To cast or not to cast...

Well there is no point stating a fact. I will give you a small example of why a mage is escential. Lets say youre clearing out D,Arnes keep or the Troll mound in the Druid grove. If you've run out of fire or acid arrows (dont laugh, it happens) a druid can cast "Fireblade" to perminantly kill those pesky regenerating Trolls. A mage could cast "Flame Arrow" or "Melfs Acid Arrows". But if you feel that bruit force, hack and slash tactics are the way to go, by all means try. The game is just that, a game. The pupose is enjoyment and we must all find our joy where we can

[ArmageddonX]

I have an uncanny knack to simplify games down to their most basic level. Mages are nifty and make pretty pretty colors with spiffy little spells... same thing with priest class characters. The only redemption I see for priests is thier ability to heal the characters AFTER the battle (which is not a life and death situation). And mages can cast the two spells, domination and cloudkill; which is their redemption. Now there are some times that a spell like sanctuary would be 'useful' and when a monster is nearly immune to physical damage, some magical damage would be nice... but thats all thats good about spellcasters in my eyes. What I really want is for somene to come in here and say,

"Your an idiot! You never really tried to use **** spell! Or **** spell either!! If you had you'd realise how great spellcasters really are!! And they get so much more powerful than fighters or archers near end game where it really matters!"

Or something like that, dont worry about hurting my feelings . (Only say it if it's true)

[Zenith]

You're an idiot! You never really tried to use breach! or pierce magic either??? Did you simply run around and hack away until certain mage protections wore off, wasting magic arrows and such silliness? Speed your game up, haste those fighters. mages are so vulnerable to other mages! remember, if thier mage can mess you up, then your mage can mess them up. then there is the whole being able to identify items...

lol, i hope this is along the lines of what you were looking for!

Well, I agree, a party of a ranger/cleric, an inquisitor (dispel magic is needed), a f/t, and 3 tank half-orcs would have the easiest time making it through this game.

But if you only have 3 or 4 chars, a mage with area of effect spells to "soften up" the opposition and summoning spells are necessary. IWD was a great example of a game where this is evident. I made a party of 4 instead of 6 and had a much easier time. Most of the work was done by an illusionist/thief who would hide in shadows and use fireball/cloudkill to soften the enemy. You'll find the battles are a lot easier.

My advice is try out a small party with an illusionist/thief and see for yourself. The enemy never uses healing spells, so haveing the mages reduce the hps of the enemy by half means your fighters can go in there after and have a much easier time. With 6 chars, this also works, and you can do cool things with your thief - have him go invisible with non-detection, send him into the mind flayer areas, and have all your casters summon elementals, etc. You can kill off a bunch of those (chaotic commands on the elementals helps), or soften them up a lot b4 you send your troops in.

I always thought the same way as you until recently. The main diff is you need to plan ahead for the battles and use more strategy than the hack-and-slay approach. But you'll be surprised - it's actually a lot more fun. Plus your casualty rate will go down, and so will your frustration. With mages you can actually use the core rules and the higher difficulty levels. You'll be hard-pressed to get fighters lvl 19 with less than 100 HPs to survive a lot of these battles. I would say the ONLY way to make it through on harder difficulty levels is to have mages to assist and attack. But if you play on normal or low difficulty, you can make a tank party that will do better in most "surprise" situations. The key is that using scouts to go ahead will allow you to prepare for a battle, and give your spell-casters more time to make an impact. If you just walk ahead into a room, the tank party will do better. IMO, scouting ahead makes the game more interesting and you will have a lot more fun. It will take a bit longer at first, but you will have a lot less reloading, thus making you "feel" better about the battle. You weren't just "stronger", you were "smarter".

two words: fireball & timestop

Mages come in very handy in battles and shit
If i could i'd make a party of 6 mages but then again it a waist to not use weapon like crom faeyr and celestrial fury
and fighter come in handy during fights again mages who have spell immunitry and protection agains normal weapons
like anyone has a normal weapon in BG2
I have as much magic as possible in my party
It's not only fun but it more like Role playing

Why mages
sorry forgot to say why i use mages

if you have a party of 10 hobgoblins or those kentoi (? lizard like) all you need to do is one death spell and there all gone
if you have a spelltrigger or spell sequence you can put in 3 fire arrows or something and easely deal out 5d6 damage *3*3 = a max of 270 damage and an averige of 135 damage
thats a lot enough to kill a lot of level 20 fighters.

One small note: it you are a lone fighter in the underdark howare you going to:

1) lay a sacrifice before the demigorgon to summon the death Knights

and

2) assuming you summon the death knights, can a lone fighter, without spell support, defeat them?

...am posting a thread about solos out of curiosity.

geez, i bet you try for hours forcing the locks open out of chests - wake up!! its time to get a mage coz the knock spell can get you something that could've taken you over 100 picklocks or forces.

also mages can be remarkably surprising when they feel like it - for example I managed to kill the shadow dragon AND firkraag all my myself first time - (used magic resistance and finger of death.)

by the way - don't even think about kangaxx..............

Fighter alone in underdark? Well, my fighter used that spider-summoning item for the sacrifice. I'll bet the horn of valhala would also work... Also, with a pot of speed and the reflecting cloak (plus an AC of -13) I was able to take out all the knights solo... Took a few reloads, of course. Funny u mentioned that, bec that is exactly what I did for fun, hehe. Took on the entire underdark solo. Chests and traps were a pain though, heh. For some reason "bash" doesn't work for me in BG2, not once.

To do the entire game solo, I'd use a gnome illusionist/thief with the cap removed and start him at lvl 11/13 or so...