Mages and scripted spells - Page 2

Yrkoon · #11 October 2nd, 2007, 10:39 AM

Llama, he was A3 with 5 air gems.

Why couldn't he cast fog warriors ? It's an A5 spell costing 3 gems, so A3 + 2 gems = A5. With 5 gems, he should have had enough. What am I missing ?

thejeff · #12 October 2nd, 2007, 10:54 AM

You can only use as many gems as your path level.

And only one more than the spell costs to boost your level.

So an A4 mage can use 4 gems, 3 for the cost and one to boost his level to 5 to cast it.

An A3 mage can only use 3 gems, which is enough for the cost but not to boost his level, and could only boost his level by one to A4 anyway.

llamabeast · #13 October 2nd, 2007, 11:10 AM

Yep, the key point is that you can never boost your level by more than 1 by using gems. This caught me _countless_ times before I realised what was going on.

Yrkoon · #14 October 2nd, 2007, 12:34 PM

Oh right, that explains a lot.

For some reason I thought a mage could use as many gems as he had levels in a paths (so double his level at most), and then on top of that spend the gems necessary for the spell itself.

Thank you for the clarification thejeff

llamabeast · #15 October 2nd, 2007, 12:38 PM

Yes, I thought the same. I have a feeling the manual is wrong on this point, hence the widespread confusion. I can't remember any more, but I did read the manual carefully when I first got the game.

A side-effect of the same point is that you can't use more than one gem to reduce fatigue either (as fatigue is reduced by gaining a temporary level). Therefore the maximum number of gems a spell can use is (gem cost of spell) + 1. I'm almost certain the manual is confused on this point.

Yrkoon · #16 October 2nd, 2007, 12:40 PM

Maybe it would be worth including this in Edi's FAQ ?

If it is such a confusing matter, I am sure lots of people would find some explanations useful

Warhammer · #17 October 2nd, 2007, 01:15 PM

I know for a fact in the manual it states that you can use as many gems in casting a spell as you have in the path of the spell.

thejeff · #18 October 2nd, 2007, 01:39 PM

You cannot use more gems in casting a spell than you have in the path of the spell.
You also cannot use more than one more than the gem cost of the spell.
I'd have to check the manual, but I believe it is confusing but not actually wrong.
There was a discussion here a while back that hashed this out. I went into that with the impression that you could use one gem to boost your level to be able to cast the spell, then more to reduce fatigue. I think the manual discusses all of these in separate places, leading to much of the confusion.

Fate · #19 October 2nd, 2007, 09:49 PM

I don't think this is in the manual, but I think it was mentioned before that mages will not kill themselves if casting the spell would kill them (due to fatigue).

Tuidjy · #20 October 2nd, 2007, 10:47 PM

Casting a spell cannot kill a mage. If he's conscious and meets the requirements,
the mage will cast the spell, and even if his fatigue should rise over 200, it will not.
Furthermore, a mage will use more than one gem over what the spell requires.
The only limiting factor as far as I can tell is the magic path level.