The cowled wizards!

SionIV

So we all know our dear Cowled Wizards from BG2. The first time you used a spell outside you got a warning, the second time you got nuked to hell. Now what is your relationship with them? And what happened to you in the past?

1.) First time

First time i ended up fighting them i got destroyed. I had no chanse at all and lost my whole party in a few seconds. After i got over this shock i made sure to never ever cast a spell outside. And if i forgot about this then the moment i saw that shadow door i went all white in my face and reloaded. When i learned about the magic license it was one of the first things i got in my new games. Got 5 000 gold and rushed over there.

2.) When you got used to the game and combat with mages.

I was still afraid of the cowled wizards. But once i got really high level with awesome gear i would summon skeletal warriors, deva and use brute force to kill them. There was nothing tactical about this, just me throwing all my high level stuff at them. And even when i did that there was still a chanse of me dying.

3.) Today

Now i sometimes solo them with a level 12 mage. With Spell immunity : Divinity, mislead and cloud kill / death fog i can kill them quite easily. When i play SCS improved mages i wait until i get higher levels to fight them. I'm not as worried about them anymore, and they have a chanse to drop some great level 8-9 spells.

So what about you?

zur312

my inuisitor is level 18 i think he would dispell everyone and let my kensai/mage do job easily with foa +4 improved haste and pfmw

Kaltzor

Last time I fought them... Dispel Magic and Letting CHARNAME as a fighter and Minsc have fun.

Tresset

Huh... Never fought them... Maybe I should try some time just to see what happens...

Drugar

I've fought them occasionally. I'm told that once you hit wave 18(ish?) they just go "You know what, fuck it, just cast whatever the hell you want" and buzz off.
I've never had the patience to summon 18 waves of wizards though.

SionIV

There aren't 18 waves of wizards. There are around 4-5 and after that there will come a 'special' wave with the most powerful cowled wizards.

Kaltzor

The first time, they let you off with a warning, the next few times you get some around average SoA mages to deal with... The 5 or 6th fight is when you get more powerful ones, SoA endgame sort of... then after that they no longer send anyone to get killed by you and just ignore your spell casting...

SCARY_WIZARD

I always played by their rules, but ooohhhh boy, when I took the Planar Sphere quest, did I ever take out some aggressions.

bbear

For vanilla, you solo them at any level w/ just the wand of cloudkill and going off screen. This method may work if you also use Spell Immunity in tactical mods.

Tresset

Kaltzor said:

The first time, they let you off with a warning, the next few times you get some around average SoA mages to deal with... The 5 or 6th fight is when you get more powerful ones, SoA endgame sort of... then after that they no longer send anyone to get killed by you and just ignore your spell casting...

That sounds fun, but how much rep do you lose for killing them?

ambrennan

None

SionIV

It's the earliest you can get level 9 mage spells in the game.

Moomintroll

I almost always just pay the tariff for casting magic.

bbear

You should always fight the cowled wizards. They may drop a scroll of Spell Trigger (no other way of getting this scroll in vanilla BG2 SoA except drop by other wizards.)

Tresset

Well that settles it! From now on I do not pay 5000 gold to lose the chance to get cool stuff.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Fredjo

I'm playing duo run me dual-class swashbuckler/mage and Imoen without level cap, we're both around level 27 and I haven't killed Irenicus yet, needless to say Cowled Wizards have been hiding in their compound trembling in fear for quite some time

Fubby

I tried to beat them in my run. I tried things like dispel magic and breach and all that mumbo jumbo, but I guess I'm not good enough atm to pull that off. Eventually It got to the point when I could basically just could swing my absurdly powerful crap at them and they died, but that wasnt as satisfying.

God

"I cannot be caged. I cannot be controlled. Understand this as you die, ever pathetic, ever fools."

Fredjo

God said:

"I cannot be caged. I cannot be controlled. Understand this as you die, ever pathetic, ever fools."

Thia is how I imagine Evil God from Black&White

sarevok57

I always use traps to kill them, and and force attack the guy that warps in, and its wave 6 that brings in their "most powerful members" or some jargon, and the only level 9 spell they drop is spell trap, but they can drop level 6/7/8 level spells, in fact I think it goes as follows; for the first 5 waves of mages, 2 of them ( you battle four at a time) will drop randomtreasure04 x3 ( or some such) so you have 6 chances per encounter to get some scrolls, then on time number 6, with their higher members, one mage will have x9 randomtreasure4 and another mage will have x3 randomtreasure4, so you can have 12 chances on time 6, and once you kill off the last group, no more cowled wizards to bother you, I usually kill them all off at level 9 or 10 or so ( more sake for convenience than anything)

zur312

how do i trigger them? i killed half of the city!!
]
if i paid can i summon them?

10thLich

@zur312
If you paid them off, you can't summon them.

Unless you use the console.

CLUAConsole:SetGlobal("BribedCowled","GLOBAL",0)

should do the trick.

10th

zur312

thx man

Malicron

@10thLich The variable actually says "bribed"? Bloody epic.

bbear

zur312 said:

how do i trigger them? i killed half of the city!!
]
if i paid can i summon them?

If your rep go below 6, the paladins and a pair of cowled wizards may spawn. There is no limit for those spawns.

zur312

killed all of them ... was not recording lol

inquisitor could dispell every group but the last one
last was with si:abjuration so had to go different route dispelling from wands
but they were still not as strong 4 combined chaincontingencies with horrid-wiltig did not kill my druid on insane
but yeah they had some good spells like horrid-wildig, maze and many pfmw + something to block wands of spellstriking for many rounds

Thrasymachus

Two questions (apologies if they've been answered already):

1. Does killing the cowled wizard squads impose any reputation penalty on the party?

2. Does killing the cowled wizard squads interfere with or prevent the mage's stronghold quests? (Since the PC purportedly works for the cowled wizards in some capacity once he acquires the planar sphere.)

Thanks!

zur312

1 no
2 i don't think so (from dialog options)

SpaceInvader

I'm a Sorcerer, I don't care.

Tresset

Thrasymachus said:

Two questions (apologies if they've been answered already):

1. Does killing the cowled wizard squads impose any reputation penalty on the party?

2. Does killing the cowled wizard squads interfere with or prevent the mage's stronghold quests? (Since the PC purportedly works for the cowled wizards in some capacity once he acquires the planar sphere.)

Thanks!

@Thrasymachus As to your second question:

When Teos (the cowled wizard you work for at the sphere) greets you and says you are working for him he makes it clear that your owning of the sphere is a top secret operation within his organization. Not only are the casting police not to know that you work for the cowleds, but they are also deemed by their superiors to be expendable and it is ok for you to keep killing them. Cool, right!

Uh, in other, less spoilerific words: No.