Just keep in mind that physical weapons scale damage with combat skill while magic weapons cast spells that scale with wisdom. So these two types of weapons are pretty naturally mutually exclusive. If you spend points on physical weapons then your magic weapons would do little damage and vice-versa.
The magic weapons are kind of cool but ultimately fairly useless. Fireball wrecks faces but is too slow to be used against anything that attacks you fast. Water staff is cost-effective but still too slow to trade well against most enemies. The spellbooks are very stamina-intensive and do next to no damage. Overall I would say it's perhaps best to stick with physical weapons for now.
Yeah I just got to them finally and I'd have to agree. They're extremely fun, but not really practical atm. Also a major issue is that using magic drains your mood, unlike melee weapons that improve it. Your attack and stats will naturally tank using magic heavily vs melee that can usually easily maintain max stats of happy (Unless fighting in the mines, those enemies seem to drastically harm your mood every time they hit you). The fire mainhand spell at the very least would be a good opener for ambushes and such, then maybe switch to frost staff. That seems a bit obnoxious to manage though. I still need to test the offhand weapons more to see if they can stand in for the weaknesses of the main hand well, but that means I need another 8k gold lol.
Boy about 3-4 points in herb gathering is really great for money making, that shit sells like crazy.
Edit: Oh wow, the frost offhand is LEAGUES above the others in practical use. It's way more versatile and useful for the kind of fights you'll usually have in this game with the aoe circle around you. That makes up for a lot of issues with the other magic weapons. The fire offhand is trash. If you use a melee weapon in main hand and frost in offhand, you can also balance the mood penalty of using magic. The frost offhand is the only magic weapon I'd feel comfy having on 24/7, it doesn't feel as situational as the others. It's the only magic I'd be willing to try to use in the mines, lol. Though the frost mainhand isn't terrible either, they do balance well together. The fire spells are just too hard to use against anything other than maybe undead.
For anybody curious:
Fire Mainhand (3 stamina): Cast a fireball that explodes after about 5 spaces for aoe damage. It can do a shit ton of damage but has like a 2 second cast time and can be interrupted, making it fairly useless once combat has already begun. The cast time of this is so slow that it can actually be difficult to even use against undead. I've had some wander off that were following me in time to avoid this. But man is it fun to use...
Ice Mainhand: (1 stamina): Ice bolt with 7 range. The damage is actually pretty good and it's super stamina efficient. The issue with this is the mood penalty of casting it repeatedly really adds up fast and will tank your stats if it's relied on heavily. Without the mood penalty it would be incredibly strong, but since the spell needs to be spammed, meh. Depends on how much you value mood. It's definitely better than fire mainhand though. I just don't know if you'd want to use it over the ice offhand.
Fire Offhand: (S attack 4 stamina): Targets an area around you and lights it on fire, dealing damage to enemies that walk into it. The problem with this is it only seems to trigger once or twice on most enemies and it makes it really obvious that enemies aren't often where they appear to be. The damage isn't high enough to really be worth it, you'll just tickle some enemies. The only upside really is you can target specific tiles, which can be useful at times (Or hurt you).
Fire Offhand: (D attack 4 stamina): Lobs a fireball that explodes for aoe damage, targetted like the S spell. With this a non direct hit will do a bit less damage though and any moving enemy will make it difficult to get full damage. Not really enough damage for the stamina cost. It's odd that these both cost more than the fire mainhand weapon and do a fraction of the damage. I know they're meant to be offhands and not as directly damage dealers, but eh.
The targeted nature I'd say actually hurts both of these more often than being helpful since it's so difficult to get full damage with them and the way enemies aren't always where they appear to be hitbox wise. If you have a stationary target, you'd be better off using the Fire Mainhand. It also forces you to stop moving for a bit and pick a tile, which can be obnoxious when you're getting hammered by a swarm of insects/rats/goblins or whatever. That these can both be interrupted and that they force you to stand still to target enemies makes these rather useless. The more I test these targetted spells, the less I like them.
Ice Offhand: (S attack 3 stamina): This is a frost aoe around your character (will hit 2 spaces around you). This is the only spell that feels worth the 12000 cost immediately (4k glasses, 8k spellbook). It does a decent amount of damage (About as much as a max happy pitchfork) to undead and best of all, it's actually practical to use in most situations since combat lasts so long and enemies pile up on you quickly in a lot of areas like the mines. It does have a mood penalty of 2 to offset it, but with as quickly as you can kill a ton of enemies, it doesn't feel as bad as the other options. This is the only spell I'd really consider to be reliable enough to use as a main weapon, though the Ice Mainhand is close, I'll have to test it more.
Ice Offhand: (D attack 4 stamina): Like the S attack of the Fire Offhand, but seems to strike enemies more often and can also briefly stun some enemies (Not undead). It feels a bit more useful to me than the firewall, but I haven't tested either against all types of enemies.