Regardless, my only knock on necro spells are the ones that require a touch attack - really gimps a class that has challenges in THACO throughout, even if base armor is ignored.
Yes, that's definitely an annoyance. Only one that doesn't need the roll is Vampiric Touch, I think? Ghoul Touch would be a truly awesome spell if it worked the same.
Hmm looking at icewind dale 2 I played with some really cool and epic necromancer spells such as Darts of bone, Circle of death, Lich touch, Soul eater, Death Armor, Beltyn's Burning blood, and Summon Shadow. Even Contagion had a range to it! Man if they could add all these epic spells to the game then I would be satisfied and playing as a necromancer would be equally viable compared to the other schools!!
Including Icewind Dale 2 spells would be a good idea, but not just necromancer spells. It would be nice if they added all of the spells as possible to BG2 (given that there is a difference in versions some reworking might be required). Illusion would largely benefit from having a conjurable creature for a change (shadow conjuration/greater shadow conjuration). But overall I think Evocation would gain the most from it.
Personally I love the idea of making my own skeletal armies. It's why I loved the Necromancer in Diablo 2 (and old school summoning spells in bg. hordes of minions under my command!) But I have to admit, as things are there isn't really much reason to play a specialist mage aside from Wild mage (in bgII classic), since you get the benefits of being a specialist mage (extra spell slot) And no spell class limitations and occasionally have something 'fun' happen... Like turning a magic Missile spell into 3 fireballs and killing everything except yourself. (wild surge, roll twice - Fireball, roll twice - fire ball, fireball) That was a good day. ^^
I don't really see it at the moment as viable to trade a class or two of spells (and x number of spells because of) just to gain what is in essence a couple of extra spell slots.
I always found that there wasn't any real necromancer in this game because of the lack of necro spells. I want to play as a real necromancer, with a vast array of necro spells.
And a score of undead to deal with things. Just little things, like opening the door, hoovering, making tea... answering the door to annoying religious people trying to convince you to go to their church.
I always found necromancer to be a really good school of magic. And like someone else said. Every class has its restrictions. And if i remember correctly necromancer gets access to a lot of the offensive spells!
Dude, necromancy has spells for every level, and some of those spells are the most powerful in the game. I would like more spells to be added in general but necromancy is not in any way underpowered compared to other spell schools. Try playing a diviner!
necromancy is in a similar standing with every other school,it doesn't matter which you choose but what's your school of oposition so no,either revamp the specialization system for wizards or do nothing,there's no need to make necromancy a special school with everything else being plain and boring...
All the wizard specialists need to be improved, and the best way to do that is make multiple good spells for every school at every level. IWD2 does this somewhat with the Eyes of the Executioner spell, which is from a school that is otherwise practically useless: Divination. That said, I still made a Diviner in my latest IWD2 playthrough, but only because of the counter-school changes in that from BG2, in which case Conjurer is clearly overpowered.
Having some unique mechanics or abilities given to a speciality wizard miught sound nice, but it just reeks of WoW-izing Baldur's Gate since Necromancers would undoutbedly get a zombie/skeleton minion. I'd much prefer simply normalizing the schools so that loosing any of them is a fairly hard blow that changes how you must play. As it is, you can be a Conjurer and loose nothing, but if your locked-out school is Abjuration, Evocation or Necromancy, you're screwed.
Which brings me to another complaint: as I recall, Gnomes *must* be Illusionists, thereby making the Int buff on Gnomes worthless since Illusionists suck.
Which brings me to another complaint: as I recall, Gnomes *must* be Illusionists, thereby making the Int buff on Gnomes worthless since Illusionists suck.
You should try one sometime. They really don't suck.
Yeah, Illusionists don't suck. Also, if it's most benificial for most people to sacrifice Divination spells for an extra spell slot, then so be it. Balance to me really isn't an issue in this game. It's Baldurized 2e/2.5e and it's fun.
From my point of view, other than wanting to keep BG in it's pristine state with only bug fixes and added characters / areas, if you change / add any of the wizard spells, you'd need to go back and change each encounter in the game to appropriately keep the same level of challenge. What if a combination of new spells breaks the fight with Daveaorn so that he can be easily killed in two seconds? There's a whole slew of issues with just adding in "new fun spells" without fine tuning the game encounters. I believe that in that situation, you should just make a new game.
Being a Necromancer just gets you one additional spell (of any kind) per level, and restricts you from the opposite school.
You do realise that Aid, Cure Wounds, Restoration and a whole variety of other useful spells are Necromancy, right? Death magic isn't all raising skeletons and zombies (despite what World of Warcraft and Diablo II might have taught you).
L.
Erm, none of those are arcane spells. Even if you go illusionist and dual-class to cleric, or roll a cleric/illusionist, you can still cast those spells.
That said, I'm in favor of them adding more spells.
Not just to Necromancy, but to all schools. If not that, then make it so that spells in the school I've chosen to specialize in are more powerful than a non-specialized mage in that area could cast. If I'm a necromancer, my Vampiric Touch should be better than an Invokers. By the same token, her Fireball should be better than my necro's.
I have one question related to specialists, do they cast better spells from their schools, or it is only benefit: 1 extra spell per level?
Edit: Sorry for offtopic but it's strange that nobody ever mention that specialists have better spells from their schools, as the benefits, and also I never noticed any difference in spells of specialists.
I have one question related to specialists, do they cast better spells from their schools, or it is only benefit: 1 extra spell per level?
Edit: Sorry for offtopic but it's strange that nobody ever mention that specialists have better spells from their schools, as the benefits, and also I never noticed any difference in spells of specialists.
They are supposed to have a few minor advantages when dealing with spells of their chosen school, but it's not implemented in BG1/BG2. Essentially, they give up their opposition school(s) for 1 extra spellslot per spell level, and that's it.
More spells altogether, yes! Also, isn't BG2 supposed to have more spells even of lower level, and aren't we supposed to get those? Plus, about Diviners being crippled, I'd add a True Strike-like spell, making them possibly good Fighter/Mages...
Which brings me to another complaint: as I recall, Gnomes *must* be Illusionists, thereby making the Int buff on Gnomes worthless since Illusionists suck.
You should try one sometime. They really don't suck.
Picking a kit around level 8 and above spells seems really silly to me. Can't cast Wail of the Banshee? Do Incendiary Cloud. Wail is better but Cloud gets the job done almost as good.
Important spells you lose out on are Horror and... ? That's really the only spell that serves a huge function other spells can't really help you do at the time you get it.
@CrazedSlayer regardless of losing a whole spell school, you are given an extra spell slot per level which I think is a fair bargin, dont forget you start at level 1, an extra spell = less resting and death haha, conjurers and illusionist get the best use of the extra spell slot as they lose the weakest chain of spells.
@elminster you mentioned illusionist " I mean compare that to trying the same thing with an abjurer, diviner, or illusionist. None of which get any damage spells" the illusionist is the second best specialist mage class you can be, next to conjurer, you still get acess to damaging spells as an illusionist and extra spell slot per level like all of the specialist classes, plus charm and dire charm are brilliant illusion spells. my point is I wouldnt use illusionist as the best argument for being necromancer, but that is my opinion :P
You may have missed the part here where the OP was originally talking about how there were not enough spells of a specific class in order to entirely play only with spells of that class (not enough Necromancy spells). The point of my statement was that there were spell levels for a number of difference specialities of mage that they don't get spells for that level. Yes, of course illusionists get damage spells, but there are no illusion spells that do damage. So playing with purely illusionist spells would mean you would be missing spells at some levels, and at others you would get redundant spells (like Shadow Door and Improved Invisibility). I'm not saying the illusionist is bad, on the contrary it is my favourite class (gnome illusionist ftw) next to the druid.
I think the biggest problem with the specialist mage kits, if there is one (and I'm not saying there is, necessarily), is that the classes don't "feel" different. That extra one spell per level per day is enough to change your action once per day, but apart from that your strategy might be exactly the same as a Conjurer as it is as an Enchanter (which is ironic, when you think about the fact that they happen to be opposed to each other).
What the specialist mages need is some school-specific abilities.
Give the Conjurer a "Find Familiar" special ability, so that you don't have to find a scroll for it. Give the Necromancer the ability to conjure a skeleton once per day. Give the Diviner the Find Traps and Detect Illusions abilities (+10% each per level). Give the Enchanter a flat bonus to his reaction adjustment. Give the Illusionist a Stealth ability (+20% per level). Give the Evoker a boost to his casting speed (or something; it's hard to come up with something that doesn't unbalance the evoker...). Give the Transmuter the ability to treat any weapons he wields as +1 for the purposes of determining what creatures he can damage.
In return, give the general Mage an extra bonus to Lore (on the level of bards); having an eclectic taste in magic gives you a broader range of knowledge, which you pay for by not being able to cast as many spells per day.
That will make each school different, and interesting, without making any one kit too powerful. It makes all of them useful in a way that currently none of them are, and it turns each kit into an actual kit, rather than an opportunity for a bonus spell.
You may have missed the part here where the OP was originally talking about how there were not enough spells of a specific class in order to entirely play only with spells of that class (not enough Necromancy spells). The point of my statement was that there were spell levels for a number of difference specialities of mage that they don't get spells for that level. Yes, of course illusionists get damage spells, but there are no illusion spells that do damage. So playing with purely illusionist spells would mean you would be missing spells at some levels, and at others you would get redundant spells (like Shadow Door and Improved Invisibility). I'm not saying the illusionist is bad, on the contrary it is my favourite class (gnome illusionist ftw) next to the druid.
Still having one or just two spells of each spell level available as a necromancer is still too low a count and needs to be fixed. Maybe 4 or 5 spells each level would make it more equal to all the rest. Also the current necromancer spells, especially the touch attack spells, are completely useless especially at the higher levels and the amount of risk involved in using them makes it not worth it. So the necromancy school needs to be reworked to some degree.
Not that I just want necromancy spells of course. I'm sure all the other schools have issues like divination for example so it may need fixing too. But it doesn't really matter much longer since bg is coming out very soon.
I loved the concept used in IWD2 for clerics in this regard: You had extra spells for each level that belong to your selected deity per level. It made all of the cleric subclasses unique in the way that you had access to mage spells or even druid spells. So to adapt it for mages, for example, you could have access to a druid spell, or cleric spell of this school ... or even a higher level mage spell at a lower level in addition to your normal mage spells.
But I'm all for implementing IWD spells additionally to those BG spells, mainly because some of them were really creative and made the caster classes even more fun to play.
Also, I think we could easily apply a 3rd edition feature to 2nd edition rules here: Improved spell level throws / improved saves against the chosen school.
For example, add +2 to spell level of the selected school. Means a conjurer is able to throw a level 3 magic missile at level 1 (means he throws 2 orbs instead of just 1) ... or a necromancer being able to summon 2 more hit dies of skeletons. Or vampiric touch dealing more damage, etc. ... Wild mages should be excluded from those rule. They shouldn't get any level adjustment as they are already in advantage over the specialists due to no restrictions anyway.
Comments
I don't really see it at the moment as viable to trade a class or two of spells (and x number of spells because of) just to gain what is in essence a couple of extra spell slots.
Having some unique mechanics or abilities given to a speciality wizard miught sound nice, but it just reeks of WoW-izing Baldur's Gate since Necromancers would undoutbedly get a zombie/skeleton minion. I'd much prefer simply normalizing the schools so that loosing any of them is a fairly hard blow that changes how you must play. As it is, you can be a Conjurer and loose nothing, but if your locked-out school is Abjuration, Evocation or Necromancy, you're screwed.
Which brings me to another complaint: as I recall, Gnomes *must* be Illusionists, thereby making the Int buff on Gnomes worthless since Illusionists suck.
From my point of view, other than wanting to keep BG in it's pristine state with only bug fixes and added characters / areas, if you change / add any of the wizard spells, you'd need to go back and change each encounter in the game to appropriately keep the same level of challenge. What if a combination of new spells breaks the fight with Daveaorn so that he can be easily killed in two seconds? There's a whole slew of issues with just adding in "new fun spells" without fine tuning the game encounters. I believe that in that situation, you should just make a new game.
That said, I'm in favor of them adding more spells.
Not just to Necromancy, but to all schools. If not that, then make it so that spells in the school I've chosen to specialize in are more powerful than a non-specialized mage in that area could cast. If I'm a necromancer, my Vampiric Touch should be better than an Invokers. By the same token, her Fireball should be better than my necro's.
Edit: Sorry for offtopic but it's strange that nobody ever mention that specialists have better spells from their schools, as the benefits, and also I never noticed any difference in spells of specialists.
Important spells you lose out on are Horror and... ? That's really the only spell that serves a huge function other spells can't really help you do at the time you get it.
You may have missed the part here where the OP was originally talking about how there were not enough spells of a specific class in order to entirely play only with spells of that class (not enough Necromancy spells). The point of my statement was that there were spell levels for a number of difference specialities of mage that they don't get spells for that level. Yes, of course illusionists get damage spells, but there are no illusion spells that do damage. So playing with purely illusionist spells would mean you would be missing spells at some levels, and at others you would get redundant spells (like Shadow Door and Improved Invisibility). I'm not saying the illusionist is bad, on the contrary it is my favourite class (gnome illusionist ftw) next to the druid.
*Enchanter or generalist mage player*
What the specialist mages need is some school-specific abilities.
Give the Conjurer a "Find Familiar" special ability, so that you don't have to find a scroll for it.
Give the Necromancer the ability to conjure a skeleton once per day.
Give the Diviner the Find Traps and Detect Illusions abilities (+10% each per level).
Give the Enchanter a flat bonus to his reaction adjustment.
Give the Illusionist a Stealth ability (+20% per level).
Give the Evoker a boost to his casting speed (or something; it's hard to come up with something that doesn't unbalance the evoker...).
Give the Transmuter the ability to treat any weapons he wields as +1 for the purposes of determining what creatures he can damage.
In return, give the general Mage an extra bonus to Lore (on the level of bards); having an eclectic taste in magic gives you a broader range of knowledge, which you pay for by not being able to cast as many spells per day.
That will make each school different, and interesting, without making any one kit too powerful. It makes all of them useful in a way that currently none of them are, and it turns each kit into an actual kit, rather than an opportunity for a bonus spell.
Not that I just want necromancy spells of course. I'm sure all the other schools have issues like divination for example so it may need fixing too. But it doesn't really matter much longer since bg is coming out very soon.
So to adapt it for mages, for example, you could have access to a druid spell, or cleric spell of this school ... or even a higher level mage spell at a lower level in addition to your normal mage spells.
But I'm all for implementing IWD spells additionally to those BG spells, mainly because some of them were really creative and made the caster classes even more fun to play.
Also, I think we could easily apply a 3rd edition feature to 2nd edition rules here:
Improved spell level throws / improved saves against the chosen school.
For example, add +2 to spell level of the selected school. Means a conjurer is able to throw a level 3 magic missile at level 1 (means he throws 2 orbs instead of just 1) ... or a necromancer being able to summon 2 more hit dies of skeletons. Or vampiric touch dealing more damage, etc. ...
Wild mages should be excluded from those rule. They shouldn't get any level adjustment as they are already in advantage over the specialists due to no restrictions anyway.