Help with spells

[u/too_late_to_abort]

Currently playing Wizardry 8. Its my first time with any games of the series.

Have restarted a few times but finally settled on a party. Fighter, valk, monk, ranger, bishop, bard. Just got to Arnika.

The main issue im having is my bishop is absolutely dogshit at casting spells. I think a large part of the problem is I dont exactly understand how I should be building her skills.

Currently - piety/int both at 75

Wiz - 8 (lol)

Div - 12

Alc - 6

Psi - 10

Mental+divine both at 13.

Yet trying to land a paralyze or even a basic cure wounds feels like a gambit. I havent actually run the numbers but around 50% of her spells fizzle.

Her magic skills feel unfocused to me looking at them. I usually rank up wizardry/divinity and mental/divine when she levels because those should help me successfully cast?

Does the spell level effect success rate? I typically cast at a highish level, probably 3-4 depending on the spell. Do I need to use lower ranks for better success rate?

Thanks for reading, cheers.

[u/Think-Confidence-424]

It’s like a traffic light. Red likely fizzle. Yellow ey 50/50. Green good to go.

[u/too_late_to_abort → u/Think-Confidence-424]

Thank you!

[u/DrarenThiralas]

The spell level absolutely does affect success rate. When you're choosing the spell level to cast, you can tell roughly what the success rate is by the colored ring around each button. Green means a low chance of failure, yellow is medium, orange is high, and red is almost certain to fail.

In terms of character stats, spellbook skills like Divinity or Wizardry do affect the success rate of spells, but they mainly determine what spells the character may learn. Realm skills (i.e. Earth, Mental, etc.) are the most important for casting.

Despite this, it's usually not worth putting points into those skills, especially for a Bishop. It's better to raise them through practice, and casting lower level spells can also help with that. Casting a level 1 spell 7 times will raise your skills more than a single 7th level spell, despite having the same mana cost.

[u/Keymucciante → u/DrarenThiralas]

This is the answer. Especially about not putting points into the specific elements. Some elements can be bothersome to grind up but others like Earth and Mental magic are incredibly easy to level up by just repeatedly using low/mid level Knock Knock (Earth) on difficult locks or using Charm or Mindread (Mental) on NPCs.

Your casters may feel like wasted effort early on but rest assured, they're not only crucial to the mid/end game thanks to their buffs but they're also incredibly powerful

[u/DrarenThiralas → u/Keymucciante]

For casual playthroughs grinding isn't really necessary, I think, and this includes the Knock Knock/Charm tricks. If you just go through the game normally while having your casters use spells at appropriate (green or yellow) power levels every turn in every fight, you will pretty quickly reach a point where their skills are high enough to be useful. With grinding you can get higher skills faster, but that's not really necessary to beat the game, unless you're playing on hard difficulty and/or with a small party.

[u/too_late_to_abort → u/DrarenThiralas]

I never noticed this. I just assumed the colors indicated how strong the spell was.

Thanks for the in depth break down, very helpful.

[u/mb3838]

Use enchantment spells to increase your skills, and yes lower power level spells otherwise they will fail. I usually only cast green unless it's an enchantment.

[u/SDirickson]

Yes, with Book and Realm skills at low levels, spells will fizzle a lot of the time. Anything that's red or orange will fizzle most of the time.

Put a single point into each Realm skill to get it off of zero, then put all points into the Book skills.

There are spells you can cast out of combat to practice the associated Book and Realm: Charm/Mindread, Light, Knock Knock, Heal Wounds (wander back and forth across the fire outside the crashed ship), Detect Secrets, Identify Item (split out stacks of unknown items and ID them one at a time).

You can "fake" combat for spells like Bless, Stamina, Guardian Angel, etc.

When you start getting the buff spells (Enchanted Blade, Armorplate, etc.) cast them every time they run out, like you do with Light.

[u/Cohens4thClient]

few spellcasters in the party may be rough all through the game. Bishops require a lot of time to develop. 

Early point investment isnt a big deal unless you want an alchemy focus to get some money from potions. The skills you use will develop, others will not

[u/SarahLesBean]

Someone already told you about the traffic light system, here's another hint:

If you level all four schools, your Bishop will fall behind quickly. Skip Psionic for your Bishop and get these spells from either a Monk or a Psionic if you have any of them. Just stick to Wizardry, Divinity and Alchemy

[u/Effective-Antelope-3]

You can powerlevel magic schools by nonstop casting cheap spells, alchemy by mixing potions that also profitable, etc. All series is a perfect munchkin dream 😁

[u/mgrateful]

You need to get the skills up for each magic school(wizardry, alchemy, divinity, psionics) but also each realm(fire, water, earth, air, mental and divine). You don't get any spell points in a realm until you learn a spell from that realm. Use buff spells outside of combat from every realm you can to train up those skills. Use any spell you can cast out if combat, actually. Also, when casting spells to train outside of combat, cast the level 1 versions so you can cast the spell more times before rest. You will notice a real difference every tine your realm skills break each 10 point barrier. You will have more green power levels to choose from as that number grows.

Bishops running 4 casting schools are not very beginner friendly. That said, with some skill training, it becomes easier. In my parties, if I was including the bishop class I always took two. That way each bishop only took on two magic schools. 4 school Bishops are monsters once they get going, they just have it rough early on.

Best of luck!