Casters and Armor and the passage of the days.

Heindrich

The AD&D systems seems to be very strict when it comes to Armor and casting. Namely you cannot cast any spells when you wear any armor or helms. Does this mean that for a Fighter/Mage or other Fighter/Caster character, realistically you can only cast spells with long duration if you choose to walk around in your armor? If this is the case, I see little point in memorising any offensive spells, since I cannot use them unless I take off my armor.

Also somebody recommended that I should give Jaheira the best armor I can afford so she can tank effectively... but if I do that, she cannot use her cleric spells... what am I missing here?

I thought you can achieve negative AC modifiers, but when I cast Armor on my protagonist, who has AC 0 normally with his Splint Mail, and then put the armor back on, his AC was still 0... Does that mean magical Armor is not stackable with physical armor?

Also does the passage of time affect anything in the BG games? Like can I wander around and explore for as long as I like before I move onto the next stage of the journey? Sometimes I just leave my game in the background without pausing cos I forget it isn't turn-based. In other words, is the ingame time a valuable commodity?

Like in Avernum if you don't do the main quests within certain time limits, the towns you are meant to be saving become increasingly ravaged, town-NPCs start to die off, and eventually around the 80th day (or something like that) u get teleported into a tower of demons whether you are ready or not.

Wisp

Heindrich1988 said:

The AD&D systems seems to be very strict when it comes to Armor and casting. Namely you cannot cast any spells when you wear any armor or helms. Does this mean that for a Fighter/Mage or other Fighter/Caster character, realistically you can only cast spells with long duration if you choose to walk around in your armor? If this is the case, I see little point in memorising any offensive spells, since I cannot use them unless I take off my armor.

Generally speaking, Fighter/Mages don't tend to wear physical armour. Elven chain is excepted, since it does not interfere with casting (but there might not be any available until BG2). Instead there are spells that improve AC or otherwise enhance survivability. (General advise, don't try to melee with your F/M until you have a few levels under your belt. No class fares well in melee until level 3–5 or so.)

Heindrich1988 said:

Also somebody recommended that I should give Jaheira the best armor I can afford so she can tank effectively... but if I do that, she cannot use her cleric spells... what am I missing here?

Only arcane spellcasting is impaired by armour.

Heindrich1988 said:

I thought you can achieve negative AC modifiers, but when I cast Armor on my protagonist, who has AC 0 normally with his Splint Mail, and then put the armor back on, his AC was still 0... Does that mean magical Armor is not stackable with physical armor?

Most AC spells don't stack with armour. For instance, Armor sets your base AC to 6 and splint mail sets base AC to 4. The bonuses are not cumulative.

Heindrich1988 said:

Also does the passage of time affect anything in the BG games? Like can I wander around and explore for as long as I like before I move onto the next stage of the journey? Sometimes I just leave my game in the background without pausing cos I forget it isn't turn-based. In other words, is the ingame time a valuable commodity?

Some quests and other specific story events are on timers, but generally speaking you have as much time as you care to spend.

Flashheart

Heindrich1988 said:

If this is the case, I see little point in memorising any offensive spells, since I cannot use them unless I take off my armor.

For Fighter/Mages, my tactic would be to memorise self-buff spells and disabling spells. Buff up with spells such as Armor, Shield, Prot. from Evil, Mirror Image, Blur etc. Then throw out a disabling spell, such as Sleep, Blindness, Glitterdust, etc. Then rush in and chop up your enemies. I wouldn't even worry about damage dealing spells (like Magic Missile etc). Once you get to later levels, there's few better things than charging into battle knowing that the enemy can't hurt you for a few rounds, whilst you chop them up.

Pure Mages can get away with not buffing up at all (although an Armor type spell is always handy for stray arrows). This means they can concentrate more spells into disabling enemies, and let your fighters do the chopping up.

Heindrich

Wisp said:

Only arcane spellcasting is impaired by armour.

Oh! I see... lol that makes clerics much more flexible (in terms of equipment) than mages! Does that mean Mage spells are stronger? To compensate for the fact that mages cannot use armour, whilst clerics can.

Kaltzor

Well, Cleric and Druid spells are much less about offence than most mage spells... I wouldn't say they're less powerful but they're more focused on making the party better and healing than getting rid of enemies like mages.

Wisp

Arcane magic is unsurpassed in both offensive and defensive potential (but arcane casters are late-ish bloomers). Cleric's aren't bad and I wouldn't say their magic has been gimped to balance their armour, but overall they can't really compete with mages (they do have some brokenly powerful stuff of their own, mages just have more). Druids come close(r) to being able to compete, until they hit their level wall. The real powerhouse among the divine casters is the Ranger/Cleric, since they gain access to both cleric and druid spells, but they mostly have defensive and melee-buffing spells going for them.

ZanathKariashi

Clerics focus more on buffs and disabling then direct damage (they do have a few but tend to be single target melee and/or very high level...Harm though is an I-WIN button if it isn't resisted, since it doesn't allow a save and requires a very easy to make touch attack (+5 bonus to hit, and you can DUHM and Holy Power to guarantee a hit on anything short of a 1))...and since buffs and disabling are king, they're pretty much on par with mages. Mages get more flashy stuff, and at high levels can dish out a lot of AoE damage very quickly, but their most powerful spell is probably Improved haste, due to lasting a really long time, and 2 well equipped IH'd fighters can deal out more damage, and more efficiently then a mage emptying his entire spellbook on an enemy.


Druids are horrible....low level they don't get crap, but healing (which if you make use of buffs/debuffs isn't needed at all), and higher level gets 2 niche spells that are nice, but hardly game-changing. Their elemental summons are pretty nice (but not the HLA versions), and some of the HLA spells can help round out their otherwise lackluster spell selection but take up 7th level slots which are at a premium.


I don't even include R/C since the whole class is one massive exploit, that only hasn't been fixed due to massive pressure from cheaters who don't want to lose their cheese class. The only reason it wasn't corrected is because they used the same spell system from BG1 in BG2, which combines all divine spells on the same table and just added new spells, and it would be a fair bit of work untangling them (and having any of the usable classes allowed access to all spells, even though a R/C shouldn't get any druid spells at all until level 8 ranger, and only up to 3rd level max by 12th), instead of using separate spell tables for each class like IWD did.

ambrennan

that only hasn't been fixed due to massive pressure from cheaters

Source? Compared to some of the Mage exploits (simulacrum duplicating item charges, projected image giving your virtually unlimited spells, robe of cheese, etc) cleric/ranger is extremely mild. Honorable mention goes to Kensai/thief using carsomyr, wearing full plate and one-shooting everything with spike traps.

ZanathKariashi

Most of the stuff you're complaining about is pretty much legit.

Simulacrum is wrong, PI is wrong, Mislead is wrong. (these I agree with, also one more, the Simulacrum isn't supposed to be wearing ANY of your gear, it's only supposed to appear that it is...so wearing RoV and casting it shouldn't affect the Simulacrum, but currently does).

RoV is made up, and can have whatever they want it to do (though it would be a touch more balanced if it only affect spells up to level 6, like the spell Alcarity (reduces cast time of spells up to 6th level by 4 to a minimum of 1 for 4 rounds)) and pre-ToB was kind of meh...more icing then anything else. (If improved alacrity actually did what it's supposed to, wouldn't be an issue. It's just supposed to reduce cast time of spells up to 9th level by 6 to a minimum of 1 for 4 rounds...not remove the 1 spell per round limit).

That last pick is technically legit (although Carsomyr is supposed to be a generic +2 2hd sword in the hands of non-paladins....and UAI wouldn't help, since it's abilities are actually supposed to be a paladin class feature, rather then an innate ability of the weapon)....hell, kensai's aren't even supposed to be prevented from using armor...it simply disables their bonuses if they do so (since their combat style is based on quick, precise strikes to exploit weaknesses in an opponents guard, and can't afford encumbrance).

And everyone could learn to make traps, if the NCP system was implemented....they'd pretty expensive though to do spike trap level damage.

I do agree UAI is overpowered....all it's supposed to do is allow thieves to use scrolls up to 6th level with no chance of failure (they're supposed to be able cast from scrolls at 10, but have a 65% chance, -5% per spell level for it to work) and to use wands....that's it... (the Bard version of UAI allows them to use items normally restricted to mages, which is the closest it comes to BG-style UAI).


But that's still no excuse.

Wisp

ZanathKariashi said:

and since buffs and disabling are king, they're pretty much on par with mages.

I beg to differ wrt. disabling. Clerics have nothing comparable to Sleep, Blindness, Spook, Grease, Horror, Stinking Cloud, Web, Slow, Emotion: Hopelessness, Greater Malison, Teleport Field or Chaos. Clerics get Command, Doom, Hold Person and Silence over mages, and perhaps Miscast Magic. Instead of Confusion (AoE), they get the single-targeted Rigid Thinking. It's not even close. What they do have is buffs and cures, but with a few exceptions, most of their good buffs are self-targeted and with short durations, and thus of limited value at non-high levels (and without something to boost APR).

ZanathKariashi said:

Druids are horrible....low level they don't get crap, but healing (which if you make use of buffs/debuffs isn't needed at all), and higher level gets 2 niche spells that are nice, but hardly game-changing. Their elemental summons are pretty nice (but not the HLA versions), and some of the HLA spells can help round out their otherwise lackluster spell selection but take up 7th level slots which are at a premium.

I suppose opinions differ. But druids get 6th-level spells under the TotSC cap, while clerics are still nursing their 4th-level spells (and with no 5th-level spells in sight, either). They are obviously not as good clerics as clerics are, so if you play your druid that way you are bound to be disappointed.

TJ_Hooker

Wisp said:

I suppose opinions differ. But druids get 6th-level spells under the TotSC cap, while clerics are still nursing their 4th-level spells (and with no 5th-level spells in sight, either). They are obviously not as good clerics as clerics are, so if you play your druid that way you are bound to be disappointed.

Druids only get up to level 5 spells with the TotSC cap (they need 200k xp to get level 6 spells).

Wisp

TJ_Hooker said:

Druids only get up to level 5 spells with the TotSC cap (they need 200k xp to get level 6 spells).

My mistake.