In my latest game I have reached the point (in Chapter 3) where I found the Wand of Monster Summoning. I didn't have to do anything too difficult, this powerful weapon is just hidden in a cave (as I'm sure you all know). The point is I don't deserve to have it at this stage of the game, what I really need is the Ring of Wizardry (which I can only get this early by cheating). Most of the time the Game keeps things in perspective but the wand mentioned above bugs me, its so contrived.

Then later in the game there are wands available at every turn, you just pop along to the local shop to get as many as you want. I would have thought it would be better if they were only awarded as a result of completeing a difficult task - preferably one with a magic theme, for example at the top of Ramazith's Tower. So what do you think, are Wands too easy to get and does this make the game too easy ? This is just magic on the cheap, do the job properly and get your Mage to learn the spells.

Yeah sometimes wands are too powerful. My personal favorites are wand of paralization (saved me so many times), monster summoning (you can kill Drizzt just with 1 of these), and good ol´ fire wand (what can i say ? [img]smile.gif[/img] ).

SMALL SPOILER
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- Anyway, you CAN get the ring of wizardry REALLY early (depends on if you have TotSC or not and if you have the game patched). If you want to know more, just ask.

Thanks Ertia, I recently installed TOTSC so the R-0-W is back in place. For this party (all girls, if you missed my other postings) I have taken the ring but given up the wand. It helps keep my conscience clear! Wouldn't it be so much better if the R-O-W was the reward for a quest such as Melicamp the Chicken, that way the reward fits the task.

Beyond the easter egg RoW there is one that you acquire from an encounter (a fight of course) in BG city. I'm playing a Lawful Good paladin party so I really can't justify breaking into someone's house and, by so doing, starting a fight to get it. The owner is evil, but breaking and entering ain't kosher for my pallies. Anyway, I'm thankful for the easter egg in this case.

I agree that wands make the game too easy--especially the wand of monster summoning. With my current party of 4 paladins, mage, and cleric-thief one of my goals is to finish a game without ever summoning either skeletons or monsters. My paladins melee, although on rare occasions I have used the longbow and crossbow (only one character in the party has profs in these weapons, respectively). My mage and cleric have sparingly used only wands of heavens, lighting, fire, and frost so far. The cleric mostly melees, actually.

I don't know....Wands in general are a lifesaver to a Mage who's already exhausted his battle spells for the day, or just doesn't happen to have any memorized spells that fit the occasion. They effectively give you more spell slots, allowing you to memorize things like Chromatic Orb, Web, and Haste, while keeping an offensive arsenal in your belt. And about the Wand of Monster Summoning in particular, I think it's available in Chapter 3 solely because of Dynaheir, to offset her inability to Summon anything.

Don't get me wrong, I too use wands when the going gets tough, I just think they are too many of them. There are some fights I wouldn't want to do without them, but if they are used all the time it's easy to lose sight of the diverse number of tactical options available.

As a personal preference I usually use Animate Dead, I just love the way the skeletons ingore Cloudkill and the length of time that they stay with you. I'm always a little sad if they get left behind at the end of an area.

As for Dynaheir, what's she done to deseve special treatment, its the price you have to pay.

Wand of the Heavens is certainly very powerful, maybe even too powerful. If you have a few of them you can never really go wrong.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Midget Gems:
As for Dynaheir, what's she done to deseve special treatment, its the price you have to pay.<hr></blockquote>
Oh, I agree. But most players, new ones anyway, build some type of Fighter for their PC, and therefore need a good Mage. They don't really know about Imoen yet, and so have to choose between Xan and Dynaheir. Both good Mages, but each has their weaknesses--happily, there's a bunch of wands lying around. The game's plotline favors Dynaheir, due to her connection with Minsc, so they almost HAD to toss a Wand of Monster Summoning in there, so she wouldn't get kicked out of the party for being a loser. The fact that there's only ONE wand shows that BioWare shares your opinion of it being something of an overpowered item.

I, too, love my little skeletons. And I'll add these 2 benefits of Animate Dead to your list: They're immune to Basilisk gaze, and they don't Panic and run, they way Monsters do!

I think, one "problem" of the wand of monstersummoning is, that you can summon lots of monsters. This makes most fights very easy, especially when you are in Baldurs Gate, have 50k gp and by just 4 or 5 wands. This has been fixed a little bit in BG2, there you can only summon 5 monsters at a time, thus taking much of the power of monstersummoning.

Skeletons:- immune to confusion, domination, horror etc..... They are cool