A beginner's guide to playing a wizard

This article is a work in progress!

Wizards are the greatest wielders of elemental magic, attuned to the raw power that imbues the world of Elanthia and all that dwell thereon. It is through this attunement that wizards focus their spells to harness power for attack, defense and utility. Wizards excel at creating temporary magical items, enchanting armors and weapons for greater abilities, and casting down their foes through elemental forces like fire, air and water. Wanting to stay close to the elemental power, wizards generally will avoid heavier armor types which can inhibit their spell-casting. Skill at physical arms like swords and maces is difficult for the wizard to acquire, so most wizards prefer to research powerful spells and literally blow their foes out of the very boots they wear, rather than grunt and sweat while trying to beat their foes into submission.

Overview of Wizardry

Wizards are one of the four pure spell-casting professions in Elanthia and the only profession dedicated solely to the study of elemental magics. Clerics and Empaths focus on the study of spiritual magics, while Sorcerers blend a destructive understanding of elemental and spiritual magics. Wizards generally are concerned with strengthening and protecting their comrades, and creating or improving equipment and devices that other professions may seek. Wizards strive to balance their understanding of the elemental forces, providing a general service of utility to others in the lands that is difficult to equal. Yet for all that the aspiring adventurer may hear about the soul-searing power of the cleric, the debilitating touch of the empath or the degenerative nature of the sorcerer, there is one fundamental truth that remains today: Few can match the sheer death-dealing power of the well-prepared wizard across the entirety of a battlefield.

However it may be that most of the mysteries of wizardry are freely shared between the profession's members - those mysteries are not shared with the general populous as those mysteries are deemed to be too dangerous. Histories have shown some professions have perverted the purity of the elements for so trivial a pursuit as that of personal power.

What it means to be a wizard

There will always be those that pretend towards mastery of power, proclaiming themselves thereby the masters of others. Wizardry's true adherents understand intuitively that the elemental forces of the world tend towards a balance and that this balance is important to truly understanding the nuances of magic on Elanthia. Accepting that for every casting of elemental fire something must burn to release equivalent power, for every enchantment of a suit of armor something must be stripped of spells, for every peak of power that someone holds another must lose that power, for every spell cast with evil intent, another of good intent must be loosed - all this and more lies at the heart of all a wizard will do. It is precisely for this reason that the wizard may be shunned by one community, and yet beloved of another. It is this complex interplay of high versus low, of gathered versus consumed that causes the wizard to be misunderstood and at times represented poorly. It is the highest of calling, neither permitting subjugation of ones self to the spirit powers, nor the lessening of others through magics of utter despair and wonton loss,; that of true understanding of the nature of the world and the power within and without, corrupted neither by belief nor desire.

Most wizards thus welcome new adherents to the craft, speaking openly and frankly with aspiring adventurers about how the elemental magics may assist and lending of their own understanding to accomplish tasks great and small. It is hoped that what follows will guide the youthful practitioner in some early choices to be made. It is known that if the adventurer approaches the profession with heart steady and mind clear, success will be assured! Little can deter the steadfast wizard from a selected goal.

Early wizard character design preparation

In order to create a wizard character, some few choices need to be made during the creation and early years of your character's journey. An important point to be emphasized - the wizard profession is perhaps one of the more forgiving of all the pure professions in terms of being able to correct slight errors in training. So while there are some core concepts that you should strongly consider, don't be afraid to explore a bit outside of the recommended paths. Also, as a general note, this guide will give you insights needed to get through the first 20 to 25 levels of training, traditionally referred to as 'Lord level'. There are other, more advanced guides, which will explain training concepts and hunting techniques useful in the higher levels of the game. These should be consulted between 10 and 15 trainings, after a basic understanding of the game's rules and mechanics are achieved, and after you have settled on how you would like most to portray your wizard.

Wizardry as a profession may be loosely defined in three groupings. War-mages or Battle-mages use spells to augment their protections and rely on speed and set-up spells to physically assault their foes. Magus use their spells to create or sustain items of power, enchant armor and weapons, and are generally likely to follow the path of alchemy. Pure wizards study spells and magical skills almost to exclusion, seeking to become more powerful in their use of the elements to protect allies and self, and to destroy their foes. Note that the distinction between these three groups is one of focus - which skills and spells should be sought first and foremost. In truth, any of the three sub-types are easily playable, and at the ultimate reaches of knowledge and experience it is easily feasible to be fully capable in two of these areas. A few mages of renown have managed to become extremely proficient in all three!

Let's explore these three sub-types, briefly, to gain an appreciation for what each feel like.

Pure wizard character design preparation

The pure wizard is perhaps the most straight-forward of the sub-groups, and the archetype most commonly thought of in the genre. Here, the wizard focuses on learning all nuances of the spells available, and has the broadest repertoire of spells and magical skills from which to draw. The focus for this sub-group is to consistently train in magical skills, elemental lores and spells with each level advancement, while focusing less on physical skills and utility skills. This wizard will generally wear armors that will not hinder spell casting in any way, and will make no effort to learn any combat arms skills.

Pure wizards are likely later in life to want to focus on a particular spell-type or lore-type in an effort to increase that type's effectiveness. For example, some wizards prefer the element of air, and focus on Elemental Lore, Air and related spells to gain the maximum benefit of that element. Others may chose to focus on Elemental Lore, Earth and associated spells.

Magus wizard character design preparation

The magus is a variation of the pure wizard, generally focusing on magical skills and spells while dabbling in some of the more useful utility skills like Trading, First Aid and Survival if the magus wishes to pursue Alchemy. The true difference generally lies in the order in which spells may be learned, in order to increase the magus' ability to create and recharge magic items, and enchant armor and weapons. This wizard likewise will generally wear armors that will not hinder spell casting in any way, and will make no effort to learn any combat arms skills.

It is important to note that the differences between the magus and the pure wizard tend to be very difficult to discern, especially at mid levels and beyond in the game where the training paths ultimately merge together.

War-mage character design preparation

The war-mage is an interesting study in the blend of the arts magical and the arts martial in the hands of a pure profession. No other pure profession in the lands is as diverse and adept in varied combat forms as is the war-mage. War-mages will choose to be skilled in a weapon type such as Polearms, Two handed weapons, Edged or Blunt weapons and Shield, Brawling, or Ranged weapons. War-mages will usually train in physical combat skills such as Combat Maneuvers, although that training is difficult to maintain early in the character's journey. And war-mages may opt towards armors that might hinder their spell casting abilities slightly, in order to gain the better physical protections afforded by these armors.

War-mages generally do not prefer to stand toe-to-toe against a foe like a warrior or paladin might, preferring instead to knock their foe down via spells or skills, and relying on Hasted speed to mount a devastating assault. In order to accomplish this diverse training path, the battle-mage will not be as well versed in magical skills, and may not have as broad a repertoire of spells from which to draw as the pure mage or magus does, early in their journeys. While the differences between the war-mage and the pure wizard are evident nearly immediately, much later in the game the war-mage will blend training paths with the pure wizard and ultimately these paths likewise come close to merging.

Character creation and training

Now that the core sub-types have been covered, you hopefully have an idea for the wizard you want to portray. Your vision of that portrayal will ultimately decide how you wish to train and advance your character, and how you will interact with others in the lands. During the vast majority of the game, each sub-type has some advantages, and some disadvantages when compared to the others. This holds true for a great majority of your character's journey, but ultimately the paths do blend together and so there's no right or wrong answer - merely what you wish to be known for.

With a firm concept of the type and personality of the wizard you wish to portray, it's time to get into the mechanics; to breathe life into the character and begin the pursuit of knowledge, training and riches! Before we begin, remember this one rule: There are only five absolutely, incontrovertibly final decisions you will be subject to in the lands -- your character's name, your character's race and culture, your character's profession, your character's elemental attunement, and any decisions concerning banning for inappropriate game play on your part. That's it! Have particular care in those five areas, as the rest of the decisions are changeable over time. Some decisions may be easier than other decisions to reverse or correct. But the possibility is there. Of course, it will help if you read this guide through completely, and ask any questions you may have before becoming too invested in any particular path.

There is an exceptional general New Player's Guide to this process that you should pause to become familiar with. Don't be afraid to read ahead in the guide. When you're ready we'll be here to focus a bit more specifically on the wizard you want to portray so that you can portray your vision to the utmost.

Racial Selection

Lets not clutter the issue significantly here on race and culture. There is no wrong selection here. Each race has some inherent advantages and disadvantages, but these have only modest impact to the wizard. Due to the permanence of the race decision, those advantages and disadvantages are summarized below - but try not to think in terms of absolutes. Rather, let your vision of your wizard be your guide, and use this summary data only for foreknowledge of the task that lies before you.

Race Selection Summary for Wizards

General Wizard	Pure Wizard	Magus	War-Mage
All races	Halflings	Dwarves	Half Krolvin
	Burghal Gnomes	Elves	Giantmen
	Forest Gnomes	Sylvan Elves	Dwarves
	Aelotoi	Erithian	Elves
	Elves	Humans	Half Elves
	Dark Elves
	Half Elves

The chart shows that any race can successfully be a wizard. The pure wizard usually is a smaller, more dextrous race, while the magus generally is a race with good dexterity and influence. The war-mage is the purview of the sturdier, stronger races. Keeping these thoughts in mind, you can turn to the cultural distinctions within each race, if you wish - there is absolutely no need to choose a culture, but reviewing them can assist in crafting your vision to roleplay your wizard.

Statistics (Attributes)

An excellent guide on Statistics for New Players is worth reading in general. Note in particular that this decision regarding attribute placement isn't permanent - and in the course of the first 30 days, you can change attributes up to five times. So don't panic! Glance over that information to get a feel for how attributes work in Elanthia, and then we'll focus specifics for the wizard.

Wizardly Attributes Focus

Entire tomes (and spreadsheets!) have been created to attempt to ease the painful decisions necessary to set all the attributes for a character to begin playing the game. A generic attributes guide gives some insight into the absolute horrors of math and preplanning that could be undertaken when attempting to create a character that maximizes the potential statistical growth in the game. Advanced players spend hours in polite, and sometimes not-so-polite discourse on what the best overall outcomes are. For this quick start guide, we'll discuss some generalities that will serve you well in creating your wizard.

First, remember that in your first 30 days you can change these attributes up to 5 times. So hours of agony spent staring at a screen with ten categories on it trying to decide where to put those last three points really isn't too necessary.

Second, there are mechanisms later in the game which will allow you to 'fix' your attributes. These potions from the Adventurer's Guild are time consuming to earn and expensive to buy from other characters. They're also totally unnecessary for the beginning wizard, and usually serve better towards the last levels of the game - levels 75 or 80 to beyond 100.

Third, and most importantly, there have been hundreds of wizards throughout history who have managed to reach their goals, no matter how high the bar is set, with less than 'perfect' or 'maximized' attributes.

In summary, all of this means that there is some good leeway in allocating points to your attributes, and a few general rules suffice to make the game playable and enjoyable. At some point, the urge to 'perfect' your wizard may overtake you - seek out the process and means then, and for now simply enjoy the journey.

You have 640 points to allocate to your attributes in total, and the wizard's two prime attributes, Aura and Logic will each automatically be increased by 10 points when you're done allocating. This means that when you begin to play the game, you will have a total of 660 attribution points spread across these 10 attributes.

The following chart summarizes reasonable starting attribute ranges for each of the wizard subgroups. Aura, Logic and Discipline will generally be higher allocations because these attributes affect starting mana, starting spirit points, and influence both total training points per level and the wizard's experience pool size. Thereafter, it's a question of focus.

Attribute Allocation Ranges Summary for Wizards

Attribute	General Wizard	Pure Wizard	Magus	War-Mage
Strength (STR)	60 - 70	50 - 60	55 - 65	75 - 85
Constitution (CON)	55 - 65	50 - 60	45 - 55	75 - 85
Dexterity (DEX)	45 - 55	55 - 65	55 - 65	50 - 60
Agility (AGI)	70 - 80	70 - 80	70 - 80	50 - 60
Discipline (DIS)	65 - 75	70 - 80	70 - 80	70 - 80
Aura (AUR)	75 - 85	80 - 90	80 - 90	60 - 70
Logic (LOG)	75 - 85	80 - 90	75 - 85	60 - 70
Intuition (INT)	55 - 65	55 - 65	45 - 55	50 - 60
Wisdom (WIS)	55 - 65	55 - 65	55 - 65	60 - 70
Influence (INF)	55 - 65	55 - 65	60 - 70	60 - 70
Total Range	610 - 710	610 - 710	610 - 710	610 - 710

Some points should become immediately evident, but they may not be clear, so let's have a brief dialog about the table itself.

All total ranges are between 610 and 710 points. Recall that all characters in all professions start with 660 total points, the only difference being in the way players choose allocations. If you wished, a quick way to use this table to start would be to put in the lowest values in the range for each attribute. This would show you that you have 30 points remaining to allocate - remember though, the system automatically allocates 10 points to each Aura and Logic when you are through, meaning 610 + 30 + 10 + 10 = 660.

Then, you could increase attributes that you want to emphasize in your wizard. Not sure what those should be? Each attribute affects various activities in game. Click on each one until you've scanned them all, and give points to those that sound most in line with how you wish to portray your wizard.

Note that Aura is a bit short changed for the War-mage. This is by design, as Aura grows fast, and the physical attributes need to be higher than in average, magus or pure wizards. Also note that sometimes Agility is traded off against. The reason for this is that Agility bonuses affect your wizard's Defensive Strength in combat. But since wizards have many spells to use that grant DS, it is not a bad idea to trade some Agility points into other areas.

The same generally will be held true about Influence, which is a reasonable attribute to trade off against, in most cases. The Magus might want to keep this attribute a bit higher though, since Influence can favorably affect the buying and selling of various goods - and in the long run, the Magus will likely be doing a lot of Trading.

Finally, note that there aren't really hugely significant differences between the different types for each attribute. While perhaps surprising at first, it simply speaks to the forgiving nature of the wizard profession in general. The broadest variance is the War-mage - to be expected due to the martial nature of the subtype, in a profession generally expected to reflect a magical nature.

The Risk of Attempting to Maximize Stats

You may hear or read a great deal about the concept of minimizing fast growing stats to maximize the final value of slow growing stats at level 100. This wonderful concept is generally referred to as 'min / maxing' or 'maximizing stats'. This is a very advanced topic, and one that deserves little attention from the new player. A brief explanation follows.

The goal of attribute maximization is to get as close as possible at level 100 to each attribute having 100's as a score. In order to do this, the tradeoffs made in each of the attributes will generally fall outside of the ranges above. And these tradeoffs need to be tailored to the race selected, as well as the profession. These tradeoffs will often affect things like starting mana, spirit points, and experience pool and experience absorption rates. Choosing such a route - while certainly possible - significantly increases the difficulty of each level, which is why this discussion is better left towards the final levels in the game, where its impact is lessened somewhat.

To demonstrate directly, however, here are some sample starting attributes for three races that follow the general thought of maximizing one's stats. Included for comparison are the starting mana and spirit points, two very important reference points for wizards. The general wizard from the table above is repeated here in the final column as a reference point against which to compare. Scan it briefly, but the news is in the bottom line.

Example Attribute Allocations for Maximizing Growth - Wizards

Attribute	Elf	Dwarf	Human	General Wizard
Strength (STR)	88	82	86	60 - 70
Constitution (CON)	88	73	78	55 - 65
Dexterity (DEX)	50	70	62	45 - 55
Agility (AGI)	55	88	82	70 - 80
Discipline (DIS)	82	68	73	65 - 75
Aura (AUR)	21	49	49	75 - 85
Logic (LOG)	52	62	62	75 - 85
Intuition (INT)	62	62	59	55 - 65
Wisdom (WIS)	73	68	70	55 - 65
Influence (INF)	69	38	39	55 - 65
Total Range	640 (+20)	640 (+20)	640 (+20)	610 - 710
Mana / Spirit Level 0	1 / 3	1 / 5	1 / 5	8 / 8

The moral here is that when attempting to maximize a wizard's stat growth, the tradeoffs necessary to achieve the 100's (in attributes) by 100 (levels) makes the early game a nightmare - at level 1, the wizard would have four mana with which to hunt, versus 14 for the unfocused 'general wizard' group.

So, spend your time wisely - both when assigning attribute points, and in the early game. Don't try to maximize attributes right from the start as a new player.

The Wizard's Skill Selection

Now let us turn our attention to the skills your wizard will wish to train in while advancing in knowledge of the lands, its denizens and the art of wizardry. Please spend a few moments reviewing skills, as the concepts of Physical and Mental Training points, skill costs and skill benefits are important. We'll be here when you're done.

As you can see, the concepts of skills and training points available based on attribute selection can quickly become daunting. Here is where your vision of the personality and type of wizard you wish to portray will stand you in good stead. Do you want to be a maul-wielding dwarven war-mage? We'll need a weapon, but no shield skills and some magic - but we're going to grunt and sweat, and so the magic may not be all that important! Do you want to be an elven magus? We'll need some utility skills to help us skin and gather items - we might even have to give up a couple spells to free up training points. Your vision for your wizard will give you a sense of things you should be considering, and your training points will tell you when you've considered too freely.

Most wizards will start out with about 43 physical training points and 48 mental training points at the start. There may be a bit of variance, but unless you're trying that maximizing attributes thing, the variance isn't going to be more than a point or two. These will increase over time, as your attributes grow. But in all honesty, you will feel as though there simply aren't enough points to train all the skills you need. That's exactly the idea behind skills in Elanthia! You have to make choices, and some things are going to have to wait!

Remember that you have two key advantages: The wizard profession is a relatively forgiving one, so a missed skill rank here or there isn't going to significantly prevent you from attaining your goals, and; you can easily change your skills immediately during the first 30 days, and annually thereafter if you wish to change your wizard's focus. You can also 'fix' your skills more often by using the Adventurer's Guild, but this shouldn't be necessary for the new wizard. So plan out what is important to your wizard's background and personality, but don't agonize too much over these selections, as they can be changed!

One very important thing to remember here is that it is possible (and often times necessary in a good training plan) to allow points to carry over or accrue between levels. The plans in this guide will leave you with training points 'unspent' from time to time, and this is fine. It is also ok to experiment, spending as many of your points as possible on your wizard's training. This will make it a bit more difficult to track, and a good training spreadsheet will become a requirement.

This table summarizes everything necessary to train a wizard to level 20.

Skill	Cost	Rate	TGT		Ranks at Level for War-Mage						Ranks at Level for Magus						Ranks at Level for Pure Wizard
					0	5	10	15	20		0	5	10	15	20		0	5	10	15	20
Physical Fitness	8 / 0	1x	101		1	6	11	16	21		1	6	11	16	21		1	6	11	16	21
Climbing	4 / 0	.5x	50		1	3	6	9	11		1	3	6	9	11		1	3	6	9	11
Swimming	3 / 0	.5x	50		0	3	5	8	10		0	3	5	8	10		0	3	5	8	10
Arcane Symbols	0 / 1	1x	101		0	3	5	8	10		1	6	11	16	21		1	6	11	16	21
Magic Item Use	0 / 1	1x	101		1	3	6	9	11		1	6	11	16	21		1	6	11	16	21
Spell Aiming	2 / 1	2x	202		2	12	22	32	42		2	12	22	32	42		2	12	22	32	42
Elemental Mana Control	0 / 4	1x	101		1	6	11	16	21		1	6	11	16	21		1	6	11	16	21
Armor Use	14 / 0	T	4		1	3	5	10	15		1	2	3	4	4		1	2	3	4	4
Perception	0 / 3	T	40		2	12	22	32	42		1	3	6	9	11		1	3	6	9	11
First Aid	2 / 1	T	50		-	-	-	-	-		-	-	-	-	-		-	-	-	-	-
Trading	0 / 3	T	50		-	-	-	-	-		0	3	5	8	10		-	-	-	-	-
Survival	3 / 2	T	50		1	3	6	9	11		1	3	6	9	11		-	-	-	-	-
Harness Power	0 / 4	T	202		1	6	11	16	21		2	12	21	30	40		2	12	22	32	42
Major Elemental Research	0 / 8	T	101		1	4	7	10	15		0	4	8	12	16		0	4	8	11	15
Minor Elemental Research	0 / 8	T	101		1	5	7	11	14		0	4	7	11	14		1	6	11	16	21
Wizard Research	0 / 8	T	101		0	3	8	11	13		1	6	11	16	21		0	4	8	12	16
Elemental Lore, Air	0 / 6	T	24		1	3	4	4	4		-	-	-	-	-		-	-	-	-	-
Combat Maneuver	12 / 8	S	101		-	-	-	-	-
Choose Only One of the Lines Below
Edged Weapons / Shield Use	19 / 1	W	101		-	-	-	-	-
Blunt Weapons / Shield Use	19 / 1	W	101		-	-	-	-	-
Ranged Weapons	14 / 3	W	101		1	6	11	16	21
Polearms	14 / 3	W	101		-	-	-	-	-
Two Handed Weapons	14 / 3	W	101		-	-	-	-	-

There is a lot of information tucked away in that summary table of how to train your wizard. Let's spend a bit of time on it, just so that it can be useful when printed out and kept by your system for reference.

The Table Structure lays out a four collections of columns: Skills popular to the wizard profession with cost, rate of training, and target number of ranks to hit over the course of your journeys; War-mage information about how many ranks of each skill one should have at the stated levels; the same information for Magus, and; the same information for Pure wizards. The structure also lays out three collections of rows: Skills that are generally the same irrespective of wizard type, and generally should be trained at the suggested rate; Skills that may vary significantly between the wizard types and are usually trained to a 'threshold' value and then not trained in any further, and; Specific skills to the war-mage, in this case an archer.

Training Patterns are useful to understand as they help guide your selections of when to train. Take a look at the first three skills. Those skills show a rate, a target (TGT) number where training could be halted, and the number of ranks one would expect at each level. So if one is training at a rate of 1x (or once, every level) and one trains in the skill while creating the character (0th level), then at level N, the character should have N+1 ranks in that skill. So anytime you see on the chart anything that looks like N+1, you know it's the same as training in it every level, religiously. The same holds true for the next two skills, each at .5x rate (or trained every other level). The difference between the two lines is whether you start that training during character creation (0th level) or not. This is useful because now at a glance we know that the skill Survival for the Magus in the chart above is suggested to be trained .5x up to 50 ranks of skill, because of the progression of ranks shown.

Flexibility in Training is captured, as well. Consider the war-mage and the Perception skill. The chart suggests a TGT value of 40, and then the character could stop training in it and select other options. Yet, the war-mage has 42 ranks in the skill at 20th level! That's the same pattern as a 2x training regimen, like Spell Aiming shows. And that same war-mage is training at a 1x rate in Harness Power, even though the TGT value would suggest a 2x training rate. Well, the war-mage simply didn't have enough training points to do both.

Order of Spells is shown in the table, and is a topic that will delight you and your wizard all through the ages. While everyone can agree which spells are critical to learn, there is some slight difference of opinion on what order they should be learned in. The usual suggestion is to have Elemental Targeting (425) at level 25, and Elemental Barrier (430) at level 30. Then, get Haste (506), Call Familiar (920), and Stone Skin (520), as close to their respective levels as you can. What makes this good advice is that last part 'as you can'.

The recommended training for each wizard at level 0 is accurate and will work well to get you into your wizard's skin and roaming the lands as quickly as possible. But be warned - that's the only level that's assured to be accurate. Remember the statements before the table - you only get so many points to spend, and there's never enough points when you need them. At the same time, the training regimen may require points be banked forward rather than used immediately, so be cautious when training. That extra 15 minutes early on while training between levels will be very useful. Andt, you can be flexible and adapt the training above and still be very successful as a wizard, even though some purists or sorcerers in disguise may try to dissuade you.

After becoming comfortable with the concepts it will be time for you to go back to the Training points page, and look at the external links at the bottom. There you will find something that will help significantly. With your understanding from the table above and practice, you'll be able to create and generate characters of any profession with little problem, and plan their training for each level in great detail all the way through their journey.

See Also

• Wizard (main article)
• New Players' Guide (a comprehensive beginner's guide for new players of any profession)
• Whirlin's Wizard Guide
• Charge Item (guide)
• The Art of Roleplaying in GemStone IV (guide)

References

• Wizard profession on Play.net
• GemStone IV New Player Guide on Play.net

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