worst-matched professions to one of best combos

Rock

Well over a decade ago I created a character on Catskills, an "off-time" shard for me at the time to just mess around privately. The concept and template, as described in his journal, was "Ninja Mage". It is hard now to imagine a worst-matched set of skills. Ninjitsu adds virtually nothing to a mage. He can change to animal form, eventually one with "mount speed". However, he cannot cast while in an alternate form. He can mirror copies of himself that take damage for him in battle. (They die in one hit, but you can have up to 5 at a time.)  The third non-useless skill is Shadowjump, which allows him to teleport while hidden. Other than that, the other 5 spells of Ninjitsu exists for weapons fighters.

Since both the Mage and Ninja professions expect three non-overlapping skills each, that leaves one weapon skill slot available in a 7x build for Fencing or something. However, no Tactics and no Resist Spells. These two professions just do not gel at all.

So today, I changed him. Eliminate mage-stuff altogether, and make him a Mystic Ninja.  Here is his revised goal template:

105: Ninjitsu, Stealth
105: Mysticism, Fencing
100: Hiding, Tactics, Focus

90d/70i/70s

He's human, but an elf would likely have been a better match, with their 20 extra mana. Maybe I'll have him change races. From reading the forums, people tend to favor 6x builds, or at least have several skills at the max 120 level. But I think this 7x build should serve him well.  Note he still does not have Resist Spells. But since almost everything gels in this build, he may not need it.

1. He can cast in his alternative Stone Form. It also may neutralize poison, strangle, bleed, sleep, and stat reduction effects.
2. He begins to be able to use Cleansing Winds at 58.1 Mysticism. It is the skill's second healing ability (Healing Stone being the first), but it also may neutralize poison, etc, without the slowdown accompanying Stone Form.
3. Ninjitsu's Mirror Image adds even a third damage mitigation with Shadow Form, mentioned above.
4. He can use all of Ninjitsu's special capabilities and related Stealth even in Stone Form. The one limitation is Mysticism's Enchant spell and Ninjitsu's Focus Attack is non-functional.  While Enchant is in effect, it adds a good chance at hit spell damage for over a minute.  That Enchant-based limitation possibly applies to Ninjitsu's other damage-boosting moves. He is not advanced enough for me to know which other moves might be limited.
5. At a guess, Ninjitsu's bullfrog form and Enchant may stack.  While a bullfrog, a ninja spits level 2 poison while attacking.  Order matters, though.  Spells are not allowed while in animal form, but if Enchant is cast first, it holds after the transform. Hit lightning, level 2 poison, and normal fencing damage in one swing would certainly be nice.  His chance of going into Bullfrog form was too low for me to verify this possibility.
   
6. For rune-based travel, he'll need to depend on charged rune books. Neither Ninjitsu nor Mysticism provide support for magic, long-distance travel.
   

At any rate, I was greatly pleased to change an ineffective build to something which seems very cool. Fortunately, the character was not very advanced, and had not spent any significant time on the mage stuff.  In fact, he had bought his Magery and Eval Int up to 40 before I abandoned the "Ninja Mage" concept. He won't be doing the accelerated gain quests for those, however.