About the six fragile casters party: My definition of a good-for-nothing party are six Priest. No good weapons and no good (damage) spells. But with PC 7 and 8 you can pimp even this loser crew.
I started a six priests crew as "Sister Act" theme party, but soon re-started and changed one Priest into Rogue and the next into Psionic. This party is on hold, too.

About the amulets and one-of-a-kind weapons: My party should be resilient and work without these specialities. But, in the actual play-through in Arnika I collected Vi first and then went directly to the bank vault through the prison tunnel and found the Diamond Epee rapier. Getting this weapon was no de-tour. In the following play-throughs I will do this as routine.

Another routine for me is to clean out Arnika, go back to Monastery for the sword and bow and some up-leveling before going to Trynton. Do you have your little routines, too?

As for buff spells: Last play-through my development of anti-caster spells was late and the faeries in Trynton gave me a hard time until I catched up. In this play-through I developed anti-caster spells to early. There is time to include Armorplate, Missile Shield, Armormelt. You live and you learn and over-compensation is a typical bad learning habit.

I would disagree. There are some good weapons that priests can equip, including Diamond Eyes (people tend to use it in the off-hand, but it actually works well as a main hand weapon), The Mauler, and of course the Staff of Doom. (Actually, since everyone can equip the Staff of Doom, there actually isn't a class with no good weapons.) Plus, don't forget that Priests can equip shields for survivability (I like to equip the one that boosts Speed for initiative, but that's not the only one), and can, with reasonably obtinable equipment, can reach 20 Locks & Traps in case you need it. Also, late game Death Wish can take out lower level enemies easily, saving a lot of time with what would otherwise be tedious fights (especially since low level enemies *can* have high HP).

My big one is taking the time to buy all the spells available when I reach Arnika. This involves a lot of alchemy and some rest to get the books to restock, but it works well.

I tend not to bother going back to the Monastery, as the sword and bow aren't particularly interesting. In fact, I have found that swords are not really the best weapon type; if you ignore items that can only appear in random loot, there really aren't any good ones later on. There are some decent ones for earlier on, like Bloodlust, but they can't compare to weapons of other types, like Diamond Eyes, The Mauler, and the Staff of Doom. The good swords are only found in non-respawning random loot, and I don't consider it appropriate to base my party setup around such items.

If an item can be reliably found, or if it's sold in a store, I consider it reasonable to strategize around it.

Amulets of Healing are not hard to get; there are 2(!) that you can find, and Crock sells more of them (though they're not cheap, even if using Alchemy for money). In any case, the way I see it, if I have a character with good Artifacts skill, I might as well try to put that skill to use. Amuletes of Life are also handy for cheap resurrection, even if they have that Artifacts skill requirements (as do Scrolls of Heal All, which might be useful before you get those Amulets of Healing).

By the way, why are Scrolls of Resurrection more expensive than Resurrection Powder? The scroll is less useful because it has an Artifacts skill requirement and can fizzle, whereas the powder doesn't have those issues, so why is the scroll more expensive? (Before you mention that the scroll gives Artifacts practice, keep in mind that you aren't going to be using such items that often; you can't even use them if everyone in the party is alive.)

Also, I would like to point out that Bards and Gadgeteers, two classes I like to use, are dependent on the treasures you find. (Fortunately, every instrument and gadget component has a reliable location, and the gadgets you have to buy seem to always be in stock unless you just bought them.)

(Wondering if high initiative setups are a decent choice for these two classes. Don't forget that both get Heal All eventually, even though neither gets Heal Wounds.)

About the one-of-a-kind weapons: I agree with you. The fine line is between random loot and always at the same spot. I could never understand the Faerie Ninja Cane of Corpus hype.

About the different prices for Resurrection scroll versus powder: I can only speculate that one of the alpha or beta testers said: hey this item is too cheap or to expensive. The programmers or "game tweakers" changed the price and no one asked the question: is this item too cheap/too expensive topic relevant for other items, too? If this is not the truth, at least it is a nice tale.

Here is the summary of my game mechanics investigation for discussion (by the way: thanks for your input):

The sweet spot for VIT is 45 to 50. The races Human, Hobbit, Gnome, Rawulf and Mook have this VIT value. They are known for easy game play. The bare-handed or weapon damage dealing Player Characters (Fighter-type) need high values in STR, DEX and SPD. The spells damage dealing characters (Caster-type) need high values in PIE, INT, SEN. Hybrid or mixed characters (Mixed-type) should chose one attribute each from the following three attribute pairs: STR or PIE, DEX or INT, SPD or SEN. The first pair determines stamina, the second pair accuracy and the third pair agility. A Rogue will chose the combination STR, INT, SPD. A Valkyrie will chose PIE, DEX, SEN for more Caster-type like behavior and PIE, DEX, SPD for more Fighter-type like behavior. An invalid example is a STR, PIE, SPD character. This character will have lots of stamina, but no accuracy.
A Fighter-type character should increase STR until maxed-out, DEX until "# of Attacks" is 2 and then SPD until "Max.Swings" is 2.
A mixed-type can combine Fighter, Caster and Rogue. The only implementation in game is the Ninja, a fighter/rogue/alchemist mix.
It makes no sense to have a mixed-type character and only advance one aspect. But no rule without exception. The Caster-type Priest has a profession vitality lower limit of 55. The mixed-type Bishop has no profession vitality lower limit. Because of this you can move attribute points from VIT to PIE, INT, SEN. A Hobbit Priest has a PIE+INT+SEN sum of 170 at character-creation, but a Hobbit Bishop has 10 points more. The STR+DEX+SPD sum is equal. As expected the Bishop has 10 points less in VIT. The slow level-up of mixed-type characters remains.

The symmetry Fighter-type STR, DEX, SPD versus Caster-type PIE, INT, SEN
a.) can only be in my imagination
b.) can be a game designer intention he or she did not want to talk about
c.) can be implemented by the game designer unknowingly

What is your vote?

At least the manual does not tell that PIE contributes to Stamina. Only VIT and STR are mentioned. Is this intention or mental dropout?

2 Small remarks: From my experience, Bloodlust in the hands of a Rogue or Bard is endgame viable, and with a bishop, priest or mage it can even be removed again for another weapon or ranged combat, even in battle under certain circumstances). And Fang is endgame capable, and the 4 set Giant Swords (only for Mooks) are as well.
SPD is debatable because of Haste/Superman, except in the first round of combat. For a fighter, I'd take SEN instead as 3rd attribute. PIE would be forth because of the Stamina, but it is not relevant because at that time, Stamina regen is high.

For Casters, PIE is good, but not vital. depends on playstyle how many and how expensive spells you want to cast.
Even INT is not necessary for Priests.

I like the idea of the additional melee or ranged capabilities. DEX is also to be considered because for the up to +6 AC from reflextion, which help the "robe" classes (MAG and PSI) a lot.

I personally also made good experience with VIT on the low life casters. With a good VIT buffer, you need not to be too afraid of the enemy AoE coming in before the Elemental or Soul Shield can be cast.

I do not think a 6 bishop party is very strong. They have the slowest development ("elite") and keeping 6 of them alive is quite cumbersome. I found that a solo bishop is very strong from L11 onwards, easy and fun to play, capable of melee combat with Ebony Staff, quite early available, or later with Mauler/DE. For certain battles I skilled him in ranged as well. With 100 Powercast his PL7 BOS absorbs 90+% damage, so he doesn't need a shield or a good armor in the endgame, can focus on Ankhs, RoJ and DW, despite the missing ability And he gets more than 3000 mana at higher levels because of all his spells. A party of 6 bishops would be first 3, later 5 and more levels below the solo, just to buy the spellbooks from the vendors would take ages, also the grinding to get the mechanic and necessary skill levels going in the right sequence, a complete nightmare for 6 chars, and there are not many good early / midgame melee weapons for bishs available, which gives poor bish a hard time against the higher Savant Cans (berserkers onwards).
Taking a solo bish instead of a conclave is much more round and fluent. And, dtgreene will rejoice to hear that, he doesn't need Stealth :-)

This isn't as bad as it sounds; because your level is lower, so is the enemy level, and as a result the enemies aren't as strong.
There's no rule forcing you to give all the spells to all the bishops. You could have one focus on melee with a few useful support spells (like an extra Heal Wounds caster, or Set/Return to Portal later), and you could also have one focus more on Artifacts for early Heal All and Resurrection. Remember, magic isn't the only thing the class has going for it.

Also, different bishops can focus on different spellbooks, making the concern of which skills to boost in which order not a serious issue; not every bishop needs to be good with every spellbook.

Hello Immerhinque,

there is one game mechanics fact to prefer SPD over SEN for Fighter-type characters: The combat modifer "# of Attacks" depends on SPD and SEN, but "Max.Swings" only depends on SPD. Before character level 12 or so you don't get additional swings, so this difference is relevant for mid-game and end-game.

Among the caster-type characters the Priest depends least on INT and PIE. My play style is to spend all casters-type skill points on Mastery skills and Magic skills. To increase the spells performance even more I level-up PIE for spell-points and Stamina. For a Priest I increase SEN because I use the Priest SEN as alternative to the "Shadow Hound" spell. For the other spell-casters I increase INT.

Please believe me: If you constantly level-up PIE, INT, Divinity and Air Magic the "difficult" spell Silence works fine. The same is true for "Insanity" with Mental Magic, Psionics, INT and PIE. No backfire, several enemies afflicted and the affliction stays for some combat rounds.

And for VIT: A character creation attribute value of 45 to 50 that never is increased is my recommendation, too.

Number of attacks is based on SPD and DEX, not SEN.

For number of swings, SPD is relevant (as well as Close Combat and Weapon Skill and the initiative modifier of the weapon used), but it doesn't matter if the SPD is related to the char profile of result of buffs. This is why I said, if you include haste, SPD can be left at 55 to reach the cap of 125, except in the first round of combat. With Superman, it is even less. For a bishop with high Powercast, there is even the risk of overflow, ie SPD goes to "1!, you see it in your profile with a big red bar, with all consequences of such a "low" speed.

Pushing SPD imv makes sense, if
- you absolutely need to go first in the first turn of combat. In this case you also need to push SEN as well, because total initiative is calculated from them both. And even then you won't always go first.
- if you want to move before the enemy, in this case all chars in the party need high initiative, because lowest initiative determines sequence of movements. While monsters move individually, the party doesn't.
- if you feel hampered by Haste not being available everywhere. It doesn't work unde rwater, and it can be disspelled with Slow, eg by Rynjin.
- if you are keen on the expert skill snake speed for even more initiative.
- if you want high speed when Haste is not available, eg at low levels, your party doesn't have this spell (Bard at the graveyard, Psionic and Bish at L8 and 45 skill incl. fire bonus, Monk at L12, or dual classers accordingly.
You get +AC at 80/90 SPD, it doesn't matter if from proflie or buffs.
There are scrolls and potions available for sale for mid term casts, as an alternative.

I fully believe you about PIE. I played a couple of solos and parties myself with 100 in PIE and opening up Iron Will. These points are not wasted. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a caster focusing on INT and PIE.
My point was that going this way the Priest / Bishop will develop melee and or ranged skills much later, and she won
't contribute to overall damage much because of underdevelopment. So if you want to develop her as caster only, INT/PIE is perfectly viable, if you want to develop her as "caster hybrid", with Ebon Staff, Flamestaff, SoD, Mauler, Vampire Chain, Diamond Eyes as secondary melee, I think leaving PIE at 50-70 is sufficient and develop melee or T&S skills when this is reached.

Shadow Hound protects you from being attacked while sleeping. I wasn't aware it had an effect during daytime. Please confirm, if you are sure. There are always new things to learn on this great game.

This is also correct. I mentioned it because you wrote you bought all available spellbooks for the bish in Arnika. Of course you can do less and save the effort. Your statement about the bish's signature skill Artifact is also correct, but I found a bish has little opportunity to make use of it in combat beyond ~L10, when he has so many useful spells to cast, enough for any battle. In a party of 6, it might be different.

Also correct is the statement of not all bishops need to develop all 4 schools. Training everyone in 2 spellbooks gives you all combinations exactly once and you save a lot of the effort.

I have played some "fun parties" myself, parties, which are not meant for min/maxing, but rather based on a concept, rules, and a story behind why this party met on the beach with these professions, so why not a "Conclave" Party?
My point was this party, when played has some caveats, because the bishop develops slower and requires more effort than most other classes. So having 6 of them will be real hard work.
I agree to your statement, but the effect is underwhelming: A solo bishop reaches L11, with portal and summon elemental spells, at ~800k. 6 bishops reach L11 at ~5M, when the solo is at "L16 1/2". Even taking into account the quest rewards go to everyone, this will be significantly later in the game. Secondly I found that skill development has a high effect in melee, but in casting level has much more influence for the maximum "green" power level. So in magic it is less relevant than in melee.
It would also be an option to delay level-ups with a smaller party, if you don't feel comfortable with skills yet. Or you grind. Or you avoid critical random encounters while level is too low. There are a couple of solutions to the problem of a bishop being confronted with too strong monsters.

Hello Immerhinque,

you wrote "Shadow Hound protects you from being attacked while sleeping. I wasn't aware it had an effect during daytime."

Well, my experience: a high SEN value wakes your party as monsters approach. Sometimes the monsters are still in ranged weapons distance, sometimes your party still has initiative for a melee battle and sometimes SEN was too low, that is the monsters surprise your party with initiative.

About Attacks, Swings, DEX and SPD here is my annotated manual. I apologize, SEN was a typo.

Dexterity[DEX]: Since dexterity is so important to movement, it affects the number of physical attacks[Attacks] in combat, the ability to use two weapons simultaneously[DualWeapons], and many weapons skills[WeaponsSkills]. Skills which rely upon the body, such as locks and traps[Locks&Traps], stealth[Stealth], pickpocket[Pickpocket] and martial arts[MartialArts], are also affected by dexterity.

Speed[SPD]: Speed therefore affects initiative[Initiative] in combat, the number of swings per attack[Swings], the number of attacks[Attacks] per turn, and some combat skills[CombatSkills]. At very high or very low levels, speed can also affect a character’s armor class[baseAC].

For my Fighter-type characters I will switch from increasing DEX to increaseing SPD after I got 2 for # of Attacks. This should minimize the number of level-ups until 2 for Max.Swings. Never tried this before!

My Hobbit Fighter got # of Attacks 2 at level 8 with 64000 experience points, STR=90, DEX=90, SPD=62 and sword/shield equipment.

From German to German: Schöne Grüsse aus Hessen.

The latest "dependency" overview is:
HitPoints depend on VIT
Stamina depends on STR, PIE, VIT
AttackRating, toHit depends on DEX
Magic depends on INT, PIE
Initiative depends on SPD, SEN
#ofAttacks depends on SPD, DEX
Max.Swings depends on SPD
ArmorClass depends on SPD
Scouting depends on SEN

All player characters (PC) need VIT, DEX and SPD/SEN. The fighter characters need STR, the caster characters need INT/PIE. Hitpoints and VIT are easy: All PC (player characters) have VIT=50. This never changes. The attributes SPD and SEN support both initiative. But SPD supports ArmorClass and SEN supports scouting.

Maybe there is a mis-understanding. I use a high value of SEN in one PC to avoid Shadow Hound spell at all. The high SEN character will find hidden objects and will wake up the party at night. One scouting PC is enough for the party. Therefore the strongest PC has high SEN, the other characters have high SPD. The manual says "movement uses the initiative of the slowest party member". If all PCs have the same SPD and SEN sum, they are all equally fast.

But now something total different - as Monty Python loves to say: The four members party.
Some have played Wizardry 8 with only one character. This is too stressful for me. My benchmark is the fight against the five crabs outside the monastery in front of the pavillon. If I do not need healing in this fight, I assume my party is well prepared for Wiz8. And I have now a 4 PC party that has no problems with this fight. But first some more Wiz8 games mechanics.

There are fast, normal and slow speed level-up characters because of the different experience points needed for level-up. Fast are fighter and rogue, normal are the casters priest, mage, alchemist and psionic and slow are the rest, the mixed-characters or hybrids. Wiz8 has auto-levelling monsters. And I think that the highest level character in your party defines the level the monsters try to match. The implication? Only do party level-up. Wait until the slowest learner (Ninja, do you hear me?) can level-up and then level-up all PCs.

I like to start with a fast/normal level-up speed party. After I include the hybrids Vi (valkyrie) and RFS (monk) I have a slow level-up party.

There is a benefit of slow level-up party. Every won fights brings some random points for attributes and other stats. A slow learner party gets more of these random points for the same level compared to a normal learner party.

There is some nasty quirk in Wiz8. You need level 5 to crack Gregor, the first mini-boss. But if you enter the road from monastery to Arnika with a level higher then 5, you meet strong monsters. The game balance is not right for these levels. Therefore, raise to level 5 before Gregor. Maintain level 5 in the monastery and on the road. In Arnika I could immediatly level-up to level 7 (8 for fighter/rogue). A good strategy is to walk back to a corner and fight there. The monsters are not too fast for this and walking does not cost stamina.

But finally my 4 PC party. They are all humans. The professions are fighter, rogue, priest and mage. A slow learner party could be lord, gadgeteer and two bishops. Every PC raises one attribute fast to expert skill. Fighter raises STR for power strike, rogue raises DEX for reflextion, priest raises PIE for iron will and mage raises INT for power cast. Fighter and rogue can have a maximum starting value of 69. Therefore I used this value for all party members.

The core of the party are fighter and priest. Because some amuletts are female use only, these two are female. Rogue and mage are male, to have a variety of voices.

Fighter: STR=69 for expert skill. SEN=59 for scouting. SPD=50 for a SPD+SEN sum of 109. This allows DEX=57. The attributes INT=45, PIE=45 and VIT=50 are unchanged. At level-up STR+3, SEN+1 and DEX+2. I train only the weapon skills sword, dagger and bow. Closed combat and dual weapons raise automatically.

Rogue: DEX=69 for expert skill. VIT=50 for easy game play. SPD=59 for a constant SPD+SEN sum. This allows INT=57. The attributes STR=45 and PIE=45 are unchanged. At level-up DEX+3, SPD+1 and STR+2. I train dagger, bow and locks&traps.

Priest: PIE=70 for expert skill. SPD=57 and SEN=52 for a constant SPD+SEN sum. This allows DEX=51. The attributes STR=45, INT=45 and VIT=55 are unchanged. At level-up PIE+3, SPD+1 and INT+2. I train divinity and the magic skills.

Mage: INT=70 for expert skill. VIT=50 for easy game play. SPD=57 and SEN=52 for a constant SPD+SEN sum. This allows PIE=46. The attributes STR=45 and DEX=55 are unchanged. At level-up INT+3, SPD+1 and PIE+2. I train wizardry and the magic skills.

Valkyrie: First I level-up STR and SPD until Vi has the same SPD+SEN sum as the other PC. Then I level-up STR+3, SPD+1 and DEX+2. I train only the weapon skill polearm, divinity and the magic skills.

The party gets expert skill after 10 or 11 level-ups. Because VIT, DEX, SPD and SEN are 50 or more, easy game play is sure. I think this party is a very good compromise.

Some advice: Don't buy the poison dagger from Antone Rapax in Arnika. It is cursed. The sword Bloodlust is cursed, too. And the oliveskin trousers in the Monastery, wheel key room, is also cursed.

The statement that "All player characters (PC) need VIT" is only partially correct,
i.e. only if players chose the, mildly spoken, not so smart approach
to have one or more characters intentionally take damage until the parties combined force manages to defeat the opponents.
This may be more, but also only partially valid as a strategy for the vanilla game
however certainly not for the harder mods with plenty of enemies who potentially crit, paralyze, knock out, swallow etc.

No matter whether vanilla or mod, the spell guardian angel works as a substitute for HP,
with the advantage that side effects of attacks will not come into effect at all if the attacks dmg is completely buffered by the GA.
Body of stone on its own may be missing that advantage, but when combined with GA,
BoS comes into effect before the GA, so the the drastically increased penetration AC
will overall result in lower damage and conserve the GA.
(GA @powercast 0 compensates (1D6+4)PL , but that is effectively multiplied when combined with BoS,
both at PL7 allows to take 200+ raw dmg without taking a scratch)

At a lower degree also Superman compensates the HP of "missing" vit.
(and may kill badly injured PCs when fading out;)


So it appears ok for me to sacrifice vit as a defense modifier that can be at least for vanilla sufficiently substituted with spells GA % BoS,
for something that boost attack values and perhaps also number of attacks/swings.


Some practical examples:
My reforged mod update standard test patry contains an elven mage who started with required vit 35
and never increased it during up to ~30 lvl ups, additionally he has the Necronomicon equipped by default,
mainly because it provides +20 powercast, along with +4 AC, +5% resistance to all realms,
for the rpg aspect its also unique as it contains 1 instance of the spell Anti Magic (quite rarely used it)
and also is an extended weapons with berserk attack option out of 5, 2x dmg vs priests.
The backdraw for all the books advantages is that itauses a vit drop of -30,
resulting in actual value of vitality 15.
To finally come to the point, his low HP do not reduce his survival chance in the toughest battles.
(admittedly because even with high vit his overall HP would not be sufficient to survive a hvy blow)


A dwarven fighter RPC, starts with str67, vit 64, dex/spd 58, sen 52 at lvl4.
I usually start increasing str and dex to 70 (some calculations contain e.g. "INT (%d/10), in which case str 69 still count as 6)
then continue maxing dex+spd, and he works quite fine that way, i.e. can tank the normal opponents,
while, as mentioned, it makes no difference whether a character has 250 or 500 hit points
when the attacks side effects are more crucial than the amount of dmg they cause.



Regarding maximum number of attacks respectively overall swings/turn, respectively what affects these:

As attributes spd/snakespeed and dex, indirectly also sen because it affects initiative.
Close/ranged and related weapon specific combat skill.
To check these, max a characters values and compare to a clone who has one mentined value very low.

Weapon weight and its assigned initiative may limit number of swings/attacks,
respectively increase the threshold for attribute/skill for additional attack/swing.

Low stamina reduces overall swings/turn,
taking into account that encumbrance level affects stamina consumption, along with weapon weight,
giant sword wielding fighters will have significant performance drop already in 2nd turn.

So why does sen affect overall swings/turn?
Create a ~lvl20 ninja, respectively shuriken user, with attributes dex spd sen 100, snakespeed 30+,
ranged and thrown skill 90+, equip Death Star shuriken in both hands.
On the inventory page click the sword&shield button,
if the character has full stamina it should say 3 attacks with 3 swings for each hand.
In game you will hardly see the full number of overall 18 swings/turns,
probably there is still some randomness involved.
However, in battles you will notice that the character gets an additional attack sequence,
usually only 2 shuriken thrown with iirc left hand,
which goes before what would be considered the characters 1st full "standard" attack out of 3,
where he throws shuriken with left and right hand.
If you reduce the charactes sen to 55, he will lose those 2 swings of "attack sequence 0".


last not least, piety is pretty useless for non priest,
unless a pitiful bishop is forced to focus on less than 4 schools with div among them,
combined with inability to buy spell books in order to increase mana pool,
often also insufficient spell ttraing, both for reasons that are most likely related to player :p

Hello everybody,

I played Wiz8 again. This is the first time I used the "replace character" feature and the "Christian Coder (CC)" mod http://www.jeffludwig.com/wizardry8mod/ . The party is all humans with three rogues, one psionic, two mages. The three rogues start as three lords to get dual weapons equipment. The psionic and mages can start as priests to get a quarterstaff.
I still believe in SEN over SPD for the fighters, but I have learned for mages it is SPD over SEN. Characterr creation for the party is distribute the attribute points equally between three attributes and give five points each for three skills:
Rogues: DEX, SEN, SPD, dual weapons, stealth, close combat
Psionic, Mages: INT, PIE, SPD, only magic skills
At level up I increase two attributes by 3 points and three skills by 3 points:
Rogues: DEX, SEN, Dual weapons, stealth, close combat
Psionic, Mages: INT, PIE, only magic skills

Lock picking is done by Psionic spell Divine Trap and mage with posers cap.

Remember: In Trynton you get 5 points intelligence bonus - train INT to 95 only.

The CC mod changes the experience points for level up. The numbers are now:
850 for Fighter, Rogue, Mage
1000 for Gadgeteer, Priest, Alchemist, Psionic
1100 for Lord, Ranger, Monk, Bard
1250 for Samurai, Valkyrie, Ninja, Bishop

With the CC mod the Arnika road is less frustrating.

69 won't get you the expert skill any sooner than a starting skill of 67 will; in cases like this, you might want to spend the points elsewhere unless you can't spend them where you really want to at character creation. (Unless you want the small benefit those 2 extra points will give you earlier.)

Similar comments apply to other attributes; you can lower a stat to the highest possible value that is congruent to 1 module 3 and still get the expert skill at the same time.

(This is perhaps less useful for STR because that particular stat is important on its own, but might matter for other stats.)

(Yes, this is a micro-optimization, but it's there.)

For the special case of INT, if you are going to get the +5 INT boost from the Trynton fountain, you instead can lower INT to a value that's congruent to *2* module 3, so in this case 68.

(For the way I tend to build long-term pure casters, it may work out that it's best to start with the 70, but then put just 1 point into it at level 2 (won't delay the expert skill if you get the Trynton fountain boost) and put the extra 2 points into SEN (because SPD is getting 3 per level for the expert skill).)
With spells, there's actually influence from both level and skill. If your skills don't keep up with your level, you won't get that maximum safe power level than your level would allow.

One way to think of it is that both level and skill limit your highest safe power level. Each is a separate limit, and whichever limit is lower is the one that applies.

Why do Priests level up more slowly than Mages? I could also ask the same question of Alchemists and Psionics.

Also, why do Bards level up more slowly than Gadgeteers?

(The change *I* would make to Priests is to give them extra attacks and attack rating at the rate that Bards and Gadgeteers get, making battle priests more viable in the mid-to-late game, and to make it more consistent with Wizardry 1-5, in which Priests get to-hit bonuses at the Fighter rate.)