Haha fair enough. I’m not sure it’s worth it just to save a lvl 1 slot though. CO, MM, and maybe Shield have utility through the game, but possibly very little else.
Haha fair enough. I’m not sure it’s worth it just to save a lvl 1 slot though. CO, MM, and maybe Shield have utility through the game, but possibly very little else.
Hmm... U've forgotten Blindness! 👈
Blindness is a lvl 2 single-target disabler. I have Web, Knock, Mirror Image, Invisibility, and Melf’s Acid Arrow already. Please make the case for Blindness replacing one of these picks.
Blindness is a lvl 2 single-target disabler. I have Web, Knock, Mirror Image, Invisibility, and Melf’s Acid Arrow already. Please make the case for Blindness replacing one of these picks.
Hmm, bro, since U try to avoid the old good melee in favor of sophisticated wussy-style magic 😜, U seem to underestimate that Blindness spell! Okay, I will reply U with an opinion given by BG fandom:
"A creature made blind by the spell has their visual range reduced to 1 foot and is afflicted with a 4 point THAC0 and Armor Class penalty.
Very few creatures are outright immune to blindness, making this spell potentially useful even into late ToB when combined with saving throw penalties such as Greater Malison or Doom."
I’m not saying it doesn’t have uses. Probably a caster afflicted with blindness can’t cast. But it has a save. So it’s better against undead than Chromatic Orb, but its effect is arguably not as good against enemies that are also affected by CO’s special effect. I would generally prefer Glitterdust (AoE effect, but short duration), or even better, Power Word: Blind - for AoE effect and no save.
Random update here. I went through the main game to the end of the Severed Hand, and hit level 30 just prior to the end of SH. I then went to HoW, hit the point of no return, and went to TotL. The character is in the Watchknight Crypt, and I'm taking a pause with it for a few days.
I'm up to three reloads, all caused by carelessness. For #2, I omitted to buff with free action in the SH, and got hit with a hold. Then for #3, I forgot which encounters were in the base of each tower in TotL, and was not appropriately prepared for the Armored Plates. A fire-dependent arcane caster does not like Armored Plates, especially without pre-cast summons. After the reload, I had to use a project image for summons, cast simulacrum, and do a lot of re-casting of summons to survive. It's rare that this character has to rest before and after a single encounter, but I had to here. Armored Plates have magic resistance but poor saves (relative to the spot in the game), so Lower Resistance + Disintegrate worked well to reduce their numbers.
I find that this character doesn't use, and likely shouldn't use, much in the way of 'party' buffs. The emotion spells are cast from PI/Simulacrum-used scrolls, and it would be a bit of a waste to have them in the spell list.
Mind flayer kills don't give xp, but a maxed character doesn't care. One really annoying thing about Shapechange is that sometimes item bonuses are not re-applied after the Shapechange occurs or wears off. It makes a big difference going from AC -12 to AC 0 without noticing, because the MI + Stoneskin combo gets eaten away extremely quickly. The IH + Shapechange: mindflayer + Time Stop combo is a bit boring, but incredible. Certain encounters are completely trivialized that could be difficult without it - e.g. barbarian camp, harpy queen, Criek of Bane. Even though one has to take a round to shapechange to mindflayer after using TS, you still get 8 APR with mindflayer under IH, so you have a max 16 attacks during TS. That's typically enough to take out 5-7 enemies per use of TS.
There really aren't any must-have weapons. The most useful items overall for the Sorc are buff/immunizing items like Wailing of Virgins and Ring of Free Action, and of course Kossuth's Blood makes this character's casting faster and more powerful. Mage daggers aren't worth it, because any shapechange or summoned weapon removes the bonus spells. That seems to happen sometimes with the spellslot bonus rings too after a shapechange, which is a real pain.
Some spells are must-haves at the point in the game you can get them, but lose most of their utility later on. PFNW and even Fireball fall into these categories. There's no 1st level spell that I cast beyond CO and MM, and Shield when going against casters, and sometimes even those are cast rarely. To me, that justifies the decision to take Find Familiar as a starting pick. The "loss" of a potentially more-useful pick at spell level 1 just isn't relevant for most of the game. Find Familiar is borderline essential at the beginning, and much more useful than having access to Color Spray or Burning Hands in the mid-end game.
Comments
Polar bear hits like a truck and pretty fast.
Hmm... U've forgotten Blindness! 👈
Hey, bro, I'm trying to catch U inside Dragon's Eye with my Undead Hunter (level 18) 😉:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/88873/my-undead-hunter-hof-solo-from-scratch#latest
Blindness is a lvl 2 single-target disabler. I have Web, Knock, Mirror Image, Invisibility, and Melf’s Acid Arrow already. Please make the case for Blindness replacing one of these picks.
An admirable effort, but you won’t see Deathwish in Dragon’s Eye ever again.
Hmm, bro, since U try to avoid the old good melee in favor of sophisticated wussy-style magic 😜, U seem to underestimate that Blindness spell! Okay, I will reply U with an opinion given by BG fandom:
"A creature made blind by the spell has their visual range reduced to 1 foot and is afflicted with a 4 point THAC0 and Armor Class penalty.
Very few creatures are outright immune to blindness, making this spell potentially useful even into late ToB when combined with saving throw penalties such as Greater Malison or Doom."
https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Blindness
N.B. Damn, the Blindness is level 2 in IWD, while it's level 1 in BG! 👈
N.B. Wow, the duration of Blindness in IWD is 8 hours! 🤩
I'm up to three reloads, all caused by carelessness. For #2, I omitted to buff with free action in the SH, and got hit with a hold. Then for #3, I forgot which encounters were in the base of each tower in TotL, and was not appropriately prepared for the Armored Plates. A fire-dependent arcane caster does not like Armored Plates, especially without pre-cast summons. After the reload, I had to use a project image for summons, cast simulacrum, and do a lot of re-casting of summons to survive. It's rare that this character has to rest before and after a single encounter, but I had to here. Armored Plates have magic resistance but poor saves (relative to the spot in the game), so Lower Resistance + Disintegrate worked well to reduce their numbers.
I find that this character doesn't use, and likely shouldn't use, much in the way of 'party' buffs. The emotion spells are cast from PI/Simulacrum-used scrolls, and it would be a bit of a waste to have them in the spell list.
Mind flayer kills don't give xp, but a maxed character doesn't care. One really annoying thing about Shapechange is that sometimes item bonuses are not re-applied after the Shapechange occurs or wears off. It makes a big difference going from AC -12 to AC 0 without noticing, because the MI + Stoneskin combo gets eaten away extremely quickly. The IH + Shapechange: mindflayer + Time Stop combo is a bit boring, but incredible. Certain encounters are completely trivialized that could be difficult without it - e.g. barbarian camp, harpy queen, Criek of Bane. Even though one has to take a round to shapechange to mindflayer after using TS, you still get 8 APR with mindflayer under IH, so you have a max 16 attacks during TS. That's typically enough to take out 5-7 enemies per use of TS.
There really aren't any must-have weapons. The most useful items overall for the Sorc are buff/immunizing items like Wailing of Virgins and Ring of Free Action, and of course Kossuth's Blood makes this character's casting faster and more powerful. Mage daggers aren't worth it, because any shapechange or summoned weapon removes the bonus spells. That seems to happen sometimes with the spellslot bonus rings too after a shapechange, which is a real pain.
Some spells are must-haves at the point in the game you can get them, but lose most of their utility later on. PFNW and even Fireball fall into these categories. There's no 1st level spell that I cast beyond CO and MM, and Shield when going against casters, and sometimes even those are cast rarely. To me, that justifies the decision to take Find Familiar as a starting pick. The "loss" of a potentially more-useful pick at spell level 1 just isn't relevant for most of the game. Find Familiar is borderline essential at the beginning, and much more useful than having access to Color Spray or Burning Hands in the mid-end game.