Spell and Skill Ups

The short version for mages: cast at whatever power level you see on your skill sheet until it reaches mon, then cast at lower power levels until you branch (you might have already branched before this point). Un or nil both work, but un gives approximately 2 times the skillgain of nil.

The main thing to NOT do is cast at a higher power level than you see on your skillsheet. That is a waste of time as far as skilling up. (A friend who was on staff saw PC skillsheets where they had gotten the spell power level up to mon but still had the skill level at its starting value, meaning they were no closer to branching, even though they thought they had maxxed out their spell. They surely got there by always casting above the level on their skillsheet, thinking they were advancing since this also causes many fails and improves powerlevel. It doesn't improve skill, however. This is one of the areas where "secrecy" and "find out IC" can lead to players wasting a lot of time on things they think should work, having no idea it isn't doing anything codewise.)

Other threads on the board explain the mechanics in detail, and they're mostly right if you read all the way through as people correct each other, but if you follow that formula, you will be fine. There are also ways to get your mage to lose concentration more often and thereby skill up more easily, but that will be left as an exercise to the reader.

As for weapon skills, you got me, it seems to take some serious knowledge and twinkery to really get anywhere with weapons.

NO NO NO, do NOT cast higher than your max power level. You can in fact increase power level by successfully casting at ANY power level above your max but you will NOT improve skill level, EVER. Do NOT do this unless you intentionally want to slow down your PC's progress.

You can verify it yourself, buddy:

Roll up a mage.

Choose one spell to improve only by overcasting.

Choose one spell to improve only by normal casting.

Keep checkmarks of every "lose your concentration" that you get for each spell with an expired skill timer. (I.e. only count it if you didn't have another failure in the last 30-60 minutes.)

You will find the normal cast spell will branch in somewhere between 5-10 un failures, or 10-20 nil failures. (For first-tier spells. Double this for deeper levels.) It might even branch before you hit 'mon'

The overcast spell will DEFINITELY NOT branch before you hit mon. In fact, you won't even start generating skill improves until you hit mon and therefore can't overcast anymore. It will branch in the same amount of failures as the normal cast spell, PLUS all of the overcast failures, because overcast failures DO NOT CAUSE IMPROVES.

you might overcast in order to target increasing the power of a spell. there are situations where this can be beneficial.

weapon skills are easy, you must not have been paying attention to the game or the GDB.

your weapon skill only goes up if you miss with your primary hand weapon, or etwo weapon. a secondary hand weapon miss increases dual wield. a miss is when they dodge. you do not get skill gain if they parry or block.

I want to preface this by saying, this is all anecdotal, I've never looked at my own skillsheets:

I level/branch spells using overcasting, and I've played well over a hundred mages, many of them quite mean and fully branched.

Overcasting does not apply a penalty to your skill-ups, casting drunk, however, does.

And for the peanut gallery: Often as not, you can branch by the time you hit een or pav, using overcasting. So your friend lied to you.

And not only does it give you an (anecdotally) slightly higher chance of raising your power word to the one you're casting at if you succeed, it doesn't penalize your learning if you fail.

Using overcasting, I usually have 3-5 of my first tier spells branched in 1-2 days played, and half of that time or more is spent out and roleplaying, not sitting alone somewhere and practice casting.

My 'friend' is me, and I've seen plenty of [m] 40's in my time, always on PCs that used this kind of approach. Maybe that's changed. It's been a while since I've played a mage, what with only having one account and all. I've also kept careful logs on skill improvements with mages, done the above experiment and gotten the same results over and over. Believe me, I am a bigtime twink, and if my experience had ever given me reason to think it works, I'd be all over it--the failure rate is such that you could easily double or triple an already very fast advancement rate. (1-2 days played is not fast to branch first tier spells. Using -no- overcasting, and also not twinking, it is no problem to branch a few starting spells in 16-20 hours. If overcasting worked reliably, you could get that down to 8-10 hours easily.)

I'd be very surprised, but interested, if I'm wrong. If you have an actual log of a skills call, an overcast failure, and another skills call that shows a branch, and verified that, I would trust your word. I wouldn't even ask to see it, but I'm dubious of memories.

I'm not asking for "direct from code," I asked if you can confirm the existence of such an event in a log. Not by showing, but by saying, yup, there it is, it happened.

If you're correct, the optimal way to spell up is to cast only at 'mon' or whatever level you have sufficient mana to cast, until branching out your entire skill tree (should take no more than 2-3 days played given the high rate of failure), then powering up the spells you actually want to use.

I'm more than thrilled to discover a faster way to maxx out a mage, but color me skeptical.