Pure Mage
Olteron
Member Posts: 67
Was thinking of making a mage. I wanted to maybe go for Elf since it has the charm resistance. I remember back in the day always getting charmed and I hated that. But Elves cannot be Conjurers. And diviner and enchanter are blah to me. So is it worth the racials to go with the one less spell slot? I thought of multiclass, but if i remember when you do that your robes dont show up on your character, and I never liked that.
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Call me strange (and I'll put this in the unpopular opinions thread if I have to) but I think the Enchanter's actually better than the Conjurer because you get saving throw penalties on enchantment spells so stuff like Chaos is even more devastating. Also you become even more resistant to stuff like charm and confusion. Way worth losing the raw power.
If you want something different than you should go with another class or a multiclass.. because Mages and Sorcerers really don't have all that different of gameplay. They're both pretty powerful.. Mages just require a bit more preparation over sorcerers really
Most people simply prefer Conjurer not because it adds to conjuration spells but rather because the only really essential spell you use selecting that specialization is True Sight, which can easily be done by the party's cleric or Keldorn instead. If your use of a mage is mostly as a disabler though, I can certainly see wanting to select an Enchanter.
@Olteron Yes, they can. They don't get any many spell slots as a pure mage, though, but they also get access to the Fighter HLAs in addition to the mage ones.
It depends on your playstyle and your approach to the game. If you are playing on any difficulty below "core" (meaning scribbing from scrolls succeeds in 100%), then you'll probably want to use mage specialist instead.
Specialists mages have more spell slot, your enemies will have harder time to resist your spells (they have additional penalty of -2 when making saving throws against mage specialist using the spell from his school. Basically, "Chaos" from Enchanter has -6 saving throw penalty (-4 -2). Fireball from Invoker has -2 (0 -2). Finger of Death from Necromancer would have -4 (-2 -2). Etc.). The disadvantages for having specialist mage is that they have -15% penalty to scribbing from scrolls, and they cannot learn and cast (even from scrolls) the spells from oposite schools. But playing on difficulty lower than "core" negates scribbing penalty .
If you wonder why haven't you heard of this benefits before, it's because they were included into class descriptions only from patch 2.0 forward (i've seen this in the beta).
It is worth a mention you shouldn't look down on such classes as Enchanter. Your enemies will have hard time resisting Enchanter who's using spells like Blind, Sleep, Domination, Chaos etc.
Now, it is worth to use pure mage? If you are playing on "core" and above (and isn't going to decrease difficulty for scroll scribbing purposes) then yes. Otherwise you might want to pick either Sorceror or mage specialist.
Both were powerful. But invoker did it easier. With new bonuses specialists get Web gets -4 penalty to save. Put 2 in minor sequencer. Instantly shut party down. Summoned 2 spiders and watched party get devoured quick.
Enchanter hold person was resisted by half the party, emotion then took down the rest. Then finished with conjured skeletons/skulltrap.
I decided to roll the less popular invoker for rp reasons. With Web and spider summons and a spider familiar, I'm going for evil spider king! Vivicus arachnis the wizard!