Its very difficult to find if you don't know about it as well, so it's more of a very lucky find for the new player. I consider it a secret item because of that.
still don't know why they patched it into the original tho... it's a ridiculously strong item at least that early in the game.
Low level mages are quite usless, and the orignal ring helps with that. The bg2 version is almost usless for bg1.
Now if you give it to Edwin then you get a really powerful mage.
... Killing Firebead at the start of the game makes all NPCs that join you level 4. Level 4 Xzar had 4x level 1 slots and 3x level 2. Edwin would have 5 x level 1, and 4x level 2.
Add ring of wizardry and he has 10 level 1 slots and level 4 right from the start.
Comments
it's a ridiculously strong item at least that early in the game.
This ring corrects that problem, as later editions of the game did.
Now if you give it to Edwin then you get a really powerful mage.
I gave it to Neera... LOTS of Wild Magic!!! (Pretty useless but fun)
Add ring of wizardry and he has 10 level 1 slots and level 4 right from the start.