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Just got back into playing an empath the last few days after several years of either being away from GS completely or playing other professions and JUST discovered that FA no longer factors into 1106. Since I'll be using my fixskills to get rid of his 3x FA and pumping that into more lores (not entirely sure which yet, but leaning towards summoning), I figured I might as well post his training to see if I had any other glaring mistakes I should fix:
(at level 12), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Physical Fitness...................| 62 13
Arcane Symbols.....................| 62 13
Magic Item Use.....................| 108 26
Spell Aiming.......................| 108 26
Harness Power......................| 108 26
Mental Mana Control................| 62 13
Spirit Mana Control................| 58 12
Mental Lore - Manipulation.........| 58 12
Mental Lore - Transformation.......| 54 11
Climbing...........................| 20 4
First Aid..........................| 138 39
Spell Lists
Major Spirit.......................| 4
Spell Lists
Minor Spirit.......................| 10
Spell Lists
Empath.............................| 12
This character was rolled up 6 years ago or so and just never played much until recently, he's a pure casting halfling that uses CS and bolt spells with about equal frequency (depends on what the adventurers guild sends him after). Oh, and just to head off suggestions about getting weapon training until the next fixskills comes out in 20 days, I'm having no problems keeping him well supplied with wizard wands with the silver he gets from hunting.
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.
I'd say drop the transformation lore, it is only really helping you with healing rts and that doesn't seem to be the focus for this character. It is also eating up a lot of your training points that you could use else where. Another thing you will want to do is switch your spells, with the bolting you should be working towards getting 211 and 215 for your AS instead of working up the minor spirit list.
I'd likewise suggest dropping the transformation now, but I'd also suggest dropping the manipulation lore. While it does factor into bone shatter, it doesn't do so to a great enough degree to make it worthwhile for my taste. Instead, I'd suggest singling telepathy lore to get more follow-up CS attacks using empathic assault.
Bravery and heroism are definitely nice spells to have, so you might want to think about pushing up the major spirit list for them. Fire spirit is a great bolt spell in our arsenal and you're just one minor spirit rank away from it, but at your level you don't have the mana to use it for sustained periods of time.
If you're going as a caster hunter, I'd highly suggest singling in summoning lore. There are a lot of benefits to the caster hunter, not least of which is increased effectiveness of fire spirit and web when you do get them.
Your MIU seems a bit high. I suspect you have it doubled to make use of wands. When you get to a high enough level to activate your preferred wands without too much worry, I'd suggest reining it in to free up more points better spent elsewhere.
When you get the chance, I'd suggest picking up 8 ranks of armor use. You can wear double leather armor with no spell hindrance, and the 8 ranks will remove any other penalties with the armor as much as is possible.
Other than that, you seem to be fine. You might want to pick up more empath ranks when you can to boost your CS, but that's about it.
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
Bravery and heroism are definitely nice spells to have, so you might want to think about pushing up the major spirit list for them. Fire spirit is a great bolt spell in our arsenal and you're just one minor spirit rank away from it, but at your level you don't have the mana to use it for sustained periods of time.
If you're going as a caster hunter, I'd highly suggest singling in summoning lore. There are a lot of benefits to the caster hunter, not least of which is increased effectiveness of fire spirit and web when you do get them.
Your MIU seems a bit high. I suspect you have it doubled to make use of wands. When you get to a high enough level to activate your preferred wands without too much worry, I'd suggest reining it in to free up more points better spent elsewhere.
When you get the chance, I'd suggest picking up 8 ranks of armor use. You can wear double leather armor with no spell hindrance, and the 8 ranks will remove any other penalties with the armor as much as is possible.
Other than that, you seem to be fine. You might want to pick up more empath ranks when you can to boost your CS, but that's about it.
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
<Your MIU seems a bit high. I suspect you have it doubled to make use of wands. When you get to a high enough level to activate your preferred wands without too much worry, I'd suggest reining it in to free up more points better spent elsewhere.>
Yea, he's also a halfling who doesn't have the best AUR. Even with his high STR, he still gets encumbered easily because of his race so I'm planning on getting more MIU then is usually recommended with him. I'll likely be switching to 1x in it once I'm comfortable with his modifier for wizard wands since it's a cheap skill that counts towards rune staffs.
<When you get the chance, I'd suggest picking up 8 ranks of armor use. You can wear double leather armor with no spell hindrance, and the 8 ranks will remove any other penalties with the armor as much as is possible.>
I was actually thinking of getting him crit padded full leather or robes when he gets a bit older rather then getting doubles. The weight difference might not be much, but with smaller races every pound counts.
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.
Yea, he's also a halfling who doesn't have the best AUR. Even with his high STR, he still gets encumbered easily because of his race so I'm planning on getting more MIU then is usually recommended with him. I'll likely be switching to 1x in it once I'm comfortable with his modifier for wizard wands since it's a cheap skill that counts towards rune staffs.
<When you get the chance, I'd suggest picking up 8 ranks of armor use. You can wear double leather armor with no spell hindrance, and the 8 ranks will remove any other penalties with the armor as much as is possible.>
I was actually thinking of getting him crit padded full leather or robes when he gets a bit older rather then getting doubles. The weight difference might not be much, but with smaller races every pound counts.
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.
Armor worn doesn't affect your encumbrance unless it is heavier then standard and armor that has been lightened will increase your encumbrance limit by the amount it has been lightened below standard. And if you don't already, get armor support from a warrior as often as possible, even with leathers that will give you about 20 more pounds on your encumbrance limit as well. My empath is only in light leathers at the moment(Takes no armor training and has better CvA, AvD, and crit divisor then robes), eventually I will train him up to doubles though, just don't feel the need quite yet.
And you are quite welcome for the input.
And you are quite welcome for the input.
<Armor worn doesn't affect your encumbrance unless it is heavier then standard and armor that has been lightened will increase your encumbrance limit by the amount it has been lightened below standard.>
This is both true and false at the same time.
It's true that standard weight armor that you're properly trained for won't affect encumbrance while you're wearing it, as checked by the ENCUMBRANCE verb. However, there's another factor that most aren't aware of if they've never played a gnome or halfling... and even a lot of them are unaware of.
Any time the total weight of the items you're carrying, whether worn or in a container (including your armor, whether it's being worn or in a container you're wearing), exceeds your characters body weight, you become encumbered. This encumbrance is not reflected when you type ENCUMB in game (in fact, most characters can probably carry quite a bit more then their body weight before becoming encumbered in that sense), but it's there and fairly easy to test with a bow since the encumbrance adds 1 sec of RT to an arrow fired from a bow, unlike "normal" encumbrance. It's also not possible to train away this type of encumbrance, though I believe there is a stat that affects the body weight of your character so enhansives might help if you wanna mess around with those.
This was first shown to me by a friend when I was looking for ways to reduce the firing RT of my gnome with his bow. Once I got the weight of his gear down below his body weight, I not only lost a sec of RT, but I notices I was having an easier time dodging, hiding, avoiding maneuvers, etc. It's not going to affect a 172 lb dark elf as much since it's easy to keep your standard gear below that weight.... but a 90 or 100 lb halfling or gnome is much more likely to notice it once you factor in the weight of herbs, wands, various clothing, armor, etc. (it adds up faster then you realize).
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.
This is both true and false at the same time.
It's true that standard weight armor that you're properly trained for won't affect encumbrance while you're wearing it, as checked by the ENCUMBRANCE verb. However, there's another factor that most aren't aware of if they've never played a gnome or halfling... and even a lot of them are unaware of.
Any time the total weight of the items you're carrying, whether worn or in a container (including your armor, whether it's being worn or in a container you're wearing), exceeds your characters body weight, you become encumbered. This encumbrance is not reflected when you type ENCUMB in game (in fact, most characters can probably carry quite a bit more then their body weight before becoming encumbered in that sense), but it's there and fairly easy to test with a bow since the encumbrance adds 1 sec of RT to an arrow fired from a bow, unlike "normal" encumbrance. It's also not possible to train away this type of encumbrance, though I believe there is a stat that affects the body weight of your character so enhansives might help if you wanna mess around with those.
This was first shown to me by a friend when I was looking for ways to reduce the firing RT of my gnome with his bow. Once I got the weight of his gear down below his body weight, I not only lost a sec of RT, but I notices I was having an easier time dodging, hiding, avoiding maneuvers, etc. It's not going to affect a 172 lb dark elf as much since it's easy to keep your standard gear below that weight.... but a 90 or 100 lb halfling or gnome is much more likely to notice it once you factor in the weight of herbs, wands, various clothing, armor, etc. (it adds up faster then you realize).
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.
