Asheron's Call - Magic info Taken from the FAQ v1.9 Should I take Item Magic, Creature Magic, or what? This is one of the most asked questions in alt.games.asherons-call, and depends completely on your current skills, and what you want your character to do. Most melee and archer characters will have their effectiveness increased most noticeably with item magic. However, a less obvious increase is obtained with creature magic. Due to the exponential increase in cost to raise stats and skills, creature magic offers a huge boost to skill level, and can add an effective 20 levels to your character's skills at the higher levels (that is NOT an exaggeration). Item magic allows high damage from even non-magical weapons, and can increase your effective fighting skills, armor level, PLUS make travel around Dereth easier with the portal spells. Also consider that many item and creature effects can be duplicated with jewelry and magic weapons, except for the portal spells which can only be cast by a character with item magic. (There is a quest to obtain a lifestone recall gem, but this is a one-shot deal.) The hybrid fighters will be more effective than the non-hybrid. The common answer is usually: Take Item, then Creature. And then recreate with Life Magic, too. Why can't I read this scroll and learn the spell? There are two reasons reading a scroll will fail: low arcane lore, or low skill in the magic school. If the message is "You can't understand the scroll" your arcane lore is too low. If the message is "You are not skilled enough in xxx magic" then you must raise your magic skill. Scrolls may have different requirements, even within the same school and level of spell. Some special scrolls exist which can't be read, but rather, are given to an NPC which teaches you the spell. What should my magic skill be to cast the higher level spells? Generally, minimum skill is about 40 to cast level 2 spells, 75 to cast level 3, 125 for level 4, 180 for level 5, 225 for level 6 and 280 for level 7. There will be SIGNIFICANT component burn and fizzling (over 90%) at the minimums, however. Some spells are more difficult than others, e.g. Portal tie is level 3 but should have about a 100 to 110 to cast it, and summon portal requires a 170 to avoid the "your skill is too low to have much chance of success." War mages should have higher skill (about 55 skill per spelllevel past 1) because fizzling in battle can mean dying. The actual difficulties for a 50% chance of success is 50, 100, 150, etc, with offensive spells being 25 points higher (except for war magic). Flame bolt III is difficulty 100 and Imperil Other III is difficulty 125. How do I compute my personal tapers for higher level spells? The traditional method of spell research is trial and error, often combined with a friendly mage casting Focus/Self/Mastery on you and keeping you full of mana. Make sure you have a proper target each time before testing, and make sure you have enough mana for the spell. Level 2 spells have a taper after the scarab. Level 3 and 4 have tapers after the scarab and after the herb. Level 5 and 6 spells have a third taper before the talisman. Enjoy the thrill of discovery by researching your own, not reading spoilers on the Internet. **minor spoilers** Currently, if (and only if) you have mana conversion, you can watch your mana. If you fizzle but it consumes less than five mana, you have the correct formula (but failed). There is also a concept known as taper rotation, which will give you the first taper of level 3+ spells. It is the reverse order that the tapers are sold in mage shops, and is based on the second level spell. If the taper for Befuddle Gromnie II is red, the first taper for Befuddle Gromnie III will be pink, and the first taper for Befuddle Gromnie IV will be orange. **heavier spoilers** There are also programs designed to help reduce your choice of tapers, by plugging in some of the recipes you've already researched. The most-used one is SHAREWARE ($10) located at http://www.rainpea.com called SplitPea which is also a character xp calculator -- it has much more use than just calculating tapers. The code for the tapers has also been cracked and a program called Spiltbeans (spilt, not split). The programmer is trying to make some sort of political statement, and stopped distributing his program. It used to be available from http://www.archgrove.co.uk/spiltbeans.html. Hopefully, someone will create an open-source version so we don't have to endure such annoying tactics. My personal favorite is the Decal plugin, Arcane Knowledge, located at http://hazridi.acdev.org/AK/. What's the deal with the global mana pool? Every time a spell is cast, a server-wide pool for that particular spell is reduced a tiny amount. This pool is continually replenishing. If spellcasters deplete it faster than it replenishes, that spell will lose some effectiveness. You can tell the state of the global mana pool by the comment when you cast the spell. High levels: The magic blazes within you, The magic flows mightily through you, The magic surges through you. Those comments will result in an increased effect of the spell. "The magic flows through you" indicates a fair amount of depletion, and will result in standard effects of the spell description. What's the deal with my personal mana pool? Similar to the global mana pool, you can deplete a personal mana pool, reducing the effectiveness of continually-cast spells. This is the blue bar across the bottom of the spellbar. It replenishes very quickly, and will only have an effect if you cast the same spell multiple times in quick succession. What affects component burn? (QA) Each spell and each component type has a burn rate, where the lower level spells typically burn less. This rate is increased when fizzling. Your magic skill is not a factor except indirectly through fizzling. What affects resisting spells? (QA) Only the caster's skill compared to the target's magic defense affects resisting. Notably, the spell level does not affect it. I believe your personal mana pool depletion also affects it. How does mana conversion work? A mana conversion skill check is made at 25 diff per level of spell, and the cost of the spell is reduced if the skill check is successful. The reduction is a random percentage from 0 to the chance of your mana conversion skill check success rate. In other words, if you have an 80% chance of your mana conversion working on a spell, then 20% of the time you will save nothing, and the other 80% you will save between 0 and 80% of the mana. Obviously, lower level spells will succeed much better, because you will have nearly a 100% chance of conversion success. This is not a skill a mage should neglect, but because it tapers off, it probably should not be specialized. Unfortunately, a mana conversion of 300 is not much worse than 350. How do I get level VII spells? Level 7 spells are not researchable. To get them, you must give a level 6 scroll to one of the Essences. There is an Essence of Strife, which will take war scrolls and teach your character the corresponding level 7 war spell. There is also an Essence of Artifice for Item spells, Enchantment for Creature magic, and Verdancy for Life magic. The character handing the scroll will automatically learn the corresponding level 7 spell. Level 7's have a base skill check at 300, and it's a good idea to wait until you're getting close to that level before learning 7s. Don't confuse level 7 spells with the special war spells, such as rings and walls, which have no defined level. - o -