The Path of Death, Destruction,
and Mayhem
Ok, I finally sat down and got some journals written. Only a
preface and two chapters so far, but I feel these were the toughest. More will
be coming. I apologize for the disjointedness of the narrative, these are pretty
rough with almost no editing. Comments questions and/or critiques are more than
welcome.
Raecyn, BattleMage of Harvestgain
The Path of Death, Destruction, and Mayhem
Preface
In May of 2000 I quit playing AC for various RL reasons. After a 10 month hiatus
I returned, to the delight of three RL friends who play some extreme archers.
My former characters had been deleted, so I had to start from scratch.
Previously I had a 35th level UA and had dabbled with a mage who made it to
about 10th level under at least 4 different incarnations, each being deleted to
make way for the next, more improved version. For a week before starting again I
perused various web sites trying to decide what kind of character I wanted. I
really enjoyed my UA, and after understanding how and why he was gimped I was
convinced I could make a much better version. But experience has taught me that
melee and archers have a tough time working cooperatively. I wanted someone with
a ranged attack capability.
I knew I wanted to be different than my friends, so archer (and crossbow) was
out. I briefly toyed with the idea of a thrown weapon specialist, but I wanted
to be able to compete with them as well. This left me with a mage. After reading
all I could find on various mage templates, I found 4 to be the most promising.
They were the Og, the Og+ (Grandpa), the Opal, and the Battlemage.
The Og spends 25 levels draining or macroing, then is complete. They make great
support mages and have impressive offensive capabilities after reaching 26th.
But specializing Creature to cast ineptitudes to make War and Life spells more
effective had little appeal to me. I could foresee myself getting into trouble
by being able to land Creature and Life spells and not being able to finish a
creature off with non-specialized War. This didn't appeal to me. Also, being
basically complete at level 26 held no attraction. I wanted something more to
work for.
The Og+ and the Opal mage templates simply looked too rough. Those mages have my
utmost respect for the path they've taken. Perhaps after Raecyn is complete I
may try one of these, but I was looking for a *fun* template. These are more
work than what I was after.
The Battlemage held all kinds of attraction for me. It completes at level 50,
about where I saw myself catching up with my friends. They all rerolled well
before I started again and were about level 30 at the time. (Currently I'm 38th,
and they're between 37 and 43, so I wasn't far off.) Also, specializing the two
schools that I'd use to kill with made sense. If I can vuln something, if I can
drain something, then I can follow up with war and not worry about a 30 point
difference. Wall licking isn't a requirement, but it's an option.
All of these things lead my to roll a BattleMage. Nothing has been the same
since.
(To be Continued)
Original Post : The
Path of Death, Destruction, and Mayhem