Latest revision as of 23:21, 26 July 2025

Spell Research

Intelligence or Wisdom, whichever is higher governs your chance to gain skill increases.

It should be noted that if you wish to forgo having to train up your skill manually, you can go to any GM trainer and pay to have this trained up to a trivial number.

The higher your level when you use a GM Trainer to train research at 0 skill the more free points you will receive. Versus training it at level 16 and only receiving 16 free points.

FAQ

How do I get started with research at all?

If your character belongs to a researching class (MAG WIZ NEC ENC) you will at first need to buy the specific tome for your class (see below). This Tome acts like a container. All you need to do is put the spell ingredients in there, hit combine and you have a new spell (or failure).

What do I combine ingredients in to create the spell?

Wizards use a Lexicon, Mages use Elemental Grimoire, Enchanters use Tome of Endless Enchantments, and Necromancers use Book of Dark Bindings.

Where can I find all these runes, words, and pages?

It's all random. You must attack critters level 10+ and on occasion they will be carrying your research item. Higher level creatures drop items for higher level spells. There generally is not a SPECIFIC creature to hunt for a SPECIFIC item. Research items can sometimes also be found on vendors if players have sold them, often in or near the areas where they drop. There has been some talk of specific areas dropping more of one type of research component than others, but this has yet to be shown beyond anecdote.

Is the quill and parchment needed to create a spell?

No! It must NOT be included or the creation will fail. These items are used with the Concordance of Research (practice research)

Can I research any spell at any level?

With limited success - failure rates depend on your Research Spells ability relative to the trivial level (in INT) for the recipe. I would suggest just sticking to your own level or below.

Who uses which ingredients?

Wizards use Runes, Necros use Words, Enchanters use pages from various grimoires, writs or tomes. Mages use a combination of Words and other special items.

Can Casters Research Spells for Other Classes?

Classes cannot research other class spells. If you try to use a research tome from another class (for example, an Enchanter using an Elemental Grimoire), the game will tell you "Your class may not use this tome." when you click Combine.

What is the skill cap?

Research is a level restricted skill. As such, your max skill is: (Level - 15) x 5. When you train Research at level 16, it starts your skill at Skill 16, far above the maximum possible by this formula. As such you cannot increase your skill any higher until level 19. The maximum skill is 200. (Edit: Not necessarily true. My level 16 wizard on 21st of June, 2018 has the research skill at 5 after training it at the trainer. Which is correctly reflected from the formula. 16-15=1 x5 = 5.)

UPDATE p99 blue: My Level 39 Enchanter has a research level of 0. I spent one point on research at the trainer and it took my research to a skill level of 39 (Confirmed: 08/11/2022)

• A wise man once said: "Spend your skill points in Research. What else would you use them for?" IMPORTANT BIT OF INFO { Currently Blue server and eventually Green/Teal server ~ Food for thought ~ Many can and do choose a different route when it comes to spending their training points once Scars of Velious has been released. You by no means have to but it makes all the hard work getting trade skills up for the Coldain Shawl / Ring quests a bit quicker. Weigh your options is all I suggest, both can be done the old-fashioned way..choice is yours! }

Why are some Magician Pet recipes missing?

Magician research was actually broken on release of EQ. Magicians were supposed to research all of their pets after level 16 or 20 (I'm unsure if the vendor in OoT had these spells on release), but several of the recipes didn't work. Since Magicians required research chains for all of their pets (researching a pet required you to re-research all prior pets to use the spells in the current research), the broken recipes meant they couldn't get any of their pets after those levels. Several months after release, when this was discovered (and likely in conjunction with the realization that chain research created very large disparities between magicians and the other researching classes), the solution was to put some of the pet spells from each level - including those with the broken recipes - on merchants instead of correcting the broken research. Thus there are pets that can only be obtained through purchasing them from a vendor and cannot be researched. These include the level 34 Earth & Water, level 39 Air & Fire Pets.

Spell Recipes

For an editable google spreadsheet that you can enter your personal quantities of research components, please see this Google doc spreadsheet, and save it to your google drive. Instructions are listed on the front sheet.

Enchanter Spell Recipes

All components listed are "pages." Spells require 2 parts, either 2 pages or 2 half-pages. The pages marked (Faded) must be combined by themselves in your tome to become numbered pages. Caution: faded pages may have a higher trivial the spell itself! For example, Feedback is trivial 95, but the faded Velishoul's page is trivial 122.

Enchanter Words "Shopping List"

Magician Spell Recipes

Components listed can be words, other spells, drops or vendor items. Spells can require 2 or 3 items. Bold spells can only be obtained via Spell Research.