Stuck at level 20 in leather armor

I have been experimenting with magic and have raised all but Chaos and Death (those two do not fit my character profile, so they are avoided). I also eschewed cloth armor, as I did not find much of it available, so I went with augmented leather armor (full kit), triangle shield and a scavenged sword (pirate cutlass, iron scimitar, whatever I could afford or loot).

Using this kit I could not get to level 21, period. There was absolutely no way I could kill a timber wolf, or even damage a Ebon Cultist. Most of the spiders, even the smallest ones, were near certain death (there are some small ones in Kingsroad, but they travel in large packs).

So being a dedicated caster is not a practical kit without being in a party to tank the monsters. No possible way (for me) to solo above level 20. I did finally buy plate legs and plate chest and a two handed sword (blades had advanced to over 50), and I could then kill monsters that were impossible before. Magic is not powerful enough to kill any of the creatures I could kill with a sword, so my guess is there is a combat balance issue with any class that relies solely on magic. Glass cannons do not seem to exist with the current combat iteration.

 

I think you did well to get as far as you did! In the last postmortem the devs addressed this very issue - Chris especially said that although the use-based system was incorporated into R21 (and that in itself was a huge task!), only about half of the skills were really done and balanced. Magic in particular was very lacking.

They did promise that magic (and all the other neglected skills) would get a huge love and balancing for R22, and I note that in the QA build currently running they say that seems to have happened. If you can hang on for another week, you should get a nice surprise when R22 hits!

 

Hey! So I'm not crazy after all! I thought I must be doing something wrong! Another thing I noticed is some of the schools of magic (Moon, Earth and Water specifically) are super tedious to level to 10 so you can open the next tier of skills. I mean, Moon requires you to cast "Night Vision" all the time no matter where you are in order to get the repetitions done to advance. It reminds me f the old Elder Scrolls skill, "Athleticism" that leveled through use, so everyone always jumped around the map, even when speaking to an NPC. "Blah, blah, blah, <space bar>, blah, blah." You have gained a level of Athleticism! It looked completely ridiculous!

 

You can get to Level 25 or 26 (maybe higher) just by solving quest with minimal fighting. Soltown, Braemar, Owl's Head are good places to start.

 

I my self use leather full set of supple atm but prior to that just the basic crafted set and I am 41 although I use sword and board mainly but I have skilled up magic as I use a staff or wand for ranged. I can now kill timber wolves with a wand and spell spam although only 1 at a time but any more than that I sword and board. I too wanted be pure caster in cloth and recently was educated that cloth is better than leather atm, although I had already been wearing leather thinking things were to the contrary. Magic is crap for only 1 more weak hopefully but if u suppliment your casting with sword and board where needed and grind some of the easier areas with bandits and large greys you will be able to level beyond 21.in your leather or cloth.