Information and helpful tips on how to best train as an Empath.

Until you're tenth circle, you have to train the following skills:

• Empathy
• Teaching
• Scholarship
• First Aid
• Foraging
• Evasion
• Primary Magic
• Harness
• Power Perceive
• Magical Devices
• General Lore
• General Survival
• General Magic

Some of these you'll be lucky enough to say goodbye to after tenth or thirtieth.

After tenth, you drop Foraging, Evasion, Harness, and Magical Devices.

After thirtieth, you no longer have to train Power Perception and Scholarship.

As for the others, First Aid, Teaching, Empathy, and your General requirements (Lore, Magic and Survivals), you're stuck with for the duration. If you can't handle them, you're probably in the wrong guild.

Lore:

You may hate this skill set, but it remains the one you learn most easily as well as being the one you need the most.

Empathy:
The skill that defines what you are. At this point, it cannot be taught. You can learn this by healing others and by perceiving health. Early on, you will only be able to heal fresh external wounds. At 6 ranks, you can take fresh internals, at 7 ranks, external scars, and at 8 ranks, you can take internal scars.

Appraisal:
Appraise everything you can. Things like open gem pouches and bundles (as long as they have not been tied off) are good for getting a decent chunk of experience at once. If you like to hunt, appraise creatures.

Mechanical Lore:
Chances are you will dislike this skill. Unfortunately, you want it. Braid vines, carve branches, crush herbs, scrape skins, make origami.

Musical Theory:
If you become good at this, it will likely become a lore that you enjoy more than most. Buy a lyre and try playing it. You do have to clean them and keep them from getting wet to prevent damage.

Scholarship:
The easiest way to learn this is from classes. Listening to any class will help you get this, though, of course, a class on Scholarship will teach it the fastest. You can study embroidery patterns and read library books as well. Spell books teach this skill well, but are expensive and difficult to get.

Teaching:
Early on (and perhaps even later), this may seem the bane of your existence. Until you are at least 20th, you will have a difficult time finding people to listen to your classes. You will learn this skill best by teaching a full class. 25 ranks will allow you to teach 2 people. At 50, you teach 3, 100 teaches 4 and so on.

Magic:

You will need all four of the magics you can readily learn to keep up with your Overall Magic Requirement. Targeted Magic classes are nice when they're available, but don't count on that skill.

You should have no problem with Primary Magic and Harness since you'll need to cast spells nearly constantly while healing just to stay healthy. This should, in fact, be one of the first things you learn how to do.

Early on, casting spells is quite difficult as you won't have much concentration or skill and will have to figure out how much you can prep a spell for so that it will be effective in healing you without frying your nerves. Nerve damage is basically inevitable in magic using guilds when you're first starting. I recommend trying to prep External Wound Healing at 1-3.

Magical Devices:
This shouldn't be hard once you have some cambrinth to help you cast spells. Prep a spell at its minimum, which you can do now by simply prepping the spell without entering an amount, and charge your cambrinth the amount you think necessary to heal your wound or scar. When you're done charging the cambrinth, focus on it and then cast when ready.

Power Perception:
The best way to learn this is by wandering around and typing power or perceive in every room. Do not do this anywhere that you may be in danger, such as goblins, because this has a roundtime. Perceive health also teaches this skill. If you cannot heal internal wounds, do not perceive health. It can give nerve damage and internal head injuries if you become stunned.

Survivals:

Some of these are required and some are merely recommended.

Climbing:
This is fairly easy to learn. Begin in shipyard rats. If you go through the office, then the work yard, then to slipway two, you'll see a ladder that's pretty easy to climb. After that, try the tree in Arthe Dale - it's near the swimming hole.

Disarming and Lockpicking:
People are going to tip you with boxes, particularly young ones. You should be able to pick goblin boxes at least. Remove your armor (unless you like repairing or replacing it every week). disarm <box type> identify first. This will tell you how difficult the box is for you and, hopefully, the type of trap. If the box is not above your abilities (if it is you will receive messages telling you that it is when you attempted to identify it), type disarm <box type> mark. When you've successfully marked it, or if you've skipped marking it, now disarm it. You do this by typing disarm <box type> and then you have the option of quick, normal, or careful.

Evasion:
This is never a good idea to drop entirely, unless you don't mind being city-bound on a permanent basis. Being that Empaths have a general survival requirement, Evasion is never a bad skill to know. Shipyard rats (from the Crossing bank, go southeast, over the bridge, southeast and through the gate) are a good place to learn this skill. Furthermore, should you plan on being a Battle Empath, this skill is essential!

Foraging:
Since you're not a Ranger and likely didn't want to be stuck with this skill, you'll be more than glad to see it go after 10th. Until then, one of the best places to train Foraging is outside of the Northeast Gate. Early on, try to forage for branches or vines. Around 20 ranks in foraging, you should be able to find georin grass. Carving the branches, braiding vines and crushing herbs is good for Mechanical Lore, so you may want to keep up with this skill.

First Aid:
This one should sound familiar - it's that skill that stops you from gushing blood all over yourself. Your roundtimes will be an enormous nuisance at first (and when you're badly injured), but you can cheer yourself up by remembering how much worse every other Guild has it when trying to learn this skill. Tend your wounds. Infection is not a pretty sight if you don't have Cure Disease.

Perception:
Come on. You're an Empath. You get this one just by being a good little Empath and touching lots of people.

Skinning:
This is nice if you can get it. Scraping skins, pelts, etc, works this skill as well as Mechanical Lore. Unfortunately, people rarely tip with bundles they haven't already scraped.

Stealing:
Spare me your morals. If you don't want to be stolen from, you should practice this skill and Perception. And, yes, some of us probably have sticky fingers anyway.

Swimming:
Yes, I know. You're an Empath and you carry everything you own because your vault is already crammed, so the last thing you want to do is swim. This is one of the easier Survivals to lock however. Try the brook in goblins or the swimming hole in Arthe Dale.