Priests have more spell slots than Mages?

Effortlessdepths

I'm playing through IWDEE, and I've noticed that my cleric has QUITE a lot more spell slots than my mage. It's kind of aggravating. The cleric gets a bonus to spell slots from wisdom, but mages don't. Also, the spell progression for clerics give them slightly more spells per level, and unlocks higher levels faster. Why is this? I have so many mage spells at my disposal, but so few spell slots so I have to keep my choices really limited.

Can anyone give a reason for this? Balance? It doesn't seem like it brings balance to me, the mage spells don't seem that much more powerful than the priest spells.

sarevok57

that is just the way that 2nd edition dnd works

in 3rd edition dnd mages started getting bonus spells from INT but clerics by default still had more spells per day

Balrog99

It isn't as obvious in IWDEE, but in the Baldur's Gate series the mage spells are just way more powerful. The first level mage spell 'Sleep' alone can get you pretty far in BG. Spells like Emotion, Slow, Death Spell and others can also trivialize many of the encounters in early to mid BG2. The longer spell progression for mages just equalizes things a bit.

Pokota

Balrog99 wrote: »

It isn't as obvious in IWDEE, but in the Baldur's Gate series the mage spells are just way more powerful. The first level mage spell 'Sleep' alone can get you pretty far in BG. Spells like Emotion, Slow, Death Spell and others can also trivialize many of the encounters in early to mid BG2. The longer spell progression for mages just equalizes things a bit.

Sleep is my workhorse spell in IWDEE until I get into the Vale of Shadows. Far more efficient use of my MU's time than one Magic Missile followed by THAC0 20 sling "attacks." Even accounting for IWD Sleep behaving differently from BG Sleep (IWD Sleep breaks on attack)