Mage Schools Duel
bbear
Member Posts: 1,180
We all know that the mage in BG2 is arguably the strongest class in the game. In many recent threads, it has been proven without doubt that the mage can own any other class in a one-on-one duel. Now the question is which school is the undisputed winner out of all magic schools. There are 8 magic schools in BG and they are Abjuration, Alteration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion and Necromancy. In a one-on-one duel, which mage school specialist will triumph over all others?
In this thread, we'll have a tournament of magic schools. The rules are the following:
1. Mage school specialist may ONLY use spells from their OWN school (ie. Abjurer cannot cast magic missile despite she can normally do so.)
2. Specialist Mages are at level 20 (level: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) -> (Number of Spells: 6,6,6,6,6,5,4,4,3)
3. No HLA allowed (no extra level 6, 7, or 8 spells)
4. No robes, equipments, wands, scrolls, potions or any quick items.
5. One normal quarterstaff is allowed.
6. Obviously, dual-class and multiclass are prohibited. No sorcerer or wild mage.
7. Human mage only.
8. Each mage is allowed 80 points total for stats, and must first fulfill the class stat requirement.
9. Each mage gets max hp per level according to their Con stat.
10. Wish spell is schoolless. It is disallowed.
11. The arena is a 30 ft radius circle. At beginning of round 1, both mages enter the arena from opposite side of the arena. At round 0, each mage combatant gets one round of free casting (no red color spells).
Required Minimum Intelligence (for level 9 spells): 18 Int
Abjurer: 15 Wis
Conjurer: 15 Con
Diviner: 16 Wis
Enchanter: 16 Cha
Illusionist: 16 Dex
Invoker: 16 Con
Necromancer: 16 Wis
Transmuter: 15 Dex
Spells sorted by school:
http://www.pocketplane.net/volothamp/magic1.htm
In order to win the duel, the opponent must have his HP reduced to 0, disintegrated, petrified, permanently imprisoned, or dominated. Tie is possible if both combatants have those conditions at the end of the same round.
Which magic school wins? What are school specific strategies? Does the champion depends on the opponent she faces (ie. Transmuter won because she never faced the abjurer.)?
In this thread, we'll have a tournament of magic schools. The rules are the following:
1. Mage school specialist may ONLY use spells from their OWN school (ie. Abjurer cannot cast magic missile despite she can normally do so.)
2. Specialist Mages are at level 20 (level: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) -> (Number of Spells: 6,6,6,6,6,5,4,4,3)
3. No HLA allowed (no extra level 6, 7, or 8 spells)
4. No robes, equipments, wands, scrolls, potions or any quick items.
5. One normal quarterstaff is allowed.
6. Obviously, dual-class and multiclass are prohibited. No sorcerer or wild mage.
7. Human mage only.
8. Each mage is allowed 80 points total for stats, and must first fulfill the class stat requirement.
9. Each mage gets max hp per level according to their Con stat.
10. Wish spell is schoolless. It is disallowed.
11. The arena is a 30 ft radius circle. At beginning of round 1, both mages enter the arena from opposite side of the arena. At round 0, each mage combatant gets one round of free casting (no red color spells).
Required Minimum Intelligence (for level 9 spells): 18 Int
Abjurer: 15 Wis
Conjurer: 15 Con
Diviner: 16 Wis
Enchanter: 16 Cha
Illusionist: 16 Dex
Invoker: 16 Con
Necromancer: 16 Wis
Transmuter: 15 Dex
Spells sorted by school:
http://www.pocketplane.net/volothamp/magic1.htm
In order to win the duel, the opponent must have his HP reduced to 0, disintegrated, petrified, permanently imprisoned, or dominated. Tie is possible if both combatants have those conditions at the end of the same round.
Which magic school wins? What are school specific strategies? Does the champion depends on the opponent she faces (ie. Transmuter won because she never faced the abjurer.)?
2
Comments
Courtesy from:
http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur's_Gate:_Progression_Charts
I predict two things here - people say whoever gets time stopwins, and people get annoyed at another pvp thread in a party based pve game.
Poor diviner
Ilussion can be ruled out since it has no damage spells.
Divinitation can be ruled out since it has no damage spells.
Abjruration could win because it has imprisonment.... maybe would be the winner since it can stop magic missile.
Alteration would have a hard time.
Evocation would be the winner most of the time... just cast magic missile one after another.. ilusion can be inv. but has no damage spells and abjuration is the only one capable of defending itself quickly enough.
Conjuration could also be interesting with melf arrow and so on.
Aside from this I think there would be some interesting metagames going on. Without having completely thought it through, I think this is going to be a rock-paper-scissors situation in terms of which casters are matched up against each other and guessing games in terms of what to cast in the opening free round. There are so many permutations that it's really hard to say. It would also depend greatly on whether the combatants had foreknowledge of which school they were facing. Some other thoughts:
Conjurers would have a great chance of winning using Power Word: Silence (casting time 1, no save). He could also use his free round for some summoned help.
Illusion CAN win since it has a great spell in Spook. A level 20 mage has a save vs spell of 6 and against Spook that's 12. Spook also has a handy casting time of 1. Invisibility has a 24h duration and could be used to wait out opponents' protections. Starting with a Simulacrum or Project Image could have opponents failing to target the right mage. Deafness might also come in handy. Saying all of that the Illusionist is still gonna have to whack the other mage to death with his staff.
But certain high level spells kind of kill instantly all summons so Conjurer goes out with that...
Transmuter's best bet might be to go with Stoneskin + Tenser's Transformation and hope they can melee the other one down...
Invoker vs. Necromancer might just be up to Save vs. Spell rolls of the Invoker...
-Conjurer casts limited wish on round 0 and gets a free time stop. Then proceed with Power Word Blind/Stun on Transmuter.
-Transmuter casts time stop on round 1 while Abjurer casts absolute immunity. But Transmuter casts time stop again and shapechange -> mindflayer. Once absolute immunity expires, proceeds with Intelligence Drain death on Abjurer. (Does Spell Immunity, Alteration stop time stop?)
-Conjurer casts limited wish on round 0 and gets a free time stop, while Abjurer casts Spell Immunity, Conjuration on round 0. Conjurer summons a bunch of stuff during time stop. Once time stop is over, Abjurer casts Absolute Immunity. Abjurer then just imprison Conjurer.
For Invoker, does Chain Contingency activate during time-stop? If it does, then Chain Contingency: 3x Bigby's Clenched Fist may have a chance to hold the opponent and invoker survives the time stop.
For Illusionist, casting misleds should be enough. Then proceed with casting blindness and deafness on opponents. Once opponents have blindness and deafness, proceed with staff racking. Doesnt work on Diviners and Abjurers.
It's a shame it's hard to implement the utility of divination in a video game. Or rather, everyone gets access to it because of reloads and walkthroughs.
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