Help with a Sorcerer's spellbook
TheArtisan
Member Posts: 3,277
My next playthough of the entire Baldur's Gate (straight from BG1 to TOB) will be of a Sorcerer. I'm not great with Sorcs, and my skill with arcane magic is towards Blades and Fighter-Mages rather than pure mages. I have SCS installed for both games and BP-Ascension, so I fully expect to have a hard time without some pre-prep.
1. This is not a solo PC.
2. The spells are listed in learning order.
3. Where there is a slash, I'm 50/50 or 33/33/33 on which to pick. Since I'll have a secondary mage in my party at all times, whichever spell isn't picked will probably go to that mage instead.
I'd like feedback on the spell choices. Levels 1, 2, 6-8 are pretty solid, the others are still wishy-washy. Also the order in which they are learned, and which spells in slashes are more useful on a Sorcerer than a Mage.
Level 1:
Charm Person, Blindness, Shield, Magic Missile, Spook
Level 2:
Mirror Image, Web, Melf's Acid Arrow, Glitterdust, Blur
Level 3:
Slow, Remove Magic, Skull Trap, Flame Arrow, Spell Thrust/Dire Charm
Level 4:
Stoneskin, Improved Invisibility, Minor Sequencer, Polymorph Self/Teleport Field, Greater Malison
Level 5:
Breach, Domination/Chaos, Spell Immunity, Lower Resistance, Chaos/Spell Shield
Level 6:
Contingency, Protection from Magical Weapons, Improved Haste, Protection from Magic Energy, (Death Spell)
Level 7:
Ruby Ray of Reversal, Mordekainen's Sword, Spell Sequencer, Limited Wish/Project Image, (Power Word: Stun)
Level 8:
Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Cheese-imeanwilting, Spell Trigger, Maze, Power Word: Blind
Level 9:
Time Stop, Chain Contingency, Wish, Shapechange/Imprisonment/PW: Kill
BG1 Party - PC, Ajantis, Imoen (Thief), Kivan, Branwen/Yeslick, Xan/Neera
BG2 Party - PC, Imoen, Keldorn, Kulyok's Xan (Fighter/Mage), Anomen, Sarevok (party of 5 in SoA)
1. This is not a solo PC.
2. The spells are listed in learning order.
3. Where there is a slash, I'm 50/50 or 33/33/33 on which to pick. Since I'll have a secondary mage in my party at all times, whichever spell isn't picked will probably go to that mage instead.
I'd like feedback on the spell choices. Levels 1, 2, 6-8 are pretty solid, the others are still wishy-washy. Also the order in which they are learned, and which spells in slashes are more useful on a Sorcerer than a Mage.
Level 1:
Charm Person, Blindness, Shield, Magic Missile, Spook
Level 2:
Mirror Image, Web, Melf's Acid Arrow, Glitterdust, Blur
Level 3:
Slow, Remove Magic, Skull Trap, Flame Arrow, Spell Thrust/Dire Charm
Level 4:
Stoneskin, Improved Invisibility, Minor Sequencer, Polymorph Self/Teleport Field, Greater Malison
Level 5:
Breach, Domination/Chaos, Spell Immunity, Lower Resistance, Chaos/Spell Shield
Level 6:
Contingency, Protection from Magical Weapons, Improved Haste, Protection from Magic Energy, (Death Spell)
Level 7:
Ruby Ray of Reversal, Mordekainen's Sword, Spell Sequencer, Limited Wish/Project Image, (Power Word: Stun)
Level 8:
Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Cheese-imeanwilting, Spell Trigger, Maze, Power Word: Blind
Level 9:
Time Stop, Chain Contingency, Wish, Shapechange/Imprisonment/PW: Kill
BG1 Party - PC, Ajantis, Imoen (Thief), Kivan, Branwen/Yeslick, Xan/Neera
BG2 Party - PC, Imoen, Keldorn, Kulyok's Xan (Fighter/Mage), Anomen, Sarevok (party of 5 in SoA)
Post edited by TheArtisan on
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Comments
By saying this is not a solo PC, does that mean you will have another mage of some sort in your party? If so, you will have a lot more room for leniency when it comes to your selections.
I have not played SCS or BP-Ascension, but my understanding is your best offence is a good defence and also use lots of debuffs. Here's a couple of observations:
Level 1:
Blindness and Shield should be your first two picks. Magic Missile isn't good at level 1. Use the wand Imoen gives you if need be.
Charm doesn't work that well and Friends isn't necessary (just keep rolling until you get 18 CHA if it's that important for you). Consider Chromatic Orb. The acid damage in the later levels helps in BG2 and the extra effects are a bonus.
Level 3:
Haste/Slow - you have one the other mage casts the other
Flame Arrow is usually my last pick.
Use Dire Charm, Spell Thrust and Invis 10' on your other mage.
Level 4:
Improved Invis can be cast on your NPCs so take it 2nd after Stoneskin.
Spider Spawn loses its value as you go along, let your other mage cast it.
I'm not a fan of the Fire Shields on a sorc, you don't want to be getting attacked. Up to you.
Polymorph Self is fun but a couple of things to note in BGEE/BG2EE:
- spider form does not use poison
- flind form's proficiencies is bugged, THAC0 with the halberd has a -5 penalty
With a party you'd pretty much only use the Jelly form, so you have to decide if it's worth the slot.
Level 5:
Leave Animate Dead to your Clerics, who can cast it at their spell level 3.
I like Chaos over Domination, the -4 save penalty is awesome.
Level 6:
Death Spell is party friendly (except for your summons of course).
Mislead is more for a Thief/Mage, use Project Image instead.
Your fighters will love you if you have Improved Haste. Allows them to use Critical Strike instead of GWW.
Level 7:
Project Image is sick, take it, use it, love it, abuse it
Not sure about Mass Invisibility, will it be useful by the time you get it?
Mordy's Sword is a great summon
More mobs are immune to PW:Stun than say PW:Blind at level 8.
Level 8:
You'll only max out at 4 spells by the XP Cap.
I would take Protection from Energy over Maze or Incendiary Cloud
Level 9:
Also maxes out at 4 spells. All worthy picks. Spell Trap is another worth considering.
Levels 5, 6 and 7 do not get their 5th spell until very late. You may not even get to pick them. Plan for 4 spells at those levels.
As for the order, all I can say is take the spell when you need it/will use it the most. And if there's a few you want at the same time, have your other mage cast them along side you.
Good luck!
Doh, I forgot about Mordy. Project Image is a *little* too cheesy for me to use, but at the same time a SCS component means HLAs can't be casted by it... still L7 has some spells that I have a tough time not having. I could probably live without Limited Wish.
I have a fondness for Maze. It provides a quick easy way to get rid of frontline fodder and is guaranteed to work if Magic Resistance is taken out of the question. It's not that useful until TOB though - I've moved PW: Blind ahead of it.
I'm taking care of Spell Trap with Staff of the Magi, it may or may not be enough... we'll see.
Sorcerer spell choices are pretty important, you don't want any duds. Also I highly recommend sleep as your first lvl 1 spell, it is really powerful in early bg1, and like luskan said project image is amazing.
I'll either buy a Wand of Sleep or use Xan/Neera for it. It literally becomes a waste of space mid-BG1 and onward. Granted Blindness and Charm aren't very useful later on either but they still force a save and might work. By Cloakwood Mines I don't think anything falls for Sleep.
That aside, you'll want sleep as your first pick, hands down. I don't know if SCS changes anything(never played) but in vanilla sleep wins all the battles in the first three chapters. Blindness is also nice, I don't know about spook. If you won't have a bard, you should definitely get identify. It's very convenient to have 6(even 12!) of them ready every rest without having to remember to change you're spellbook.
@Sergio, I'd love to give SR a try, but I don't think it's BGEE compatible yet. AFAIK there isn't an EE-compatible beta out yet.
edit: Looks like you're sticking with at least 1 extra pure mage each game. So just pick the spells you like to use the most and have the other mage complement your picks.
Lvl 1:
Pick magic missile sooner. Xan cannot cast it. I would also take chromatic orb for charm person, and burning hands for spook.
Lvl2:
Haste instead of a acid arrow. Season to taste.
Lvl 3:
Switch slow and skull trap. Honestly I don't think you need slow at all. That's a xan thing. Take haste instead. And MMM for fire arrow.
Lvl 4:
I don't take many sequencers, especially not this little one. It's a playstyle thing, but it think it's not worth that whole spell slot, and it doesn't really stay useful. Leave it for the wizards. Polymorph self is ok, but I don't think it's worth it. A Mage is almost always better of casting than hitting, and for special occasions you can have xan memorize it just once. I also never use teleport field. Ever. Take emotion:hopelessness.(works wonders in SoA after you toss in a greater malison.
Lvl 5:
It's ok. There's not a lot of great lvl 5 spells.
Lvl 6:
Not so bad. I would do different, but you're ok. Like I said, death spell sooner, and I'm find of chain lighting. You can never have to many party-friendly low-damage AoE spells, right?
Lvl 7:
RRR is meh. i always Take fireball and finger of death, and that would fit with the damage-dealing part. Xan can handle all that rebuffing nonsense. Limited wish is good though. Consider your wisdom score well.
Lvl 8:
Ok, but I do t like maze. Take a symbol:whatever instead. Not a big deal though.
Lvl 9:
WHO CARES?! You're an epic level sorcerer! You can do whatever the hell you want!
BGEE
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=205238783
BG2EE
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=237917858
Neither the sorcerers.net guide or my own were written with SCS in mind though.
I will never attempt to cast Blindness, Charm Person, Glitterdust, etc ... I prefer reliable spells.
I only use CCs spells if there is a save at -4 attached to it like Slow / Chaos / Symbol Stun / Web (this one is only at -2, but it's too damn powerful anyway).
To create a good spelllist, you need to never get two spells which does the same thing on the same level.
For example, I think picking Flame Arrow on a Sorcerer is awful because you will already take Skull Trap, and both spells's purpose is to deal damage, but when you cast one, you lose the other, etc, so it's a huge waste. If you need to finish off trolls, you can either use Burning Hand (level 1), Chromatic Orb (level 1) or Melf Minute Meteor (level 3).
Also, picking Sleep at level 1 can ge a very good idea if you don't plan on taking another mage early / if you play solo (that's not your case) because the Wand of Sleep save is a Wand save at -0 while the Sleep spell is a Spell save at -3.
It is also a pretty good idea to have some sources of damage from different elemental types, for example Chain Lightning is an awful spell hardly worthy of being used, but by picking it, you have a way to deal Electrical damage if you need so it can be a useful pick.
I agree with picking Sleep in that scenario if you're not picking Blindness. Chain Lightning isn't so bad when it's in a sequencer x3.
Concerning Flame Arrow, I prefer to cast Acid Arrow or even Magic Missile in the circumstances you described. Each time I cast a Flame Arrow, in my head a little voice is screaming "you wasted one skull trap !" Plus there are a lot of good level 3 spells to chose from, I don't like having two damage spells, or two summoning spells, etc, on the same level.
My goal when I chose my spells for my Sorcerer, is to able to fulfill any role with a spell from every level, sometime it's not possible, sometime it is a bad idea to pick the said spell etc.
But it can look like this :
I need to deal damage to my enemy, I have Magic Missile (level 1), Acid Arrow (level 2), Skull Trap (level 3), Ice Storm (level 4 (great spell because it doesn't allow a save so it deals high amount of damage, unfortunately there are often better spells to pick)), Cloudkill (level 5), Chain Lightning (level 6), Mordenkainen Sword (level 7), ADHW (level 8), Dragon's Breath (level 9).
This way, if I really want to, I can use all my spellbook to damage my opponent, and I can do with a lot of variety, I have some pure/acid/fire/frost/lightning/physical damage, I can do single target or AoE damage, party friendly or non party friendly, I can damage instantly or with some delay to prevent enemy spellcasting.
Of course most of the times, I don't pick Ice Storm and Chain Lightning and sometime I don't pick Cloudkill either, but you get my idea.
Then I try to follow the same logic with CC (Spook (1) Web (2) Slow (3) Greater Malison (4) Chaos (5) Power Word Silence (6) Power Word Stun (7) Power Word Blind (8) Time Stop (9) etc)
Death Spell is a convenience thing... I like to just be able to wave a hand at a mob before my tanks have even drawn steel!
However I think once BGEE 1.3 comes out I'll make the move permanently to Sleep despite the lower duration and the increase in level of some monsters. In the beta, monsters who are blinded still wander around looking for a target. That's fine if you have a party but if you're solo, you have to make sure there's a large area around you that doesn't have additional monsters about.
I usually take daggers as my proficiency pick and throwing daggers have 2 attacks per round. Combine with a high strength score it should be quick enough to dispatch a group of 2 or 3 hobgoblins at level 1 before the spell wears off.