ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Giving necromancers a good try, and I have some talent questions.

For a lich, infusions are out, right? What are best practices about runes? I am guessing manasurge and shielding are musts, but what about the third slot? Worth it to buy extra slots, and if so, what do you put in them?

For a lich, do other sources of healing (celestial light talents from escorts, gift of the highborn talent, etc) still work normally, or should I avoid investing in them?

Worth it to spend points on staff mastery? I'm sort of confused about what I should put generic points in, late game, unless I pick up categories from an escort.

edit: Oh, and one more thing-- I just found Blood of Life. This is before converting to lichdom (I'm at level 11.) If I drink it now, will it mess up my transformation later? Will it work after I'm undead?

edit2: Frostdusk question-- the "all darkness damage you take heals you for 15% of the damage" clause of Frostdusk, does it protect you from the attack, or does it heal you partially after you take the damage? If I have Frostdusk running, and take 100 darkness damage, do I a.) take 100 damage and heal 15, for 85 net damage, or b.) ignore the attack and heal 15, for a net heal of 15?

Being a Lich stops you from using any infusions. Best practice for runes is two shield runes and some attack runes for curing.

Healing effects are not affected by Lichdom.

Divination and Conveyance have some good uses for generic talent points. However, it is popular to pick up Celestial/Light to make up for the lack on infusions. Other categories could also be good. Not sure that includes Staff Combat.

Blood of Life can be used when still living, I think it will work if you die after becoming undead. Not sure. It won't stop you from becoming undead.

Affinity doesn't protect from the damage, it just does a heal after you have taken the damage, assuming you survive.

Okay, made it to 30, cleared Dreadfell, became a lich... was able to get some better understanding of all this stuff. Thanks for your quick answers that helped me make it that far.

Couple of observations:

I'm still not sure how necromancers would spend all their generic points, without unlocking extra categories from escorts or some other source. I lucked out and unlocked Celestial/Light from a Dreadfell escort, but without an extra category, I'd be able to get all I want from Divination and Conveyance by level 40 or so. Unless you're playing a race with talents that require a lot of points, you're going to have some leftovers, right?

I wasted the Blood of Life by becoming a lich first; it had no effect when I drank it. Oops. With any luck, that won't matter.

Seems like between Forgery of Haze and Frostdusk, you're pretty much going to spend a level 10 point in Shades for just about any necromancer you play. Too good to pass up. Are there alternate builds?

Sceptre of the Archlich is pretty amazing.

I have maxed out Magic and Willpower, and am trying to figure out what to invest in next. I am thinking a split between Con and Cun, to buy points in Thick Skin and boost crit a bit. Been relying a lot on minions so I'm not super concerned about my own crit. I should probably take another look at prodigies before I decide. I have absolutely no idea what to choose, in terms of prodigies.

If you're playing with addons that improve advanced necrotic minions (Razakai/Housepet), then definitely look into blighted summoning as a prodigy. Mostly, this is a boost for your skeleton mages and liches (if you have them). However, it's a big boost; you *add* your magic stat to every minion, so a lich actually has a higher magic stat than you!

Stat-wise, I always neglect CON. Thick skin is a very good investment, but I generally hoard +CON items to get to the 59 I need. I prefer CUN to try to get my crit chance to 100%.

I am not using the necromancer addons for this playthrough, but I think I will for the next necromancer attempt I make.

For prodigies, I have no idea what I'm doing. (This is the second character I got to 30; the first was a bulwark, so totally different.) I grabbed Temporal Form, which seems to be a decent damage boost, but I suspect I could have done better.