It'd be great if discipline-skill had more appropriate affecting stats. I for
one can't understand what int/wis has to do with taking blows. The mental
image I get from this is that mage with huge brain but fragile body can get
seriously beaten and keeps on concentrating while a brute with bulking body
and no brain doesn't know what do to when hit. Stat like Con sounds a lot more
fitting for the skill. It just seems odd that fighter-oriented skill (look at
the help file...) has stats affecting that fighter shouldn't need. Looking at
some old ideas-wanted post it seems the affecting stats were few years ago
str/dex. Was it too suffeli then? It actually worked then and needed to be
tuned to something that doesn't work? At skill 80 I save my concentration at
about one tenth of times I get hit 'hard', which makes it waste of exp
currently.

Bit side of the topic, could magical_background get discipline? Like you said,
geting of a spell even if you are bit punished would be IMO thing that would
belong to any basic training of a magican. Something like 3% per background
level (max of 45%) and some guilds could let you train it bit more (like
psi's, masters of mental strenght), but in any case not as high as classes
that are aimed to be caster tanks.

There should be one more stat, Willpower, that would divide numerous funtions
with int and wisdom but it would be major stat to be checked when discipline
and resistances would be cheked. I know, adding a new stat would to the game
would not be a small thing but it would solve e.g. this problem once and for
all.

A hits you.

Is there some other way to (passably) solo as a mage then?
Blasters (and tarms too) are quite helpes in solo section, mainly as they have
none melee capabilities (suprise suprise) and one bigger punch from nelson the
bully leader cuts their chances to win the struggle.

I doubt giving discipline to magical background would steal the uber solo combo
title to them but it would enable them to do something than wait that their
sanity slowly drains from their ears on your keyboard when there is no party
around or no members to make that party.

If giving discipline is so unlogical (in RP & description sensely it is not),
could parry 51 then have some use for casters (and othervise too)? Having
maxed attack (75) and parry 51 gives total of zero more defence, top of that i
spank(!) half as often than i would with parry 0. I know parry is under
tweaking but adding simple IF (character defence factor < character parry
factor) {character defence factor = ½ * character parry factor} at the end of
the parry ramble would help a lot.
Yes yes, those that cant train the parry skill would benefit from it too but if
i cant train it i should not get access to it in the first place and/or wihout
access to the uber guilds you cant get higher than 51 defence factor trough
parry and/or with the present way parry works (IMO the reduced attack speed
was brilliant idea) allowing others to have acces to get some defence would
not step on tanks classes toes.

As i have undestod, you should be able to _play_ (not thrive) any class
regaldes what totals you have or if you (dont) have a party.

A hits you.

wait...parry 51 without the parry skill does nothing, what the hell are you
talking about? or do mages get parry am i just dont know it

Mages atleast (I don't know about psi or channeler) get the mirror image
spell. Certainly casting this before every mob isn't practical since it takes
a long time to cast, but I find if I be picky about what mobs I kill, I can
kill most in one blast, and those I know I can't I put up mirror image first
and kill them in two. With exp pool I soloed 100k in 16 minutes yesterday as a
mage, and I'm not exactly a highbie (28m totals). If that isn't 'playable'
then maybe you're being greedy. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and
assume that channeler and psi have atleast one defensive spell each, and while
I can't say for sure if I would be able to solo as either of them, I am
confident I could atleast make do (although admitedly channeler's sucky area
spells wouldn't help). Tarmas get ress and rais, druids get shapechange and
blasting spells, as far as I can tell if there's any guild that can't solo, it
might be Conjurer (and even then I know nothing about it, so I could be
wrong). Obviously blasters will never be able to solo the same sized mobs as
tanks do, so take advantage of your high damage spells to instakill smaller
mobs, that way you don't need to be able to defend yourself.
I probably could have said all that in around 2 lines, but I'm wordy. That's
my 20 cents on the matter, I don't think anything about blasters needs to be
tuned, they work exactly how they're meant to.

Yes, psi\'s get mirror image but channus have stick with the 20% from
background. In the otherhand, they get that nice golem.
Psi\'s also get Psionic shield that rises their HP max but casting it eats
about 2-3/5 your spell points as it lowers your SP max and you have to heal up
also to fill the HP gap.
Sounds that you have more quick chant that i do as my second blast is not ready
yet when the mirrors drop and then comes the nice \"You loose concentration!\"
part again.
I give hats off for that one. I solo 100k in a ~2-3h with pool (if i dont RIP),
so mind sharing where this nice area of yours is?
True, the huge 45% magic missile, 35%lightning bolt & 25% acid arrow wont get
you far at all.
If Conjus would have a (personal) spell that would reflect bit damage back to
the attacker from each of the attackers (melee) attacks, they could be
playable alone too. It would also fit in conjus like nyrkki silmään. Now they
are just something that are a \"must\" top on your first blaster guild, not
something that could be played from a scratch.
That works well when you dont play psi nor conju. Conju lacks totaly the
offenice output and are in that way in a dead end, but psi\'s have this nice
thing called KoMD (Knowledge of mental defence), that works as a reputation.
It goes like this: You cast mindseize on monster, monster agros and starts to
kick your hood, while the mirrors are diminishing you hope that the monsie
does not get a lucky hit trough them and the big blast comes before the
mirrors run out. You have to seize mosnter when it is alive or you wont get
reputation.
If you DONT seize (get reputation) your chances to join a party become even
worse, as then you end up as a useless Psi (as KoMD affects just about
everything) that has tons of exp. Just like me.
Thank for reminding those points, i do partialy agree with you. Blasters as in
whole dont need \"tuned\", only fix certain points to make them all playble.

Either making us able to use parry as i described in the previous post (the
abjuse ways are endless! ...er wait, no they are not. none actually) or make
mindseize act as a neutral spell if it does not \"hit\" monster during a
combat & give conjus a spell that reflects damage back to attacker.
That way psi\'s and conjus could also solo.

A hits you.

Like Laviz so nicely pointed out to me, the no-solo problem is solely psi\'s
and conjus. I apologize my generalization.
And kindly note that i was never, ever trying to get mages to be number uno
solo machines, only that they could too solo if the party section happens to
be quiet at the time being.
That, was not what i was aiming to or even mentiong.
Hmm... 35 levels, civiliziced background, gets access to all _second_ best
spells & skills from all nomad and magical background guilds.
When shal we see it?

Or simply make us able to take multiple backgrounds so you could take magical
and nomad as a background and play mage barbarian by paying extra 10 levels
for second background to balance it out (dad was a nice pointy hatted wiz and
mom was a battle-axe wielding minotaur. The kitchen conversatiosn were mighty
vivid indeed).

Or for sake of all sane and logic, remove the background restrictions totaly.
If my parents were merhcants, how does that stop me for choosing the path of a
nomad berserker? I might have bit rougher start (no background boost/help on
skills&spells section) and maybe i dont pick up things as fast as those that
are grown up around the lifestyle (thus lower skill maxes) but at least it
could be done.

Removing the guild restrictions (in a _balanced_ way) would be something i
would do as a frist thing if i would start wizzing.
Excuse my (insulting?) remark but move the focus from \"party\" on
\"supposed\".
Geting party nowdays is hard. Insane for those less than 20m totals or just
othervise not so elite.

A hits you.

Reminds me of when I was 20m totals playing psi
as solo reinc using thier... DUM DUM DUM
Short blade skills and spider sabre

- blackstar -