I have completed as a Fighter / WildMage / Thief... Not exactly the same...
I will never do it again... It made me cry...
PLEASE use the quicksave key every five seconds and you will be fine. (Or complete about five maps, change sex, lose all your money then have a cow land on Imoen... then accidently leave the map to screw your autosave and weep)
complete about five maps, change sex, lose all your money then have a cow land on Imoen... then accidently leave the map to screw your autosave and weep)
Meh. One of my charnames, also a wild mage, once spawned such an insane amount of squirrels in Cloakwood mines that the entire place was crawling with nut-thirsty rodents. Then he silenced and enfeebled himself trying to be invisible. Later, he wanted to protect Kagain from evil but, somehow, managed to gate in an infernal creature that ripped the poor dwarf to tiny bits. And he also petrified the party trying to cast protection from petrification, thus effectively avoiding being turned to stone by basilisk gaze. Countless changes of gender within and outside the party, random bovine bombardment all over the Sword Coast and disintegrating hard-earned gold right after having sold a heap of loot were other fun aspects of the playthrough. And squirrels. Always lots of them everywhere. I recall Imoen spent a few weeks living as a squirrel, too. Before being turned into a squirrel statue somewhere beneath Durlag's Tower, that is.
There are a few good reasons, that I can think of, for their popularity:
1) It adds another level of excitement and randomness to the game. Many of us have played BG many times, so anything to shake it up helps.
2) The kit is relatively new. It was added, was it added with ToB? So having it available all the way back in BG1 is neat and gives people who didn't muck around with Tutu or similar a chance to use it all saga long.
3) Mechanically it is a specialist mage without a forbidden school. And by and large the wild surges are manageable, especially if you don't mind reloading for the worst ones. AND you can roll the dice and use Nahal's Reckless to try and get any spell you know to cast. Which is fun and a lot like gambling.
So for an experienced BG Player, you get to use a (relatively) new kit and you get a powerful specialist mage with a fun downside instead of losing one or more schools of magic.
complete about five maps, change sex, lose all your money then have a cow land on Imoen... then accidently leave the map to screw your autosave and weep)
Meh. One of my charnames, also a wild mage, once spawned such an insane amount of squirrels in Cloakwood mines that the entire place was crawling with nut-thirsty rodents. Then he silenced and enfeebled himself trying to be invisible. Later, he wanted to protect Kagain from evil but, somehow, managed to gate in an infernal creature that ripped the poor dwarf to tiny bits. And he also petrified the party trying to cast protection from petrification, thus effectively avoiding being turned to stone by basilisk gaze. Countless changes of gender within and outside the party, random bovine bombardment all over the Sword Coast and disintegrating hard-earned gold right after having sold a heap of loot were other fun aspects of the playthrough. And squirrels. Always lots of them everywhere. I recall Imoen spent a few weeks living as a squirrel, too. Before being turned into a squirrel statue somewhere beneath Durlag's Tower, that is.
I've never played as a wild mage but I intend to rectify that mistake immediately.
In BG1, Wild Mages are really only good for the extra spell and potential hilarity. In BG2 though, once they get the Chaos Shields, they're probably the best spellcasters in the game-especially with Evermemory. Practically endless supplies of level 9 spells are nothing to sniff at seeing as by this point most of the majorly bad surges are rare.
@Tome, wild mages are powerful even in BG EE. You can use Nahal's Reckless Dweomer to cast improved chaos shield, if don't work, reload, after it work, your chances of better results with Nahal's Reckless Dweomer are largely improved, save and enter the fight you're preparing for.
In fact, if level 9 spells existed in BG, you could cast them with level 1 spells. Adding that to the existence of rings of wizardy, that in BG EE double lvl 1 spells... in theory wild mages are pretty powerful.
Nahal's Reckless Dweomer is the single most powerful spell available in BG1&2. Theoretically, it's almost like being Elminster, or a level 50 sorcerer; you can cast whatever you want given you have the spell scribbled into your spellbook, you use whatever the situation requires at the cost of a level 1 spell. The chance that it'll work as intended is slim for low level mages but it IS there. It is likely that your level 1 wild mage, having learned the Cloudkill spell and trying to cast it with Nahal's Reckless Dweomer, will instead turn everyone into squirrels, petrify them or even summon a pit fiend. It is even more likely that he will destroy his own money, change gender or summon a flock of birds but, what the hell, it could have been worse. And it often is.
However, sometimes, when rolling multiple times with the Wild Surge dice, wild mages can not only cast spells they normally couldn't but also cast them in an immensely empowered way. Double spell effectiveness (e.g. 20k6 damage instead of 10k6), casting at double level, area effect or no saving throw occur relatively often. On rare occasion it all happens at once. Imagine that power. You cast Finger of Death. Everyone in a 60ft radius dies, because the wild surge made the spell affect an area and prohibited saving throws. The power comes at a price, through.
I got many refresh power surges in my last run, a shame i'm not an high level mage, cos instantly refresh time stop, dragon breath, abi's horrible thing (or something like that) is pretty nice.
@Franco Yes. It was a sheet, covered in plastic, or maybe just hard plastic. They had a set of chits for every die, from 1d4 to 1d20, and you had to keep each set separate, but that was (easy-ish) to do, because each set was colored differently. My first set of dice came with a grease pencil (in white) to color in the numbers. Because that was SO. MUCH. FUN. NOT!
Heh, I remember those, not to mention getting the grease pencil onto your fingers and smearing character sheets.
And the dice were a light, light blue... making the white grease pencil even harder to see. Luckily, my Dad worked in New York City, so I got to go to the Compleat Strategist and buy "better" dice there. They were clear plastic, and the faces were often mis-aligned, but damn those dice were better than the crappy dice that came with the boxed set!
I'm glad that the Wild Mage adds that extra level of risk to the game, with the notion that magic can be dangerous. When you've completed BG several times your level of risk understandably gets much lower and your level of excitement and anticipation suffer. Some members on this forum can breeze through the game with almost any party.
Comments
I will never do it again... It made me cry...
PLEASE use the quicksave key every five seconds and you will be fine. (Or complete about five maps, change sex, lose all your money then have a cow land on Imoen... then accidently leave the map to screw your autosave and weep)
Countless changes of gender within and outside the party, random bovine bombardment all over the Sword Coast and disintegrating hard-earned gold right after having sold a heap of loot were other fun aspects of the playthrough. And squirrels. Always lots of them everywhere. I recall Imoen spent a few weeks living as a squirrel, too. Before being turned into a squirrel statue somewhere beneath Durlag's Tower, that is.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/295247/#Comment_295247
I probably will play a Wildmage again... Just not soon...
I am also going to admit. After many hours of play... I have never had a pit fiend appear.
There are a few good reasons, that I can think of, for their popularity:
1) It adds another level of excitement and randomness to the game. Many of us have played BG many times, so anything to shake it up helps.
2) The kit is relatively new. It was added, was it added with ToB? So having it available all the way back in BG1 is neat and gives people who didn't muck around with Tutu or similar a chance to use it all saga long.
3) Mechanically it is a specialist mage without a forbidden school. And by and large the wild surges are manageable, especially if you don't mind reloading for the worst ones. AND you can roll the dice and use Nahal's Reckless to try and get any spell you know to cast. Which is fun and a lot like gambling.
So for an experienced BG Player, you get to use a (relatively) new kit and you get a powerful specialist mage with a fun downside instead of losing one or more schools of magic.
Did you not read this? I've never played as a wild mage but I intend to rectify that mistake immediately.
In fact, if level 9 spells existed in BG, you could cast them with level 1 spells. Adding that to the existence of rings of wizardy, that in BG EE double lvl 1 spells... in theory wild mages are pretty powerful.
However, sometimes, when rolling multiple times with the Wild Surge dice, wild mages can not only cast spells they normally couldn't but also cast them in an immensely empowered way. Double spell effectiveness (e.g. 20k6 damage instead of 10k6), casting at double level, area effect or no saving throw occur relatively often. On rare occasion it all happens at once. Imagine that power. You cast Finger of Death. Everyone in a 60ft radius dies, because the wild surge made the spell affect an area and prohibited saving throws. The power comes at a price, through.