Newbie Guide Casting and Spells

Newbie Guide Casting and Spells

This guide written and published by p(Baca/Endo)

"And you?" she said, turning to Sam. "For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe, though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem to use the same word of the deceits of the Enemy. But this, if you will, is the magic of Galadriel. Did you not say that you wished to see Elf-magic?"

Galadriel, JRRT, The Fellowship of the Ring

This guide is all about casting, spells, and mana. It will also cover a brief description of some lower level spells in the game, that new characters would have access too.

I also want to share a disclaimer:  I do no recommend playing a caster as your first character
in MUME.  A tanky warrior, defense warrior, bash/damage warrior, scout, thief, archer, or 
warrior/scout combo are all much easier to learn the game with.  Please play a caster, but
not when you are first learning the game.  Casters are pretty low powered at lower levels.

Many parts of this guide reference to the MUME help pages which can be found at:

https://mume.org/help/help_index

Bold words can be looked up in the games help files. Like help cast.

Mana

Your mana represents the pool of potential raw magical power your character can bring forth. If you have a larger mana pool (around 120+ mana) you can cast more spells or stronger spells then someone with a smaller mana pool (like around 50 mana).

• Your max mana pool can also be affected by your abilities, mainly Intelligence, Wisdom, and to a lesser extent Willpower.

• Your age also has an effect on your max mana pool. See help age for more information.

• Being drunk can lower your mana pool... until you sober up.

• Some serious wounds to the head can lower your mental abilities, like Intelligence, and will also lower your mana pool.

• A few rare items in the game can provide bonus mana. Items that give the bonus as long as you hold or wear them.

• Some items give small boosts to mana are potions or herblores that are temporary.

Several of these items reduce your mana pool for a small amount of time after you use them.

Several playable races in the game have no mana. Trolls, Beornings metamorphed as Bears, and Zaugurz Orcs, have no mana pool at all.

Mana Use

As you use up your mana, you will notice a prompt that gives you a hint of your mana condition. From full mana to no mana here are the descriptors and a rough percentage of mana you have left:

Full mana (no prompt message), Burning, Hot, Warm, Cold, Icy, or Frozen

0% or negative mana: Frozen
1 - 10%: Icy
11 - 25%: Cold
26 - 45%: Warm
46 - 70%: Hot
71 - 99%: Burning
100%:  Full mana no prompt message

Generally as a caster, it is a good idea to make sure your mana stays at 'burning'. That means you are very often using your mana. If your mana is always icy, you are using it up to the point where you can't cast. Or if your mana is always full, that means you aren't using it at all. Burning mana means you've always got some to use, and you've been using it.

Mana Regen

This is how your mana fills back to full. Mana regen is affect by many factors.

• If you are thirsty or hungry your mana regen will be greatly reduced.

• If you are resting or sleeping your mana will regen faster.

• Resting or sleeping next to campfire, fireplace, or in a bed can help you regen even faster. It will say -comfortable under Affected By.

Careful not to get the flu while sleeping in the cold!! Try a campfire or wear a scarf, blanket, wool gloves, or other warm gear. If you are resting or sleeping on a bed, bench, or other nice spot you can be comfortable and regen slightly faster. If you are resting or sleeping next to a fireplace or campfire you regen slightly faster.

• Some diseases in the game can lower your mana regen slightly.

• Wounds to your head can slightly reduce your mana regen by lowering your mental abilities.

• Some poisons, like psylonia, will reduce your mana regen greatly.

• Your mana regen is affected by what age your character is.

Generally younger characters regen mana more slowly then older characters. See help age for more information.

• Some races regen mana better then other races.

• Your abilities can affect mana regen. Over all having a higher Willpower will help.

• Some magical items in the game can help with mana regen, like embedding certain gems in a legend staff or wearing some magical jewelry.

• Being drunk on alcohol can reduce mana and mana regen.

• Infusion, potions, flasks, and herblores can give a small boost to mana regen, but some later come with a small penalty to mana regen.

• If you make a casserole dish using a magic mushroom as an ingredient, you can make a stew that recovers a very small amount of mana.

Smoking Pipeweed

• Sometimes smoking pipeweed can help recover mana. You must have a pipe with pipeweed in it.

Hold pipe, REST FIRST, then smoke pipe. You might recover some mana and get a small bonus to mana regen for a couple of minutes.

rem shield, get pipe pack, put weed pipe, hold pipe, rest, smoke pipe, rem pipe, stand, wear shield

Infusion:

The most common "potion" in MUME. It loads in several areas near and in the Shire. It will cure the flu if you drink it and also removes ALL potion and herblore effects on you. So if you have an herblore up you want to keep, do not drink this potion.

• It also provides a small and short boost to mana and mana regen. It's nice for like one extra cure light spell.

The infusion will decay after like 24 minutes to 45 minutes or so.

Mana Damage

Very few things it the game can actually do mana damage to you. There is a gem you can embed in a legend staff that can do mana damage. The orc shaman spell black breath can do mana damage. And the scary poison, psylonia (mostly from fungus mobs) can do mana damage.

Mana damage might also come from smoking pipeweed (randomly can do small mana damage) or backfiring a spell when casting it.

How to Learn Spells

You must have pracs to spend, and visit a casting guild: cleric or mage. Type prac to see what spells you can practice at your level. When you type prac in the guild, you will see the difficulty of practicing the spell. If it says 'very easy' or 'easy' it does not take very many pracs to make it castable. If it says 'hard' or 'very hard' it takes way more practices spent to make it castable.

If a spell is higher level then you are, you will NOT see it on your list of spells to practice. As you level up, you will see more and more spells show up on the practice list.

If you type practice outside of a guild, you will get a list of all the spells (and other skills) you know. You will also see how much mana they cost to cast. The default is for normal spell casting effort (you'll see more down the page). You will also see the spell casting speed. As you level up the amount of mana spells cost will go down slightly and the spells will get slightly faster.

Also some casting guilds in the game are very limited, or somewhat limited, on what spells they even offer to teach. You might be the right level, but you cannot even see that spell at that guild because they do not teach it. You need to travel far and wide to find a guild that teaches the spell you want. Or a similar problem the guild you are checking out only offers that spell to 1-3 pracs, which is often not enough.

There are 2 special spells, which are really more like a ritual, that anyone can perform if they meet the requirements:

• Create focus - allows higher levels free peoples to make powerful magical item called a focus
• Corrupt - allows Sauron's minions to twist and corrupt magical items for use by evil

Casting Is Not Just for Casters

There are some players that do not want their character to learn any spells for very viable role-play reasons. But, a majority of playable characters have mana, you might as well use it. There are a few spells that are popular even among warriors for example. Some players make combo characters that can cast somewhat decently, while being able to try and perform other tasks as well. Some characters only learn 1 or 2 spells with good utility for them. A little bit of magic can go a long ways.

Here is a quick list of some spells that even many non-casters learn, because, well, magic is useful and handy. These spells tend to be lower level, so you backfire less when using them and they do not take many pracs to make them playable or usable. Some of these useful spells for non-casters can be mimicked by some magical items or herblores in the game.

cure light - fast hit points even for scouts and warriors, can reduce some regen time
cure blindness - even some PKing warriors learn this
create food/water - eat and drink anywhere for anyone, and carry around less weight
bless - most common buff spell in the game
remove poison - helps remove one of the most common debuff conditions in the game
detect magic - seeing magic auras and magic items
shroud - walk past annoying aggressive mobs

How to Cast a Spell

The best way to learn to cast a spell is to read several spell help files. Like help bless, help cure light, help burning hands, etc... In many cases you can even copy and past the command you need to type out to cast it. Several spells can be cast on your self as a default, like if you cast cure light, it will automatically target YOU. But you can also cast several of these spells on other characters or even sometimes mobs or items. Many spells require a target to cast them on, and a few spells can be cast on items.

All spells require you to have enough mana to cast them, if you don't you will get a message saying you don't have enough mana flowing through you. Also almost all spells require you to be standing to cast them, but most can be cast while riding as well. Some spells can even be cast while you are in a fight. But be WARNED, your casting speed is greatly increased if you are in combat. You will notice your spells take much longer to cast if engaged with an enemy. Also you spells can be interrupted if you are hit in combat. If you are casting and wish you could stop, just hit enter to cancel the casting attempt.

You can set an alias to cast a spell, for example you can use cw to cast create water. Using the alias command like this:

al cw cast 'create water'

Then you can do this so you can create water on yourself, in a water skin, or on another character.

cw, cw skin, cw <character name>

Spell Help Files

Syntax      : What to type to make the spell work properly.
Accumulative: If the spell is accumulative or not.
Duration    : If the spell has a duration or not.
Position    : In what positions you can cast the spell.
Example     : An example that should work if you just cut/paste it.

Here is an example of the spell help file for cure light

Syntax      : cast 'cure light' <victim>
Type        : Healing
Accumulative: N/A
Duration    : No
Casting     : Normal
Position    : Standing, fighting
Level       : Level 1
Class       : Cleric
Min. Mana   : 10

So the lowest amount of mana cost you can ever get that spell down to is 10. But if you are low level, or a non-caster, or do not have many pracs in it, it can easily cost MORE then 10 mana to cast that spell.

Backfires

When you are lower level OR do not have a spell practiced up to a very high percentage OR it is a hard or very hard spell to learn in the guild, you have a chance of backfiring the spell when you try and cast it. Backfires have varying degrees of severity. A weak backfire mostly just means the spell didn't work and you wasted the mana to cast it. Backfires can become more serious, including doing hit point, mana, and movement point damage. Even backfiring your mana pool down to negative numbers!

There are 4 ways to help avoid backfires:

• You can gain more levels. The higher level you are the lower the chance of a backfire when casting spells.

• You can practice that particular spell more at the guild. Getting a higher percent helps to reduce the chance of a backfire.

• You can change your spell casting effort. Taking longer to cast your spells can reduce the backfire chance (see spell casting effort).

• You can try casting the spell in a "good zone". Zones have alignments and if you are good casting in a good zone, your chance to backfire is lower.

Try out Grey Havens, Lorien, or Rivendell to notice this effect the most.

Many players try to squeeze in just enough pracs so that they only backfire a spell like 5% of the time or less. This works very well over all with out of combat spells, where when you backfire, you can just wait for some more mana to regen. This risky sounding practice does leave you a prac or 2 to spend elsewhere.

Spell Casting Speed

Spell casting speed is listed in your practice list of skills. At lower levels you will cast slower then at higher levels.

Armour            Poor       Hard        Magic User    31  Very short
Detect magic      Bad        Easy        Magic User     5  Very short
Shroud            Poor       Hard        Magic User     6  Short
Bless             Poor       Normal      Cleric         6  Short
Create food       Bad        Normal      Cleric         6  Short
Create water      Bad        Normal      Cleric         6  Very short
Cure light        Poor       Easy        Cleric        10  Very short

Several things can help you increase your spell casting speed:

• You can gain more levels. The higher level you are the faster your casting speed is.

• You can practice that particular spell more at a guild. Getting a higher percent helps reduce casting time.

• Casting OUT OF COMBAT is MUCH FASTER then casting in combat. Try to cast out of combat as much as you can for fast casting.

• A legend focus staff increases casting speed when held.

Minimum Mana

In your practice list of skills, you will also see the mana cost for spells. These mana costs start out HIGH when you are low level, and will drop over time. They can eventually get as low as the amount of mana listed in the help file for that spell or on the help spell list.

The best way to reduce mana cost for spells is to level up or to practice a spell higher.

Legend focus staves and focus helmet can both lower mana costs for spells when worn.

Spell Duration

The only reliable way to learn what your spells durations are is to cast them and time it. It does not show up on any lists or timers in the game. Some spells have shorter durations, while others can last a long time.

The best way to increase your spells durations is to level up or practice a spell higher.

Good examples of short duration is bless and blindness, they only last a few minutes.

Good examples of long duration is detect magic, armour, and protection from evil. They can easily last over 24 minutes.

Many spells have no duration, and happen instantly. Like casting burning hands at a target or cure light at a target.

Also a few spells have a max duration or a cap duration, where you cannot get the spell to last any longer.

Spell Casting Effort

In MUME you can change how much effort you want to put into your spells success. If you want to cast a spell faster you can, but you'll pay with higher mana cost or chance of backfire. The default casting effort for all characters in the game is "normal". That is a balance of mana cost, speed of casting, and chance of success. If you want to increase the speed you can, or increase the chance of less backfires, you can.

You can think of changing your spell casting effort to be VERY SIMILAR to changing your mood from wimpy to aggressive. But most spells are cast at "normal".

You can change spellcasting to change ALL the spells you cast. Or you can type the command in each time you cast the spell. Some players even set aliases to cast a spell at different efforts. Like one alias for normal lightning bolts, and a different alias for quick lightning bolts.

If you change your spell casting effort, it will change the mana cost and the casting times when you type practice. That way you can see how much spells will cost you and how fast they will be if you choose to cast them differently then 'normal'.

So as a lower level caster, you can reduce your backfires by casting careful or thorough. It is very easy to play around with this in game, and you can always change it back after you have tried it out.

The spell effort progresses like this, also please read help cast for more information:

Effort    Effect
quick     - casting time, + mana used, - spell power, + backfire
fast      
normal    minimize mana usage; average casting time, power, backfire
careful
thorough  + casting time, + mana used, + spell power, - backfire

change spellcasting normal, change spellcasting quick, change spellcasting

Low Level Casters

Playing as a low level caster, and trying to cast can lead to alot of frustration. Your spells will cost ALOT of mana. That will improve as you level up or practice spells. The mana cost will go down over time. But as a lower level caster, you will need to deal with high mana casting. Also at lower level, the chance for backfires is MUCH higher then for higher level casters. Just be prepared to backfire alot, and be almost out of mana often.

This is one reason several players of the game do not even really cast spells or practice them much at lower levels. Some instead play as maybe an archer for the first 7 levels, then transition over to a caster, for example. You can always decay some skills to learn more spells later.

Newbie Spells by Guild

Following is a list of spells in each of the casters guilds by increasing level. It will also have the potential minimum mana cost for that spell. Then a short description of what they do.

Please refer to help spell list and help <spell name> for these as well.

Such as help cure light, help bless, help shroud, help detect evil, etc...

Low Level Mage spells:

Level 1

Magic Missile (3) - Low level attack spell, very cheap and very fast to cast. Does about 3-5 damage. It can also interrupt a character or mob trying to cast a spell at you. So not very good for damage, but useful at lower levels vs rabbits and birds.

Ventriloquate (5) - A cute spell based off of Gandalf making Bill, Bert, and Tom talk to each other until the sun came up in The Hobbit. Fun at parties or to play with. Do not put many pracs here.

Level 2

Detect Invisibility (5) - Allows you to see characters with the shroud spell up for a duration of time. All characters eventually see through shroud anyways at higher levels, but you might want it for lower levels and decay it later.

Detect Magic (5) - A very handy spell that lets you see if items are magical, or have been enchanted. You can also detect if spells have recent been cast in they room by seeing an magical aura they leave behind. You can even tell if it was cast by good or evil characters.

Ñoldor elves have a natural sensitivity to magic, and have a natural passive ability like the Detect Magic spell.

There are some rare amulets that can give you the Detect Magic spell as well.

Level 3

Armour (30) - This spell creates a defensive bubble or layer of armour around you. It has 2 functions. It can act as an extra "hit point shield" eatting up some of the hit point damage that should be reducing your hit points. Also can reduce some of the damage you would be taking. A very good defensive spell. Basically ALL casters learn this and even some combo characters.

Chill Touch (5) Low level attack spell, does around 5-10 damage. The other feature is broken, don't practice this.

Level 4

Create Light (5) - This spell "recharges" a light source so you can re-light it and use it again. It can reset a torch, a candle, or fill a lantern with "magical oil" for example. That way you can burn the light source over again. Some casters learn it at lower levels, and decay it later at higher levels.

Locate Magic (20) - An awkward spell to use to see the use of magic in an area around you. Most players use other detection spells instead.

Level 5

Burning Hands (7) - This mid-low level damage spell does around 16-20 damage. It is a fire based spell which means it does a small bit of extra damage vs wood targets (roots, vines, trees, etc). It also is very useful for burning some webs in the game, or melting icy doors. A very common mage spell.

Shroud (5) - This defensive spell prevents low level mobs and players from seeing you. The detect invisibility spell will allow you to see through it. Also mobs and players that are higher level will see through it (for example rattlesnakes see Shroud). When active it provides +10% DB... but only for the first attack or two. The spell drops VERY QUICKLY after you entern combat. If you practice it low it only lasts for one hit, but more pracs or higher level casters might see it last a bit longer in combat before it drops. A very common spell that most casters get, and even some other classes or combos.

The Shadows herblore can cast low level Shroud on you once, when you first drink it.

Level 6

Find the Path (20) - Basically an outdated spell, do not bother practicing it.

Locate (20) - This spell will give you a magical "key word" for teleport and other spells, such as scry, watch room, or maybe portal. By itself, it doesn't really do anything until you use it with those higher level spells.

Level 7

Call Familiar (15) - This useful spell creates a random, weak, low level mob under your control. Examples are maybe a rat, snake, fox, crow, toad, or other creatures. The familiar summoned acts like a charmed animal. It will assist you in a fight, providing parry split. But they make VERY poor tanks. Also some of them have low moves. You can dismiss your familiar at any time with the command 'tell familiar leave', making it the only dismissable spell in the game. You can even look through your familiars eyes and have it move around neighboring rooms as a poor version of a scout. (beware this does NOT work in some rooms of the game, or some no-port rooms). A very fun low level spell to play around with.

Night Vision (25) - This duration spell allows you to see mobs in dark rooms while it is active. You can also see in light fog, and even defend yourself in heavy fog. You can't see everything in the dark, just mobs or being attacked. It is not as good as the dark vision provided by orcs or trolls.

Having the awareness skill practiced to 95% gives you the night vision effect.

Drinking the Seeing herblore will also give you Night Vision.

Shocking Grasp (9) - This mid-low level damage spell does around 20-30 damage. It is a lightning based spell.

Low Level Cleric Spells:

Level 1

Cure Light (10) - Low level cure spell, recovers around 7-12 hit points, depending on how good of a caster you are.

Detect Evil (5) - A duration spell that lets you see if characters or mobs are evil. They will glow with a (red aura). It does not tell you HOW evil they are, so anything from slightly evil to max evil will glow the same way. Can be helpful at lower levels trying to figure out how to get your alignment up or keep it up. Or what mobs might be ok to attack or not.

Dúnedain men have a natural sensitivity to evil, and have a natural passive ability like the Detect Evil spell.

Level 2

Create Water (5) - This spell makes a volume of water, that increases as you gain levels or practice it more. You can cast it directly on a character to give them a "drink", or cast it on say a water skin to fill it up. Very handy spell. Some characters us it to avoid the 4-5 lbs of water skin to carry around as well.

Detect Poison (5) - This spell lets you know if something is poisoned or poisonous. Honestly don't bother. Just gain a few more levels and get remove poison instead.

Level 3

Create Food (5) - This spell makes a magic mushroom that's food. You can feed yourself or anyone in you group. Saves the weight of carrying around food too. The mushrooms get more filling as you level up or get more pracs.

The herblore version of this spell is the Baker herblore from the Shire's lonely giant quest.

Smother (5) - Low level attack spell. It does not affect targets that do not breath. So it won't work on most undead or plants. It does around 8-12 damage and has a chance to give the target a debuff of -2% OB and -2% DB if it fails the save.

Level 4

Cure Blindness (5) - This spell removes the -blindness flag on yourself or another character.

Protection from Evil (20) - This defensive spell lasts for a duration of time. During that time evil mobs trying to attack you swing slower for their first hit. They get a delay in trying to start a fight with you. Maybe giving you a chance to walk by, get out, or cast a spell at them. The more evil the mob, the better this delay works. It has no effect vs players or neutral mobs.

Legend foci items called a phial can give you a permanent protection from evil spell effect.

Level 5

Bless (5) - This spell is somewhat short in duration, but helps you slightly resist spells targeting you and grants +5% OB on aggressive or +3% OB and +2% PB on wimpy. It's the most common 'buff' spell in the game. Works great in groups.

A gem you can embed in a legend staff can cast a group bless spell.

A crystal phial legend focus item can also cast bless or a group bless spell.

A magical quartzite ring can also cast bless about 20 times.

Cure Serious (15) - This cure spell is used by many casters and is more mana efficient then using cure light. It can recover 12-28 damage, depending on how good of a caster you are.

Level 6

Blindness (10) - This spell has a chance to blind the target if they fail the save. If they make their save, it has no effect. When blind a target is at -20% OB and -20% DB, making it one of the best debuff spells in the game. Blind targets also cannot attack you, because they cannot see you. The duration is fairly short, maxing out at around 2 minutes, so you better act FAST.

Cure Disease (15) - This spell helps you or another character get rid of a disease. It works against all diseases in the game. Sometimes the target might need the spell cast on them more then once to fully cure them.

The herblore Leafcake can also cure flu as can infusions. Other diseases you can recover from, and gain a small bonus to resist them later.

Level 7

Sense Life (5) - This spell helps you to notice any sneaking or hiding characters or mobs in the room. It is also supposed to help you see if mobs are stealing from you or lining up a backstab. It is NOT 100% see anything hidden, but helps your chances. Good for spotting pesky moles, sneaking snakes, etc...

Strength (20) - This duration spell starts out by giving a +1 bonus to Strength for you or another character. As you level up or put more pracs in, the spell will last longer. Eventually it will grant a +2 bonus. High level casters that focus on it sometimes can grant a +3.

---

Link back to the wiki guides:

• Guide