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I'm thinking of restarting as a Battlemage.
How should you play one? As a pure blaster? Or a light warrior with spells?
Which skills do you deem most important?
The first opportunity to train swords is after Avenstrue, right?

Thanks in advance!

I didn't like the spellcasting system in Drakensang, so I didn't use it much except for healing and buffing, but, from what I can tell, you'll never have enough astral energy to be a pure caster. You'll need to learn some sort of regular weapon skill, and rely on it for most attacks.

Humbold can teach you swords in Avestrue.

SWC

I would personally go for staves, since mages still don't have that much health and cannot have very high defense, though Fastness of Body -spell can boost your armor nicely. And if you are going to wield a shield, then the shield must be wooden, but swords are also a bit more expensive to raise and have lower AT/PA modifiers than staves.

And you might need some Willpower to resist wounds.

Thanks for both the replies.
I thought as much that a pure casters wouldn't work.
Do the increased AT/PA of staves outweigh the advantage of having a second parry with a shield?

No they don't. And staves suck as a weapon.

If you want to have a decent battlemage - the first thing you should do is NOT choosing battlemage as archetype for your char but either Healing Mage or Spell Weaver, because of their fast AE regeneration. I would go for Healing Mage because you start with all the healing spells, including Calm Body, Calm Spirit. Your Mage almost ran out of AE? Cast it on yourself and 8 secs later your 3 bars (health,endurance,astral) are full again. Works very well even in battle.

Always use shields on everyone. Including Mages (wodden shields). The second parry is far more important than a small parry bonus from staves.
Healing Mage can take Axes/Maces i think. There are always good weapons of this category available.

Thanks for the advice.

Hi,
sorry if I'm late with my reply.

I have just started as a battlemage and am at the beginning of chapter three. So far, it works great, because I have three melee-fighters who keep the enemies busy while I "recharge", but my spells (Fulmenuctus) already do a lot of damage and the melee-fighters only need to finish off what I leave behind.

I wanted to play a battlemage because I wanted to be able to learn the "heavy" spells that a spell-weaver cannot learn.

Battlemage is great

Another late post in favour of the battlemage. I am in the fourth chapter now and cannot complain.
I am playing pure battlemage character, fighting with a stave, using armor spell and battle magic spells. He has no problem to join melee battle when his AE is low and he is not bad at all. I don't spend exp.points on improving any other than battle spells, willpower, stave skill and special battle skills used for staves. With the leftover I prefer to wait longer and to improve attributes.
I always keep willpower at maximum with all my characters so mostly I don't need to worry about wounds.