Beginner's guide to playing an empath

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Revision as of 15:13, 20 February 2015 by ZHOUY1 (talk | contribs) (→‎Hunting and Combat: Added basic hunting checklist. Removed comment about archery training from the strategy section as it should be part of the training guide.)
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Race

Practitioners of empathic magic can be found among all the peoples of Elanthia. Your choice of race will not have a major effect on your healing ability, but you should make it with an eye on your preferred hunting style.

Statistics

Wisdom is the most important attribute for empaths. It contributes directly to the Casting strength of all your warding spells and to your starting mana pool. As one of your prime requisites, Wisdom counts for twice as much as other statistics in determining how many training points you receive each level. When you are starting out, you should set Wisdom to be one of your highest statistics.

Influence is the other prime requisite for empaths, reflecting the dual Spiritual-Mental nature of empathic magic. However, all of the spells that an empath can currently learn are considered part of the Spiritual sphere, so Influence is comparatively less useful. It contributes to your mana pool, but does not make any of your spells stronger. Still, it is advisable to set Influence relatively high to get the training point benefits.

Strength affects your proficiency with martial weapons. Even if you plan to play a pure spellcaster, it would still be a good idea to start with high Strength. The first few levels are much easier if you can competently swing a weapon, and later on it will help you in carrying more equipment without becoming encumbered, dragging your dying friends to safety, and even deflecting attacks with a runestaff. Strength also has the slowest growth rate out of all statistics, so no matter what playstyle you train in, you should set Strength very high at the start.

Dexterity affects your proficiency with ranged weapons and bolt spells. Along with Agility, it also reduces the roundtime on melee attacks. For spellcasters, it is advisable to set both of these attributes fairly high. For melee-focused empaths who swing heavier weapons, they are absolutely crucial.

Further information: New Players' Guide#Stats

Health and Anatomy

Before you start playing a healer, it is important to have a thorough understanding of how health, wounds, and ailments are represented in the GemStone IV setting.

Health Points

Each player character has a pool of health points (HP), which is an abstraction of how much blood is being circulated to critical regions of the body. If HP ever drops to 0 or below, the body can no longer sustain life, and the character dies instantly.

Disease and Poison

A character can become diseased or poisoned, for instance from being bitten by a rabid squirrel or eating harmful mushrooms. Diseases and poisons are represented by gradual HP loss, and the effect typically diminishes over time. For example, a disease may inflict 10 damage on the first round, 9 damage on the second, 8 damage on the third, and so on until it has fully run its course. A character can suffer simultaneously from multiple diseases and poisons.

Wounds and Scars

Independently, each character also has fourteen separate body locations. These locations fall into four categories:

  • Limbs: left arm, right arm, left hand, right hand, left leg, right leg.
  • System: nerves.
  • Head: head, neck.
  • Organs: left eye, right eye, chest, abdomen, back.

Each of these locations may have wounds or scarring. A wound is a fresh injury, such as those suffered in combat. A scar is an old injury, usually the result of treating a wound with herbs. Wounds and scars vary in severity, each having three levels: minor, medium, and major.

When someone takes a wound, they become less effective in combat. For example, someone with a major wound to their right hand cannot hold or attack with a sword in that hand, nor be able to cast most spells.

Repeated injuries to the same location will exacerbate existing wounds. If someone has a minor wound on their head, and is struck again with an attack to the head that would have caused a minor wound, the head wound will become a medium wound and start bleeding, causing the character to lose HP over time. In general, two minor wounds to the same location become a medium wound, and two medium wounds become a major wound. Taking a minor wound on top of a medium wound does not cause it to become major, but will likely increase the rate of bleeding.

Herbs and Non-Empathic Healing

When adventurers take wounds in the field and there is no empath on hand to assist them, they may choose to heal those wounds by ingesting herbal remedies. Healing a wound with an herb will reduce the severity of the wound by one level, and leave a scar of the same level as the prior wound.

Different herbs are effective for different wound locations and severities. The most common Elanthian herbs for healing wounds are:

  • acantha leaf: restores blood loss.
  • ambrominas leaf: heals minor limb wounds.
  • wolifrew lichen: heals minor system wounds.
  • rose-marrow potion: heals minor head wounds.
  • basal moss: heals minor organ wounds.
  • ephlox moss: reduces severity of medium and major limb wounds.
  • bolmara potion: reduces severity of medium and major system wounds.
  • aloeas stem: reduces severity of medium and major head wounds.
  • pothinir grass: reduces severity of medium and major organ wounds.

In general, one should use the EAT verb for herbs in their harvested form, such as leaf or moss, and use the DRINK verb for potions.

If the wound level has been reduced to zero and there is still a scar on that location, then it is possible to use specific scar-healing herbs to reduce the scar level. The most common Elanthian herbs for treating scars are:

  • cactacae spine: heals minor limb scars.
  • torban leaf: heals minor system scars.
  • haphip root: heals minor head scars.
  • talneo potion: heals minor organ scars.
  • calamia fruit: reduces severity of medium limb scars.
  • woth flower: reduces severity of medium and major system scars.
  • brostheras potion: reduces severity of medium and major head scars.
  • wingstem potion: reduces severity of medium and major organ scars, except for major eye scars.
  • bur-clover potion: completely heals major eye scars.
  • sovyn clove: completely heals major limb scars.

Herbs for scars will not work if there is still a wound on that location.

Without empaths, it is very expensive and time-consuming to fully heal a wound. For example, if someone suffered a major chest wound, they would first take two bites of pothinir grass, reducing the wound level to minor and leaving a major scar; then they would take a bite of basal moss, healing the wound; then, drink two sips of wingstem potion to reduce the scar level to minor; finally, drink one sip of talneo potion to heal the minor scar. Each of these steps could potentially take substantial time to finish.

Further information: Herb

Bleeding and First Aid

Medium and major wounds usually cause the victim to bleed, losing HP over time. The exact rate depends on severity and location, and can worsen if the same location is struck again. For example, a broken arm will usually bleed less than a gushing neck wound, but taking yet more blows on the arm can cause it to bleed quite severely.

The TEND verb can be used to slow or stop the rate of bleeding with field bandages without healing the wound. The effectiveness of the bandages depends on the tender's First Aid skill. Not all wounds can be fully bandaged, and it may take up to several minutes to bandage very severe wounds. It is possible for a skilled tender to bandage someone else, but the patient needs to be lying down.

As an empath, you will generally not need to bandage wounds yourself as you have access to empathic magic. First Aid is still a very useful skill to train in, as it affects how quickly you can ingest herbs and how well you can skin animals in the wild.

Empathic Healing

Transferring Wounds

Empaths can use the TRANSFER verb to restore HP or regenerate the health of a body location on another character, inflicting an equal injury on themselves. For instance, healing a minor neck wound on another will injure the empath as if the empath had suffered a minor wound on their own neck, and healing two such wounds consecutively will likewise inflict a medium wound.

Using the TRANSFER verb without a location will restore some amount of HP, depending on the empath's level. The maximum amount of HP that can be restored per transfer is 75. It is entirely possible for you to die from transferring HP if you don't have enough HP yourself, and the game will not give you any warning, so be very careful!

Example usage:

  • TRANSFER {character} HEAD
  • TRANSFER {character} LEFT ARM
  • TRANSFER {character}

Transferring only works on HP and wounds, not on scars. However, if a character has a wound and scar on the same location, then transferring the wound will also fully heal the scar.

An empath who already has a major wound in a location cannot continue to transfer wounds onto that location until healing the wound down by at least one level. If you try to transfer with such a wound, you will see the message that you strain over the location but are unable to transfer.

A novice empath does not have the ability to transfer every wound right away, but gradually learns over the first ten levels. By level ten, an empath will be able to transfer wounds of any location and severity.

Healing Spells

As you gain experience and train in the Empath Circle of spells, you will learn magic that allows you to heal your own wounds and scars, whether they were taken in the course of your own hunting or through healing others. Each spell costs some mana to cast, depending on the severity of the wound or scar. The empathic healing spells are:

# Spell Name Mnemonic Mana (Severity)
1101 Heal HEAL 1
1102 Limb Repair LIMREP 2 (minor), 7 (medium, major)
1103 System Repair SYSREP 3 (minor), 8 (medium, major)
1104 Head Repair HEDREP 4 (minor), 9 (medium, major)
1105 Organ Repair ORGREP 5 (minor), 10 (medium, major)
1112 Limb Scar Repair LIMSCAR 11 (minor), 15 (medium, major)
1112 System Scar Repair SYSSCAR 12 (minor), 16 (medium, major)
1113 Head Scar Repair HEDSCAR 13 (minor), 17 (medium, major)
1114 Organ Scar Repair ORGSCAR 14 (minor), 18 (medium, major)

These spells should be cast on yourself. The various Repair spells do not work at all when cast on others, and casting Heal (1101) on someone other than yourself turns it into Harm, dealing damage to them.

By healing a wound on yourself, you leave a scar just as you would if you had used an herb. Once the wound is fully healed you can then use the scar repair spells to heal the remaining scars.

Keep in mind that if the healing spell costs more mana than you currently have, then you will injure your nervous system by casting it, just like any caster who over-expends their mana.

Casting a healing spell incurs some amount of hard roundtime, preventing you from moving or taking most actions. The exact duration depends on the severity of the wound or scar being healed, and decreases as you gain experience. You can further shorten healing roundtime by training in Mental Lore: Transformation.

To prepare and cast (or incant) a spell, you can use its number or mnemonic. The following sequences of commands are all equivalent:

  • PREPARE 1102, CAST
  • PREPARE LIMREP, CAST
  • INCANT 1102
  • INCANT LIMREP

However, to have greater control over the location to heal and to avoid mistakes, it is highly recommended that you use the targeted healing functionality of the CURE verb.

Targeted Healing

CURE allows you to specify the location you want to heal. For example, 'CURE LEFT ARM' will reduce the wound or scar level on your left arm by one at the cost of some mana, as if you had prepared and cast the appropriate Limb Repair (1102) or Limb Scar Repair (1111) spell. In addition, using 'CURE' by itself acts as a more potent version of casting Heal (1101), by restoring all of your blood loss at a cost of 1 mana per 10 HP.

Example usage:

  • CURE HEAD
  • CURE LEFT ARM
  • CURE

Healing with the StormFront Client

If you use the StormFront client to connect to GemStone IV, you can create a convenient visual representation of a character's wounds by using the APPRAISE verb. As an empath, appraising someone else will tell you whether they are wounded and open up a window with a picture of a body and a (1), (2), or (3) symbol over the various wounded locations, corresponding to the level of the wound. Clicking on a wound symbol will transfer the wound, just as if you had typed in a TRANSFER command.

StormFront also has an Injuries window that shows your own health condition with a similar visual design. Your own wounds are shown with a number in red, and any scars you may have are shown with a number in yellow. Clicking on a wound or scar symbol in the window will prepare and cast the appropriate healing spell.

Common Healing Practices

Generally, when your fellow adventurers are looking for a healer, they will go to the main gathering spot in town, such as:

They might actively ask for healing, or simply be in visible distress and constantly eating acantha leaf to counteract their bleeding. And often the bodies of the dead will be dragged in and will need their injuries mended before a cleric can resurrect them.

Even as an empath, you do not, strictly speaking, have an obligation to help. There is nothing preventing you from portraying a character who stands around watching while others bleed to death, though if you are just starting out it may not be the best way to make friends. But if you do want to help, there are a few general guidelines you should follow:

First, you should make sure no one drops dead while waiting for a healer. If you are still inexperienced and not able to handle many patients at once, and there are several people needing assistance, use the LOOK verb to see if anyone is in very bad shape and might need help right away. If nothing else, you can restore some of their blood loss to give them time to find the proper herbs.

Second, you should have an idea of who the other healers in the area are. This will let you know if you must personally see to every patient or if others can assist, and they can also be very helpful in reducing the amount of time you need to heal scars. You can 'SPEAK GUILDSPEAK' to switch to speech that can only be heard by other empaths in the room.

When you have determined that someone needs your help and they are willing to accept it, you should acknowledge in some way that you are about to heal them. Traditionally this is done with a simple NOD, though you can do something else that feels appropriate for your character. This step is not always necessary but some people might consider it rude not to.

LOOK or APPRAISE will tell you what wounds someone is currently suffering from. Often that is enough for you to fully heal them. However, it will not tell you if someone is diseased or poisoned, how quickly they are bleeding out, or their exact amount of HP. If you suspect this information is useful, you may consider using the DIAGNOSE verb. Diagnosing someone will tell you if there are any diseases or poisons, and if they still have any blood loss even without wounds. You can also use 'DIAGNOSE {target} FULL' to get a comprehensive read on someone's health, including the exact severity of every wound and ailment. A full diagnosis incurs a small amount of roundtime.

As you start healing someone, you should make sure that your own body is able to take the injuries that you are about to transfer. If your own health is very low, transferring someone else's blood loss can potentially kill you. Likewise, if you are still very low level and can only heal minor wounds in a location, then you may want to heal your existing wound before transferring another that would have made it more severe.

Whenever you transfer wounds from someone else, you receive a small amount of experience. There are a few exceptions to prevent abuse: you do not receive experience by transferring back and forth from other empaths, nor by restoring blood loss to someone who is actively bleeding, nor by healing self-inflicted injuries.

Diseases and poisons can be neutralized by the spells Undisease (113) and Unpoison (114) in the Minor Spiritual Circle. Every separate disease and poison requires an additional cast, so if someone has two active diseases you must cast Undisease twice to remove both of them.

Hunting and Combat

To survive in the wild, whether to protect and rescue fellow adventurers or to hunt the dangerous creatures of Elanthia, empaths should also learn to be proficient in battle by acquiring the proper equipment, training, and general combat knowledge.

Equipment

Armor is worn by all adventurers to protect them from a variety of physical and magical attacks. However, heavier armors can cause your spells to fail from hindrance. Empaths can wear double leather armor without any chance of spell failure, provided that they have taken the appropriate training. It requires 8 ranks in the Armor Use skill to remove hindrance from double leather armor.

More experienced empaths may choose to wear hard leather armor such as brigandine, or even chain mail, but those armors require more Armor Use skill and there will always be some chance of spell failure while wearing them.

Weapons are used for both offense and defense. They come in a variety of types, and each type requires different skills to be proficient with it.

You can INSPECT a weapon to tell what type it is.

All martial weapons except for bows and crossbows should be held in the right hand. If a weapon is two-handed, such as the claidhmore or lance, then you should hold the weapon in your right hand and leave your left hand empty.

Bows and crossbows should be held in the left hand.

Shields can be used alongside a one-handed weapon to confer additional defense. Their effectiveness increases with training in the Shield Use skill. A shield should be held in your left hand.

Runestaves are specialized defensive weapons wielded by spellcasters. How well someone can defend themselves with a runestaff is determined by their training in magical skills. They are not generally useful for striking others physically, but you may come across enchanted runestaves that enhance your magical attacks. A runestaff is considered a two-handed weapon and should be held in your right hand.

Training

General Skills

  • Perception: 1x per level up to 30 ranks at least. 2x if you use bows or crossbows.
  • Climbing: 1x per level up to 15 ranks, more later on as needed.
  • Swimming: 1x per level up to 10 ranks, more later on as needed.

Perception, Climbing, and Swimming allow you to navigate the wilds more easily. For example, with just a handful of ranks of Climbing, you will be able to scale the gate to the Graveyard near Wehnimer's Landing.

First Aid and Survival are mainly useful to empaths for skinning animals. Skins can be sold at the furrier or turned in for bounty tasks.

Disarming and picking treasure boxes is a dangerous but profitable activity that is typically undertaken by rogues. It is not unheard of for empaths to learn these skills, though learning to do so requires a heavy investment of training points and is not advised for beginners.

However, even if you never work with boxes yourself, you should at least be aware of the various traps that could be set on them. Empaths are often called as first responders to the scene of a botched attempt at disarming a trap, and reacting to the situation properly can save many lives.

Further information: Trap

Empaths can never learn to hide effectively in combat. Picking the pockets of other adventurers may be fun--or dangerous, depending on who you try to steal from--but it is not particularly advisable for beginners.

Trading affects the prices that you get for buying and selling goods. For a novice adventurer, there is very little reason to train in it. Later on, when you start handling valuable furs and gems on a regular basis, you may find it more useful.

Physical Skills

  • Physical Fitness: 1x per level at least. Many empaths prefer to train even more.
  • Armor Use: 1x per level up to 8 ranks for double leather armor.

The martial weapon skills:

Training in martial weapons is expensive for empaths, so you should choose one style to specialize in instead of dabbling in several. Whichever you choose, you should train 1x in that skill every level.

  • Shield Use: 1x per level if you also train in a one-handed weapon skill.
  • Brawling: Not recommended.

The Brawling skill determines how well you can attack and defend without holding a weapon, or with hand-to-hand weapons such as the cestus or sai. It is also the primary factor in the unarmed combat system, which is an alternative way to resolve combat. The system is considered slower and more complex than regular combat, and empaths are not ideally suited for it.

Some empaths choose to train in both Shield Use and Brawling for purely defensive purposes. With this style, they hold only a shield for defense and exclusively use their magic to attack, leaving an open right hand to take advantage of channeling. There are some advantages to this style, such as immunity to Disarm and Weapon Fire. However, this requires a heavy investment of training points, and most pure spellcasters forgo the use of shields and martial weapons entirely to concentrate on magical training.

Combat maneuver (CM) training is mainly useful for empaths who wield a melee weapon as their primary means of attack. Each rank in CM increases your attack strength with melee weapons and gives you an additional CMAN point that can be spent on a variety of combat abilities. This is very expensive to train in, and it may not be possible to pick up a rank every level, especially early on.

For empaths who primarily use ranged weapons or magic, it is still worth picking up some CM ranks and spending the CMAN points in Cunning Defense to protect against hostile maneuvers.

Some empaths may pick up a few ranks of Multi Opponent Combat later on, as it can be useful for area attack spells and offsetting the defense penalty from engaging several opponents at once.

The rest of the physical skills are too expensive to train in for the minimal benefits that they provide.

Magical Skills

Arcane Symbols determines how well you can read and invoke spells from magical scrolls.

Magic Item Use determines how well you can use magical items embedded with spells, such as wands and small statues.

Spell Aiming determines how well you can attack with bolt spells. As empaths primarily use warding spells instead of bolt spells, not all empaths choose to train in this skill. If you do want to be effective with bolt spells such as Empathic Assault (1110), Fire Spirit (111), Web (118), and the wizard bolt spells commonly available in wands, you should train in this 2x per level.

Harness Power determines your maximum mana pool and mana regeneration rate. Every empath should train at least once per level, and pure spellcasters may consider investing even more heavily.

Mana control skills determine how well you can share mana with other adventurers by using the SEND verb. They also affect mana regeneration rate as well as the effectiveness of certain spells. Empaths derive the most benefits from Spiritual Mana Control.

Elemental and sorcerous lores are not useful for empaths.

Spiritual lores increase the potency of numerous spells. None of the lores are required training, but they offer an additional level of specialization.

Generally, spells affected by Blessings confer additional protective or physical benefits. For example, Adrenal Surge (1107) can be improved to fully restore a character's stamina pool, and Spirit Strike (117) can retain its guidance effect for consecutive rounds.

In contrast, spells affected by Summoning can be used more effectively for direct attacks. For example, Fire Spirit (111) can strike with more damage and hit more targets, and Wither (1115) can gain an additional attack cycle.

Mental lores affect many of the spells within the Empath Base spell circle.

Transformation decreases the hard roundtime incurred by casting healing spells, and increases the damage dealt by the plasma bolt portion of Empathic Assault (1110).

Manipulation increases the potency of empathic warding spells that inflict direct damage, such as Harm (1101), Bone Shatter (1106), Wither (1115), and the warding portion of Empathic Assault (1110).

Telepathy improves the effectiveness of warding spells that affect the mental state of the target, such as Empathy (1108) and Sympathy (1120), and determines the number of warding cycles of Empathic Assault (1110).

Empaths have access to the Empath Base, Minor Spiritual, and Major Spiritual spell circles. You should train once per level in Empath Base, and divide the rest between Minor Spiritual and Major Spiritual.

A typical balanced training plan would be to go up to 3 ranks in Minor Spiritual, then switch to Major Spiritual up to 25 ranks, then back to Minor Spiritual up to 30 ranks.

Empaths who use warding spells as their primary means of attack will often train more times in Empath Base than their current level. This is known as overtraining and increases their casting strength with empathic warding spells at the cost of delaying learning spells from other circles.

Sample Training Plans

Two-Handed Weapon Wielder

This empath focuses on using two-handed melee weapons and is trained to wear hard leather breastplate armor. Combat maneuver training is nearly at 1x by the 30th level, with enough CMAN points to pick up 3 ranks in Feint. Melee attack strength is further bolstered by researching Bravery (211) and Heroism (215) as soon as possible.

# PTP/MTP Skill Level 0 Level 10 Level 20 Level 30
15/0 Armor Use 1 8 15 15
1x 13/3 Two-Handed Weapons 1 11 21 31
12/8 Combat Maneuvers 0 4 13 27
2x 2/0 Physical Fitness 2 22 42 62
4/0 Climbing 1 11 15 15
3/0 Swimming 1 10 10 10
0/3 Perception 1 11 21 30
2x 1/0 First Aid 2 22 42 62
1x 0/2 Arcane Symbols 1 11 21 31
1x 0/2 Magic Item Use 1 11 21 31
1x 0/4 Harness Power 1 11 21 31
1x 0/3 Spiritual Mana Control 1 11 21 31
2x 0/8 Spell Research
Major Spiritual 0 9 19 19
Minor Spiritual 1 3 3 13
Empath Base 1 10 20 30

Pure Spellcaster

This empath is trained as a caster proficient at a variety of spells, wearing double leather armor and using a runestaff for defense. Spell research into Empath Base is overtrained for additional casting strength.

# PTP/MTP Skill Level 0 Level 10 Level 20 Level 30
15/0 Armor Use 1 8 8 8
1x 2/0 Physical Fitness 1 11 21 31
4/0 Climbing 1 11 15 15
3/0 Swimming 1 10 10 10
0/3 Perception 1 11 21 30
2x 1/0 First Aid 2 22 42 62
1x 0/2 Arcane Symbols 1 11 21 31
1x 0/2 Magic Item Use 1 11 21 31
1x 0/4 Harness Power 1 11 21 31
2x 3/1 Spell Aiming 2 22 42 62
1x 0/3 Spiritual Mana Control 1 11 21 31
2.3x 0/8 Spell Research
Major Spiritual 0 2 11 19
Minor Spiritual 1 10 11 13
Empath Base 1 14 27 40
0/6 Spiritual Lore, Summoning 0 0 10 20
0/6 Mental Lore, Transformation 0 0 9 21

Hunting Strategy

Melee

Melee is the most common form of combat in GemStone IV. Even if you plan to use magic exclusively, you should still understand the basics of melee combat, as the majority of creatures will use it when attacking you.

Before you engage in melee, make sure you are in the correct stance. Especially at lower levels, it is safest to start in defensive or guarded stance and wait for your opponent to make the first move.

Whenever a combatant makes an attack, they are put into some amount of hard roundtime before they can attack again. The exact duration depends on their overall quickness as well as the weapon they wield. A lynx attacking with its claws can make very quick consecutive attacks, while a troll swinging a massive hammer might only attack once every twelve seconds.

Once you have waited for your opening, switch to offensive stance and use the ATTACK verb to swing your weapon. If you managed to stun or knock down your opponent, you should follow it up with another attack. Otherwise, it is safer to switch back to defensive stance and wait for the next round.

Like you, creatures can also switch stances, and they may use a more defensive stance if they feel the battle is not going in their favor. In this state they will become harder to hit. If you need to lower your opponent's stance, you can try the Feint combat maneuver, or use one of your disabling spells. Alternatively, you could simply use a direct attack spell as a finisher.

As you gain experience, you will start facing tougher foes possessing special abilities where you may not want to let them make the first move. By that point you should have learned the skills to strike preemptively, by using either a combat maneuver or a spell to disable them outright, then follow that with your own attack.

Archery

Archery requires a few extra steps than melee combat, but it mostly works on the same principles.

As with melee, you should start in a defensive stance, holding your bow in your left hand, and wait until your enemy has attacked. Then, take a single arrow into your right hand, switch to offensive stance, and use the FIRE verb. The attack will incur some roundtime depending on the type of bow and your Strength bonus.

After you have successfully defeated and searched your enemy, there may be many arrows lying on the ground. You can reuse the arrows by using the GATHER verb to collect them into a bundle and put them back with the rest of your arrows.

Typically, you will perform these actions in a cycle:

  • GET 1 ARROW FROM MY QUIVER
  • STANCE OFFENSIVE
  • FIRE
  • (wait for roundtime)
  • STANCE DEFENSIVE

Then, after the battle,

  • GATHER ARROW
  • PUT MY ARROW IN ARROW IN MY QUIVER

Warding Spells

Offensive warding spells are the mainstay of spellcasting empaths. Warding ability does not depend on stance, making this a very safe hunting style as you can remain in a guarded stance while casting. Melee-focused empaths may still find these spells useful, as many creatures will switch to a defensive stance when they are badly wounded, making it difficult to land a killing blow. Warding spells bypass stance and can be a good way to finish off that last sliver of health.

Harm (1101) is the first warding spell that empaths learn, and deals around 15-20 points of damage if you successfully ward the target. It is a very weak attack spell, perhaps the weakest direct damage spell in the game. Still, it only costs one mana to cast and can be used to whittle down an enemy's health.

Calm (201) can be very helpful in dealing with multiple enemies if they are giving you trouble. By casting this at the enemies that you are not actively attacking, you can greatly reduce the risk of being caught off guard and overwhelmed.

Bone Shatter (1106) is the bread and butter direct damage spell for empaths. When you successfully ward an enemy, you deal initial HP damage followed by two cycles of impact criticals. At lower levels, enemies receive a substantial warding penalty against this spell, making it especially effective. Bone Shatter can be channeled with one or two open hands for additional power, achieving the maximum enhancement with both hands empty in full offensive stance. You would, of course, be nearly defenseless in such a state, so you should do so only when it is safe, for example against a single enemy that attacks very slowly.

Empathy (1108) is a disabling spell with a range of possible effects. It may induce roundtime, cause the target to run from the room in fear or become immobilized, or even instantly kill. This unpredictability makes it somewhat difficult to find the right situation for this spell, and there are other spells that disable more reliably, so most empaths do not tend to use this spell.

Bind (214) is one such disabler that, as long as you are able to ward with it, will reliably immobilize an enemy for some time.

Wither (1115) is a powerful high-level attack spell that requires fairly dedicated training. Like Bone Shatter, this spell can be channeled. At 15 mana per cast, the cost is nearly prohibitive for lower level empaths. Later on, if you train for a high enough casting strength and invest heavily in Spiritual Lore, Summoning for an additional damage cycle, Wither can become a deadly single-target attack with a very high chance of one-shot kills.

Web (118) is another disabling option, similar to Bind. Which option is more effective depends on your spell training and the specific type of enemy that you face.

Sympathy (1120) attempts to turn all enemies in the room against each other. It can be used to buy some time when there are too many enemies to handle at once. The duration is relatively brief, so you should not stand by and wait for them to kill each other. Identify the most dangerous targets and kill or disable them yourself. Disabling spells cast during Sympathy are particularly effective as affected targets will likely be attacked repeatedly by their comrades.

Bolt Spells

Bolt spells are magical projectiles hurled at targets using the Spell Aiming skill. Not many empaths exclusively use bolts, but they can be a valuable addition to the spellcaster's arsenal.

Casting an aimed spell requires you to switch to an offensive stance, but unlike melee weapons, it does not incur any hard roundtime. Instead, there are 3 seconds of casting roundtime, during which you cannot cast any other spells but can still move and switch stances. Many players use macros to quickly enter offensive stance, cast the spell, then return to guarded stance.

Empathic Assault (1110) has both bolt and warding components. The initial attack is made as a plasma bolt. If the bolt successfully lands, the target suffers additional cycles of HP damage based on warding rolls. For Empathic Assault to be effective, you would need to train heavily in Mental Lore, Transformation to increase the damage of the plasma bolt and in Mental Lore, Telepathy for the warding cycles.

Fire Spirit (111) hurls a fireball that can deal splash damage to multiple enemies in the same room. It is particularly effective against creatures weak against fire, such as trolls. To increase its damage and splash effect, you should train in Spiritual Lore, Summoning as well as a few ranks of Multi Opponent Combat.

Web (118) can be cast as a bolt if you have at least 20 ranks of Spiritual Lore, Summoning. In this form it only costs 9 mana and deals unbalancing criticals that have a high chance of stunning and knocking down the target. With additional Summoning lore training there is an increased chance of also webbing the target for some time, though at lower levels this will seldom happen, as the webbing effect requires 140 lore ranks to always work on same-level targets, and even more if the target is above the caster's level.

There are also wands embedded with a variety of elemental bolts, which you can use to supplement your own spells and conserve mana.

Basic Hunting Checklist

Before you head out into the wilds, make sure of the following:

  • You are wearing your armor.
  • Your weapon is held in the proper hand.
  • Your shield, if you use one, is held in hand (and not worn over your back).
  • Your health, mana, and spirit are full.
  • You have no outstanding injuries except for possibly minor scars.
  • You are properly spelled up with all the defensive spells you can cast.
  • You have read the maps and know how to get to the hunting area and back.
  • If you are using martial weapons to hunt undead, you have had the weapons blessed by a cleric or a member of the Order of Voln.

Optionally,

  • You have picked up a bounty task from the Adventurer's Guild.
  • You are wearing a crystal amulet to be able to listen to the thoughts of fellow adventurers, and call for help if need be.
  • You have set a gold ring to a safe spot in town.
  • You are carrying the proper herbs for any potential injuries that you might not be able to heal yourself.
  • You have a deed from the Goddess Lorminstra to lessen the penalties if you should happen to die.

See Also

References

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