You can start healing folks at level 1 if that's your wish. Personally, if I am in TSC and someone is whining for healing, I tell them to go buy some herbs :)

I've been a caster ... then a non-caster ... then a caster ... then a non caster ... then ... ok you get the idea. Empaths can do pretty much what they want. THW? OHE/shield? pure caster? All possible.



The bells of Hell
go ting-a-ling-a-ling
for you but not for me

As I said, empaths can do anything they want. Under no cirumstances is my current skill set to be considered the greatest and most efficient ever. But, hey, it works for me. Also, I can (and I do do switch around) use a runestaff for defence, as well as a THW. Also note that a pure casting empath is ... well, pretty much an unstoppable terror. Take away the THW from this build, and replace it with 2x spell aiming and use wizard wands for attacks ... ouch!

skill
Guennhafyr (at level 97), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 90 20
Combat Maneuvers...................| 199 99
Two-Handed Weapons.................| 199 99
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 120 30
Physical Fitness...................| 310 210
Arcane Symbols.....................| 120 30
Magic Item Use.....................| 160 60
Harness Power......................| 198 98
Mental Mana Control................| 140 40
Spirit Mana Control................| 120 30
Mental Lore - Manipulation.........| 160 60
Perception.........................| 140 40
Climbing...........................| 150 50
Swimming...........................| 170 70
First Aid..........................| 300 200

Spell Lists
Major Spirit.......................| 53

Spell Lists
Minor Spirit.......................| 53

Spell Lists
Empath.............................| 98
Training Points: 13 Phy 16 Mnt



The bells of Hell
go ting-a-ling-a-ling
for you but not for me

Stats rely a good bit on what your starting race is going to be, build, etc. I highly recommend getting Tsorans GS IV trainer spreadsheet, as it makes determining your stats MUCH easier, and gives you a great means to play around with training to find what works for you. If you're going for weapon/shield to start then obviously you want more STR than a caster/healer. Yes, mana pool is based on WIS and INF bonus (+ Harness Power Bonus), and regardless of build your learning capacity is dictated by LOG + DIS and the speed of absorbing said knowledge is LOG, so you want to keep those high, especially in the beginning.

Personally, I think pure healing empaths are not nearly as much fun as combo packs. If you wish a good blend of healing ability and casting attacks, you can follow this general guideline (which as Guenn said is not the consummate build, but rather what I've been using and what works for me). This

Armor - 8 ranks to nullify RT/Maneuver/Spell Failure chance on double leathers
AS/MIU 1x
Spell Aiming 2x (Affects AS for 111 - Fire Spirit, 1110 - Empathic Assault, and wand use)
Harness Power 2x
Mental Mana Control .5x (1106 - Bone Shatter damage)
Spirit Mana Control 1x
First Aid 2.5x (Reduces RT for eating herbs. Trust me, if you want to heal, you will be eating A LOT of herbs)
Empath Spell Circle 1.25-1.5x (Affects CS, primarily for 1106 - Bone Shatter)
Perception 1x
Physical Fitness 1-2x (this is optional but it's cheap for empaths and factors into redux)
Spirit Lore, Summoning .5-1x (for 111 - Fire Spirit and 1115 - Wither)
Spirit Lore, Blessings (10-120 ranks for chances to cure scars when casting healing spells and with 1125 - Troll's Blood)
Mental Lore, Manipulation (40 ranks+ for addt'l insta-death chances when casting 1106 - Bone Shatter, or 1115 - Wither)
Mental Lore, Telepathy (For 1108 - Empathy insta-kill chance)

The above training path focuses on 1106, 111, and 1115 as your primary attack spells, relying most heavily on CS, but also on AS. When short for mana you're a vicious wand-waver, and as a happy plus this build is also very good for healing. As Empaths receive benefits from a great many different lores, I recommend this site: http://carabele.com/odds/LoreBenefits.htm to help you figure out which ones are best for you.

Also, Seo made an excellent suggestion about MHO's, and I'd just like to throw out there that another great one in Icemule is White Haven. They have weekly hunting trips, service nights, and are always happy to help newcomers any way they can.

Hope this helps!

~Niadja

<Also, there seem to be a lot of disagreements about when it's good to start hunting as a caster. I've seen some people say level 50 and I've seen others say level 20 and lots of suggestions in between. Frankly, the thought of waiting to level 50 just doesn't seem right in a game so well put together. Personally, I'd prefer to be able to cast at level 1, but I understand the struggle of having enough mana and why it makes sense to wait a few levels. What's your opinion?>

My opinion is that whoever said you have to wait till level 50 with ANY pure profession to hunt purely with spells needs to lay off the bath salts.

That said, there was a time when hunting as a pure caster was so almost impossible prior to level 5 and frustrating as heck for a long time afterward.... but these days, low level, pure casting empaths (in this case, low level = level 20 and below) can wreak more havoc in hunting grounds then any other profession if you train them right (I'll leave the stats to someone else.... but it's really hard to break an empath with bad stats as long as you have WIS and INF set decently high, my recommendation would be to play around with the GS4 STAT Cruncher).

The first thing to keep in mind is that, if you intend on frying before returning to town, you're going to be relying heavily on wands well into your 20's. At that point you'll start gradually needing fewer and fewer wands until you're only carrying a few as backups in your 40's or 50's, depending on how much mana you have access to and what you're hunting. Because of this, you'll want to stay 1x in MIU (possibly 2x in early levels if you have spare TPs). Most will say to stop training in MIU once you can reliably use most wands, but I'd personally recommend staying 1x for life for 2 reasons: First, it's a cheap skill that contributes towards runestaff use and second, as you get older boxes get heavier and you find more heavy loot (weapons, silver, etc) you're not going to want to leave in the field, continued training in MIU will help you be able to keep waving those wands with more boxes and silver on your person.

Next, know your spells. Train 1x every level in the Empath circle and alternate between the other two circles to get the spells you need, training in a total of 2 spells per level... sneaking in an extra training in the empath circle whenever you have the TPs to spare. My personal recommendation for training in the major/minor spirit circles would be to get 202, then racing up the minor circle to get 111 when you turn level 11. After that, go back to the major spirit circle until you have 211 or 215. At that point, it's mostly a matter of what spells are more attractive to you.

On the topic of spells, 1106 and 111 are going to be your best friends, esp if you train for them. 1110 is nice, but it's no where near as powerful as 111 can be and 111 only costs 1 extra mana to cast (this is something I wish I'd figured out YEARS earlier then I did), because of this, you'll find yourself using 1110 mainly on critters that are immune to 111 and 1106... don't waste your TPs training in all the lores for 1110 early on. The lores you should train in in your early levels are Spirit Lore: Summoning (for 111) and Mental Lore: Manipulation (for 1106). One thing you should not overlook about Bone Shatter is that you get a TD pushdown with that spell prior to level 35. That pushdown makes it hard for my younger empath (who just hit level 18) to miss just about anything with bones.

My last note on spells, 1101 can be used as an attack spell as well as a healing spell. It's not uber-powerful by any stretch of the imagination, but it is great for killing things until you get Bone Shatter and is even good for getting in a killing blow on a critter that's already low on health (esp if you're low on mana/wands).


Lastly, 2x in HP until you have enough mana to be comfortable, then stop training in it until you're at 1x and keep it at 1x for life. Also train in Spirit Mana control until you have a bonus of 101 then stop and put those TPs elsewhere but train 1x in Mental Mana Control for life, you could do the reverse and be just as well off as far as mana regen is concerned... but 1106 relies significantly on MMC.

<I do want to be able to heal others. I think my number one reason for not continuing beyond my first month last time I tried to play is because in a whole month (playing 4+hours per day most every day), I think I actually had a conversation with one person. I see the ability to heal myself and others (and I may have tried empath the first time around, but I didn't understand what the class was before I saw it in action) as a way to potentially meet some people and make some friends. When should I be able to start healing others? I noticed I don't get my last healing spell until level 14, so is that when it's reasonable to start healing others?>

There is NO special training needed for an empath to be able to heal others. As long as you train in your empath spells (which you should be doing anyway as a pure caster) you'll be able to transfer all the minor wounds at level 5, all the bleeders at level 10. After that you'll be able to heal all your own minor scars at 14, and all rank 2 and 3 scars at level 18.

As far as when you should start healing: as soon as you encounter someone with a wound you can transfer! (assuming they want healing, some folk can be fussy about who heals them or don't want to be healed by empaths for RP reasons). No need to hold back at all.

The only thing to watch out for (esp before you can heal bleeders) is stacking wounds. If you already have a scratch on your left arm and transfer a scratch from someone else's left arm, you'll have a bleeder on your left arm. It's best to heal that scratch BEFORE transfering another one, it saves on mana/herbs and you won't end up with a wound/scar you can't heal yourself. You'll also want to carry around herbs for bleeders and scars until you can heal those yourself.

Hope this helped,
Starchitin


A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.

Wow that is really fantastic information. Thank you so much for taking the time to write all of that out. I'm going to read it a couple more times and try to digest it all.

There are a lot of varying opinions on how to train an empath, which speaks well to how robust and varied the profession can be. Having brought an empath from level 1 straight up to cap as a spellcaster, perhaps I might offer a couple thoughts to ponder as you decide what you'd like to do.

As mentioned, an empath can easily be a healer without too much specialized training. If you want to improve your healing ability, you'll want to train in transformation lore, empath spell ranks and perhaps blessings lore. However, those will only reduce the time needed to heal yourself after you've taken care of a patient, or the chance of a scar erasing itself when you heal a wound. If you're not too worried about that, you can look to training your character to be a better hunter. This may be more of interest to you, since it will help break the monotony if you find yourself bored after healing for a few hours.

I will highly suggest training in a weapon skill and mowing down critters as fast as you can during your first 30 days. Expect your lower levels as a pure spell caster to be very painful mana-wise unless you have a supply of wands at your disposal. I'd even claim that empaths have it more difficult than other pure professions since our 1-mana attack spell is relatively weak and bone shatter is very mana intensive in the lower levels. With a few exceptions, I didn't start reliably frying on my own mana until the early 40's. Once you get to that point, however, life gets easier as you go along. By cap, my character can blast through her hunting areas with ease, and her deaths are extremely rare.

I built my character for flexibility rather than specializing in a single spell. Her skills are intended to augment as many spells as possible, letting her have a tool at her disposal for nearly any creature in the game. At the same time, the spells she does use are still very potent. The bone shatter build already presented is certainly viable, though it wasn't what I was looking for.

---

The skills to look at, along with the training plan I suggest, are as follows.

- 8 ranks of armor use. You have no hindrance (spell failure) in double leathers, and 8 ranks will remove all armor penalties associated with them. People who like stronger armor will want to have more ranks to train down hindrance and other penalties as much as possible.

- Physical fitness, either once or twice per level for life. Physical fitness figures into a lot of systems, in ways we do and do not see. I'd singled until cap and switched to doubling once I got the points, and I haven't regretted it for a moment. Singling it for life should be your absolute minimum.

- Arcane symbols and magic item use, once per level for life. You'll make your living on scrolls and wands in your early levels, especially since you can invoke scrolls one-handed with enough training (making it fantastic for attack spells) and you won't suffer any DS loss for holding either a scroll or a wand in your hand. In your later levels, both skills are cheap for boosting the defense your runestaff gives, it makes the spells you cast from scrolls and magic items more useful, and you can use items even while encumbered (your skill roll is penalized the more encumbered you are).

- Spell aiming, twice per level for life. Spell aiming determines your AS for bolt spells, including empathic assault, web bolt and fire spirit. You'll also use spell aiming when using wizard wands, which will be your mainstay for your early levels. Spell aiming must be doubled or not trained at all. It is useless if you only single it.

- Harness power, twice per level for life. Given how expensive our spells are, mana-wise, you'll want as much mana as possible. Doubling harness power will give you 4 mana per level. This can be adjusted for taste and society choice, but doubling is the baseline I suggest.

- Mental mana control, once per level for life. This skill figures into increasing the power of bone shatter. It also increases your mana regeneration by 1 mana per pulse per 10 ranks if it is the mana control you have the most ranks in, or 1 mana per pulse per 20 ranks if it is the second highest. Mana controls also function as inexpensive skills to help boost your runestaff defense and, of course, sharing mana with others. 24 ranks will allow you optimal share with someone who also has at least 24 ranks, but overtraining will help compensate if the other person has less than 24 ranks.

- Spirit mana control, once per level for life. This skill's impact is more subtle on your spells and is most important for runestaff ranks, mana regen and sharing with others.

- Spirit lore, summoning, once per level for life. I'm hopelessly addicted to this skill. It boosts the power of your fire spirit, allows you to unlock and augment your best disabling spell (web bolt), strengthens your spirit servant that auto-keeps you when you die, gives more power to wither, lets you choose which herbs you grow, allows you to locate people in distant realms, and a lot of other helpful abilities. I'd recommend reading up on the skill to see what all if effects, because it's a lot!

- Mental lore, telepathy, once per level starting at level 0 until 20 ranks. This skill affects a few of our spells, but the big reason for this is to boost empathic assault. Empathic assault is unique in that it has an initial bolt attack using spell aiming for the AS, and then it follows with CS attacks for additional pure HP loss. The baseline spell only gives one CS attack after the initial bolt. Training in telepathy lore will give you more CS attacks, with one additional each at 5 and 20 ranks. I'm very much a fan of empathic assault, and I'll outline some tactics for its use later on.

- Mental lore, transformation, once per level after reaching 20 ranks of telepathy lore until all healing RT is removed. I'll admit I like to be able to heal people, so I started training in transformation to help reduce healing RT. At the same time, the lore helps with troll's blood and regeneration. You'll get an additional use of regeneration per day with 50 ranks of transformation, which can be very helpful if you're in trouble. Finally, transformation will boost the strength of the bolt portion of empathic assault.

- Climbing and swimming, once every other level to 15 ranks each, then add more to 30 climbing and 50 swimming at later levels. These are mostly to help with accessing hunting areas, but you won't need more than 15 ranks until at least your 60's. You'll want to reach 30 ranks of climbing to hunt the Rift, minotaurs and so on (starting around mid 60's), while 50 ranks of swimming will be needed for Nelemar (starting in your 90's).

- First aid, twice per level for life. This skill adds directly into being able to skin, which will prove useful for bounties and CoL skinning tasks, and lowering RT for eating herbs or tending wounds. It's a cheap skill and very useful.

- Perception, 30 ranks when you can manage. I haven't seen reason to get more, but other people may wish to correct me.

- Spells, at least twice per level. Use one rank per level in either of your spirit circles, and put the rest in your empath spells. Training in empath ranks will boost your CS to make your bone shatter, empathy, sympathy and wither casts more effective. Cap your empath spell ranks at level+21, however, as your gains won't be worth the points spent until well past cap. As far as spirit spells are concerned, it really depends on what you feel you need. I advocate going to 103 in minor spirit, then up to 202 in minor spirit for defense. After that, I suggest going up to 111 for fire spirit, running up to 215 for your AS boosters, then to 120 to finish your physical DS boosts and finishing to 220. Beyond that, train to taste. You may want to reach for 225 and 130 to run rescues, head to 140 for some emergency DS, or 240 to put your killing strength into overdrive for a short period of time. However, spell training is very dependent on personal taste. You may want to train more often in spirit spells or ignore my training outline entirely.

You may notice that I haven't included manipulation lore. Training in manipulation lore will give you a chance to instantly kill something with bone shatter by completely imploding a creature's skeletal structure, or with wither by the nebulous haze. However, a GM had posted that the percent chance of someone insta-killing a target with a good number of ranks in manipulation lore was in the single digits. I had trained in manipulation lore at the time, and I noticed that I was killing creatures by snapping necks or other severe criticals far more often than I was insta-killing them. To me, manipulation lore simply wasn't worth the investment for the return. I switched the points over to transformation lore to boost my healing ability, and I was much happier with the result.

I also haven't included blessings lore. The major benefits an empath receives from blessings lore include being able to cast certain spells on others for a minute or two, a chance for healing a wound to heal a scar at the same time, and to restore stamina when using adrenal surge. While my character uses stamina a lot since she joined Sunfist, training in blessings lore would have forced me to give up my summoning lore, and I couldn't give that up. I am, however, tempted to take up blessings lore post-cap. In a general sense, blessings lore seems geared more towards the character intended to help other people, while summoning lore seems more for the hunters.

---

A few words regarding attack spell tactics. With bone shatter being so powerful, there are many empaths who make it their only attack spell. That is certainly a valid way to go, but it often leads to some unfamiliarity with the other spells at our disposal. These are some observations I've made from playing with the spells over the levels, but I highly encourage any empath to play with things to find their comfort zone.

- 1101: Our first attack spell, 1101, is weak as befits a first level spell. It's mainly useful for very low levels and finishing off creatures near death with as little mana use as possible. Since 1101 does pure HP damage, it's excellent when needing to gather skins, since damaging the body part from which the skin is taken can lower the value and quality of the skin. Grabbing a wizard for a little rapid fire and 1101 makes for a great way to gather unblemished skins and an entertaining hunt!

- 1106: Bone shatter is the big gun in our arsenal, and even with my tactics, it's often the first spell I'll pull out when meeting an unfamiliar critter. Bone shatter's damage is boosted if you channel it, if you're in a more offensive stance, and if you have one or both hands open. As I gained levels, however, I found that the damage from the spell tends to be rather front-loaded, meaning that you'll max out the damage on each round pretty quickly and the boosts you get for channeling, stance and open hands tend to be unnecessary if you're using all three. Play around with the spell as you gain levels to check out the difference each makes and see if you think it's worth it. Once I hit my 50's, I channeled with one open hand (runestaff in the other) from guarded stance and never felt like I was missing anything.

- 1110: Empathic assault is often overlooked, but I use it a lot depending on the creature. I often used it on living creatures with a lot of HP, that I can't crit kill, that might wander off, that is in the middle of a swarm, that can't muster the AS to worry me while I'm in guarded, that I want to skin, that has been webbed, or any combination of the above. If the initial bolt hits, the target's defense against the CS attacks will decrease during those attacks. If you land another bolt on the same target while the CS attacks are in progress, you'll refresh the CS attacks and their defense will continue to decrease. In addition, the CS attacks continue even if the creature is in another room, though it is a bit more difficult to continue from a distance. It'll even work on a roa'ter after it's burrowed. Another favorite tactic is if a critter is in a swarm. I'll dart in, hit it with an empathic assault, and run out. The CS attacks will continue to damage it while I stay safely out of the way. Lastly, since webs drastically reduce a critter's DS against bolts, but fire spirit burns the webbing away, I like to pair web bolt with empathic assault to chip away at particularly tough critters while they're helplessly webbed to the ground. Keep in mind that the CS attacks don't work on undead, but the bolt still hits just as hard.

- 1115: Wither is expensive at 15 mana per cast, but it packs a punch few spells can match. Unlike most spells, wither likes to keep hitting the same body location in the same cast until it's obliterated, where other spells randomly pick their locations for each round of damage. If it destroys that location in the middle of the damage rounds, it will move on to another and continue to happily harass the poor sap that got in my way. For this reason, I like to use wither on critters that can be crit killed but aren't easily incapacitated through stuns, or for whatever reason just need to be killed immediately. Bone shatter is fantastic for inducing stuns, but not every critter stuns easily and those stuns are often what keeps you alive. If wither hits a vulnerable spot, it can easily kill a critter in one shot, for 3 seconds of RT, where it may take three casts of bone shatter, 9 seconds of RT and 3 more mana.

- 1120: Sympathy is useful if you should get overwhelmed by swarms or if you just need a few seconds to breathe. Just remember that it will not affect undead unless you have appropriate telepathy lore training, and critters under its effects will still attack other characters not in your group. Sympathy is not very long in duration, so I only use it for emergencies, invasions, or for some RP instances. (Side note: Sympathy cast by critters can be devastating, so be careful!)

- 110: Unbalance is a CS attack spell. Since you're focusing on empath spells in your training, your CS won't be as high for this spell. If you can hit, however, it will knock a target prone as well as induce RT, disabling them for a time. I find web bolt to be much more effective as a disabler for the most part.

- 111: Fire spirit is another of our great attack spells. It's what's known as a ball spell, in that once the initial spell AS attack hits, it explodes outward to deal additional damage to the target as well as other creatures nearby. It does fire damage, which is fantastic against trolls, and with appropriate training, the splashes can be devastating. The number of creatures the splash will hit will vary. The base maximum is 8, but the upper limit can be increased with training in summoning lore. The minimum number of targets the splash will hit increases by 1 with every rank of multi-opponent combat. However, I never felt it was necessary to train in that skill until after I capped. Given fire spirit's versatility, it is my go-to for bolt spells to test the strengths and weaknesses of a new target, or in swarms or other emergencies. I did not use fire spirit at all while hunting the bowels of Thanatoph, since the caves are filled with explosive gases. Empathic assault, however, worked just fine.

- 118: Web is a delicious, delicious spell. Since I've trained in summoning lore, I use web bolt all the time. It's just 9 mana to use the bolt, and it has a great chance of webbing the target as well as doing unbalance damage, which also has a chance of knocking the target to the ground. Web bolt is my main disabling spell, and the more summoning ranks I have, the more likely it is to web something in place. You'll often find me webbing five things in place and then casually smashing faces in while all they can do is blink. It works great against flying creatures as well, and it has saved my life in swarms more times than I can count.

- 119: Spirit dispel is fantastic in certain circumstances, but it can be expensive mana-wise. I typically use it when a critter has prepared a spell that I don't want it to cast. This is dependent upon which critter I'm up against, however. A vaespilon often casts implosion, so I'm likely going to dispel one if I see it preparing a spell. On the other hand, if a critter's spell arsenal pretty much has no chance of hitting me, I'm just going to ignore that and continue beating the snot out of it. If a target has a single spell up that I want to remove, and no others, I can also use spirit dispel to remove that spell. If it has more than one spell, even if there's only one I want to remove, I tend to skip to spiritual abolition. Spirit dispel is a great tactic when going up against cast-happy invasion critters, particularly if you have another character nearby to cast elemental dispel at the same time. If the two dispels are cast on the same target, the influences of competing spheres can collide for some spectacular damage, depending on the level difference between caster and target.

- 125: I've never cast call lightning aside from blasting open boxes or blasting random stuff for fun. Just be careful that lightning can have some unpleasant effects in areas deemed to be under water, such as the beached hulk near Solhaven or Nelemar on Teras.

- 135: I sometimes forget that I have searing light, since it's another CS attack spell in the minor sphere. I mostly use it during invasions when I want to smack a bunch of little critters at once.

- 201: Calm is great as a disabler for the lower levels until your web bolt is strong enough to rely upon or until you decide you like to bind stuff. Since it's a major spirit CS spell and I have other tools at my disposal, I don't use it too often.

- 230: Spiritual abolition will not strip prepared spells, but only worn spells. I use it if the target is wearing multiple spells, regardless of how many I want to remove. I typically use spiritual abolition when a critter has turtled up and I want to bring them back down to size so I can get back to business sending it to Lorminstra.

I don't really use the other major spirit circle attack spells. If anyone has any tactics for their use, I hope they can add their thoughts.

---

Now a bit of mention of stats, since you were concerned about that. A lot of the information can be found on the official website, but I'll go over some points to bear in mind. I should note that there's a lot about the stats that we don't know, so most of what I outline here will leave out a lot of what a stat is used for. In addition, recommendations for where to place your stats depend quite a bit on your choice of race.

There are three categories of statistics: physical, mental and hybrid. Physical stats - strength, constitution, dexterity and agility - directly affect a character's physical abilities and factor into the amount of physical training points they have to spend. Mental stats - logic, intuition, wisdom and influence - tend to factor more into magic and mental processes, and determine how many mental training points a character has. Hybrid stats - aura and discipline - affect both physical and mental training point pools and abilities. Since you're looking to play a caster, you'll be training primarily in skills that use a lot of mental points, so putting points in stats that give you mental points would be a good idea.

- Strength does figure into physical weapon attack strength, but it also figures into a lot of other calculations. Encumbrance is a big one, helping to determine how much you can carry before you start suffering penalties. It also affects stamina, which you'll want to look at if you intend to have your character join Sunfist as a society, since its abilities often use stamina for its power. Strength affects a character's defense derived from parrying an attack, even if they're using a runestaff. This stat grows very slowly for an empath, so I tend to recommend placing it no less than 90 to begin with. As a sylvan, I placed this at 96 to start, and it's maxed out at 100 at cap.

- Constitution affects a character's maximum health points, maximum stamina, encumbrance, reacting to some maneuvers, resistance to crits and resistance to disease. I wouldn't be surprised if it affected other things, but those are what I can identify now. Since an empath is a healer dealing in health points, the tendency is to place this high, but I actually placed this quite low. We have a spell to restore our HP and we spend most of our time trying to avoid being hit in the first place, so I didn't find it as necessary to place the stat high. If you're playing an elven race, you won't need to worry about disease either. We have a +100 in our favor on the roll to resist diseases, and we have spells to nullify them even if we do fail the resistance. I doubt many people did the same, but I placed my con quite low, at 21. It's 71 at cap, and I didn't have too much trouble, but I'd suggest caution before doing the same.

- Dexterity plays into your spell bolt AS the same way strength plays into your melee weapon AS. It also helps with skinning critters. Obviously, if you're going to use bolt spells, you'll want a decent dexterity. This stat tends to grow moderately well for empaths, so you won't need to place it extremely high. As a sylvan, I put it at a 78 and noticed no real ill effects. It's now 100 at cap.

- Agility adds into your defense by measuring how well you can dodge attacks. This is another one I placed very low, starting at 23 and ending at 75 at cap. Placing it that low did affect my DS, but I managed to do fine. This is another case where I'd suggest caution before you try similar.

- Discipline affects a whole slew of systems, more than I could name, but is notable for helping to determine how much experience a character can store in their mind before they fry and need to return to rest. It also is assumed to be the stat that will determine a character's resistance to mental magic, though it has never been confirmed. I suggest placing the stat somewhat high, particularly if you're playing one of the elven races, since we take a significant hit to the stat bonus because of our race. I placed this one at 67 as a sylvan and it capped out at 96.

- Aura is a hybrid stat, like discipline, and it's a measure of a character's tie to magic. It's much more significant to elemental magic than ours, however, but it's worth bearing in mind that the aura stat is what determines a character's spirit points, at aura/10, rounded up. If you intend to join CoL, which uses spirit to power its abilities, you'll want to keep aura high enough to give you some spirit to work with. The stat does grow modestly, so you don't need to place it right at the top. I put this one at 56 to start, and it's now at 94 at cap. I should probably get a +1 aura enhancive just to get that last spirit point, dernit.

- Logic has a couple main functions. Like discipline, it functions into how much you can hold in your head before you fry. It is the only stat to affect how quickly you absorb that experience. Logic also is used when activating magic items and scrolls. The stat grows nicely for empaths, so if you're planning for the future, you don't need to place it extremely high. I had it at a 68 when I originally rolled up, and it's now 100 at cap.

- Intuition is a lot like agility in that it factors into being able to gain defense for dodging attacks. Since this was a mental stat and I was using a lot of mental training points, I was happy to put points in this stat. It started as a 79 and is now capped at 100.

- Wisdom is one of our big stats. It's considered a prime stat, meaning that it grows faster than normally and counts double in terms of how many training points we derive from that stat. In addition, it's one of our mana stats, meaning that it helps determine how much mana we start out with. It also figures into our casting strength and defense against spirit spells. This one I placed high for training points, at 80 when I rolled up. It's now 100 at cap.

- Influence is typically the "tank stat" for most professions, in that they tend to place this one low because there aren't too many systems interacting with it that are important to those professions. Not so for us. Influence is our second prime stat and mana stat, so it's important to keep this one high. This one grows a bit slower than wisdom, so you'll likely want to put influence higher than wisdom. My character started life with a 92 in influence, and it's now 100.

With that in mind, I should comment that I initially placed these stats for more training points and with an eye for growth. There are various perspectives for placing stats. Some place theirs to have as many 100's in stats at cap. Others place important stats high from the get-go so their characters will be more powerful at an earlier level. Now that I've reached cap, I do intend on investing in a fixstat once I've gained enough training points to keep my training as it is but getting as many stats at 100 as possible. That said, I never really had any problems with the stat set that I've noticed.

---

My apologies for writing so much, but since you've mentioned that you're newly returned, I wanted to make sure that I was as clear as possible in my explanations. If you have any questions about what I wrote or anything else on the empath profession, feel free to drop me a line. You can IM me at Lady Nilandia, or e-mail me at my play.net (add my account name in front of @play.net for the address).

Welcome back, and good luck!

Gretchen

Meeting Nilandia: http://www.gsguide.net/index.php?title=Nilandia
Nilandia's GS4 Info Repository: http://www.nilandia.com
AIM: Lady Nilandia

>>Combine that with 5 ranks of MOC, some Summoning Lore, and 111? Now it's a bunch of FLAMING critters running around killing each other. The laughs just keep on coming!<<

Whahoooo!





The bells of Hell
go ting-a-ling-a-ling
for you but not for me

I just wanted to also mention something that is sort of understated. Empaths can train 3x in physical fitness!!! Yes, a spell caster can 3x in PF!!! (blinks half a dozen times in amazement).

In my crew, I have 2 warriors, 2 paladins and 3 rogues, and none of them have been able to train more than 2x in physical fitness. And PF has been stated to play a large role in surviving maneuver attacks and the like. Ahem; wake up call here ... my empath has more stamina than any of my rogues, paladins and warriors? What the (bleep)??

Mind you, the initial concept was that empaths needed health because they shared blood with the wounded; but if you don't train at least 2x in PF you are seriously missing out.

The bells of Hell
go ting-a-ling-a-ling
for you but not for me

>> I'm struggling to learn which herbs heal which scars and major wounds

Yes, this can be very daunting, especially when the herbs change as soon as you change areas. I would recommend speaking with an older empath who can give you the basic lowdown, and then take lots of notes! Since you're in Icemule, feel free to look up Niadja anytime. She loves to help folks any way she can!

>> I realize I've been a little lazy in my exploration, but this place is HUGE.

If you haven't already, I would recommend a trip to Tsoran's Map Shoppe at http://robertdell.dyndns.org/tsoran.com/. Those maps will be invaluable while you're still getting used to the areas, both for helping you get a picture in your mind of how things are laid out and because they have the local critters and approximate levels of those critters on them. That will give you an idea of what there is to hunt, which is LOTS. In Icemule alone at lower levels you have kobolds, rats, cave gnomes, carrion worms, thyrils, and rabid squirrels, zombie roltons, vysands, skeletons, and phantoms, and that's just levels one and two.

>> but what in the heck are spells like "unpresence", "light", and "dark" used for?

These are typically used as utility spells, although they do have some combative purposes. Darkness for instance increases the defense of everyone in the room the spell is cast in -- unfortunately that includes enemies as well as friends. Light can reveal hidden creatures and players in a dark room, but also lowers the defense of everyone in the room good and bad. There's really too much detail to go into all of it here, so I suggest you read over the spells when you have time, while you're resting from hunting or munching herbs. I find out all kinds of things about the spells I've had for years doing that, there's always something new to learn.

I'll leave the CS/AS/DS replies to the number-crunchers that are definitely not me ;)

~Niadja

Unpresence isn't very useful for the usual empathic hunter, BUT! it is majorly useful for the ambushing rogue or ranger (or, warrior, I suppose, although most warriors don't attack from hiding). It doesn't help you hide in the first place but it helps you stay hidden when a critter searches for you. Empaths, alas, cannot create umpresence items, but my cleric routinely makes unpresence gems for her rogue friends. But you can cast unpresence on a rogue friend you are hunting with; the spell is refreshable.

Light and darkness spells; these are sort of conditional utility spells. Light will actually drop your DS; not generally useful, but critter DS will also drop, so it might be of some value if you are using a weapon. Darkness, on the other hand, is always a general friend to the pure caster. It increases your DS, and since you are casting CS spells (usually) the extra DS can't hurt.

Oh, please note that if a room is already brilliantly lit, light spells have no effect, and of course, darkness cast in a darkened room is pretty redundant.

The bells of Hell
go ting-a-ling-a-ling
for you but not for me

>>Lastly, 2x in HP until you have enough mana to be comfortable, then stop training in it until you're at 1x and keep it at 1x for life.<<

Just saw this now. 1x in HP is fine for a weapon user, for a pure caster (of ANY profession) I'd recommend 2x. When I was a pure caster empath I had 200 ranks of HP. That was an extra 100 mana! That's a potload of casts of boneshatter (or wither, or spirit fire, or whatever).

The bells of Hell
go ting-a-ling-a-ling
for you but not for me

Almost....

The bells of Hell
go ting-a-ling-a-ling
for you but not for me

<<Just saw this now. 1x in HP is fine for a weapon user, for a pure caster (of ANY profession) I'd recommend 2x. When I was a pure caster empath I had 200 ranks of HP. That was an extra 100 mana! That's a potload of casts of boneshatter (or wither, or spirit fire, or whatever).>>

If you find yourself needing the mana on a regular basis 2x in HP is fine. However, the TP cost of getting that extra 100 mana isn't necessarily worth it if you're finding yourself sacrificing other skills you need (or even just want).

Starchitin

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.

What Mars said, I don't even know how long it has been possible to describe/inspect items inside shops...but it is incredibly useful.

Lochiven

Thank you.

I got brave and started adventuring. Found some squirrels that fell easily, but I looked around and found the snowy cockatrices. The spiders they're with scare me (I got webbed once and believe it very fortunate that I didn't suffer my first death), but the snowy cockatrices fall to boenshatter pretty much every cast, and if they don't I can just hit them with my sword.

Also, someone was nice enough to introduce me to the adventurer's guild and that's been a ton of fun doing the quests!

All-in-all, I think things are going well.

>> I kinda like the idea of trading

Trading is one of a subset of skills that I like to call 'hobbies'. They're things you can use spare training points to fill in as you happen to have them and the mood strikes you. Most of my characters don't train in it as the value to me, even on my bard with a high INF bonus and plenty of ranks in the skill, isn't worth it. However, to a new character starting out trying to save all the silvers they can it may be of more use to you. If you have the training points and want to give it a go, do so. You can always change your mind when your 30 days are up.

>> Do I need perception? What is it used for?

Perception is a skill which influences other skills, for instance searching. You have a lot greater chance of finding hidden objects (entrance/exits, heirlooms for bounties, even hidden players) and thwarting pickpockets with a higher perception. Perception is a heavy factor in ranged weapons, aiming, skinning, foraging, and spotting bandit traps. My empath is 2x in perception, but largely because it's relatively cheap and she does a LOT of skinning and foraging for alchemy. Whether or not it's right for you is, again, up to you.

>> Survival? Yes, no? Pros, cons?

Another good 'hobby' skill. All my alts have at least 10 ranks, as it helps with resisting damage from the elements (such as the severe cold outside Icemule), skinning, foraging, finding secret entrance/exits, and building fires (invaluable once you start hunting near Pinefar). It's probably not your largest concern for awhile, but if you have the points and/or you want to do a lot of skinning, I recommend 10 ranks to whatever you'd like to do.

>> Spell training. Is it necessary to train more than 2x per level?

Spell training outside the empath circle isn't really necessary, it just gives you access to more/more effective spells. I 2x at a minimum, and then put more into the empathic circle (as that helps us most. Again I would say this is largely personal choice. In the beginning you have a LOT of skills to tackle and 3x'ing probably isn't that viable. Once you've gotten past all your armor training, Physical Fitness (if you opt to max your health and then take no more), and get the basics in any other skills you feel you'd like to have, you'll have more points to play with. It's really up to what YOU want to do, and what you think you'll have the most fun doing.

>> It's very hard to mess up empath training.

Believe Gretchen -- she's 100% correct. It really is hard to mess up an empath :)

~Niadja

Trading can give you a bit of extra cash when dealing with NPC merchant types. None of my 15 characters have ever trained in it, so you can see how much I value it. (Note: it has zero effect when dickering with other players, needless to say, nor do most GM merchants pay any attention to this skill.)

Perception is good for finding various things but I rarely go more than 30 ranks. The main exception would be a bow using character; get 2x perception if you plan on archery as a career.

The bells of Hell
go ting-a-ling-a-ling
for you but not for me

<<I kinda like the idea of trading, but after reading nearly every post I can see, I don't recall seeing a single person take it. Is it considered that much of a waste? Personally, since I'm going to have a 35 influence bonus and based on the numbers at krakipedia about trading, it doesn't seem to be a poor investment.>>

As mentioned, trading is a skill you'd take only if you want to and can spare the points for. I don't train in it because I really don't worry too much about the coin I make, but your thoughts may be otherwise.

<<Do I need perception? What is it used for?>>

Perception figures into a lot of systems, though some systems are only rumored to use it. Most applicable to a caster empath would be the chance of finding hidden people or objects, getting to certain areas, foraging, noticing pickpockets, spotting bandit traps and the like. It's been said to figure in on skinning and finding items when looting certain creatures, but it hasn't been proven. You definitely want some amount of training, but how much you need varies depending on who you ask. I, for example, have 30 ranks and didn't have too much trouble. Other people suggest singling in it for life.

<<Survival? Yes, no? Pros, cons?>>

Most empaths train in survival for skinning and foraging. The costs are most expensive for empaths compared to other professions, but some people feel it's worth it. I can only speak from my own experience, but I found it unnecessary for the most part. I'm doubled in first aid, which provides good skinning skill, and I can sanct to forage to my heart's content. It's likely that I've lost out on silver value from the skins and bounty points from skinning bounties, since the bounty points are tied to skin value. However, I needed the points more for other skills.

<<Spell training. Is it necessary to train more than 2x per level? It is sooo expensive to train 3 times in a single level.>>

As other people pointed out, grab more ranks as you have the points. Don't sacrifice your core training. As you gain levels, your stats will increase, which will provide more training points. You'll find you'll be able to train in more later on. We're just suggesting how you might want to spend those excess points.

Gretchen

Meeting Nilandia: http://www.gsguide.net/index.php?title=Nilandia
Nilandia's GS4 Info Repository: http://www.nilandia.com
AIM: Lady Nilandia

My current incarnation is not a pure caster, but I have shifted back and forth 5 times, so I know where it's at. If you don't want to wield a weapon, then MIU and spell aiming will definitely be the way to go. Right now, I am boneshattering the heck out of the invading Krolvin, but there are a fair number of critters that don't have bones (elementals for example). In my pure caster incarnation, I found blue and crystal wands to be of great value in the Bowels.

For a pure caster I always recommend 2x in HP. Seems like a waste of TPs at low level, but it adds up. When I was level 95 and a pure, I had an additional 100 mana because I went 2x in this skill. Thats a heck of a lot of boneshatter casts.

The bells of Hell
go ting-a-ling-a-ling
for you but not for me