Wizard power

Magodark

Hello peeps,


I've always wanted to create a wizard in BG series since i've seen everyone talking about HOW powerfull they can be... that is exactly the discussion i want to start here.

Today my wizard is level 12, i never finished the game and i'm playing the game for the first time, i'm currently at the drown city (Ust Nasha i think is the name), and my wizard character is still pretty weak and if i want to play him at full power i need to do that resting all the time and this cripples my role playing experience, i dont like any type of metagame, but i dont see how can i overcome this.


Can anyone tell me if i'm playing "wrong" with him, or he is starting to unlock his "power" now?

SomeSort

The old saying is "linear warriors, quadratic wizards". Fighter-types gain power at a comparable rate through the saga. Wizards start off weak but as they level up they become unstoppable forces of nature.

At level 12, you haven't hit "unstoppable force of nature" stage. The wizard's power is tied to what spells he can cast, and you have just unlocked level 6 spells. Each level of spells lets you do progressively more and more ridiculous things. Right now, about the cheesiest thing you can do is abuse Mislead, which is a hard-to-dispel version of invisibility.

At level 14, you get your 7th level spells, which brings Mordenkainen's Sword and Project Image. Mordenk's Sword is basically an unkillable summon, and Project Image creates a clone of you who has all of your spells memorized, effectively doubling the size of your spellbook (and letting you cast those spells with no personal risk), which greatly reduces your need to rest. That's a big power jump.

At level 16, you get Abi-Dalshim's Horrid Wilting, which is by far the best "nuke" (e.g. damage spell) in the base game before you get High-Level Abilities. Suddenly you are able to wave your hand and have things just fall over dead. And all those ADHW's are multiplied over all of your Project Images. That's another big power jump.

At level 18, you get Time Stop, which lets you literally *stop time*. You get Improved Alacrity, which lets you cast multiple spells per round, (in extreme cases, it lets you literally empty your entire spellbook in an instant). You get Wish, which if you have a high enough wisdom gives a shot at an option which will replenish all of your spells, effectively eliminating the need to ever rest, *EVER*. And again, all of these are multiplied over all of your level 7 spell slots because they're all available to your Projected Images.

By the end of Throne of Bhaal, a wizard can cast a clone who will then stop time, empty his entire spellbook, then end with a Wish to restore all of his spells, leaving the original Wizard fully stocked up to repeat the process over... and over... and over... and over... and over... until everything in the realms is dead or the wizard is just too bored to go on.

I'll also note that if you're hitting the Underdark at level 12, you're probably a little bit underleveled. Chapter 2 is interesting because you can pay the 15,000 at any point, which means some people pay as soon as they get it and leave for Spellhold with 300,000 XP, while others complete every single quest and leave for Spellhold with 1,500,000 XP.

As a result, the Chapter 4-5 content can either be really easy (if you leave late) or really tough (if you leave early). It looks like you were on the "leave early" side of things, which explains why you're not feeling super-powerful right now. By the time you return to the surface, those feelings of power will come.

Magodark

Thanks for the reply @SomeSort !

i'm playing BGT and with it some mod that reduces XP to 75%, that's why i may be underlevel too... And in my party i only had Aerie with some kind of invisible purge and she got angry with Korgan and leaved, i'm having a really tough time with mages... when i get to surface i'll look for some more quests to level up a bit!

Just another question if you're still here, i'm i supposed to use all my lvl 5 slots with Breach? Because almost every wizard casts protection from magical weapons, there is other ways to dispell it?

Thanks!

Argyle

Breach is good to have, but there are other effective 5th level spells like Animate Dead, Chaos, and once in a while Spell Immunity or Lower Resistance. You can often gain the advantage in a wizard battle by casting Chaos right away. Another tactic to use against wizards is the 4th level spell Polymorph Self. If you turn into a Mustard Jelly and happen to have a wand (fire, electricity, etc.) you can blast away without worrying about enemy wizard spells.

SomeSort

Magodark said:

Thanks for the reply @SomeSort !

i'm playing BGT and with it some mod that reduces XP to 75%, that's why i may be underlevel too... And in my party i only had Aerie with some kind of invisible purge and she got angry with Korgan and leaved, i'm having a really tough time with mages... when i get to surface i'll look for some more quests to level up a bit!

Just another question if you're still here, i'm i supposed to use all my lvl 5 slots with Breach? Because almost every wizard casts protection from magical weapons, there is other ways to dispell it?

Thanks!

Protection From Magic Weapons has a very short duration, just 4 rounds. If you're sick of burning all your spell slots on Breach, you can always run away as soon as the Wizard casts it and make them waste its duration trying to chase you down.

Another dominant strategy against Wizards is Improved Invisibility + Spell Immunity: Divination. Improved Invisibility makes you invisible, but even after you attack and reveal yourself you retain a secondary effect that gives you -4 to AC and saves and makes you untargetable by spells.

Of course, ordinarily this isn't a problem for the enemy, since they can just cast True Seeing to get rid of your Improved Invisibility so they can lob spells at you again. But Spell Immunity: Divination makes you immune to True Seeing, so even after you reveal yourself enemy mages can't cast any spells at you; they're basically limited to summons or melee.

The approach isn't without problems. It can only work on your own wizard, (since Spell Immunity targets self only), which means you need to send him ahead without his entourage... and while it neuters enemy mages, enemy fighters will still have a field day with your unescorted mage. But still, especially against enemy mages who don't have an escort (or whose escort was already killed), it's a great way to completely neuter them provided they can't see through invisibility naturally.

Animate Dead and Chaos were both mentioned already. Chaos is great crowd control because it imposes a -4 save penalty, so it's much more likely to work than most disabling spells. (It doesn't do much in the underdark because all the drow have such high magic immunity, though.) Animate Dead gets pretty beastly once you hit level 15, when your skeletons get huge magic resistance and become pretty tough to kill, but even at level 12 they'll be pretty solid. Every spell enemy mages cast at your skeleton is a spell they don't cast at you.

Or you could just switch to non-magical weapons and beat them down with those, too.

Danacm

If you dont like rest spam, the caster classes are not best roleplaying experience, its a bad design from the game where you fight after fight, and need rest after every fight, mostly in early in the game. The quadratic wizard thing is somewhat true in bg, but as bad as dnd 3.5, where fighters are mostly useless without highly optimatized build(like ubercharger, dungeoncrusher, etc), the fighter types in bg has their own strength even in tob. Fortunately to homebrew spells in bg2(prot from magic weapons, impr haste etc) the wizards are powerful enough in late game to destroy every foe, if you rest a lot or use wild mage and wish.

lroumen

Don't forget that low level spells become nice too. By now you probably noticed that magic missile is great fun, but also spells like flame arrow, skull trap, slow, haste, hold person, and even burning hands are highly effective.

Myrag

Its pretty much as @Danacm said. Casters are all about micromanagement and metagaming.

In BG series magic is like playing chess and the biggest proof of this is SCS mod. Enemy mage has protections up? cast Breach on him, but wait enemy also has spell shield? then cast spell thrust/secret word then cast breach. But wait again enemy has spell trap, etc etc etc. Magic is about knowledge and with that knowledge you can render game very very easy, even waaay too easy without mods. Without it you are still fine for 90% of encounters though.

As @SomeSort said about power spikes. I'll just add having multiple project images cast will pretty much allow you to empty entire spellbook multiple times. Simulacrum is amother power spike (lvl 8 spell). Just memorize one spell immunity divination so that enemy mages won't dispel your Project Image and Simulacrum with one spell.

Basically in my opinion if you dont want to know all this stuff and enjoy just load your mage with summon spells and nuke spells. It's fine for regular playthroughs.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Magodark

Thanks everyone for the replies, it's been a really nice experience playing this game!

subtledoctor said:

Danacm said:

If you dont like rest spam, the caster classes are not best roleplaying experience, its a bad design from the game where you fight after fight, and need rest after every fight, mostly in early in the game.

Respectfully disagree. The caster doesn't have to take the lead in every fight. They can hang back and use missile weapons/magic items in simple encounters, saving the full power of their spellbook for particularly dangerous encounters. Conserving spells and limiting rests is good RP and a satisfying tactical challenge.

Things like my "level 1 cantrips" mod help, you can use unlimited (slightly weakened) 1st-level spells to handle most fights, and save your high-level arsenal for real threats.

I think i agree with @subtledoctor , maybe i dont need to cast my full power at every corner...

And again @SomeSort , i'll try theses strategies too! i think i was just bread and butter and it seems there are a lot of strategies to make, i didnt know protection from magical weapons were just 4 rounds

Danacm

subtledoctor said:

Danacm said:

If you dont like rest spam, the caster classes are not best roleplaying experience, its a bad design from the game where you fight after fight, and need rest after every fight, mostly in early in the game.

Respectfully disagree. The caster doesn't have to take the lead in every fight. They can hang back and use missile weapons/magic items in simple encounters, saving the full power of their spellbook for particularly dangerous encounters. Conserving spells and limiting rests is good RP and a satisfying tactical challenge.

Things like my "level 1 cantrips" mod help, you can use unlimited (slightly weakened) 1st-level spells to handle most fights, and save your high-level arsenal for real threats.

There are other problems with the game, and there arent mods for everything. And the best solution should be to the devs modify things to improve the game more, to be more interesting after couple of years.

elminster

Magodark said:

Thanks for the reply @SomeSort !

i'm playing BGT and with it some mod that reduces XP to 75%, that's why i may be underlevel too... And in my party i only had Aerie with some kind of invisible purge and she got angry with Korgan and leaved, i'm having a really tough time with mages... when i get to surface i'll look for some more quests to level up a bit!

Just another question if you're still here, i'm i supposed to use all my lvl 5 slots with Breach? Because almost every wizard casts protection from magical weapons, there is other ways to dispell it?

Thanks!

Remove Magic. But it's not guaranteed to work.

Myrag

There is good resource on this since there are quite few spells that will do the job.

http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/SpellsReference/SpellProtections.htm

Papa_Lou

SomeSort said:

The old saying is "linear warriors, quadratic wizards". Fighter-types gain power at a comparable rate through the saga. Wizards start off weak but as they level up they become unstoppable forces of nature.

At level 12, you haven't hit "unstoppable force of nature" stage. The wizard's power is tied to what spells he can cast, and you have just unlocked level 6 spells. Each level of spells lets you do progressively more and more ridiculous things. Right now, about the cheesiest thing you can do is abuse Mislead, which is a hard-to-dispel version of invisibility.

At level 14, you get your 7th level spells, which brings Mordenkainen's Sword and Project Image. Mordenk's Sword is basically an unkillable summon, and Project Image creates a clone of you who has all of your spells memorized, effectively doubling the size of your spellbook (and letting you cast those spells with no personal risk), which greatly reduces your need to rest. That's a big power jump.

At level 16, you get Abi-Dalshim's Horrid Wilting, which is by far the best "nuke" (e.g. damage spell) in the base game before you get High-Level Abilities. Suddenly you are able to wave your hand and have things just fall over dead. And all those ADHW's are multiplied over all of your Project Images. That's another big power jump.

At level 18, you get Time Stop, which lets you literally *stop time*. You get Improved Alacrity, which lets you cast multiple spells per round, (in extreme cases, it lets you literally empty your entire spellbook in an instant). You get Wish, which if you have a high enough wisdom gives a shot at an option which will replenish all of your spells, effectively eliminating the need to ever rest, *EVER*. And again, all of these are multiplied over all of your level 7 spell slots because they're all available to your Projected Images.

By the end of Throne of Bhaal, a wizard can cast a clone who will then stop time, empty his entire spellbook, then end with a Wish to restore all of his spells, leaving the original Wizard fully stocked up to repeat the process over... and over... and over... and over... and over... until everything in the realms is dead or the wizard is just too bored to go on.

I'll also note that if you're hitting the Underdark at level 12, you're probably a little bit underleveled. Chapter 2 is interesting because you can pay the 15,000 at any point, which means some people pay as soon as they get it and leave for Spellhold with 300,000 XP, while others complete every single quest and leave for Spellhold with 1,500,000 XP.

As a result, the Chapter 4-5 content can either be really easy (if you leave late) or really tough (if you leave early). It looks like you were on the "leave early" side of things, which explains why you're not feeling super-powerful right now. By the time you return to the surface, those feelings of power will come.

... Huh.

I've really been playing mages the wrong way, apparently. I've rarely used any of those spells, but after reading that, I'm intrigued, and suddenly want to go do a mage or sorcerer playthrough.