This is what I currently have, Stats & Skills at level 48.

Strength (STR): 97 (23) ... 97 (23) (the bonus number adds to your AS)
Constitution (CON): 63 (6) ... 63 (6) (health, load carrying, poison disease resistance)
Dexterity (DEX): 60 (10) ... 60 (10) (wand use)
Agility (AGI): 99 (34) ... 99 (34) (the bonus number adds to your DS)
Discipline (DIS): 86 (13) ... 86 (13) (gives ptp and mtp training points
Aura (AUR): 85 (17) ... 85 (17) (both ptp & mtp points. every 10 points gives a spirit point)
Logic (LOG): 72 (11) ... 72 (11) (affects how fast you learn from your field exp)
Intuition (INT): 66 (8) ... 66 (8) (affects how fast you learn from your field exp)
Wisdom (WIS): 100 (25) ... 100 (25) (adds a few beginning manna points)
Influence (INF): 100 (30) ... 100 (30) (adds a few beginning manna points)


Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 40 8 (needed to wear double leather without penalty)
Two-Handed Weapons.................| 150 50
Physical Fitness...................| 200 100 (Gives blood and faster blood regeneration)
Arcane Symbols.....................| 150 50 (scroll use)
Magic Item Use.....................| 150 50
Harness Power......................| 148 48 (3 points of manna per rank up to your level)
Spirit Mana Control................| 150 50 (manna sharing skill)
Spiritual Lore - Blessings.........| 70 15
Spiritual Lore - Summoning.........| 150 50
Mental Lore - Transformation.......| 151 51 (Shortens healing RT)
Perception.........................| 150 50 (Finding crevices, holes, and such)
Climbing...........................| 90 20
Swimming...........................| 50 10
First Aid..........................| 200 100 (bandaging, skinning, hide appraisals)

Spell Lists
Major Spiritual....................| 25

Spell Lists
Minor Spiritual....................| 30

Spell Lists
Empath.............................| 48


Browse this forum. While there are different opinions of good and bad, the posters here have clue. Stay with a weapon though, a pure spellslinger empath has serious manna problems even at my level. (which will be argued by some. :)

Look up each skill on krakipedia to get a good idea on what does what and influences what else. You can really screw your character up easily. I've done seven fixskills since returning, I'll likely get a Christmas card from Simutronics this year. :)

O.k. Some more on why I did what I have done.

1x training is having a skill at just above your level each rank costing the smallest amount of training points. For Tanivar that is currently 50 with every rank above that costing double and if you can triple train a skill, the cost will triple eventually.

When I rolled up Stats after Gemstone 3 changed to Gemstone 4 I was thinking Gemstone 3. The Strength and Agility were set high (80 or 90) to give the AS & DS bonus'.

The Wisdom and Influnence were set high because in Gemstone 3 they had been what decided how much manna you got per level, The amount of manna you get in Gemstone 4 is set by Harness Power instead. Three points per rank up to equal to your level, then one point of mana per rank above your level. Any ranks you have above your level will start giving you three points of mans each as you gain another level.

Aura & Discipline were set high to get more training points. The physical stat numbers and mental stat numbers are each totaled up with the Aura & Discipline numbers added in to both totals. The total of the physical stats divided by 10 is the number of ptps you get each level. Mtp work the same way.


My skill selection is planned for a Town Healer type with enough oomph to survive rescue runs to dangerous places and to hunt as a change of pace and also to gain Voln Favor from killing undead to power his Voln Symbols. Doing rescues, he will likely carry a runestaff in hand for it's better defense. Of course he'll also have a blessed bastard sword in the double back-sheath if something needs to be sliced & diced. <g>

Armor - Eight ranks are needed to wear double leather without penalty.

Two-handed Weapons - I'm back to this to keep one hand free for dragging bodies and to be not use to having the DS from a shield. A runestaff is an alternative choice of weapon since Tanivar has the minimum 8 magic skill ranks per level to get the decent defense effect, including the bolt spell defense a runestaff provides. Runestaves are near useless offensively.

Physical Fitness - Each rank of Physical Fitness gives you a few more points of blood up to the maximum your character can have due to race and stats. Additional ranks increase the blood regeneration rate you get. I have it at 100 mainly to ease the bad effects caused by the Spirit Guide spell.

Arcane Symbols - The higher this number is the easier it is to get a scroll spell to work and to increase how long the cast spell will last.

Magic Item Use - The higher this number is the easier it is to get a magic item spell to work and to increase how long the cast spell will last.

Harness Power - This provides the manna you get each level, Up to matching your level number, each rank provides three manna. Each manna rank above your level number provides only one more point of mana until your level number matches it. It then provides a full three manna.

Spirit Mana Control - Works like a percentage. The number beside the rank number is how much of your Spiritual manna (the flavor Empaths have) you try to send to another Spiritual manna user will make it, minus an additional 5%. Any extra skill above 100% will help compensate for anothers lower than 100% ability. The 5% is lost anyways. Tanivar's is at 50 to help ease the bad effects of the Spirit Guide spell. You cannot transfer manna to an Elemental manna user (Wizard or Bard) without training for it with the Elemental Mana Control skill. Empaths are Spiritual/Mental group so we maybe able to send to Mental Mana users.

Spiritual Lore - Blessings - is at 15 so that the Adrenal Surge spell will also restore 25 Stamina. At 10 Blessing Lore the Untrammel Spell changes from the normal one shot effect to having a ten minute or so duration (on the caster only) that provides two chances to escape spider webs. At 20? the Web spell can be cast as a bolt at a target instead of just putting a web in a room that a critter might get stuck in. Tanivar can cast a web bolt now but has no Spell Aiming to aim it with.

Spiritual Lore - Summoning - This lore provides the ability to summon specific herbs using the 1118 spell. 1o lets you get Acantha Leaf specifically, the 50 Tanivar has lets him summon all the bleeder herbs as he specifically wants each one. At 40, this lore adds 30 seconds of invisibility to the Spirit Fog spell after which your again viable and have the usual defense effect of the spell. I took this so I can hopefully transfer to a patients location, cast Spirit Fog, and during that 30 seconds grab any dropped gear, the patient, and Spirit Guide back to town with my head, and rear still attached. It also improves some of the various attack spells effects.

Mental Lore - Transformation - Every three ranks reduces healing spell roundtimes by one second. The 51 ranks takes 17 seconds off the original healing spell RT, with 50 ranks providing a second use of the Regeneration spell each day once he has that spell at level 50.

Perception - seeing things that are not obvious when searching.

Climbing & Swimming - basic skills needed. Ten Climbing and 5 Swimming have worked for me so far. Climbing got raised a week or so back when I was told 20 was needed to safely get past a pit. I doubled Swimming as well.

First Aid - Allows wound bandaging with hellaciously long roundtimes. I used it recently and got a full three minutes roundtime, which luckily, wasn't fatal. Nothing else was bleeding badly enough to kill Tanivar during that RT. It also helps with skinning.

25 Major Spirit spells - to get Transference to reach people in need when possible. Number of ranks affects Major spell durations.

30 Minor Spirit spells - to get Spirit Guide to bring in rescued people when possible. Number of
ranks affects Minor spell durations.

Empath spells - nothing actually really comes to mind.

How many spell ranks you have affects your CS (Casting Strength) for each type of spells. Look up the formula on Krakiipedia. I was told to have level plus 21 Empath spell ranks for really decent CS when I was trying out being a pure spellslinger.

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Survival - had it for a while to let me forage for herbs for healing and Alchemy. I gave it up when I took the 50 Summoning ranks and could use the spell for restocking the bleeder herbs of the backup herb stash I still carry. Foraging without Survival training for the other three herbs I also carry either isn't to bad, or you give up after a couple of hours with incomplete bundles.

Survival also reduces your chance of falling in icy spots, lowers the movement RT of slogging through muck and mud in some areas, and a couple other things. If I wasn't planning on a Town Healer career, I'd have kept Survival.

Manipulation Lore is supposed to boost Bone Shatter, and Wither spell effects but is said to not actually do it, that the lore is a waste of training points. It does add a few points of damage to the Harm spell.

If you decide to go the spellslinger route, you will have to be selective about what you hunt for training. Harm, your cheapest spell manna wise is only good vs things that have blood. Bone Shatter, your next cheapest spell, won't work unless your target has bones to be shattered. Most undead, and golems, are not affected by it. My experience was that your attack spells will commonly do little damage or be warded off and do no harm. I off and on used up a 130 some points of manna on a single monster and it survived, leaving me to go wait for my manna pool to refill so I could hunt some more. Wands can help kill things, but then you need to buy more, have any wands that didn't crumble once empty recharged by a wizard, or take them up to the Moon Chamber and recharge them yourself. You get 60 charging pulses an hour, 10 charges over two minutes with an eight minute wait to the next charging cycle. Rig up a sound effect for the starting cycle text and read a book between cycles. I did four gold or metal wands an hour, putting 15 charges in each, and typically carried 1 1/2 to two dozen wands. A morning, afternoon, or evening shot.

A sword you can just merrily hack away with nonstop, no need to pace your spells out to avoid running out of manna. Something I and my bastard swords are far happier with. ;)

Empath Healing Protocols

The current usual protocol for Healers in TS is to nod to someone who makes a general request for healing, and if you were the first Healer to nod, you heal that patients wounds. If you were not the first one to nod but the Healer who was first points to you, you can then heal that patient. Some Healers do things differently. They will just nod without it being to the patient, they may touch the patient instead, scoot over by the patient, or another individual style gesture. If more than one Healer is working TS they usually take turns healing patients so that all get to do some of the healing.

If you run into a dead body that hasn't asked for healing, ask them if they want to be healed before taking any wounds from them to get the o.k. from them to do so. If the body was brought in by another Empath, they will be annoyed and tell you what you did you shouldn't have done, or they might drag your hide out of TS, tell you off, and leave you bound with the Bind spell with one of their toadies standing there as a new player Healer experienced last night <rolls eyes>. Healers who do rescue runs to bring in bodies may choose to heal that patient themselves or prefer another Healer to do it so they can avoid having to deal with the scars which can block dragging a body and the casting of Minor & Major Spirit spellc. Always ask before healing.

If you plan on healing in TS as you train up your skills and Tanivar is there, he can provide you with a bit of advice, answer some questions (he's not real talkative these days due to arthritis) provide you with herbs to deal with bleeding wounds, or provide the spell Troll's Blood which will auto-heal a level one wound every 40 seconds or so and reduce the amount of manna you need to use. Remember that wounds stack. I'm game to help you heal by letting you do the nodding to patients, take the wounds you can, then take the patient's wounds you currently can't after you point to me. You can also get a bleeder herb from the bin or bench in TS and hand it to a patient to eat to reduce the wound down to one you can then take yourself if preferred.


Misc notes:

Taking a level one wound when you already have one in that location will cause a level 2 bleeding wound, requiring the ability to heal such a wound, herbs, or another Healer to take it.

A Clean Up request from another Empath means they want their wound(s) taken to clean up a bad scar under that wound. Typically the Empath who was Cleaned Up will then take the wounds back, which they then heal down to a level one scar instead of the level two or three scar they would have otherwise been left with.

I have highlighted all known Empath's names in orange using Stormfront's highlight options which let's me know who could be healing in TS when I'm there. While it seems most Empaths don't do healing in TS or just heal friends, some do work as a Healer while there at times. Walking into TS with orange names in the list of people there and getting several prompt calls for healing from people with wounds has often happened. I've been asked to heal in shops and other places. Some come into TS straight to me for healing. If you are an Empath who chooses to work as a Healer you will become well known.

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Anyone else want to toss in info and advice? I'm back as of last May and am not completely up to speed on life in Gemstone 4.

<<Silly boy! First aid was never intended to let empaths tend wounds; it's for skinning and herb use! Oh, and for lesser beings (i.e. non empaths) who have to tend wounds instead of healing them directly. I have 200 ranks of FA, primarily for skinning tasks, and also to reduce the healing RT from using herbs. This way, I can use herbs to heal bad scars instead of my own spells, thus obviating the need for transformation lore. Well, ok, I do have to buy some herbs now and then, but it's been quite a while since a few silvers have been an issue of concern.>>

I have to agree with this completely. If an empath is training in FA solely for tending, they're wasting TPs. Prior to being able to heal all bleeders you won't have enough ranks in FA to tend half the bleeders you get and once you have the spells there's never a time when tending would be preferable to just healing the bleeder down. Heck, the only characters I have that ever tend are my ranger and my cleric and that's only when someone needs a raise and there are no empaths around. Joining that other society is a much better way of preventing yourself from bleeding out if that's your main concern with FA.

Having FA for reducing herb RT, on the other hand, is completely worth it since healing scars with spells takes a LONG time for a good portion of an empath's carrier. Even once you get yer healing RT down low enough that you prefer using spells to heal scars most of the time, it's nice to have for when you eat a sovyn clove or drink bur-clover potion (something I'll prolly always prefer for missing limbs and eyes unless we get the old 819 and 820 back). Not to mention the added perk of making more silver from skins when yer hunting something that's skinable.

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.

<Chuckles>

That tending was done to see if the idiotic RTs of a couple of decades back were still the same. I learned back in G2 or 3 that wound tending was a slow, and fairly likely, form of suicide as a healer. Two heavy bleeders, tend one, and the other one kills you during the RT. :)

I have First Aid up to 3x as of yesterday when I dumped a couple hundred PTPs into it I'd left free after the Boneshatter fixskills, and into starting to restore Survival for foraging and skinning. Decided I just wasn't happy with the lousy foraging getting woth flower and sovyn clove.

I think I'll work on 2x Survival after I have Regeneration next level and become a skinner as a profitable sideline. With Harm to do the killing to avoid damaging the hides, I'm currently making a fortune hunting ro'aters. Got something like 912 silver for one hide while doing a hide bounty. :)

<The game would be improved if the tend command was disabled.>

I wouldn't go this far, the verb does have its uses in towns like RR where there's not always an empath around and pourable herbs aren't easy to come by. I do agree with the tending RT being drastically reduced though.

Most of what makes the verb useless for any profession the vast majority of the time is the huge RT, in some cases I've seen bandages that only lasted a few seconds longer then the RT. In the field, when it would be most useful, it just leaves you unable to respond to any critters that wander in and leaves you unable to take care of any other bleeders you might have that are just as dangerous. In town, you can eat enough herbs to get a rank 3 wound on every bleedable body part down to rank one in the time it takes to TEND one of them.

I don't see how 3 sec for a failed attempt and 5-10 sec for a successful TEND is unreasonable. Just have a minimum number of ranks in FA needed for each area and/or amount of bleeding with each rank above that adding to the duration of the bandages.

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.