I found that Mages are a great help. In my second game I two Edwin, and a fighter/illusionist that I created. It was a really strong party that made the tower a cake. I had two other fighters Sha-Teal and that regenerating dude, as well I had Viconia, and the weakest member was that Cleric/Thief I replaced with Safana. Should have kept Safana but Tiax amused me.

As far as mages are concerned

1. Fireball - "A spider Eak send a fireball over there. Good work looks like there were five and now they are toast"
2. Protection from Fire - Useful in several areas of the Tower making your entire party invincible in those areas.
3. Detect Invisibility - Useful in several places of the game
4. Magic Missle - Always Useful
5. Just about any spell that gives your party a boost haste, protection from anything.
6. Entangle spells like web
7. There are some really good damage spells like Skull Trap.
8. The ability to summon creaturs is also a bonus.

And Mages are useless you say.

Listen to Pritchke, he's one mean SOB. He doesn't use the pause button 'cause he don't need it! :D

Oh yeah, mages are good.

[ 09-18-2002, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: Lord Brass ]

Thank's for the conmpliment but that was when I played IWD the first time. I actually played BG after IWD so whan playing BG I kind of became more like one of those pansy elves in the forest. Now that I know about the pause function it is almost impossible not to use it.

No! NO! He's fallen by the way! The great leader has sold out and abandoned the (very unpleasant) joys of ignoring the pause button.

Bards are a peculiar lot. With HoW installed for IWD, Bards really come into their own. One spell in particular really makes it for them: 'Tenser's Transformation', as their ability to gain skills in any weapon make them far more effective fighters then similarly converted mages. Also, HoW introduced different bardic songs, one of which is fantastic as you could heal the entire party over a (relatively) short period of time.

I take it then that BG:SoA/ToB doesn't have such delicious niceties? That would be a real shame, as Bards should be fantastic atmosphere characters. I wouldn't like to take it on board 'cause I thought that nobody else bothered.

<font color="palegreen">Personally, I can't imagine going through BG WITHOUT Dynaheir!!!

Being a specialist means she gets more spells than regular mages...and since she's an invoker.....that means she gets MORE Magic Missiles, Fireballs, Lightning Bolts, and all those other handy-dandy high damage spells.

On my first trip through, I DID take Garrick until I found Dynaheir. His spellcasting wasn't great, but it did make a nice addition to some battles. Xan was just toooooo weak for me and I just despise Edwin on general principle. Also, I never was a big fan of "enchantment" type spells. I'd rather BLAST my enemies than control them. So I don't have any use for Edwin, other than killing him for some quick xp.

The one major benefit I found with Garrick was his Lore ability. OK, so he can't Identify everything, but it sure saved some gp to have him ID the more mundane items. Still, you need a pure mage, especially as the encounters become more difficult and - as I already said - NOBODY tops Dynaheir IMO.</font>

[ 09-19-2002, 03:43 AM: Message edited by: Cerek the Barbaric ]