Warlock build

[Leezar]

First off, I always roll a million times to get high stats. Compare the difference between the theoretically lowest and the theoretically highest stats; 14 x 8 - 7 x 8 = 7 x 8 = 56. 56/3 = 18 + 2/3, meaning that yeah, basically, there is a 20 levels in stat points difference between the highest and lowest stats. Now, ordinarily, you may not care that much because you get tired of rolling eventually. However, in this game you quickly run out of mana and mana potions are expensive and you just never seem to get the amount of ambergis you want to make mana potions with the foraging skill. That means you are more or less forced to engage the enemy in melee, even as a warlock. So, unlike a warrior that only need high physical stats and not so high mental stats, you need high physical stats AND high mental stats. Thats whats with all the rerolling.

Secondly, lets discuss a problem common to almost any RPG – or even FPS where you find better and better weapons. Games generally are divided in early, middle and late game. Skills that are good in early game may not be so in late game and vice versa, thus, an initially strong build may be rather crappy in late game, but an "optimal" build may be incredibly weak initially. I make a compromise with that. I do not optimize the build, but I also let my character be actually fairly weak initially. Now, rather than balancing this, Eschalon actually takes special care to encourage you to be weak initially, because you can pay for the best skills and thus get them free of skill points. 100 gold or one levels worth of skill points to get your first skill point? That is not even a choice, of course you go for the gold option! Unfortunately, the skill sellers are found in mid game, and all of that gold for all of those skills stacks up. (And that is one of the reasons why I spend so many points and the merchant skill.) As you can see, for level one I actually do get the elemental skill (although you can not be a warlock and not get it) even though you could "optimally" wait, and unarmed, mercantile and light armor, even though there are books, so I could get the first point for 1 skill point less (as books give 2 skill points, or the first that is worth 3). Now, these are on the other hand very small initial wastes. Of course you could plan even better – especially by not get the mercantile skill (as you will see, I put 11 points in that skill) at all and instead be incredibly patient until you have enough gold. But I do not think the game will be even remotely enjoyable if you are even more skill point cheap than I am... The skills I do have are especially chosen for giving a fairly decent character early on – I did not say strong, I said decent.

Thirdly, lets discuss the gold issue. As you can see, I like gold. For starters, I spend 11 points in the mercantile skill. Why? Because having a lot of gold allows you to pay for the best equipment, and this will compensate for the "loss" of skill points "wasted" in the mercantile skill. This is true for all good RPGs (and in the crappy ones you are flooded with gold/credits, so all trade skills are worthless), except maybe in late game, but by then you are usually incredibly strong anyways. And in this game, like I already mentioned, you can actually pay to get skill points, another reason to focuse a bit on the trade skill. And the earlier you get the trade skill, the more advantagous it will be. Good armor early reduce the need of healing potions which saves you money for even better armor which will in turn save you money for healing potions etc etc etc.
Speaking of which, armor detoriates incredibly quickly in this game. Until you get the repair skill, which you do roughly middle-to-late-middlegame, buy only the cheapest armor you can find, to save you money at the blacksmiths when repairing. You want all your individual armor piecies (and also your weapons) to be worth no more than 20-50 gold each. Sell anything more expansive than that until you get the repair skill.

Attributes:
Now, the average of 7-14 = roughly 11. So, for the attributes, I assume that you have 11 in all attributes – naturally, if you like me rolled a million times, you can have somewhat higher. If you can do headcounting, simple add the value of all attributes to compare rolls with each others. For instance, 11 in everything is 88. Which is actually by my standards not so good. 96,98 is possible with a twenty rolls or so. You can get even higher with more patience. So you can consider these stats I present as a "low". At start, you get 20 stat points +4 for gender and race. I calculate to reach level 20, so we count another 60 stat points for 84 in total, and this is how I plan my stat points:
(assume all stats start at 11)
Get Points left
Str 30 65
Dex 21 55
Spd - 55
End 25 41
Wis 21 31
Int 20 22
Per 40 -7
Cnc leftovers

And we land on -7 points left. In other words, you need at least 99 stat points from the starting roll to make the warlock character, or compromise. (I had 102, in other words an average of almost 13. Yeah, I have patience, or no life, take your pick.).

End & Per are special, because they grant two extra HP / MP at character creation. Thus, you should put all your 20 starting points in End & Per, with the exception of INT that needs to be 15 so you can use fire darts of the bat and Wis that needs to be 12 so you can spend the next levels three stat points in wis so you can learn Divine Heal. Naturally, you favor End above Per as HP is bettar. End & Per also gives +1 HP / MP at level up for every five points, while str and int needs 20 for the same. HOWEVER! You will need strength to lug shit around and eventually you need wis and int to learn spells. Thus, you favor Per (you should reach 25 end at character creation) all levelups except when you start to notice it is time to lug more shit / learn more spells.

So to why pick the values I picked;

Str 30 = +3 hp/level, lug more shit, use 10 pounds in hands and still cast spells
Dex 21 = since armor, lock pick & hit rate all are affected moar = bettar! 21 is chosen because we also need other stats. The spell "nimbleness" gives 6 x 4 extra dex when you use it, so 20 dex would give 44, which is just one point short of another +3% hit chance, thus 21 rather than 20.

Spd: If you have the points, get to nearest 5. This stat affects only max dmg & armor. I am not sure it is entirely thought through, or maybe lord Basilisk decided he absolutely have to have 8 stats rather than 7, or whatever.

End: Moar = Bettar! 25 is chosen because we also need other stats.

Wis 21 & Int 20 = 21 wis + items is needed for the 14 divine spells you want, Int 20 because at 20 you can learn many spells even without the items and also you get +1 MP at each level. (DO NOT sell the necklance the old bearded guy gives you).

Per: 42 per is needed for 1 mp / turn, and really, you need a lot of mana as a spellcaster. Now, without giving away to much, there is a certain hat that not only gives the authentic warlock feel but also gives you +5 per, +3 divine, +3 elemental and thus should be worn at all times. So why not 37 per instead of 40? Because every five you get one extra MP / level, thats why.

Cnc: To hit +1 every five points & lug more shit??? (Also, allegedly it reduces melee spell failure rate.) I would superspend in this stat... if it wasnt because you pretty much have to have the values I just outlined in the other stats. Thats why I wrote "leftovers" there. After you reach your goal with the other stats, this and only this is what you focus on. Should you reach lvl 30, then the extra 3x10 levels worth of stat points goes here.

Spells:
You will notice I motive some spells with No Need Feels Good. That is because of I guess some kind of mental disorder or overactive imagination or something on my part that makes me want to make characters such as I would want them in a sort of real world I guess. For instance, create food. Yeah, it would be awesome to walk in the mountains with almost an empty backpack because you can just summon steaks and such whenever you get hungry. Now, the spells is actually not that useful in the game, HOWEVER...

Note on tier 3: If it was not for Dehex and invisible, I would say to skip tier 3 entirely. Observe this chart;
Name Tier DMG lvl 6 min max avg cost DPM
Fire dart 1 2-4 12 24 18 9 2
Sunder flesh 2 8-12 48 72 60 29 2,07
Ice Lance 3 12-16 72 96 84 49 1,71

Now, I do not necessarily oppose that "better" magic cost more, because killing enemies quicker means less combat turns with less dmg to you etc. However, the difference between 60 & 84 is not that big, while 49 mana is almost twice of 29, and like 1/2-1/4 of your total mana, depending on your level. Sure sure, there is mana fortify, but still...

Divine, tier 1:
Create food – NN FG
Cats eye – not "necessary" as we also get predator sight, but helps you, the player, to navigate in caves and thunderstorms.
Divine heal – Absolutely fucken necessary, without this spell it is kill one creature, retreat, rest, rinse & repeat.
Lore – Saves you a lot of money so you do not need to pay for identifikation.
Divine, tier 2:
Cure ailments - If I had to pick the one thing eschalon impresses with, it would be diseases. In most games, disease is more or less equal to a slow spell. In this game, disease seriously cripple your character in a semirealistic way, and there is a lot of exotic things you can catch. Fortunately, there are no hookers in this game, so you can not catch the clamps.
Now, a lot of things cause disease, and unlike poisoning, disease does not wear off automatically. There are cure ailment potions, but my experience is that you are always one or two disease potions short, especially when you are fucken midway in a dungeon.
Stoneskin - You survive longer. Good.
Sunder flesh - Sunder flesh deals dmg that can be resisted by magic resist, elemental spells can be resisted by elemental resist. So, if an enemy resist all your spells, try the other kind.
Nimbleness: +24 dex = +15% to hit, +8% pick locks & +5 armor. Nice. Also lasts long time. Nice.
Enchant weapon: NN FG
Haste - The single most useful spell in the game.
Divine tier 3:
Dehex - Absolutely fucking necessary for a nefarious character such as a warlock because there is no other way of removing curses, and since I can only assume some curses requires max level, you have to max out divine for this very spell.
Summom monster - I am split on this spell, because I have not used it so much so I do not actually know how useful it is. At max level, it drains a lot of mana and you get a red wolf, which stronger enemies kill in two or three hits. I guess they can provide good distraction or?
Massboil - NN FG
Total 13 spells.

Elemental tier 1:
Draw water: NN FG
Element armor: Not useful often, but when useful extremely useful.
Fire dart: Your starting attack. Also quite awesome since it hits automatically and deal decent dmg for early game. Occasionally the attack is resisted, but it is still good.
Predator sight: Awesomeness. With this spell, only the enemy suffers from darkness penalties (which is half of your chance to hit). With this spell, you can defeat monster that actually are better melee fighters than you.
Sonic blast – Good early on, as it can stun enemies so you can melee them. In middle game, all enemies and their mother are immune.
Elemental tier 2:
Chamelon - Reduces the enemies chance to hit with 40%. Awesome.
Enkindled weapon – Increase melee damage. Really good – assuming you actually can hit the enemies, which may not be the case while if play a warlock.
Fireball – Have DPM 1.45 but have area attack, so it actually have higher DPM if there are at least two enemies present.
Trapkill – Traps are more of a nuisance than anything else. Still, it is more fun to defeat them by magic than by walking through them and take the pain.
Elemental tier 3:
Ice lance – Low DPM, but with a mana fortify and haste spell, you can take care of nasties.
Invisibility – There are two sneak skills. They both suck balls. Invisibility lets you loot hidden treasures in town without aggro. A must have.
Portal – Kind of nice.

Skills:
IMHO this game is skill point shy. Especially since some skills are teh suck, like meditation. You get an equal amount of stat points and skill points each level, but perception does the same thing as meditation... and more. Why would you ever use meditation? Still, this game is more balanced than most games when it comes to skills. In some games, like Neverwinter Nights, (which is a real shit game BTW) skills add nothing to gameplay but are there only to be there. In other games, like Diablo II, the only skill "tactic" is maxing out your favorite skill and them spam it. Fallout did a good job with skills. Still, my favourite solution on how to diversify characters to player preference is what Warlords Battlecry I & II did, making skills ever more expensive and directly dependant on the stats. Of course, this way of planning your character goes well beyond the intellectual capacity of your average gamer, so they dumbed it down to Diablo style in warlords battlecry III and surprise surprise #3 is what everyone plays. But I digress. Here is how I planned my skills;
Other than my starting skills, I actually do pay for all skills or use books to save skill points, other than the starting skills, since you need them to survive, sort of ish. Also, I only mention the skills I actually spend in. Naturally I do not not get the throw skill, for instance, but I only get it to eight (all pay, no points) and nothing more.

You start with 15 skill points and get one skill for free. As a warlock, you get elemental for free.
Level 1:
Elemental 1. So you can use fire dart.
Unarmed 1. Initially, you have low strength and can not afford good weapons anyways. The damage difference is not so great between armed and unarmed. Further, you can knock down doors, barrels and chests with your hands without taking damage. If you do it with your weapon instead, they will break.
Light armor 1. So you can use light armor without penalty. Useful for survival.
Mercantile 5. See my rant on gold above.
Total cost: 13 points. (Save 2)

Level 2:
Mercantile 9. (Save 1)

Goal assuming 20 levels (3 x 18 = 54 + 1 = 55);
Alchemy 18 (+2x2 for rings = 22, for all enchant items)
Pay + book = 10. Cost 8. 47 left.

Lockpick: You want a 15% chance to pick even the most difficult locks, otherwise you need to spend to many lockpicks and also it gets tedious. For that, you need +65% chance. Dex 45 (21 + nimbleness) gives 15. Gloves gives 6. So 44 left. 44 / 3 = 15. Pay + book = 10. Cost 5. 42 left.

Foraging 12 for the best ingridients. Pay + book = 10, cost 2, 40 left.

Dodge 11 (if you had more SP, I would get it to 25 for ¼ of all blows, or 34, for 1/3 of all blows). Book = starting point. Cost 10. 30 left.

Elemental and divine: Pay + book = 10. Items gives + 7. Unfortunately, you need the divine spell dehex that is tier 3, otherwise you could save a lot of skill points here. Thus, you need 24 = 14. For elemental however, invisibility is really the only spell you need, and I see no need to max that spell, you become invisible plenty long enough for looting anyways. Thus, 20 is enough, which gives you 23 with the hat, for 4 levels invisible. Cost 24. 6 left.

Bludgeoning have the feat crush, which reduces armor, which increase your chance to hit. This is good because we spend all our skill points on magic, so we do not have so much to spend on combat. Thus, I give the last six skill points to bludgeoning.

Early game:

Believe it or not, this initial build can easily gain entrance to port Kuudat. Remember to save your level ups for instant heal while fighting difficult enemies (for instance wolves, hint hint). Use stat points immediatly, but save the skill points for after when you have payed for all 8 levels.

Early on, like the first thing you buy get the hat with +1 divine so you can use divine heal. And then divine heal should you not find it down the well. The second thing you buy is cheap armor, and you stick with it until you aquire the repair skill (+get enough str for heavier armor). The third thing you should buy is a compass. It is not really that necessary, because it is not that difficult to keep the location of stuff in your head, but it is convienent.

Get a bow and a melee weapon with low weight, and get a low weight hands thingy so you can cast spells with unequipping your weapon. Boiled leather gloves weights only 0,6 pounds and have an armor of three (and can be magically enhanced for more.)

Be careful not rack up more than one level, because you do not get an extra heal, and should your three points from the previous level get your end or per or whatever up the the value required for extra HP/MP you will lose that 1 HP/MP forever.

An attack pattern I find works is every other melee attack every other fire darts.

Use any extra gold for foraging – the ingredients can be sold.
Also buy one level in throwing and bows, it helps. Once you gain entrance to port Kuudat, prioritize alchemy and magic.

Items to get whenever you have the gold:
Rings of divine and elemental magic, rings of lore (sell once your lore spell gets good), rings of foraging (sells once your forage skill becomes 12), two rings of alchemy (must get) and maybe two rings if intelligence if you really really want to learn a lot of elemental spells.

DO NOT THROW THE NECKLACE HANDED TO YOU BY THE BEARDED MAN!!!
You need it to learn divine spells.

You will also want the two ultimate wizard hats. One to keep equipped at all times for more perception and skill, the other for learning spells.

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So, what do you guys think of my build?

[Randomizer]

Since you are getting Alchemy, you don't need to also get all the equivalent spells. Invisibility is mostly hard for getting ingredients (ectoplasm), but for the few times you really need it the potion is just as effective. I got by fine with an occasional potion and that was with unarmed combat with no ability to parry and no range attack.

Since you are going with spells for damage, you might not need all the improve weapon ones since you will need to have high weapon skills to hit. Ogre strength is mostly for hauling loot on those deep dives like Hammerlorne and Fathamurk. Enchant and Enkindle weapons are best for Paladin builds where you have a high weapon skill over 40.

Dehex is nice, but there are only two places in the game where you need to worry about being hexed. If you don't have much weight to drop and are spell casting damage, then you can run back to town to fix the problem.

[Leezar]

I know my post was a bit tl:dr, but I just wanted to point out that I already discussed your concerns about dehex and weapon skills.

You run out of mana very quickly. In early and midgame, you will actually do roughly half your dmg with weapons and half with magic. Yes, in lategame you do not have so great chance of hitting your enemy. That is why we chose bashing. The feat hits automatically and halves armor - increasing your chance to hit. In late game, you will also finally get decent mana recovery rate. That means you can have nimbleness, predator sight, chamelon, enchant weapon and stoneskin on permanently.

I guess you can play a magic caster without any weapon skill if you somehow manage to lure one enemy, kill with spells, back off and camp etc. But if you do not want the game to be infuriatingly tedious, you kind of need melee skills.

We are playing a warlock, and they can not get aid from priests... or so the description says. I have not actually tried. That is why we must have dehex.

Now, to alchemy; It is actually very useful for a spellcaster. You can create mana potions and mana fortify potions and enchant your equipment. All armor can be enchanted, giving you +15 armor. Well, except the mage hat, so +12 then.

What you forget about potions is that they cost ingridients/gold. I am sure this is not a problem if you spend half a day IRL camping and foraging then camping and foraging, but...

I would also like to point out that this build can cast all tier 3 spells at lvl 5 or 6 and reg 1 mana / turn. Can your paladin spending 30 points in melee do that?