Warrior Mage new player guide

This is a page for the Warrior Mage specific page for the Newbie Help Guide. Whenever possible, there should be as little overlap with the general guide.

For details, rules, and the other pages involved, see Category:Newbie Guide Contest.

Race

Warrior mage abilities make use of all the Attributes. In DR 3.0, ALL of the stats are important to us to some degree, with Charisma being the LEAST important. The reasoning for this is that Charisma as a stat, while useful in that it gives you additional spirit health, better prices from haggleable vendors, and influences how often your familiar will drag you out of danger in combat, is only an influential stat in one of our contested spells - Mark of Arhat, which as of 3.0 is a spirit vs will contested spell. Keep this in mind when choosing a race if you're trying to min-max, and choose a race where the stats you want to favor are easier to train.

Keep this in mind when picturing what kind of mage you want to be - do you want to be a two-handed weapon swinging mage? You will be using a lot of strength and stamina. Slash and dash fencer? Lots of agility and reflex. ALL mages will make heavy use of all three mental stats, and stamina is going to be important to you no matter what in combat. Ultimately, the most important choice is picking a race you feel comfortable roleplaying.

At the end of the day, any of the races can be viable Warrior Mages. Since just about all of the stats are important for us, don't let the numbers necessarily be the sole influence for you.

Equipment

Most Warrior Mages tend to favor Chain Armor. It offers good protection and absorption without the huge maneuvering penalties associated with heavier armors. As stealth is not something our guild focuses on regularly, it is uncommon to see Warrior Mages wearing Light Armor but for those that wish to try and pursue stealth, it can be an option - however, you can hide nearly as well in a well-made set of chain as you can in leather and contrary to popular belief, a full set of leather can indeed be more hindering than a full set of chain. Brigandine and Plate are both much heavier and more protective but as a guild with armor as its Tertiary skillset, it is generally more trouble than it's worth to pick these heavier armors - you will have a hard time avoiding blows in them and the extra protection and absorption is not enough to offset this. You *will* take more damage overall.

Weapons generally come down to personal preference, and you can make pretty much anything work. For a new character, swing roundtime and Fatigue will be at a premium, so you should look up your local forger and see about getting a nice lightened weapon made. Regardless of the weapon's type (that is, the skill it trains when you use it), a lightened weapon will be easier to swing more quickly, be more balanced and therefore more accurate, and be less tiring.

I recommend that you train at least one ranged weapon in addition to any melee weapons you pick. While a lot of your damage will be done with spells, it's always good to have options for when spells are not a viable choice.

To get a full list of all the weapon skills, you can type >EXP WEAPON 0 in-game.

Summoning and Aethereal Pathways

Summoning is the Warrior Mage guild-only skill. It represents the mage's skill at sensing and manipulating the elemental planes, and being able to summon that energy for personal use in the form of a Familiar or through the use of Aethereal Pathways.

Elemental Charge

Summoning abilities use Elemental Charge as a resource to power them. To gather Charge, you must first ALIGN yourself to an element. For example, to align myself to fire, I would ALIGN FIRE. You can change your aligned element at will, but it requires you to have no remaining Charge to do so.

To gather Charge, cast spells from the spellbook of your Aligned element. You will gain a small amount of charge for each cast. You will lose the same amount of charge for casts of your opposed element. You can choose your opposed element with enough Summoning skill (Example: Fire is traditionally Opposed to Water. With enough skill, I could Align fire and decide that I wanted to be Opposed to Aether).

Charge can also be gathered by doing SUMMON ADMITTANCE. This will sit you down on the ground and you will meditate with a Roundtime (Generally in the realm of 10-15s). When you finish the meditation you will have gained Charge. You can continue SUMMON ADMITTANCE until you are told you are at maximum charge.

Each of the Aethereal Pathways has an element associated with it. Using a pathway of your aligned element will make it cost less charge to use. Using one from your opposed element will make it cost more.

Familiars

A familiar is a minor aether elemental spirit that is summoned from the plane of Aether and bound to the mage's will. Typically these spirits are bound in the form of various animals through the use of a talisman. A familiar can perform a variety of tasks for the mage, including picking up small items, transferring items over a distance, and acting as messengers (a mage can see and speak through their familiar, and familiars can be told to locate other adventurers).

To summon a familiar, you must have a talisman and enough elemental charge to do so.

Once you have enough elemental charge, hold your talisman in hand and >SUMMON FAMILIAR to call your familiar.

To dismiss your familiar, >TELL FAMILIAR TO LEAVE.

A detailed guide about the various types of familiars, the level requirements to attain them, the classes of talismans, and animals associated with them is available here.

Training Summoning

Summoning is trained at low-skill by having a familiar out and at high level through the use of Aethereal Pathways. Aethereal Pathways are abilities exclusive to the Warrior Mage guild that reflect their mastery of Targeted Magic. Essentially the mage can modify the way Targeting works in different ways that are useful in a variety of situations.

Elemental Domains

A recent new addition to the Warrior Mage toolbox are Elemental Domains. Creating a domain is the process of aligning an area (basically any room) in-game with a particular element. This has a few effects:

- It doubles your charge gain from casting spells when you are aligned to this element.
- It doubles your charge cost from casting spells if you are opposed to this element.
- It negates environmental penalties for a spell (Ex: If I cast Rising Mists in the middle of Summer, in a Desert, with a Water Domain present, it will lose the seasonal and locational penalty associated with it).

To summon a domain, the syntax is >SUMMON <ELEMENT> DOMAIN, where <ELEMENT> is the name of one of the elements. There is at least one easter-egg element available that is not one of the traditional six.

The primary use of an Elemental Domain currently is to have an easier time maintaining your Charge level through casting alone, enabling more freedom with the use of Aethereal Pathways.

Pathways

Focus Damage (Fire) Increases damage from targeted magic.

Focus Quick (Air) Decreases targeting time for spells.

Focus Ease (Water) Reduces the difficulty to cast targeted spells.

Focus Power (Earth) Increases the Potency of spells.

Focus Accuracy (Electricity) Increases the accuracy of targeted magic.

Focus Secrecy (Water) Reduces the chance that your targeting matirx will be spotted.

Focus Precise (Air) Makes it easier to target specific body parts with spells.

Focus Defend (Earth) Makes it harder to direct targeted magic at you.

Focus Conserve (Fire) Decreases minimum mana cost of targeted spells.

Elemental Barrage (Electricity) Simultaneously attack with a melee weapon and a targeted spell.

Perceive Pathway (Aether) Detects aethereal pathways in use nearby.

Training Suggestions for Summoning

Out of Combat You can easily train Summoning out of combat by practicing magic with Cambrinth. Cast as high as you can without backfiring, until you run out of mana. When you are out, Summon Admittance two times and then turn on a Pathway that is for your Aligned element. Pathways by element can be seen at the page for Aethereal Pathways. Continue magic training and when you are out of mana, simply Summon Admittance once to gather charge. This will keep your Pathway running almost indefinitely and you will mind lock your Summoning skill fairly effortlessly as you train your other magic skills. You can bypass the need for Summon Admittance by ensuring that the spells you are casting are of the element you're aligned to, and it will be even easier to keep your charge up if you summon the proper elemental domain.

In Combat

Summoning can be trained fairly easily in combat as well. Remember that casting spells of your aligned element will restore a bit of Elemental Charge with each cast.

While in combat, repeated casting of Targeted Magic spells is common. Align with the element of your favorite TM spell, and your Elemental Charge will remain high enough to continually power a pathway of your chosen Alignment. Since keeping a Pathway up is the preferred method to train Summoning, this will move the skill for you in combat without you needing to input additional commands, provided you remember to start tapping into the Aethereal Pathways.

Common Misconceptions

Your alignment does not negatively impact your ability to cast spells in any way (ex: You are aligned to Fire, and go to cast a Water spell. That spell will not be "weaker", it will not cost any more mana, or any other differences in any way from if you were Water aligned). The ONLY difference is that if you're casting a Water spell while Fire Aligned, by default, you will lose a small amount of Elemental Charge. You will not be weaker in any way, despite the messaging that the spell diminishes you. That's just the messaging for losing some Elemental Charge from the cast. Charge doesn't make your spells better or worse, it is used to power Pathways and to initially summon your familiar.

Because of this, there is absolutely no mechanical benefit to only learning one type of spell and never the opposite element. It can be a fun roleplaying opportunity, and sometimes you might get something like a Title out of knowing say, all the fire spells and zero water spells, but it will eventually take away from your effectiveness to neglect spellbooks completely. Whether the sacrifice in effectiveness is worth the gain in Roleplay to you is a personal choice with no right or wrong answer.

Spell Choices

See Warrior Mage Spells for full listing of spells.

Warrior Mages have a variety of spells available to them, and all of them have their niches that they are useful in. Each spell will train one of the five magic skills (Augmentation, Debilitation, Targeted Magic, Utility, or Warding) in addition to Elemental Magic and Attunement. You should keep in mind when choosing your spells that you want to eventually have a spell that will train each skill, so that you can practice it, as eventually you will need all your magic skills to Circle.

Detailed descriptions, a rough guide to the pros and cons, and a rating of effectiveness of the spells in our arsenal can be found at the Warrior Mage Spell Recommendation page.

The Essentials

Being a new adventurer means that you'll be starting from scratch, with very little skill in weapons or magic. The following spells will be helpful to new Warrior Mages as choices after they learn their first spell (which will be a Targeted Magic spell). All of these spells will help you survive better in combat by either improving your defensive skills or by helping you disable an enemy.

Swirling Winds (SW) - Augmentation Spell
Prerequisites: Zephyr or Tailwind. - Increases your Reflex and Evasion skill. This will help keep you alive in combat.

Tailwind (TW) - Augmentation Spell
Prerequisites: Air Lash or Elementalism. - Increases your chance to hit with ranged attacks. Fantastic for when you're training a ranged weapon (You ARE training a ranged weapon, right?). Follows the caster room to room.

Sure Footing (SUF) - Augmentation Spell
Prerequisite: Stone Strike or Elementalism. - Increases balance and parry skill. This will help keep you alive in combat if you are using a weapon capable of parrying or a parry stick.

Ethereal Shield (ES) - Warding Spell
Prerequisite: Any Intro TM spell. - Reduces elemental damage taken, easy to train Warding with. Use when fighting other mages or creatures that use spells, and it will help significantly.

Ice Patch (IP) - Debilitation Spell
Prerequisite: Geyser or Elementalism. - Basic disabler spell. Will knock down and stun the target when successful. Very good for getting hits in on things you have a hard time hitting, due to the knockdown inherent in its success, but be aware that it doesn't work on four-legged creatures.

Ignite (IGNITE) - Utility Spell
Prerequisite: Fire Shards or Elementalism. - This spell ignites your weapon, causing it to deal additional fire damage. The amount may seem insignificant, but it is a lot of extra damage due to the way the spell works - this damage is applied to every attack.

Targeted Spells

Targeted Magic is one of the most defining aspects of the Warrior Mage guild. In short, Targeted Magic is your skill at aiming magic at things to make them die. Warrior Mages being wielders of the forces of the elements, typically this takes the form of raining down balls of fire or lightning bolts on our enemies. Your Targeted Magic skill works like any other magic skill as far as determining how much mana you can stick into a spell, but it also acts like a weapon skill in combat, where your ranks go up against the target's defenses to determine if you hit them or not. When deciding which Targeted Magic spell to use, consider the damage types you wish to deal - what damage types are your opponents weak against or immune to entirely? There's the capability across all the books for Warrior Mages to deal every type of damage in the game, so keep this in mind when deciding what spells you want to learn.

Debilitation Spells

Debilitation spells are all spells that you cast on another target to affect them negatively in a non-damaging way while using the Debilitation skill. It can be a stun, a reduction in balance, immobilization, a hit to fatigue, taking extra damage from everything else, or removal of defenses. When picking a disabler, you should keep in mind the stats it contests. It is ideal for you to use spells that favor the stats your race can train cheaply (and thus has higher values for) and to also consider spells that contest stats you know your opponent is weak against. The different contests involved mean that even though two spells do the same thing, one of them may be better for you personally in the situation you're in. That's one of the greatest strengths of Warrior Mages - our toolbox has the right tool for just about any job, you just need to know them and use them properly.

Debilitation Contests

Succeeding at disabling a target is determined by a stat contest. Different spells use different types of contests to determine success, and this has an effect on what stats the caster (Attacker) and target (Defender) use to determine the spell's success level. There are numerous types of contests.

Offensive Contest Types Relevant to Warrior Mages

Mind - Uses caster's Intelligence, Discipline, Wisdom (in that order of weighting) to determine success
Magic - Uses caster's Wisdom, Intelligence, Discipline (in that order) to determine success - Most Warrior Mage Spells are in this category.
Spirit - Uses caster's Wisdom, Charisma, Intelligence (in that order) to determine success

- You always use all 3 stats in any contest.

Defensive Contest Types

Reflexes - Uses defender's Reflex, Agility, and Intelligence (in that order of weighting) to determine success. Additional factors in the contest include whether or not target is prone, webbed, or otherwise incapacitated.
Fortitude - Uses defender's Stamina, Discipline, and Strength (in that order) to determine success. Additional factors include vitality level, spirit level, and fatigue. It's easier to succeed on injured or tired targets, basically.
Willpower - Uses defender's Discipline, Wisdom, and Intelligence (in that order) to determine success. Additional factors include nerve damage, stuns/unconsciousness.

So when a spell is said to be Magic vs. Fortitude, for example - The caster uses Wisdom, Int, Discipline, and the defender uses Stamina, Discipline, Strength.

What you should take away from this: IF YOU WANT TO LAND DEBILITATION SPELLS MORE RELIABLY, TRAIN YOUR MENTALS. IF YOU WANT TO STOP GETTING DEBILITATED BY A SPECIFIC SPELL OR ABILITY, TRAIN THE APPROPRIATE STATS TO DEFEND AGAINST IT.

You can find some reviews of Warrior Mage debilitation spells, along with suggestions for their use here.

Augmentation Spells

Augmentation Spells are spells that are used to improve your capabilities in some way. They might make you more capable of dodging blows, stronger, faster, more skilled with magic, etc. Warrior Mages have a very diverse set of Augmentation Spells, many of which can be cast to assist others as well as used on yourself. They are essentially "buff" spells, helping you to survive or otherwise be better at something.

You can find some reviews of Warrior Mage augmentation spells, along with suggestions for their use here.

Utility Spells

Augmentation Spells are spells that are used to improve your capabilities in some way. They might make you more capable of dodging blows, stronger, faster, more skilled with magic, etc. Warrior Mages have a very diverse set of Augmentation Spells, many of which can be cast to assist others as well as used on yourself. They are essentially "buff" spells, helping you to survive or otherwise be better at something.

You can find some reviews of Warrior Mage augmentation spells, along with suggestions for their use here.

Warding Spells

Augmentation Spells are spells that are used to improve your capabilities in some way. They might make you more capable of dodging blows, stronger, faster, more skilled with magic, etc. Warrior Mages have a very diverse set of Augmentation Spells, many of which can be cast to assist others as well as used on yourself. They are essentially "buff" spells, helping you to survive or otherwise be better at something.

You can find some reviews of Warrior Mage augmentation spells, along with suggestions for their use here.