Might vs. Magic Debate

[ArmageddonX]

Since my post of, "to cast or not to cast" I have received quite a number of entries. Some of them seem very reasonable but others are somewhat mistaken, I believe. I would love to know any specific time you just could not do without magic OR when you thought you needed magic but casting spells was a waste of time where might was all you needed. I will post some situations as well...

[ArmageddonX]

Traps: except for the incredibly rare times that a character gets petrified or deathed, I just barge right through traps. I dont care when I recieve 5%-15% damage or some minor temperary curse. Do the traps get more likely to work and more deadly in the future?

[ArmageddonX]

Medium Level Battle: lets say there was a room with a dozen Yuan-Ti or whatever and five medium class mages. I might cast one haste and one death cloud from my mage and one chant and one heal all from my cleric. But more than likely im gonna go in there and have my archers irritate the mages (keep switching targets) and have my juggernautish katana fighters pur'ee the Yuan-Ti. Magic doesn't really seem needed in this issue, any arguements?

[ArmageddonX]

Pack of lil scrublins: using someones advice, I decided to cast cloudkill over a group of orcs and see how quickly they would die. RARARARARARAAAAAAAGGGH (sound of multiple deaths)! Poof. All the lil tykes die. Magic seems to be a great tool to use against annoying and easy creatures.

[ArmageddonX]

Big Fat Boss: such as Firkraag. Until I ammased quite a collection of resistances via spells, blessing spells, and prepared to cast offensive spells, Firkraag seemed immortal. I used chant, web, haste, magic missle, bolt of glory, harm, and cloudkill. My conclusion over all these situations is that traps and medium level fights are the times best to aviod magic and tiny fights and mega fights are the times best to use magic. Any arguements?

[Top Dog]

Sorry, but I really HATE AD&D's magic rules. IMHO they completely suck for a computer game. Why? Simple. You only have so many to use, and even worse, you need to have preselected your spells out of your repetoire. Therefore, in order to cover my bases, so to speak, for the different possibilities that I might run into, I have to dilute my spells even further by taking a bit of all of them.
Why does this suck? Simply said, it requires a TON of resting. Geez, guys, this is a real boring part of the game, and it really breaks up the action. Let's see - you can scout out the battles, then rest in order to get the spells you think you need (not like they might discover you by means of THEIR scouts, no?), or you use up your limited spells after each battle and THEN have to continually rest.

As a result, I don't use magic all that much. Whereas with other RPG's I use a lot of magic, here I mainly rely on might. In the end it leads to pure hack-n-slash. BOOORRRIINNGGGG!!!

What would be better? Scrap the #$%@ing AD&D rules, or at least modify them! Most D&D RPG's have a sort of spell-rationing, but you can use any of your spells (no pre-memorization requirement) and you can recover them (mana) by use of potions or time. As a result, I rarely rest in other games. Here, it is continual!

On a side note - another poster mentions traps. Personally, I think they MUST be dealt with. They do a ton more than 5-15 HP's - I've had characters killed because I've blundered into a trap or two. Worse, it requires me to use more of my spells (meaning RESTING!!!

[ArmageddonX]

Well thanks for the info Top Dog. Though for some reason they actually usually only do 5-15% of my characters health. Maybe my characters have better armor or are more well designed (though I don't know how would occur). I was still kinda hoping for more input though... I want to either be verified (which doesn't take long) or argued with... I hate coming up with these theories with no protection from my subjective thinking.

[ArmageddonX]

This string is supposed to have people come in and talk about situations when or when not to use magic. I guess people just don't find it that interesting. I personally find it fascinating for the fact that this question represents a large portion of the game. So any help would be appreciated!

[omegadawn]

Magic use for group of monsters (orc's, yaun ti, ect.) Chain lightning cast simulateously by two spellcasters makes for a bunch of dead monsters way quicker than any two fighters could, and no residual cloud to walk through. My avenger druid and illusonist consistently use this spell with success. Also works well againsts those randowm encounters of character groups you encounter while moving about the world map.
Fighters work best against beholders and mind flayers, but only if you have protection spells and items to back them up. In reality, most situations call for the use of both might and magic together, or either depending on your style and preference of play.

This is such a great thread will a well-posed question. I can't believe there aren't more responses!
I wanted to add a comment on "saving spells". It seems like I'm forever saving my 'Chain Lightning' or other such powerful attack spells. I end up sleeping on top of them because I need my protection spells back. I know when I walk around the next corner or open the next door that my sword arm is going to be there, but I never know if I should use that big spell here or not. This is probably one of the biggest reasons many of us don't use more magic. Is it time?
I also want to echo an earlier post. I don't particularly like summoning spells. Not that they don't work, I know they can be very, very effective. I just don't like these disposable 'things' fighting my fights. I rarely summon anything.
Slight Spoil;
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-That said, I did send a few to their deaths in the 'Walls of Crushing' in the asylum. I just couldn't do anything with those traps. (and I was pissed because I got squashed and had to go way......back to an earlier save)