Mage characters don't reach good enough levels

I never had issues with mages in DS1 reaching levels at the same speed or levels equal to my rangers or melee characters. One of the reasons you might have trouble with mages when working with rangers is that rangers tend to have a greater sight line (can see monsters sooner than mages) and bows tend to out range spells. So often the monsters and bad guys are dead prior to the mages using their spell. Suggest when you hire a new mage switch your ranged characters to magic spells and make the new hire leader of the party. That should help increase their level because they will be the first to engage and use their spells first. You could also use a mod like Kane's Rings and give the rings only to mages so they will increase levels faster than the rangers and fighters.

I have to try the Legendary Mod Pack, so I'll try this for this party. Many thanks.
It's a fact that my mage characters are at the rear of the group, and other characters hit ennemies before them.
I recently read that heal spells don't allow to gain XP level which don't help.

The Legendary Mod pack is for DS2(and BW) where xp are distributed evenly.

for DS1 I suggest also using Revived for DS1 with Kanes xprings and wschesthack as revived has some great spells with longer ranges

Hi sigof.
I started a new party of Dungeon Siege I with the Legendary Mod Pack in order to test it and also make comments and feedback.
I stopped my previous party at the Castle of Ehb, with the Steam version.
I reinstalled the Microsoft one and restarted from the beginning with the Dungeon Siege II mod.
But many thanks for this advice, I'll remember it if I restart a party in a legacy version like the Microsoft or the Steam one. :thumbup1:

I think the bigger parties tend to "hog" the xp. I keep all my DS LoA parties pretty small such as a max of 4 people and I think that spreads the xp better. Not everyone can have as big of a slice of cake, so to speak (mmm cake....)

Your difficulty settings also play a role in xp gain. Sometimes I just have one party member doing the work and the others strictly playing a support role by equipping them with healing hands spell. The DS Revived mod gives healing spells a bit more experience gain, so they don't lose out too much. That works for me because I like hybrid characters.

Try tinkering around and see what works for you.

There are some spells that are useless if you don't specialize in magic, like with a single character run. I keep my skills as even as I can, so a few spells, like Turncoat, can't even be cast. Strangely, Ranged and Melee seem to scale fine with levels, but that could be due to keeping buffs on.

You're right kathycf, my last party was bigger than the former ones.
Four melee fighters, two ranged archers, a nature mage and a combat mage.
I thought the game shared more XP with a larger party, being adaptative, but sadly it's not the case.
I noticed that my fighters had lower XP levels than my former ones, and that prevented me from using some armors or weapons.
Before, I used to have three melee fighters, two archers and a nature mage. And only my nature mage didn't reach good enough level.
Concerning DSLOA, it's always worst, I have to recruit all NPC characters I encounter to replace my archers and mages, because mine are pretty much lower.
I think I'll do like you, reduce the size of my next party, and particularly in DSLOA.
Thanks for these advices.
PS. I'll keep an eye on the DS Revived Mode.

Araknuum, I specialize my mages, but I don't use some spells because even they are powerful, they drain mana so quickly.
I use mainly heal spells and offensive spells like zap, lightning... fireshot, fireskull...
Some spells have a short range so I avoid them, to preserve my mages.

Specializing works with a party of more than one, allowing all spells of the mages type to be cast "on curve". What's interesting, is with a single character party, the best damage spells work fine, though still way behind weapon damage. I keep a spellbook of Area Of Effect, Status Effect (the ones I can cast/scale well enough to matter), Single Target with guaranteed hit, (zap, acid gas) Single Target with high damage (Soul Lance), Explosive Powder for Mob Fishing, a Summon, a Transform, a Heal, and Transmute All. I keep a second spell book with all of my long term buffs, and another book for stuff I'm not using but might or can't yet.

I will say, many of the spells we all avoid because mages are squishy can be very effective with a jack-of-all-classes character. Like, why is charged fist a cast-on-self spell? When am I gonna think my mage would do better with more melee damage? Offensive spells that hit hard or hit multiple targets like Flame and such have their uses, and running out of Mana just means switch to a weapon. My character doesn't rely on damage spells very much, they're used more for leveling, when I can get away with them for fun, or in the case of hard to hit mobs, those spells that never miss. Also Glyphs and Damage Over Time Area of Effect spells are great crowd control tools.

All of this only applies to running the game solo, which I appologize for over-stating, there just isn't much difficulty to the balance of DS and LOA after a larger number of characters are vying for XP. Hyperborea even, a very difficult game on Hard, becomes much easier when your party size finally starts going beyond 2. So, for Vanilla DS, a major criticism it commonly receives is that so much of the content GPG created goes unused, because the game never demands the sacrifice they represent, or because experience and leveling become stunted when having to share. This may balance out, sort of, by advancing larger parties slower, somewhat limiting the advantage of having another body on the field, but not by quite enough to matter in most cases.

Since it gives you some money AND experience based on the value of the item transmuted this can help level Nature Mages

oh man, HA! There is a noticeable difference in how nature magic has leveled since I started using Transmute All, I just didn't make the connection... Appreciate it.

The duration is cumulative and each casting gives experience. Try 10 or more casting of Shock Armor on everyone and Charged Fist on Melee AND RANGED( for some reason while charged fist adds no damage to ranged it splits the experience with Nature, looks around a 90/10 split)

That one I knew, I keep buffs on. I'm playing Utrae with FastBuff that extends all durations to 10000 though, so they aren't a great source of xp. Is the info you have on XP gains gleaned from the spell templates? I've tried not to get too curious in that .GAS quite yet, as I'm still building up my knowledge on templates themselves. I guess I'll go digging, as I know there is at least one spell I want to make more playable, and that's Turncoat. Do you get XP from the attacks of Mobs you charm, or just for charming them?

The Charges fist effect of giving some Nature xp was discovered after I had cast a few on my fighter and decided to weaken the Mob a bit and after killing a few Krug my level in Nature Mage went from 4.97 to 5.01 :wacko:

have never used charm, maybe I'll try that

This is Turncoat's Template in Expansion.dsres:

[t:template,n:spell_turncoat]
{
	category_name = "magic";
	doc = "spell Turncoat";
	specializes = base_spell_dark;

	[aspect]
	{
		gold_value = 21;
	}
	[common]
	{
		screen_name = "Turncoat";
	}
	[common]
	{
		description = "Causes nearby melee enemies to attack the selected target";
		[template_triggers]
		{
			[*]
			{
				action* = call_sfx_script( "combat_spell_sparkle" );
				condition* = receive_world_message("we_dropped");
			}
		}
	}
	[gui]
	{
		active_icon = b_gui_ig_i_ic_sp_210;
		inventory_icon = b_gui_ig_i_ic_sp_210_inv;
	}
	[magic]
	{//SEE DS1 HOLD-CREATURE
		required_level = 3;
		max_level = 24;

		cast_experience = (#magic*1.3);
		cast_range = 10;
		cast_reload_delay = 1;
		effect_duration = 2 + 3 * ((#MAGIC - #SPELL_REQ_LEVEL) / (#SPELL_MAX_LEVEL - #SPELL_REQ_LEVEL));	
		is_one_shot = true;
		mana_cost = 0;
		mana_cost_modifier = (#maxlife) * 2.0;	
		mana_cost_ui = 2;
		mana_cost_ui_modifier = (#SRC_MAXMANA + 1);

		apply_enchantments = false;

		requires_line_of_sight = true;
		speed_bias = 1;
		// target conscious enemies
		target_type_flags = tt_conscious_enemy;
		// cannot target yourself or a member of you party
		target_type_flags_not =	 tt_self | tt_human_party_member;
		usage_context_flags = uc_defensive;
		state_name = "Turncoat";
	}

	[spell_turncoat] 
	{
		caster_script = "turncoat_cast";
		effect_script = "turncoat_effect";
		state_description = "Turned";
		immunity = "immune_control";
	}
}

The note there, "//SEE DS1 HOLD CREATURE" is helpful, because there are differences and change notes in Hold Creature as well:

[t:template,n:spell_hold_creature]
{
	category_name = "magic";
	doc = "spell hold creature";
	specializes = base_spell_good;
	[aspect]
	{
		gold_value = 499;
	}
	[common]
	{
		description = "Roots a single Enemy in place. Mana cost dependent on the power of the Target.";
		screen_name = "Hold Creature";
		[template_triggers]
		{
			[*]
			{
				action* = call_sfx_script( "nature_spell_sparkle" );
				condition* = receive_world_message("we_dropped");
			}
		}
	}
	[gui]
	{
		active_icon = b_gui_ig_i_ic_sp_010;
		inventory_icon = b_gui_ig_i_ic_sp_010_inv;
	}
	[magic]
	{
		cast_experience = (#magic*1.3);
		cast_range = 10;
		cast_reload_delay = 1;
//		effect_duration = 15+(#magic*3);  //Old Duration
		effect_duration = (#magic*1.1)-5;  //New duration 11/19/01
		is_one_shot = true;
		mana_cost = 0;
//		mana_cost_modifier = (#src_maxlife*5);  //Old cost modifier
		mana_cost_modifier = (#maxlife)*2;  //New cost modifier 11/19/01
		mana_cost_ui = 2;
		mana_cost_ui_modifier = (#maxmana*2);
		required_level = 11;
		max_level = 21;
		requires_line_of_sight = true;
		speed_bias = 1;
		target_type_flags = tt_conscious_enemy | tt_unconscious_enemy;
		target_type_flags_not = tt_human_party_member;
		usage_context_flags = uc_aggressive;
	}
	[spell_switch_alignment]
	{
		description = "Hold Creature spell";
		effect_script = hold_creature;
		screen_name = "Held";
		immunity = "immune_align_change";
		freeze = true;
	}
}

It looks like in balancing these spells, they kinda nerfed them out of play. I know they can be used in some cases, but the first time I can't cast a spell that I have the level for, I don't really test it out to see what it does work on. It failed to Status Effect the enemy I needed it to, and that's not playable.

I will be fiddling with these spells for the modding experience, as I already have a modded spl_spell.gas and the expansion Spells are some of the most intriguing.

Experience gain for Mages may have been stunted to balance their swiss army knife Spellbooks and force more teamwork..? hmm...

Mages could potentially outlevel other characters if you tried, and then they'd run the show while the rest support or, y'know... fidgit.

Cast XP is always a % (usually between 10 and 35) of the current magic level.
XP to level table usually reaches the hundreds of thousands by mid-to-late-game.

Gaining 10-20 xp vs the millions needed to level up? Not a good source.

If you want to balance the XP gains, try to even out the damage some more. XP gained by damaging enemies is the best way to level up. For one, don't use the Dark/Zepheryl summons or nm glyphs: they leech XP from you. For two, Iceblast and Multisparks are the best NM ways of damage enemies (until you get icefury), with as many + x-(x+y) to nature magic damage items (staves of survival, liveliness, animation, etc.) as you can get.

Combat Mages can try stacking Firewalls (with a 20% cheaper fire book, or the set book) in mid-to-lategame, or fire rings (don'T remember the cast delay on those two.) Slow Crowd if the energy allows it.

if nothing else works, equip your melee/ranged guys with weaker weapons.