making a new illusionist
raelcari
Member Posts: 133
I'm rolling a new illusionist and wonder about stats. 19 int is a given, but in what order are the other stats necessary? im thinking 18 in dex and con for sling thac0 and HP, but I heard somewhere that magi dont scale with more than 16 constitution, for example? im assuming in this line of thinking that im not gonna dual. thoughts?
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A high Dex is good for the extra AC and for making ranged attacks which is going to be a big source of your damage over the course of the entire saga not just the first game. You're not always going to be able or want to sling magic in every fight.
thanks guys, this was clarifying
Although you won't get more HP from an 18 CON vs a 16, Gnomes get saving throw bonuses based on their CON.
There are ways to increase your stats in this game. A 20 CON will allow your character to regenerate, which is incredibly useful.
You want max str (carry weight is especially important in BG1 as there's only a single str belt and most of the npcs are VERY lacking in the str department, also handy for BG2 where several ranged weapons give str bonuses to damage and having High str yourself allows you to spread str items to less endowed party mates while still kicking ass at range), dex, Con, at minimum 16 wisdom if you plain to use Wish or limited wish at all.
I admit...I fell for the trap too when I was new...in the end though, because of how limited BG is however, 70% of the spells in the game are borderline useless or redundant.
It's genius! I love it! You could probably go even lower if you wanted to! Like you said, a sorcerer does fine with a max of 6 spells! Heck, I'm digging the Dragon Disciple with only 4 per level!
(Or Wisdom, if you want a good Lore)
I'm just saying that if you find your stats lacking in regard to str/dex/con, then feel free to sacrifice int, because it is borderline worthless (Even charisma is arguable worth more then Int is...but since there's no item to set int to 18, charisma is slightly worse to invest in overall), aside from spell learn chance (anything over 50% is just as likely to succeed as 96%..and you can't hit 100% till 24, which can't be hit naturally, so no point in bothering with worrying about it) (would be a different story if they'd implemented minimum int for spells levels...but even then, 13 int allows casting up to 6th level, or the illusion immunity that REALLY high (19+) int is supposed to give)
The only reason I picked 13, is because that's the minimum int for a bard, and also happens to give over a 50% chance of spell learning. The minimum a Mage can have is 9 (allows casting up to 4th level) but also has a crappy 35% learn chance (they still get 1 more known spell per level then a sorc does though, 7 vs 6).
I just found it odd that they left out the minimum required int, which is a mandatory rule, while known spells per level is an optional rule.
The real thing with INT is how many spells/ level that you keep in your spell book.
Now if WIS worked like Planescape Torment, *then* it would be useful.
About the same as all the times I've had mages with 18....they fail all the damn time, despite being only 8% less then 19 int.
It's completely luck based. Anything over 50% is just as likely to succeed as anything less then 100%.
I don't reload, if I fail to learn a spell and can't find another, I just do without. Considering you can get a free wand of fire and wand of lightning immediately after leaving Candlekeep, with enough charges to finish the whole game, if used sparingly, or last until you can afford the one the guy at Durlag's sell, if you spam them at every encounter, no matter how trivial.....you actually don't NEED any spells as a bard (I usually just armor mine up and use him like a fighter...who can use wands and occasionally pre-buff...and it kills absolutely everything).