Magic is hard, and successful Mages are as rare as dragon teeth.

Throw a fireball here, a lightning bolt there, and add a summoned daemon for good measure. Those who study the magical arts of Britannia may not be adept with a sword and shield, but few can surpass the power of a learned mage.

To see a complete spell list click here

To successfully cast a spell you do not only need the spell in your spellbook and reagents, or a scroll, you also need enough mana and the appropriate magery skill.

Casting from Scrolls
When casting a scroll, the game treats that scroll as if it were 2 spell Circles lower in order to determine chance of failure. (For example, if a player were to cast the 8th Circle spell Resurrection from a scroll in order to restore a fallen comrade to life, that player would have to be able to cast 6th Circle spells and would have a chance to cast that scroll equal to his success rate of castng spells of the 6th Circle.) The amount of Mana normally required for spells of the same Circle of the scroll is consumed during the casting of a scroll, regardless of success.

~ Example ~
You have 80 magery skill. You cast Ressurection, an 8th-level spell. You have roughly 70.5% chance of success. If successful, you lose 50 mana, and the scroll as well.

~ Formula ~
Take the difference between your Magery skill and the minimum casting requirements for a spell 2 circles below the spell being cast, and multiply the result by the average percent gain of one skill point, which is 2%-3%, or 2.5%.
Let:
X = Player Skill
Z = Minimum Scroll Skill
Y = Percent Chance of Great Success
Y = (X-Z)*2.5%


~ Minimum magery requirements for casting spells ~
The number before the slash indicates the minimum Skill necessary to cast a spell of that particular Circle (appr. 2% chance of success), while the number after the slash indicates the skill level necessary for a 99% chance of casting from that Circle.

* Every skill point from the minimum Skill necessary and beyond provides, approximately, an additional 2% to 3% chance of casting Spells of the this Circle, until the maximum of a 99% chance of success is reached. (Circles 1, 7 and 8 do not follow this guideline exactly).

Mana Requirements
♦ First Circle: 4 mana
♦ Second Circle: 6 mana
♦ Third Circle: 9 mana
♦ Fourth Circle: 11 mana
♦ Fifth Circle: 15 mana
♦ Sixth Circle: 20 mana
♦ Seventh Circle: 40 mana
♦ Eighth Circle: 50 mana

Gaining Magery
If you plan to train your magery with macroing, ensure you have enough gold available, or a steady income, to keep providing your training mage with enough reagents.

~ Gaining Magery without Resisting Spells ~
Training magery without Resisting Spells is less expensive and you can macro in town.
♦ 0-30 : Training from NPC Mage (costs 200-300 gold)
♦ 30-40 : Cast Third Circle
♦ 40-55 : Cast Fourth Circle
♦ 55-65 : Cast Fifth Circle
♦ 65-80 : Cast Sixth Circle
♦ 80-95 : Cast Seventh Circle
♦ 95-100 : Cast Seventh or Eighth Circle

~ Gaining Magery with Resisting Spells ~
(the ranges below apply to both skills)
♦ 0-30 : Train from NPC Mage* (costs 200-300 gold)
♦ 30-55 : Cast Fire Field* (1 black pearl, 1 spiders' silk, 1 sulfurous ash)
♦ 55-60 : Cast Lightning (1 sulfurous ash, 1 mandrake root)
♦ 60-82 : Cast Energy Bolt (1 black pearl, 1 nightshade)
♦ 82-100 : Cast Flamestrike (1 spiders' silk, 1 sulfurous ash)
* Firefield can take you from 0 to 55 resist in about half an hour, just cast the spell and run end to end along the longest distance of the field, this should be 5 tiles. If you started with magery at 50 you should also reach about the same magery skill[55] by the time you're done. Then simply proceed with the above guide from Lighting Bolt.

Acquiring reagents
~ NPC vendors ~
The vendors in Alchemist and Mageshops sell reagents of all kind. Buying reagents from NPC vendors is the most effective way to acquire them. For prices check the article about Reagents.

~ Loot ~
A couple of monsters drop reagents as part of their loot. But usually this loot drops don't cover your reagents expenses for killing them. An exception is the use of provocation to kill the monsters, when the investment of reagents for offensive and defensive spells is minimal.

~ Wilderness ~
Reagents very sparsely grow in the wilderness. Thus, if you travel the wilderness, you might stumble upon the one or other reagent to increase your reagents stock. But the effort to solely look for reagents in the wilderness is by far not worth the invested time.


Gideon's Advice: Start your character with 50 magery under most circumstances as it is expensive to train to 50 (unless you are doing multiple crafting skills then it's possible that Magery is cheaper than those). Have another character heal your character with bandages while you train. Magery on UOR should take about 3 days to GM and you should end with mid 90's resist. I didn't keep track of reagents used or spell attempts made so if somebody could post their findings that would be appreciated.
0-30 fireball
30-62.8 lighting
62.8-85 energy bolt
85-GM Flamestrike