Being a Mage - Part 4

It occurs to me that I skipped a crucial step in being a mage; starting out. Paradise Found is different enough from other shards that some of the things experienced players will naturally start out doing on a shard should be tweaked a bit. While I am writing this with mages in mind, the initial bits of this apply to anyone just starting out.

One important thing to note about Paradise Found: Most skills require movement or a change in targets. It works on a 5x5 grid with .3 gain per grid; if you find that you aren't gaining skill, move around. For a more in-depth explanation of this, see here: Target/Movement skills.

Firstly, your skill order. The first skills you should go after are Tailoring, Magery, Alchemy, and Inscription, in that order.

Tailoring because it's the cheapest and one of the most effective ways to make money with crafting there is. Likewise, leather armor is the best option for a mage just starting out since it can give powerful resistances and doesn't hinder meditation. I should also add that Arms Lore could be GM'd with Tailoring, as it adds to the total resistances on exceptionally crafted gear (not just for tailoring), but as this is a starting suit it isn't as important just yet.

Tailoring also has the benefit that much of the last leg of training means making oil cloths, which break down into bandages that can be used to train healing/anatomy and/or vet/animal lore when you move into the more combat oriented part of your life. Healing is a good skill for everyone to have.

Next you'll want Magery, because obviously you're a mage and want to kill things. Eval, Meditation, and Resist can/will also be raised with Magery training, depending on how you go about it. You may want to look into a cheap/free LRC suit for this part of your training, but don't pay too much for it; LRC is one of those convenience mods and completely unnecessary even just starting out. We played for years without it, so don't lose your head over it.

One of the most common things I hear about getting to GM magery is to use/fight with a Mage Weapon. On two different characters now, this hasn't worked for me though it's possible that I'm just not patient enough to bother. My way is faster anyway. Magery can be bought to a certain point, mid 30s, I believe. From there, you should fireball/bless/lightning your way towards the 60s and 70s, throwing in a few cheap 5th circle spells towards the end. When you get closer to the 70s, put on a high penalty mage weapon, as close to -31 as you can get your hands on, and do the exact same thing over again.

Since PF has auto-spell channeling on everything, you don't need the mod for this to work. At 70 skill, a -31 sets you back to 39 skill, where you can gain off of 3rd and 4th circle spells again, using less mana per cast and likely less reagents. You'll only have to get back to 69 skill, take off the mage weapon, and there you go: GM Magery. These spells will also be safer to cast on yourself since the damage formulas for them is lower.

Once you have a GM Magery and a solid bit of eval, you may want to add to your funds a bit. It would be worth your while to hunt a few liches; they drop regs, scrolls, cash, and fairly often one of the two pieces of Mondain's Staff. You need a blue and a white piece to make the staff, and it is *very* worth your trouble. It can be double-clicked when equipped (Or use a 'use item in hand' hotkey) to polymorph your character into a water elemental as well as double the staff's properties; 50% SDI, 30% LMC, 2/2 FC/R, and hit lightning 50%. This is the best weapons for a mage on the shard (sadly), and it will be a cornerstone in your gear for a long time to come.

Alchemy next, once you have the time, regs/cash, and bottles. Alchemy requires reagents regardless of your LRC, so be prepared to spend some money on this one. When looking for a useful skill progression, I would suggest one that allows you to train Poisoning at the same time.

Alternatively, you could train Inscription before Alchemy. I suggest Alchemy first because it's a bit less cost intensive, but the difference isn't that great. Inscription is vital to you, however, as once it's GM you benefit from 10% SDI outside of the normal SDI cap. Furthermore, Inscription is the path to arming yourself with the most useful weapons you'll have as a mage, Slayer Spellbooks. You do not have to add all 64 spells to these books once you have them; so long as you have one spellbook with all the spells in your backpack, you can cast them regardless of what you're holding.

Now, with those four key skills, and perhaps some of their companions, at GM, you're able to do the most important thing you can on Paradise: Spellcrafting. Spellcrafting requires Inscription and Alchemy to do, and you'll need a book of Spellcrafts and the Spellcraft gems that fill it, as well as magic jewels as reagents. The book and gems can be bought in Brit's Jeweler's shop beside West Brit Bank. They're quite pricy, but you only need to buy them once. Start out with just a few important ones: Int, Str, Mana, HP, Mana regen, LMC, and/or SDI bonuses. Faster Cast and Cast Recovery are also very nice.

Each non-artifact item can have five mods on it, total; if you find a sword with DI and HCI on it already, you would be able to add three more mods to it, for example. Bonus skills on jewelry are an exception to this, but I'm not certain how far; I've put five extra mods on a ring that had one bonus skill, but I'm not sure you can add five to something that has three skills on it already.

I would suggest going with Int, Str, and SDI for sure; these can only be Spellcrafted onto Jewelry, and at the very least you'll have earrings and necklace slots empty of jewelry (sacrifice the gorget, as the SDI bonus is worth more than anything you can do with a gorget). At GM/GM skill, you'll likely spellcraft SDI at somewhere around 16~20% at best, likely on the low end of that. If you can pull 17% or 18% per piece, you'll have 68-72% SDI to go with the 50% from Mondain's Staff putting you right at the 125% SDI cap. I would also suggest putting any FC/FCR you want on your jewelry as well or saving space for it later if you don't have the cash.

For the armor in your suit, Mana, HP, and Mana regen without a doubt. The other spaces are up to you. There isn't much else you might want other than LMC and LRC. I would advise against putting too much LMC on this suit. You can try to plan ahead for the day where you can eventually dump Mondain's Staff, but you would be better off building this suit with it in mind, then building something wholly new when you can eventually toss it. Reason being, by the time that becomes the case, you'll likely be swapping in artifacts in your suit that will have mods you've already covered which forces you to change other pieces anyway. You'll also probably want to start a new suit if you come across 120s for Alchemy or/and Inscription.

A word of caution about item mods: some of them are completely worthless. Mage weapon for one. There's no skill cap on PF, so there's ultimately no benefit to taking a penalty on your Magery to use a weapon you can have the weapon skill for anyway. Spellchanneling is likewise useless, as PF doesn't force you to unequip to cast. I'm somewhat unhappy with that rule because it makes things much easier for dexers who don't need things easier for them, but eh.

Mage Armor is another iffy property. If you're looking to add this one, it's because you're trying to use something bigger than leather. This is generally pointless. You can get a full suit of 70's with Vulcan leather, which is easy to come by. Aquas is an even better choice if you don't have 120 tailoring and/or GM Arms Lore. Mage Armor still takes a property slot as well, so unless you honestly have nothing else you care to add to your armor you should stay away.

Getting equipped is half the battle these days. With a start like this, you'll have a good start towards getting your hands on those coveted artifacts. You'll have a few things to work around, but this will definitely get you going.