Starting a mage, need help.

[Kazdum]

Hello folks, first of all I have never really played UO that mutch in the past, thats why I come here to ask you guys a few questions. As I stumbled in the UOForever website I decided to give UO a real good try now that I am a grown up man and don't really care for graphics anymore.

So, I made a few attempts to make some characters which I am not going to tell you guys about, I finally made Kazdum the Oracle. Well my main goal is to be a good mage with him. So, shall we begin?

1) I am about to lose my Young status, since I started with Magery and Eval Intel, I decided to hunt as many monsters as I can, started off in the newbie dungeon, then moved on to the ettins/ogres. Now I am in this situation where I can a confortable stockpile of gold in my bank and the protection is wearing off. So my question is: Can someone make money and live of monster hunting in this game? Do I actually need a mule character or a profession in my character? I mean, is it even possible to just live of hunting and exploring new dungeons?

2) As I mentioned above, my goal with this character is to be a old school mage, but the thing is, every single shop I open all I see for sale are massive weapons and armors for those big badass fighters, what kind of itens mages use? Robes? Staff? Jewelery? Enchanted Books? What should I be looking for? I see alot of magic itens for sale with propieties, but I dont know what is good for a mage...

3) This really might sound stupid of me, but I got a few undentified weapons in my bank, but I dont want to waste my skillcap with identification, how do I get them to reveal their status?

4) My other problem is: ettins and ogres are getting pretty boring after just a few hours, as my magery and eval intel went up they are dying like sheeps, is there a guide out there about the hunting zones in this gigantic world?

Thanks everyone who decided to help me with my newbie questions, hope to see you all in game. (or in battle, for the redies).

 

[SteelSexi]

Hi. I am just returning to UO since 2000 myself, and haven't been out fighting much yet, rather I am more of a gatherer and merchant and staying pretty busy and having fun with that.

However, i think I can answer your questions for you...

1) Absolutely it is possible to make a living just hunting with a single mage character and be very, very profitable. I think most people make different templates just to have a change and something different to play with when the mood strikes them to play a different role. Or perhaps there is a certain aspect of the game that a warrior might be better suited for then a mage.

2) Mages typically wear light armor, cloth and robes. When you can afford something fancy, try and get a clothing bless deed (cbd) and bless a really cool looking robe or whatever you like so that when you die, you won't need to replace "your look". The main thing mages need as I'm sure you already know is reagents. You can buy these in places like Moonglow and Trinsic currently at discounted prices over cities like Britian. Even though each reg is only 1 or 2 gold cheaper, trust me.. with as many reagents as you will burn, it adds up to a HUGE SAVINGS. Obviously you want to make sure you have a full spellbook as well. Also for that moment when you run into trouble or run out of regs, having a runebook with runes marked to your safehome or city and filled with recalls is also a good idea to get you out of danger when needed.

3) Unidentified items can be easily identified at a very low cost with 0 item ID skill with identification wands. These can typically be found on the magic casting mobs in the game, and many player vendors also stock these. I've seen them sold as low as 2 gold per charge on the wand, and more typically about 5-10 gold per charge. Still it's worth 5 or 10 gold to know what an item is. Knowing what kind of magic an item has determines its value, and whether it's something you can sell to other players for a small fortune, or whether its basically junk. What I do is always keep a few item ID wands in my bank box. When I come back after hunting and looting monsters, I use my item id wand to identify any unidentified items in my pack. If you need help identifying all the magical qualities of items, check out this link: http://www.uoguide.com/Item_Identification

4) Britania is a HUGE world and hunting the same spots for ettins and orges is certainly not your only viable option. The many dungeons throughout the world offer you many challenges in tons of different forms. Beware however as they also tend to offer more red player PKs, especially on this server! - Be sure when hunting and exploring dungeons that you bank your loot more often then the ettin/ogre areas you were hunting before! Many player vendors sell runebooks already filled with all the dungeon entrances marked. There are also run libraries that people have made public in their homes that break down hunting areas by monster type etc, be sure and check these places out! Mostly though, don't be afraid to run around the world of Britania and EXPLORE! It's fun!

I'm sure that many players who are much more experienced with this server can give you much better answers, but I hope this gives you a little to go on for now and answers at least a question or two for you.

Do whatever you find fun in UO. That's what it's all about. Happy hunting!

 

[Yohee]

Pretty much what Steel said Kazdum - I've only got a little bit more to add.

I'm not sure how your taking down ettins etc, and if you're at 100 Magery yet. Once you are (if you are not) then your game style will change a bit - using summon demon or energy vortexes to take down mobs. This is most effective against mobs that don't cast as they cant dispel them.
(with the exception of Orc Brutes in the Orc cave - if you use magery on them expect to get overwhelmed!).

If you want somewhere to go - grab a dozen unmarked runes, find a rune library and go explore! If you haven't found a rune library yet, hang around in brit and wait for someone to Spam one. There is a large one just north west of the Yew Moongate, but there are many others. Find a couple and keep the runes.

No real need for a mule char - your house should supply as much as space as you need on top of being able to create two accounts. Some of my toons are dramatically more profitable than others but in general, money making isn't hard.

You should consider donating to the server too - this gives you access to donation coins which you can use to both by Ethereal Mounts (such a must) and sell for in game gold (around $140k per 1000 donation coins). My first house was paid for with donation coins which gave me a base of operations for several toons - which I could then use to get properly geared up. This game gets really rewarding when you've got lots of different toon options and styles which can support each other!

 

[jeffe]

There's a bit of misinformation mentioned above so I wanted to try and answer your questions and respond somewhat, in my opinion, more appropriately.

1) As has been said you are able to make a living with mage skills: Magery, Eval Int, Meditation, and Wrestling. There are some caveats to this statement which I will talk about in answer #4.

I didn't see you mention Meditation, which is very important to a mage's skills allowing you to regain mana faster. Wrestling again is important for Mages but to a lesser degree; with Wrestling you are going to be hit less by melee attacks, but does little in the way of DPS.

You definitely don't need a mule, but then you are counting on other players' vendors for your equipment. Not necessarily a bad thing, but you may have a reason to at least include tailoring in one of your templates. Which leads to your second question...

2) A Mage's Equipment will normally consist of Leather Armor (NOT STUDDED LEATHER), Spellbook, and reagents.

While others have responded that you want clothes or a robe these do nothing to help with the functionality of your mage and are exclusively for cosmetically outfitting your character. There are no magic jewelry or clothing items in this version of UO.

Barbed Leather is your best choice for armor followed by Horned, Spined and then Normal Leather Armor. Each will give different AR ratings.

*There are special spellbooks (different colors) but again these are only aesthetic.

3) You can use Item ID skill, just lock it at 0, and you will eventually identify the item. Otherwise you can use an Item ID wand. Find them on monsters or player vendors. These are relatively cheap--don't pay more than 2 gp/charge.

4) Because the game is originally 15+ years old there aren't much in the way of "Hunting Guides." I agree with whoever had told you to just go explore and find places you like. While out exploring you are going to find places to be too challenging for a single mage to successfully farm in a time efficient manner.

When you start looking through the forums you'll find people bragging that they make 50k in 10 minutes. If you want to make anywhere near this amount in a decent amount of time you are going to need a tamer, provoker, or a combination of the two. If you want to farm successfully in Destard, Shame 5, Deceit 5 or Cove 5 (big money making spots) you are most likely going to need some portion of the skills mentioned above.

The problem doesn't become DPS, but instead tanking (but to be honest a mage's DPS is probably lower than most other templates). When monsters are doing 100 damage (your max hp) in a matter of seconds you are going to spend all your time healing and running (or dieing) rather than doing any damage, thus not making any money.


But by all means do what makes you happy. If you don't want a tamer or a bard, don't make one. Hope this helps.