A Mage in my party??

[Shakir Do'Urden]

I just started playing this and I was just wondering wether its a good Idea to have a mage in my party. There seem to be alot of scrolls I can't use, like the identify one.
And if I do need a mage, how do I stop her/him from getting killed almost imediatly??

[Fljotsdale]

Yep, you need mages! Lots of REALLY useful spells, specially later in the game.

How to stop him/her getting killed: First thing, when you are in the Attributes screen of 'Create Character' make sure when you roll the dice that you are not satisfied with a roll of less than 90 total score. Higher is better! Give your mage 18 Intelligence and 18 Constitution. This does not improve the hit points much, but it DOES help. When giving Weapon skills (Mage will only get 1 to start with) give her Sling (Missile weapon) ability, so that she stays out of melee fighting but is still useful. She will also be able to use a staff if needed but she is rubbish with it until you get another weapon skill point. Have her memorise long range spells, not contact spells, and as soon as you can, let her learn area effect skills. When you are in the screen for her 1st level spells make sure to get 'armour' & 'identify', and have her memorise 'armour'. Then cast 'armour' automatically every time she wakes up so you are ready for action.
You get even better Constitution (hit points) if you first create her as a Figher and then dual to a Mage at first level-up! Or you can create a multi Fighter/Mage - just be aware that she cannot cast spells while wearing armour.
Hope this is helpful.

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[Lord of Alcohol]

You'll have to safeguard the mage for a long time, but they do get good worry not

[This message has been edited by Lord of Alcohol (edited 05-24-2001).]

Originally posted by Fljotsdale: Yep, you need mages! Lots of REALLY useful spells, specially later in the game. How to stop him/her getting killed: First thing, when you are in the Attributes screen of 'Create Character' make sure when you roll the dice that you are not satisfied with a roll of less than 90 total score. Higher is better! Give your mage 18 Intelligence and 18 Constitution. This does not improve the hit points much, but it DOES help. When giving Weapon skills (Mage will only get 1 to start with) give her Sling (Missile weapon) ability, so that she stays out of melee fighting but is still useful. She will also be able to use a staff if needed but she is rubbish with it until you get another weapon skill point. Have her memorise long range spells, not contact spells, and as soon as you can, let her learn area effect skills. When you are in the screen for her 1st level spells make sure to get 'armour' & 'identify', and have her memorise 'armour'. Then cast 'armour' automatically every time she wakes up so you are ready for action. You get even better Constitution (hit points) if you first create her as a Figher and then dual to a Mage at first level-up! Or you can create a multi Fighter/Mage - just be aware that she cannot cast spells while wearing armour. Hope this is helpful.

eh Fljotsdale You know what i notest?
you started out talking about a mage as him/her and later on you only talked about her and she So you only have female mages notin importent just something i notest

eh Shakir
What i did innthe bginning was send out my fighter/thief and ranger out and let all the others wait till these 2 kill everybody off with their bow's
remember that mage don't have to fight to get XP
you can just let others fight

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Help me create A Fantasy Realm with your imagination

[Fljotsdale]

Originally posted by Rikard: eh Fljotsdale You know what i notest? you started out talking about a mage as him/her and later on you only talked about her and she So you only have female mages notin importent just something i notest

Er, yeah.. !!

I'm going to post about this in polls forum.



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[Axterix]

Key to wizard survival:

16 constitution. More is wasted (except on the dual/multiclass mage/fighter). At 16 you get +2 hp per level. At 17, same thing. So don't waste more points there.

18 dex. Dex is AC. It's good to be harder to hit.

And most importantly... don't get hit! Use the sling as your weapon of choice. If you use AI scripts, set the mage on fighter/ranged (this means he won't cast spells automatically and will try and keep distance from the enemy). If you don't use scripts (or with the script the enemy manages to close anyway), run the mage away as needed. If you are playing without superstats... this is really crucial.

Now, for the rest, a wizard should ideally have an 18 int, helps with spell scribing a lot. If you choose to go specialist, make sure you realize what the cost is... you will not be able to scribe spells from an opposing school. You will suffer a 15% chance less of scribing spells not from your school. But you'll get an additional spell slot for each level of spell you can cast and you'll get a 15% bonus to scribing spells from your school.

For starting spells... don't bother with identify (especially if you have a bard in the party) or armor. I'd be much more inclined to go with sleep and magic missile. Sleep can help nicely against packs of low level critters. Magic missile is the spell interrupter spell. See the guy start to cast... just tag him with a magic missile. Identify is sold in Kuldahar. You'll wind up there shortly, and at that time you'll have next to no magic items to identify. Just save the game before trying to scribe it, in case of failure.

[Fljotsdale]

AAaarrrgggghh! I forgot Dex! Didn't realise that about Constitution! Glad of the info! Thanks!

I really like the identify spell early on, myself, and never go anywhere without 'armour', lol!
Also, I never found 'magic missile' and 'sleep' much use. Thing is, we all play differently, and have to discover what is best for US. Experiment with parties at the first site and see what you like yourself.

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[Axterix]

Hehe, if you don't have a bard in the party, identify is very useful. But if you do, it's pointless. However, early on, well, before Kuldahar there's about 1 item to identify (from the chest). It can wait... and putting a few orcs to sleep can make a few of those fights much easier.

As for magic missile, how can you not find that useful? 1 casting time, 5 hits once you get high enough level... 5d4 +5 damage, not too shabby for a level 1 spell. Basically, the moment a bad guy tries to cast, you just pause, select your mage and tell him to MM the bad guy and then unpause. Will almost always interrupt. Second time I played through the game, my wizzy had 2 rings that doubled level 1 and 2 spells... that's a lot of level 1 spells, and they were all identify and magic missile... though chromatic orb made up the 3rd most common and eventually pulled even with MM as it replaced the identifies.

Hehe, and as for armor, well, suffice it to say my mage, in the end, shelved his ac 3 robe for an ac 5 one... simply because it gave 1 hp regen per 5 rounds. Was more useful to let him heal the occassional hit than have lower AC. The motto of my mages is "He who runs away lives to fireball anything dumb enough to quit chasing."

[Fljotsdale]

LOL!
Maybe I should give MM another go!
I'm afraid I'm a bit protective of my mages, lol!

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[Axterix]

The trick is not in having the attack miss your mage. It's in never getting the mage attacked to begin with Then you don't need protective magics!