>http://elanthipedia.org/w/index.php/Nipoh_Oshu_%281%29

Obvious question: have you strayed into Oshu2 or Oshu3, which are listed as requireing more ranks than your TM, and have started missing with the spell? TM is a weapon skill; if you hit, it should teach. If it's not teaching, you either outrank the critter or are missing badly enough to learn nothing, unless there's some confound with shock for empaths.

The first thing that pops out, but isn't really important is that you don't have to PREP then TARGET. Just TARGET PARA 10. That'll save you a line of code, but certainly doesn't affect what you're seeing.

Have you checked your spell stance? Oshu should still train around 140, and at least one tier of Snobs should too. Do you have a GS out, because that will supplement your TM. And finally, are you swapping targets? I seem to recall Paralyze not teaching as well on repeated casts.

<<Have you set your attack stance down (probably in order to gain extra defense) and forgotten to raise it back up? I do that sometimes, and it can very easily make you miss pretty much always.>>

THIS. You are a genius. I didn't even think about it. Yep. Thank you so much.

there are good reasons to still use that extra line though, for some reason, the parser doesn't seem to be able to allow something like 'target stra 10 head' for instance... but, unless you're specific targeting an area, yes, targeting the spell is useful.. just be careful if there is any GOOD reason not to attack a 'critter' in the room.. the target command will move to the next target if you don't have one... i haven't seen it attack another GS or whatnot, but still.. flat 'target <spell>' CAN get you into trouble if you were avoiding a certain creature for instance - so especially with empaths, be careful if you're hunting in a mixed area, as you could end up targeting a non-construct with a shock-inducing spell.

>The shadowling exclaims, "Mana neeto!"

i go hunting the wood trolls out the east gate... i am a moonie, and i like to use DO to lop off heads... so i want to target my DO spell at their necks...

i can use:
prep DO 15
target neck

i CANNOT use:
target DO 15 neck - results in targeting currently faced overall target
target DO 15 at troll neck - results in targeting first overall troll
target DO 15 at neck - results in targeting currently faced overall target

anything after the number of mana you want to prep the spell at is ignored.
anything after the spell that is NOT a number, is ignored.
the use of 'at' does allow me to specify the creature, but doesn't accept the body part.

thus, for efficient killing, or in order to target a specific body part, you HAVE to prep, then target, else you just get the random hit locations, which may be protected by armor, and which doesn't allow you to accomplish a critical-body-part-destruction-kill, except by chance.

as for using a face/target option to focus on a specific critter, it does actually work rather well.. for instance, if you wanted mostly deer skin, by facing/targeting the deer first, you'd kill any deer in the area, then remove the cougars while you wait for another deer shows up.. and then immediately switch to the deer... I've used this technique to focus on acquiring the bones of one specific creature over the other kinds of critters in the area to great effect, going from the RNG getting me about 50/50 to almost 90/10 of the kind I want.

>The shadowling exclaims, "Mana neeto!"