At low levels, you can easily kill an enemy with melee while having plenty of time on your spells. Sleep isn't interrupted on damage (and you get a bonus to hit that pretty much can't miss) for 5 rounds and due to the penalty a 3-4 fighter only has a 5% chance of saving), Blindness is a death-sentence if it works since you can take your time killing the enemy slowly while avoiding retaliation, Color spray renders the target helpless (auto-hit for 5 rounds).
5 rounds, assuming 18 str and a dagger or QS is 5d4 or 5d6 +10 damage, so 20 or 25 average damage before they can get up to react, and that's just 1 spell...Assuming you're level 4, you can just nail them with another sleep and repeat.
One thing I've noticed is that people tend to flagrantly waste spells, when you could easily make due with far less.
"it's taken me years to amass the power I have, and the will NOT to use it!"
Should I assume the fighter has 12-15 str? They're not only possible, they're highly common in PnP. 17+ is almost unheard of unless you just got REALLY lucky on stat rolls.
Mages are just as likely to have maxed str as any other character is for BG, since it's easy to max stats.
It's pretty much guaranteed that any PC mage will have at least 18 str/dex/int and 16 Con, and at least 14 wisdom at creation.
If we're talking random rolls, the mage automatically wins, because the fighter NEEDS high stats to stand a chance, while high stats on a mage just make it easier. Just dropping from 18/?? to 17 str MASSIVELY decreases a fighter's odds of winning.
Never had a mage with 18 Str. I usually put 8-12 in str for my mages. That's because I don't lower my dump stats below 8... Different play styles, I guess. Well, that may be worth another poll on the board: Do you go the way of 18/18/18/16/3/3 or something like 18/16/16/10/8/8 when rolling stats? (That's a total of 76 on both rolls, I think.) Or maybe this poll: How strong are your mage CHARNAMEs?
Anyway, I was thinking the stats used would be "average heroic", i.e. the second choice (which is far from average).
The fighter must be using a high-damage 2H weapon at low levels for this to work for him. Or, a two weapon style for the mirror images, then swap to a greatsword. Or maybe a faster weapon, to disrupt casting.
(I'm used to having a 28 point buy in my 3.5/Pathfinder games for PnP. That limits a lot of things...)
We've been looking at this from the mage's standpoint. Let's flip this: What would a fighter need to do, given OP's restrictions, to have a better-than-average chance of taking out the mage at level 4?
We've been looking at this from the mage's standpoint. Let's flip this: What would a fighter need to do, given OP's restrictions, to have a better-than-average chance of taking out the mage at level 4?
The best course of action is to withdraw. Hide somewhere and sneak attack when the mage is unaware and within weapon range.
The fight would be very level and gear dependant. I think at very low levels one of the best shots the fighter would have is to use arrows and hope to hit the mage at the right time. The mage should be able to time the arrows so that he is guarantueed to get a quick spell off but by doing so he risks being hit and an unlucky roll might mean his end.
OTH the sleep and the blind spell are deadly. Sleep should take care of any low-level fighter. In BG it would mean killing him while he sleeps because he won't awake from damage while in P&P (or the old SSI games) you could dispatch him with a single blow (i.e. slit his throat). Against an elf the blind spell would also be deadly - not because of the -4 to THAC0 which is overrated but because he won't see the mage anymore. One subtle effect of the blind spell is that you can't see more than one meter or so. You hardly notice that in BG because it's rare to get blinded and usually at least some of your characters can see for those who are affected. This means the mage can just calmy throw dart at the elf until he drops dead.
At higher levels potions & arrows (detonation, elemental damage, dispell) could do wonderful things for a fighter. Well, they also could at a low level but it's not as realistic that the fighter will get his hands on them.
Only a mutliclass Gnome Fighter / Illusionist has any chance of saving. They start with 7 in spell ST. A mage will always win in a battle with a fighter.
I take it this topic is a time killer ?
At higher levels the difference between them increases greatly. Only with cheese ( 100 % MR ) does a fighter stand a chance at higher levels. Even then it's a slow death.
high level? high level chain contingency lower resistance 6x contingency sunfire and fighter without fire res is probably dead
Comments
At low levels, you can easily kill an enemy with melee while having plenty of time on your spells. Sleep isn't interrupted on damage (and you get a bonus to hit that pretty much can't miss) for 5 rounds and due to the penalty a 3-4 fighter only has a 5% chance of saving), Blindness is a death-sentence if it works since you can take your time killing the enemy slowly while avoiding retaliation, Color spray renders the target helpless (auto-hit for 5 rounds).
5 rounds, assuming 18 str and a dagger or QS is 5d4 or 5d6 +10 damage, so 20 or 25 average damage before they can get up to react, and that's just 1 spell...Assuming you're level 4, you can just nail them with another sleep and repeat.
One thing I've noticed is that people tend to flagrantly waste spells, when you could easily make due with far less.
"it's taken me years to amass the power I have, and the will NOT to use it!"
Mages are just as likely to have maxed str as any other character is for BG, since it's easy to max stats.
It's pretty much guaranteed that any PC mage will have at least 18 str/dex/int and 16 Con, and at least 14 wisdom at creation.
If we're talking random rolls, the mage automatically wins, because the fighter NEEDS high stats to stand a chance, while high stats on a mage just make it easier. Just dropping from 18/?? to 17 str MASSIVELY decreases a fighter's odds of winning.
Anyway, I was thinking the stats used would be "average heroic", i.e. the second choice (which is far from average).
The fighter must be using a high-damage 2H weapon at low levels for this to work for him. Or, a two weapon style for the mirror images, then swap to a greatsword. Or maybe a faster weapon, to disrupt casting.
(I'm used to having a 28 point buy in my 3.5/Pathfinder games for PnP. That limits a lot of things...)
OTH the sleep and the blind spell are deadly. Sleep should take care of any low-level fighter. In BG it would mean killing him while he sleeps because he won't awake from damage while in P&P (or the old SSI games) you could dispatch him with a single blow (i.e. slit his throat). Against an elf the blind spell would also be deadly - not because of the -4 to THAC0 which is overrated but because he won't see the mage anymore. One subtle effect of the blind spell is that you can't see more than one meter or so. You hardly notice that in BG because it's rare to get blinded and usually at least some of your characters can see for those who are affected. This means the mage can just calmy throw dart at the elf until he drops dead.
At higher levels potions & arrows (detonation, elemental damage, dispell) could do wonderful things for a fighter. Well, they also could at a low level but it's not as realistic that the fighter will get his hands on them.