Empowerment

[CUnknown]

I use empowerment as Ulm (usually in either blood or nature) to let smiths use their forge bonus on different kinds of magic items. I wouldn't ever use empowerment with the intention of casting a battlefield spell. I think just giving your mages the gems in their inventory before they go into battle is effective. For every gem they burn, they get +1 path for that casting only.

Edit: I guess if you intend to do this a lot, it may be cost-effective to empower instead of using a gem every time. But it would have to be a lot of times, right? And then you run the risk of that mage dying and wasting your investment, too.

[MaxWilson]

Empowerment can also be better than booster items in the case of immortal mages. Sometimes. If you expect your mage to die repeatedly, e.g. a Phoenix or Vampire Queen is single-handedly repelling an assault on your capital.

-Max

[krpeters]

Thanks all for the advice -- I had forgotten about the skill boosting spells, definitely a worthwhile way to gain access to higher level spells. Magic items are a bit more micromanaging involved, but I can see how they'd worth the effort to get another bonus level.

So it looks like the order is:
1) Gems
2) Spells
3) Items
in order of ease of use.

Thanks all!

[Jazzepi]

My tendency is to use spells to boost paths if the caster is going to spam something like a nuke.

For example, an earth mage casting Summon Earth Power can significantly improve the number of times they can spam a nuke spell by both reducing the casting cost of the spell, and providing reinvigoration.

If I'm going to cast a spell that is better the longer/earlier it's on (fire arrows is a good example) I try to use item boosters or gems to get that spell cast on the first turn instead of buffing to it.

Jazzepi

[Taqwus]

Quite a few nations also have decent access to summons with either stronger or different magic than the national mages -- some national summons are like this, and there are some non-restricted summons that can offer other paths.

Ex. -- Spectres take only Death, but give you 1D + 2 restricted randoms, if memory serves (WESD ?).

Lamia Queens are Nature/Death, but can also offer astral.

The absolute wackiest cases are Tartarians, of course; requires death and nature (de facto), but many will have 3/2 unrestricted random, 2/2/1 unrestricted random, or even 3/2/2 unrestricted random. Takes D7, but with a D2 mage, lots of research, and many death gems, you can build Skull Staff, Mound Fiend, Skull Helmet, Demilich, the unique +3D weapon... and end up with a demilich boosted to D8 without involving any other path.

[MaxWilson]

Taqwus said:
Lamia Queens are Nature/Death, but can also offer astral.

IIRC they can also offer minor access to Blood, as can Treelords.

-Max