I want to play risen 1 and I want to be a mage. I have finished the gothic games and risen 1 ( as sword fighter) a long time ago. But I never used a mage. So these are my questions:

- How much weapon skill do you need? You cannot use magic until you become a mage and you have to fight some enemies until then. I also remember some duels. If risen is like gothic, magic will kill them and the rest of the town will get hostile.

- How do spells get better? I want to use the magic bullit. Does your magic damage only depend on how many learning points you have spend or does your wisdom, level, something else influence this too?

- As mage you only need to spend points in your spell, mana and making seals and scrolls. (+ other skills such as alchemy, digging for ore and blacksmithing (to make things that increase your mana).

- I guees I have to carry tons of mana potions. If I remember right, those water barrels only refil your health, do they?

You can get through the game with pretty minimal weapon skill, although I found it useful to raise strength a bit (up to around 70 in the end, about half of that being with potions) for the damage boost. The only duel that took me a fair number of tries was Aric in the monastery, although part of that was because I wanted to beat him the first time around (without doing the quest to sabotage his sword). I went sword-and-board for my mage, although that vs staff is pretty much just a personal preference on weapon timing.

Crystal magic damage is dependent only on the level of the spell, so you'll want to level it as quickly as possible. Wisdom is just used for determining what rune level you can use. I used Magic Bullet for my own mage; it became fairly functional around level 4, and once I fully leveled it it could cut down mobs of elite lizardmen pretty easily. You will want to carry a good supply of mana potions, but between vendors and alchemy there's pretty much no risk of the overall supply drying up. Another useful thing to do is use rings and amulets that boost your mana pool, as towards the beginning this will provide a much, much faster boost than increasing mana with LP (those should be saved for leveling spells first).

DarrkPhoenix answered most of your questions and I'll add that sleeping restores your health and mana and there are beds EVERYWHERE in Risen. No matter where you are on the island there will be a bed within five minutes of walking.

I'll also agree with DarrkPhoenix that sword/board is better off than using a staff, and keep a bow handy for triggering switches (so you save mana).

One more thing. You probably already know this since you've played the game before, but don't just walk up and try to join the mages first thing. You have to get a recommendation from one of them or you'll be forced to join the Inquisition and you'll never be able to become a mage.

Good luck and have fun! Risen may not be the best PB game, but it's the best game in which to play a mage, IMO, because the class quests are really good. Magic Bullet is awesome when you get it levelled up, like a magic machine gun.

After a long time of playing other things I finally started risen.
I spend only 1 point for swords ( I need a shield to block attacs from enemies), learned alchemy, blacksmith and lockpicking and saved all other points for the magic buillit. Now I am in chapter 2 and my spell is level 8.
I was able to beat some strong monsters with magic, but it consumes lots of MP (I did not spend LP for MP but every special herbs I find (the ones needed for permanent boosts, I don´t know the english name) I use for MP+ potions. Now I explore the island and kill everything I can with a sword. I remember were strong monsters are to come back later with magic.
I have tons of herbs and potions, but most of the time I don´t use it because " Maybe I need them later. With some practise I can beat this thing without it."
This way I have tons of potions or scrolls at the end of almost every game were you can collect such things.