First three Magnakai Disciplines?

[LoneWolf23k]

Ok, finished the first five Kai books, and now I'm starting up on the Magnakai books, but I'm stifled at the selection of Magnakai Disciplines...

...What's the optimum selection you'd recommend? I've played the book before, and always had problems in the first Magnakai book because I was always lacking one or another discipline...

[Ghost Bear]

I always pick Weaponmastery, Huntmastery and either Invisibility or Pathmanship because I see Lone Wolf as an outdoorsman first and foremost.

Here's what my choices mean in game terms (Spoilers):


Weaponmastery gives me a +3 to my Bow skill, so I can get a certain useful Special Item (I also use the dual-wielding rules so it gives me a total of +4CS in combat too). Huntmastery is always useful and also lets me complete the Lore Circle of Fire giving me a +1CS and +2EP. I usually go for Pathmanship over Invisibility for roleplay reasons (he has little idea of where to find the Lorestone of Varetta, so tracking skills make sense).

That way, I also get to finish the Lore Circle of Solaris in Book 7.

I'm not sure that this is optimum, but it's sound for the type of Lone Wolf I like to play. I'm sure that others can fill you in on the optimum choice though.

-GB

[Zipp]

I take the psi-surge and psi-shield, and divination abilities. They are all solid abilities and by book 7 you can have the +3 +3 Circle of the Spirit completed.

That comes in handy.

[Nathan P. Mahney]

I go with Weaponmastery and Huntmastery for the first Lore Circle, and then Divination. Trust me, you WANT the Lore Circle of the Spirit by Book 9...

[Vonotar]

I've tried a lot variants over the years, usually with different combinations of the Spirit and Fire disciplines. My favoured choice is now:

Weaponskill
Psi-surge
Divination

I then go on to pick, in order, Psi-screen, Nexus, Huntmastery for the next 3 books.

There is an optimal path I use through the books which means I don't really need Huntmastery until Book 9, for instance. I used to think for a long time that Huntmastery was one of the first Disciplines I should get, especially because it gets asked for so often in Book 6. But these places can mostly be avoided, and the extra Spirit discipline comes in handy.

That said, if you don't know the books well, Huntmastery can give you a survival edge in many situations. The same goes for Divination and Pathsmanship.

Disciplines you should definitely not take for Book 6: Psi-screen (virtually useless), Invisibility and Animal Control (only slightly better). If you want one of these disciplines for a particular Lore Circle or role-playing theme, it's best to wait until Castle Death. Book 7 has so many paths that you can tailor your route to your disciplines (assuming you know the book well enough!), with all 10 disciplines seeing good use at various points in the book. I've got different routes depending on whether I'm playing Spirit, Solaris+Fire, Light+Fire and so on.

But I digress...

[Doomy]

I generally prefer to choose my disciplines as randomly as possible (although I always have Sixth Sense in Book 1 and Animal Kinship in Book 2) but I believe the Circle of the Spirit is too useful not to take the first chance I get. So I randomly select from those Disciplines which count towards CotS.
Then I look for other circles which I can gain ASAP.

Spoilers: The Silver Bow of Duadon can be gained through use of Psi-Surge (if you can bear the thought of Lone Wolf cheating in the archery contest), even if you don't have Weaponmastery with bow.
It does take some luck, though.
If you've been lucky enough for that, hopefully you were also lucky enough to get a random Weaponskill which works with the Sommerswerd (ie: Skill with any kind of Sword). There is a 40% chance of this being the case.
If so, Weaponmastery isn't spectacular compared to your existing Kai bonuses and can wait until much later.
The books seem to ask whether you have the Lore-Circle of Solaris more frequently than any others, so my method probably isn't "the best," although it got me through the Magnakai series with surprising ease last time around.
Remember that the Lore-Circle of the Spirit is useful in book 9 and VITAL in book 11.

And remember to grant yourself the twelfth Magnakai Discipline (and corresponding Lore-Circle bonus) on reaching Book 13.

[JLSigman]

I think the last couple of times I've run through the Magnakai books I've not gotten Weaponmastery... I did the Circle of Solaris for the book 6, Curing for book 7 since half of your battles need it to not take double or even triple damage, then start working on the Circle of the Spirit. Psi-Screen is really necessary for 8, Nexus helps for 9, Psi-surge for 10, then you have the whole circle for 11.

[Sphigx]

I usually start with Huntmastery, Pathmanship, Divination.
Then :
I continue completing the Circle of the Spirit : Nexus, Psi-screen. Weaponmastery is useful in Tahou. Then, Invisibililty and Psi-surge. When meeting the Chaos-Master, all the Lore-circles but one are complete.

Sphigx.

[Peregrine]

I typically take Pathsmanship, Huntmastery and Weaponmastery (completing Fire right off). I then complete Solaris in book 7, and work towards Spirit for book 11. I take Curing for book 12; Animal Control is the dump discipline.

I believe the optimal choice is to complete Fire right off and then Spirit by book 9. The bonuses from Weaponmastery and Fire are worth more than those from Spirit (even with Psi-surge), in my opinion, and so delaying everything to get Spirit ASAP is not the best way.

[BenKenobi]

I choose: Weaponmastery, Huntmastery, and one of Psi Screen/Psi Surge/Nexus/Divination (the four skills of Circle of Spirit).

The purpose is to complete Fire & Spirit circles in the fastest way. It is more useful to have Fire before Spirit, because you have the advantages of Fire circle since book 6. The skills of Spirit circle aren't so useful in books 6 & 7, so it isn't convenient in my opinion to have them all so early. The only reason is the bonus of Spirit circle, but you can have it in book 9, and it is early enough.

I think you have to boost your CS the most possible; but the use of Psi Surge isn't very good in Magnakai serie, because you pay the +4 bonus with a -2 loss of Endurance for each round of combat, and it is too much. I use Psi-Surge only in the last adventures, when you can advantage of the +6 bonus with just -1 EN per round. So, Psi-Surge is always the last of the Spirit-skills: I pick it in book 9.

[Zipp]

Now we have to decide which of these constitute the best choices

I guess if we had one of the people who worked on the walkthrough, we could figure out which combination works best.

Where does that Sol go when you need 'im?

[Darkash]

Personally, I go with Weaponmastery, Nexus, and Psi-surge. Then Divination, Psi-Screen, Huntmastery, Pathmanship, Invisibility, and Curing. This path allows you to get Lorecircle-Spirit in book 8, which gives you *Spoiler* a chance to get the Grey Crystal Ring, and still kill the Helegast with a high % of victory Divination has three good uses in book 7, Huntmastery is good for Fire, and the others have their uses as well. Of course, this is only if you have gone through books 1-5.

[Relenoir]

To start off, I go with Weaponmastery and Psi-surge to help me get the bow, then either Divination or Huntmastery. If you take Huntmastery, it gives you the Circle of Fire, but if you take Divination, you can have the Circle of Spirit complete by the end of Book 7. I usually have gone with HM, then added the other Spirit Disciplines to have them all by the end of book 8.

[North Star]

My core three are usually Weaponmastery, Huntmastery and Curing in any of the series, but in Magnakai/GM, I generally drop Curing until later to be replaced by Psi-screen and Nexus.

NS.

Edit: Basically, that makes me a half-psionic half-ranger paladin

[Ramidel]

Weaponmastery and Huntmastery to start is a standard build. Curing isn't as useful, though, because of the Hidden Loyalty bonus for Healing.

Hrm, my third discipline is usually either Psi-Screen or Invisibility, depending on whether I'm focusing on getting Spirit by Book 9. Usually, it's Psi-Screen. After getting Solaris or Spirit I get the other one, with Curing as my Archmaster discipline.