The game is actually easy enough to not bother with the majority of the spells (sadly). I managed to get 5 in many spells here people said I should take (Freeze, Divine Death etc) but I never felt neccessary to use them ever.

Here's how to do the game the really boring way:

Deeply recommended skills
Path of Lore: Alchemy 3
Path of the Ranger: Elven Sight 3
Path of the War Gods: Enchant Weapon 5
Path of the Warrior's Lore: Repair 1
Path of the Thief*: Lock Pick 3+2**, Pickpocket 1
* Theese are actually needed to finish all quests in the game
** You get 2 points for free for the thief guild Verdisist without fighting

Where to drop the rest of the points:
Path of the Ranger: Elven Sight 5, Evade Arrows 5
Path of the Thief: Evade Trap 3
Path of the War Gods: Reflect Missiles 5
Path of the Warrior's Lore: Augment Defense 5, Repel Damage 5
(Note that the majority of theese are just additional defenses)

Spells
Buy all spellbooks. The only ones you REALLY need 5 of are Hell Spikes & Restoration.
Bless 5 and Spellshield 5 will give some boost against bosses at lower levels.

Strategy
Your first goal is to reach 70 strength without falling above 50% chance for the monsters to hit you. Each levelup, hold hold your mouse pointer above "Defense" on your Statistics pane and verify that you have 50% to avoid attacks. If you do not, increase your Agility until you do. Put your remaining points into Strength. A tip is to find the Wishing Well early on, save, put 10k gold in it and keep reloading until you get +10 strength. During this part of the game you will use bows to preserve mana and kill bosses with your weak meteorstrike. Bring Alchemy up to 3 and buy as many empty vials as possible, this is a huge moneysaver at earlier levels. When you got some points left, drop points into Elven Sight (as many as you like), Repair (max 1), Lock pick (max 3), Pickpocket (max 1), Hell Spikes and Restoration.

When you reach Rivertown, make it your stronghold. Use the pyramids to jump back there once in awhile and spam the wizard and Blake for spellbooks. You can save prior to talking to the merchant and reload if he do not have any in stock.
Look out for Bless, Spellshield, Hell Spikes & Restoration. (You can "book" yourself up to level 5 even if your character level do not support it). Also buy Large bonus to Vitality, Constitution, Mana and Vitality and store them somewhere.

The path up to 70 strength will be the difficult/tiresome part, after that you will quickly be a god. You can actually afford to "waste" a few points in meteorstrike if you want it, even if you wont use it anymore after a certain point. Once you have 70 strength you start to drop points in Intelligence but keep up your 50% avoiding attacks as you did before. As soon as your mana start to support multiple hell spikes you can swap your bow to a shield and weapon since you will use Hell Spikes for damage for the rest of the game. Now you pick items based on how many charm slots they have (5 max) and their amount of vitality+mana+intelligence+constitution bonus. At this stage you want Enchant Weapon 5 as quick as possible and start to fill the slots with Mana, Vitality, Constitution, Intelligence and Dexterity.

At this point forward you will just walk forward, hold down CTRL once in awhile and rightclick some and everything on screen will fall to your hellspikes. You do not even need to aim anymore.

Your bosskilling strategy from now on will be to spam Hell Spikes and sometimes swap to Restoration to refill your health (or use potions).

There are a few extraordinary items such as the Holy Item, the Brestplate of Dragonheart (enhanced dragon armor) and Helmet of the Dragon. When you can get them, save before taking them. Take the item, identify it, and if it do not have 5 charm slots, reload. Continue until you have the best possible item and only enhance them ONLY with "Very Large" charms (which you will in the end of the game).

When you reach the last areas (as divine one) buy/loot all very large charms you can find. A primary goal there is to get +100 resistance vs everything (which will make you practically immune for the rest of the game since the majority of the opponents use spells).


My final stats:
Level 50 Mage
Experience 41775623/44200000

Vitality 1000 Mana 2016

Str 92, Agi 140, Int 196, Con 140

Offense 100 (75%) Defense 105 (44%)
Damage 30-59 Armor 340

Resistance:
Lightning 120 Fire 115 Poison 100 Spirit 100

Reputation 52

Weight max 3440


Last edited by JemyM; 14/01/07 09:18 AM.