RPGWatch Wikki

Playing as a mage

In both Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 playing as a mage was always a very interesting but also difficult way of playing the game. In Gothic 3 it's again very interesting but not more difficult, just different. To get you started here is a little guide to playing as a mage.

For this guide I'm using my current Firemage (only Innos' magic) build, it's my first but very effective mage-build. I'm playing for the Rebels. The difficulty level is set on medium. Version is patched to 1.12

I'm no fighter! (Level 1-10)

Don't spend anything on fighting! You're a mage, or at least you want to become one. You're strength is Ancient Knowledge, it allows you to wield better staffs, better spells and makes every spell stronger. Unlike in the previous games were your magic only became stronger when you learned a new Circle and new spells, in Gothic 3 every spell becomes stronger with more Ancient Knowledge.

From Level 1 I put all my LP in Ancient Knowledge, but didn't use any magic. Stick to your original Orc Slayer and Bow. Once you get to Reddock fight Copper in the arena and take him with you. He'll be your best friend for a pretty long time. With patch 1.12 he is on one hand almost immortal, but on the other not very effective in killing. So why do you need him, you ask? To serve as a human shield. He can take the beaten while you attack the creatures with your sword. As soon as a creature turns to you, jump back and let Copper hit the creature. The creature will turn away from you and you can attack again. Because you spend all your points on Ancient Knowledge you don't have a lot of hitpoints, so an animal attack turns into a massive beating very easily.

For the first 8-10 levels put all you LP in Ancient Knowledge. As soon as you hit 100 Ancient Knowledge learn the skill Learn Quickly, this will give you 11 LP every level instead of 10.

Keep your magic in your pocket (Level 11-20)

Now it is time to become a real mage. But don't use magic yet.
As long as you don't have Mana Regeneration you have to make sure you have enough mana potions. In the beginning of the game these are hard to get. Learn the alchemy skill Create Mana Potions and buy the recipes to make mana potions from Magic Root, Mana Root and Morning Dew. Don't use Mana Plants for potions, you want to save them for permanent potions to boost you mana. To make mana potions you'll need Wine and that is hard to get. Sebastian has a few bottles and after a while he get new supplies, but those bottles are pretty expensive at first.

To make your homemade mana potions more effective you'll need lots of mana. The potions regenerate 50% percent of you mana. When you only have 100 Mana, every potion will regenerate 50 Mana, that is about 1.5 charged Fireball. With 300 Mana, every potion will regenerate 150 Mana, that is enough for 5 charged Fireballs. With 3000 you'll get 1500 Mana from one potion, anyway you get the picture. Use the Innos shrine in Ardea to learn Mana, 300 will be enough to start with.

The next thing you want to do is to get a spell. For this build I only used Fire Magic, so Fireball is the obvious choice. But don't use it yet, just keep it ready in case you need it. You're not ready yet to fire at will.

By now you've probably found your first Mage Staff. The Staff of Defence is mostly sold in Cape Dun by the mercenary Deckard. (Although merchant inventories are random, this seems to be a fixed item). This staff serves as a shield, it adds +15 to your resistance against non-magic attacks. To use it you'll need Level 1 Staff Fighting and Magic Staffs, both can be learned in Reddock. Magic Staffs allows you to block magic spells by pressing right-click. You won't encounter any mages in the beginning of the game, but it still looks very cool.
With you've learned all this, you've probably arrived in Montera together with Copper. Here you can get a lot of experience, from arena fights (even with your the hero pathetic strength you can probably still win the fights), quests for the mercenaries and the rebels. Keep adding points to Ancient Knowledge, this is the engine behind your magic. Read all the books too, when some NPC is reading a book, just come back in the middle of the night, he is probably sleeping.

Give me mastery over Fire! (Level 21-30)

After you've reached Montera, you can dump Copper. Copper has hard feelings against anything that wears blue and will fight and kill any NPC that is an orc or a mercenary. In most cases you won't want that to happen. By now you're also ready to start using magic. You've probably collected around 40-50 Mana Potions and after experimenting you'll see that your magic is already a lot stronger than your sword. Move on to Trelis and as the ultimate test go to the excavation. Take on the Temple Guardian and the Skeletons.

With more than 100 Ancient Knowledge you can learn several nasty fire spells. You can use Flamewave against weak opponents, but use it only against opponents that you can kill with one charged Fireball. Depending on the range Flamewave is a little stronger or weaker than a charged Fireball. Still it can be handy when you encounter a pack of wolves. With 5 Wolves you need 5 charged Fireballs ( = 150 Mana ) or 1 Flamewave ( = 75 Mana). In most cases it is still better to use take on your enemies one by one with your Fireball.

By now your Ancient knowledge should be something like 200-250 with still 300 Mana.

Only a mad man tries to run through

Here is a little trick to get the skill Mana Regeneration very quickly.
When the experiment with the Skeletons went well, go to Gotha. You can first go to Okara, if you want to quests form Roland, the rebel leader of Okara.
Take Gorn with you and free Gotha from the undeads. Same as with Copper, he will keep the enemies away from you and you can kill them with your magic.
In Gotha you can find a teleporter stone to the capital of Myrtana, Vengard. When you use it you'll be teleported to an Innos' Temple in the Vengard. One of the Paladins there will tell that only a mad man would try to run to get through to the palace of the king. And that is exactly what we are going to do. Save!

When you exit the temple go left and jump down in the water. The fall will leave you with only a few HP, when you don't have acrobatics, but that's just enough. I recommend doing this because this way can stay away from a very nasty orc shaman with Iceball.
Now run for it! You probably need a few tries to find the right way to the entrance. Jump when an orc attacks you, he'll probably miss. Keep some endurance for a final spurt on the stairs to the castle. Otherwise too many orcs will follow on the bridge, the guards will attack the orcs, more orcs will notice the fight, the entire palace guard runs out, etc. You don't want that to happen, because all NPS's are mortal and you probably want to do their skills too.

In the palace you can find Karrypto, he is in the room above King Rhobar. He can learn you the skill Mana Regenaration. You can also learn in from the mages in Bakaresh, but it will probably take a while before you get there and you want that skill as soon as possible.

Keep it coming! (Level 31-?)

With Mana Regeneration learned you are a truly mighty mage. Keep on learning Ancient Knowledge and Mana to become even more powerful.
You might want to spend some point in your hitpoints too. It's nice when you don't die from one of two hits.
Open all quest chests (those without a name above it), after opening a lot of them you'll find some very powerfull staffs. Some which add +40 resistance to all non-magic attacks, etc. And go on the lookout for some nice armor. Karrypto sell the Fire Mage Armor which suits the character best, but you can also take the Paladin Armor or something else.

As long as you keep increasing your Ancient Knowledge on a regular basis you won't any a lot of problems in the rest of the game.

Sidenotes on this build

• This mage only uses Fire Magic, so Fireball was the most logical starting spell. Iceball has the nice advantage that it can freeze opponents, while Lightning always hits (even with hills in between) and there hardly are any creatures that have a resistance for Lightning. I think that in the end it's just a matter of taste which sort of magic you take, or if you take a mix from the strongest spells of the three types of magic (Innos, Adanos, Beliar).
• In the beginning all points were spent on Ancient Knowledge. This results in a very powerful attack mage with hardly any defence. If you want to be on the safe site, you can spend several points in hitpoints to get 100-200 more hitpoints.
• You can learn additional hunting skills if you want to earn some more money in the beginning of the game. It pays off but for this build I wanted to get very strong as fast as possible.
• When playing for the orcs you can take the mercenary Cyrus instead of Copper. As long as you don't kill Ortega with him, you can take him with you.
• The skill Improve Armor and Firemage aren't working yet with version 1.12. You can get the skill Firemage from several staffs. Hopefully Improve Armor gets fixed soon.

To do list

• List of Magical Staffs, haven't been able to find a complete list yet.
• List of Robes, idem dito.
• List of most useful spells, haven't tested them all.

Feel free to help!

---

CategoryGothic3