I'm still pretty new to UO (been on for about a month), and I've just started created a mage char. I've narrowed down his profession as either a Scribe, or a Tamer.

Which should I go for? Which one is more fun? Which one is more profitable? Are either of them too difficult to even try mastering?

Thanks for the help!

Scribe
Resist
Magery
Eval int
Wrestling
Meditation
Focus (some say no) or poison

Taming is one of the hardest skills in UO to bring up from low skill level; many people use Advanced Character tokens to make their tamer; the template is that of a tamer/mage.

A mage/scribe is easier, it is just a matter of paying for scrolls and regs, which is still easier than taming thousands of animals. Inscription also gives a mage a damage increase of 10%, if I remember correctly. Choose a couple of complementary skills (Necromancy or Spellweaving) and you will have a good, all-around mage character, good for most tasks in the game.

There are several many variants of the mage skill templates. Nev's quite functional. It really depends on how the magery skill is used, as primary or support. Example of primary is Nev's template.

A tamer will normally use it as support.

The primary difference between support or primary is the evaluation intelligence skill.

Bard / mage
Mage
Med
Eval int
Music
Provocation
Discord
Strengths: Just about anything with more than one monsters spawning. Loved at champions spawns in Felluca, Dungeon Doom, treasure hunts and Peerless spawns. One of the top three PvM templates (Tamer, Bard, and Necro/Bushi/pally).
Weakness: Single monsters spawns, PvP
Training Time: Provocation and Discord are slow to train.

Multi-Mage
Mage -120
Med -120
Eval int -120
Necromancy - 100
Spellweaving - 120
Inscription 100

Advantages: Spellweaving gives you the ability to ethereal voyage. Necro gives you shape change (lich form gives some really nice advantages), and of course the ever useful magery. Inscription gives you additional spell damage, and the money making ability to make scrolls and spelbooks.
Can fight just about anywhere. Great support template.

Weakness: PvP, Large spawn areas can be difficult.

training is fairly easy. Hardest will be spellweaving. Most costly is inscription.


There are template examples all over the site. Remember to vote for my FAQ initiative to help locate this stuff easier.