Magic skills

The classic spell stack: Magery casts, Eval Int amplifies, Med regens mana, Resist saves throws against incoming spells, and Spirit Speak extends summon lifespan. Spellbooks come stocked: new mages start with the first four circles already filled, and the mage vendor sells the full 64-spell book for 50,000 gold. See where spells come from.

At a glance

Skill	What it does	Useful at	Lyonspyre changes
Magery	Cast all 8 circles of magic spells	Every spell-caster, 100 essential	None to the skill. Magic Talents layer specialisation on top
Eval Int	Damage bonus on offensive spells	Damage mages, 100 essential	None
Meditation	Mana regen rate	Every caster, 100 essential	Skill-driven regen - see Mana regen
Resist	Lower duration / damage of incoming spells	Every PvM/PvP build, 80-100 standard	None
Inscription	Retired entirely; there is no scroll crafting	Not trainable	Frozen at zero with the other craft skills
Spirit Speak	Drives summon lifespan, ghost speech, and quest gates	More skill gives longer-lasting summons	No Spirit Speak requirement to command summons

Magery

The full spellbook - 64 spells across 8 circles, from Clumsy / Reactive Armor through Earthquake / Resurrection. Every cast runs two checks:

1. Spell skill check - if you're not capable enough for that circle, the cast fizzles (no mana cost).
2. Damage / effect roll - damage spells then go through Eval Int damage scaling.

Casting time = BaseCastTime - SkillBonus, with a hard floor. Fizzle chance ramps down across the 30 skill points above a spell's required skill and reaches 0% at the top of that window - so a grandmaster reliably casts every circle, summons included (an 8^th-circle spell is 100% at 100 Magery). Disturb chance, when you're hit mid-cast, keys off your weapon skill (or Wrestling).

Useful at: 100 for all caster builds - at GM you stop fizzling even 8^th-circle summons. The further below 100 you are, the more the top circles fizzle.

Lyonspyre changes: None to the skill mechanic. The Magic Talent tree adds Affinity bindings (elemental ultimates, see Affinity) and per-spell-school passives.

Magic Trap (In Jux) can additionally be cast on a player - yourself or someone else - to arm the first untrapped pouch in their pack right where it sits (same trap as targeting the pouch directly). An armed pouch turns solid red and is named trapped pouch. It cannot receive Magic Trap again until its current trap is sprung or removed. That's the classic paralyze-break prep: pop the pouch ([pouch) and the 1-damage spark shatters paralysis.

Evaluating Intelligence

A multiplicative damage bonus on every offensive spell:

damage *= (EvalInt / 100) * 0.3 + 1.0    // up to +30% at GM

It also adds a small bonus to detect and check resistance against incoming hostile magic. Pure caster stat - it does nothing for healers and utility mages.

Useful at: 100 for any spell-damage build. Skippable for utility mages who only Recall + Heal + Reactive.

Lyonspyre changes: None.

Meditation

Mana regen speed. Intelligence sets your mana pool; Meditation sets how fast it refills.

• Passive regen is always on - even while moving or in combat - and scales with your Meditation skill: 0.5 × (1 + Meditation/100) mana/sec, so 1.0 mana/sec at 100 Meditation (up from a 0.5/sec base).
• Active meditation (Use Skill → Meditation) doubles your current rate, up to a 2 mana/sec cap. It always succeeds - no roll to focus, so even low-skill characters enter the trance (they just regen slower). It breaks the instant you move, cast, act, or take damage.
• A weapon in hand doesn't stop you. Using the skill stows whatever you are holding into your backpack and enters the trance. Spellbooks, runebooks, and shields stay equipped.
• Armor: leather (any quality, including the special leathers), cloth, wood, and mage-fit / spell-channeling pieces carry no penalty. Heavier armor slows regen by 2× its total armor penalty (slot weight × material weight, summed) toward a 0.125/sec floor - a half-penalty suit drops you to the floor, but it never disables meditation outright. Shields don't block meditation - they just count toward the penalty (buckler/wooden free, heater full). Full tables under Combat → Mana regen.

Useful at: every point helps, since regen is skill-driven; 100 is the goal for any caster.

Lyonspyre changes: Mana regen is Meditation-skill-driven - your Intelligence only sets your mana pool, not regen speed - so casters sustain far better, especially in PvM where active meditation can't be used mid-fight. Full numbers under Combat → Mana regen.

Resisting Spells

Magic Resist does two different jobs on Lyonspyre, deliberately split so the skill scales smoothly rather than in big binary jumps:

1. Damage reduction (linear, no roll)

When you're hit by a hostile damage spell (Magic Arrow, Harm, Fireball, Lightning, Energy Bolt, Explosion, Flame Strike, Chain Lightning, Meteor Swarm, Mind Blast), the damage is multiplied by:

damage  *=  1 - (MR / 400)

No die roll, no resist message - every point of MR shaves a little off every spell. Caps at 95% off (MR 380, unreachable in normal play).

Magic Resist	Damage taken from a 40-dmg spell
0	40.0 (100% - no reduction)
50	35.0 (87.5%)
100 (GM)	30.0 (75%)
150	25.0 (62.5%)
200	20.0 (50%)

2. Effect resist (binary roll)

Effect spells (Paralyze, Curse, Poison, Mana Drain, Mana Vampire, the paralyze rider on Bombard, the spell-interrupt rider on Thunderstorm) still roll Magic Resist against the caster's Magery to NEGATE the effect outright:

resistChance  =  max(MR / 5, MR - ((castSkill - 20) / 5 + (circle + 1) × 5))  /  2

Roughly: GM-versus-GM, the binary resist chance lands around 10-20% depending on circle - low-circle effects resist more often than high-circle ones.

3. Boss cap-shave (extended past GM)

Lyonspyre caps mob spell damage against players based on the mob's Magery tier. On any capped hit, MR further shaves the capped value:

shave  =  min(0.75, MR / 200)

Magic Resist	Cap shave
0	0%
50	25%
100 (GM)	50%
150	75% (ceiling)

So MR past GM is a real boss-tank investment - every point up to MR 150 keeps cutting into a Daemon's Energy Bolt or a Lich Lord's Flame Strike.

Useful at

80+ on every build that fights other spell-users (PvP, dungeon casters). 100 standard. Push to 110-120 if you're a primary boss tank and have the skill slot.

Lyonspyre changes: Damage reduction is a flat MR/400 scalar rather than a pass-or-fail roll for 25% off: predictable, and every point matters. Effect resist keeps the binary roll. The cap-shave ceiling sits at 75% (MR 150) rather than 50% (MR 100), so MR has headroom past GM.

Inscription (retired)

Inscription is retired with the other craft skills, and there is no scroll crafting. Spellbooks come stocked instead: new mages start with the first four circles filled, and the mage vendor sells the full 64-spell book and bulk Recall Scrolls. See where spells come from.

There is no GM Inscription spell-damage bonus; it retired along with the skill.

Spirit Speak

Spirit Speak governs how long your summoned creatures stay with you. Every summon - animals, the four elementals, the daemon, blade spirits, the energy vortex - is bound to the world by your command of the dead.

Summon lifespan = 2 minutes + up to 8 more, scaling with your Spirit Speak:

Spirit Speak	Summon lasts
0	2 minutes
50	6 minutes
100 (GM)	10 minutes

At 0 Spirit Speak any summon fades after just 2 minutes - enough for a single fight, not enough to keep a pet elemental around. Train Spirit Speak and your summons last proportionally longer, up to ten minutes at grandmaster (and past ten once you raise the cap with Scrolls of Mastery).

Controllable summons can Guard and Attack at any Spirit Speak level, including zero. The shared 5 follower-slot ownership limit still applies. The four controllable elementals each cost 2 slots, so two elementals fit within that limit. Other controllable summons use their normal slot costs. Tamed pets still use their separate Taming and Animal Lore combat requirements.

Blade spirits and the energy vortex hunt on their own. The energy vortex only attacks creatures that are attackable, criminal, enemy, or murderous to its summoner. It never attacks a player or an innocent blue NPC. They do not accept Guard or Attack commands. Both cost 2 of the shared ownership slots.

Spirit Speak also lets you hear ghost speech (otherwise the dead just say "OoOoOoO") and gates the occasional quest line.

Useful at: any value if you summon at all - every point is more uptime. 100 for a dedicated summoner. Skippable only if you never summon.

Lyonspyre changes: Spirit Speak drives summoned-creature lifespan (2 to 10 minutes, scaling with skill). It is not required to command controllable summons in combat.