Going pure caster from the start is hard for any profession, basically due to lack of adequate mana for successful prolonged hunting, and makes the least sense for a cleric; clerics, for no good reason, have the cheapest TP costs of any casting profession for weapon/shield skills. They also, back in GS3, had the best weapon buffing spells at that time (the current empath spell circle makes them them now better with weapons than the cleric; go figure). Well OK, the rationale for this oddity back in GS3 was that they were considered a "martial" group, since they were expected to be aggressive in the service of their chosen Arkati, but we now have the Paladin to fill that role, so this skill cost profile is a bit of an anachronism.

Consequently, most folks use weapon/shield or THW/polearm until level 25-30 or so, and then fixskill over to pure caster. However, if you want to try this route from the start, you will want to train in MIU and spell aiming so you can use wizard wands to supplement and extend your relatively small mana supply. Core skills would be at least 1x in MIU, 2x spell aiming, 1x PF, 2.5x spells if possible, enough armor training to use double leather, lores as permitted, and HP. How much harness power? You'll get various answers; I always shoot for 2x as a final goal, but TPs are tight early on and you may have to settle for less. There isn't a huge difference in mana produced between 1x and 2x until much later on, so 2x can wait a bit. And, of course, you want to save up a few TPs each level for various ancillary skills: climbng, swimming, perception, FA etc. You will use a lot more MTPs than PTPs, so emphasize the mental stats; although you will end up converting a ton of PTPs in the end no matter what.

As for where to hunt undead early on ... I am not that familiar with River's Rest area, so can't help you there, but the Landing has, obviously, the Graveyard. Getting in and out, alas, will be a bother until you get spell 309, or around 9 ranks of climbing skill. However, there are some low level undead in the sewer/catecombs area, and on the coastal cliffs. Mind you, nothing says you HAVE to hunt undead exclusively; whacking rats and goblins will get you as much experience as skeletons and ghosts, and they are much more accessible. Lastly, you will find the Landing to be far more convenient than River's Rest if you want to join Voln.

"So, what does that green line on the graph represent?"
"Oh, that's the projection of a hypothetical offspring from a union between Sauron and Cruella de Ville; we use that as a baseline for determining character alignment."

>Where is a good place to start hunting undead? I would like to go to Rivers Rest, but anywhere is ok for now. What advice for quick advancement do y'all have? I went pure magic route, 2x spell aim, 2x miu so I should be able to use wands soon.

River's Rest is a bad place for undead until the 30s, and then there are lots of them. I'd stick to the Landing (or Icemule if running the glacier doesn't bother you) until you've mastered Voln. Then Icemule till you've done the Farm, then RR.

Just how fast do you want to advance, how much outside help do you intend to call on, how much conversation time do you want?

Fast advancement is the same for everyone. Do every bounty, do them while still saturated, do them fast, and get a new one as soon as you desaturate. Pick the town where you are best at doing bounties at that level to operate out of. For a cleric this means spell aim, burning through wands fsst, and having them fed to you by a high level character that is either dedicated to making them for you or is advancing the funds for you to buy them.

You can be pretty fast with pure CS, meditating when your mana is gone, and going straight back out again. Its not a sociable way to play, but its probably the fastest to level 20 without an infinite supply of wands.

Halfing is strong defensively and also offensively with spell aim. You need to know how to cope with low encumberance though.

Summoning for bolting, religion for CS. Don't train more than 1x. Think about diversifying somewhere in the 20-30 level range.

Get 2 or 3 ranks MOC when you start throwing ball spells around.

Stop at 204 for a long time if pure CS, but get 215 at level 15 for bolts. Don't go much over level in cleric spells for a long time if bolting, get to 340 at level 18 and then hold at level +21 while picking up in other circles if pure CS.

I've recently returned to the game after a six year or so absence. Even though I have a higher level cleric, I took one look at her and her training plan and realized I have no idea -how- to play or train her. I decided to start a new cleric to get a feel for the game again.

Woah. You guys are not kidding about that 'pure caster from the start is hard'. I don't know how I did it before, but I've about thrown in the towel a couple of times in the last few days just over how hard it is. When you have a mana pool of around 20, and your main attack spell takes 4 (or 2, depending on what you hunt), I get about five casts out before I'm done. I miss a lot, too. I think that's the hardest thing to swallow in all of this, having such a limited pool and then missing the roll on level 1 and 2 creatures. I swear, I've never seen my husband's character actually miss hitting a kobold or a rat with his sword - he nails it every time. Not me! Cast, sizzle, cast, sizzle, cast, sizzle.

I supplement with low-level wands, but at this level my MIU is so low that I'm air-waving those wands more often than not. I even hit something with my rune staff out of desperation, got it for 2 points and then it died. I had a half-cheer and a half-cry of frustration.

I play with a partner 100% of the time, and that's about the only way I'm making it. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend the 'pure from beginning' path on my worst enemy. Pick up a mace and wack some heads!

I suggest that you set channelincant on, then just use incant in the macro. That will reduce your macro to two lines instead of 3. This doesn't matter if you are using Stormfront, but other FEs are limited to 2 line macros. For example, I play a lot from the Public Library, when I am on the road, and there I have to use e-scape, since you can't download stuff into the library's central server. It also let's you just type incant when hunting manually.

Rathboner's point about CvA is quite pertinent. But while it is possible to hunt ab initio as a pure caster, it's a bit masochistic and I'm not sure why anyone would want to do this except for RP reasons. Get a holy weapon, head for the graveyard and use 301 to hold a skeleton or whatever, then bash it's head in. Or just swing away without holding it; low level critters have no maneuver attacks so they are easy to stance dance. You can take as long as you need to kill it without worrying that it's going to disarm you or hit you with boil earth or whatever. Clerics have relatively cheap weapon training costs; may as well take advantage of this. You may even get to like it; my gal capped using THWs. However, there is no denying that pure casting is more efficient later on. I switched my other cleric over to pure caster around level 28.


"So, what does that green line on the graph represent?"
"Oh, that's the projection of a hypothetical offspring from a union between Sauron and Cruella de Ville; we use that as a baseline for determining character alignment."

Hmm, that sounds weird. Can you make a 6 (or greater) line macro by simply using \p after every second line?

"So, what does that green line on the graph represent?"
"Oh, that's the projection of a hypothetical offspring from a union between Sauron and Cruella de Ville; we use that as a baseline for determining character alignment."

Shades near rats till 4ish then move to Fishermen if you want cash. They were paying out for me pretty solid and I just moved out of them since I'm barely learning there. Shades pay out if you take the armor but thats weight dependent if ya don't have a disk and as a halfer thats gonna be a consideration. Just my two centavos.

I'm using a similar template got my armor up to double working on my health a lil perception a lil (1/2 per level on each for now)first aid everything else into magic skills. I know I have to play catchup round 20 on percept and fa but I should have some decent magic skills for runestaff defense. Running 2.2 on actual spells right now or close. Lvl 11 with Cl11 Min 7 Maj 7.

>>Its holding the staff that counts not piling up the skills. MIU gives defense because it allows you to use items with spells like 401 not because it boosts your runestaff. Its worth having MIU/AS for defense if you are using them to spell yourself up, but not for boosting your runestaff. Diminishing returns on magic ranks for staff defense are huge, and its never worth training skills for staff defense (except possibly at 3x cap when you have run out of anything else to train). Pre cap, train spells, post cap when you can't train any more spells, train dodge.<<

Hmm that's interesting it's changed big since I was round last. I am used to running mage and when they first introd Runestaffs as an option they said that the defense was based on your other magic skills. Is this different with clerics or did they nerf that system in favor of a different one? It would be a HUGE difference if I started dropping my 1.5ishx MIU and AS. I could pretty much solely rise spells, lores, SMC, SA and HP with some of the extras. If thats the case I COULD have hunted from lvl 6ish on my own mana and some throw away wands have to keep some of the MIU but Im 1.5 or better on it and can use anything I need as is.

Hmm that's interesting it's changed big since I was round last. I am used to running mage and when they first introd Runestaffs as an option they said that the defense was based on your other magic skills. Is this different with clerics or did they nerf that system in favor of a different one? It would be a HUGE difference if I started dropping my 1.5ishx MIU and AS. I could pretty much solely rise spells, lores, SMC, SA and HP with some of the extras. If thats the case I COULD have hunted from lvl 6ish on my own mana and some throw away wands have to keep some of the MIU but Im 1.5 or better on it and can use anything I need as is. -- KYLL

The major (and only) change to runestaff parry DS was a modification to the runestaff enchant bonus application. Previously, the enchant bonus was stance dependent. Now, the full bonus applies to all stances.

Level 20 character (of any profession) with 20 STR and 20 DEX bonus, with a 5x (+25) runestaff in stance guarded.

Runestaff parry DS

1. With 0 magic ranks:

((10 weapon ranks + 20/4 STR + 20/4 DEX) * 0.9) + 40 GUA stance bonus + 25 runestaff enchant bonus = +83 parry DS in guarded

2. With 8 magic ranks per level (at level 20 this is 160 total magic ranks):

((30 weapon ranks + 20/4 STR + 20/4 DEX) * 0.9) + 40 GUA stance bonus + 25 runestaff enchant bonus = +101 parry DS in guarded

3. With 11 magic ranks per level (at level 20 this is 220 total magic ranks):

((36 weapon ranks + 20/4 STR + 20/4 DEX) * 0.9) + 40 GUA stance bonus + 25 runestaff enchant bonus = +106 parry DS in guarded

Those 60 additional spell ranks added +5 DS in guarded stance. In offensive stance the increase is only +1.8 DS. Since runestaves have an intrinsic 10 weapon rank bonus, just holding one triggers parry DS, even with 0 magic ranks.


Mark

Casting from the start, as a halfling, is very easy imo. Get to about 5 and make sure you 2x in spell aim, then head up to icemule. Snow Spectres have a 0 bolt DS. Using holy bolt, you should be able to murder these guys for fun and profit. You won't get fried in a single hunt, but you can empty your mana pool, then stop at the node for 4 min, then go back out and repeat.

I've done it a few times now. Easy pickings.