Hi all!
I have a couple of questions about Risen 1.

1. I completed all mages' trials, and Mendoza promoted me to Order's warrior. do I understand correctly that I can't become a mage and use runes after that? maybe there was clear division somewhere earlier, but I playing my old saves from 2012, so I don't exactly remember what I did back then.

2. I cleared most of the south, west and central island, except couple of places requiring levitation spell and places guarded by ghouls, ashbeasts and lizardmen, who are still too hard to beat. I also completed almost all quests there except East Temple, because, y'know, ghouls and metal scrap for town's smith, because I couldn't find bloody 15th beutel.
so now I'm kinda stuck in progress. I have some spare LP, and can't decide better use for them.
right now I see 3 ways:
a) raise Strenght to 66 to use Demon's Blade (pic. attached).
It has greater damage than my current sword, but it's two-handed. This means complete change of fight style since my only tactic to survive in battles is standing in deep block with shield.
plus, I don't wand to use most of LP to strength, because I wanted to rely more on magic.
b) raise Magic bullet up to 9.
tried this already, didn't noticed much effect. spell is too weak imo.
c) raise Fireball up to 5.
it has significantly bigger damage, but still not enough to one-shot ghoul. and it's recharging terrybly slow, so it will be probably once in a fight, and then again - melee or magic bullet.

There's also d): max out alchemy and try to raise stats by permanent potions. but right now I don't think it would be helpful.

here's my current stats and equipment:

To become a mage, you have to be a volunteer coming to the Monastery with a letter of recommendation (which you probably have), since you mentioned completing all the quests already. If you are, then during your first conversation with Pallas you have to choose whether you want to become a mage or a warrior.

I'd go with this. In most of my non-bandit playthroughs I max out one crystal right after reaching the Monastery. Plus, Magic Bullet is my personal favorite, since with enough mana it's essentially a machine gun, killing most enemies twice or thrice as quickly as other spells, even if it's also the most mana-demanding one.

thanks, found in journal this dialog, when I've chosen to become a warrior.

thank you for the advice, I'll try it. frost crystal also looks interesting in the video, but maybe another playthrough.

None of the crystals are terrible, but the frost crystal is probably the worst. At higher levels it can freeze enemies which is nice, but then you still have to hack them to death with a sword or something.

Magic bullet is definitely the best IMO. At high levels it has a knockback effect which is really useful in the late game because a lot of the monsters you'll meet love to charge you and pin you in a corner or against a wall, which tends to result in instant death. With magic bullet you can kill them before they ever reach you.