Class / Race abilities ?

[swim]

I've been searching through the documentation found here but can't seem to find anything about the abilities / features that you get from the class and race combinations..

For example, I am wondering what exactly the "Spell Choice" feature of the Ranger does? In game it just says "You may choose your own spells to study" but I'm still not really sure exactly what this means.

[Nick]

For that specific example, it is a contrast with Priests and Paladins who don't get a choice - they nominate a book, and learn one of the available spells at random.

Since you've quoted it, I'm guessing you've found the 'S' command for viewing abilities. Possibly some of those could do with some expansion...

[swim]

Originally Posted by Nick

For that specific example, it is a contrast with Priests and Paladins who don't get a choice - they nominate a book, and learn one of the available spells at random.

Since you've quoted it, I'm guessing you've found the 'S' command for viewing abilities. Possibly some of those could do with some expansion...

Ohh I see. I played as a Paladin up to level 20ish and didn't notice any difference in the way the spells were learned. I'm okay with it being vague if that's the intention. Just wasn't sure if I was missing something in the documentation.

[swim]

I ran another Paladin and for the first book at least it seemed the spells were unlocked in the same order as my previous run.
Could you elaborate on what you mean when you said that Paladins learn their spells at random?

[Pete Mack]

If there are a number of unknown spells at or below the character level, you get one at random. This is only really an issue at low CL, when there are more spells available than you have slots to learn.

[archolewa]

And I dont think its ever a problem for paladins. You tend to have as many slots as spells you can learn for paladin in my experience.

[Pete Mack]

in 4.1, yes. In 4.2, not quite.

[DavidMedley]

Spell choice applies to 6 of 8 casters, right? It's an odd distinction, maybe a holdover from the 9 book days? I actually tried to leave it off of Blackguards.

[Werbaer]

Originally Posted by archolewa

And I dont think its ever a problem for paladins. You tend to have as many slots as spells you can learn for paladin in my experience.

With a decent spell stat, yes.
If you ever play a half-troll paladin with minimum wisdom, it might be different.

[johannna]

There used to be many fewer classes.

If a class used wizard books and could learn to cast stuff like phase door or detect treasure (wiz, ranger, rogue), they were arcane, couldn't wear normal gloves, and might learn several *choice* spells upon leveling up or donning a +6 ring of intelligence. With the exception of rogues, they could always take magic missile as their first spell.

If a class used cleric books and could pray holy chant and cure light wounds, they were divine, could wear gloves, and typically wouldn't get cure light wounds until well after they could access !CCW in my experience because they had no control over which prayer they got when reading a spellbook.