Has anyone Keeper'd Neera into a sorceress?

BelgarathMTH

Hi, friends, I've been thinking about ideas for my next BG run, and one of the things I'm thinking about is trying to carry both Neera and Rasaad through the whole trilogy, since I've never experienced Beamdog's new content in BG2:EE.

I play minimal reload, and I'm worried enough about carrying Rasaad through BG1, in hopes of a "warriors are linear, wizards (monks) are quadratic" sort of payoff in BG2, without also having to worry about wild mage surges causing reloads.

So, I'm thinking of Keepering Neera into a sorceress. I think her story will still make pretty good sense with her as a sorceress, especially if I imagine that all sorcerers are considered "wild mages" by the wizardly establishment. After all, sorcerers are the traditional class that is considered "undisciplined, chaotic, drawing on intuition and innate ability for their magic instead of careful study and learning, without regard for the safety of others", and to me, the wild mage class seems to be a variation on the theme.

For precedent and example, any "mage" who is either male or practicing away from the auspices of the White Tower in Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" world, is considered to be a "wild mage," or "wildling". The Red Ajah in Jordan's world is at least somewhat similar to the Red Wizards of Thay in the Forgotten Realms world.

My question here is, when I recruit Neera, and use Keeper to set her to level zero, change her class, and then relevel her as a sorceress, will her wild surge variable be erased, or will I wind up with a sorceress who has wild surges?

If the answer is that her wild surge variable will still be there, I would like to know what I need to do in Keeper to erase it.

Also, feel free to use this thread to discuss any thoughts about sorcerers vis a vis wild mages, as I am also interested in game philosophy along these lines.

Tresset

I think just changing her away from wild mage removes the surges, but changing her into a sorcerer as opposed to another specialist mage may be harder to do than you think... Much harder. She will likely still have bonus spells from being a wild mage and I am not sure keeper can remove these in a permanent fashion. Setting her level to 1 and clearing her spellbook out may work, or it may not... I have never tried turning a mage into a sorcerer so I am not sure how it would work. I would assume that there is a way to make it work, but I also think you would likely need to do some of it in NI to make it a seamless transfer. Keeper is easy to use and convenient but it cannot do some things.

BelgarathMTH

@Tresset, thanks. I know how to erase her original spell slots in Keeper. There is a tab for all mages that allows you to adjust spells known and spells memorizable per day. The second thing can be adjusted to zero, and all previously known spells can be deleted. Keeper is a most marvelous utility for us BG players.

I just hope you're right about the wild surge variable being erased.

Lord_Tansheron

I can confirm that Wild Surges are tied to the Wild Mage class, and not Neera as a character. I've changer her to various things, and never had Surges appear where they shouldn't. EEkeeper is a marvel, to be sure! I can highly recommend toying around with the NPCs, and find some hilarious or just plain exciting change that might interest you.

BelgarathMTH

Thank you very much, @Lord_Tansheron . The one time I played through Rasaad's BG1 material, I Keeper'd him him into a Cleric of Selune, and it worked perfectly, and his story still made sense. Although, having never experienced his BG2 content, I am hesitant to do that again. I think his magic items and his story, as it progresses, make less and less sense, if he is not a monk as intended.

EDIT: Btw, I played with Rasaad before the patch that gave him his kit from Selune, so that could make a huge difference in my experience of him if or when I play with him again.

Gate70

Hi @BelgarathMTH
You could force her surge result to "spell cast normally" and leave her unedited. n.b. that may force any other wild mages to do the same, not sure about that.

1. With the game closed ensure that baldur.ini contains
'Game Options', 'Wild Surge Keys', '1'
2. Press Ctrl+H so "Surge Number 100" appear in the dialogue window.

& a list of surges can be found on p148 of http://cdn.baldursgate.com/files/baldurs-gate-mastering-melee-magic.pdf

BelgarathMTH

Thanks, @Gate70, for your kind offer of information. I know you as a BG "original no-reloader" god in the same plane as @Alesia_BH . If my initial efforts to remake Neera into a sorcerer using Keeper don't yield clean results, I will definitely consult your guide to editing the .ini file.

Tresset

The only problem with the surge keys that @Gate70 mentioned is that it will affect every last spell cast in the game. 100 will effectively disable wild surges, but it will also make all spells cast have wild surge style random animations. There is another option too. I once made a very simple mod that eliminates wild surging while a certain item is worn. It is extreme OP and I don't recommend it for a serious playthrough, but I bring it up because it is effectively the same as what Gate suggests except that it will be restricted to the character wearing the item. Have a look if you want: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/31861/mod-adoys-surgeproof-belt-for-bg1-ee-bg2-ee

Heindrich

@BelgarathMTH I don't have anything else to add regarding how to EEkeeper Neera. I do just want to share my experience of her in my current playthrough thus far...

It is my feeling that a wild mage has an even more extreme "quadratic wizard" curve compared to normal mages. At lower levels a lot of wild surges can cause an instant reload, because your party is so fragile that you do not have margin for error, even if the surge does not directly kill you (like the infamous fireball). The way wild surge mechanics work, low level wild mages are also more likely to surge, further compounded by a relative lack of Chaos Shield casts. What this means is that for most of BG1 I used Neera's spells sparingly, and never cast anything on the party with her. This did feel quite restrictive, especially as she was my only arcane caster.

However, in BG2, not only does her character develop in a more sympathetic way (in my opinion), her surges become quite a bit more manageable. A single fireball won't one-shot the party, and I rarely cast anything without Chaos Shield. If I were feeling a bit more reckless, I could probably start to take advantage of Nahal's Reckless Dewer and try to cast Horrid Wilting with lv1 slots. I think if you stack Chaos Shield and Improved Chaos Shield (my Neera hasn't got there yet so I haven't tried it yet), you can probably use NRD quite reliably.

With multiple mages in my BG2 party, I now think of Neera as an interesting mage, rather than a bit of a liability. It's quite fun managing the risks of a wild mage and the different precautions you take with her. For example unlike my other mages, Neera does not walk around in permanent Stoneskin because it is too risky to cast it in a tavern. However so that she is never entirely useless, I take advantage of safe zones to summon minute meteors inbetween battles so that she can at least use those if it is unsafe to cast other spells. Everything you do with Neera is a calculated risk, and there's some fun in managing that, especially when they work out better than you expected.

Tidus

@BelgarathMTH ,
beware that you'll need to cast Nahal Reckless Dweomer in TOB to move on with her quest

BelgarathMTH

@Tidus, thanks for that important tip. I guess she has to stay a wild mage for her story to work, then. Maybe I'll take @Heindrich's advice and try to live with the risk, hoping it'll wind up being fun. I did want her to be my only arcane caster, though.

Hmm, I guess in BG1 you don't really *have* to have reliable arcane magic, especially with all the wands.

And I'm planning to use Imoen/Yoshimo/Imoen on this run, so I'll eventually have Imoen for a more reliable arcane caster.

I just worry about Neera failing to cast Breach or Lower Resistance at a critical moment against say, Firkraag and his pet wizard, while Imoen is in Spellhold. That's assuming I do all the sidequesting around Athkatla before going to rescue Imoen, which I was hoping to do this time.

On my last run, I made a rush for Imoen, and it wound up taking all the wind out of my sails to go back for all the side quests I didn't do, with the main story seeming so urgent at that point. I lost interest and didn't finish. This time I wanted to do a more relaxed run, pretending that we need all the wealth and gear from all the sidequests before we can get the thieves' guild to finally help us.

That means a very, very long time without Imoen with the party I'm planning, and that would make me frighteningly dependent on Neera for Breach and Lower Resistance.

Btw, what I'm thinking of trying for my new-content oriented party is Charname half-orc fighter-cleric, Jaheira, Khalid, Imoen, Neera, and Rasaad for BG1, then Jaheira, Keldorn, Yoshimo/Imoen, Neera, and Rasaad for BG2, and finally Jaheira, Sarevok (because I've never used him and I want to see his dialogs), Imoen, Neera, and Rasaad for ToB.

Dorn and Hexxat are too evil for me, so I'm not worried about using them or playing their content. I can justify giving Sarevok a try because my Charname will think Sarevok can be redeemed, and he'll be a cleric of Lathander, believing in all the "new beginning for a new day" forgiveness that goes with Lathandrite religion.

JuliusBorisov

Hey, @BelgarathMTH , you possibly have already decided on this but I think I'll still post here.

Recently, in a multiplayer game I took Neera through BG1 and BG2 up until the chapter 7 in SoA. Believe it or not, all her wild surges were quite tolerable and didn't force any single re-load.

Sooner rather than later I've got used to the chance of wild surges and in the end treat it calmly. I just never cast spells in a battle without the Chaos Shield and only started to use the Nahal Reckless Dweomer when Neera reached the 8th spell level.

The bonus spell and in the same time no restriction regarding a certain school is very handy.

In fact, now, after using Neera constantly in my run, although I expect any spell from other NPCs to cause a wild surge:), I can't see myself not making a wild mage when creating a mage.

karnor00

BelgarathMTH said:

That means a very, very long time without Imoen with the party I'm planning, and that would make me frighteningly dependent on Neera for Breach and Lower Resistance.

Sometimes I just EEKeeper Yoshimo to be a thief > mage dual class with the exact same stats as Imoen

And then when I recover Imoen I give her the experience that Yoshimo had.

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Troodon80

@subtledoctor,

subtledoctor said:

I believe this will make her a Wild Sorcerer.

I did a test here last month.

You are correct, I think. The wild surge effect is linked to the kit.

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Lord_Tansheron

Be careful though, random flags can sometimes bug things out. I noticed for example that if you change Neera to a non-mage class, leaving her kit flag untouched, and THEN dual to a mage, you get stuck in the starting spell selection screen because it wants you to take 3 spells (for Nahal's I assume) but only lets you actually choose 2, leaving you unable to proceed with the dual.

Of course you can fix that in EE by removing and re-adding the kit flag, but just something to keep in mind when playing around with it.

dunbar

@BelgarathMTH , fyi I've got a party in Ch.6 (BG2) at the moment with Neera as the only mage the party has ever had. So far I've been able to cope with her unreliability because it is by nature a chaotic (in the very real sense of the word) party that stumbles haphazardly from one unforeseen stuff-up to another, but somehow managing to survive. This is in part, I think, because the party consists of two berserkers and a blackguard (inc. charname) who rely heavily on magic resistance, healing spells, buffing and brute force. Consequently they work on the assumption that Neera's spells will backfire and regard it as a bonus when one actually works as expected.
So basically what I'm saying is that a sufficiently resilient party can get through to Chapter 6 of BG2 (at least) without using any mage other than Neera.

Gotural

I played a multiplayer game quite a long time ago with @Blackraven and I was playing a Wild Sorcerer, it was indeed possible. In fact, you can give any Mage kit to a Sorcerer and it will apply just fine.

For example you can give the Conjurer kit to a Sorcerer, and he will have one more spell per level but he won't be able to select spells from the Divination school, etc.

The Wild Sorcerer was really, really, really fun, and truely roleplay if you ask me.

Arnaeus

Gotural said:

I played a multiplayer game quite a long time ago with @Blackraven and I was playing a Wild Sorcerer, it was indeed possible. In fact, you can give any Mage kit to a Sorcerer and it will apply just fine.

For example you can give the Conjurer kit to a Sorcerer, and he will have one more spell per level but he won't be able to select spells from the Divination school, etc.

The Wild Sorcerer was really, really, really fun, and truely roleplay if you ask me.

I think I have my next character

BelgarathMTH

@Gotural, that does sound interesting, but I wanted to make Neera a *regular* sorcerer so I wouldn't have to worry about wild surges. I decided to try to live with the wild surges, though, because of being advised that parts of her quest require her to be able to cast Nahal's Reckless Dweomer.