I’m reasonably certain others have done this before me, but in reading through threads on all magic parties, I noticed how balanced the parties were. Nice mixtures of Druids and Priests, Mages and Liches. But only Mages and Liches can actually achieve GM in Learning so… off we went, in search of the perfect all-magic party. (The ‘we’ refers to all the voices in my head, of course.)

Set up:

We were two human Mages and two elf Liches, with a male and female of each to preserve the species. In the setup, all might was stripped and slogged into accuracy. (Humans began with 18, elves with 25). The remaining points were divided equally between endurance and speed. We each got 'bow' and 'learning' as our initial skills, and of course, all Initiates begin with the spell Elemental Bolt.

Initial play:

The student bow was sufficient to get us off the island and into Sturmford. Took a connecting boat directly to Drangheim, went to the bank, picked up Edina and made enough deposits/withdrawals to whack 20k in gold into the team coffers. Shopped for skill books, spells, better bows and got a boat back to Sturmford. (Gave one Mage Disarm Trap, the other Identify Item. Gave one Lich Perception, the other Repair Item.)

The Bow Skill is essential in the beginning when spell points are low, but there's no need to waste additional points on it. Also, as a bush pig I’ve no patience for turn-based play. This adds to the difficulty of an all-magic party (which, oddly enough, only polished the already shiny new toy for me). The plan was to use arrows to get the enemies attention, then lob a few rounds of Elemental Bolt to cut their hit points down to doable, then switch back to arrows as they are a never-ending supply. It meant a lot of running backwards, but exercise is good.

We slowly trained, whacking all points into Learning, Disarm Trap and Perception, only. We ran through Beet Hoven just enough to get some experience and grab the manuscript. Found the Saboteur. Killed some dragonflies. Did both Anskram Keep quests. Took a boat to Thjorgard City, checked in at the college for first promotion (Initiate to Scholar) and boldly sought the Magreeb, content in the knowledge that a single task would promote all four mates in one go

Spoiler ========== The bandits behind Thjorgard are really tough in the beginning without proper armour, weapons or effective spells. However, there is a way around those four ugly, dual-knife weilding blokes. Go through the pass slowly until you hear both sets of falling rock sounds. Open your automap and line yourself up with the water. When you hear the first bandit yell, start running and don't stop until you fall into the water. They will persue, wield some damage and perhaps even kill one or two of your team. Keep going. When all four are in the water with you, turn, rush back to the cliff and climb out of the water (there is at least one spot where you can climb back out, close to where you fell in). We did this four times, and each time at least three bandits stayed behind. Only one appears smart enough to follow. When he does, and you can't take him on, rock up to the gate, go to the temple around the corner, return and you should be able to kill him off with 4 fully healed magicians dealing Elemental Bolt. ==========

After completing the Scholars Promotion, we sought expert status for Learning with the redhead who hangs around the well. By now we'd found two Armour skillbooks, so we were checking the shops for better stuff. The humans were up to 24 AC and the elves were at 14 AC.

We travelled between cities performing passive quests until all players Learning was at 7, (as soon as you achieve Expert status, experience gained is now doubled) avoiding chests and tough enemies whenever possible. Got expert status for Elemental, Light (or) Dark skills for all four players in Guberland, took a boat to Thjorgard and headed on foot to Frosgard. (The pack of wolves were daunting so we just outran them into the city proper where they could not follow.)

Finding four sets of skills and spells is tedious (for example, only one of us has Meditation so far) but by the time we had the boat schedule reward for blowing up the ice in Frosgard, this is how spells and skills were divided amongst the pack:

Magica - Exp Elemental, Light, Learning, Disarm Trap, 1-Armour,1-Dark, 3-Meditation Fleet Foot, Elemental Protection, Magim - Exp Elemental, Light, Learning, 3-Identify Item, 1-Armour,1-Dark, Torch, Feather Fall. Elemental Protection, Licha - Exp Elemental, Dark, Learning, 3-Repair Item, 1-Light, 1-Body Building Curse, Poison Lichim - Exp Elemental, Dark, Learning, Perception Curse, Paralyze

+ all had 7-Learning, 1-Bow, Elemental Bolt, Heal and Town Portal.

Off to Lindisfarne to recover a relic, arrmour up then head to the Isle of Ashes for the first part of the Mage Promotion. I'm guessing there will be a few deaths long the way, but you only need one live player to complete a task, then quick trip to a temple makes it all good again.

Spoiler ========== “Sneak into Verhoffin Ruins. Stay to the right. Jump from the fallen column onto the eastern hallway – quicksave – push past the frights and grab the key – run like heck - jump into the water to ditch the skeletons, climb up the other side and run past the mummies and frights to get to the room with the diary.” Well that was the plan. Looks easy right? Ha! We kept getting trapped in the diary room by a swarm of quite angry mummies, skeletons and frights. Then one time a hole opened between the legs of a mummy and the ragged hem of a fright – we crouched, pushed and escaped! It was a euphoric feeling. Two of us had carked it, but no worries. We made a dash for the entrance and headed back to Thjorgard for resurrection, healing and reward.

Mage promotion achieved- level 14.

The goal is to complete the two promotions for the four players as early as possible so the majority of the game can be played with GM in Learning for all four. That said, the true test of agility and clever thinking will be at the Lich Transformer Machine. Presuming, of course, we can even get that far. Scholars are pretty weak prior to transformation. But now, at least, we could set a beacon, travel easy-peasey via town portal and cast a decent turn undead.

Now to make a couple of Liches