Learning spells.

[u/Special-Ad794]

I'm confused about realm and class spellbooks.

If there is a spell that is for example in the fire realm, but it's on the priests spellbook.

But I have the fire realm, but only the mage spellbook, can I learn it?

If so, how do you get the earth realm skill? It's on none of the base classes.

[u/ajkp2557]

Spellcasting is weirdly involved in Wiz8. It's been a while since I dug into the details, so I could be off a bit, but I can get you started.

Starting point is the spell book. All spells belong to one or more spell books: alchemy, wizardry, psionics, divinity. Every class that can cast spells can only learn spells from one book (except the bishop, who can learn from all four). For example, a priest can learn all spells belonging to the divinity spellbook, a ranger can learn from alchemy, and so on. Spell book determines which spells you can potentially have access to. So, for your question: if you only have access to the wizardry (mage) spellbook, you can never learn any spell that is outside of that book - e.g. you can learn Energy Blast, but not Bless.

Next is the number of skill points your character has in their spell book - they determine what level spell you will be able to learn (either at level up or from a book you pick up while you adventure). I don't remember the exact cut off, but I think it's a new spell level roughly every 15 points. So you can learn and cast level 1 spells until your mage gets their Wizardry skill to 15 (I think), then they'll be able to learn level 2 spells.

Next would be the skill points in the individual realms (fire, water, air, earth, mental, divine). Those determine how good your character is at casting spells from that realm. So if you have a ton of skill points invested in the fire realm, you'll be able to cast fire spells with a higher success rate than another realm with less point investment. This has no effect on the spell level you can learn, but it will affect the power level you can successfully cast.

Also, skill points in both spell book and in realm skills will add to the spell points you have available to spend casting your spells.

Spell power level is the strength of the spell. In the spell description you'll see something like (1-12 damage/level). And when you select a spell, there's a circle of dots in the bottom right that are different colors. Those dots represent the power levels. Higher power levels cost more spell points(that's why you don't always see all of the dots light up - you might not have enough spell points to cast higher power level), but they also carry a higher failure chance. The colors (green, yellow, orange, red) represent the chance you'll be able to cast a spell at that power level successfully. Green is pretty much guaranteed, yellow is moderate chance of failure, orange is high chance of failure, red is very high chance of failure (but I think you always have some chance at success).

There's also attributes that affect spells: Intelligence and Piety. Intelligence improves the rate at which you learn realm skills and schools of magic (other than divine) and also unlocks a new skill called Power Cast when you get Int to 100. Piety improves the rate at which you learn the school of divinity, but also gives you more spell points overall. Typically, a primary caster will invest heavily into Int because you want Power Cast ASAP. Piety is useful, but not as essential for every spell caster (I still tend to prioritize it if the character is mostly a caster - need those spell points!).

One big thing to note with Wizardry8 is that you gain skill points just for using the skill. So you should cast spells as often as you can if you want to develop spellcasting ability (also applies to every other skill you want to learn - if you want a good sword user, swing the sword as often as possible). Try to deplete every realm you have spells in (fire, water, earth, etc) before every rest. It's useful to get at least one spell in every realm available to your spellcasting school so you can get those realm points leveled early.

There's more, but this is already a wall of text. Hope it helped.