (there is a Rasvim healing spell and they can always drain health from opponents but they are not as common as healing wands seem to be); and things that would heal other races will not heal you. Some people don't like you because you are undead (this does not seem to negatively affect gameplay), and other undead seem to react very favorably to you (which positively affects gameplay).
As mentioned above Strength is not really worth as much as the other stats but Intelligence is worth more than the other stats (because of both the large number of skills that depend on Intelligence and the fact that Intelligence increases magic resistance, spell points, and the number of recall slots available. In gameplay magic resistance is probably the most important resistance you will have that is difficult to come by (disease resistance is more important for gameplay but the game is filled with tons of relatively inexpensive resist disease gear) however by the end of the game you will be balancing your enchantments to maintain 100% with all your resistance so it is more of an early/mid game issue (but it can be a big issue during the early mid game as wizards oneshot you). I would give Rasvim an adjusted enchant value of 800.
Etherim:
+10 Dexterity (250)
+5 Endurance (125)
+10 Accuracy (150)
+10 Light Weapon (150)
+10 Light Armor (150)
-20% Magic Resistance (-300)
+20% Disease Resistance (+300)
Cure Light Wounds Spell
Etherim have a net enchant value of 825.
Etherim have great stat bonuses, dexterity is among the most useful stats and you can always use more endurance.
As mentioned above, Light Armor kill is not particularly useful, in fact it is pretty useless. I would discount except that everyone wears a cape and capes are light armor. Etherim also trade magic resist for disease resist which can pose some difficulties early and mid game. I would give Etherim an adjusted enchant value of 700.
Seiry:
-5 Strength (-125)
+10 Dexterity (250)
+5 Intelligence (125)
-5 Personality (-125)
+10 Mercantile (150)
+10 Lockpick (150)
+10 Disarm (150)
+5 Accuracy (75)
-30% Magic Resistance (-450)
Seiry have a net enchant value of 200. Despite the low net enchant value, the Seiry race is not loaded down with any useless bonuses and the loss of Strength is really negligible. The magic resistance penalty hurts, especially because you do not get any relief in the form of additional resistance elsewhere, if it had been any other resistance, the Seiry would be a much more balanced race. I would give Seiry an adjusted enchant value of 350.
Derth
-5 Strength (-125)
-5 Dexterity (-125)
-5 Endurance (-125)
+10 Intelligence (250)
+10 Heal magic (150)
+10 Mind magic (150)
+10 Attack Magic (150)
+30% Magic resistance (450)
Cure Light Wounds Spell
Burning Hand Spell
Derth have a net enchant value of 775. They lose out on Strength, Dexterity and Endurance, but they have gobs of the most useful attribute, Intelligence. Heal magic bonus is relatively useless once you pick up a restoration wand. Attack magic can be very useful as is mind magic (for things like paralyze and drain mana). I would give Derth an adjusted enchant value of 775.
Nogur
+10 Strength (250)
+5 Dexterity (125)
+10 Endurance (250)
-5 Intelligence (-125)
-5 Personality (-125)
+10 Heavy Weapon (150)
-30% Magic Resistance (-450)
+20% Poison Resistance (300)
+30% Disease Resistance (450)
Nogur have a net enchant value of 825. Nogur is the only race that should even consider heavy weapons (and even then you should probably pick light weapons). I would give Nogur an adjusted enchant value of 700.
The difference between the races (other than Seiry) are really negligible and depending on your style of play a Nogur might be better for you than a Derth. After the mid game when you start running across items with over 1000 enchant storage, the racial difference become little more than flavor.
Attributes
Everyone starts off with 15 in every Attribute adjusted by their racial bonuses and penalties. Every level you gain 5 points that you can allocate among your attributes and you can also drink on permanent attribute boosting potion. If you don't use a potion for a particular level, you don't get to use two the next level so you should try to get yourself a few attribute potions as soon as possible. You can mix them with alchemy but I found one in the crypt off the pier on the other side of the graveyard near the first village (you need to trigger a quest to get the dungeon teleporter to become active). Later in the game you have access to potions that raise multiple attributes (Strength, Dexterity and Endurance) by a point but that doesn't happen until HOL II.
Strength:
Strength is useful for increasing carry capacity, increasing damage and it is the governing attribute for Heavy Weapons.
Let me start by saying that carry capacity is rarely ever a problem because Dexterity and Endurance provide plenty of carry capacity once you realize that you can store stuff in empty containers.
Let me continue by saying that the damage bonus from attributes is almost imperceptible but what you can perceive is that the bonus is not significantly higher for Strength than it is for Dexterity.
Let me end my discussion of Strength by saying that Light Weapons are preferable to Heavy Weapons. They do comparable damage, only Light Weapons can be used in the off hand, and they are lighter (which mitigates a lot of the carry capacity concerns that a low strength might create, you will not carry multiple breastplates and helmets but you will be carrying several weapons and shields).
You can play the entire game without increasing your Strength by a single point and not notice. Put your points elsewhere and skip the Heavy Weapons in favor of Light Weapons.
Dexterity:
Dexterity is the governing attribute for more skills than any other attribute, including Light Weapons, Block and Dual Wield. It improves AC, damage, and carry capacity. What's not to love.
Endurance:
Endurance is the only attribute that increases Hit Points, Resist Poison and Resist Disease. It also increases carry capacity and resist paralysis. It is also the governing attribute for Heavy Armor (some people get some replay value from The Quest by playing with self imposed restrictions, one of the most common is to play only wearing light armor, thats how much of a difference there is between Heavy Armor and Light Armor).
Intelligence:
Intelligence is the only attribute that increases Spell Points, Magic resistance and Recall slots. It also increases resist paralysis and is the governing attribute for a very long list of skills including Alchemy (which is important to raise early in the game) as well and Attack Magic and Environment Magic (which are useful to have at high levels later on in the game).
Personality:
Personality is often overlooked and misunderstood. I tend to overlook and misunderstand it but there are several quests in the game that have minimum personality or persuade requirements (there are even a couple of quest that has a minimum Mind Magic requirement). With that said With that said, Personality increases your resist paralysis and is the governing attribute for Mercantile (my mercantile is well over 500 (when I put on my mercantile gear) and I am not convinced I am getting the best prices from the vendors).
Resistance:
There are four types of resistance. Magic, Poison, Paralysis and Disease. All are useful but Poison is the least useful for anyone other than a Rasvim (who do not have access to cure poison spells and must therefore use cure poison potions). Cure Paralysis is very situational but it can be a real PITA to get chain paralyzed. Diseases play a pretty big role in the game and at some points in the game you want to have a 100% disease resist but its not something you need to walk around with. Magic resist on the other hand is very important. If you suddenly see the "you are dead" screen while you were walking through a dungeon with low resistances, you are not likely to have been one shotted by poison, paralysis or disease. A low magic resistance makes spellcasting opponents very difficult (they never seem to run out of spell points) while a high magic resistance makes them almost trivial. In order of preference I would work on getting my Magic resistance up to 100% on my regular gear and find enough alternate gear to hit 100% disease resist when the situation calls for disease resist and I wouldn't bother with the other two until you have nothing else to do with the enchant capacity and opt for using increase resistance wands whenever necessary (things are different for Rasvim because they don't have access to healing spells).
If you get nothing else from this section, focus on magic resistance before you do anything with disease or poison resistance; abandon Strength and focus on the other 4 attributes.
Skills
Not all skills are created equal and you have to choose 6 primary skills. The difference between primary skills and all other skills is that you only need to expend 1 skill point to raise a primary skill by one point while you have to expend two skill points to raise any other skill by one point. You can only raise skills to 100 using skill points (this is also the level to which you pay pay trainers to raise your skill) so at some point you start accumulating skill points you cannot use so to some extent this is more of an early/mid game issue. With that said, there are a few things you should know.
The only items you can switch during combat are weapons and shields. Light armor is inferior to heavy armor and you are better off going with light weapons than heavy weapons.
I would recommend everyone get heavy armor, it is much better than light armor and other than your cape all your armor should be heavy armor. The skill will increase the AC value of the heavy armor you wear. If your AC gets high enough, melee attacks will do no or almost no damage to you.
I would recommend light weapons (unless you are a Nogur and you want to siphon attribute points into strength to wield heavy weapons). Light Weapons is also useful because an offhand weapon will always be a light weapon. Weapon skills will increase the damage you do.
I would recommend Alchemy as the best source of income early in the game when you are so poor that staying at an inn seems extravagent (playing cards is good too but you will be picking up herbs in the course of playing the game so this will save you a lot of time). When you can start making Robot Oil, you stop having money trouble. Homemade permanent attribute potions is probably the fastest way to get access to permanent attribute potions and this will make you incrementally more powerful at each stage of the game.
Repair will save you a LOT of money and once you get your repair to 120 (you can use books to train yourself after you have reached 100), your repair hammer never breaks. Its not really a "must get" skill but you start spending a LOT of money on repair hammers and a lot of time repairing your gear until you get your repair skill up to 120 at which point it takes a few seconds to repair all your gear.
Mercantile lets you buy stuff cheaper and sell stuff for more. It can effectively double your money and money is an issue until pretty late in the game but mercantile is not really a "must get" skill (it does make accumulating the millions of gold you need for certain quests later in the game easier to accumulate).
The rest is up to you but I would stay away from light armor because you just won't want to wear it; heal magic is marginally useful until you get a wand of restoration and then it becomes almost useless.
Skill Manuals:
Throughout the game you will find manuals that will increase your skill. Do not read them. You can pay money or use skill points to raise all your skills to 100 by the time you get to Redshift University in HOL II. After that the only way to raise your skills is by reading these manuals. Your governing attribute has to be high enough to accommodate at least one more point in that skill to use the manual but if you can accommodate even one more point in that skill, you can read the manual and get the entire effect. For example, I get my Intelligence up to 51 and my Environment Magic up to 100 by training at Redshift University, I can no longer allocate skill points or pay anyone to raise my Environment Magic skill even though my governing attribute would allow me to raise my Environment magic to 102. I can however read "The Basics of Environemnt Magic" (which improves Environment Magic by +5) and my Envrionemnt Magic will rise to 105 even though my governing attribute will only support a skill up to 105. here are some skill books that will raise your skill by 20. Depending on how much you want to defer gratification, you could wait until the very end to use that +20 book or you can blow it as soon as your skill hits 100 (like I did), you definitely end up with a higher skill by waiting but thats a LOT of waiting.
Other Tips
Carry a retinue of wands to cast spells. Other than Enchant and Recharge Wand, 99% of the spells I cast are from wands. Get the Enchant spell and the Recharge Wand spell as soon as possible, they are the most useful spells in the game.
After 7 days, maps will repopulate so if you go back to the beginner area graveyard after 7 days, the skeletons will be there again, if you go back to the crypt after 7 days all the monsters and some of the treasure will respawn. There is no special bonus for getting things done quickly (some quests have a timer) so take you time and do a dungeon over again if you like it.
Get your magic resist to 100% asap, being immune to magic is very very useful.
Written by Damuri
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An in depth look at the Derth race
According to the game: "The Derth are gifted scholars, and teachers, and are the most powerful mages of the races. While they are stronger mentally, the are also physically weaker, and so lack dexterity and endurance." They come equiped with +30% Magic resistance, cure light wounds spell, and burning hand spell, as well as +10 intelligence, heal magic, mind magic, and attack magic.
They are lacking in a few areas, however, and like the game discription says, they are not made for physical combat. They recieve -5 strength, dexterity, and endurance.
Choosing skills and base attributes
Before you begin the game, you will be asked to hand pick your race, your skills, and even your gender. Choose carefully because all of these factors will be permanant choices throughout the game and will effect everything from where you begin playing, to the types of rewards you will recieve for completing your Quests.
I will suggest starting out with choosing the Derth race. All of the other factors are open for you to make your own decisions, however:
I strongly suggest having some combination of weapon and armor in the primary skill.
The reason for this is due to the fact that whenever you level up a skill that is NOT a primary skill, you use up two of your ten skill points. If you level up a primary skill, you only need to use one skill point.
I also recommend having alchemy as a primary skill.
This is also because of the one point vs. two point thing, however, there is another reason. When you make potions out of herbs, you can sell them to a potion shop for quite a profit, as well as make potions to heal yourself with. And making potions is fun, and that is reason enough!!!
Marisola's Handmirror
Because you are a Derth, you have to be smuggled in to the village and you will automatically be put inside the cave at wolfcreek. This gives you the perfect opportunity to solve the Marisola's handmirror quest as well as gain some valuable experience points. Kill the bats using magic, but try to conserve as much mana as possible.
Because there is already a guide for this quest, I won't spend a lot of time on the actual finding of the mirror, and how to get it. I will give more of the nitpick info that isn't included in that guide.
First of all, why do this quest? There are many reasons:
- To get a nice reward of: water, two apples, and Marisola's amulet (if you are female) and child's necklace (if you are male).
- To increase your fame.
- To get easy experience fighting bats.
- To start a new quest, Orc at the Bridge. (When you finish this quest you automatically start Orc at the Bridge)
- and finaly, as a Derth, you are automatically put in the cave where the quest starts and ends!!!
Second, what does the area look like? What can I expect when tackling this short quest?
For some nice screenshots see below:
Marisola
Map of Wolfcreek
Don't forget the potion!
The exit
For this section we will assume that your primary skills have some kind of weapon and armor, and (this is important) alchemy.
How do I go about accomplishing Marisola's Handmirror?
As a Derth, you will be smuggled in to the village of Matras through the Cavity of Wolfcreek. Your first step will be to talk to Bryl and ask the questions that will start you on your main Quest.
After Bryl leaves, if you have alchemy as your primary skill, I suggest creating a heal potion combining Lady's Slipper and Power Berries. I also suggest making a mana potion out of Crimini Vulgaris and Purple Fairy Ring. If you have alchemy as a primary skill these ingredients should be in your pack. You can also make a beer potion out of the remaining ingredients if you feel like it.
This should leave you with two small healing potions that heal 30hp, one homemade healing potion that will heal around the same amount, a small restore mana potion restoring 40 mana, and a homemade restore mana potion restoring around the same amount.
You then are faced with the task of fighting a bat. If you turn left then you will find a cure poison potion sitting on the ground, which will come in very handy when fighting the bats, because there is a strong possibility that they will poision you.
Pick up the potion and start the fight. You can use either magic or your weapon to kill the bat, but magic is more efficient for a Derth. The burning hand spell is quite effective and it costs around 18sp at the beginning of the game. The spell should kill the bat in one shot.
Move forward past the exit to the cave and you will run into Marisola. Talk to her and accept the Quest that she gives you. Strike the cobweb and kill the bats behind it. Burning hand should kill both of them in one shot.
NOTE: burning hand is not a ranged spell.
move foreward and you will run into another bat. take it out and pick the nearby mushrooms. Go to the right and you will run into yet another set of bats. There should be a blue puddle on the ground. Stand in front of it and tap it to find Marisola's mirror.
If you want, you can search the rest of the cave to find an alchemy book and some items on a wall, as well as some more mushrooms for alchemy ingredients.
Return to Marisola, and depending upon whether you are female or male, you will recieve either a child's necklace or Marisola's amulet. The difference between the two is significant. Marisola's amulet requires a good alignment and gives you +5 environment magic. The child's necklace has no benificial effects other than the outfit points it gives you for wearing it, which are the same as the amulet's outfit value.
The puddle
I leveled up... What now?
Strength and Dexterity are two of the Derth race's weaknesses, both of which determine weapon damage.Strength also effects how much you can carry with you, so enhancing strength allows you to transport the big (literaly) money makers from point A to point B.
The other weakness that should be taken care of is Endurance. Endurance determines the total health point value that your character is capable of (without the aid of spells, potions, or enchanted armor).
Endurance also increases poison and disease resistance.
When you first sart out as a Derth, your Strength, Dexterity, and Endurance values are all at 10. That is 5 less than the base value of 15. These are the numbers you should try to equalize.
However, your inteligence is at 25, 10 more than what the base value is. You also recieve a +10 bounus to Heal Magic, Mind Magic, and Attack Magic. These you can leave alone for a while, unless you want to be a superstrong mage!!!
Every race has some kind of vulnerability that needs to be taken care of as quickly as possible.
Derth Stats and Description
If you know ahead of time that you will be taking on a quest that requires you to have a certian skill level you need to train up that skill.
Quests like this include as the Nobleman's Inheritance Quest (Requiring a Persuade of 26), getting the orders for the slave master or finding Rubor's grandson (both requiring a Persuade of 30)
It is usually a good idea to keep your Persuade skill high enough to complete quests, but you don't want to waste your points either, so knowing ahead of time what the point requirement would be a good idea.
Also, if you don't want to waste your skill points, you can go to a shop, an inn, or sometimes even a streetwalker girl (the girls in the colored dresses standing in the streets, not moving around (ones like Mayana) to train your skills. The skill that they train is usually similar to what they do for a living.
Written by Aria
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Corey's Rasvim Book of Undead Techniques (a character creation guide)
Why Rasvims are best
First of all I chose to be a Rasvim. They are the only characters skilled in heavy weaponry and armour, as well as powerful magic spells. There are some ups and downs to being a Rasvim, and I will explain them in the next two paragraphs.
The negatives
First thing you will notice is that the hitpoint regeneration is harder to get, as you can't use conventional healing potions. The way I did it is just to stock up on restore Unholy potions, which leads me to my next point: You can only heal using special undead spells or restore Unholy potions, as you can't use heal magic and drinking normal healing potions will kill you. Townspeople will be rude and aggressive towards you, and guards will insult you, so I suggest you just suck up the insults and move on. The major negative point that puts all of this in the shade, however, is the low magic resistance. As a Rasvim I recommend that you stock up on resist magic potions and increase your intelligence in order to better resist magic.
The positives
First of all, Rasvims have the ability to heal themselves while damaging others with undead spells such as Drain Health. They also have their own self healing spells which are Unholy Word and Unholy Pray. They also start off with very high resistances to poison and diseases, which will help a lot throughout the game. As I mentioned in the first section, they are also the only race that can wield heavy weaons and armour and use strong magic at the same time to their advantage. This will be extremely useful throughout the main game and all of its expansions. When talking to other Undeads throughout the game, they will be nice to you and reward you, whereas they penalise other races by getting them to sacrifice attributes.
My character and how I made him
First of all, pick the Rasvim race. The primary skills I chose were: Heavy Weapon, Heavy Armour, Undead Magic, Attack Magic, Mind Magic and Environment Magic. I suggest, however, that you replace Mind Magic with Alchemy, as Alchemy will help you out more with getting restore Unholy and Resist Magic for free if you have the right ingredients.
What stats to increase
Focus on three stats: strength, endurance and itelligence. Don't worry about any others. When it comes to boosting your skills, make sure you boost your magic and weaponry/armour evenly.
List of Undead Spells and what they do
Unholy Word: Restores Unholy HP (Self, amount depends on skill level)
Unholy Pray: Fully restores Undead life force (Self)
Drain Health: Drains the health of your opponent (Ranged, amount depends on skill level)
Drain Touch: Drains more health than drain health (Touch, amount depends on skill level)
Mass Drain Health: Drains the health of everyone in a radius(Ranged within two paces, amount depends on skill level)
Damage Living: Damages creatures and humanoids (Ranged, amount depends on skill level)
Undead Curse: Drops your opponent's level (Ranged)
Plague: Infects enemy with plague disease (Ranged)
Infestation: Infects enemy with plague within a radius (Ranged, two paces)
Unholy Curse: Restores Unholy HP, fortifies Unholy HP (Self, amount depends on skill level)
Scion of Death: Applies damage, applies crushing damage, curses opponents, drains HP, level drop (Ranged, within one radius)
How I turned out
At the time that I completed this guide, I am level 42, and haven't died once yet, due to careful planning, and I am an extremely powerful Undead Heavy Battlemage. I hope everyone who reads this guide gets some good information from it. Good Luck!
Written by Corey_The_Deathless
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Governing Attributes
Every skill has a governing attribute. Base skills can't be increased to more than twice the base governing attribute w/ skill points or training. Base skill/attribute means the skill/attribute w/o enchanted gear, potions, or spells. You can still increase the skills more with enchanted gear. Base attributes are signified by white numbers on the info-main screen. Base skills are signified by white numbers on the info-skills screen. If a skill appears in blue numbers take off enchanted gear and go back to skills screen.
These are the skills governed by each attribute.
strength: heavy weapon
dexterity: lockpick, stealth, dual wield, light weapon, light armor, repair, block, accuracy
endurance: heavy armor
intelligence: heal magic, protection magic, attack magic, environment magic, undead magic, disarm, alchemy
personality: persuade, mercantile, mind magic
I don't know all the effects of the different attributes but here are some.
strength: +5 pack capacity, greater damage
dexterity: +2 pack capacity, greater damage, higher AC
endurance: +4 pack capacity, +4 HP, greater poison resistance, greater paralysis resistance, greater diseases resistance
intelligence: +5 SP, greater magic resistance, greater paralysis resistance, greater # of mark/recall slots
personality: greater paralysis resistance
If there are any mistakes or you would like something to be added to this guide, please post a comment.
Written by Chalob
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Ewindals Class Guide - The Battlemage
This guide is only my opinion of how the Battlemage should be played. Do not think of this guide as the absolute guide to the ultimate Battlemage class.
The Battlemage
As you can read out of the title, this is a guide about the Battlemage. What is the Battlemage, you say? That is one of many questions I'll answer during this guide. The Battlemage is a class which focuses on both magic and melee, which makes it able to fight any enemy, wether they are using ranged attacks, have high AC or delivers devastating blows of melee.
Even thought the Battlemage sounds totally overpowered, there are some cons to this fantastic class. First of all, you may want to focus on four attributes; Strength, Dexterity, Endurance and Intelligence. Strength and Dexterity for melee, Intelligence for magic, and Endurance for increased HP, which you will need in melee.
Also, you might have a hard time to decide your primary skills. Depending on what you want to focus on, melee or magic, you will have different primary skills. If you want to focus on melee, you want to have Heavy Armor, and maybe Heavy Weapons. If you want to focus on magic, you might want to have Light Armor and Light Weapons, but that leaves you vulnerable to melee attacks. I'd recommend that you have Heavy Armor, even if you focus on magic.
The Race of a Battlemage
This part of the guide is a bit short. Send suggestions of how to improve it!
What race you select for your Battlemage is completely optional. You should check the bonuses and negatives of each race before you select one. I use to select the Derth race for Battlemages, even if they focus on melee.
The Nogur and Etherim are also good choices. Remember that low magic resistance leaves you very vulnerable many monsters. If you select a race which gives you less Magic Resistance, you should consider to have Protection Magic as a primary skill.
The Path of the Close Combat Battlemage
As a Battlemage focusing on melee, you will most likely use melee all the time, with Protection and Healing Magic as your most used magic skills. I would suggest that you select at least some these skills:
Light Weapons/Heavy Weapons
Heavy Armor
Block/Dual Wield
Attack Magic/Protection Magic/Heal Magic/Mind Magic
Heal magic might not be as important as Protection Magic after you receive the restoration spell, which fully heals you for 60 SP, whatever level your Heal Magic is. The two last primary skills are yours to select. Remember that Persuade is very important in many quests. You might use some potions in the beginning of the game, but later, when you get better gear and some experience, you will be almost impossible to hit with melee.
Your most important attributes will be:
Strength
Dexterity
Endurance
You might want to exchange some Strength or Dexterity for Intelligence if you want to use moderate amounts of magic. Endurance might be your most important attribute. Especially if you select Block as a primary skill. If you selected Dual Wield as a primary skill, you might want to focus more on Strength or Dexterity. Check Chalobs guide to Governing Attributes if you are unsure of which attributes to focus on.
The Path of the Magical Battlemage
Since you're a Battlemage you might want to select magic as you primary ranged weapon. Of course, you can use a bow if you want, but I recommend magic. If you don't like magic, check the Close Combat Battlemage or a Ranger or Archer. As a Battlemage focusing on magic, your magic resistance will rise quickly. I would suggest that you select at least some of these skills:
Light Weapons
Light Armor/Heavy Armor
Block
Attack Magic/Undead Magic
Protection Magic/Heal Magic/Mind Magic
Alchemy (this is optional, but you will have no SP at some times)
You will most likely need Protection Magic if you happen to get engaged in close combat. Especially if you decided to use Light Armor instead of Heavy Armor. Light Weapons and Light Armor tend to have more space for enchanting than Heavy Weapons and Heavy Armor. If you are sure that you will be out of melee combat, or paralyze your enemies if they get too close, you should select the Light Weapon and Light Armor. The last primary skill is yours to select. Remember that Persuade is very important in many quests.
Your most important attributes will be:
Strength/Dexterity
Endurance
Intelligence
Intelligence is your most important attribute if you want to use magic. Strength gives you more pack capacity than Dexterity, but Dexterity also increases you AC. Your call. Endurance is for HP. Check Chalobs guide to Governing Attributes if you are unsure of which attributes to focus on.
Strategies for the Battlemage
Strategies for the Battlemage will be added in the foreseeable future. Stay tuned!
FAQ
Questions left as comments will be added to the FAQ.
Q: What is a Battlemage?
A: A Battlemage is a class which focuses in both melee and magic.
Q: Why should I play as a Battlemage?
A: Because it totally rocks.
Q: Are there different kinds of Battlemages?
A: Yes; those who use more melee than magic, and those who use more magic than melee.
Written by Ewindal
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Ice's guide to the rasvim race
The absolute basics
I realize that i am typing in notice boxes... I made this guide from my ipod so text boxes dont work.
This my first guide so tell me if something should be added to the information that i may have missed.
Ok. The first thing you should know about the undead race is that it is very tricky to play with. You are NOT able to eat or drink regular food and water as an undead. All your food must be rotten or spoiled and water must be contaminated. If you dont have bad food and water then you CANNOT rest to regain health and mana. Another thing you might want to know is that living people in towns will treat you like the dirt you walk on... The guards insult you even if you dont talk to them so it gets kind of annoying. One last basic fact is that you can become anamzing fighter or an amazing mage. You have extremely high resistance to poisen and paralize so if that gets raised to 100 you wont need to worry. But what you do need to worry about is the magic resistance. When you start leveling up id suggest using it all on intelligance untill you get enough maguc resistance or else shamens will absolutly murder you. And as i mentioned before you can become a great mage. This is the path i choose to take as an undead because you get some of the greatest spells in the game. With the spell demonic touch (i think) you can drain around 50+ unholy points depending on your undead magic skill level. (drain meaning take from opponent and give to self). One last thing to worry about is that you HAVE TO USE UNHOLY RESTORE! if you use a regular healing potion it hurts you so make sure its unholy restore.
Written by Icecreamman
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Sevsta's guide to the undead Rasvim
Getting started.... Undead style!
Warning Undead have a -50 magic resitance so make sure you really want to do this. P.S as an undead you cant sleep with the prostitue in vastares.
WEAPONS AND ARMOR
Ok now as you can see when you start you start with crap. Now keeping that -50 magic resist in mind youll want to buy some armor and enchant it with magic resistance around lvl5 (around the time you start encountering magical enimes e.g orc shaman. But youll also need to get strong wepons to make up for your weak body, i recomend flachions or spiked clubs. If you get low on money hunt down young archers or pickpocket (if you lean towards evil thats good, ill explain later) One more thing undead are very skilled with ranged weapons due to high dexterity (if ranged weapons is your thing)
POTIONS AND SPELLS
Lets say you start your game and get hurt, naturally youll get out a health potion, you take a swig then fall down dead. This is becase undead are unholy and require unholy restoration potions, otherwise all other potions(except hp of course) can be used by undead. Now on to magic and spells, undead are skilled in magic and make wonderful mages so buy plenty of spells. Now you may notice a different spellbook slot has opened and heal magic has closed, thats becase heal magic is holy, but the other slot is literaly called unholy magic. This unholy magic includes one spell in particular- drain health, this spell will be your bread and butter. It is a dark spell that leeches the health from your opponent and gives it to you, effectivley harming them and healing you. Now during your early stages youll want to upgrade unholy magic alot.
ALIGNMENT
A holy undead? That makes no sense. As an undead being evil is actually benificial it allows more efective use of unholy magic and allows you to buy unholy equipment.
Well thats about it if you have any questions just ask.
Written by Sevsta
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Why the Nogur Race is the Best
Pros and Cons
First of all, a true warrior knows his strengths and weaknesses. With the Nogur, his cons are low intelligence, low magic resistance, and low personality. His pros are everything else. He has high strength, high endurance, and medium dexterity.
Things to Remember - Nogur+ Warrior = Ultimate Pwnage!
When choosing your skills, obviously, the first step is to pick your race. I'm gonna let you in on a big secret: Choose the Nogur! Then you have to choose gender, do whatever. Name, blah blah, and main skills. You're gonna want to have Dual Wield, Heavy Weapon, and Heavy Armor. The rest is up to you. Stealth, Mercantile, Repair, and Alchemy are good skills. Now you have the skills of a true warrior. The Nogur Warrior is a monster. His crazy stats and mad skills, especially in the later expansions, make him more than ideal for your character.
Strategies
Always keep your gear in good condition. High repair is a must. When fighting enemies with high melee resist, the Nogur is still good with spells. Many enemies also hit crazily. I'm talking to you, Lifesuckers. Use a bow on those guys. Oh, and 100% magic resist helps a lot. Or Magic Immunity. Also, check out Chi_and_Nate's guide to using daggers with an off-hand weapon. Now you've got a few strategies. Time for you to make your own. Go into the world of The Quest with your Nogur. And most importantly, have fun!
Written by linkdude101
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The secrets of the undead: Aria's guide to the Rasvim
The benefits of being undead ... and sadly, invincibility is not one of them
Spells and Intelligence
I guess one of the best reasons to choose to be a Rasvim would have to be the amazing spells that you can cast. One of the spells, drain health, can sap the health of your enemies, provided that they are not undead themselves. If you have the drain mana spell along with this (and have a high enough mind magic level that your spell points don't get lowered as a final result) it is possible to kill your enemy without damaging your hp or your sp!
One of the most alluring qualities of the undead race is their high intelligence. This boost allows your Rasvim to have the option of becoming an expert mage. The intelligence bonus also helps to offset the extremely low magic resist that the undead race is cursed with. Intelligence also governs your maximum SP, so the boost to intelligence allows you to cast more of those amazing undead spells that your character uses.
Food and Poison
Another reason the undead race is a good choice is that the food you eat, which has to be contaminated, is so much cheaper than regular food. If you have any extra uncontaminated food that you recieved from barrels and shelves (provided that you don't need them for any quests) you should sell it at a nearby inn. It may not seem worth your time to sell these worthless hocks of meat, but trust me, if you let them pile up, they will weigh you down and your pack will become so full that you won't be able to move. The same is true for uncontaminated water, because you are only able to drink contaminated water.
Also, the Rasvim are greatly resistant to poison and disease. They start out with +50% of each.
This helps out a lot with the early quests because just about every monster is able to poison you, whether it be with fangs or arrows. Add this to the boost to strength and the even higher boost to intelligence, and you have an unstoppable battlemage with the potential to master both melee and spell based attacks.
In fact, the Rasvim are so resistant to poison that my character was able to touch the well filled with poison in the Amazon cave three times in a row without even a drop of poison getting into her system. I have no idea how high of a poison level that well has, but with every other character I have played, I have always gotten poisoned. Why I still touch it, I don't know, lets call it curiosoty... I usually only do so if I am not planning on playing the entire thing through
Stats
Below are the stat bonuses and handicaps for the Rasvim race.
There is also a screenshot of a page of The Races: Volume 1
Stats of an undead
An excerpt from the Races Vol 1
The downfalls of being undead
Do they need to work on their people skills? Or is it Discrimination?
Because the undead look different than the other races, your character will be ridiculed by the living NPC's and will start out with -5 personality. According to the Races: volume 1, a book describing the ins and outs of the Rasvimyour character will have "cat eyes fixed in a vacant stare" and "The skin has a greenish sickly castthat looks moist, but is dry and rough to the touch. Because of this, people will say some rude things to you in dialogue boxes, but you can simply ignore what they say. The good side to this is that the NPC characters that you meet who ARE undead, will treat you sooo much better than they would have if you had chosen a living race.
Magic and Healing
Be sure to enchant your gear with high magic resist, because you will be particularly weak against spell-type damage. You will start out with -50% magic resist, but because you get a +10 intelligence boost it will only amount to a little over -30%. This is still in the red zone however, and you will have to compensate for it by enchanting for magic resist or by increasing your intelligence when you level up
Another thing to watch out for is healing fountains. These fountains will not heal you like they would if you were a living being. Mana refreshers work fine though.
One final note
One final note before you go create your own amazing Rasvim. I realize that I said that food would be cheaper, but because you are required to eat contaminated food and drink infected water, you can't get drinkable water from town wells. This makes finding water slightly harder for an undead in comparison to living people.
Written by Aria
