Didn't anyone mention that Wild Mages get an extra spell of each level?

You underestimate the powers of the Wild Mage here. Say a Wild Mage casts a spell, and a Wild Surge happens. There is a table of 100 effects which the Wild Surge comes from. The character rolls dice and that effect is used. However, Chaos Sheild and Improved Chaos Sheild add a value to your dice roll. In addition the for each level you are, more numbers are added to that dice roll. (this makes it seem like higher rolls are better on the table, but there are some good effects as low numbers). If your final value of the roll is 100 or higher, the spell automatically casts normally. i can't find my manual right now but at lvl 10 with chaos sheild cast, you would get maybe 25 added to your rolls.

Now take into consideration Nahals Reckless Dweomer. Casting this spell allows you to choose any spell you have scribed in your spell book. This means if you have scribed Time Stop at level 9 somehow, that Nahals Reckless Dweomer can give you the chance to cast it, even though you can't memorize it. The higher level you are, and with Chaos/Improved Chaos Sheild, the more likely you are to be able to cast any level of spell from Nahals Reckless Dweomer.

i'm just about to finish ToB with a Wild Mage. It's been hilarious at times, and very fun. For instance in one of the fights towards the very end, the game wouldn't allow me to rest. However, I cast a Stoneskin and instead a Wild Surge happened. The effect was "You feel refreshed" which cause my character to feel rested and rememorize used spells. Imagine something like this happening,

Wild Surge: Roll Twice and use both effects
Wild Surge: Spell cast as Area Spell
Wild Surge: You Feel Refreshed

which rests your whole party, etc. i've had similar happen with casting Simulacrum a while back, and just today with Improved Alacrity (which helped a ton [img]smile.gif[/img] )

In any event, the Wild Mage is very powerfull, and in all my imagining what a mage would really be like if such a creature existed. They are not for the easily frustrated, as some of the ill-effects are anoying sometimes. The Wild Mage is very very fun.

dulouz.

Uhh....if I'm not mistaken, Sorcerers *are* treated as a separate class from Mages in BG2.

My point with taking a BG1 Mage and Shadowkeeping him into a Wild Mage or Sorcerer in BG2 was that it's a way to circumvent the fact that those classes don't exist in BG1--so, if you wanted to play a Sorcerer from Day One, then cheating is the only way to do it. You could even cheat a little during BG1 as well, in order to make your Mage as much like a Sorcerer as BG1 will allow: Just hack yourself an extra spell of each level, and never scribe more than 5 spells per level. Sure, it's cheating, but I'll be damned if it's unfair.