level matters for casting yes but of course what level the target is matters more i.e, fireball works better against lots of bugs 2 levels below you but less against two bugs 3 levels above you

also Bard & Gadgeteer are totally gear based and under gunned until you go find their items


in any event have fun mate :)

In a way, there is.

The highest power level at which you can reliably cast a spell is equal to caster_level + 1 - spell_required level.

So, at level 9:
* 1st and 2nd level spells can be reliably cast at any power level.
* 3rd level spells can be reliably cast at power level 5
* 4th level spells can be reliably cast at power level 2

You can cast the spell at a higher power level, but it's not guaranteed to succeed; it may fizzle or backfire.

Note that there's still the skill requirements to cast spells at higher power levels safely. (In particular, 100 in both the spellbook and realm skills is not enough to reliably cast a 7th level spell at power level 7; you need to somehow have one of those skills go over 100.)

No, they still have the same issues with casting higher level spells at higher power levels reliably; to eliminate the failure chance for a level 7 spell, you need to be level 24 with over 100 in Music/Engineering (and I believe there's no way to get Engineering that high). To reliably party heal with them, level 17 is required. (Note that they level up faster than standard casters.)

i mean, they are gear based in that they can't cast a spell at all until you find \ make the items they need so staying in the Monastery will hold them back

in general, this game rewards you for pushing forwards but yes it can be hard at times

I believe that the highest level spawns on Arnika Road are around level 10 anyways. There is definitely an upper cap. So for those of us who have the patience for grinding, you can meet and even beat the enemies' levels before reaching Arnika.

Problem with being level 6 this early in the game is that Pestilent Rats will start spawning in the upper monastery, and they can cause disease, which is *really* bad if you can't cure it, which you most likely can't at this early stage of the game. What bug are you talking about? I believe I had one playthrough, with a party similar to the one you're using (but I believe I had a Bishop instead of a Gadgeteer, and I don't remember if I had the Bard along) where I was using my Priest and Alchemist as tanks.

I just had a thought: Why isn't there nice pure caster only armor? I'm thinking that they should have made the best SP regen items pure caster-exclusive (perhaps including bishops, but definitely *not* hybrids), and also given some nice SP regen to fairy-only equipment (so that their increased SP regen benefit doesn't get lost in the long run). Instead, for whatever reason, the best SP regen item, the Infinity Helm, can't be used by pure casters!

If I were to make a little mod, here is some of what I would do:
* Remove SP regen from the Infinity Helm.
* Put guaranteed or shop locations for fairy-only gear, and give such equipment some SP regen. (Fairies would get it sooner than others; this would compensate for the severe equipment limitations of the race.)
* Perhaps Robes of Rejuvenation might not be usable by hybrids, or instead add a new robe that's pure caster only and provides more SP regen.

(There's a few other changes I would want to make. For example, I would want Priests to get extra attacks and accuracy at the same rate that Bards and Gadgeteers do, so that they're not just lesser Bishops mechanically.) In my experience, Piety doesn't make much of a difference in the later stages when you already know a lot of spells.

I think that SP is proportional to some linear combination of Piety and spells known of the realm, so if one is high, the other doesn't need to be, and spellbooks allow you to increase the number of spells known without having to level up.

(Worth noting that this effect is more pronounced for a Bishop.) I also don't like blind and fear effects for this reason. (They can be useful when you're still in Arnika Road the first time, but later it's better to use other spells.)

(Slow is also another effect I don't like, and it's not even as good as Blind. Enemy animations take too long as it is, and Slow will make them take even longer.)

If modding this game, I would probably replace the blind effect of the Omnigun with something else. (KO?)

This becomes particularly interesting once you learn Quicksand. If you're fighting a lot of lower level enemies with high HP that don't have particularly high Earth resistance, then Quicksand, even at PL1, will definitely make the battles much faster.

By the way, anyone else find it strange that Quicksand and Earthquake work well on flying enemies like bugs?

I don't accept Disease or Draining. Reload is the only option. It's kind of unfair allowing disease when you don't have Cure Disease potions/spells yet. Then again, I ground so hard (level 9 now, working on 10 or 11) I am eligible for Cure Disease for my Priest/Alchemist ;)
My party is very quick levelling, with the Bard and Gadgeteer as the most basic, easiest to level, then the pure casters right behind them on the experience track. Hybrids and Elites(Bishop/Ninja) take a lot longer to level. So I level them together as a group, 6 at a time, then hard save somewhere safe(Upper Monastery closed door room), and soft save after every battle.
The Bard and Gadgeteer can use both Sword and Shield, which, when proficient, will make them decent tanks. The Priest is the only one in the party who can use Mace and Flail and a lighter Shield, which makes him ok(as far as casters go). The Mage and Psionic can use almost no armor, and can't use Shields, so they stay protected in the center. The Alchemist CAN use a Shield, but he has weak one handed choices(weaker daggers, wands, 1H staves). IMO, he is good for staying in the center and using the extended range, 2H Staff of Doom(with an Amulet of Healing so he doesn't slowly die with the -1HP regen).

You make a good point about the Robes of Rejuvenation, but by that point, every caster should have maxed out their inventory with Mana Stones and Magic Nectars(before killing Crock). The heck with Fairies, I find them too inconvenient. My Priest isn't meant to be a fighter, he's defensive magic first, offensive magic second, tank third.
Piety is a controlling attribute for all realm skills, as well as the ONLY controlling attribute for Divinity, so it goes after Intelligence(Powercast) and Speed(Snakespeed). It's tied with Senses for importance, because Senses increases initiative the same as Speed does, only it doesn't grant me Snakespeed ;)
I agree with you about blinding/fear/slow effects being detrimental to a party that wants to kill things quickly with magic. The Omnigun should let you choose what effects you want at each level up. You get to pick like one or two things.

Problem is that I feel controlling attributes are not that important. Opportunities for skill increases are effectively infinite, while opportunities for stat increases are limited by level ups.which, due to exponentially increasing XP requirements (that never stop increasing, barring integer overflows that happen around level 50 at the earliest), can effectively be treated as finite.

Funny fact is that Bishops can use the same equipment that Priests can. (With that said, I generally prefer a whip on my Bishop, so that she can attack at a range and still use a shield for defense and speed, though one drawback is that the only whip that isn't a late-game weapon isn't reliably available (though the chance of getting it is fortunately decently high).)

The problem with fairies is this:
* There are some significant disadvantages to this race.
* There's one advantage that stands out: They regenerate SP faster than other races, which is nice in the early game.
* However, late game, that advantage is negated by the Robes of Rejuvenation, which Fairies can't equip, and which provides SP regen faster than what the Fairy gets naturally. Yet, the drawbacks of this race remain.

So, the way I would fix this is as follows:
* Make Fairy-exclusive equipment reliably available. (I'm thinking the shop right at the entrance to Trynton Upper Branches might be a good place to put them for sale.)
* Add SP regen to some of that equipment. This would allow Fairies to get good SP regen well before other races have a chance to get it, and well before you could in the base game.

With these changes, I might consider Fairy to be a worthwhile race for casters, including Bishops (who I really like, and where the equipment limitations matter because Bishops get the same equipment that Priests do).

At least they don't make *you* run away when you get hit by them, which is really annoying in games where that happens. (Baldur's Gate 2 and Wizardry 7 come to mind here.)

Honestly, I think that games shouldn't even include a fear status effect in the first place, or should have it not cause the target to run. Maybe a spell that makes enemies run away might work in a game that treats enemies that run away as defeated (except for XP purposes) might make more sense, but only if that effect doesn't make your party members run away.

(Side note: Final Fantasy sort of did it right; enemies never cast Fear on you, but you can still cast it to make enemies run away (and they're gone from the battle permanently). Unfortunately, the spell Fear is not that good, as you may need to hit multiple times for an enemy to run away; the only time I've ever seen it used effectively is a TAS where the final boss (who is nearly immune) was made to run away, which counts as a victory in that game.)

I guess that's where we differ. You seem to like Fairies, despite their many drawbacks. I just don't consider the SP regeneration that important, because I'm going for a long run game, where that small benefit doesn't matter late game. As I said before, I used to avoid Humans because they were mediocre. But now I realize that, adding up their TOTAL attribute points, Humans do indeed get the most points, even beating out the Hobbits by 5 points, which are good at a lot of things. As you said earlier, attribute points matter more in the long run, because increases to attributes are finite. With patience, by level 30, all of my party will have 4 attributes maxed out and 4 expert skills, and the rest have a floor of 45, and possibly higher. Humans are a long run race. You do you though. I hope you find a mod that helps Fairies out.
I like Bishops too, it's just that they lag behind the rest of the party with their slow leveling, and the need to save spell picks cripples them for the first half of the game, until you meet all the vendors and shop/camp/shop until the cows come home. Also, you need two dedicated casters, one for Soul Shield, and one for Element Shield. The Bishop can't do both at once. In my party, with four casters, I am freely picking spells at level ups(although sometimes I save a spell pick because then I can pick two higher level ones once I reach a new threshold, if you know what I mean.)
Yes, I used to love the original Final Fantasy, but some areas were ridiculously difficult. I would grind a lot because level makes a big difference with how many hits you get and magic resistance.

I just checked Flamestryke's site. Sorry, it's not Antone that sells Bullwhips, it's Kunar and Sadok.

In the absence of a whip, on a Bishop I'd rather have the extra Speed or Stealth that I could get from a shield than the attack that a 2-handed weapon would give.

The only real advantage I see to giving the Staff of Doom to a Bishop would be to actually make use of the Bishop's primary skill Artifacts, but you don't really have the points to spare on it or the means to train this skill manually. Also, until level 16-17, a Bishop can't unequip that particular weapon without the Remove Curse skill (which can backfire, and whose backfire can crash the game in the right situation), and uncursing it is required to sell it so it can be recharged.

By the way, that crash is an assertion that happens in the following situation:
* The spell is cast from the inventory (not from the magic menu).
* The spell backfires, hexing the caster.
* As a result of said hex, the caster's current SP, in at least one category, drops below zero.

There's another assertion I found: If you use a potion (or other item) from a stack outside of battle, and then use the "use last item" keyboard shortcut to use the last one, the game will crash with an assertion. (On the other hand, this shortcut works fine witn items that don't get used up; using it with the Renaissance Lute is a fast way to finish maxing a Bard's Music, for example.)

It's not that I like Fairies; it's that I *would* like them if thety were better in the long run.

With that said, over the years I've moved away from a long run focus when playing Wizardry 8. In particular, some ideas that I've experimented with a bit:
* Use a Bishop, but spend all spell picks (or at least require that they eventually be spent on spells appropriate to the level at which they were acquired). Not as powerful in the long run (have to carefully choose level 6 and 7 spells, but some of them (like Quicksand and Restoration) are more useful than others (Pandemonium and Falling Stars), but more interesting earlier in the game.
* Start with a character who's great early game, like a Fairie Mage that focuses on Speed/Senses (yes, ignoring Intelligence); once in Arnika, or perhaps a bit later, I *replace* the character with a new level 1 character, like a Gadgeteer (fast leveling means XP isn't as much of an issue, and if I wait until Marten's Bluff, gadgets are a non-issue (Project Image and Noxious Fumes, both fun spells to have in gadget form, are available at that point); drawback might be the lack of a character to handle locks and traps until then.

Try using a Bishop *without* saving spell picks sometime; it's how I've payed them on recent playthroughs, and is more fun earlier in the game.

Which unfortunately means not until Umpani/T'Rang areas.