Risen Becoming a mage

The old, "I have nothing valid to say, so ill insult the poster" routine. Funny, no one else here is asking how old I am, yet you are the one who stoops as low as to become the forum troll, insulting like a 2 yr old having a fit because someone disagrees with you. Hypocritical, dont you think (Look in the dictionary for what that means).

I did not misunderstand what you said, but I can see how someone with your level of intellect would think that,

Yeah that's it, I must be a troll who's been here since 2006, with over 5200 posts. Makes perfect sense!

You began the whole ordeal when you started with insults. Do I need to quote you? I think it's quite clear who the troll is here. Or is it just a coincidence that it seems to be you versus everyone else in this thread?

That makes 3 different people you've attacked now in this thread. Please continue so we can see what happens. :)
 
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Back to the topic, please...

It's your game, Jaga, but I'm curious why you thought it was worth ditching your game. Mages in Risen still melee fight and Warriors of the Order still use magic - the distinction really isn't much. In fact, if I loaded up two separate saves and stripped the characters of their distinctive armour, I think it would take you a while to figure out which character was which.
 
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After lurking here for over a year it might be time for the first post :p thought I already registered but I guess not hehe…

For what it's worth, I understand the complete frustration with having spent 2 days on the wrong path than the one you wanted. The game does outline it in some way but if someone is captured at the very beginning then there isn't much to do.

However I my self like that "harsh" consequence as that's how Gothic games in my opinion have and should be where you can so easily get your hands burned for making a wrong move.

And now for the reason of my post. Being rather meticulous (typo) I have some 300 savegames, and I am quite certain I have one right before making the choice and talking to Pallas after receiving my letter of recommendation (only 5 LP used for prospecting otherwise plenty to spend). You'd be welcome to it or anyone else who would like to try out a mage or anything of that kind, or if you're stuck somewhere I might be able to help as well.

Hope that's ok with the forum guidelines otherwise ofcourse feel free to delete the message :)

Goodluck to all, enjoy Risen and thanks for PB for a great come back.
 
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And now for the reason of my post. Being rather meticulous (typo) I have some 300 savegames, and I am quite certain I have one right before making the choice and talking to Pallas after receiving my letter of recommendation (only 5 LP used for prospecting otherwise plenty to spend). You'd be welcome to it or anyone else who would like to try out a mage or anything of that kind, or if you're stuck somewhere I might be able to help as well.

Gosh, that's a sweet thing to offer! Stavut means sweet? ;)
300 savegames! Wouldn't it take you hours to comb out the right one?! ;)
 
Gosh, that's a sweet thing to offer! Stavut means sweet? ;)
300 savegames! Wouldn't it take you hours to comb out the right one?! ;)

Nah hehe, but thanks. I tend to give my savegames funny or easy to remember names prior to big stuff, so could get it ready quite fast. Just noticed that there's some attatchment option in the reply box, I'll have it zipped since that's one of the valid extensions.

The character is at level 10 with 95 available LP, and with the harbor town quests mostly pretty much finished and having had the first conversation with Pallas and taking Mage as an option and not an inquisition warrior. As you venture in the monestary you will be presented with the various tasks from the masters.

Again hope it's ok and don't wish to spoil it for anyone, but hope its of any help for those who wanted to become a mage but didn't become one and are without a proper savegame.

Edit: The filesize was larger than the accepted size, I found this free upload site (Danish since I'm from Denmark) and it should be free from malware and such otherwise if anything feel free to delete, here's the link http://www.gratisupload.dk/download/34748/
 
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Back to the topic, please…

It's your game, Jaga, but I'm curious why you thought it was worth ditching your game. Mages in Risen still melee fight and Warriors of the Order still use magic - the distinction really isn't much. In fact, if I loaded up two separate saves and stripped the characters of their distinctive armour, I think it would take you a while to figure out which character was which.
I believe I read somewhere when first doing research on the game, the classes available, combat techniques, etc.. that "pure mages" were the only ones able to cast spells like Levitation, directly from Runes and using nothing more than mana. Everyone else needs to scribe them onto a scroll to cast them, which while it uses different materials, requires a different sort of preparation, and a totally different execution. One is a "magically enabled warrior who can scribe/use scrolls", the other is a "pure magic user who only needs (permanent) Runes and enough mana.

I would prefer to play the pure path first, then a game with zero magic at all (bandit with thievery), and if I fancy another run through later, perhaps a warrior who blends the two styles. Not getting rid of my old warrior savegame, made a whole new line for this restart.


—snip—

And now for the reason of my post. Being rather meticulous (typo) I have some 300 savegames, and I am quite certain I have one right before making the choice and talking to Pallas after receiving my letter of recommendation (only 5 LP used for prospecting otherwise plenty to spend). You'd be welcome to it or anyone else who would like to try out a mage or anything of that kind, or if you're stuck somewhere I might be able to help as well.

Hope that's ok with the forum guidelines otherwise ofcourse feel free to delete the message :)

Goodluck to all, enjoy Risen and thanks for PB for a great come back.
That's a very generous offer, and had it been posted yesterday I'd probably have grabbed it and maybe even used it. But as it stands, my new game is already past an audience with the Don, and I'm ready to do the town's questline. Perhaps someone else will have a need for it. Thanks for the thought however! :D

I will note this: replaying the same areas and quests that I did the first time, I picked up a few new tricks and strategies for different combatants (monsters) than I originally had. And was even able to defeat several strong opponents (like Brogar) with just a starter sword/shield while taking no damage, and having zero training. So it wasn't a complete loss, more like an adventurer in training the first time through, heh. I do have around 10-15 more hours to reach where I was, I figure.
 
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I love great mysteries, puzzles, and challenges. I highly dislike being forced to play a character I did not make because it was vague how to do it.
It didn't seem vague to me, but then my past experiences with Gothic led me to expect the way of the Mage to be at least a little bit hidden.

The mage class in the Gothic series has always been something of an 'unlockable' class. PB tends to make the mage class more difficult to play than other classes so they put up some road blocks to keep people from just selecting it on a whim. If the road blocks cause you problems, then it's probably best to play a different class anyway.

I suppose they could have just given us a choice of 3 classes right when we washed up on shore with a little note to say that the mage class is harder. That's always a pretty rough choice to make, though, when you have almost no experience with how the game is played. This is, IMHO, a much more natural and effective way of making your character's class choice.
 
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Actually, this second playthough Zloth, I was able (due to avoiding quest bugs) to finish all of the Bandit camp quests. Once I got inside The Don's area and talked to the NPCs in there, I got a *much* bigger clue as to where a Mage would start their quest. I didn't have that before since I was essentially bugged out and couldn't obtain the last sword piece so I could see The Don. I suppose I could have dropped some LP and tried to pickpocket it, but that is the last thing a mage wants to do.

They did leave clues to playing a pure Mage, but some are obscured for one reason or another. Fortunately the game is good enough that it wouldn't ruin one's enjoyment of it if they had to start over. :)
 
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Well, not to cause another fight, but to be honest, almost every NPC you meet right from the beginning of the game, warns you to stay away from the temples and the Inquisition, and to enter Harbour Town the "back way". Over and over and over again, you are told by several NPC's not to use the front gate of Harbour Town, or to allow yourslf to be "caught" by the Inquisition.

Just as a test, I also went to the front gate of Harbour Town (in spite of all the "warnings") with the intention of joining the mages, and got arrested, and there and then and it was made very clear that if you are "caught" you will not be treated the same as when you manage to "join" on your own account, so I reloaded a previous save and went in the back way.

(I like seeing all that a game has to offer, so I'll play the "arrested" scenario as well later on, to see what the difference is.)

In any case, once you have the recommendations from both Carlos and Belschwur, you immediately get the choice of joining either Mages or Warriors, upon entering the monastery.
 
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... that "pure mages" were the only ones able to cast spells like Levitation, directly from Runes and using nothing more than mana. Everyone else needs to scribe them onto a scroll to cast them...
Is this true? I'll be embarassed if I played through as a mage and didn't know this...
 
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Playing through as both a mage and a bandit, I think the rune seals are a waste of lp. If I had bought 15-20 levitation scrolls, 10 telekinesis scrolls, maybe 5 nautilus scrolls, I would have saved money overall that I had spent on runes and gotten just as much use of the spells. The rest of the spells I used less than the amount of their scrolls I received.

It wouldn't have hurt to spell it out clearer that getting caught by the inquisition would eliminate your chance of becoming a mage. Maybe have one of your guides say it emphatically, hey if you are caught there is no becoming a mage, they don't let prisoners in their ranks. Maybe he did and I didn't catch it, but it's not like the game would become all hugs and hand-holding after this one clarification. It would still likely murder you in the woods a couple minutes later. :)
 
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I actually did find a "decent" use for magic - I recently replayed as something of a battle mage, with rank 4 Axe (rank 6 with two +1 rings), 100 strength (200 strength after using potions and apples), 4th level Seal and some points in mana (in addition to lockpicking 3). I did not use LPs in any of the crystal magics.

The point was the buffing power of the Seals - I primarily used the Berserker spell, as it increases strength by 50, regardless of your strength. This way, you can pass the regular cap of 200 and reach 250, which is a significant damage boost. Also, I had the magic protection rune for defence if needed.

Usually, however, I agree - you might as well just pump points into crystal magic, and get the rest through scrolls. Levitation is the only spell I find myself wanting to use more than my scrolls allow, simply because it often works as a good short cut.
 
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Yes, I must admit. You go from a period of no gold at all, to more gold than you ever need in my experience, and all the scrolls are sold/made in the same place, so there's never any difficulty having enough scrolls. Agreed on levitation… though I guess it becomes less special when you can just do it :) Ashbeast was also good… and now I come to think of it the firestorm might have helped too :) No idea how I managed to miss this - I do remember it being mentioned in a passing comment, but never thought back to that point. Some information is repeated ad nauseum (temples, no - really?) while some is rarer. I wouldn't have a problem with that, if it struck me as replayable, but it doesn't really.
 
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Thanks for the tips guys, just wish that it wasn't this maddeningly hard to pick what you want to play in the game.

When the first reviews of Risen started to hit and it became clear that choosing the mage faction was going to be a bit convoluted, I knew then that wasn't a very good design choice.

I liked G2 the best in this regard. It was much easier to get on the path toward the faction you wanted to eventually be with.

Risens' commingling of the mage path/order path was a bad idea in an otherwise fantastic game.
 
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That's not really true, becoming a mage is easy and overpowered. By level 15 you can max a crystal and have all the misc. seals and stuff. Once you have level 10 magic missile and 100 mana you are unstoppable. It's so easy this way that I'm having a hard time coming up with my next build out.
 
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I agree, Risen is a bit dense in terms of some of the character development dynamics - which have nothing to do with the immersiveness of the world and detracts from the overall game because it has such high potential to waste countless real-life hours when one learns of such a huge mistake.

I have to say I'm not seeing where these hours get wasted . . . . it's very obvious when you get caught by the inquisition or when you rock up to the monastery without the requisite approval to become a mage rather than a fighter. They tell you straight away that you're now a warrior of the order.

I suppose if you only ever quicksave it might be an issue, but with a game like Risen it's best to have at least one new slot for every hour of real life activity.
 
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Anyway, I like the fact that the mage paths are always a bit trickier to get onto with the gothics. Gives the (IMO quite appropriate) sense that the secrets of magic are jealously guarded, if it's just a matter of "would you like to be a mage y/n" then it loses something for me.
 
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