@unavailable Time Stop is not the only thing. A bard loses many other things. Most notably Project Image and there are many other things as well.
And well, cheating is cheating.
A bard can cast high-level spells from scrolls but that does limit the number of times the bard can cast each spell depending on the number of scrolls in the game.
@unavailable Time Stop is not the only thing. A bard loses many other things. Most notably Project Image and there are many other things as well.
And well, cheating is cheating.
A bard can cast high-level spells from scrolls but that does limit the number of times the bard can cast each spell depending on the number of scrolls in the game.
Ha, ha So can a thief with use any item. That's pretty much why I have said they are quasi casters. Real casters have full spell casting ability.
- @Pantalion It takes 3 spells and a sequencer (so effectively 4 spell slots) to deal the damage comparable to a single casting of Horrid Wilting!
A cleric with 21 Wisdom gets 11 level 3 Cleric slots, rendering this largely a non-issue. You will likely run out of Sequencers before you run out of Smites, and you can pre-prep a Sequencer the night before from any spare spells, and it casts instantly, robes or not.
Spell Sequencer + Smites is a level 7 Arcane spell to product 60d4 damage. Horrid Wilting is a level 8 Arcane Spell to produce 20d8 damage.
While you can argue that HW is less awkward to set up and cast, it's definitely not a spell that can be done without.
- Blinded trap-laying is a silly bug (they should fix it some day), but since you're exploiting it,
You can exploit it, but it is hardly necessary to do so to make use of snares, which you can also cast around corners in combat, or simply set up in advance as a devastating handshake before finishing off any survivors with regular tactics.
I wonder if it is possible to play with a solo blinded thief.
Solo Illusionist/Thief? Sure. They just need a seeing eye dog cat. Find Familiar is a level 1 spell, and the cat can hide consistently enough until the I/T can cast invisibility on them. Instant Hide and Snares makes them pretty brutal, if a tad rest dependent, and they can grab farsight eventually to let them target spells normally if needed, rather than needing to be in near melee range for it.
Even without a kitty, a thief still gets informational dialogue "Wyvern attacks Pan", showing them that they are within sight range of an enemy and letting them know to hide and set snares. You'd generally want to cheat explore everywhere for convenience though, if only to reduce the tedium of clicking.
- I hope you don't use Power Word: Blind, for that would require the use of a level 8 slot (same level as Horrid Wilting) and moreover I'm not sure if it works on party members.
It doesn't, sadly. If it did, spell slots are a non-issue, since they will be cast by a Projected Image (meaning everything you do costs one level 7 spell slot total), or you'll be facing a major encounter where images are impossible and 20d6 MR bypassing damage per round (or all in a single round if your first spell is "Improved Alacrity") is very worth a single spell to set it up.
But you're quite right, causing blindness is awkward, especially on a gnome illusionist. Generally your best bet is to level up Cernd to 14 (not hard, just tedious, rob a store for scrolls and duo scribe with him for a bit), have him memorise nothing but Nature's Beauty, then turn him hostile and wait until he casts it for the permanent blind effect, no save (making this the best use of Cernd possible, I'd say).
- Oh, if you say "give up party friendly", there's something better than Incendiary Cloud. How about 8 Skull Traps from Edwin?
Sure, instantaneous damage is conditionally more valuable than vastly more spell interrupting DoTs, however:
1: Skull Traps cap at 20d6. CL above 20 doesn't exist for anything except dispel checks. 2: If we're talking improved alacrity, note that 11 Holy Smites is still party friendly, and 220d4, for an average difference of 5 damage assuming the mage saves everything, while IA + Spike Traps, which offer no save, and you can also have eight if you want, and are still party friendly.
Again, I agree that Necromancy has good spells, but they are not necessary spells, especially to the gnome multiclasses that lack them.
- I believe that percentage is far less than 95... Fire resistance is pretty common, especially in ToB.
I actually ran through and counted in EEKeeper at one point (by all means read through my old posts if you like, way too lazy myself), and there's only a few dozen enemy types at most in the game with significant fire resistance. They're still far more common than other elemental resistances thanks to all the demons and fire giants hanging around, but the overwhelming majority of targets in the game are humanoid, and immune to diddly squat.
- And in case a monster is resistant to fire, there's no good option for the illusionist then for mass damage.
Ignoring the above damage examples I provided, I would suggest that Edwin and anyone else is better off laying down "Symbol of Stun" (something Edwin actually does better, but a fantastically useful spell for anyone) or other mass disables rather than wasting time dealing damage.
It is worth noting that "Mirror Image" stops magic damage just as well as it stops a fireball, but doesn't do anything against "Hold Person".
- I once saw a video where Edwin cast Time Stop, IA, and then dropped 3 to 4 HWs and killed the noble dragon Adalon. I really felt bad seeing it.
Adalon has 254 HP and no elemental resistance to anything except Cold. You'd arguably get better results off of a Spell Trigger'd Implosion x3/Chain Contingency Implosion x3 set up beforehand, since they ignore MR, and if 120d6 doesn't do it, you have a free round of damage to finish her off.
Not that I, uh, routinely murder noble dragons or anything.
- I guess the same applies to FoD ( "nothing is immune to it"). As for bosses who are immune to death magic, they are also immune to Feeblemind.
Yeah, if I recall it's Planetars, Devas and, for Feeblemind, Liches and Demons. The only other thing is Chaotic Commands/Death Ward and the absurdly rare Shambling Mounds are immune to FoD, Mord's Swords to Feeblemind. Not something that comes up often either way.
- And why disable someone when you can directly kill them? It offers a painless and humanitarian departure for the victim from the mortal realm.
Generally? Because it's a level 5 versus a level 7 spell slot, meaning you can memorise more Project Images, which is the best spell in the game, and they otherwise have the same save: -2 Save vs Spell.
- That's the only spell available for mass dismissal of enemy summons.
Death Fog deals scratch acid damage for a turn, disrupts casters, finishes off trolls, and automatically kills any summoned creature regardless of level. Death Spell's only perk over it is that it doesn't kill your own summons while Death Fog needs some micro.
My only contention is that Edwin, amulet included, is far from the most powerful NPC, let alone most powerful mage possible, even pure, which is a wild mage with decent Wisdom.
Who's that?
The most powerful NPC? Jan. Aerie is pretty good, but needs more Gnome in her.
Generally your best bet is to level up Cernd to 14 (not hard, just tedious, rob a store for scrolls and duo scribe with him for a bit), have him memorise nothing but Nature's Beauty, then turn him hostile and wait until he casts it for the permanent blind effect, no save (making this the best use of Cernd possible, I'd say)
. @Pantalion So you'd make your character blind forever for the sake of trap-laying? A fine sacrifice, but a strange one. I don't really know what to say to describe your sacrifice. But, what would you do if a Drow mage in the Underdark dispels your blindness and you don't have Cernd with you?
Death Fog deals scratch acid damage for a turn, disrupts casters, finishes off trolls, and automatically kills any summoned creature regardless of level. Death Spell's only perk over it is that it doesn't kill your own summons while Death Fog needs some micro
. It also damages you, and you generally don't get protection from acid except a few scrolls.
The most powerful NPC? Jan. Aerie is pretty good, but needs more Gnome in her.
Well everyone has their opinion. I guess it just depends on their play styles.
It is worth noting that "Mirror Image" stops magic damage just as well as it stops a fireball, but doesn't do anything against "Hold Person".
It's strange that mirror image blocks fireballs or any other AoE spell, because logically, the AoE spell hits all the images at the same time and thus should dispel them. Moreover, rather than targeting those images, it should target the Mage, that is, bypassing those images, since it's AoE. It's all right with single target spells, but AoE spells should behave differently. I wonder if it's a bug?
- So you'd make your character blind forever for the sake of trap-laying? A fine sacrifice, but a strange one.
Sure would. Mild AC and THAC0 penalties in exchange for having hide in plain sight and snare in plain sight is a pretty great trade.
- But, what would you do if a Drow mage in the Underdark dispels your blindness and you don't have Cernd with you?
Go back to using snares "fairly" I guess? Like I said, it's hardly necessary, and seven traps to start off an encounter is still more powerful than most classes can even get close to.
- It also damages you, and you generally don't get protection from acid except a few scrolls.
Well, the Cloak of Mirroring works, and if you really need to for some reason, you could drop a Spell Immunity. but generally it's not necessary to stand inside your own Death Fog spell.
- Well everyone has their opinion. I guess it just depends on their play styles.
So long as everyone agrees that the most powerful NPC is: A: Some flavour of arcane spell caster (since none of the mages in game are Necromancers, Transmuters, or Abjurers), and B: Capable of getting at least level 7 spells then I'm happy to agree that it's fairly nebulous, though Jan's saving throw advantage, HLA traps, ability to bypass SI:Div, and ability to pick up 75%+ MR give him certain advantages other mages can't easily match.
10% RoV, 10% AoS, 5% Holy Symbol, 10% RoG, 30% Purifier, 10% Hindo's Doom = 75% without Lum's. Incidentally, a CHARNAME I/T can get 100% without losing casting if they have Lum's 5%, the appropriate Hell Trial's result, and an ally with the Shield of Fyrus Khal nearby (preferably an invisible Viconia who is holding FoA+5, Amulet of Power, Human Flesh, and her own Holy Symbol to also have 100% MR).
On the other hand, if someone were to suggest that any Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Bard, Monk, or Cleric were somehow more powerful, I could only conclude that they'd miscalculated or misunderstood some basic mechanics or were exclusively referring to an artificial no-resting environment.
- It's strange that mirror image blocks fireballs or any other AoE spell, I wonder if it's a bug?
Bug or not, it's been how the spell works since 1998 and I don't see them fixing it now, especially since that would mean fixing all the single target effects that currently work better than they should (like Acid Arrow causing its DoT after hitting an image).
@Pantalion: A level 21 normal trap instantly kills the target on a failed save vs. death, but the save is at a +4 bonus, not a -4 penalty.
@Rik_Kirtaniya: Power Word: Blind will work on party members if you have SCS installed and choose the right component, which makes it a single-target spell. Otherwise it's an area-effect party-friendly spell.
Illusionist/Thieves are extremely difficult to blind because illusionists get a +2 bonus to saving throws vs. illusion spells. They also impose a -2 penalty to enemy saves against their own illusion spells, which cancels it out if they try to blind themselves, but gnomes get save bonuses depending on their CON, so Jan would be extremely hard or even impossible to blind depending on his level and whether you cast Doom on him at first.
The blind thief trick also lets you hide in plain sight, just like a Shadowdancer. But the penalties are pretty steep: -4 AC, -4 THAC0, restricted visual range that affects your Detect Illusions and Detect Traps abilities, and no ability to target anyone that's not right next to the thief. Stealth and traps can still fail if an enemy is right next to the blind thief, since the thief's visual range still extends to the spots right next to him or her.
I invented the trick and am very fond of it, so I'd be sad to see it go. It's very fun and less overpowered than it might seem at first, since it comes with a set of pretty heavy disadvantages that you need to manage.
Illusionist/Thieves are extremely difficult to blind because illusionists get a +2 bonus to saving throws vs. illusion spells. They also impose a -2 penalty to enemy saves against their own illusion spells, which cancels it out if they try to blind themselves, but gnomes get save bonuses depending on their CON, so Jan would be extremely hard or even impossible to blind depending on his level and whether you cast Doom on him at first.
@semiticgod It seems then that the blindness immunity effect on Jan's spectroscopes are redundant. Nevertheless, that contraption looks cool. Maybe someday, I'll make one like his for myself.
The blind thief trick also lets you hide in plain sight, just like a Shadowdancer. But the penalties are pretty steep: -4 AC, -4 THAC0, restricted visual range that affects your Detect Illusions and Detect Traps abilities, and no ability to target anyone that's not right next to the thief. Stealth and traps can still fail if an enemy is right next to the blind thief, since the thief's visual range still extends to the spots right next to him or her.
I invented the trick and am very fond of it, so I'd be sad to see it go. It's very fun and less overpowered than it might seem at first, since it comes with a set of pretty heavy disadvantages that you need to manage.
Also, if we consider things from a realistic viewpoint, it should hardly be possible for a blind thief to avoid his own traps. What I mean is that the fact that traps which have been set by the thief in the game cannot be triggered by the thief himself, is to simulate the fact that he has seen where he has laid them and thus knows where he should step to avoid them. But a blind thief cannot see where he has laid the trap and so it is very possible that he can be the one who is caught by his own trap. Of course this is not implemented in this game, but if you were to consider it realistically, a blind thief would be the first victim of his traps.
@semiticgod And hey, after thinking about that blindness thing for some time, I've got a nice idea. The easiest way to blind a thief would be to become an ardent follower of the Unseeing Eye cult. Yes, they'll pluck out eyes free of cost. And that'll solve the problem.
From a roleplaying perspective I would always choose Sorcerer, but after so many playthroughs of Baldur's Gate it's more about the gameplay now, for which I enjoy the customisability of my Mage's spellbook. I'm likely to play both many times again, though. There's little chance of me breaking even on playthroughs per class. Arcane casters go go go.
Mages due to them having Invokers/evokers. As Harry Dresden would say, I love my quick and dirty magic.
Red Dragon Disciple is a close second.
Most fun for a melee head like me? Dual wield dwarven fighter cleric (come BG2). With my Crom Faeyr and Runehammer. My 25 str, 25 dex, 25 con and 23 wisdom.
Also because I love blade barrier and globe of blades.
Downside to the cleric with that up, you need to keep your melee far away. And yes, I can get the same stats and even more utility with FoA and Defender of Easthaven. I just like dwarves w hammers
As i like to play solo or 2 3 people parties being able to cast spells way before the scrolls become availlable is something i really enjoy. Potentially with a low wis sorc you have access to infinite legit xp after few soa quests, and at that point you are really close to have infinite spells.
Comments
Yes, there's Demogorgon, Amelysan and even Balthazar.
A cleric with 21 Wisdom gets 11 level 3 Cleric slots, rendering this largely a non-issue. You will likely run out of Sequencers before you run out of Smites, and you can pre-prep a Sequencer the night before from any spare spells, and it casts instantly, robes or not.
Spell Sequencer + Smites is a level 7 Arcane spell to product 60d4 damage. Horrid Wilting is a level 8 Arcane Spell to produce 20d8 damage.
While you can argue that HW is less awkward to set up and cast, it's definitely not a spell that can be done without.
- Blinded trap-laying is a silly bug (they should fix it some day), but since you're exploiting it,
You can exploit it, but it is hardly necessary to do so to make use of snares, which you can also cast around corners in combat, or simply set up in advance as a devastating handshake before finishing off any survivors with regular tactics.
I wonder if it is possible to play with a solo blinded thief.
Solo Illusionist/Thief? Sure. They just need a seeing eye
dogcat. Find Familiar is a level 1 spell, and the cat can hide consistently enough until the I/T can cast invisibility on them. Instant Hide and Snares makes them pretty brutal, if a tad rest dependent, and they can grab farsight eventually to let them target spells normally if needed, rather than needing to be in near melee range for it.Even without a kitty, a thief still gets informational dialogue "Wyvern attacks Pan", showing them that they are within sight range of an enemy and letting them know to hide and set snares. You'd generally want to cheat explore everywhere for convenience though, if only to reduce the tedium of clicking.
- I hope you don't use Power Word: Blind, for that would require the use of a level 8 slot (same level as Horrid Wilting) and moreover I'm not sure if it works on party members.
It doesn't, sadly. If it did, spell slots are a non-issue, since they will be cast by a Projected Image (meaning everything you do costs one level 7 spell slot total), or you'll be facing a major encounter where images are impossible and 20d6 MR bypassing damage per round (or all in a single round if your first spell is "Improved Alacrity") is very worth a single spell to set it up.
But you're quite right, causing blindness is awkward, especially on a gnome illusionist. Generally your best bet is to level up Cernd to 14 (not hard, just tedious, rob a store for scrolls and duo scribe with him for a bit), have him memorise nothing but Nature's Beauty, then turn him hostile and wait until he casts it for the permanent blind effect, no save (making this the best use of Cernd possible, I'd say).
- Oh, if you say "give up party friendly", there's something better than Incendiary Cloud. How about 8 Skull Traps from Edwin?
Sure, instantaneous damage is conditionally more valuable than vastly more spell interrupting DoTs, however:
1: Skull Traps cap at 20d6. CL above 20 doesn't exist for anything except dispel checks.
2: If we're talking improved alacrity, note that 11 Holy Smites is still party friendly, and 220d4, for an average difference of 5 damage assuming the mage saves everything, while IA + Spike Traps, which offer no save, and you can also have eight if you want, and are still party friendly.
Again, I agree that Necromancy has good spells, but they are not necessary spells, especially to the gnome multiclasses that lack them.
- I believe that percentage is far less than 95... Fire resistance is pretty common, especially in ToB.
I actually ran through and counted in EEKeeper at one point (by all means read through my old posts if you like, way too lazy myself), and there's only a few dozen enemy types at most in the game with significant fire resistance. They're still far more common than other elemental resistances thanks to all the demons and fire giants hanging around, but the overwhelming majority of targets in the game are humanoid, and immune to diddly squat.
- And in case a monster is resistant to fire, there's no good option for the illusionist then for mass damage.
Ignoring the above damage examples I provided, I would suggest that Edwin and anyone else is better off laying down "Symbol of Stun" (something Edwin actually does better, but a fantastically useful spell for anyone) or other mass disables rather than wasting time dealing damage.
It is worth noting that "Mirror Image" stops magic damage just as well as it stops a fireball, but doesn't do anything against "Hold Person".
- I once saw a video where Edwin cast Time Stop, IA, and then dropped 3 to 4 HWs and killed the noble dragon Adalon. I really felt bad seeing it.
Adalon has 254 HP and no elemental resistance to anything except Cold. You'd arguably get better results off of a Spell Trigger'd Implosion x3/Chain Contingency Implosion x3 set up beforehand, since they ignore MR, and if 120d6 doesn't do it, you have a free round of damage to finish her off.
Not that I, uh, routinely murder noble dragons or anything.
- I guess the same applies to FoD ( "nothing is immune to it"). As for bosses who are immune to death magic, they are also immune to Feeblemind.
Yeah, if I recall it's Planetars, Devas and, for Feeblemind, Liches and Demons. The only other thing is Chaotic Commands/Death Ward and the absurdly rare Shambling Mounds are immune to FoD, Mord's Swords to Feeblemind. Not something that comes up often either way.
- And why disable someone when you can directly kill them? It offers a painless and humanitarian departure for the victim from the mortal realm.
Generally? Because it's a level 5 versus a level 7 spell slot, meaning you can memorise more Project Images, which is the best spell in the game, and they otherwise have the same save: -2 Save vs Spell.
- That's the only spell available for mass dismissal of enemy summons.
Death Fog deals scratch acid damage for a turn, disrupts casters, finishes off trolls, and automatically kills any summoned creature regardless of level. Death Spell's only perk over it is that it doesn't kill your own summons while Death Fog needs some micro. Who's that?
The most powerful NPC? Jan. Aerie is pretty good, but needs more Gnome in her.
@Pantalion So you'd make your character blind forever for the sake of trap-laying? A fine sacrifice, but a strange one. I don't really know what to say to describe your sacrifice. But, what would you do if a Drow mage in the Underdark dispels your blindness and you don't have Cernd with you?
It also damages you, and you generally don't get protection from acid except a few scrolls.
Well everyone has their opinion. I guess it just depends on their play styles.
It's strange that mirror image blocks fireballs or any other AoE spell, because logically, the AoE spell hits all the images at the same time and thus should dispel them. Moreover, rather than targeting those images, it should target the Mage, that is, bypassing those images, since it's AoE. It's all right with single target spells, but AoE spells should behave differently. I wonder if it's a bug?
Sure would. Mild AC and THAC0 penalties in exchange for having hide in plain sight and snare in plain sight is a pretty great trade.
- But, what would you do if a Drow mage in the Underdark dispels your blindness and you don't have Cernd with you?
Go back to using snares "fairly" I guess? Like I said, it's hardly necessary, and seven traps to start off an encounter is still more powerful than most classes can even get close to.
- It also damages you, and you generally don't get protection from acid except a few scrolls.
Well, the Cloak of Mirroring works, and if you really need to for some reason, you could drop a Spell Immunity. but generally it's not necessary to stand inside your own Death Fog spell.
- Well everyone has their opinion. I guess it just depends on their play styles.
So long as everyone agrees that the most powerful NPC is: A: Some flavour of arcane spell caster (since none of the mages in game are Necromancers, Transmuters, or Abjurers), and B: Capable of getting at least level 7 spells then I'm happy to agree that it's fairly nebulous, though Jan's saving throw advantage, HLA traps, ability to bypass SI:Div, and ability to pick up 75%+ MR give him certain advantages other mages can't easily match.
Incidentally, a CHARNAME I/T can get 100% without losing casting if they have Lum's 5%, the appropriate Hell Trial's result, and an ally with the Shield of Fyrus Khal nearby (preferably an invisible Viconia who is holding FoA+5, Amulet of Power, Human Flesh, and her own Holy Symbol to also have 100% MR).
On the other hand, if someone were to suggest that any Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Bard, Monk, or Cleric were somehow more powerful, I could only conclude that they'd miscalculated or misunderstood some basic mechanics or were exclusively referring to an artificial no-resting environment.
- It's strange that mirror image blocks fireballs or any other AoE spell, I wonder if it's a bug?
Bug or not, it's been how the spell works since 1998 and I don't see them fixing it now, especially since that would mean fixing all the single target effects that currently work better than they should (like Acid Arrow causing its DoT after hitting an image).
@Rik_Kirtaniya: Power Word: Blind will work on party members if you have SCS installed and choose the right component, which makes it a single-target spell. Otherwise it's an area-effect party-friendly spell.
Illusionist/Thieves are extremely difficult to blind because illusionists get a +2 bonus to saving throws vs. illusion spells. They also impose a -2 penalty to enemy saves against their own illusion spells, which cancels it out if they try to blind themselves, but gnomes get save bonuses depending on their CON, so Jan would be extremely hard or even impossible to blind depending on his level and whether you cast Doom on him at first.
The blind thief trick also lets you hide in plain sight, just like a Shadowdancer. But the penalties are pretty steep: -4 AC, -4 THAC0, restricted visual range that affects your Detect Illusions and Detect Traps abilities, and no ability to target anyone that's not right next to the thief. Stealth and traps can still fail if an enemy is right next to the blind thief, since the thief's visual range still extends to the spots right next to him or her.
I invented the trick and am very fond of it, so I'd be sad to see it go. It's very fun and less overpowered than it might seem at first, since it comes with a set of pretty heavy disadvantages that you need to manage.
And hey, after thinking about that blindness thing for some time, I've got a nice idea. The easiest way to blind a thief would be to become an ardent follower of the Unseeing Eye cult. Yes, they'll pluck out eyes free of cost. And that'll solve the problem.
Beholders are nasty, so are their cultists.
Sorcery! on the other hand...
Red Dragon Disciple is a close second.
Most fun for a melee head like me? Dual wield dwarven fighter cleric (come BG2). With my Crom Faeyr and Runehammer. My 25 str, 25 dex, 25 con and 23 wisdom.
Also because I love blade barrier and globe of blades.
Downside to the cleric with that up, you need to keep your melee far away. And yes, I can get the same stats and even more utility with FoA and Defender of Easthaven. I just like dwarves w hammers
Potentially with a low wis sorc you have access to infinite legit xp after few soa quests, and at that point you are really close to have infinite spells.