So after my mage died yet again to retardedness, one involving link death, another to some lucky arse that managed to save six times in a row, I got to thinking, why exactly do mages have to wait till level 20-ish to get parry? What exactly is the reasoning to make them be punching bags in the teens? I for one would LOVE to run around and PK as a mage in the teens, but it's basically suicidal cause if you fail one spell (which you will because they are all at 70-80%) you die. So I'd really like an Imm to comment on how this fits into the so called game balance that exists in CF?

I've killed LOTS of people with mages in the teens, but every single fight was always me ambushing them while they were wounded or fighting something else and a couple of exceptions against fine leather clad duergars in Balator or the easy zap of a mage. Infact, the first incarnation of Nebodga had 8 pkills before he hit 20 and most of those were against warriors and rangers. Nebodga whopped him a mage at level 11 and Heyuda squashed a thief at level 11 with reanimate (that was cool). I reanimated the fingers from the elf he just killed. That's what you get for not letting me rank with you!

So I get your argument that they don't NEED it. But you either have to be really ballsy, very lucky, or extraordinarily crafty to land a kill solo as a mage pre-20. I've sat around and waited on unsuspecting people to rank into PK range and then zap them. That works, fairly well too. But once a warrior gets bash, it's a done deal. You avoid them or wait till you can kill them in one hit.

But I still don't get it. I mean they get it later on? Are you afraid that that would take away some spuzz from the anti-paladins? I don't exactly see parry as a martial skill.

New spell: martial ward.

Level 10 for all mages that know spellcraft (conjurers have shield block, APs? heh). 25 mp, 2 round casting lag, can't be used in combat, duration 2+level/10, effect -level AC. When cast, it improves your parry by (100 - current parry skill)/2, so in practice before you have the skill, your parry goes to 50%; if your skill is 75%, it is boosted to 87%, and so on.

The downside so that it's not a free ride? It's incompatible with most other forms of considerable protection such as aura, shield, barrier, stone skin, corporeal hardening... class-specific armor-replacement spells, desensitize, partial shifts are still ok.

Know what *I* hate about mage parry? There's no good way to practice it, short of really pathological easter-eggy type ways. At least with melee classes you can occasionally take a turn tanking for your group, and usually by the time you hero you parry/dodge in the 90s or so.

>Know what *I* hate about mage parry? There's no good way to
>practice it, short of really pathological easter-eggy type
>ways. At least with melee classes you can occasionally take a
>turn tanking for your group, and usually by the time you hero
>you parry/dodge in the 90s or so.

I really don't have a lot of problem with it. I've had plenty of shifters & conjurers who tank in the low-mid levels, and if you can do it there, there's no reason you can't gear a necro/invoker the same way and do the same thing.

I got virtually all of those improvements in PK with the occasional rank bonus. After spellcraft was perfected, I switched skill learn over to parry. But that's what ABS is for anyways. Having parry at 71% is sufficient with ABS. It's in the teens when they have no comparable equivalent except stoneskin or weakstone skin. I suppose you could go get a stoneskin prep if you're willing to risk the death you'll get if it fails and protection is REALLY easy to get for non-outlanders. Protection + heat resist makes killing paladins pre-wrath easy for evils and neutrals that get the lucky protection spell.

I think it'd be cool if mages got a skill called defensive stance or something that basically gave them the equivalent of dodge + parry at 20-30%, or how about a traveling boots type item called trinket of youngling evasion or something that gave you 40% in parry (or dodge even) that ticked down to 0 at level 18-20 or whenever the last mage got parry. Sort of like the boots do with pathfinding. It could be questy and non-pick-upable-unless-they-are-yours like the questy lowbie rings from that area that's lowbie friendly. That would also give mages yet another thing to do to get xp for those of us like myself who can't get to level 20 with quests and exploration.

Ooh ooh. And it could be one of those guys in Tir-Talath, like the guy beside Diana that hints at it or that Defender of Young Mages. That'd make sense and be relatively easy to find and it could be like a proactive thing, "Here, do this and I'll give you a magic trinket and instructions on how to make it work so you'll go somewhere where the big mean villger won't eat you."

it is your only melee defense and abs is grand but so is not getting hit 30% of the time and abs vs not getting hit 5% of the time.

As a villager anyone I can't kill through overwhelming lag or burst damage I take out their parry, its funny to watch a super bad ass muter get splatted in 3 rounds because you weapon break their staff and their enhanced spin/parry from acceleration turning aside 90% of blows turns into every single attack landing.

Sure mages feel they need abs all the time because they don't take advantage of maximizing what little melee defenses they have. 30% less hits is just like having aura and shield up.

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Splntrd