Training a Bishop

I wish to personally thank Ariana for taking the time to recreate this training technique from her past postings at the IGN Forum for the Bishop. I made a special request of her to do this for the site because I know how much this has helped me to enjoy playing a Bishop where I had normally shunned them in the past. I think a Bishop intimidated me, thanks to you Ariana, they no longer do.

Power-skilling bishops can be a tedious process (by power-skilling I mean the process of casting certain spells over and over and over in order to raise the related magical skills) but if you want a powerful party so that you can explore and enjoy with less concern about combat, or if you are playing ironman and really do NOT want to be back at the character creation screen, it may be worth the time and effort.

For a bishop, the key thing to keep in mind is that many spells go into several different books (e.g. healing falls under divinity, alchemy and psionics) and when you cast a spell the book that has a chance to increase is whichever book has the HIGHEST skill at the time you cast the spell. So if you want to use a spell to increase wizardry, and that spell also happens to be under alchemy, you want to make sure that when you are ready to power-skill it your wizardry is higher than your alchemy.

NOTE - as used here (per the game manual) the term "book" refers to the four types of magic that a magic using character may get based on his or her class. Divinity, alchemy, wizardry or psionics. The term "realm" refers to the six broad categories of magic; earth, air, fire, water, mental and divine.

The other key consideration is that some books offer more power-skilling opportunities than others and you do not want to waste those. So if a book only has one spell that works well for this purpose, don't use it to power-skill another book.

The best way to train all four books in my experience is to use knock knock for wizardry (I've never found another good spell for wizardry). Since you cannot also use knock knock for alchemy, you should use healing for alchemy. It would be a waste to use healing for divinity since divine traps works so nicely there (charm works too but is slower). Finally, that leaves mindread for psionics. Of course, the more realms you increase the better. So the gas chamber room (see below) is a better place to train healing than the crashed spaceship in Arnika since the trapped chest can nauseate you, allowing you to cast cure lesser condition to increase your water magic realm. Water magic is nice for a bishop since several paralyze spells are based on water magic.

NOTE - if you have intelligence at 100 you get the powercast expert skill. This has a chance to go up with the casting of spells. So if you are at or close to 100 you may be well advised to get powercast before you settle in for your power-skilling sessions. There is a fountain in Trynton that can raise intelligence by 5 so you do NOT want to raise intelligence over 95 when you level-up.

To follow the path outlined above, you start once you are in Arnika (you can use the gas chamber room to increase alchemy and divine magic in the monastery, just make sure that wizardry stays higher). Buy the knock knock book from Anna (bait shop) and head to the eight tumbler vault door in the bank (I could be more specific but this isn't a walk-through and I don't want to give more of a spoiler than some people will want). Cast knock knock at power level one (in the name of the Gods do not accidentally open the vault door - that would be a tragedy almost beyond description until you are done with it) until you are out of power. Rest. Repeat as needed.

Every now and then cast other spells if you like - such as identify, light, detect secrets, enchanted blade, armorplate - to raise other realms but be careful to keep your books in the correct order (wizardry highest, then alchemy, then divinity then psionics). You can cast a LOT of knock knocks in a fairly short time so the process will not take you forever.

NOTE - skills go up more slowly at higher levels. By the time you hit 80 earth magic goes up significantly more slowly. By 90 it is much slower. So you may not want to go all the way up. But the books increase uniformly regardless of level and I believe powercast does also.

OK - now time for alchemy (I hope you remembered to keep it as your second highest book). If you don't like to travel or don't care about water magic, just head over to the crashed spaceship. One of the fires will damage you. Hurt yourself, heal yourself, rest, and repeat as needed. This takes care of alchemy and the divine magic realm. Faster this way than jumping off the spaceport elevator or down to the bank vault to hurt yourself (and the elevator jumps have a risk of crushing death for the entire party).

Better is to go back to the monastery - gas chamber room. This is the room on the lower level with six chests in it near the ramp to the upper monastery. A friend of yours was near there once - name of Gregor. The big roach. Open the trapped chest (middle chest on the left as you enter). Cure lesser condition and heal. Do not have protection spells going - you WANT to be hurt and nauseated and protection spells will significantly reduce the benefit. Rest - this room is either totally safe to rest in or almost totally safe. I don't recall ever being rudely awoken by enemies near the chest. Repeat as needed.

Alchemy can also be increased by mixing potions, especially when you are in a location where you can buy the ingredients. This may even be faster than healing after you reach skill level 40 and can mix cure disease. At skill level 50 mixing renewal really boosts alchemy quickly.

The disadvantage is that mixing does not increase any magic realm. The advantages - and they are big ones - is that it gets you all the cash you will ever need (renewal sells for up to 5,000 gold - He'Li paying top dollar with the price tied to your communication skill), raises your artifact skill if you identify potions by clicking them once you have mixed them, and raises mental magic and divinity or psionics if you use the ID spell for identification. You need to identify the potion before selling it to get a good price - you can also buy identify scrolls from Lord Braffit or Anna but a party with a bishop doesn't need to and those don't work on renewal potions anyway.

By the way, merchants in different places tend to focus on different ingredients. You can get them all in Arnika, waiting 24 hours for merchants to restock their inventories (24 hours is three uninterrupted rests - or easily measured by casting the light spell which lasts 24 hours before going out). Since game time is irrelevant there is no reason to save it by traveling between Mount Gigas, Marten's Bluff and Arnika to see who has what ingredients - might as well just stay in Arnika and buy from Lord Braffit and occasionally He'Li, sleeping your days away to let them restock.

OK - time for divinity. Go to any trapped chest - the one you have just been opening and closing for several hours is special and cannot be used for this purpose. (There were several in Arnika that you could have left unopened for this purpose. Or you can go to Mount Gigas to the room with 10 trapped chests in the Base Camp. Or, if you got the wheel key in Arnika there are several near the gas chamber room - head towards Burz - the merchant in the upper monastery and turn right when you get to the movable bridge and walk over it to the wheel door. Warning - the room is not empty). Cast divine traps. Rest. Repeat as needed - you know the routine by now. Be careful not to cast knock knock by mistake especially in an ironman game.

NOTE - you may also have a character that can pick locks. A rogue or gadgeteer or other low-life. If you want him or her to train-up lockpicking that 10 chest room is perfect (11 chests actually but, tragically, one is untrapped). Click on the chest. Click on identify the trap. Click on one of the tumblers needed to open the trap but NOT both of them - the idea is not to open the chest. Leave the chest menu. Return to the menu and repeat. Continue until the trap is set off and the chest opens and move on to the next chest. Have your bishop ready to cast cure poison if a trap poisons you - might as well raise your air magic a bit.

Finally psionics. You need adjusted skill of 30 to learn mindread. NOTE - adjusted skill equals your book skill plus 1/10 of your skill in the magic realm that applies. So if you raised mental magic to 90 using divine traps you only need psionics at 21 to learn mindread (but you would need psionics at 30 to learn psionic fire if your fire magic skill was 9 or less). Go to any NPC (I recommend the personality challenged teller in the Arnika bank if you are nearby - she doesn't have much dialogue to slow you down - if you are in the wheel room of the upper monastery Burz is convenient). Attempt to read what passes for his or her mind. Rest. Repeat as needed.

NOTE - each NPC has a standard and useless phrase that they give repeatedly. They also have two (there may be exceptions - I haven't tried every RPC in the game over and over) special responses each of which they give once and never repeat. None are required to finish the game, but if you are interested go slowly until you have gotten each of them). - Ariana

This requires you to max divinity last, but you only have to wait till level 11 ( for heal all ). I like this method better because training psionics using mindread is extremely slow and annoying.

Make sure you keep your points in the magic schools in the following order from highest to lowest:
Wizardry
Alchemy
Psionics
Divinity

( Just remember, you need to pump Divinity up to 60, while still keeping it lower then the other spell schools. I recommend that after you have gotten the other schools up to at least 90, you pump 3 points a level into Divinity and cast spells like make wounds every battle. With a little effort you should have Divinity up to 60 by level 11. )

For training Wizardry we will be using knock knock. For training Alchemy we will use heal wounds. For training Psionics we will use divine trap. For training Divinity we will use heal all ( earliest heal all book is in Bayjin ).

When you get to Arnika buy a book of knocks from anna and train Wizardry up to 90 at the 8 tumbler lock in the bank.

For training Alchemy you can stay in Arnika and use the stand-on-the-fire method. Or, if you don't mind making your way to martin's bluff, a faster way is to touch the door button in lower martin's bluff ( the one you open with the t-rang arm ). Using either of these with heal wounds, you should get your Alchemy up to 90.

Now for Psionics, find a chest with a trap and use divine trap to raise your Psionics skill to 90.

After you have the other 3 schools up to 90 or above, its time to focus on getting your Divinity to 60 so you can learn heal all. Once you learn heal all, go to the door button in lower martin's bluff that you open with the t-rang arm. Cast heal all once, now touch the button. Now hold down shift and hit the "m" button. Now touch the button. Repeat untill you run out of mana. Then rest ( it is best to shut the door so monsters don't wander in while your asleep ). Repeat this entire sequence untill Divinity is 90+. - TinyMage