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Keldin · 04-11-2005, 10:20 PM

I prefer my protagonist to be melee but I loved learning the magic system for my mages like Edwin, Nalia, etc to be effective. Here's some tips for you.

Using a mage to strip another mage:
===================================

Abbreviations:
PME = Protection from Magic Energy
PMW = Protection from Magical Weapons

There's two ways to strip combat protections like Stoneskin, PMW and Fireshields which is what causes your melee the most headaches. You can cast Breach or Remove/Dispel Magic. The problem with Remove/Dispel Magic is that if the enemy mage is 5+ levels above you(which is usually the case) then it only has a 1% chance of succeeding. If your PC is an Inquisitor or you have Keldorn in your group your odds are much better since Inquisitors dispell at twice their level. So if your Inqui is 13 and you are fighting a level 26 mage you have a 50% chance of Dispel working. Just keep your party away from a dispel since it will dispel your party members in the radius as well. Remove Magic will only effect the enemy but nobody can Remove Magic at 2x their level.

Where it really becomes annoying is when mages throw up the following contigencies:

Stoneskin
Protection From Magical Weapons
Protection From Magic Energy
Fireshield:Red
Spell Trap
Spell Shield
Spell Immunity:Abjuration

Guess what school remove and dispel magic belong to? Yep abjuration! You cannot dispel a mage who throws that up. Now you have to resort to other means of removing those protections like using Breach. Btw, you'll see Immunity:Abjuration a lot more often in the Tactics mod.

The problem with Breach is that usually mages throw up a Spell Trap like above. So first you have to cast Pierce Shield to remove Spell Trap then you can cast Breach. Then you get the mage who casts Spell Shield and Spell Trap. Spell Shield will negate the next magical attack against them. So before you cast Pierce Magic you need to waste something like Secret Word first. I,e. you would need to cast Secret Word, Pierce Magic, Breach to strip a mage like that. And odds are once you stip him and your melee hit him a contigency fires off that puts up that exact same defense and you have to repeat [img]smile.gif[/img]

Then you have mages who use Spell Immunity

ivination. What this means is that True Sight will not dispel their illusions and when you try to target them directly you get the message:
Spell Cancelled: Cannot target spells on invisible or sancturaried creatures
Doh! Now this situation kind of sucks, only an AOE dispel will work. If you have 2x dispel then you can usually remove their Stoneskin and PMW so melee can beat on them. If you don't then it's a waiting game for their immunity to divination to wear off because the Pierce Magic and Breach are direct target spells so they can't be cast on a sanctuaried mage.

But the fun part is when you reach sufficent levels to use the exact same tactics. Cast PMW, PME, Spell Trap, Spell Shield, Stoneskin, and Spell Immunity:Abjuration and now an enemy mage can't dispel you! This is just plain evil and most enemy mages don't what to do. You can walk around with almost impunity and just AOE everything in site and since you can't be dispelled the enemy can't hit you because of PMW and PME makes you immune to that highly annoying Horrid Wilting.

Fun fun stuff [img]smile.gif[/img] There's much more too like learning to use sequencers to fire off a couple greater malisions and a slow. Then there's the Spell Trigger to fire off 3 lower resistances which can lower almost any highly magic resistant to 0 in an instant.

[ 04-11-2005, 10:31 PM: Message edited by: Keldin ]

04-11-2005, 10:20 PM	#4
Keldin Elite Waterdeep Guard Join Date: April 10, 2005 Location: San Jose Age: 60 Posts: 17	I prefer my protagonist to be melee but I loved learning the magic system for my mages like Edwin, Nalia, etc to be effective. Here's some tips for you. Using a mage to strip another mage: =================================== Abbreviations: PME = Protection from Magic Energy PMW = Protection from Magical Weapons There's two ways to strip combat protections like Stoneskin, PMW and Fireshields which is what causes your melee the most headaches. You can cast Breach or Remove/Dispel Magic. The problem with Remove/Dispel Magic is that if the enemy mage is 5+ levels above you(which is usually the case) then it only has a 1% chance of succeeding. If your PC is an Inquisitor or you have Keldorn in your group your odds are much better since Inquisitors dispell at twice their level. So if your Inqui is 13 and you are fighting a level 26 mage you have a 50% chance of Dispel working. Just keep your party away from a dispel since it will dispel your party members in the radius as well. Remove Magic will only effect the enemy but nobody can Remove Magic at 2x their level. Where it really becomes annoying is when mages throw up the following contigencies: Stoneskin Protection From Magical Weapons Protection From Magic Energy Fireshield:Red Spell Trap Spell Shield Spell Immunity:Abjuration Guess what school remove and dispel magic belong to? Yep abjuration! You cannot dispel a mage who throws that up. Now you have to resort to other means of removing those protections like using Breach. Btw, you'll see Immunity:Abjuration a lot more often in the Tactics mod. The problem with Breach is that usually mages throw up a Spell Trap like above. So first you have to cast Pierce Shield to remove Spell Trap then you can cast Breach. Then you get the mage who casts Spell Shield and Spell Trap. Spell Shield will negate the next magical attack against them. So before you cast Pierce Magic you need to waste something like Secret Word first. I,e. you would need to cast Secret Word, Pierce Magic, Breach to strip a mage like that. And odds are once you stip him and your melee hit him a contigency fires off that puts up that exact same defense and you have to repeat [img]smile.gif[/img] Then you have mages who use Spell Immunityivination. What this means is that True Sight will not dispel their illusions and when you try to target them directly you get the message: Spell Cancelled: Cannot target spells on invisible or sancturaried creatures Doh! Now this situation kind of sucks, only an AOE dispel will work. If you have 2x dispel then you can usually remove their Stoneskin and PMW so melee can beat on them. If you don't then it's a waiting game for their immunity to divination to wear off because the Pierce Magic and Breach are direct target spells so they can't be cast on a sanctuaried mage. But the fun part is when you reach sufficent levels to use the exact same tactics. Cast PMW, PME, Spell Trap, Spell Shield, Stoneskin, and Spell Immunity:Abjuration and now an enemy mage can't dispel you! This is just plain evil and most enemy mages don't what to do. You can walk around with almost impunity and just AOE everything in site and since you can't be dispelled the enemy can't hit you because of PMW and PME makes you immune to that highly annoying Horrid Wilting. Fun fun stuff [img]smile.gif[/img] There's much more too like learning to use sequencers to fire off a couple greater malisions and a slow. Then there's the Spell Trigger to fire off 3 lower resistances which can lower almost any highly magic resistant to 0 in an instant. [ 04-11-2005, 10:31 PM: Message edited by: Keldin ]