possible UO Wiki error re: the necro Horrific Beast form

The description for Horrific Beast (HB) on the Necromancy UO Wiki page includes the following point about the form:

• Focused characters (ie  having no more than 30.0 modified skill points in another main skill set) may cast spells in this form, non-focused templates will may only cast necromancer transformation spells.

I can find no other mention of HB having this capability if "focused".  The in game description simply says that HB cannot cast any spells except for the necro transformation ones. Either the bit about a "focused template" was too confusing to include in game, or the Wiki is out of date concerning this particular capability.

If the Wiki is correct, what the heck is a focused template concerning Necromancy?  There are fighter/healer necros, necro mages, necro samurai's, "sampires", and who knows what else.  Are any of these templates focused? The only meaning which seems reasonable would be that skills in Necromancy and Spirit Speak are, say, within 10 of each other. If those two skills are balanced, and each are at least 60, then your template is necro-focused. That is pure guesswork, though.  Sort of.  My actual guess is that this Wiki bullet point is no longer applicable.

BTW my, hopefully focused, necro samurai can use the Bushido chain of:

Honor -> Lightning Strike -> Perfection -> (etc) -> Honorable Execution

That is probably not a violation of the "only necro transformation spells" rule, because I believe the Bushido stuff is referred to as moves and stances, not spells. The stances such as Confidence are disabled, though.  Spirit Speak skill is functional, but that is not a spell either.  (I'm guessing Healing would work too, but I cannot test that right now.)  At any rate, my guy as a Horrific Beast can gain in all his skills except Necromancy itself.

I think you'll find the information you're looking for on this page:
https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/skills/an-introduction-to-spellcasting/

@Mariah, my brain hurts!

1. Are you saying that Horrific Beast can cast necro spells generally in a focused build?
2. If so, what skills would throw a Necro build out of focus? In the example given for Magery, taking the Focus skill means the build is no longer magery-focused because the "right" mana regen skill is Meditate.  (Focus with an "F" is the skill, focus with an "f" is the adjective.)  The page did not mention whether Focus or Meditate was the correct mana skill for Necromancy. My gist is that a template relying on two spell books is automatically out of focus. It gets fuzzy on the edges, though.  What if a build took both Meditate and Focus? Would that automatically de-focus the build?
3. Would the Imbuing skill unfocus a magery build?
   
4. Besides the necro Horrific Beast form, what other skills, powers, or spells are limited by out-of-focus builds? (The Wiki page gives one general, positive benefit to focused builds.  Their Spell Damage Increase (SDI) cap is raised to 25 from 20.)
   

My interpretation is this -- the set of magic-related skills appear to be the unfocusing ones.  These are Magery, Eval Int, Meditate, Chivalry, Focus, Necromancy, Spirit Speak, Bushido, Parry, Ninjitsu  (but not Hiding or Stealth), Mysticism, Spellweaving, Animal Taming, and Musicianship. The skills Inscription, Wrestling, and Anatomy are mentioned as part of a focused, pure mage, template, but I am not sure whether they would unfocus other types of magic in the way the Focus skill unfocuses Magery.  And presumably any build could take Resist Spells still be considered focused. However, almost any imaginable tamer and/or bard template will automatically be unfocused.

Assume that the core necro skills are Necromancy, Spirit Speak, and Meditate.  The first two are required, and the third is optional. So long as the template has no other magic-related skills it will remain focused.  (The Wiki page for Necromancy gives a 30-point leeway for another magic-related skill, but I'm ignoring that.) So, at a guess, one build which would allow Horrific Beast to cast all Necromancy spells is:

1. <weapon>, Tactics
2. Necromancy, Spirit Speak, Meditate
3. Healing, Anatomy

If you wanted to squeeze in Poisoning, say, that should be okay too. For example if you wanted to rely on the regenerative and leeching powers of Necromancy, substituting Poisoning and Alchemy for Healing and Anatomy would be fine. Additionally that adds self-made potions to your battle kit.

P.S. to players -- Am I the only one who was clueless concerning the "unfocused build" concept?

The focus 'pairs' are

• Magery & Evaluate Intelligence,
• Necromancy & Spiritspeak,
• Mysticism & Focus or Imbuing

The skills that make it not focused are

• Ninjitsu,
  
• Bushido,
  
• Chivary
• Spellweaving
• Animal Taming
• Parry
• Musicianship

Plus of course you can't mix and match the pairs. Meditation is not counted, so is fine to have with any of the 3 casting types

.

🙂 I just verified on the test center that a focused necro build did indeed allow the Horrific Beast to cast other Necro spells besides transformation. Both Curse Weapon and Pain Spike were cast by in HB form with no problem!  Dayam! -- with the Horrific Beast's health regen AND Curse Weapon's life leech, that could be ... very interesting.

The build was:

60: swords,  tactics
60: necromancy, spirit speak, meditate
60: healing, anatomy
60: alchemy, poisoning

Adding 60 Focus to this build unfocused it, and HB form was once again limited to Necromancy transformation spells.  The character was human, so his 20 Focus via JOAT is no problem.

@Mariah, the Wiki page to which you linked has an example stating that a mage build with the Focus skill was unfocused, because "Focus belongs in the Mysticism skill set". Oh, I see, you are saying Meditate can go with any, but Focus only with Mysticism.  I hope Focus does not unfocus Chivalry, though.

I think I've got a grasp of the design conceptually, now.  Thank you for your clarifications.  The one design decision I don't understand is why Parry would be included in the "disqualifying" set.  Parry is a very natural, real-world, skill, whereas barding  and taming go beyond what is possible in the real world.  Perhaps the designers wanted to avoid magic users being overprotected from physical attacks. I mean, having both Parry and a 25% DCI cap, that'll unbalance things!

Well, I guess it might in the case of Horrific Beast.  He's already a monster with his regen and life leech.  Adding Parry defense to that might be "too cool for school".

The only reason to have a focused build is for the sdi bonus.
Chivalry is not classed as a magic user's skill, but as a warrior skill, There is no 'focused' build for a paladin.

@mariah, Perhaps the Horrific Beast situation is more significant than having a 25% SDI cap instead of 20%.  Consider a spell that would do 40 damage.

at  0% SDI - 40
at 20% SDI - 48
at 25% SDI - 50

The effect is minor, especially when you consider not all magic users are even at the 20% SDI cap to begin with.

Allowing Horrific Beast to cast the whole necro set of spells may not be a whole new ballgame.  However it might add another inning or two.  I have already decided to make a character who will be a focused necro poisoner.  It is a pity he won't be able to parry, but it should be really nice even so!

DCI - defense chance increase is capped at 45%, it's spell damage increase that has a 20 or 25% cap.  https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/items/magic-item-properties/

@Mariah, thank you.  I meant SDI.  Fortunately I had time to edit the post.  My mind acts dyslexic sometimes, confusing costume with uniform, poison with cure, and SDI with DCI. Etc.

@Mariah, it seems there may be an error after all in the text quoted in the OP.  I believe the following to be incorrect:

(ie  having no more than 30.0 modified skill points in another main skill set)

Based on working with a character tonight, the "30" is likely "25".

I have modified two pre-existing necromancers to have focused builds, in both cases by lowering the Focus skill.  In each case I had to buy up temporary skills so that Focus could begin to go down.  On the first character I stopped buying the temp skills when his focus had reached about 23. (Might as well keep some for now.)  He could cast all the necro spells, and it made me happy.

The second necro acted a little differently.  I bought him temporary skills until his focus was down to 29.3.  His necro skill-casting ability was limited to just the transformation skills.  Hmm, did I buy something on the "unfocusing list".  Nope.  I decided to work up Hiding (one of his temp skills) with it's accelerated gain quest.  At 27.4 and 26.1 Focus, his spell casting was still limited.  However, at Focus of 24.6 the full menu of spells was open.  Since I wasn't checking at every increment, my guess is the magic number was 25.0.

If it makes any difference, the second character is a Gorgoyle (racial Throwing and Imbuing capabilities). The first is human (JOAT).

I have checked through publish notes and can find no mention of reducing that 30.0 figure from what was set in publish 71. @Bleak can you confirm please?

Mariah said:

I have checked through publish notes and can find no mention of reducing that 30.0 figure from what was set in publish 71. @ Bleak can you confirm please?

The skill requirement of having no more than 30  modified skill points has not changed.

Bleak said:

Mariah said:

I have checked through publish notes and can find no mention of reducing that 30.0 figure from what was set in publish 71. @ Bleak can you confirm please?

The skill requirement of having no more than 30  modified skill points has not changed.

Thank you 🙂

@Bleak and @Mariah,

There is a bug then specifically regarding gargoyles who are necromancers. I retested on both a human and a gargoyle.  The threshold for a human is 30 modified skill points of Focus.  The threshold for a gargoyle is 25.

I activated the "Save journal to file" user setting for both characters.  For context, here is some of what you will see from both characters.

• DedFred, human necromancer on the Origin shard
• Gar of the Dead, gargoyle necromancer on the Sonoma shard
• Curse Weapon spell words: An Sanct Gra Char
• Horrific Beast spell words: Rel Xen Vas Bal

Note that the file catches DedFred as his Focus ascends above 30.0 Focus, but Gar of the Dead as he descends below 25.0 Focus. (I didn't think of activating the Journal until after testing with Gar as his Focus went over 25.) I have removed unnecessary lines for brevity, but if you want the full chat.log file, I can email it somewhere.

...
... DedFred, human, Origin
...
[18/04/18][14:06:53] [DedFred]: Rel Xen Vas Bal
[18/04/18][14:06:55] Your skill in Spirit Speak has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 79.1%.
[18/04/18][14:06:55] Your skill in Mace Fighting has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 10.0%.
[18/04/18][14:06:55] Your skill in Necromancy has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 61.4%.
[18/04/18][14:06:55] Your skill in Mace Fighting has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 9.9%.
[18/04/18][14:06:55] You have lost a little karma.
[18/04/18][14:07:19] [DedFred]: An Sanct Gra Char
[18/04/18][14:07:56] [DedFred]: Now unlocking Focus skill
[18/04/18][14:08:21] Your skill in Focus has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 23.4%.
[18/04/18][14:08:21] Your skill in Mace Fighting has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 9.8%.
[18/04/18][14:09:19] [DedFred]: Note that Curse Weapon was succesful while in Horrific Beast form.
...
[18/04/18][14:09:59] Your skill in Focus has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 25.0%.
[18/04/18][14:09:59] Your skill in Mace Fighting has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 8.2%.
[18/04/18][14:10:02] [DedFred]: An Sanct Gra Char
[18/04/18][14:10:03] Your skill in Spirit Speak has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 79.2%.
[18/04/18][14:10:03] Your skill in Mace Fighting has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 8.1%.
[18/04/18][14:10:10] [DedFred]: An Sanct Gra Char
[18/04/18][14:10:11] Your skill in Focus has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 25.1%.
[18/04/18][14:10:11] Your skill in Mace Fighting has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 8.0%.
[18/04/18][14:10:14] Your skill in Focus has increased by 0.2%.  It is now 25.3%.
[18/04/18][14:10:14] Your skill in Mace Fighting has decreased by 0.2%.  It is now 7.8%.
[18/04/18][14:10:37] [DedFred]: This character is human.
[18/04/18][14:10:43] [DedFred]: An Sanct Gra Char
[18/04/18][14:11:46] [DedFred]: Curse Weapon is still functioning.
...
[18/04/18][14:14:01] Your skill in Focus has increased by 0.2%.  It is now 29.9%.
[18/04/18][14:14:01] Your skill in Mace Fighting has decreased by 0.2%.  It is now 3.0%.
[18/04/18][14:14:07] [DedFred]: An Sanct Gra Char
[18/04/18][14:14:09] Your skill in Focus has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 30.0%.
[18/04/18][14:14:09] Your skill in Mace Fighting has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 2.9%.
[18/04/18][14:14:13] [DedFred]: An Sanct Gra Char
[18/04/18][14:14:18] Your skill in Focus has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 30.1%.
[18/04/18][14:14:18] Your skill in Mace Fighting has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 2.8%.
[18/04/18][14:14:18] Your skill in Focus has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 30.2%.
[18/04/18][14:14:18] Your skill in Mace Fighting has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 2.7%.
[18/04/18][14:14:22] You cannot cast that spell in this form.
...
... Gar of the Dead, gargoyle, Sonoma
...
[18/04/18][14:33:28] Your skill in Focus has increased by 0.2%.  It is now 25.7%.
[18/04/18][14:33:28] Your skill in Mace Fighting has decreased by 0.2%.  It is now 31.5%.
[18/04/18][14:33:55] [Gar of the Dead]: Focus at 25.7.  I am in Horrific Beast form.
[18/04/18][14:34:02] You cannot cast that spell in this form.
[18/04/18][14:34:05] You cannot cast that spell in this form.
[18/04/18][14:34:36] [Gar of the Dead]: Curse Weapon cannot be cast.
[18/04/18][14:36:13] [Gar of the Dead]: Setting Focus to go down again.
[18/04/18][14:36:53] [Gar of the Dead]: Rel Xen Vas Bal
[18/04/18][14:36:55] Your skill in Necromancy has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 58.8%.
[18/04/18][14:36:55] Your skill in Fencing has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 38.5%.
[18/04/18][14:36:55] You have lost a little karma.
[18/04/18][14:37:41] [Gar of the Dead]: oops, freezing Fencing. (This guy  is Gargoyle thrower.)
[18/04/18][14:38:12] [Gar of the Dead]: Rel Xen Vas Bal
[18/04/18][14:38:14] Your skill in Spirit Speak has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 67.8%.
[18/04/18][14:38:14] Your skill in Focus has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 25.6%.
[18/04/18][14:38:14] Your skill in Necromancy has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 58.9%.
[18/04/18][14:38:14] Your skill in Focus has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 25.5%.
...
[18/04/18][14:39:21] Your skill in Focus has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 25.1%.
[18/04/18][14:39:21] You have lost a little karma.
[18/04/18][14:39:27] You cannot cast that spell in this form.
[18/04/18][14:39:48] [Gar of the Dead]: 25.1 Focus, Curse Weapon still disabled.
[18/04/18][14:39:56] [Gar of the Dead]: Rel Xen Vas Bal
[18/04/18][14:39:58] You have lost a little karma.
[18/04/18][14:40:03] Your skill in Meditation has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 81.3%.
[18/04/18][14:40:03] Your skill in Focus has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 25.0%.
[18/04/18][14:40:07] [Gar of the Dead]: An Sanct Gra Char
[18/04/18][14:40:52] [Gar of the Dead]: Rel Xen Vas Bal
[18/04/18][14:40:54] [Gar of the Dead]: The spell fizzles.
[18/04/18][14:40:56] [Gar of the Dead]: Rel Xen Vas Bal
[18/04/18][14:40:58] Your skill in Spirit Speak has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 67.9%.
[18/04/18][14:40:58] Your skill in Focus has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 24.9%.
[18/04/18][14:40:58] [Gar of the Dead]: The spell fizzles.
[18/04/18][14:41:01] [Gar of the Dead]: Rel Xen Vas Bal
[18/04/18][14:41:03] Your skill in Necromancy has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 59.3%.
[18/04/18][14:41:03] Your skill in Focus has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 24.8%.
[18/04/18][14:41:03] You have lost a little karma.
[18/04/18][14:41:16] [Gar of the Dead]: An Sanct Gra Char
[18/04/18][14:41:21] Your skill in Meditation has increased by 0.1%.  It is now 81.4%.
[18/04/18][14:41:21] Your skill in Focus has decreased by 0.1%.  It is now 24.7%.
[18/04/18][14:41:46] [Gar of the Dead]: 24.8 Focus.  Curse Weapon now functions again for ths Gargoyle in Horrific Beast form.

Sorry for having 84 lines.  I know it could have been further edited down, but I wanted it to be obvious the file was trimmed, not doctored.

Perhaps Gargoyles have naturally +5 Focus, possibly linked to their racial mysticism ability. 

Nice testing btw. 

Thank you @Mervyn.  If the devs take a look at this, they'll likely find something weird like you speculate.