Newbie Mage Tips


Contents


Introduction

I've only played a mage in recent times on Nightmare, so these tips are mage-oriented. Main points for any newbie, however, are:

1.
Use the help command. New players who constantly ask questions that are answered in the online help are very annoying, and will quickly run out of people willing to assist.
2.
Don't shout unless it's really important. And it's probably not really important. There are dozens of other people on Nightmare, most of whom couldn't give a damn that you're leaving for the night. You'll notice some people saying goodbye this way, but they're mainly the higher level players and immortals.
3.
If you really can't figure something out and need help, try your class channel first, and if that doesn't work, use the newbie channel.
4.
If you're only talking to one person, don't bother everyone on the channel, use the tell command.


How to Become a Mage

To join a class, you must locate the trainer for that class and ask him or her to sign you up. The trainers for the mage class are Aurora, who lives near Nairn, and Jhared Skyfire, who lives in the Eastern Woods. Finding these NPCs (non-player characters) is part of the challenge of getting started on Nightmare, so that's all the direction you'll get from me.

If you're going to become a mage, you'll want to have a high intelligence, as that is what determines your maximum magic points (mp). Your max mp will be your intelligence times 10 plus 50. From what I hear, a high wisdom also affects how well your spells work, so that may also be important.


Spells

You learn most new spells by asking a class trainer to teach them to you. As a newbie mage, the spells you can learn are: missile, field, buffer, mend, refresh, rejuvination, and detect. You can list the spells you know with the spells command. Generally you cast a spell with the cast command and if you have a target in mind, the syntax is cast spell on target.

Your only offensive spell is missile, and quite frankly, it's pretty useless. You're going to have to use it though, as it's the cheapest way you've got to train your Conjuring and Magic Attack.

For defensive purposes you have two spells. First is field, which creates a magical barrier which absorbs damage from physical attacks. This is a good spell to start training early, as it's what's going to keep you alive in the early going. The other defensive spell is buffer. It protects against both physical and minor magical attacks, but is more expensive (in mp) to cast, so you may want to wait a few levels before you concentrate on training it. In both case, fighting while you have these defensive spells active not only protects you from damage, but also trains your Magic Defense skill.

For healing purposes you get three spells, each of which essentially moves points around between hp/mp/sp with some loss for each move. The mend spell drains mp while increasing hp; refresh also drains mp and increases sp; rejuvination drains sp and adds to mp. Each of these spells train your Healing skill, and while I've heard that mend trains it more quickly, I haven't noticed much difference myself.

Finally comes your miscellaneous spell, detect. Unfortunately, I don't really have much idea what this is good for. Presumably you can use it later to decide which items are worth keeping, but at low levels it gives wrong or inconclusive readings most of the time.

As your skills increase you can return to the trainers to learn more spells:

There are also a few innate abilities which you acquire as you reach certain skill levels, without having to visit a trainer. These include: glow (Conjuring 5), cleanse (Healing 5), and gale (Magic Attack 10).


Training

You increase your skills by training, or in other words, doing things. You can train magical skills by using the spells that are based on that skill, physical attacks by wielding a weapon of the type you wish to train in combat, and physical defenses by fighting creatures using weapons of the type you wish to train. Healing is trained by casting the various healing spells.

Swimming is trained by hopping in the water and paddling around. The tide pools west of the Praxis docks are a good place for this. Just be careful you don't run out of sp while doing so, or you'll drown.

As a newbie you have two special combat training areas open to you: Newbieland and Impland. Newbieland can be reached via a special magic portal in the centre of most towns. Impland is in the sewers of Praxis. For maps of many regions of Nightmare, visit http://maps.imaginary.com/.

Your spells also have individual proficiency levels, from 1 to 100%, which you can train through use. Your maximum proficiency in each spell is limited by your ability in the underlying skill.


Combat

Quite simply, mages are wimps when it comes to physical attacks. On the bright side, our magical defenses protect us from most harm. In any case, lose the mindset that you have to kill things -- it's actually great that we have such trouble inflicting damage. You can stay in combat with a single creature for hours, continuously training Magic Defense and both an attack and defense skill.

Note that lost hp/mp/sp will recover over time. They recover faster if you are well fed and have plenty to drink, so it can help to befriend a fisher who can catch you free food. Once your Conjuring reaches 8 you can also cast mystic fountain, which allows you to create water for yourself, as well as training your Conjuring skill. Some items will also help you recover, such as a Royal Sceptre, which gives you mp each time you hit with it in combat.


How to Advance in Level

Your level is determined by adding up your primary skills (Conjuring, Magic Attack, Magic Defense, and Projectile Defense), dividing by 8, rounding down and adding 1. Thus to reach second level you much have a total of 8 points in these four skills, and to reach mortal status (level six) they must sum to 48.

Note that becoming mortal has a few side effects. First, you lose your ability to speak and understand any language. Second, you'll need a light source when it gets dark. On the bright side, you can also take up to a one year holiday from Nightmare without your character being retired -- newbies only get six months.


Religions and Guilds

Nightmare has both optional religions and guilds which you can join. These offer extra spells and abilities. They are, however, still optional, and probably not something to worry about as a newbie. You've got quite enough to complicate your life already.


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Newbie Mage Tips
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Brian Edmonds <brian@gweep.ca> July 20, 1998
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