Too funny! I just made this party today and started a DS game with them, with the intention that the four specialist mages stick to casting their specialist school spells whenever possible--so at the outset the Conjurer is casting Grease, the Enchanter is casting Sleep, etc. I'm sort of a roleplaying it, I guess, such that they would have a preference for their own school's spells. And I want them to resort to using a weapon if-and-only-if they're facing immanent death.

Anyway, at the start of the game they all dropped their staffs in front of the inn, as I normally would begin a game, figuring I would have them run around Candlekeep and do all the little quests before buying their slings and bullets. The first assassin in the house next to the temple fell easily to the Conjurer's Grease spell and the cleric's Magic Stone. But the second one down by the barracks mananged to survive Blind and Larloch's Minor Drain. I cast Sleep on him twice (the cleric and Enchanter both had that spell) but evidently the game doesnt let you keep punching someone once they're already lying on the ground unconscious. Whenever he would get up I had him surrounded with my weakling mages, all of them bitchslapping him back to the floor--but that was the best I could do. I actually had to leave him there alive in order to rest, go back, and finish him off.

Anyway, I laughed my ass off! I'm so accustomed to obliterating those two assassins pretty much within a single round with a fighter or somesuch. The novelty of playing this way won't last for long, I realize, but right now at least there is some.

This should be fun! It may be kind of rough going out in the countryside at first, though.

LOL Lemernis! Like a good challenge eh? Well keep us updated on how your game goes, be interested to see how it progresses with that type of party, using almost no weapons to boot!

Thank your lucky stars there's enough +2 daggers and decent Staves to go around! :D

Too bad you can't say the same for Slings+1, to say nothing of the Archmagi robes. Bet you thought you'd NEVER say to yourself, "Okay, this Mage has a good Robe--he can go in the front row."

Six, there are 4 archmagi robes in the game, so only one of his mages would have to use another type of robe [img]smile.gif[/img] .

4??? How on earth do you get a 4th one? Killing Elminster? I haven't covered all of ToSC with a fine-tooth comb yet, but I sure didn't see an Archmagi robe on my first run through. Are you sure?

Yeah, Six I did not realize there was a fourth either. Thanks Ertai! I just checked for it's location in one of the walkthrough files I have. You get it from Dradeel on Balduran's Island. After bringing him his spellbook and he teleports away, you can find him back at the village. IIRC there is a dialogue option that has him attack you, so you can kill him to get that robe without behaving evily.

Here is the the party's alignment breakdown:

Illusionist--Neutral Good (human--protagonist)
Conjurer--True Neutral (human)
Necromancer--Lawful Evil (human)
Enchanter--Lawful Neutral (elf)
Mage-Thief--Chaotic Good (elf)
Cleric--Lawful Good (half-elf)

Re: the four archmagi robes, there are two at Thalantyr's, so the Illusionist will get the Robe of the Good Archmagi and the Enchanter will get the Robe of the Neutral Archmagi. And after I defeat Daveorn, the Necromancer will acquire Robe of the Evil Archmagi. Finally, the Conjurer will get the second Robe of the Neutral Archmagi from Dradeel on Balduran's Island.

I'm going to check on the Dark Side forum also as to whether it makes more sense in a Dark Side game to make the Conjurer Chaotic Good, should there be another Robe of the Good Archmagi available in Dark Side. As it currently stands, though, I think the True Neutral Conjurer will be able to use a magical quarterstaff that is restricted to TNs... Anyone know the staff I'm talking about? I may be confusing it for one that requires Good alignment that among other things creates potions of healing, but I'm thinking there is also a quarterstaff that is restricted to True Neutral... but if such a staff exists perhaps it is also restricted to druids...

I'd be grateful for any suggestions you all may have re: how to equip this bunch.

Love the party Lemernis, good luck with the idea. I figure that since magic users get stronger later in the game, it's gonna be tough in the early stages. Go for it!

ROFLMAO!!! I dont think you can bitch-slap Savrevok to death!!! :D :D :D

Hmmm, I Really Dont Think You'll Get That Far With This Party Lemernis!! :D

There are more than 4 robes.
2 in high-hedge. (neutral and good)
1 in chapter 4 (evil)
1 in the TOtsC village, on the mage, who sends you on the first quest. Cant remember any names. (neutral)
1 on the wolf-island mage (neutral)

Thats 5,
There may be more I dont know of.

I Only Found One Of Each!!

Someone at Team BG says that that Semaj has some sort of robe for an evil mage which gives a special ability of never requiring sleep. Of course practically speaking you would have to cheat Semaj up and kill him in order to get it for it to be of any use, but still interesting to know. Or I suppose if you wanted to finish the plotline as directly as possible but then use the patch that allows you to keep playing after Sarevok has been killed you could. But that would seem anti-climatic to keep playing after the final battle. I'm also told that Rieltar has a splint mail called something like "Korim's Skin" that is useable by a mage and gives regenaration. But once again that is too late in the game. I need stuff sooner than that.

Let me just say again what a different experience of the game this is! I guess it must be similar to soloing with a mage (still haven't done that yet). But anyway I'm actually scared out there, lol! At this point I'm actually skulking about trying to avoid encounters as I move from map to map--especially once my mages' meager two spell slots are used up! Any case, to be moving around the countryside genuinely fearful that you might run into a gang of diseased gibberlings is fun.

Almost immediately I had to concede to using weapons more than I had originally hoped, but I still use them only as a last resort. Turns out at this point the cleric needs his three slots for healing spells, so I have him meleeing with a flail (the only melee weapon that won't disintegrate early in the game, near as I can tell). And the mage-thief only has one spell slot. Once she uses her MM she's firing arrows and backstabbing with her short sword.

Im almost sure that there are 4 robes of archmagi:

1 for good alignment: 1 in High Hedge
1 good or neutral (cant remember): Shandalar in Ulgoths beard (its a tough fight, only in TotSC).
1 neutral: high hedge
1 evil: Davaeorn in the cloakwood mines

I dont think that there is another one in the Werewolves island, but i might be wrong.

And Lemeernis, i dont think Semaj has any special robe. First, when ive killed him ive searched his body and i cant remember any special items. Second, in shadow keeper there isnt any special robe (only resistance robes; knaves, adventurers and travellers robes; and archmagi robes).

Well, great. I tried attacking both Shandalar and Dradeel on my first run through ToSC, just to see how tough they were. (If a mage can kill at least 3 members of my party, he's worthy of asking me to do quests for him.) But now I'm gonna have to bear down on these guys for real, just to see what they're wearing!

I agree, Ertai, Semaj is just wearing a normal robe; I think it's an Adventurer's or Traveller's. I find it easy enough to loot Sarevok's friends without killing Sarevok, and Semaj is the easiest of all, becase I can usually get him to Dimension Door out to my party, alone and without protection spells. For a guy who must have at least 13 INT, Semaj ain't very smart. (If anyone's wondering, this is the moment where I pulled my 144-hitpoint backstab. Semaj-shaped chunky bits all over the place. :D )

Lemernis, why didn't you have a Gnome as your Illusionist? Better Saving Throws, & the relative novelty of using a small person.

Didn't even think of using a gnome! That would have been the better choice for an illusionist, I agree. Ah well. I do like the portrait and soundset for my main guy, though.

As long as we are handing out suggestions, I will throw in my two cents [img]smile.gif[/img]

You could make a Gnome Cleric/Thief and then add in an extra specialist mage. Or you could change your Cleric to a Cleric/Mage to get some extra mage spells.

Thanks for the feedback on this. I thought about using a cleric-thief instead of a mage-thief, as Six had suggested, since a lone cleric might not be able to provide enough healing for the party. But my main goal is to try to win a game by relying as much as possible on mage spellcasting. My mage-thief is currently using the bow and backstabbing but she will eventually be primarily a spellcaster. A cleric-thief would be casting mostly defensive spells.

Also, if I changed the mage-thief -> cleric-thief and cleric -> cleric-mage that would give me the same amount of healing, thieving, and mage spellcasting that I currently have. That is, I would still have (the equivalent of) a full cleric, a half thief, and a half mage. But I would lose the bow and the ability to backstab with the dagger of venom that my mage-thief gives me. The full cleric gives me some melee ability, and as a spellcaster he will become quite powerful in the long run with all of the high level Dark Side cleric spells (spells go all the way to level 9, for both priests and mages). Also, in Dark Side mages can learn a healing spell called Ettn's Healing, so that will free the cleric up some to cast more offensive types of cleric spells like flame strike.

By the time I was ready to begin the game I decided I really liked all the characters I had created, and when it finally came down to it I figured I'd rather look at a cute little hottie with Safana's soundset to a gnome! (There are hardly any good portraits of gnomes, and I have never found a decent gnome soundset out there, btw.)