How much mage is too much mage?

Scuffles

Hi!

I'm sort of new to BG2, although I have some fuzzy memories of sitting on my Dad's knee 'helping' him play like ten years ago, and I know the basics of the story from that, but now I'm on my first time playing through by myself because he just bought the Extended edition. Yay! Anyway, I'd like to stay mostly spoiler free but I do know the main plot points already, so .. er.. yeah.

Anyway, so my character is a Sorcerer, because that's what I played through the first game and I wanted to continue on with her. I'm looking at the party I'm putting together at the moment though and I have a feeling that I'm going to end up with four arcane casters, which seems like a bit much. Currently I'm in chapter two and I'm running around with miss Sorcerer, Minsc (and Boo), Jaheira, Aerie, Yoshimo and a spot where bonus people are going to go.

At the moment that's Edwin, who doesn't really seem to be getting along with people, but I figured I'd just take him along into the crypts and go collect his fancy scroll while I'm down there.

Anyway. So my problem is that I figure to be keeping Imoen once that problem is sorted, and I'm leaning towards Neera as the final holder of spot number six because I found her quite amusing in the first one. I'm quite easily amused. I even giggle thinking about her reminding every single bad guy she meets that she's a half-elf not an elf.

See that's a lot of arcane caster. Now Aerie is pulling double-duty as Cleric, and Imoen is probably capable enough to cover the rogue slot (right?), but I'm just worried about being overly magic-oriented and not hitting people with swords enough. Is that going to give me problems? Should I possibly go find a proper cleric instead of Aerie?

Bonus question: Where can I find some handy bags to carry things around in? I'm a horrible pack-rat and I have potions and wands and ammunition and scrolls coming out of my ears. There's containers for those, right?

Bonus bonus question: In a story-driven sense I should probably be looking to head off in pursuit of little-sis and her big mean kidnapper shortly, because I've raised the funds already, but there's still tons of quests I haven't even looked at starting and I haven't even headed out of the city yet. I'm pretty sure all those quests would still be there afterwards (right?) but I'm concerned that if I don't go do at least some of them I might find myself stuck without good enough gear or enough experience to get the job done. Is there anything that's absolutely essential that I should knock over first? Is Minsc going to throw a large scary tantrum if we don't go to the Umar hills because we're not even on the same continent anymore?

I mean, Irenicus clearly planted the boot of evil directly on our good-aligned buttocks rather easily the first time so it's easy enough to justify spending a few days looking for bigger sticks to hit him with, but Boo keeps telling us that we need to go return the favour with the boot of justice!

Bonus bonus bonus question: My Dad tells me that I should look at getting Keldorn and letting Minsc relax at the Copper Coronet for a bit, is this a good plan? Lots of dispel magic and true seeing would seem to be a pretty helpful thing?

Bonus question times four (I promise I'll shut up soon): Is there any way to see what I put in my minor sequencer? I can't remember whether I'm supposed to aim it at a bad guy or myself.

Slande

Welcome to the great game and these great fora!

The "too much arcane magic" is a personal preference, and I've personally done it with at least 5 in some of my modded playthroughs, I can never get enough. It might require a bit extra micromanaging in the fights (can be both good or bad depending on who you are, I love it) and it can also be difficult getting enough versions of every single scroll for every mage, but if that doesn't bother you there is no problem. If it is a vanilla (unmodded) play-through as I assume it is, you should be fine.


Viconia is an awesome cleric if you are into her and you want a pure cleric. I like both of them, and always have a hard time choosing between them!

Gem bag is bought in the Adventurers Mart in the Promenade. Scroll cases are sold at many scroll merchants (I usually keep several at hand personally, and have different cases for different types of spells for quick retrieval, one is found on Lady Yuth in the Adventurers Mart. The Ammunition Belt is bought from the NPCs at Watcher's Keep (minor SPOILER; you can go there and talk to them without entering the dungeon). As far as I know the Potion Case is first found in ToB, although I'm really not sure. I usually console one into place for myself for my quality of life The Bag of Holding is found later in quest-related areas and I don't want to potentially spoil anything by revealing more. If you want the exact location you can of course always ask, and/or google it

For the second bonus question: I'm pretty sure you are going to need help from someone other than me here, as I usually do everything before going off on that quest.

Third bonus question: I never use Keldorn personally although he is awesome. I simply found that when using his dispels and truesights, you risk not truly learning the different counters to certain spells, since his dispel is so effective you use it against almost everything. Some people swear by him, I find him not fun. Depends on how you have been doing against mages, but with 4 arcane casters, they really shouldn't be a problem

Fourth bonus: I don't think you can, not with contingencies either. I usually had predetermined (by myself of course) contents of the sequencers, triggers and contingencies matching the individual character and their roles in my party at the time (note, for someone like Aerie you can also include Divine Spells in your sequences/contingencies which can be very effective). I also found using the same sequencer over and over instead of preparing specifically for battles made the game more realistic from an role-playing perspective, as that would make the most sense for me.

If I missed anything let me know.

enqenq

If you enjoy telling them to cast spells all the time, then sure it will work. I tend to not enjoy caster-heavy parties, partly due to the UI not letting us quick cast most stuff. The more brawn you have, the more you can accomplish by just flicking the AI on.

Keldorn is indeed powerful, you can steamroll magic users with his Dispel Magic. Liches are immune to Breach (and any spell below level 6) so you normally have to endure their protection spells, but Keldorn can remove them on a whim and then go bonkers.

Imoen can cover rogue duties if you mean traps and locks, but don't expect any crazy backstabs out of her or being able to pickpocket anyone.

Lastly, I like your plan for Edwin. Get him his scroll, and wait until he has figured it out and read it, and THEN dump him. He he.

Mathsorcerer

EEKeeper will show you what spells are loaded into a sequencer by checking out the "affects" tab.

nano

I think having two people who can hit others in the face is enough. In your case that would be Jaheira and Keldorn/Minsc. Beyond that you can't go wrong with more mages! Having more mages reduces the need for Keldorn because your casters can do the spell breaking, but even so I'd probably still pick him over Minsc.

I usually go off to Spellhold ASAP and I can say you won't miss out on anything doing so. I believe a few NPC quests are timed, usually the type where an NPC joins and leaves if you take too long, so maybe do Edwin's stuff to be safe. I would also hit up Trademeet before going off to Spellhold to get a good set of weapons for Jaheira, and possibly Windspear Peaks to get something for Keldorn (the fight here can be really hard though and you might not even be able to get the weapon if your party can't handle it).

Kaxon

For the characters I think a lot of it comes down to personal preference. Minsc vs Keldorn, both are fine - Minsc is a little more powerful but you can get through the game fine with either one (or both). Same with Viconia vs Aerie. (Although, having 2 people who can heal is kind of nice, with just one I think you'll need to rest a lot).

If you like using magic, I think you'll be fine with 4 spellcasters. Spellcasters can be super powerful (especially later in the game) but they're more work to use. Personally I'm kinda bad with them and I prefer to just wade into combat with swords so I generally have at least 3 brawler types in my group. You can use stuff like Tenser's Transformation to make some of your wizards into temporary fighters, though.

OlleDenStore

You can leave all the quests for later, but I find that doing so makes them a bit too easy. You gain a few levels on the trip back to Athkatla

Silverstar

Too much mage is, as stated earlier, a matter of preference. In my book, there's no such thing. First playthrough of SoA I had me as Sorcerer, Aerie, Nalia and Imoen all blasting the end boss into "phase 2" a couple of seconds after the fight started. Soooo many sequenced Magic Missiles

[Deleted User]

I think the only time I would call "too much mage" is if you have too many spellbook spellcasters and not enough scrolls to scribe. With three mages, you'll start to notice that it's hard to fill out everybody's spellbook. This mainly concentrates on the higher spell levels, so two mages and a bard is still pretty comfortable. Obviously, with your main character being a sorcerer, they don't need to worry about scribing spells, and so you should be fine. Minsc and Jaheira are both fine face-hitters, so they should be sufficient to see you through (especially with some buffs streaming forth from the spellcasters). @Slande hit most of the containers, though I think they mixed up the potion case, which can be bought outside Watcher's Keep, and the ammo belt, which is found on the first level. The first level also has unlimited cases of +1 bolts and arrows, which can do a lot to free up inventory space from ammunition.

As for when to leave for Spellhold, if you're planning on using Imoen and don't want her to be too far behind, you should plan on heading off either around 800k experience or 1.2 million experience (note that when you pay the fee, you are given some more quests to do before you actually head off, so you'll want some lead time on those experience numbers). On the plus side, the sooner you take off after Irenicus, the sooner you'll get a bag of holding.

Scuffles

Thanks for the tips everyone, very helpful!

Skaffen

He, I'm the dad with the 8 year old if not on my lap at least in the chair next to me. I wonder what he will write when BG2EEE comes out in a few years....

Personal hint: yes, you can play with all arcane casters but as stated above it requires more micro-management and is especially easy if you have played before and know what's coming. On a more or less first walkthrough I would recommend 3guys that can hold their own in melee (that might be Viconia btw). You will also not require two divine casters with number of healing potions the game throws at you so Jaheira could be enough. In your example I would throw out Edwin for Keldorn or Aerie for Viconia.

Scroll and gem bags you can find at various shops, ammo belt and potion bag at watchers keep. If it's not on your map there is a workaround in the bugs section.

Tenrecc

Scuffles said:

See that's a lot of arcane caster. Now Aerie is pulling double-duty as Cleric, and Imoen is probably capable enough to cover the rogue slot (right?), but I'm just worried about being overly magic-oriented and not hitting people with swords enough. Is that going to give me problems? Should I possibly go find a proper cleric instead of Aerie?

If this is your first playthrough, it might. While magic is quite overpowered in SoA/ToB, if this is your first time around and you're not yet all that into the new mechanics and spells you can find yourself with four people flinging magic missiles at dragon while your front line gets chopped up quite nicely.

Another thing that is a problem is the management. Three casters, all who needs scolls, all who needs to boost their intelligence to scribe 9th level spells due to their low intelligence, it can be bothersome. You should know that before picking them up.

The short answer is that it depends on how good you are. Not saying that you have to be tremendously good - if you were you could solo the game with your sorc alone -, but it's not the easiest party to run.

Scuffles said:

Bonus bonus question: In a story-driven sense I should probably be looking to head off in pursuit of little-sis and her big mean kidnapper shortly, because I've raised the funds already, but there's still tons of quests I haven't even looked at starting and I haven't even headed out of the city yet. I'm pretty sure all those quests would still be there afterwards (right?) but I'm concerned that if I don't go do at least some of them I might find myself stuck without good enough gear or enough experience to get the job done. Is there anything that's absolutely essential that I should knock over first? Is Minsc going to throw a large scary tantrum if we don't go to the Umar hills because we're not even on the same continent anymore?

There's nothing that is essential, but if you are concerned about managing it you should probably run more quests, pick up some gears and levels. You won't be returning untill chapter 6, and there's no going back to gear up once you've set sail (although the new chapters obviously nets some good gear and exp too).

And no, I'm like 99% sure that they dont complain about having to do things while you're in another continent. I havn't had any issues with that over dozens and dozens of playthroughs anyway, and I usually set off as soon as possible.

Scuffles said:

I mean, Irenicus clearly planted the boot of evil directly on our good-aligned buttocks rather easily the first time so it's easy enough to justify spending a few days looking for bigger sticks to hit him with, but Boo keeps telling us that we need to go return the favour with the boot of justice!

He's scriped the first times around But definitely a worthy foe. And as has been said, you won't return for quite a while and there's no going back, so gearing up untill you're comfortable is not a bad idea.

Scuffles said:

Bonus bonus bonus question: My Dad tells me that I should look at getting Keldorn and letting Minsc relax at the Copper Coronet for a bit, is this a good plan? Lots of dispel magic and true seeing would seem to be a pretty helpful thing?

Well, while Minsc is a decent fighter and really fun to have around, Keldorn is a Inquisitor, which is known as one of the broken classes (others being fighter/mage, especially kensai>mages, ranger/clerics and sorcerers).

The reason he is broken is because his Dispel Magic ability counts as if he is twice his actual level, meaning it is almost always effective, and an "I-win-button" against anyone with magical defenses (unless they are Spell Immune: Abjuration, but that's rare outside of mods).

So, if you are powergaming, then yes, Keldorn is one of the powerhouse companions (the other two being Edwin and a dude you havn't met yet), but he's also way less fun and pleasant to have around than Minsc. And as someone mentioned, the "I-win-button" doesn't really let you learn the game and spell combinations and counters, which is one of the most fun things with it. I'd rather have Minsc and pick up some more quests for exp and gear if I were in your shoes.

GamingFreak

you can run a whole team of mages and win the game. Period.

kywild

You can solo the game with a caster as the only member of the party as well so :d

ryuken87

I don't think that's too much mage in terms of party balance, but three of your arcane casters require scrolls, so there's going to be limits on who can learn what at least in SoA.