| II. BECOMING
A WARRIOR MAGE D. POWER PERCEPTION AND MAGICAL DEVICES During your time in Elanthia, you will find many ways to utilize magic. Among them are Power Perception and Magical Devices, two very interesting magical skills that you will find very helpful early in your career as a Warrior Mage, as well as later. Both of these skills will enable you to be a more effective Warrior Mage. Power Perception A room could have a lot of mana in it naturally, but if you can't see it, you can't use it (or you can't use as much of it). This is a case of perception being reality; if you perceive 'shimmering' amounts of mana in an area, a certain amount of your harness points will be used up for a given spell. As your Power Perceive skill increases, you may later perceive in that same room 'pulsating' amounts of mana, which will use up much less of your harness points. You gain experience in this skill by actually perceiving (type PERC, CONC, or POW). You won't learn much (if anything) if you perceive in the same room again relatively soon, so it is wise to practice this as you move from room to room. This is known as 'power walking' or 'dowsing' for mana. Somewhere between 60 and 75 ranks of Power Perception, a remarkable ability is attained by the mage: the ability to perceive relative power levels in adjacent rooms. This means that if you perceive in a room with one or more obvious exits, you have a chance (and at higher ranks, a certainty) of knowing in vague terms whether adjacent rooms contain more or less power than the room in which you are standing. While at first you are not able to make use of that power, until you can, the skill can serve as a guide to help you select optimal rooms in which to do your spellcasting. When you can use the extra power, the room selection becomes a bit trickier. |