[ister]

Critical uses for mages:

1) Magic missile enemy spell casters before they get their spells off. Or when they have cast mirror image/stone skins. It's extremely fast so you'll always get it off first.
2) Invisibility. Allows thief to remain hidden while checking for traps, allows thief without maxed stealth to backstab, allows severely hurt character to escape, and so on. Incredibly versatile and extremely useful.
3) Haste. Makes hard battles much much simpler. Yes there are other buffs that are very nice, but clerics have decent buffs too. But they cannot cast haste which is my favourite 3rd level.
4) Friends. Allows a 30% discount on EVERYTHING you buy. Meaning any shop items will be acquired that much sooner.
5) Summon x elemental. The elementals are probably the most handy - the summon monster spells aren't that much better than animate dead and you don't need a mage to animate dead.
6) Slow. Yes I know that other area effect spells do better damage, but they take much more planning to use correctly. Slow really helps when you have hordes of mid-level enemies (the high level ones save too often).

It's true that before Dragon's Eye a mage won't help that much. But the game is much much harder without one. (My current game I have a 5 person party with 3 mages. I think the later game is much easier than with a melee heavy party.

edit: Like others I also love grease because it is faster than web. But I don't count that as a big advantage, entangle is a little better and you don't need a mage for that either.

[ 01-24-2005, 09:43 AM: Message edited by: ister ]