What Makes Them So Different?

The first major point is that they are required to memorize spells instead of simply drawing upon the magical weave and expending stored mana. The second major point is that every elementalist spell requires the caster to contain a certain amount of one or more of the four types of elemental mana within his or her spirit. This in a sense defines the caster's affinity to whichever elements he/she is using at the time. As an elementalist grows in experience and increases ability scores, both the number of memorized spells, and the amount of elemental mana he or she can contain will increase.

What Do You Mean, Elemental Mana?

Certain races have affinities to various types of elemental mana, a sea-elf, for instance, are extremely aquatic, and therefore an elementalist sea-elf will always retain one extra water mana. This can be very useful and open up more casting options sooner, but can also be a hindrance, so choose your race carefully, and be aware of any extra elemental mana you may receive from it.

Now elemental spells are generally easier to use than other types of magic, and therefore most of them can be practiced up to 100% initially, especially the low level ones. BEFORE you practice any spells, it is good to know which type of elemental mana is required to use which spells. You can sometimes get a good idea of what each spell is intended for by reading the help file but the mana command will show exactly what types of mana are required for each spell, which is good when the name is slightly ambiguous or more than one type is involved. Some spells require you to NOT have more than a certain amount of an opposite type of mana, for instance flame-whip, a high level fire spell, will fail if you contain too much water mana while trying to use it. The lower level spells are generally less restrictive than the upper level ones.

As far as spell power is concerned, there are pretty useful offensive spells available in each elemental school at the lower levels. The key to surviving is not so much which spells you practice, but is more a question of whether you are capable of obtaining the correct mana to cast the spell(s) you do choose. This is done by using the mana-gathering skills fuegan(fire), sublimate(air), liquidium(water), and root (earth). It is advisable to get these skills practiced at the same time the first spell from each school is practiced. Again the initial practicing of these skills will adept it to 100% for elementalists, which will greatly speed up the process of gaining experience and ultimately continuing with game play. If you are unable to determine which mana type a given spell uses, you can always practice it first, then use the mana command to figure out what gathering skill you should practice to compliment it.

Strategy and Direction

At the lower levels its basically a good idea to rememorize the same spells after each fight. It is also useful to know how many batches of spells it will take to win a given fight, and look for a means to escape from your prey for a minute or two to rememorize or change spell lists. There are several spells at your disposa l to help make this easier, but I won't go into detail on them here. If worst comes to worst, after you achieve level 5, if you can gain enough favor with your deity, you can supplicate for power during a fight to instantly restore your last spell list. This should only be used in an emergency however, because it can sometimes be extremely tedious to try to replace spent favor.

Summoning Elementals!

Once you get up around level 25 or so, elementalists gain the ability to summon various types of elementals to aid them in battle. These creatures are similar to the ones found in AD&D monster manuals, and each can be used for different purposes. Each elemental type's abilities resemble that of magic from that given element type pretty closely. This means earth elementals are big and defensive, whereas fire elementals are smaller but hit more often and harder usually. When using these large assistants in battle, it may or may not be advisable to bring them into your group. They will end up lowering the overall experience gotten for the group if you do group them, but if you do not, then they may occasionally land the deathblow and steal ALL the experience from a given kill. So, unfortunately, there is no perfect solution to that question and it remains up to each player to use whichever method seems to work best for him or her.

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