Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Universalist mage?

OK, I don't see any point in rolling mage specialized in some specific skill (like fire or air, or even fire+earth). It's seems to me that it is much better to spend ability points in all skills evenly. For example, it takes 15 ability points to level up geomancer to level 5 and get 11 earth spell as a result, but it takes just 5 ability points to level up all 5 magic skills to level one and get 15 spells as a result (3 spells for each school) or 15 to get 25 (5 spells for each school).
The only thing you sacrifice is a talent which has level 5 in a specific skills as a requirement (for example Demon) but they all look pretty weak to me. If you have 2 mages in a party, this approach works even better since you can split diffrent spells of the same school between them.
Am I missing something?

First of all - Jack of all trades aka mages with all schools is by any means a viable choice for this game. Although you still should combine - one school in 5, all others in 1 e.g. And I would recommend 3 schools (2 at choice and at least level 1 in witchcraft) anyway after some hundred hours of play.

Second - yes, you are missing. Quite something. You missed the ingame tooltip telling you that all spells cost (much) more action points if you do not have the required level of magic school. And you missed some quite important level 5 talents, like lightning rod or environmental immunity (air and geomancer). Last but not least - level 5 allows for an unlimited number of spells for the respective school. Which suddenly lets you detect and use some formerly neglected spells which turn out to be quite powerful in some fights.

Regards,
Thorsten

Thank you, you've been most helpful.

Pump up INT and you can easily go into Fire/Water/Air/Ground and Witchcraft. Level them up as you see fit as you play. The penalty mentioned above will be +2 AP at first using around level 9 spells if you have something like only a point in the school. So if you hit that and want that lower, then put another point in that school. You can easily play the game like that, just add to the school needed when you feel it is needed. It's too easy imo, there should be some type of limit on how many schools you can invest in beyond one point.

On my last play through ( #5 ) My witch had 5 in Witchcraft, 5 in Geomancer, 1 in Hydorphist ( always having a 2nd healer is handy ) and 3 in Aerothurge. She also had 26 in intellect. How you say? Well throughout the game there are books that can used to lower perception -1 and get +1 to intellect. Her perception was down to 4. Also crafting staffs at level 20 yields a weapon with +3 intellect buff. So using the book 3 times on 3 separate finds + the +3 staff = 6 points, plus numerous item buffs for another 6 or so. Her actual points spent in intellect was only 14. This freed up allot of points for speed and a little constitution. Speed, in my opinion, is often ignored because the player doesn't see an increase in very much. Every odd numbered increase in speed adds one action point. So imagine a mage with level 20 spells on 1 turn cool downs, due to the high intellect, with as many AP every turn as if she was hastened?

Since my Ranger used perception to increase ranged combat and crit chance, I used her as my leader and reduced perception on my characters to increase AP per turn.