What the heck are they? And why do you people care about them so much? LOL. Seriously, I have played a few high lvl mages and never had any idea, nor need, nor desire to find these things since had no idea what they do. Can someone help me here because I feel like I am missing out on something that could help me when I play my magey mages.




And thus once more, we turn the page...

They contain spells aura(about 25% dam redux), shield(about 25% dam redux) and barrier(about 40% dam redux). Aura, barrier and shield (ABS for short) can be obtained from different scrolls, wands and talismans mages can use.

There are two different ABS systems in place:

One system has a large number of highly limited magical items that grant you these spell effects. Locations of these items are same for all characters.

The other is the sleek wand system. In sleek wand system, every character has personal sleek wand spots and the same spots are likely to produce your character a new sleek some time after the old one is used up, since it's a personal spot. However, your previous characters sleek spots are likely to be empty, so you'll have to refind the spots when you start a new character.

Think aura and shield are 20%, not 25%. I always thought barrier was equivalent to sanc, but never got the chance to test it when I was doing my experimenting. That character wasn't a mage, so there was no way for me to barrier myself in order to test it.

It was tweaked downward and the duration extended a bit in 2005. See

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=3&topic_id=641&mesg_id=641&listing_type=search

That being said, I'm sure the exact damage reduction doesn't matter. Barrier is worth just as much as sanctuary when compared to *layering over innate class dam redux* and aura and shield.

As in like different spots on the map (IE in a certain chest or something?) or will I have to battle an NPC for it? Apart from that, how would one go about to start a serach for them? Do you just check everything in every room you come across? Or is there one system for looking that works better than others?


And thus once more, we turn the page...

>As in like different spots on the map (IE in a certain chest
>or something?) or will I have to battle an NPC for it? Apart
>from that, how would one go about to start a serach for them?
>Do you just check everything in every room you come across? Or
>is there one system for looking that works better than
>others?

Sometimes they're in containers, sometimes NPCs have them. In general, you're looking for mages and magey places.

Barrier's less DR than sanc.

Without actually crunching the numbers out, I believe a paladin/healer/shaman with only sanc/protection (fighting an opponent the protection is viable against) slightly out DRs a mage with just A/B/S. Granted, the mage also probably has stoneskin/corporeal hardening/'vokershields/whatever as a class ability, but the cleric has class-based healing, and the healing actually plays nice with that DR.