I dont have a mage in my party and i never had

[Greg]

mages are okay but they take up space where you can have a ranger or another fighter in your party, also i dont like mages because they are too easy to kill. The first time I tried a mage I got killed by some gibberlings.

[ryaldin]

ahh, but therin lies the beauty of mages. You are forced to sacrifice much of your physical power, for the ability to weild magic. Now at first, this seems like a pretty crappy trade off, and you're forced to hide your mage behind imoen half the time, to keep him from getting knocked off. An you may notice that in your character information, your mages seems particulary non-essential when it comes to tallying up the kills, but that is only temporary. As you grow more powerful, not only do you get to memorize better spells, but you have a lot more of them, and quite frankly, a mage standing behind a couple of fighters or tanks can be one of the most deadly, powerful, and intimidating figures in all of the game. The ability to throw forth a sheet of flame, vaporizing dozens of enemies in a single shot, is something that your average fighter or ranger can only dream of doing. Plus, several of the reasons already mentioned above are quite helpful and important to your party, as well as the ability to identify on the spot, which can save you time and money.
Mages rock like a fart in church.

[SixOfSpades]

Originally posted by ryaldin: The ability to throw forth a sheet of flame, vaporizing dozens of enemies in a single shot, is something that your average fighter or ranger can only dream of doing.

Potion of Explosions
Oil of Fiery Burning
Necklace of Missiles
Arrows of Detonation

Of course, --NONE-- of these items appear in BG2, which sucks big-time. (Well, you can find some Arrows, but only about FIVE of them.) One gets the idea that BioWare was going out of their way to convince people that Mages are valuable.

[Lord Brass]

With the levels you can achieve, and the spells you can get, isn't that the case Six'? Although I have read on the forum, that getting past all of the magical defenses and contingencies can become a real bore.

[SixOfSpades]

Originally posted by Lord Brass: With the levels you can achieve, and the spells you can get, isn't that the case Six'? Although I have read on the forum, that getting past all of the magical defenses and contingencies can become a real bore.

True enough. My point was that BioWare was trying to 'yank the mat out from under the Fighter's feet,' as it were, by removing all the "Mage-substitute" items they were used to. (Of course, they didn't remove ALL of them, in fact they even added some nice new ones, although tying understand what to use when can be a bit maddening.) Wizard spellcasters are indeed practically a necessity in BG2, I think BioWare was just trying to drive that fact into our collective skulls as quickly as possible.

[Lord Brass]

Aah, understood. Quite true I'd imagine, but consider yourselves lucky one and all, 'cause if you've played IWD, it seems that Bioware only envisaged you having one, that's right one, spellcaster in the party. There is insufficient numbers of scrolls for the basic necessities of magery e.g. only one Fireball scroll, one Lightning, one each of Summon X Elemental etc. If you have only one mage (or derivative) then you're okay, otherwise...flip a coin and hope that you've assigned spells to the right person.

Why the hell did I write Bioware? I meant to say Black Isle. You knew that right? I'm not having a funny turn or anything. Okay?

[ 10-14-2002, 08:21 PM: Message edited by: Lord Brass ]

[SixOfSpades]

Originally posted by Lord Brass: Why the hell did I write Bioware? I meant to say Black Isle. You knew that right? I'm not having a funny turn or anything. Okay?

Well, I always say BioWare myself, because Black Isle (or Interplay, one of the two) is just the publisher--the nerdy guys who actually wrote the code drew their paychecks from BioWare.

And what's wrong with having to spread your scrolls between 2 Mages? Just make sure that you allocate an equal number of the good spells of each level to each Mage. That way, you don't have one guy knowing Magic Missile and Chromatic Orb, with the other guy stuck with Armor and Sleep.

[Lord Brass]

Well dear Six', firing one fireball a round is nice, firing two simultaneously is soooo much better. Don't you think? [img]smile.gif[/img]

[I wish my name was Baggins]

Originally posted by Lord Brass: Well dear Six', firing one fireball a round is nice, firing two simultaneously is soooo much better. Don't you think? [img]smile.gif[/img]

AH HA..a chance for me to give you yet another one of Baggins Rules of Combat...."If it is worth killin...It's worth over-killin"

[Keraptisdm]

Or how about when some bugger casts horror on your party, and the only members of the group that make their saving throws are the mage and cleric. So the mage or cleric has to save the day by casting Dispel Magic or other dispelling type spells to free the fighters. Or, kill the baddies themselves!