So I thought I would change things up a bit and put some narrative meat on the mathematical bones of my story. I understand all the build and math stuff lacks meaning without any motivation. My goal was of course to become the most powerful mage in the world and I had made a good start. Time Magic is the best magic. In fact I would have preferred crafting or ldeadership or city building or something but the lottery for rare Templates assigned me a Unique Tier Magic Template so here we are.

Players in the public release would start with Basic Templates and they could discover Templates of any of the 5 levels throug various actions in the game. Every player was assured of an Uncommon Template from a Starter Questline. They could pick whatever they wanted after that. Basic Templates could be learned from relevant guilds in the game. Guilds could also pass out Uncommon Templates on high level quests.

Basic Templates were Archetype aligned. Fighter, Practicioner, Adventurer, Rogue, Cleric, Warrior, Healer, Intellectual, Leader, Entertainer, Crafter, Merchant, Worker, Administrator. You could learned and train all 14 but most people only learned a few till they could pick up Templates of the Uncommon Tier. Uncommon Templates were sort of subclasses of Basic Archetypes. They had more powerful and specialized skills. Each Archetype did not have the same number of Uncommon Templates, or the 3 higher tiers either.

Uncommon Templates had access to at least 1 or 2 Tier 3 Talents, while Basic Templates only had Tier 4. Similarly the 3rd Tier, Extraordinary, had access to one or two Tier 2 Talents. Legendary Templates had access to one or two Tier 1 Talents. Unique Templates had only Tier 1 and Tier 2 Talents. They also tended to have rarer and more specialized ones. Similarly, both Unique and Legendary Templates had more rare or specialized Tier 2 Talents. Secret Backgrounds had higher quality Talents and they also tended to have more synergy than even Unique Templates.

For the beta something like 100 people got Unique[Secret Background] Templates. Secret Background is a bit of a half tier. So better than even most Unique Templates. 100 people also got regular Unique Templates from the lottery. 400 people got Legendary Templates and 200 got Legendary[Secret Background] Templates. So out of 10000 people 800 were in the sort of top 2 Tiers.

1600 people started with Extraordinary Templates. None of these were Secret Backgrounds. 3200 people had Uncommon Templates. 3600 people had Basic Templates. The goal of the lottery was to allow more time for testing of high level templates that would otherwise take too long to access in the time alloted for the beta test.

A good way to think of Tiers for Templates is that you can raise a tier by uniqueness, specialization, or breadth. An Uncommon Template might combine 2 Archetypes or it might double up on a single Archetype. Archetypes are sort of linked in some ways. Intellectual(Knowledge) ties together Practicioner(Magic) and Administrator(Management). Administrator ties together Intellectual(Knowledge) and Leadership(Command). Sort of like a circle of Archetypes.

Practicioner->Intellectual->Administrator->Leader->Warrior->Fighter->Adventurer->Rogue->Entertainer->Merchant->Crafter->Worker->Healer->Cleric->Practitioner. There might be some other crossover but that is the basic idea. Templates near eachother are more likely to combine in higher level Templates. A Bard is a Rogue and an Entertainer for instance. An Illusionist is a Practicioner and a Rogue, which are opposite each other. Some higher tier Bardic classes would be connected in that way by a cross-cut to Practicioner.

Under this sort of model High Human would be primarily Practicioner with some Intellectual/Merchant/Entertainer additions, mostly Intellectual. As far as I am aware my Template was at the pinnacle of magic with few serious competitors in that area. I think only one other Template had Metamagic and none had Time Magic as well or Gravity Magic. In any case I was packing some serious mystical might. I considered the Template/Free Talent system of Meridian 60 to be superior to class and point based systems in many ways. I especially liked the need to explore the world to get new options.

My next Template was a Legendary Intellect Archetype Template. That was a way off, though. I also had an Extraordinary Magic Archetype Template coming to me, but even further off. Both were a result, after a long chain of events, of my aforementioned Epic Quest. Of course it turns out this quest was supposed to lead somewhere else entirely but Meridian 60 made a big deal of Choice and Consequence as the ancient RPG nerds called it. No rails to keep the train on a linear track.

Now that we've dealt with some exposition, my sincere apologies for those who aren't fans, we'll get started on the questing. I don't pick up an Adventurer template for a while but it is not a requirement. Having just boosted myself significantly with a Tier 1 Free Talent I headed over to the Guild of Mages. The Guild was very limited out here because I was in a frontier city. They could teach the Practicioner Template, the Basic Magic Archetype, and in conjunction with the Guild Of Adventure, where you could learn the Adventurer Template, the basic Scouting/Questing Archetype, you could learn the Druid Uncommon Template. I was not particularly interested in these. Druid was okay but my plan was to never pick up anything less than Extraordinary Tier.

I wanted to head to a major city quickly but it was a long roam to get to one and I was weak. I went to the Guild of Mages to ask about their teleporter and I was informed that I needed to be a Master level Mage for that. Now if I had spawned in a newbie zone I might be able to roam between major cities or even the capital but I was not. Typically you would have to be a Master level Mage to get here if you started with a Magic Archetype. Adventurers and Rogues had non-combat ways of leveling I didn't really and they also had a better chance of moving safely through uninhabited areas. They could spawn or travel here much more easily.

I should clarify here, sorry about info dumping, Meridian 60 used a weird base class naming convention. Adventurer as an Archetype included higher level classes many might recognize. Rangers and Druids and Barbarians. Basically sort of nature like stuff as well as scouting and so forth. Pathfinders were a class expanding on Ranger while Beastmaster was a Practicioner and Ranger hybrid. Plant Mage was an extension of Druid. Etc.

I demonstrated my unique talents, mostly in Arcane and Miasma, and manipulated my way into getting a Mastery Quest. If I reached level 15 and finished my quest I would be qualified as a Master level Mage due to my unique powers, especially Miasma. I did not reveal Metamagic or Chronomancy to them. Or even Gravity Magic. Knowing too much rare and powerful magic at my level was risky and would raise questions.

I was assigned a mission to track down a missing mage. He lived and worked in a tower in the beyond the swamp beyond the forest on a great hill framed by the mountains and he had not come to town for some time. His master in the capital had put out a mission to find him. This was a multi-part quest with potential extensions based on my findings. Locate and explore the Tower of Wizardry the man lived in. Determine what happened there. Potentially find him. Recover him or his body and return. It had significant gold and experience rewards, I likely would manage to hit level 15 either while running it or assuredly after the completion boost.

There was also a telltale sign in the Quest Log of something more. I saw it because of my boosts to dialogue options, even though it wasn't interactive. There was a chance of a bonus for various secret objectives, some known to the Guild of Mages and some listed as "Mysterious Objective" which was a sign of a really solid reward. These options would have been open to me without boosts to bonus dialogue but I wouldn't have known to look for them and may have engaged the quest differently.

I was given a vague location for the tower in the swamp and told that if I failed the quest I would simply have to train more and try again on a different quest later. The penalty for failure was simply not qualifying as a Master level Mage. I would of course lose whatever bonus rewards came with completing hidden objectives.

With my quest in mind I headed off towards the woods. I was at 2000/25600 EXP so a fair few fights from level 9. My plan was to get to Phase 2 Miasma before moving on to Phase 2 Chronomancy. This was a good choice in hindsight, Phase 2 Miasma significantly increased the impact of one of the key spells of Phase 2 Chronomancy. Getting them in the opposite order would have been less efficient.

I needed 9 Selection Points for both since they were Tier 1 Talents. I would gain 14 SelP and 14 SkiP by the time I finished this quest so I expected to hit Phase 2 Miasma and then max out on Phase 2 spells and have 1 point saved for Phase 2 Chronomancy. That would leave me 6 levels from maxing out on Phase 2 Chronomancy. Luckily for me things went better than I had expected. Although the devs told me after the beta test ended that in fact the result of this quest should have been much more spectacular. Personally I thought their plan was a bit cliche and was glad I foiled it.

I trudged off into the woods headed towards the swamp. I thought I would try testing my new powers a bit before I got too far into the quest so I hit up the first decent level creature I could find.

Deep Forest Dire Bear LV 15 2000 EXP

Hp 1000 STR 50 DEX 10 CON 100 MOV 30/s

Skills: Slash: 50 damage | Smash: 80 damage | Armored: 20% PHY MIT | Bears!: -20% disable duration

Narrator: Level: 8 Health 290[Rec 1.2/s] Mana 555[Rec 15/s]

I open with an advanced version of my standard plan. I cast Extend, then Arcane Vigor. This costs me 40 mana. Then I cast Quicken. This gains me a 25%*1.5x=37.5%+20%+20%=77.5% boost on my 5s base + 2.5s skill point boosted Haste. This costs me 40*1.5=60 Mana. -100 Mana overall.

Haste(Extended, Vigorous, Longevity) 13.3125s

Then I cast Boost for the damage benefits. Then I cast Arcane Stupefaction for 1.775*(8+1.5) with full duration bonuses, in Phase 2, with 3 skill points of time modified by -20% from the enemy skill. 2 seconds of casting thanks to Haste. The Stun spell costs me 60+1.5=90 mana. -190 mana overall.

Haste(Extended, Vigorous, Longevity) 11.3125s

Stun(Extended, Vigorous, Longevity) 13.49s

Finally I cast my first attack spell. Splash. I need to apply [Affliction] to get my bonus DoT duration boost. I cast Splash with no buffs. The DoT is short and the damage relatively low. Then the real attack begins. Envenom! Both Extend and Arcane Vigor have 1 charge left. Envenom is a 10s duration for 8 damage but with boost it is 75% more damage. Sadly Arcane Endowment doesn't work on DoTs. That would be some intense shit. Splash is 25 mana and longer and harder Envenom is 65.625=66 mana. So 91+190=281. 555-281=269. 6 seconds since I was under 100% mana means +90 mana. Back to 359.

Haste(Extended, Vigorous, Longevity) 9.3125s

Stun(Extended, Vigorous, Longevity) 11.49s

Splash deals 37 over 2.5 seconds after accounting for Bears! and the duration reduction, frontload by 25 on cast. Envenom deals 14 per second for 199 over 14 seconds. Man that's a long time when you consider that it accounts for the 20% duration reduction. I have a massive advantage over single monsters though due to my insane boost to spell duration. In theory I even have an advantage over 2 creatures. However more than that and mana and casting time start to catch up to me. In any case its obvious to see that I am going to be able to abuse Stun-lock and my large mana pool to win this fight. My first 2 spells attack spells will account for roughly 25% of my enemy's health. And I'm still at ~60% of my mana plus I'll recover 180 before he can even unstun and attack me again. Sadly you can't stack DoTs of the same type. That's fair, it would be amazingly overpowered.

I cast Infect and Fester as well. Those only receive an extra 1.1 seconds when accounting for duration reduction. Not amazing. And no damage boost. DEX/STR reduction is kinda useless on a Stunned enemy. Still another 100 damage for only a little mana. I cast Splash again. My next move is obvious Arcane Missile. 400 damage in 5 seconds. I still had 2 charges of boost. I dropped another Stupefaction and 3 more Arcane Missiles and ended it.

Miasma was definitely a plus. Especially if I could get some skillpoints into it. It had downsides like duration reduction skills and being cleansed and so forth vs direct damage, especially vs Arcane which was naturally unreduceable. But still its raw output with my Secret Background was intense.

For 2000 EXP and a 7 level disadvantage I got 2000*1.7=3400 EXP. I was at 5400/25600. 20% of the way to a new level after a single fight given my overflow EXP from previously. I trudged further into the forest, clearing a few things here and there. I couldn't afford to fight packs of monsters at high levels unfortunately. I had overleveled Stupefaction at the expense of Lockdown. Something I'd have to work on. Sadly I was nowhere near Phase boosting Gravimancy so the duration issue was a problem.

I had to be especially careful in the swamp where many creatures could resist Miasma. I had to rely on Arcane Missile in those cases. Luckily resistances meant more exp. I actually used Illusion somewhat to dodge hairier fights. I made it onto the plains beyond the swamp and began heading towards the mountains. It wasn't long before I could see the tower in the distance on its giant hill. I was running around 24000 EXP at this point after hours of grinding and my risky trek into the swamp. Once I got to the capital I was free of swamps for a long time and Miasma became exceptionally useful.

It's getting close to bed time for me, and I prefer early to bed and early to rise at my age. I'll pick up in the morning on my trek across the plains. I hit the next level pretty soon which will be nice. Only 4 more before my first Phase 2 Miasma spell. Phase 2 of Miasma is amazing. Good night.