POLL: What is the best mage school?

Pretty sure he's just a regular mage.

Hey memnoch! Send me the stats of some of those people so I could re-create them.

With specialist schools of magic, it doesn't necessarily work like that (i.e. make the spells of your chosen school more powerful). Specialist mages get one extra spell memorisation per level at the cost of not being able to use spells in their opposite school; that's all, I think. I'm pretty sure it's more a roleplaying aspect than anything else. I could be wrong, someone correct me if I am, but I've never noticed a difference in Edwin's summon spells or Jan's illusion spells.

[Memnoch]

Armisael you are dead right, all it does is allow you to cast more of your specialty and none of the opposing school. Doesn't make your specialty spells stronger or anything.

I spoke with a guy that was part of a team that helped with the creation of NPC's in BG2 and he told me that Elminster came from the character of Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings. No surprise there, but he did say that he was not aware of Elminster having been assigned stats however if he was he would have likely been a regular mage 5 or 6 levels higher than the highest level the player characters could reach.

[Memnoch]

Elminster is a Level 29 mage. The Simbul is Level 30. The interesting thing about these two are their powers as Chosen of Mystra, as well as their psionics. Elminster's psionics are about 255+ - he'd fry your brain to much before you even thought about casting a spell.

Jon, some stats of FR mages for u (still trying to find the 2 above

Halaster
Blackcloak - the Mad Mage of Undermountain
Human male 30th-level mage
ARMOR CLASS: 6
MOVE: 12
HIT POINTS: 49
THAC0: 11
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic evil
STR 9, DEX 18, CON 25 (15), INT 20, WIS 19, CHA 9

Spells (7/7/7/7/7/7/7/6/6)

Manshoon - Leader of the Zhentarim
Human male 19th- level mage
ARMOR CLASS: 0
MOVE: 12
HIT POINTS: 63
THAC0: 14
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
ALIGNMENT: Lawful evil
STR 10, DEX 16, CON 16, INT 18, WIS 16, CHA 18
Spells (5/5/5/10ƒ/10ƒ/3/3/3/1):


Szass Tam, Zulkir
of Necromancy
29th-level necromancer lich;
formerly a human male
ARMOR CLASS: 0
MOVE: 6
HIT POINTS: 64
THAC0: 9
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
ALIGNMENT: Neutral evil
STR 11, DEX 14, CON 19, INT 19, WIS 16, CHA 18
Spells (10/10/10/10/9/9/9/9/9)

Elminster isn't just some guy the folks at Bioware came up with, he's a reknown Faerun identity. In fact he's not an NPC, either, I'm pretty sure he's played by Ed Greenwood.

Elminster's stats are in the Hero's Lorebook, part of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting stuff. Also, some interesting stuff on roleplaying the different specialty classes is covered in the Wizard's Handbook for AD&D 2nd ed, i.e. manic/depressive Necromancers, arrogant conjurers, militantly loyal Invokers, etc.

Also, another note on Diviners from PnP D&D. Divination has two parts: Lesser Divination and Greater Divination. Lesser Divination contains all Div. spells level 4 or less. ALL wizards can learn these spells. Greater Divination (i.e. div. spells of lvl. 5 or greater) are what Diviners specialize in. Thus, a Conjurer could learn Identify, but not True Sight; however, a Diviner could learn True Sight, but not Grease. Truly, Diviners are the suckiest of the specialist classes b/c they have the strongest opposition school (Conjuration, which includes such spells as Power Word, Maze, Symbol, Gate and *Wish*) and the weakest specialty. However, in 2nd ed rules, the Diviner specialty makes up for this by having only 1 opposition school; all the other specialist have 2 or more.

Interesting note about specialists being more powerfull. I'm not sure if they implemented this in BG2, but in Pnp D&D, specialists casting a spell from their school place a -2 penalty on the saving throws of those affected by their spell. This make their spells more effective.

Also, specialists get a bonus to learn spells of their school and a penalty to learn spells of other schools. Again, I'm not sure if this is implemented in BG2.

Yeah, that's right, I remember. -2 penalty to any saving throws from appropriate spells (another reason why divination is dodgy), and it's not implemented. In BG2, though, specialist mages can't learn spells from their opposition school at all.

Right, but in BG2 they only have one opposition school. D&D specialists also cannot learn from their opposition school, but they suffer a learning penalty (-15% chance to learn spells) from all other schools save for their specialty school, which they get a bonus to learn (+25% chance to learn spells).

I'm remembering all this vaguely b/c it's been a while since I played an Invoker. Really cool class if you're a pyro...