Meh... If you're strong enough to cast Imprisonment, I doubt you need help racking up experience.

I make a lot of use of fireball and cloudkill, mainly because these are spells that you don't need to learn or allocate slots to. Wands are very readily available for both. As soon as I have the money I sell and buy back the wands, fully charged. In the course of playing through SOA I've never had to repeat this more than once.

Emotion is an awesomely useful spell. Any battle that has a mob of humanoid foes can be made instantly easier with an Emotion spell. In many ways, Emotion is much better than damaging spells. Emotion knocks the affected enemies unconscious and not able to attack *you*. Damaging spells that fail to kill the enemy leave that enemy still attacking you. And Emotion is particularly good when the battle is one of those ambushes that start with the enemy surrounding you up close and personal and too close for a Fireball, etc.

What? [img]redface.gif[/img]


There are some great summons in BG2. Mord's Sword and Animate Dead (once you get Skeletal Warriors) are two. Any of the elementals (summoned by clerics and druids, but not mages) are solid.

Don't dismiss the "drawing fire" aspect of summons. In many of the tougher battles, letting a summons draw the attention of a nasty enemy is *VERY* valuable. This can let you either focus your own attention on the more dangerous enemy or attack the "nasty enemy" without getting any return fire.

Also, there are some enemies that are very dangerous in a specific way that makes using certain summons that are immune to that certain attack. Mindflayers, for example. Mord's Sword and Animate Dead skellies are immune to psionic damage and are GREAT summons against mindflayers. (BTW, elementals really stink against mindflayers. One psionic hit and they're dead. Do NOT use elementals against MF's.)

Also, I've found that a good supply of summons, particularly elementals, are useful against dragons. 2-4 elementals can be incredibly useful against dragons, since they provide more damage potential and more "fire drawing" tanks in melee.

I don't count Mord's Sword as a summons, it's a weapon. I see summons as any creatures. Don't get me wrong, I always have a few Animate Dead and maybe a Monster Summons... and those Fiend spells are awesome too, but I only carry one at a time, usually the lvl 7 one, as I want to have as much ADHWs as I can get. I just like all the other spells better.
AT DUNDEE
I know that Magic Resistance is a divine spell, I just stated a neat combination.
Magic damage, that, yeah... I meant that [img]tongue.gif[/img]

just thought of something..

We've all forgot the most powerfull spell in the game, and it's used so often it's silly not to make metion of it..

Power word, Reload..

heheh, just had to be done, though it's done so often it's not funny, except for me, but I find stupid things funny somtimes..


Also a pretty good spell, if you don't care about the level is shield, 5 whole turns of immunity to everyones (well nearly everyones) favorite level 1 damaging spell..

That's spell ineffective whenever you get magic missiles chucked at ya, it also give a boost to AC vs missile weapons both mundane and magical, and it improves your base AC, great for before you get a good set of bracers, or want to use somthing other than bracers of AC2..

It's got to be one of the most underated spell's, but it's very very usefull when you know your going to be fighting mages that like to use magic missiles (use of the above power word can help predict these events)

The one problem with that is that I can count on one hand the number of times I've had magic missiles chucked at me. And all of them are from traps I didn't bother disarming. It would be a great spell against another player, but I've never had a fight last so long that I've had an enemy mage cast Magic Missile at me.

For sheer yuks value, I frequently beat the battle after killing the 3 parasites simply by sending one character's Magic Resistance through the roof, and sending him/her in to giggle. Now that the Tactics mod includes a couple of Shatter Magics in that fight, a Shield spell would come in handy for when the boss runs out of everything except Magic Missiles, as he has an infinite amount of them and casts them roughly 5 times per round. And your giggling can go uninterrupted. :D

As someone who generally prefers to slash/bash/shoot my way through the game, I'm surprised no one has mentioned perhaps the best single buff spell a Mage can grant a Fighter:

Improved Haste: Level 6. Double # of attacks and movement rate to a single target for 3 (might be 2 or 4) rounds + 1 round/level.

Jaheira + Club/Scimitar of choice + Belm in offhand + Fighter level 13 + Improved Haste = 9 attacks per round, one shy of the game maximum allowed of 10. Add your favorite Girdle/Potion of xxx Giant Strength and an Ironskin of her own for defense, and stand back and watch the carnage. For 10-20+ rounds depending on your Mage's level.

For sheer yuks value, I frequently beat the battle after killing the 3 parasites simply by sending one character's Magic Resistance through the roof, and sending him/her in to giggle. Now that the Tactics mod includes a couple of Shatter Magics in that fight, a Shield spell would come in handy for when the boss runs out of everything except Magic Missiles, as he has an infinite amount of them and casts them roughly 5 times per round. And your giggling can go uninterrupted. :D </font>[/QUOTE]If that happens, be a sadist and make a tank wear the Belt of Inertial Barrier while under the effect of Protection from Magical Energy.

"Yes, Jon! Hurt me, hurt me!"

Bonus points for using a female CHARNAME. [img]tongue.gif[/img]