Guide For Student Wizards

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This is a living guide, if there are any mistakes or updates or new information you want to add, please feel free to!

Starting Out

Newbie Gear

Skills & Training

Spells

  • Check out which spells you want: Spells/Wizard and where to find them: Spellbooks
  • Wizard spells have nicknames that the wizard and general player community uses, check them out here: Wizard spell nicknames
  • Theres a limit to how many spells can be remembered in your mindspace, you will have to forget spells if you find that you can't remember new ones
  • Note that spells need to pass each stage which goes through a skillcheck for each skill that the spell needs.
  • You can use the spellcheck command or check out the specific spell's page on the wiki, there will usually be a coloured Spellcheck table showing the chances of success for each skill needed in each stage of the spell.
  • If you suddenly receive a lot of damage from like another spell or a special attack or just a normal attack, it can disrupt the casting of your spell.

For common spell components

Components chapter in Elanor's Guide to the Disc is also a good but bit outdated resource

  • For Memories of a Vicious Chicken:
    • You can buy a pet chicken and pluck feathers from the chicken.
    • You can usually find chickens to kill wandering Lancre Town or in Ephebe or chickens at the Muckloe Farm in the Ramtops or at the farm in Dinky, although those chickens in Dinky will be needed for a quest.
    • If you can, you can also kill wizard npcs as they usually carry chicken feathers in their satchels, this is however not recommended as wizard npcs can be dangerous to kill and also the wizards in Ankh-Morpork might explode when they die and the wizards in other locations tend to run when dying so you have to pursue them.
  • For KOF:
  • For TPA:
    • Look at the ash page
    • You can usually get ashes by sweeping ashes from a local smithy.
    • You will also need a broom for sweeping, I recommend getting a push broom (https://quow.co.uk/cow.php?t=Items&s=push+broom) which can be easily bought or an small ornamental broom if you can find one.
    • Make sure you type take handful of ash when casting TPAs so you don't end up using up all your ash in one go.
    • Some more complicated or more dangerous way to get ashes and not recommended unless you have to:
      • You can also scoop ashes at midnight at the Phoenix statue in DJB,
      • gather vampire ash in Escrow
      • You can also use a shovel to gather ash at the campfire near Hillshire or at the Bandit Camp
    • Some stoves can make ash from burning wood and paper can be burned into ash
  • For lightable torches:
  • For PFG:
    • You can collect eyes from dead bodies by holding a knife (stilettos don't work) and typing get eyes from bodies
    • You can pickle the eyes for later so the eyes don't decay using a small stick summoned using Collatrap's Instant Pickling Stick
  • For CCC:
    • Check out the Ball of congealed sap page for instructions on how to obtain the sap for free. In short you can:
      • squeeze from trees in Bes Pelargic (Azure Promenade, Green Street)
      • lance tree with knife in Ephebe on cedar trees
    • Otherwise can be bought from Institute of Illusory Learning component shop, AoA component shop, or up to 20 from Tarnach's at the Magic Emporium in AM
    • Usually player shops will also sell CCC components together so you can check out those but it will be more pricey.
  • For beeswax candles:
  • For sulfur blocks:
    • Sulfur blocks can be made from sulfur powder
    • You can mine for sulfur powder in the Copperhead mines using a pickaxe but this can be dangerous so recommended for more mature players
    • The blocks can be made using the sugar press in Millie Hopgood's cottage in Slice (west side of town), the steps are:
      • put 10 handfuls of powder in press
      • push lever on press
      • get all from press
    • 10 handfuls of sulfur powder makes 8 blocks

Tips & Tricks for Spells

  • MWLC:
  • Blorples:
    • Jewellery used as blorples can degrade as you use it for JPCTs, if they are damaged beyond repair they can disappear after you cast JPCT
      • Although it has been noted that jewellery can even disappear if its in excellent condition but this is rare
    • You can fix the jewellery at certain smithies shown on the Smithy page.
    • Make sure to advance some skills in Crafts.smithing for fixing jewellery
    • You can ask on the igame or one talker channels if someone can teach you the fix command.
    • You can also buy blorples at some player shops if you have some money and don't want to go around blorpling.
    • If you starting to find you are carrying lots of blorples and taking up space in your main container/bag, you can have a specific container or smaller satchel you put in your main bag to hold the blorps to make it easier to find and sort them, you can identify this as blorp_pouch like so:identify satchel as blorp_pouch
  • JPCT:
    • Misports (where you don't get teleported to where you want) and burning or rumbling doors are normal when using JPCTs.
    • Before you open the door, type look portal to check if its not burning, you might also want to wait a bit to see if the door rumbles or wobbles on its own.
    • Then type open portal and look enter portal before you enter the door to see if it is the location you want, sometimes you might misport to a dangerous area so this is always a good practice.
    • If you are using aliases to create portals to a destination, you could set a category like so: alias set category <portal alias> portal so that you can find all your portal-related aliases in one place by typing alias category portal if you do not remember them
  • PFG and other area attack spells:
    • PFGs won't affect lights summoned using MWLC, other group mates and pets
    • Certain NPCs run away from spells like Pragi's Fiery Gaze before the spell is done casting so be careful, you can invest in skills for Myrandil's Vicious Seizure so you can hold them down.
    • A method for wizards to kill large amounts of enemies is to attack certain NPCs who pursue you and don't run away from PFGs or similar spells and then gather them into one room and then cast an area attack spell like PFG. This is only recommended to try when you are confident that you can cast PFGs without failure and also can deal enough damage using PFGs. Also this is best done in a group where you are leading the group and other group members assist you.
    • PFGs and other area attacks don't tend to do as much damage earlier on and its quite common to fail before you have meet all the skill requirements so it's recommended to rely on melee or KOF when you're young.
    • Be careful using PFGs in areas where you are lower level than the NPCs as you can quickly get overwhelmed
    • Make sure you avoid using it in Djelibeybi where you might end up killing a cat or priest(ess).
    • Try to shield up with TPAs, EFFs and also CCC when possible while casting.
  • TPA and other magical protection spells:
    • You can type shields to see if you are protected by TPAs, EFFs and CCCs etc.
    • Typing group shields or group status will show similar results for you and your groupmates if you are in a group.
    • If your TPA is flickering yellow, it means it is about to break if it is hit again, be prepared to run 2 rooms somewhere else and then TPA yourself again if possible
    • Sometimes TPAs break on their own without any combat so watch out!
  • EFF:
    • Note that EFF swooping down to block consumes your AP and thus if you are facing multiple enemies, you will find that you won't even be able to do melee attacks because your action points is all consumed up.
    • Spells however can be cast no matter the loss in action points, however casting spells will also lose action points.
    • Special attacks can knock down your EFF shield, have an alias prepared for these scenarios like alias ts take shield and then run 2 rooms away and then cast EFF again as some NPCs will pursue
    • You can enchant your EFF shield to add some durability and make sure to fix your shield if it is getting too damaged
  • KOF:
    • Certain NPCs also run away from KOF before it is done casting, especially some NPCs in Bes Pelargic
    • KOF can be cast on multiple targets, you can do this by typing cast Kamikaze Oryctolagus Flammula on target_1,target_2, note that it costs 100 extra GP per another target
  • NES:
    • Certain NPCs also run away from NES before it is done casting such as some NPCs in Djelibeybi

Making some money

As a member of the wizard's guild, you might find yourself needing more and more money to buy components, advance skills and buy other useful items.

Here are several ways a wizard can earn money in the beginning:

  • Collecting sacks and killing rats for tails in the Pepper Pot:
    • It is quite easy to earn several dollars just collecting sacks in the maze
    • You should have a knife on you if you want to collect and sell rat tails
    • It is recommended to read up on Pepper Pot before entering
  • Doing Missions and Jobs:
    • Places like the AM Job Market, doing Takeaway jobs and certain restaurants like the McSweeney Restaurants offer delivery jobs, restaurant jobs and other missions which can be quite profitable
    • Able to use JPCT and blorps are recommended to do this as you would be likely travelling around a lot
    • There might be other skill requirements for the more complicated jobs
  • Killing and Looting:
    • You can travel to newbie areas like Ohulan Cutash which have plenty of NPCs to kill and loot
    • Items can then be fenced or sold in general stores
    • You should advance a melee skill and a defence skill and have learnt to use TPA.
    • Considering the NPCs there should also generally show that most NPCs there are weaker before you start killing.
  • Picking up trash:
    • Sto Lat is a good area to pick up clothes, money and loot left on the ground from NPC vagrants/wizards killing off other NPCs
    • You can sell to the general store or fence to Ragman
    • This is a way to earn some quick cash but sometimes the area might have already been picked clean
    • Bleak Prospect, etc. are also similar areas but much more dangerous and not recommended.
  • Creating or gathering components to sell:
    • You can always gather or make components (pickled eyes/carrots, Pfga amulets, lightable torches, beeswax candles, etc) and sell these to Tarnach's in Sator Square.
    • Ring the bell at Tarnach's and someone might get around to helping you sell those items
    • Ability to use JPCT and blorps are recommended to do this as you would be likely travelling around a lot
  • Selling your scrolls to a player shop:
    • If your magic.items.scroll skill reaches level 51, you can buy tiny or small packets from a shop in the Plaza of Broken Moons, as well as a few chapbooks and a quill, pen, or pencil.
    • There's a free pen in the wastebasket at the Academy of Artificers secretary office. There is a free ink vial that can be found in the same room on the table for the pen
    • You can look up who owns a player shop from the wiki link and offer your services if the owner is a non-wizard or does not have the time to scribe scrolls.
    • Some pay better than others, some let you set your own price and sell the scroll packets for a 10% or other random markup, and some have fixed pricing for how much you can sell your 4-pack of scrolls for.
    • On average, you should be making roughly $10 AM per 4-pack packet, at least for JPCT. It is recommended to sell JCPT scrolls.
    • The rates are lower for other spells like CCC, EHA, FFM, FNP, GFR, TPA, and not all player shops carry these.
  • Doing Puzzles for the AM Daily
    • Usually royals (equivalent to 100 AM dollars) are given out as prizes for participating and winning puzzles/games for the AM daily which come out each month
    • You should send a mudmail to Jeanie if you have an answer to win a prize
  • Check out Making money for more ideas

Aliases

Choosing an Order

Review Wizards' Guild#Orders before reading this section

When it comes to the time to choose an order, here is a brief overview of the orders, the hedge orders are similar:

  • Lodgers are a good generalist order, very popular specifically because of its very good and diverse primaries.
  • Unbroken Circle focuses upon elemental skills first and foremost and is favoured strongly by people who want to focus on offensive casting, especially spells like Pragi's Fiery Gaze or Nargl'frob's Empyrean Spear (lightning bolt!).
  • Hoodwinkers focuses upon illusions and trickery, but has a good generalist bent to it, especially having a good spread for some niche but useful spells. They're the best at Eha.
  • Silver Star is for if you really like crafts, but they suffer at everything else because they get barely any methods.
  • Seers is great if you are interested in scrying and also have some useful general primaries for spells as well.
  • Shadow focuses on demonology and is the order to go for if you want to cast Doctor Kelleflump's Deadly Demon.
  • Midnight are necromancers, can speedrun to Grg if you care for having your own skeleton minion.
  • Last Order may as well be a second Lodgers but with methods focusing more on reaching offensive spells.

Usually when it comes down to choosing an order, it is more about your play-style (roleplaying or fighting style, etc.) and also which spells you want to be able to master early on as the primaries each order offers will make it easy to master certain spells.

Your Order's Senior Wizard will usually welcome you into the order when you join, if you have any questions or need further help with the Order, you can ask your Senior Wizard.

Once you join your order, there is usually a club made for the Order that you can join and there may be a newbie chest in the room of your order.

Wizard Ranks

Once you are able to choose an order, you will see that you have become a First Level Wizard (usually). There are eight levels altogether.

From the First Level to the Fourth Level, you will be given a rank dependant on the mastery of your primaries.

From the Fifth Level to the Eighth Level, these ranks are dependant on the size of your order and usually if someone who is ranked above you dies, you will move up in level.

If you are inactive or do not play for a while, your rank usually drops from between Fifth to Eighth to the Fourth Level or a level that more reflects your primaries.

The Senior Wizard is an elected position and does not abide by these ranks.

Rearranging

It is recommended that wizards take their time before rearranging and try out spells and different playstyles (melee-focused, casting or more casual) before trying to rearrange. Usually the basic stats (all 13) are good enough for quite some time.

On Stats

More traditional wizards usually go for a lot of Intelligence at the expense of stats like Wisdom. The upper limits for Intelligence appears to be around 23.

Hp can be a potential life-saver for wizards, tweaking your Constitution and maybe your Strength as well in http://www.bonuses.irreducible.org/hp.php is recommended.

Guild points and their regeneration rates will be helpful for wizards focused on casting spells, this would also mean Both Wisdom and Intelligence should be prioritized with Strength to a lesser degree. Wizards should also play around with this tool: http://www.bonuses.irreducible.org/regen.php

Burden can also be an issue with wizards carrying lots of components, testing with the burden calculator: http://www.bonuses.irreducible.org/burden.php is recommended.

To go beyond these stats for certain spells, wizards should also look towards items such as the bronze helm. This gives the wearer a combination of +3 intelligence, +2 wisdom and -3 constitution while it is worn. Along similar lines is the flat cap, which provides +3 wisdom, +2 intelligence and -3 strength while worn. Both of these items however cannot be worn indefinitely, and will begin to hurt the wearer after a short period, leading to death eventually. Both these items can be purchased from the t-shop. Usually wizards have an alias for taking out these items, wearing them, casting the spell and then taking them off again.

The bonus computer is a great tool to help plan stats and bonuses: http://bonuses.irreducible.org/bonus.php

Below are some practical examples with explanations provided copied from https://artificersanonomyous.webs.com/rearrange.htm which is a more in-depth read on rearranging.

Rearrange Examples

Poncho
Con 8, Dex 8, Int 21, Str 8, Wis 20
Q. What would you say is the primary reason for your chosen rearrange?
A. Mine is an unusual rearrange for most everybody. Mostly it emphasis magic, most importantly ma.po and the ma.sp.* tree, as well as giving me amazing mindspace and things like perception. However I really wanted to be a teacher and thanks to this rearrange that makes it easier to do.

Thoughts
Con 13, Dex 9, Int 20, Str 14, Wis 9
Q. What would you say is the primary reason for your chosen rearrange?
A. I like the concept of being a wizard that actually plays like a wizard. As opposed to a wizard which is basically a warrior with portal...
Q. So what is it about your rearrange that you feel makes it 'Wizardy'
A. Well it fits my Order near perfectly. Provides good over-all stability for nearly all spells, and excels in the areas such as Elementals, whilst providing quite nice bonuses in Offensive and Defensive.

Badgerhair
Con 8, Dex 13, Int 21, Str 12, Wis 11
Q. What is the primary reason for that chosen rearrange?
A. It's a heavy magic rearrange. Huge Int gives good bonuses in all the magic disciplines. I'm reducing con because I can replace ot.he with xp, and I tm elementals nicely - I've already tm'd fire past 300 twice. Getting the dex up will help with the crafts and stealing I like doing as well as magic.
A. I ought to add that my stats have evolved over time. I could not have sustained this rearrange as a younger wizard, but increasing powers mean that I have strategies (and very high levels in certain skills) which compensate for the highly unbalanced stats I now have.
Q. Do you recall your original rearrange?
A. C13 D11 I20 S11 W10, I think.
A. So what I've done is gradually reduce con and redistribute it over the rest. And in the process given up all hope of ever casting JHSD. It's the torches, you know ;)

Tay
Con 8, Dex 12, Int 18, Str 15, Wis 12
Q. What would you say is the primary reason for your chosen rearrange?
A. Because it worked decently for stealing, as well as giving me a nice boost in EHA (Effermhor's Hypersonic Assault) and TIG (Torqvald's Illusion Generatrix)
A. Also, it gave me a fairly decent sword bonus.
Q. So Illusions were something that grabbed your interested from the start then?
A. I was an assassin. Then I learned about TIG, and refreshed.

Ptorquemada
Con 12, Dex 12, Int 17, Str 14, Wis 10
Q. What would you say is the primary reason for your chosen rearrange?
A. Really, it came from disgust with how weak NES (Nargl'frob's Empyrean Spear) seemed to be, and realizing that a rearrange for JHSD (Journey of the Heavenly Storm Dragon) was just stupid. Stupid for someone at my level who wasn't a circle, I mean. Once I arrived at that conclusion, gimping wis was a pretty easy decision to make. Str went up for good Offensive, and because I tend to carry a lot of stuff.
Q. So your chosen rearrange was based purely on a factor of offensive capabilities then?
A. Offense was the biggest factor. And I do like being able to carry a lot and stay in the 20-30 burden range.
Q. Do you use melee as well?
A. Not very much. If I pragi someone to very bad, I might use the stilettos to finish up with.

Paradine
Con 13, Dex 14, Int 16, Str 10, Wis 12
Q. What would you say is the primary reason for your chosen rearrange?
A. I was intending to maximize my bonus in magic, specifically in the most used skills (at higher levels, nobody cares what you need for FTF etc.)

Saaur
Con 8, Dex 14, Int 19, Str 14, Wis 10
Q. What would you say is the primary reason for your chosen rearrange?
A. I have high str and dex to carry heavier loads. I have a ‘ok’ wisdom so that I can cast dkdd (Doctor Kelleflump's Deadly Demon). Con I keep low because I can subsidise the skills that use it with xp e.g. elementals and HP. Obviously Str and Dex affect other things like how much you can hold, carry etc that xp can't solve. I wouldn’t go over 19 int seeing as since the change it wont give the same benefit that it used to.

Alatar
Con 18, Dex 9, Int 20, Str 8, Wis 10
Q. What would you say is the primary reason for your chosen rearrange?
A. The sole reason for my rearrange is to cast JHSD

Comments: Alatar's high int/con gave him brilliant elementals bonuses at low levels, which mean he can gain a high mastery of them. Meanwhile the con/int/wis all go into brilliant ma.sp.de. His ma.sp.of bonus is really terrible however, taking a hit to max damage. However I'm inclined to think he's less likely to kill himself with a backfire at that stage which is an upside, as well as the fact that he only has the one skill to pump xp into (ma.sp.of) to 'fix' the bonus.

Horror
Str 20, Int 19, Wis 10, Con 8, Dex 8
Q. What would you say is the primary reason for your chosen rearrange?
A: I wanted high ma.sp.of, to be able to wear armour, and carry a crap load of components.

Mayian (PK)
Con 11, Dex 13, Int 16, Str 17, Wis 8
Q. What would you say is the primary reason for your chosen rearrange?
A. Id say I try to have a balance between my magic skills, and fighting. With my 16 Int I have decent enough bonus's in the spells that I cast, and the rest of my rearrange is geared towards not-great but workable fighting bonuses.

Cripsi (PK)
Con 10, Dex 12, Int 15, Str 13, Wis 15
Q. What would you say is the primary reason for your chosen rearrange?
A. good methods, good tactics/perception, with strength gauntlets i can hold a fair amount of components, and I don't have the best melee in the world but it's enough to get 300 bonuses in melee+defense without needing 600 levels for the 300 bonus.
Q. And how does that end out working for you in the wide world of PK?
A. It worked alright at a surviving level, but as magic is sometimes to slow to fight more experienced PK's it's not the greatest rearrange in the world. i imagine it would be a lot better with more skills, but relying on just one skill tree in PK isn't a good thing, combat is needed to for a wizard (as we don't get faith).

Kripsi (PK)
Con 8, Dex 20, Int 14, Str 15, Wis 8
Q. What would you say is the primary reason for your chosen rearrange?
A. After almost 50 days with Cripsi's rearrange, I could see that relying heavily on magic wasn't working. This rearrange is for combat, so i become a warrior that can remember spells. This is mostly because with magic, i found it gets to good at 300-400 bonuses, in 5 or 6 skills per spell. it doesn't get amazing until 500-600 bonuses, which is a lot more expensive than doing sword/dodge to 500/600 bonuses. so i guess the main reason is that I'll be completely able to fight in PK, and on top of that I'll have magic in my head so no scrolls blowing up on me and more spells than the average PK can really carry around.

Next Steps

  • You can group with other players to kill NPCs as described in Numberchasing, however it is recommended that you have a >= 200 bonus in magic.spells.defensive for casting TPAs and around 2000 hp and can use JPCTs and CCCs. Make sure you have enough ash for casting TPAs on you and your groupmates.
  • Join the Club/Faculty club once you reach 10 days of age, there are also usually clubs for the order in which you have decided to join
  • Contribute back to the wiki or this guide if you find discrepancies or other things that will be useful! See: Special:UserLogin to register
 
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