The Mage Assassin

[Ed Cakes]

I just wanted to say that, for anybody interested in trying it out, the mage/thief combo is fantastically fun to play.

I rolled up an elemental warlock (nefarious magick user) and am having an absolute blast. The essential points are a 31 elemental magick skill, at least 25 in INT, and PERC to 70. It was a real challenge for the first part of the game, avoiding certain fights and trying to squeek out as many quests as I could without hitting the glowing '+' level-up symbol, to maximize my mana gains when I eventually did it at level 8 or 9.

Prior to getting the magic purveyor in Port K. to train me to level 8 in Elemental, no skill points were distributed. Once I started finding some decent weapons to sell at vendors, though, and could afford spells and (most importantly) to train with Zeblin in moving quietly and hiding in shadows, then the fun really began. No armor, no weapons... just pure hiding in the darkness and lobbing ice showers on unsuspecting critters, melting locks and traps with magic. The mystical mage assassin build!

Ok, maybe that's not everybody else's idea of fun, but I am certainly enjoying it.

[xolotl]

trying to squeek out as many quests as I could without hitting the glowing '+' level-up symbol, to maximize my mana gains when I eventually did it at level 8 or 9.

I'm curious how you handled the maximum-5-point skill point allocation when you had stored up eight or nine levels of points. I don't think that applies to Attributes, but I can imagine it would be a bit annoying skillwise.

[Ed Cakes]

It was annoying, however, once I had Elemental and HiS/Move SIlently trained to 8, I had plenty to dump five into each during each level up. It worked out in the end, though, for a while I was concerned I might end up not leveling up enough before the game ended and have unused skill points sitting in the character screen!