What's the best way to use non native gems ?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Boron said:
But since your main income will be astral pearls from clams it is not as scarce as the other gems .

I think that's the important bit: you say a resource is 'important' when it's 'scarce' (which I find odd), while I define its importance after its final use (ie, if I use water gems to make clams to make pearls to make something, for me it's the 'something' that's important).

[DeathDaemon]

I play both MP and SP. Obviously there are quite a number of path boosters and for the most part they are all a better value then empowerment. It just seems that it takes at least 2, sometimes 4 or 5 sages boosted and empowered to lvls 2-6+ (for EACH gem type) to keep my gem income in check. That's quite a lot of gems spent just to be able to use the gems, and time/money to do this - wasting time for the rainbow pretender to search, initial creation of some boosting items, and summoning commanders.

Ok if they aren't used it's a bigger waste, but I was just curious to see how you guys spend your gems. Of course if you have national, cheap mages with randoms I'd empower/boost them before a sage, but for most nations I end up with a lot of gems invested into making more powerful sages.

[Cainehill]

Boron said:

Exactly .
Only if you want to play ermor then you can almost get this with a rainbow GK SC pretender .

But ermor is the only nation which can do this .

No, it most certainly isn't.

[Taqwus]

You need to find the sites that offer mages with multiple randoms or higher paths, then.

Some paths are easier to leverage than others. Death is among the easiest, probably; a death-2 mage can forge a 10-gem Skull Staff, making him death-3, which allows a 20-gem Skull Helmet. A death-3 mage can also summon a D3U3 Mound Fiend; give the Fiend a Skull Staff and Skull Helmet and he's D5U3. That, IIRC, might suffice for a Demilich, which is inherently D4 and thus goes to D6 w/ those two boosters. An additional point of D can be found through the death/blood artifact book, or subbing the Sceptre of Dark Regency for the staff (+3, for 2 points net gain), or a sorcery or wizardry booster. But once you reach D2, add a staff, and D3 mages can summon more D3 mages or D1/?1/?1 mages plus build boosters to make 'em D4 or D2/?1/?1. You might also be able to find D2 indy mages; I can't remember right now whether Necromancers are D1 or D2. Any D1 mage at least can cast Dark Knowledge to find the death sites, as well.

Nature is also good for versatility; Lamias for sorcery, faerie queens for branching into air, witches and similar for small numbers of randoms. It's more expensive to chain-summon and boost than death, however. If you're going to rainbow, you might as well guarantee some access (pretender or national) to death or nature for the branching.

Compare to Air, which is relatively expensive to boost (the helmet and bag each require an air-3 mage and 20 gems, the staves of elemental mastery require A3/E3 and 20/20 gems, there's an artifact book as well, and a RoSorcery won't help) and isn't nearly as good for chain-summoning (only 3 air queens, and you need A5). It's a very nasty combat school school, 'tho, especially for SCs (2E/2A Tartarians cloud-trapezing and mistforming, oh my!). You can find indy 2A mages (amazons, IIRC) but 3A is a bit trickier. Auspex is also harder to cast than Dark Knowledge, requiring 3 levels rather than 1.

[Arryn]

Yep, there isn't any really good way to get A3 mages, short of empowerment -- or playing Caelum.

[Graeme Dice]

Taqwus said:
Auspex is also harder to cast than Dark Knowledge, requiring 3 levels rather than 1.

Auspex is only air 2. The only site searching spell that requires more than 2 in any path is Acashic Record.

[Endoperez]

There is also Fire-Water staff of elemental mastery, and with it your Air 2 mage can forge both air boosters... Which lets even Air 1 mage make more of them. It is some work, but can in some cases be possibility, and after you get it running it is easy to make more air boosters if you have the gems.