[Olorin]

I have just finished clearing out Bhodi's dungeon with my cleric/mage. I had a mplayer party that also included an assasin, a dwarven barbarian, a sorcerer, and Edwin. Viccy was MIA.

Incanus (the cleric/mage) was a holy terror. I hardly even used the rest of my party. Had him start by casting stoneskin and sanctuary and ran around turning undead. Valen happened to run into the rest of my party, so they had to kill her, but the rest of floor one belonged to the cleric/mage. His cleric level is only 14, just shy of skelies, but he was able to explode all the named vamps except Tanova. Tanova and several other vamps went down cowering in a corner with a good whack from the improved mace of disruption because I got impatient. I let the assassin come in for some backstab kills while the vamps were hiding in corners as well. Dire charms were not a problem because of chaotic commands.

I had a little trouble with the guard by the blood and blades room. He spell buffed himself and was resisting my turn undead, but a friendly dwarf put azuredge through his skull (the destroy undead effect bypassed stoneskin). There were several other vampires in the room that had run there from the central room, but they went down from either the mace or the axe. Then I ran my cleric mage on a circuit of the blade room to draw out all the vampiric mists. I lost my stoneskin after the first trap and had to scramble to replace it after two traps hit me hard. I set off another four before I made it back out. I started turning in the hallway as the mists came in. Azuredge took the first two in sequence just as they reached Incanus. Three more were almost there when the turning kicked in, leaving one more for azuredge.

Downstairs, Incanus boldy walked down the hallway while the rest of the party took a breather. He entered Bhodi's room and chatted for a minute, then dropped the nearest two vampires with a turn undead. Incanus dumped some holy water into one of the fonts and then backpedaled into the hallway, to prevent getting mobbed. The dwarf came down the hall at the sound of fighting. Incanus was busy fighting Bhodi and a grimwarder, neither of which gave a hoot about being turned. The dwarf went for the warder, figuring to cut the odds down, but his axe couldn't damage the thing. Meanwhile, another vampire had joined the fray, and another stoneskin was history. Incanus then pulled his next trick. A quick spell (esp. with Robes of Vecna), and he was immune to all magical attacks. The dwarf stopped his futile attacks on the warder and dropped the newest vampire with his first throw. He yelled at the rest of the party to get a move on, but was hardly surprised to see the assasin appear immediately, already dealing a killer blow to Bhodi. Bhodi was shaken, but still not down for the count. The assasin ran back down the hall before Bhodi could turn on him. Azuredge and the IMoD kept pounding no Bhodi, trying to keep her from regenerating, while the mages finally showed up and dropped the annoying grimwarder with a profusion of magic missiles and meteors. Then the assasin returned, and that was it for Bhodi.

Incanus reentered the central lair, hoping that Viccy would be alright with Bhodi out of the picture, but she was too far gone. With regret, Incanus held aloft his holy symbol, and Viccy dropped to the floor, no longer undead. A couple of other vampires were hiding in the smaller rooms, but they could not withstand Incanus's ire. It was with great satisfaction that he ripped open Bhodi's coffin and put a stake through her heart.

I had a lot of fun running a mage/cleric. They have decent fighting capability, and benefit from lots of combat protections. My spellbook currently consists of MMs for level 1, mirror image and blur for level 2, fireballs for level 3, stoneskin level 4, sunfire 5, and prot from magical weapons at level 6 (max with cap). For equipment; Flail of the Ages and Improved Mace of Disruption and a sling that I never use. Strength girdle, boots of speed, amulet of magic resistance. For armor, I use the bracers AC 3. Wearing the dragon helm, dragon shield, and ring of fire resistance brings my resistance to fire to 90%. It was 110% with the Robe of Fire Resist, but in the Underdark I got Edwin the Evil Archmagi robe and took the Vecna for the cleric/mage. Before Windspear Hills, I used protection from fire spells (level 3). I usually start fights by running Incanus to the group of enemies and having him stop a few feet short and cast fireball or sunfire. The rest of the group stays back out of range of the blast, and uses ranged weapons, or throws in extra fireballs. Depending on how the enemies are doing, I might bring more melee fighters forward to mop up, or cast another round of fire magic. Later on, my back-up mages were able to use chain lightning or ADHW as the artillery support.

When I met up with Drizzt and co. this game, I decided to fight them (I'd always allied with Drizzt before). Incanus used a spell sequencer with blur, mirror image and stoneskin and attacked with the FoA. Mages fired a trigger 3x chain lightning and ADHW off, doing good damage to all but Drizzt and Catti-Brie. My barbarian killed Guen pretty quick, then finished off Wulfgar and Regis. My assasin took on Catti-Brie in an archery contest, but my arrows were poisoned arrows of biting. Viccy's skeletal warrior also made the contest somewhat unfair. Incanus was taking on Drizzt and Bruenor in melee, and after a couple rounds, the stoneskin and mirror images had been eaten through. A quick prot from magic weapons, and the end was in sight. Neither of them could do any damage, all their allies were gone, and Bruenor was almost dead. Drizzt by himself lasted surprisingly long by chugging healing potions and by having a wickedly low AC. But with everyone pounding on him, it didn't take very long.

I really like the cleric/mage combo with a party, but I'd have reservations about playing one solo; unless you removed the exp cap. Under the cap, you end up a level 14 cleric/13 mage; so you're missing a lot of the serious firepower.