Building a Mage: I could use some advice
Stormvessel
Member Posts: 654
I am going to roll a mage (BGEE), and I plan to take him all the way through ToB. But first, there are a few things I would like to clear up:
1. I am choosing Conjurer over a Sorcerer because I feel that would be better for a newer character and potentially more powerful endgame (due to higher level spells).
I assume this is true?
2. I hope to roll a 98 and spend the points as follows:
Str 10
Dx 18
Cn 16
Int 18
Ws 16 (for wish and lore)
Ch 18
Is this ideal?
3. Here is the big question:
I feel Quarterstaffs are useless for casters because I am going to be at range, but for early on, I may need to do some fighting. So I was thinking Dagger instead of Slings or Darts.
Would dagger (for throwing daggers) be a viable option to be proficient in? Are good throwing daggers plentiful in the game and is that a good option for a Mage?
This is my first caster in Baldur's Gate. Any tips for playing Mage would be very much appreciated.
1. I am choosing Conjurer over a Sorcerer because I feel that would be better for a newer character and potentially more powerful endgame (due to higher level spells).
I assume this is true?
2. I hope to roll a 98 and spend the points as follows:
Str 10
Dx 18
Cn 16
Int 18
Ws 16 (for wish and lore)
Ch 18
Is this ideal?
3. Here is the big question:
I feel Quarterstaffs are useless for casters because I am going to be at range, but for early on, I may need to do some fighting. So I was thinking Dagger instead of Slings or Darts.
Would dagger (for throwing daggers) be a viable option to be proficient in? Are good throwing daggers plentiful in the game and is that a good option for a Mage?
This is my first caster in Baldur's Gate. Any tips for playing Mage would be very much appreciated.
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Comments
Maybe I should dump charisma and pump the strength up to 18, and go with SLINGS?
18
18
16
18
18
10
If you really want to min/max I would decrease Charisma to 10 to reach 18 Str which is better mechanically wise.
You could also put 17 in Con to be able to use the claw with the Tome of Constitution.
18 dx
17 con
18 int
15 wis
12 cha
And go with Slings? Maybe I will make him chaotic evil.
Edit: It seems there is no benefit to having 12 cha over 10 cha. Maybe I will go with 17 wis and 10 cha.
Good strength plus slings is nice due to to hit bonuses. The ammo doesn't weigh you down or take a lot of inventory space unlike throwing daggers or darts.
You still need a staff or dagger for melee if only to equip when you're attacked directly in melee to prevent the attacker from getting a to-hit bonus against you. Yes you'll have mirror image for defense but why make it easier for your enemies to take down your defences? You don't need to take a pip in them unless you want to attack with them too.
As a mage you can get away with 13 charisma, as the tomb plus a Friends spell gets you to 20 easily enough.
I would start off with proficiency in darts. This is the best damage that a mage can do. You get 3 attacks per round; darts of fire and acid (adding d6 or 3d6 if you hit with all three in a round) are cheap at High hedge; darts of wounding are great both for pure dps and for disrupting mage spells; darts of stunning are very, very good (after stunning a target, you can use fire darts and score 3 automatic hits for a possible 3d6 additional fire damage). Darts also combo well with greater malison as the fire, acid, cold darts are save v. spells.
You do not want your mage to melee at all for the first few levels as you just do not have enough hit points, and no helmet means that any 20 an enemy rolls is likely to kill you.
At level 6, I would take dagger for the Dagger of Venom in BGI. This is about the best you are going to do in melee for a straight mage. You can get in a quick hit with it and then withdraw. It is very good against disabled or held targets, which is all you should really be using a melee attack against any way.
At level 12 take staff for all the great staffs in BGII. This also coincides roughly with the time you will begin to want to use Tenser´s Transformation possibly and there are many good staffs to melee with in BGII.
Going into BGII, daggers are better than darts as poison throwing daggers are available quickly. The dagger should hold you over for both range and melee until you get staff at level 12.
However, if you wanted to really min/max with a 98 roll...
Str - 18
Dex - 18
Con - 15 (+1 in BG1 will max you out at 16 for +2 hp/level)
Int - 18
Wis - 15 (+3 in BG1, -1+1 in BG2 - you lose one point in the dream, and gain another point in Watcher's Keep, 18 will let you always get a good option with Wish)
Cha - 14
This is ignoring the Hell trial bonuses. I could be mistaken but I believe...
If you are good you will also gain : +1 Wis, +1 Cha, -1 Dex (you can adjust accordingly)
If you are evil you will gain: +2 Str, +2 Con, +1 Int
Be aware these are at the very end of SoA, so you will only play ToB with these bonuses, therefore, it may or may not be worth it to min/max.
I would argue that a sorcerer is actually much more powerful than a conjurer. There are really no more than 4/5 good spells for each level to know anyways, so the flexibility to cast them as needed is much more powerful than knowing more total spells in my opinion.
Edwin is a more powerful conjurer than charname can be anyways, because his amulet gives +1 spells/day.
As for weapons (like I said, largely irrelevant but its annoying to have your character doing nothing each battle), I am partial to dagger/darts in BG2 because there are some nice returning ones you can find early and I usually give slings to someone else in my party (Viconia). But strictly speaking I think the Sling of Everard is the most powerful??
For BG1 I don't think there are any significant magic weapons, so I would agree darts are probably best?
If you go after the tomes, then this:
9 STR
17 DEX
15 CON
18 INT
15 WIS
12 CHA
would work fine for your stats. All of them except for Wisdom will be increased by 1; there are 3 tomes for Wisdom, so that's 3 extra points, hence the lower score.
Playing a wild mage myself, I can assure you they're a lot of fun. The 5% surge chance isn't as threatening as it sounds, particularly when there's only a 33% chance the surge will be negative, and of those surges, only two or three are game overs; the others are just inconvienent. Later on, once you start gaining levels, you'll start getting positive surges more often, and Nahal's Reckless Dweomer allows a lot of versatility in your spellcasting.
If you aren't interested in that, I would recommend Conjurer over Sorcerer, because Sorcerers leave little room for error in spell choice, and Conjuration's opposing school has very few worthwhile spells.
Avoid slings. There are a few decent ones in TOB, but early on they're an awful choice. Darts or daggers is better. Sadly, quarterstaves are slightly useless, since you should never ever ever be in melee, but you'll want a proficiency point in them anyway for the really nice staves in BGII and TOB.
Yeah, I can't say I blame you there. If I have not lost all my math skills, 5% is a 1 in 20 chance per casting. There are no ways to decrease the 5% chance of surging but there are spells (the chaos shields) and items (2 of them in BG2) that will make it far more likely that if you do get a wild surge, it will be the cast normally surge. Chaos Shield (level 2) adds a 15% chance of the spell being cast normally while Improved Chaos Shield adds a whopping 25% chance of the spell being cast normally. The two items (both available as part of Neera's BG2 quests) each add a 15% chance for a normal casting. .
I was using Neera on a recent play-through, and she can actually be pretty good with the chaos shield. The effects that you really want to avoid (fireball centered on caster) and summon Pit Fiend require pretty low rolls on the spell surge table. With just the 2nd level chaos shield, Fireballing yourself become impossible by level 8 (as you have +23 to the roll and fireball is 22). Just stay away from other people when buffing yourself and don´t use your spells to buff others (especially early on). The fireballs centered on you do not damage you. Also if you keep yourself buffed with a protection from evil or keep a scroll in your pocket, the Pit Fiend surge can actually be really helpful.
I went with an Elf Wild Mage. I couldn't get the 98 but I did manage a 96. Here are his stats:
18 str
19 dex
16 con
18 int
15 wis (I will get the 3 wis tomes to get to 18 so I can use WISH in SoA)
10 cha (No difference between 10 and 12)
I went with dagger for my first proficiency and with 18 str and 19 dex I plan to throw daggers like crazy.
My alignment is Chaotic Evil, and not having a high cha, I wonder if I will be attacked in towns by villigers? Also, will not having a high charisma cause evil party members to attack me?
I can reroll if this is bad.
To answer your questions, you never get attacked by villagers. You may run into a lot of guards that attack you if your reputation falls too low. Evil party members won't attack you based on your charisma. If you get a party member with a high charisma (like Dorn or Imoen) you may want to make them the party leader so you can use their charisma instead of your main character's charisma.
Edit: Shrimp-Ninja'd!
I plan to just be a real bastard. I am not going to worry about reputation in the least. My character is named "Odious", and I am going to slaughter NPCs and whoever else gets in my way.
I am going to roll a Cleric, also. A priest of Talos. That way I can play one char when I'm sick of the other.
Last question! Will dual-wielding and flails be viable on a cleric or is sword n board recommended? I figured with Stormshield sword and boarding is a tad redundant and better to go in swinging away? I put a point in flails and a point in dual-wield. I am shooting for flail of the ages in BG2. My cleric has 18st, 19dx, 16con, 11int (for mindflayers), 18wis, and 13cha.
Edit: no dual-wield specialization for pure clerics
I really don't see the endgame appeal with a Wild Mage seeing as how at spell cap reckless dweomer loses much of it's usefulness. Unless I am missing something...Do Wild Surges actually become really useful and almost always good at a certain point, making reckless dweomer useful for something other than desperation and/or attempting to cast higher level spells?