Humans may dwell here

Ment and Locken both mention that there’s no point in taking spells like Armageddon (or rather, Schism and Tornado). They consume, at best, half of your mana and have a good chance of failing. And you only have one or two attempts, after which you’re out of mana. And all this costs a lot of skill points. Or, for example, Resurrection: it costs 16 skill points, 350 mana, and has at least a 50% chance of failing. Personally, I don’t see much reason to take these spells at the start of the game. Perhaps if failed spells returned some of the caster’s mana, the situation would be a little better.