One thing, however, is that it's not worth raising the skill just to throw items, as the throwable items just aren't powerful enough to justify the fact that they're consumable, their price (and in some cases the difficulty of finding a place that sells them), and the need for a skill that the character might not otherwise be using.

What else are you going to do with a mage in a trad MDP, have him twiddle his thumbs when magic is useless? I mean, it works, but, okay then... Two tripleshots with hunters should be enough. But, what are you pumping instead? Artifacts? That means consumables. Communication? Wouldn't the bard be a better candidate? Mythology? Please. Realms? They level lightning fast, so why? I mean, the only way to get crowd control that's worthwhile, on expert, early-game is from consumables, easily. Since most of the best cc is limited to a few schools, and it's mostly useless, on expert, when you need it if you don't cast at higher power levels—like, from bombs—or stack it. It's a viable strategy, and they're not that expensive. Especially, when you have a bard and an alchemist! (It's also damage at times, but of course! One of the best use of bombs is to bolt a fighter onto an MDP, after all. By the time such a charater's magic putters out, one should be on the peak where melee finally, truly shines... in turn-coated murder. :) See also: faerie ninja.)

I've recently seen someone who was playing this game since release theorize that the reason people are so hard on hybrid magic is because early players thought only cc was useful, and, of course, it becomes extremely limited end-game. When it comes to spell-casting warriors, magic should often be a just do it thing. Otherwise, just take a specialist. Of course, that doesn't mean, just pump int. That's party dependent. Best way to cast on warriors early on? Max power-level, always. It'll be worth it by level ten or so. And that's why cc sucks on them early, too dangerous, or glacial growth combined with spells that do nothing against tough opponents. Of course, buffs and cures are useful too. Damage is great, until you get aoes. If you have a lot of such warriors, and a squishy or two, it can end in friendly manslaughter... (Why, yes, I have done it meself.) Of course, one could just... stagger it, and heal as necessary. So... (Or, just, cast in safe levels of damage.)

Honestly, I was too focused on optimization, but then I saw a meme, so I've decided on fun instead. And I like warriors, spell-casting or no. That, and the necessity of item management of a ranged party, is why I'm trying an eagle-eyes party. Not sure if the early pains will be worth the later game sniping, but I've been assured it's fun by people who have been playing this game for a very long time indeed. I'll know once I get to Trynton, I think. Shame a dracon has such trash sens, though. Not to mention the weaknesses of the other beasts, since I need high carry capacity, and would like decent speed for more dakka. And piety is too good of a dump choice to pass up. Maybe next game: dogs. I am a little harsh on them, so, it would be fun to make them work.

It means things like the Amulet of Life, the Amulet of Healing, and the Staff of Doom, all of which cast really nice spells and can be charged by selling them to a store and buying them back. Worth noting that this recharge is free if you have enough Communication or are using Ferro. (Although note that you need Remove Curse or a high level Bishop to do this with the Staff of Doom.)

It also includes Heal All scrolls which, while overpriced, are the first method you have of healing the entire party at once (not counting resting). In particular, they're something that could get you out of an emergency, which I find to be the only use, in a casual playthrough of any game, for rare or expensive consumables. (Well, that and removing conditions that can't be removed in any other way (Renewal Potions) or providing a permanent boost (spellbooks are the closest Wizardry 8 has, but some games have items that do things like permanently boost stats).)

Whereas consumables that use Throwing & Sling just aren't on that level of usefulness, certainly not to the level of justifying their existence and typical rarity, and none of the items using this skill are rechargeable.

(Worth noting that, on a Valkyrie I find it useful to pump Artifacts until 35 just for the Amulet of Life; until level 18, it's the best way to give her resurrection, and she's protected from the status ailment that it cures, so she can help others.)

Could you give examples, preferably those that are available prior to Arnika Road?


Or use your high power level spells early in the fight, so if something goes horribly wrong you don't lose much time reloading.

Or use spells that have safe or no backfire effects. For example:
* Holy Water and Banish are harmless if they backfire.
* Ring of Fire can't backfire, making it unique among general purpose damage spells.
* Healing spells don't backfire, except for Stamina. (Can Rest All backfire?)
* Remove Curse's backfire is only ever a serious issue if it crashes the game, which can only happen if used from your inventory rather than from the 3D view.

Those first few points can be painful, plus sometimes a character doesn't even get access to a realm skill until later. (See Mages and Divine Magic; useful but no level 1 spells.)

There may also be cases where leveling up the realm skill can be awkward, like with Priests and Fire Magic. In this case:
* Not everyone will want to spend a spell pick on Light, and the spellbook may have been used on someone else in the party. There's far more important spells to focus on.
* On period hardware, raising the skill by using the spell is painfully slow. Either you wait out the cooldown, or you endure an agonizingly slow save/reload cycle. (Saving isn't *too* bad, but it feels like loading takes an eternity on period hardware.) This point isn't an issue on modern hardware.
* If you don't learn Light, you don't put any points into Fire Magic, and you try using Lightning, it is very likely to fizzle or backfire even at PL1. Furthermore, PL1 Lightning is basically useless at this point in the game. (Not to mention that there's at least one spell of its level, Resurrection, that's a higher priority when it comes to spell picks.)

What are the "weaker" casters in my MDP going to do (Alchemist/Psionic/Mage with no good one handed weapons)? I have made them masters at ranged combat and magic (Powercast/Iron Will/Snakespeed/Eagle Eye maxed), so they will always be able to do some kind of damage to the enemy.
The Priest doesn't enjoy the Tier 2 benefits of the Rogue/Bard/Gadgeteer (maxing out swings and attacks at level 34). However, at least he (along with the Bishop), can use the Mace and Flail weapon set. This is why I have the setup of Bard up front, Gadgeteer on one flank, and Priest on the other (all have a weapon and shield). In this way, the 3 weaker casters can be protected in the center formation, with no shields (two can't use shields, one won't).
The Artifacts skill was "maxed" to the soft cap of 75 for all six party members by mixing potions with Alchemy, then identifying them one at a time. Add a few points at level ups to hit 75, once more important skills have maxed. Yes, it's slow, but it makes money for the party, gives skill ups to Alchemy, and any caster with the Identify Item spell can get points to a spellbook skill and mental magic skill, as well as increasing Artifacts to a reasonable level for characters with a lesser skill in it (I think the game checks for all six characters, especially for higher end potions like Renewal Potions).
I made sure to give the Book of Light to my Priest, since he only learns two fire magic spells (Light and Lightning). This is about as weak as the Psionic's Earth realm (Chameleon and Armormelt, note that the former is useful for avoiding battles, and the latter always works on enemies). I made sure that my Priest was always the one to re-cast Light after resting, and his Fire realm skill rose quickly enough so that he could cast Lightning at PL1 in the green when it was unlocked (not everybody is a psychotic grinder like me, however).

But:
* What if the player decided to give Light to the Bishop or Psionic instead?
* What if the party's other cleric got the Light spell?
* What about hybrids? (It's not that unusual to have both a cleric and a cleric hybrid in the same party, at least for me.)

75 is not enough to identify some items.

In fact, I believe there are some items that require over 100 artifacts to identify.

(Prospero's Cloak and the Philosopher's Shield can get a Bard 20 Artifacts, for a potential total of 120. Bishops get a bonus to this skill (one most players ignore, but they're too busy focusing on the Bishop's magical skills), and can equip the Philosopher's Shield on top of that.)

By the way, anyone know how the rule for how much Artifacts is needed to reliably use an item without it fizzling or backfiring? Also, the same question but for thrown consumables like bombs.

If I did have a Bishop in the party, I would give them the spellbooks first, because they have more spells to learn (even a two-spellbook Bishop would want around 60 or 70 spells, I guess, considering that single spellbook casters get 36 or 37 spells, and some are crossover spells). If you want a perfect Bishop, with 101 spells, then dead weight has to be dragged along until Arnika, Crock, Sadok, Kunar, Ferro (Fuzzfas only has three spellbooks, all of which can be bought somewhere else).
The Psionic doesn't need Light, as I trained him with Psionic Fire, and later, Psionic Blast (that spell is awesome, one of a kind, I believe it's the only spell in the game that can hit a group when you can't see even one member). It's particularly fun when, annoyingly, one member of a group decides to run away (rats, thieves, even some plants), and you waste the deserter along with its group. Oh yeah, those annoying -mare enemies, I think the Psionic would be a perfect match for them (immune to mental conditions, and can use Psionic Blast on the deserters).
Who builds a party with two Priests? It seems kind of redundant. Oh well, the Priest that isn't focusing on Fire can focus on other realms (the Priest only gets Lightning, Whirlwind, and Falling Stars as AOE attack spells anyways, not counting Holy Water and Banish, as they are extremely situational).
Again, with the redundancy. I prefer to get as many spell options as possible, especially true in my MDP. I have six "flavors" of magic to experiment with: Instruments, Gadgets, and the Divinity, Alchemy, Psionics, and Wizardry spellbooks (the last four boosted by Powercast). They represent the two quickest experience tracks in the game.
I do like Rangers, however (even when I used one, I never prioritized magic with them, ignoring Intelligence and Piety). Powercast is too costly for hybrids that have so many other fighting attributes to worry about. Also, I don't like the way that most hybrids have attribute requirements in Intelligence and/or Piety, when they should be prioritizing fighting first.
In those rare instances where I can't identify an item, both the Priest and Psionic can cast Identify Item (probably the most use the Priest will ever see out of his Mental realm). Also, everybody will be working on their Artifacts skill once I buy some Mana Stones from Crock (any character, even non-casters, can use it to regenerate spell points for a caster).
Prospero's Cloak is mediocre, and the Bard is only wearing it because it's the best she has at the moment, before the Cloak of Many Colors (I gave the Hunter's Cape to the Gadgeteer).
Philosopher's Shield is not guaranteed, and only has an AC of +2, worse than even what you get from Antone (+3 AC Heater Shield, also, the Light Shield is a thing).
I thought that we were in agreement here. Consumables are used up too quickly, are expensive, get heavy after a while (causing encumbrance), and can fizzle or backfire. Especially at the beginning of the game, focus should be in melee and ranged combat, and magic.
Using item charges is like Music and Engineering, it doesn't benefit from Powercast, and you have to sell and buy the item back to replenish its charges. It just seems like too much work, if you have casters at the ready (also why I don't like the Magic Mirror gadget, that has charges, that "casts" Eye For An Eye).

Or, alternatively:
* You can overlevel/ There's only around 25 spells you need to pick, so if you're going to level up to level 35 like you did, you could pick around 10 extra spells and still eventually get everything.
* You could take a different character for the early game, then use the "Replace Character" feature to replace the character with a Bishop. The drawback is that the new Bishop will be behind on levels and skills in the short term. (With that said, I think replacing characters works best when the new character is a non-caster, due to non-casters leveling up faster and needing fewer skills. Gadgeteer is a nice choice, seeing as how the gadget options are rather limited in the early game.)

Other group spells (like Insanity and Freeze Flesh) can also hit a group you can't see, though Psionic Blast is still the only one that deals damage.

I remember finding it worthwhile having a Monk cast that particular spell, and that's even with being 4 levels behind and in the later part of the game where magic is often not considered that valuable.

It's worth raising a Bishop'S Psionics skill into the 50s just for that one spell. (In practice, Mental Magic tends to be one of the higher skills on a Bishop thanks to Anna selling low-level spellbooks, Identify being such a frequently used spell that always gets practice (no practice cooldown), and Mind Stab being a spell that you'll pick even if you want a perfect Bishop.

Having at least 2 of Priest, Lord, and Valkyrie in the same party is not that unusual, particularly since one of the early RPCs, one who will go with you to most places, is of one of these classes.
Resurrection and Quicksand are good to have even if you only use it at lower power levels. Resurrection is handy if your Priest dies (you can't cast the spell while you're dead), while Quicksand is great when fighting low level high HP enemies, a situation that comes up more often than you'd think. (Lower level Rapax, for example.) A few levels later, Earthquake can be used to speed up battles with swarms of flying insects. No Powercast needed in these situations. (It helps with Quicksand and Earthquake, but isn't needed when the enemies are low level.)

Philosopher's Shield isn't that rare of a drop, and some of the enemies that drop it respawn, so it's not permanently missable the way many items are.

Heater Shield isn't usable by as many classes.

Light Shield is too rare for me to consider it in terms of strategy, plus I consider that item to be too powerful, so I choose not to use it even should I manage to get it.

It can be useful for certain spells you don't necessarily have available earlier on. The ones I can think of are:
* Resurrection, which is particularly notable because having one character who can cast it won't help if that character dies. While Resurrection Powder exists, it can only be used once and is about as expensive as an Amulet of Life. (As I said, I like raising a Valkyrie's Artifacts for this reason alone)
* Heal All. The Amulet of Healing casts this spell at a rather high power level, and you can end up getting it before you get access to the spell. Drawback is needing high Artifacts to use it reliably (anyone know how high?). Also, this item is so powerful that I consider it endgame viable, even if you're not using it to cast the spell. Note that you can get scrolls earlier and they're easier to use (because they cast the spell at a lower power level); the drawback is not being able to recharge them, so if you use them, the money spent on them is lost. (If you don't use them, you can sell them once you've outgrown the time that they're useful.)
* Restore Magic. The two common items that cast this spell are cheap (one is single use, however), and you can't learn this spell. (I actually think Mana Stones are underpriced.)
* The Staff of Doom could be useful if you get it early. Just remember that, until something like level 16, even a Bishop needs the Remove Curse spell to unequip it.

Also, I hear items get a Powercast-like benefit to spell penetration.

Let me rephrase that: they level with celerity. Alternatively: they level alacritously.

Correct me if I'm wrong: unconscious can only be cured with unique consumables or by casting restoration on a that character. Two other things, hit damage often doesn't kill, especially later on. Secondly, often, if cheat death happens, it just prolongs the inevitable. Might be useful once foes become death cloud happy, though.

Early game bombs are cheaper than resurrection powders, just a thought. Bombs and powders level throwing, which could be useful on a monk, alchemist, priest, mage, or psionic. That death bomb could be mighty nice, if it shows up.

I was thinking more in helping stack cc. In the case of sleep, chaining is more like it, but I forgot bards can do that themselves, so I was absolutely wrong. Of course, a horde of bishops could do it, but then magic missile spam is almost always better, on expert. (The bard party could be an interesting way to start a party. Could replace some, or all, of the bards in Arnika.)

Yes, but that's also literally save-scumming.

I can personally vouch that it can. Can even render party members—and nearby friendlies—unconscious.

Resting was that slow?

In an classical MDP, light should always go to the priest. It also just makes sense to give it to a divinity caster in most cases. A bishop and mage can level fire quick enough, and an alchemist would like it to charge fire bomb, but the wait for lightning is an even stronger use. Now, I can concede that new players might not know that. But a glance at the manual could reveal that to particularly astute players, especially if they have extensive cRPG experience. (Psionics doesn't get light.) Granted, when I get school skills to forty-five (thirty-six for specialists), I start pushing realms for a little oomph until expert skills open. I don't value resurrection that much, but specialists can save picks for only when new spell levels unlock without weakening the character significantly. I consider that a slight optimization, unnecessary, but helps with blazing fast realm growth.

Steam users figured it out. Here's an off-site snapshot of some spreadsheet—for some reason.

One could say that the order of best school to multiply are, in order: divinity, wizardry, alchemy, psioincs. The second reason is stacked dispel. Highly situational, but it's a sight to behold when it works. Not to mention how easily it is to get maulers.

great for building up sane mind.

And, in the case of bombs, only backfire or work. Fun fact: consumables have a slightly lower chance to not succeed than spells.

Is easy to "carry" a gadgeteer. Decent enough sword fighter, and gets damage before a bard.

Old tells die hard... (hybrid penalty is a lot weaker than people seem to think, and magic is wonderful end-game, if characters aren't low-level due to rushing the game.)

Yeah, but not using RPCs is fun, and lets the party get, like, an extra level.

All of those examples are spells that are often not necessary, but are, obviously, useful.(You also forgot nuclear blast, which is stupid powerful if exploited.)
One of the best spells a priest gets is rest all. It will be extremely useful, sooner or later, for the vast majority of parties, by the way. Purify air, and sane mind are nice too.

Side note:Nothing beats resistances like extra effects on physical damage at high levels. This includes skill and class effects. So that low five percent k.o. fighter gets on all attacks, yeah it gets dumb, and make a strong class even stronger, and it even adds an extra multiplier for melee when the fighter doesn't insta-gib.

I'm not talking about Unconsciousness; I'm talking about death.

Unconsciousness will go away on its own even if not cured; death will not. This means that, should the condition occur ourside of combat (for example, falling from Trynton), death is a problem, while unconsciousness is only an issue if you happen to get into an encounter at this point.

That unique consumable you mention is actually a very common item. It's much cheaper than Resurrection Powder (50 instead of 2,000), and there's plenty of sources of it.

Also, worth noting that there's no way to stamina cast Resurrection (aside from using a save editor or mod to get a certain unused item in your inventory), but it is possible to stamina cast Restoration (Renaissance Lute).

(By the way, the game I'm currently playing has a Valkyrie class with an innate passive that's basically cheat death with a different name and without the unconscious condition, but limited to once per battle. Then again, I'm playing a game where death is far more common than in Wizardry 8, so it comes into play a lot more.)

Also worth noting that the Valkyrie is likely to be the most durable party member; if you have someone more durable than your Valkyrie, it might be worth getting *them* that 35 Artifacts, particularly if you're looking at a certain high HP class that can't use magic and therefore doesn't have to worry about spending skill points on magic skills.

Leveling a skill through consumables (unless they're *really* common, like ammo) isn't really feasible.

I don't think it's possible to get a Death Bomb before Arnika. It is possible to get a Canned Elemental in the starter chest, but that's the only potentially battle-changing early game bomb I've noticed, and on period hardware reloading until you get it can get annoying. (Remember: Unlike on modern hardware, on period hardware it can take a long time to start a new game or load a save, and rerolling this particular chest involves a lot of starting a new game.)


I *really* dislike that particular term.

I consider reloading to be a perfectly valid strategy; if the player is reloading too much, there's a good chance that the problem is with the game design rather than with the player.

The problem isn't the resting, but the loading.
* If you try to re-cast the spell immediately, it won't count as practice and you won't get any skill XP rolls.
* On period hardware, it takes a while to load a game. This is slow, and can get annoying if you do it repeatedly. (In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if, on some hardware configurations, it might be faster to wait until the practice timer runs out, especially since you can practice a few other spells while waiting.)

Rest All is interesting in that you can buy the spell in Arnika, even though:
* It's a Water realm spell, not Mental or Divine.
* The weaker spell Stamina is not sold in Arnika, for whatever reason.

As a result, I find that it's not really necessary to pick Rest All, and in a party with multiple casters, the Stamina spell book you get early should not go th the Priest, as the Priest has a better spell you can more easily get in a spellbook later.

(If you play with Bishops enough, you learn where the spells are located.)

For a Bishop, Rest All is one of the reasons it's worth raising Divinity. (The others are Heal All, Armorplate/Magic Screen if they're not otherwise covered, and late game, Restoration.)

Thing is, these spells are not as critical.
* The spells are situational. Unlike Rest All, which is going to be useful in nearly every long battle, Purify Air and Sane Mind are only needed against certain enemy types. (Even then, Element Shield is often a good substitute for Purify Air.)
* These aren't exclusively Priest spells. In particular, if you have a Psionic in the party, they would be a better choice for Sane Mind because they can't be rendered insane.
* Both can be cast via rechargeable item, and for spells you don't often need, this is perfectly reasonable. Even better, I believe the Sane Mind item also boosts Mental resistance, which is handy in the fights where you'd want access to Sane Mind.

Nuclear Blast:
* Is not that good at low power levels.
* Doesn't work well on Rapax, and doesn't work at all underwater.
* It's mostly good against hoards of low HP creatures, but the ones that I can think of off hand, flying insects, are more vulnerable to Earthquake, which doesn't have the previous issue.

Of particular note is that having a variety of characters allows for crossover spells on multiple characters, and is a lot more fun than trying to create more boring, "optimal" parties. A prime example being Heal All, which can be cast by the Bard, Gadgeteer, and Priest. Both the Bard and Priest can cast Restoration (apparently, the instrument gives back more stamina than it uses at higher power levels), negating the need to stockpile Smelling Salts to cure KO.
Although only the Priest can cast Rest All, I find that it's only the Bard and Gadgeteer that seem to use up stamina often enough that it becomes a problem (the casters are usually casting, which uses up far more mana than stamina). Both the Priest and Alchemist can cast Stamina, so there's a duplicate if one is disabled, and as I said, there are probably only one or two characters that need it.
Most of the instruments and gadgets that "cast" buff spells can be sold, as the specialist casters can do it better, for a longer duration, with 100 Powercast.
You can "go all out" in Round 1. The Priest has Death Wish, the Alchemist has Death Cloud, the Gadgeteer, Priest, and Psionic have Instant Death, and the Gadgeteer and Mage have Asphyxiation.
You can also "fire bomb" enemies into submission in Round 1 from long range. The Priest has Falling Stars, the Gadgeteer and Alchemist have Earthquake, the Psionic has Mind Flay, and the Bard and Mage have Nuclear Blast.

Don't forget the Bishop!

Edit: And Valkyrie/Lord.

Same applies to Restoration, except that, while Heal All items are available, the only Restoration item that's readily available only affects the user and therefore is useless for curing either type of unconsciousness.

Except that you can't do that until level 18, and the Bard requires a trip to the Sea Caves to get the instrument. Plus, if you only have one character who can cast the spell, it won't help if that character is the one who's been knocked unconscious.

Characters with multiple attacks/swings using heavy weapons can also use up stamina quickly. This can happen with the Tripleshot Crossbow (high weight and +2 swings is a very fatiguing combination), as well as with the Giant's Sword at higher levels (and the Giant's Sword's initiative penalty is only -2, so getting lots of swings with it is actually not that hard for the classes that can equip it).

I don't like selling unique items.

(Maybe if shop inventory would permanently stock items you sell (which happens in earlier Wizardries but can't be guaranteed in 8, I believe), or if the game has something like Lufia's Forfeit Island (or Crystal Project's Lost and Found) I might be less hesitant, but I still generally don't like to sell items in these sorts of games.)