Learning On Your Own, or I don't have a lot of study points

[Athos]

This is primarily spellcaster oriented, but I assume it will work for any class that can "train" skills on their own (rather than having to buy each level at the GM).

So, you've just gotten to Shadowdale (or, well, where-ever you chose to start), and hit up your GM to find you only get something like three spells per level. You "can" choose to get only one or two spells and pay the GM to give you 'advanced' skill or better. But this is going to leave you feeling a bit limited - especially at the lowest levels.

"What else can I do?" you ask, well let me show you! Please bear in mind I'm doing all the testing on a character that has decent stats (I don't know the scale, but the description sounded like "above average" at least), so if you're in the top "ranking" for the stats (or average / lower than average), you may find the numbers to be off.

NOTE -- this tutorial is written from the perspective of a sorcerer, mana-based classes may find things to be different.

I presume to have 15 or 16 INT -- stab in the dark based on the flavor text at the start.

Skill Levels
As mentioned in the help files, and probably in one of Zax's tutorials, the levels of a skill progress as

1. Poor
2. Average
3. Fair
4. Good
5. Very Good
6. Superb

With each step being easier to successfully complete a casting /memorization command.

As this tutorial is more focused on "how much do I need to train" rather than "what're the averages", I haven't compiled everything yet (coming soon). However, where I have enough correlating data to give some ideas, I'll provide it.

Level Increase Averages
The following (incomplete, sorry) table shows the rough number of times you will need to get the text

Code: Select all

You lose concentration.
You learn from your mistake.

From what I can tell so far, this is the only trigger for learning anything.

1. Poor - 8-10x
2. Average - 14-18x
3. Fair - 30-36x
4. Good - coming soon, still need more data
5. Very Good - coming soon, still need more data
6. Superb - coming soon, still need more data

NOTE -- the "you learned something" message is apparently dependent on your INT score (that is, lower ints will not see it as much) . In my case, I was getting it about 50% of the time.

Casting Averages
"Okay, Athos ... that's great and all ... but how bad am I gonna fail my party when we're in a tight spot"

Bad.

Basing this on my ability to get 5x spells learned at a level

1. Poor - 0% --> at least with my stats I was hitting "Average" by the time I'd get three or four memorized.
2. Average - 30-40% --> a bit higher (60%) if you're wearing a book or some other "help with magic" item.
3. Fair - 50-60% --> a bit higher (65-70) if you've got a book or some other item
4. Good - coming soon, still need more data
5. Very Good - coming soon, still need more data
6. Superb - coming soon, still need more data

Now, without any other information to back it up, I have to assume these averages are per cast -- so just because you got three failures in a row, doesn't mean you're going to get three more. All the numbers are based off of "Okay, I got 5 casts on some spells, now I have to go burn them and free up brainspace" [...kill stuff...] "okay, back to trying to level this up..." type scenarios that I've been doing for the last 10 hours or so (according to the game).

More to come soon

[dresdor]

Can you give examples of the right syntax for weapon training? Can't ever get that working.

EDIT: I'm an idiot....can only do it at a trainer.