copyright 1999 Roger White
Home, Magic Dictionary, allegiance, Spellcast 101, Spellcast 102, Moneytree, Character Building
OK, you've read spellcasting 101, and actually learned a new spell. Felt good, didn't it?
Now you're hungry for more, you'd like to learn spells not ones handed you on a silver platter.
Here's what it takes:
The hard way is to simply shuffle components in your "Create a spell" tab until you get lucky. Given how many components you can shuffle and how many target types there are... I don't recommend this method.
Hanging around one of the mage klatches that are researching spells doesn't sound like a lot of fun, and it's not. At first glance all you're going to see are a bunch of muttering fools, some of whom are giving off sparkles every so often.
But if you know what you're looking for you can pick up tons of information by watching. What I'm going to tell you is what to look for.
Whenever a player character or humanoid monster casts a spell, they mutter. What they are muttering is the verbal equivalent of the herb, powder and flask spell components. Watch their motions, the motion of the caster shows what talisman he or she is using. Watch those people in the klatch who are fizzling. They are trying various combinations of components. When one of them gets a hit, they won't fizzle, they'll actually cast a spell! When that happens, check the dialog screen to see what they muttered, and see if you can remember which motion they used. Then check your copy of the magic dictionary and reverse engineer what components he or she used. Best of all is when he or she casts a spell on you! Not only do you know he or she was successful, you know what spell they were successful at casting.
The other thing to listen for are loose-lipped mages. Most mages don't talk about what they are working on, especially if they are working solo. But there are also teams of mages at work, and whiney acolytes pestering their mentors. Keep an eye on the conversation log and about every half hour to hour or so one of these mage teams will slip up and talk about spells on the open channel. Voila, you have more information.
There are other sources for spells as well. Monsters will cast nasty spells on you. It's easy to log the words, but it's often very hazardous to watch the monster cast. Shop keepers who offer Services are actually offering to cast spells on you, be sure to watch them as they cast so you can identify the talisman. You can also find spell scrolls as treasure. When you use a spell scroll you learn the spell immediately, you don't have to bother with setting up components and testing. However some scrolls are difficult to read, you need high magic abilities to read them successfully. It does no harm to try reading a scroll.
Finally, you can do favors for other player characters and ask to be rewarded with spells. This can be on a informal basis, or on a formal basis, such as becoming a vassal.
Times have changed. The low level spells have long ago been throughly researched, and the information widely disseminated. The research klatches of yore have now shrunk to just a few mages in newbie towns. You can resarch if you like, but you can also get the information on many web sites. My favorite is one called Split Pea, which describes low level spells and is a tool for researching higher level spells all in one. (check my Links Section for a pointer to Split Pea)