Might vs. Magic Debate

a really cheap trick is animate the dead, invisible stalker, spider spawn and monster summon. I've had 5 skeleton warriors butcher the planar prison warder, 3 yuan ti mages and assorded grunts. they seem almost immune to any spell less than 7th level. the most powerful mage killing spells, like death finger and death spell, just tickle. the only monsters a squad of skeletons can't finish off is like beholders. i sent five skeletons against 6 beholders in the unseeing eye quest, and they literally crisped in 5 seconds. so I ended up using a cheap shot. I reloaded, and in that game the bridge wasn't across. I sneaked acroos on invisibility, cast cloudkill, and ran like heck beyond visual sight. since the bridge was not turned, they couldn't follow me!
repeat, and while my sorceror was singed, 6 dead beholders.

oh yeah, before I got distracted by thinking about this cheap trick, my point is with a powerful mage, you can create your own infantry cover.

think of strategy games. warriors are like infantry, they hold the enemy pinned while you fire artillery (the mage) at them. you stop the enemy from maneuvering in the killing ground, and its teh overhead fire that does teh real killing. but the nice thing about mages is you can summon your own, expendable infantry without risking your own troops. i sorta use my fighters as mage distractors, firing ranged weapons.

kinda like tanks, I guess.

and naturally, the skeletons won't complain if you cast incindeary cloud at them while they're busy distracting the enemy spellcasters....

hmmm...fighting beholders, i wonder if you can cast protection spells on your skeletons? they already have insane magic resistance...

[WOLFGIR]

Hey I´m almost sorry for you.. So many postings and so few answers..
Well I will in my limited English try to make a good posting for you..
Since I enjoy the heat of battle, swinging swords, aiming true with arrows, I have had something against mages, but I have after Icewind dale and BG2 reevaluated my position and are more than ever stuck in my other reasonings about might and magic, you need both.. Examples.

Fast enemies: Fast and quick enemies, archers and the like can render a mage to a pincushion before the mage can throw a magic missile wich in turn seldom kill an opponent.. Thieves that backstab you, you can´t go around casting true sight, glitterdust. all the time.. The mage need a fighter or tough guy to take the bashing and the fighter need the mage to decimate the targets and to fight magics. A fighter can handle alot of situations I have found out, probably thoose who play mages have found out similar ways to use mages, and thats what is really good about these debates! A mage have some problems when you get surrounded, suprise attacks when their positioning in battle is close up not from a distance.
A fighter is good at most ranges and espacially good close in. However a fighter is vulnerable to charm, fear and such spels which can make the the biggest threat for their own group..
Together however they make an excellent team hard to beat.
I couldn´t have cleared the mindflayer dungeon without a mag, not as easy as I did it. Cloudkill, close the doors, wait, open door cloudkill, close door, ruch attack and arrow barrage and swoops, no enemies..

I couldn´t have done without fighters in the underdark when a Drow warparty surrounded my party, hadn´t mins been taking up the rear, my mage and cleric woul have beeen in serious trouble, my main character and Keldorn finished the front threat really easy, dualwielding fighter with Celestial fury, Blade of the rose..
Then turned and openend up with distance weapons.

My point: Fighters and Mages need each other, you can make it without the other, but you won´t be that healthy afterwards, a mage have to sleep after a long battle in order to gain moe spells. A long battle or a very hostile environment.. He, you need that guy bashing your enemies to smithereens..
And even a healthy fighter need the mage to dispel evil magic and to dispel protections in order to kill that evil mage or lich..

As a sidenote on archers and mages - mages really are mobile pincushions when it comes to archery. Under spellhold, I encountered a small party of skeletal warriors with frost arrows. Went straight through Edwin's stoneskin. He couldn't get a spell off at all. Nothing really would have affected those skeletons, anyway. My point: give your archers frost arrows for spell disrupting, they work wonders.
Oh, and mages need warriors, and vice versa, I suppose.

[Zoratorak]

yep... i totally i agree that mages needs fighters (dunno with the vice versa). since im a necro... i go alone and to counter my weakness for the lack of stong and powerful fighters i have the item horn of valhalla (for my escape when needed) as well as summoning some skeleon warriors (not skeletons) ... air elementals do nicely for backup ... but skeleton warriors is the best thing a mage can have for protection against brutes... besides i also have contingency to protect myself against arrows so no problem with me in case i get ambushed by archers..

What do you put in the contingency?

Back to Armageddonx's original question. I think the dynamic between might and magic evolves throughout the game as you progress in levels and equipment, as well as with different adversaries. I use a great deal of magic support for my fighters in the early game. They need more protections spells, offensive support, and of course healing.
(Note that I said magic support for fighters. Others may see fighters as support for the mages. This is a style issue only.)
With my fighting style, I use less & less magic as the game progresses. With the magic properties of the excellent equipment available, my lead 2 tanks can kill almost anything. My MUs use slings, throwing daggers, etc to help out with bothering the enemy MUs. I have my standard buffs memorized and only actively fight with magic when the battle is 100% tailored to magic. (large groups that can inflict enough damage to kill a fighter)
In summary, I believe there is an absolute need to balance might vs magic in the early game, but style and the availablity of excellent fighting gear and high level spells make the late game a players call. For me it is might with magic support for style.

I completely agree with the posts about one needing the other. Esp. since i havent cheated at all, i seem to have moderately powerful magic weapons, so my fighters often can't hit because of a minimum required +weapon or some magic protection the mage/monster has cast on itself. that is when spell casting comes in most handy. plus the whole affect many at once issue. while i like the summon fire elemental (some major damage can be done), it is odd that the group gets the experience for the kill, so as a purist, i tend to try not summoning them too often and let the Boo carrier handle most of the brute killing if he can.

To adventure solely with magic users has the following disadvantages -
on a simple level, the fighters/rangers/thieves as NPCs are more interesting, better personalities
it is interesting to design a melee round with the combination of fighters/etc - more so than just throwing a cloudkill into a room and running (given that at BG2 they have already reduced the duration of this and other similar spells, they are still a bit too powerful - plus with the AI of the monsters not able to handle this - why they never walk out of the clouds is beyond me - they are sort of a non-challenging thing to use). To watch them fight in conjunction with magic is part of the fun.
most of the interesting magic items are weapons and armor. without this, you are limited to some silly robes, a few wands, and a ring or two - big deal.
realistically (well, if anything could be called realistic here) most of the training of time would have been to fighters/etc.
fighters as fodder to the quick enemy that has the ability to disrupt spells is usefull, plus the ability of the fighter to disrupt the spells of others is great. an archer with haste and a fast bow can do some serious damage to a host of hostile spell casters.


This all actually leads me into a question - not sure how the hostile spell casters get off 5 spells at the beginning of a melee, when i am still chanting "mortis blah blah blah". I understand there is contingency, just not sure how to use it... a quick word on that would be appreciated.

I used to save all my better magic spells for the battle that never happened, until I managed to get it through my head that they're no more indesposable than the lower level spells. I think a lot of people still do this and prefer to stick to the old, more familiar 'fireball' spells and such.
Summoning spells are pretty powerful. I can understand what you're saying about not wanting to have to rely on some little desposable monster to fight your battles. I get that too, but using summoning spells one at a time tones down that effect. Generally speaking, summons are just supposed to be a distraction (apart from elemental and daemon summons).
And with the string of spells NPC mages toss at the start of a battle. That's not a contingency, it's something built into their script, and it's really starting to irritate me. At least give it to us, too! : /

[omegadawn]

Considering how stupid the computer NPC AI's are in general, including spellcasters, I'll give them their little built in "contingency". They hafta have an advantage to compensate for poor target selection, failure to retreat intelligently, failure to cure themselves in a timely manner, failure to work as a team, ect. I'll give it to them and still kick ass!

[Azred]

I, personally, use magic for scouting ahead (invisibility, wizard eye, farsight, and clairvoyance) then set up a favorable position and lure enemies towards me. The front line folks (Jaheira with str 19, Minsc with Equalizer, and Anomen with Crom Faeyr) take out foes pretty quickly, with generous support from me (almost an arch-mage), Aerie (spells or Sling of Everard), and Imoen (Gesen bow).
My spellcasters typically try to counter the protection spells cast by enemy mages and then throw in some all-purpose damage (Holy Smite and Abi-Dhalzim's Wilting).

To simulate the "contingency" spells enemy mages all seem to have, use Contingency on yourself ("when enemy sighted", but that works only once) and (my favorites) the spell sequencer spells (Minor Sequencer, Sequencer, and Trigger).