Shattered Kingdoms

Funny note about priests: I GMed a halfling priest of Marfik whose permanent adjective I set to "stark-naked." He never wore armor past level 5, had terrible charisma, and still wasn't too bad to level. The nice thing about casters, especially priests, is that once you get spear of faith the MO is "sit behind pet, cast armor on pet, spam spear of faith and sleep." You can even heal your pet if he gets hurt enough, and you can even split up groups of NPCs that would otherwise assist each with flamestrike from a room away if need be. Just make sure that you don't run out of mana in the middle of a fight or you're probably going to end up swimming in the river. That will work all the way up until mentor or so, after which for -most- places you'll need company for leveling unless you want to run some heavy risks or spend a lot mana healing up your poor pet.

As for covering your characters' shame, there's at least one newbie area in the game whose armor can be bought even if you aren't a citizen. If you're really hard-up for armor and don't want to look like a streaker, you might wish to take a look around the capital cities again.

Interesting thread.

I doubt this will be much more helpful, but I've found that you can judge equipment level rather accurately simply be taking note of the material. You are typically able to use mithril, adamantite, energy, water and diamond at mentor without TOO much worry of losing the item. Once you hit master... I've found that you pretty much don't have to worry about losing your things. This may not hold true for everything, but all the heavy armor I've worn in the past with the near god-like flag have saved just fine once I've reached master. I've found tanso will save just fine after late journeyman/early veteran. I realize the heavy armor information might not benefit you much right now, but perhaps you will find it useful later on, when you make a fighter at some point.

Also, selling armor and weapons is a good way to increase your coin intake. Charm can be very useful in getting free equipment. You should probably ask around IC about which shops buy weapons and armor at higher prices, that'll make a huge difference on how much you actually make off of equipment you find. Once you can enchant, sell your services too. Some might not seek you out much, but if you explain you need the coin for your training, perhaps other players will be more understanding and willing to pay your fee. I suggest five plat for weapons and armor, no fee if it explodes. It's really all up to you... I knew a guy that charged an obsidian per weapon/armor piece. There weren't too many magi around though, so it worked.

Good luck and don't get discouraged. If you find yourself not wanting to play due to slow leveling, lack of coin etc, I suggest you make a fighter to play around with for fun. Don't give up on the mage though... with etherealform and all the transport skills you'll have at your disposal, not to mention identify, you'll learn the game much faster.