I've searched around on the forum, and have not been able to find a good thread on this. There will be some spoilers in this message.
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I just completed TOB with a swashbuckler. I have now created an half-elven LE conjurer for BG1, and plan on taking him all the way through to TOB.

I want to put him in an all-mage party through SOA-TOB.

I am asking for feedback on which mages I should consider using, and if there are any mages worth control-q'ing (Xar?).

I want six mages, including my character (Lysander). I want to create at least one additional character in multiplayer. So which four mages should I take from SOA? Additionally, what kind of secondary player generated mage should I bring along - should I consider the sorcerer?

the mages from SoA? Imoen, Nalia, Edwin, Jan. There really aren't many of them..... and secondary wizard character? Sorceror or Wild-Mage are very good, I like them. The BG1 Mages I think should probably be Edwin, Xzar, Xan, Dynaheir, and dual Imoen to mage as soon as you can. Those are my picks!

-Jafin

In SOA:

Main character (conjurer)

Edwin, Aerie, Imoen and Jan...
Plus I can CTRL-Q Xar, amongst others...
Plus a self-generated character...

I'm thinking:
Main Character Conjurer
self-generated Wild Mage
Edwin
Xar
Imoen
Aerie

Substitute Nalia while Imoen is gone

What does "Ctrl-Q" do?

CTRL+Q, with cheat keys enabled, forces any "blue" scenery character to join the party. This can have amusing results.

Why not do

Wild Mage PC
Edwin
Nalia/Imoen
Kelsey
Tashia
Aerie

?

I would do a wild mage PC, but am starting the character in BG1. Would I be able to switch kits when I transfer him into SOA?

Give me some background on Kelsey and Tashia, I have only played through once, and am not familiar with those two names.

Yes, you can make your straight Mage a Wild Mage in BG2, but only if you have ToB installed.

Kelsey and Tashia are MOD characters, characters written by the game's USERS, not the game's PROGRAMMERS. You can find, download, and install their respective MODs, and then the characters will appear in your game as if they had always a part of it.

My reccommendation for your 2nd party slot: An Elven Thief/Mage. I happen to be a big fan of Thieving skills, and there are some things that Mages simply can't do, like Detect & Disarm Traps. Either that or include Jan in your party, as he's just as good.

A party of:
You (be a Sorcerer--you already have a damn good Conjurer in Edwin)
Jan
Aerie
Edwin
Imoen
Nalia
will get the job done and cover all the bases--except for the total lack of any Tanks, that is. Has anyone mentioned that you're absolutely insane for trying to run an All-Mage party on your 2nd trip through BG2?

I was going through a second time with a chaotic evil priest of talos.
Had a great time. Torturing Hair Dallas with cursed items and such. Letting my rep wallow at 1. Fireballing cowled enforcers in the city streets. Charming amnish soldiers and sending them after women...children...Hair Dallas.

But then I attacked the shadow thieves- after siding with them - CTRL-Q'd Arkanis Gath, and instructed him to use his fist so that he could no longer kill me. Now Aran Linvail is angry. No one will take me to Spellhold. And destorying everything just got boring after a while.

But I remembered an old thread on BG1 about an all-mage party, with low-level mages running away from diseased gibberlings. I thought that sounded like a nice counterpoint to Korgan and Iberius Ixtasatol (CE talos preist) stomping on everybody while edwin rained fireballs down.

Sixofspades - are either Kelsey or the other add-on NPC worth downloading?

I find an all-mage party to be a little dangerous... because it takes Aerie a while to level up to a good ressurection spell, basically it causes undue hassles. I find an ALL MAGIC party to be slightly better... currently I have my PC who is a Mage, Aerie, Viconia, Imoen, Edwin and Nalia. Aerie doesn't really cut it as a cleric early on and she levels up too slowly, so I had Viconia join. We basically do no melee. And everyone has lower resistence spells so we never need to ;) I don't think I could do an all mage party.... I much too muchly like Holy Smite. I only joined Edwin recently, and since he's hitting on all my women I think very soon he'll be joining Anomen and Haer'Dalis in being repeatedly dead.

<join [them] in being repeatedly dead>

I like that turn of phrase.

Am I missing a key factor in running an all-mage party. Most traps can be disarmed by running cannon fodder over them. Various resistances can help with other traps, as well as otilukes resilient sphere, etc.

The raise dead thing will be annoying - but i won't be spending a lot of my ill-gotten gains on jacked-up armour and weapons, so I'll be able to afford priests at first.

I am trying to think back over the course of SOA, are there any fights where melee is absolutely necessary?