a post in (exaggerated) praise of spellcasting

[Majang]

There seem to be two competing opinions on training the spellcasting (SC) skill: some say that casters should train it constantly, even focused (that's me), and others claim that they only ever train it to unlock new spell levels. And I guess there are a lot of differing perspectives somewhere in between. So here I want to present my evidence for my point of view - that training SC at all times, even focused, is an excellent investment of experience for all players who want to win their games mostly by casting spells (fighters and berserkers, please ignore this thread!).

I think all agree that SC has more benefits than just unlocking new spell levels. The dispute is more about how valuable these benefits are. Qualitatively, SC reduces spell hunger, and increases both spell success and spell power.

Spell hunger is a factor that most players don't take very serious any more, but I would still submit that it is a debilitating problem in the early game, limiting my options significantly when I play Vehumet. He unlocks quite powerful spells early on, but does nothing against the #####-hunger cost then attached to these spells. If you don't wear an amulet of the gourmand, a reduction of spell hunger looks really friendly. You get it through training SC.

I did not help matters by claiming misleadingly elsewhere that the effect of SC on spell success and spell power equals the effect of any involved spell school. This is not borne out by the facts, as manifested in the following formula for basic spell ability (here called SB):

  Code:

SB = [Spellcasting / 2] + [Average(SpellSkills) * 2]

This SB value is used as the basis for both spell success and spell power, before the application of other modifiers or stepdowns, and the SB value indeed only takes half your SC value, balanced by the double average of the involved spell schools. It is this apparent devaluing of SC that seems to cause many players to (almost) ignore it for their skills training. They point out that if I have a one-school spell, have SC at 10 and my spell school (say, earth) at 20, my SB will be at 45, of which only five are contributed by SC. If I then invest all the experience to bring my SC up to 20 (this is a lot of experience), I only add another 5 pip to SB, for a total of 50. In effect this means that I would have to add tons of experience to get a measly 10% boost to spell power and spell success.

But no caster ever deals with only one spell school. This experience investment looks a little more reasonable if it is applied to a few more real-life examples of what a caster needs. The above example may well serve for a single school earth spell, such as LRD or Shatter. Take a two-school spell (more or less the most common situation) like Iron Shot. The player started training earth before conjurations, so in the same scenario you may have a 20 earth skill and an 18 conjurations skill. In this situation the average is only slightly watered down, but you end up with an SB value of 44 with 10 SC, and 49 with 20 SC. More dramatic it is when looking at the Bolt of Magma, which was only found late in the game, and fire magic has only been trained up to 10 so far. The above formula will now give you SB as 37 with 10 SC, and 42 with 20SC. Now the difference between 10 and 20 SC is the difference of about 13.5 % in the SB value.

Now, consider someone who always plays with SC training in focus, and accordingly the SC skill is ahead of the other spell schools. Let's assume our above player has SC at 27 (that is, maxed out) while the other schools are where shown. Not only will the player ignore all spell hunger (because there won't be much left of it), but also the SB for Bolt of Magma is now at 45.5, and SC ads a whopping 42% to what it would be (hypothetically) with 0 SC.

Generally, if you manage to keep your SC level on par with the highest spell school for each spell, the SC bonus to SB (and therefore to spell power and spell success) will always beat least 25%, as SC is the only component of the above formula that does not get watered down by lesser trained skills. These 25% will easily be the difference between a mediocre spell and a high-powered spell.

Add to this the fact that having an SC level of about 20 and reasonable intelligence (and you will have that as a caster), you will be able to cast almost all level 2 spells with full spell power, without ever having to invest any experience into any of their spell schools.

Summary: If you are a caster, train SC, and don't stop training it.

[VeryAngryFelid]

My primary reason for training SC is to get extra MP.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I don't think it is often a good idea to have SC higher than magic schools (even for Sp) as having higher magic skills means you have higher level spells online and if you don't get higher spells because you don't have them, you just shouldn't train magic-related skills. Also high level spellcasting does not add much (1 MP, a bit of spell power, a bit of spell hunger reduction) so usually you have much better skills to train.

[Majang]

My primary reason for training SC is to get extra MP.

Right, I forgot that extra benefit. Thanks for tooting my horn.

[sanka]

20 levels spellcasting costs more than training *every* magic schools (there are 12) to 6, and it gives you only as much success/power as training the schools to 5 .
27 levels of spellcasting costs more than training *every* magic school to 10 9, and it gives you as much success/power as training them to 6.75 .

Honestly, if you understand the formula in your post then I think it's not very hard to figure out when to train spellcasting:

1. You need more spell levels to memorize something
2. You need casting success/spellpower, and the sum of the cost of spell schools you need for it is more then four times the cost of spellcasting. Since the cost of skills to train is visible on the skill screen now, it's not that hard to check.

Now if you understand this you only want spellcasting as the highest level if you want at least 4 high magic schools. This is quite rare in my experience. It could happen with a mummy who want simulacrum and freezing cloud, since mummies has better spellcasting aptitudes than magic school aptitudes, but you still do not want a big difference - just 1-2 skill higher spellcasting.

I am really curious what spells do you cast with your characters to feel that 20 spellcasting is a good investment.

[Majang]

20 levels spellcasting costs more than training *every* magic schools (there are 12) to 6, and it gives you only as much success/power as training the schools to 5 .
27 levels of spellcasting costs more than training *every* magic school to 10, and it gives you as much success/power as training them to 6.75 .

Wow. That quite deflates me. Thanks, sanka, for pointing this out.
Please all, ignore this thread. I stand corrected in shame.

[sanka]

I made a mistake actually, you can only train all magic skills to 9 for the cost of training spellcasting to 27. Training all of them to 10 requires a little bit more xp.

Anyway, to have a good deceison when to train which skill it is really useful to understand that the cost of skills raises very, very quickly. That's why it is rarely a good idea to rush to min delay with a weapon, or rush to level 5/6 spells before training more fighting/defenses.

[Majang]

I take it that these values differ somewhat for various characters, right? An Ogre probably has a better return from training SC for almost any spell school than a DE has, for example, on charms. But I certainly see your point.

[MainiacJoe]

Use the relative cost dispaly on the skill screen [EDIT] this will take aptitudes into account as in your Og/DE example. For purposes of spellpower and spell success only, If Spc's relative cost is less than (1/4) / (1/2) / (3/4) of the lowest spell school in your (one-school) / (two-school) / (three-school) spell, then Spc is cost effective to train, otherwise train the lowest spell school. This is just for a single spell. When you have multiple spells, and some schools are a part of several of them, and others are part of just one, then Spc's relative value changes. A Wz has lots of spell schools, so Spc becomes more valuable, where a Cj has relatively few spell schools. In practice, I find that I usually have one spell at a time that I'm wanting most to get online, and the cases when I'm training Spc for Mp or for spell slots takes care of the multiple spell schools in my entire spell inventory issue such that it's not worth optimizing it.

[TonberryJam]

If you don't have a way to mitigate hunger costs by staff of energy or god choice, then you wind up alternating training schools and spellcasting. Hunger from level 4 and 5 spells should not be underestimated. If you find early rings of mana then, you only need spellcasting to learn spells for a while. One ring was worth 8-10 spellcasting.

[stickyfingers]

If you don't have a way to mitigate hunger costs by staff of energy or god choice, then you wind up alternating training schools and spellcasting. Hunger from level 4 and 5 spells should not be underestimated.

Sure, if you're a spriggan and it's your only way to kill dudes. Not otherwise.

[tasonir]

My primary reason for training SC is to get extra MP.

Right, I forgot that extra benefit. Thanks for tooting my horn.

I primarily train spellcasting for mana. It should be noted that mana regeneration is also based off max mana, so training spellcasting gives you more mana regeneration as well. The effect is somewhat minor, but adds up with enough levels.

I also frequently train it on Vine Stalkers (one of my favorite races) for this reason alone, mana is extremely important to VS, casters or not. I'm usually building them as statue form hybrids, so they cast some decent level spells, but primarily kill in melee. But having 40+ mana to absorb damage and then be refilled through bite is extremely important, and you won't get there without training spellcasting.

[prozacelf]

I "overtrain" spellcasting with Veh just because I don't want to be caught without enough spell levels when he offers a spell that I want. Otherwise, if I'm happy with my current MP, and I don't need spell levels for anything in particular, I turn it off. Spell hunger and extra spell levels are rarely useful enough to justify continued training in it.