I have some questions about catalysts, since I seem to be somewhat confused by them. I think I'm slow at learning the subject because I'm actually not fond of alchemy in the game. I either forget to use potions, or I'm such a tightwad that I only use them in emergencies, so I just end up with an inventory of unused potions.

* I've been assuming that a catalyst changes the strength of a potion to the same strength as the catalyst. If this is true then what good are catalysts with a strength of 1? That's the lowest you can go anyways. It's not like you can raise a 0.5 strength potion up to 1. In my mind, all it would do is de-power any potion.

* Does increasing the strength of a "cure x" potion (poison, disease) using a catalyst actually have any effect? I could only guess it changes the amount of time before it becomes ineffective.

* I guess most importantly, what am I missing here? I'm thinking there's more to it.

* I suppose this is a more all-purpose question. Wouldn't having water breathing on every character be almost the exact same as the walk on water spell? Although I imagine you'd still have to actually force your water fearing heroes to jump into the water.

The strength of the potion you brew depends on the reagent AND your skill. So if you are a grand master of alchemy even with 1-strength reagent you will end up with a very decent potion. You can use it on potions that you found in some chests/shops to enhance them. I admit the usage is quite limited because you won't use it for any potion you brewed yourself (it would be at least as strong as the catalyst) but it's not entirely useless.

If you have GM Alchemy, thats a 10, then if you have an alchemy plus 5 item, that gives you a total skill of 15. Then when you use the level 1 catalyst, your gray potion would have strength 16. You then can use that on a storebought potion, or on a potion you made earlier and then stored (I would make white divine cure and divine power potions from crap ingredients to clear space when I first got master, and then bring them up to good levels later with catalysts. The potions would be stored in a chest in harmondale).

Cures don't benefit from a higher level

Most potions are really a waste of time. But divine cure and divine power are truly awesome. Basically you can make potions that heal hundreds of points of health, or give hundreds of points of mana. I didn't bother with any other potions, other than black potions when I have a druid. But almost every game you are going to have a mage or a druid, so you can always use the health and power potions.

As a side note, you can use your skill, plus one alchemy item, plus clanker's amulet to your bonus skill as high as possible. Other items don't stack, but clanker's will for some reason. (Artifacts sometimes stack, like the armsmaster from wallace will stack with an item).

Technically, a catalyst potion with a strength of 1 is not -completely- useless, because potions with a strength of 0 can exist. (If the game won't list the strength of a potion, that means it's strength 0.) But that isn't really worth caring about. If you find a weak catalyst potion, I recommend chucking it into a Cure Disease or suchlike just so that you can re-use the bottle. As others have noted, of course, weak catalyst -reagents- can be useful once you build up your alchemy skill.

The only reason to care about the power of a "Cure X" type potion is because you plan to use it to mix some other sort of potion. But there's little reason to make sure you're only using strong components when mixing, say, a Haste, when instead you could mix up a bunch of trash and then cap it off with a decent catalyst.

Insanity is a good potion to learn. The cure is one step with a potion. But two steps with a spell. The spell cure leaves the afflicted weak requiring a second spell.

Bob

...Well...
If it's any consolation you wouldn't be so conservative with your potions if you weren't such a mad overlord.

Conserving potions is a necessity, in my playthrough on Youtube I only use them for emergencies too since I am just starting out, barely have enough money for necessaries, and somehow Arcomage isn't giving me the returns I thought they would. I was under the impression you could play Arcomage until you turn blue and fall over, but somehow I'm only getting one prize when I play. Not sure how much money I can win or when I will be able to win more.

There just isn't enough money to go around in the game starting out between spells, memberships, skills and skill advancement. Welcome to Might and Magic; it's great but beggardly with the loot.

I think there isn't much need to conserve potions. Random reagents are plentiful (go to a new town and loot the ground) and empty potion bottles never cost more than 1 gold. Don't waste them (if you're in the middle of battle with a bunch of zombies or spiders, then wait until you've killed them before breaking out the Cure Disease/Poison potions), but do go ahead and use them when needed (healing/mana mid-battle if needed, or the Cure Paralysis/Petrification in mid-battle).

You can play as much Arcomage in any given tavern as you like, but an Arcomage victory is only worth money once per tavern. You'll be paid for the first time you win, and only the first time you win, in a given tavern. Once you've won a game in a tavern, you'll never be paid money for winning in that tavern again (in the same save file). The amount of money is never very significant, but it is higher for taverns that provide more of a challenge. The taverns in Celeste or The Pit give a lot more money than the tavern in Harmondale.

Management of money in the early game is necessary, but the problem doesn't take that long to go away. Don't buy spells unless you have a need for them; you can fill out your spellbook with everything you haven't found yet once you're rich. Don't buy equipment from shops unless you have disposable income, since you'll find plenty of stuff while adventuring. If you don't need a skill, then put off buying it until you have spare money.

Thanks very much for the info, but I have another question. I recently saw someone playing through the game that was able to win more than once per tavern at the game. According to what he was saying, Arcomage was this limitless source of extra income. I watched him play something like 5 times in one tavern and win a few hundred thousand, then proceed to go spend on absurd things. This was why I brought up the prize limit. Is there some patch or mod that removes the native limit? Or any other way? I would be thrilled if I could play this game more than once since it is a very nice mini game and it would be fabulous to have some extra money. And on that subject, isn't there any way to get absurd amounts of disposible income? Any way to make extra? The money limit in MM games kills me.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is some kind of mod that removes the "once-per-tavern" limit on making money off Acromage. I don't know where to find it, however.

Once you have the deck, you can play as much arcomage as you like in any tavern you can reach. You only get paid for the first victory, but if you like the card game then you can keep playing (I know I do).

Early in the game, you're going to have to prioritize what you spend your money on. If you avoid spending on random things (for example, don't buy things from shops just because they happen to be a slight upgrade), then you'll generally be able to pay for what you need. Some of the higher cost things, like picking up the Learning or Meditation skills, will take awhile, but you'll eventually get them too. Starting around mid-game (level 20-30, during the War) money problems are significantly smaller, and by late game they disappear entirely.

If you want extra money, then you've got a few different options:

-Hire a Banker and a Factor as your NPC hirelings. Erathia and Tularean Forest should both have them randomly available. Take those hirelings adventuring; they'll make more money for you than they take, so they are always a good choice if you don't have any other hireling you are interested in.

-Increase the Merchant skill on one of your characters (if any of them can get it to at least Master, anyway) and have that character do all the buying and selling in shops. If you've got a cleric, then you can get GM in Merchant, at which point you are buying and selling at cost.

-If you have a Sorcerer (or a character that can Master Water magic) then you can have him cast Enchant Item on non-magical gear before you sell it. The GM version can provide better enchantments, so a Sorcerer will be better at this than a non-Sorcerer. Also, there is some minimum value the equipment must have before it can be enchanted, but you'll learn to recognize what can and can't be enchanted pretty quickly. Combine this with a good Merchant (especially a Cleric), and you can actually buy non-magical stuff in shops, enchant it, then sell it back for a profit (or use it yourself, if it happens to be an upgrade). Town Portal will let you jump around to all the different towns for increased shop coverage.

-Complete the bounty hunts for the various town halls. The bounty isn't always very good (or even findable), but it is a possible source of income.

-Kill monsters and raid dungeons. Taking along a Banker and a Factor will help you find more money. This is probably your biggest source of income before you can buy-enchant-sell stuff.

-Complete quests. Many of them have some amount of payment.

-Run the circuits of people that want you to transport some trade good. For example, you can buy arrow heads from someone in Harmondale, sell them in Erathia and buy griffin feathers, then sell the griffin feathers in Tularean Forest and buy tularean wood, then sell the tularean wood in Harmondale and buy more arrow heads. You'll make a profit on each item you exchange, so make space in your inventory and buy/sell in bulk.

Thanks again, those are all great tips. I will have to remember those.

You can see on my Youtube channel how I am doing so far; not too shabby so far if you ask me. I still had questions though...

Regarding the Water Magic, I might as well ask, how does one Recharge Item without permanent loss of charges...? Do I just repair the item in question through a merc? Also, I assume that Enchanting a normal item would result in an item which is like any other enchanted item, correct me if I'm wrong. So, how does one choose the enchantment to apply, some menu? Is that limited in some way by the spells I happen to know at the time, or do I get access to all possible spells and just pick one?

Also, I tried to mix up Black Elixirs with a character with Alchemy 3 but blew her up in the process, what is the absolute minimum lvl I would need in Alchemy to mix up those bad boys?

Thanks again for all the help, I'm always grateful for pointers and strong tips like that that aren't spoilers.

-I don't think it is possible to completely recharge a wand. You'll always lose at least a few charges per cast. If you really want another wand with a given spell, then keep an eye on the shops that sell miscellaneous magic items, since those will sometimes have wands. You can use a wand until it is down to one charge, then sell it for full value.

-Casting Enchant Item will permanently apply a random magic effect to the item. Not all effects are available to a Master of Water Magic, some are reserved for GM Water users. However, you don't get to choose; you could get anything from "Antique" (sell value 10x normal), to "of Fire" (adds 1-6 fire damage), to "of the Gods" (+10 all stats). Only magic effects that are applicable for an item can be applied (you won't add bonus damage to a suit of armor).

-Alchemy skill level is only used for two things: 1) it gives a bonus to potion strength when using reagents on an empty potion bottle, and 2) allows you to qualify for higher levels of skill mastery if your class can learn those higher levels.

Any character can make a basic potion (red/blue/yellow) from a reagent. You need the Alchemy skill to mix two basic potions to make the next tier of potion (compound? Might be called complex, I don't remember). You need Expert Alchemy to make layered potions. You need to Master alchemy before you can make White potions, and you need to GM alchemy to make black potions. If you don't have the appropriate skill mastery in alchemy, then the mix will blow up in your face even if you use the right combination. If you don't use the right combination, then no amount of skill mastery will prevent an explosion. Higher tier potions will do more damage if they explode; black potions can eradicate your character if you try to mix them together. Only the active character's skill in alchemy is considered when mixing two potions.

It's not easy to find money, but it's easy to spend way more than you have to.



For one, leveling up your characters costs a ton of gold later on, and it costs WAY more to do so when you level up in elven cities or high-level zones (Nighon, Celeste / The pit). Early on I'd always try to level up in Harmondale, and later on in the city of dwarves, because you get very high reputation there after the Rescue-Quest + Troglodyte quest, giving you a big discount on everything.



Also, always try to sell everything in the city of dwarves because of said reputation bonus. While the elves are usually super greedy and will give you a low amount of gold even for enchanted stuff, you get around 60%-75% of the value if you sell it to dwarven merchants.




If anything, I'd avoid buying, selling or training in elven territory, especially Avlee. I'd also avoid leveling up unless you can hit a good threshold (like being able to get master or expert).








I don't recommend a factor or banker hireling. The extra bonus is actually only 8% extra gold on all gold you FIND. That means it doesn't affect the gold you generate from sells, which is where the majority of gold comes from. That's why a 20% penalty Hireling is still not really a big penalty, considering the bonuses they provide (like +4 on all magic)

Still, try to get a scholar as a hireling. He gives you unlimited Grandmaster Identification, allowing you to preserve those skill points, also removes the tedious task of moving items to the person with ID (all 4 members get GM ID with that hireling) and you get 5% extra XP on top.

And obviously removes any gold loss in case you do ID your items at the merchant. So he saves gold, skillpoints and your nerves at once while also providing XP bonus.






Chances are, that you are a bit too generous with your gold. A lot of spells aren't worth the their gold early on. (Remove X status for example).
Only buy gear if it's really really good. Things like +Mind Resistance are just inflating the value of items. (Goes both ways though,)

If you don't need the hireling slot for anything else, then a Banker/Factor is basically free money.

In my defense, I am not generous, I am a...

...actually, go look at my playthrough on Youtube, you can see I am a stylish and trendy miser with a great smile and oh-so-much pizazz, thank you very much.

Great advice, thank you on the warning for hirelings, and with that said, what other hirelings do you suggest? Also, when you say the heal status spells, wouldn't that be more economical than running to the healer/temple each time...? Wouldn't that make them a wise choice for spells? In any event, what spells would you say to get and what is your rule for buying a spell?

As you can see from my Youtube playlist for the game, I only buy spells that don't make me suck in battle, so I only maybe spring for one upgrade from the starter spell when I can absolutely legitimize the cost considering damage output and so on. I pretty much NEVER buy new equips from the vendors.

Question: why not sell in elven towns...? Is there no prestige to be had among the elves, just the dwarves...? I noticed the difference in price for leveling and made it a point to only level in Harmondale already, but I am glad you mentioned that and everything else.

Now you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but it has been my experience from other M&M games that the loot equips are quite adequate for my needs. I assume that is still the case in MM7. So far that seems to be the case.

To anyone: when should I try to repair Harmondale Keep? I was debating doing this right away, but I thought considering what the Barrow Downs had in the way of challenge I might be better off doing some leveling and so on. Any advice is appreciated. Also, what skills are best and where should I put my points? What skills are completely useless and a waste of money etc??

Thanks everyone for all the help so far by the way!

Great pointers, thank you. I will definitely put some points into Water then, I like having charged items. It's a shame the charges can't be restored though, the past games allowed recharge without loss of charges. I did this most in MM3, which, though it states in the description that charges will be lost, it never actually does that. VERY glad for that!