Channeling
Channeling is the skill used in the casting of spells in order to enchant items. You will need to be a priest and have your god's statuette activated in order to channel.
The mechanism of casting takes into account a number of factors. When a cast is made your channelling skill, alignment, soul depth and spell difficulty are used to generate a result. This result can be positive or negative. As your skills and attributes improve the chance and degree of a negative cast will be reduced but never completely removed.
If the result is positive then depending on the value a power rating is generated. If the item cast on does not have the enchant already it will be assigned this power value. If the item already has this enchant then the power rating is updated and appropriate messages are produced. Here is where we get the improve or frown messages.
If the cast is negative then the cast failed and if the absolute value of power of the cast is less than the quality then nothing happens. If the cast falls between 1/3 of the quality and the quality then the item is damaged. If the power is higher than the quality the item is shattered. Higher quality items are therefore less likely to shatter.
For example a 30QL item will shatter if the power of the cast is worse than -30 and take damage if the power is worse than -10. A 90QL item will shatter only if the cast is worse than -90 and take damage up to a power of -30.
The absolute range of power generated is not actually known but from observations it is seen to range from at least -250 to + 103. At low skill levels on harder spells it is quite easy to get higher negative casts and unless you use higher quality items you can shatter a significant portion of the items being cast on. As you raise your skills and attributes you will be able to see the median moving. For Vynora priests watching the power of opulence casts makes this easy as you can have a large number of items all at the same quality on which to cast.
An important note is that the system is such that it is impossible to guarantee that an item being cast on will not shatter. At higher skills with higher quality items it will be very unlikely but it can not be ruled out even then. For a caster there is no such thing as high enough channelling, the more the better. This is especially an aim of Vynora priests as the more channelling they have. the higher the chance of getting a 90+ power on a cast in either Wind of Ages or Circle of Cunning, the two most desired enchants.
Tips for early skilling
- Fo priests should concentrate on Blessing, Morning Fog, healing and enchanting flasks of water with Fo's Touch.
- Vynora priests should bless things until 15 channeling, then Opulence meals/food items until 40 channeling (The quality of the food affects the chance to succesfully cast Opulence, so a high quality food results in less fails), then use either Vynora's Touch on flasks of water or the various item augmentations (Circle of Cunning, Wind of Ages, Frostbrand etc)
- Magranon priests should Bless objects and make Light token until 10 channeling, then enchant water with Magranon's Shield (in a flask for example)
- Libila priests should bless objects until 5 channeling, then use the drain spells on a penned animal until 15 channeling, then enchant flasks of water with Libila's Scale
- Using a higher quality statuette is not known to affect success chance or skillgain if it is augmented with Circle of Cunning.
- Priests whom do not worship Fo should not use buff spells to gain experience (such as Sixth Sense), as they yield significantly less skill when compared to enchantment spells such as Opulence or Bless.
- If you absolutely must use a buff spell for skilling for whatever reason, do not cast it on your own body as this will further reduce the skillgain. Use a penned animal or another player instead.
Titles
- Channeler at 50 skill
- Conduit at 70 skill
- Casting specialist at 90 skill
