For the record, a druid can simply cast Nature's Beauty without breaking invisibility through rings, the Pixie Dust spell or whatever. If that lands, you're also screwed. Or he can just slam you with the Horn of Blasting (protecting himself with Free Action) and it's game over if you get stunned.
There's also more than one way to look at these class vs class battles. How about from a more "raw" PoV, like if a level 9 druid straight out of character creation seeks out his level 8 (XP equivalent) wizard counterpart. If in-game druids were (in theory) ever as common and ferocious as their SCS mage counterparts then mages would be hard pressed to break past the levels where they can actually reach items like the Staff of Magi. Imagine only having access to level 4 spells max but then forced to fight druids (plural) that can summon two nymphs and use Insect Plague (each) every other new area.
Irrelevant, a mage can use the same items, plus a bunch of way more potent Mage only ones. I play with SCS, even in BG1 where SCS massively cheats and over-levels the druids to level 9+ when you are around 4th or 5th as a mage they are still easy to kill.
Yesterday i did the Druid Grove with my Mage (well, 39 Barb dual-classed to 18 Mage, so basically a mage with lots of HP's right now), you know how long it took me to kill the Shadow Druid "ambush"? A round, lol.
I can cast a Planetar with no spell casting time, now i don't care if i get stunned by some lucky horn of blasting that may or may not stun me (you know it gets a save right?), but a Druid is not gonna stand up to a Planetar wailing on it for very long before they get vorpal'd and that assumes i'm lazy and don't even use any of the Planetar's vast plethora of spells.
Druid has some neat tricks and is a fun class, but it's no mage and placing a player controlled Druid Vs a player controlled Mage, assuming players know what they are doing, it's Mage 100% of the time. Incidentally if we are including items like the horn of blasting then i'll just throw in wand of paralyzation, yet another item restricted to arcane casters. Or maybe i'll just Dragon Breath on Inc to give me room to cast Time stop then drop 5-6 ADHW's on the area, or turn into a Mind flayer and devour that druidic brain matter all whilst the druid cannot move or act.
Heck if i have chain contingency loaded up with 3 ADHW's the druids wouldn't even live past the point where they turned hostile lmao.
As for Nature's Beauty then you know it has a casting time of 6 and only affects creatures in a relatively small radius, right? Just simply move away, you don't even need to interrupt it.
Now sure, there is a small portion of the game where the Druids stupid XP tables give them a level or 2 advantage, but that fails to account for the fact that at high levels they get ruined by the same tables, although i would also point out that Mages actually level up relatively quickly at the mid-level range, it's only when they are in reach of level 6 spells they slow down.
@dunbar i apologize, it seems that something i wrote in my 1rst post on the tread derailed the topic to a druid against mage debate. it was not my intention and i hope that you have solved your doubts about if bringing only one mage in your party or have also a backup one. i also hope that the OT discussion has been useful to you as it shows how the power of each class depends on the player's preferences, playstyle and knowledge on how to play it.
i want to add a last thought to the tread, a mage is powerful on his own, but what boosts his power to the top are the items he can use, mainly the RoV and the SoTM. as in game we can have only 1 of each item a second mage will never have a power comparable to your main caster so he can be useful until your main caster reaches really high levels and/or with some play styles, but is never really needed. as your doubt are mainly focused on the late game, you did mention draconis, i grant you that the main caster will surely be more then enough to handle every situation.
so choose according to your own playstyle and don't worry about it.
@gorgonzola Thanks, this discussion has been useful to me in that I've decided to concentrate on using one mage better, rather than two mages adequately. To this end I'll start bringing my mage in to play earlier in the game rather than just throwing the Kitchen Sink +4 at everything.
Too bad no contingency can block all of the druids anti mage tricks. Whoops.
Guarantee i can counter any scenario involving a druid with a mage, assuming equal access to equipment and same XP totals.
Pretty easy to make a guarantee that you won't be able to prove.
Not really, could probably set up a multi-player and attack each other if it really mattered to you, i am unsure of the MP rules though as i only play offline myself.
MP wouldn't work, since many druid combos (Insect plagues included) rely on red-circled opponents, and two player characters in MP will remain blue-circled to each other even if they attack each other.
On topic: a single arcane caster is definitely doable in ToB, with or without SCS. It might require a bit more surviving vs certain creatures (non-casters cannot interact with any creature naturally immune to normal weapons and PfMW, like liches, Tanova, certain demons), but it's definitely doable. My one and only successful no-reload I won without casting a single level 9 spell the entire game, and my spellcasters were a Skald (CHARNAME) and Imoen... Until she got chunked, and then Jan the rest of the game. I think Nalia might've been chunked as well, but I can't remember.
Just in case anyone's interested I finally (after re-starting the whole run) cracked both Draconis and Abazigal (on core rules, no SCS) using 1 x Mordy's Sword, 1 x Planatar, 1 x Berserker with GWW and 1 x Mage with Wand of Spell Striking (in that order). The biggest problem was keeping the rest of the party out of harm's way.
Edit: What I didn't know until I tried it was that Mordy's Sword doesn't count as a Summons.
Dude, you don't -need- a mage.. ever. Nor do you -need- any other class.
1 mage is enough, a bard would be enough..
Especially if you already have a cleric.
When fighting mages, i find true seeing to be more important than any protection removers.
Especially since you have Hexxat, who can lay traps that blow through any protection there is.
PS! Save all the Tenser's Transformation and Improved Haste scrolls you find, and keep the Carsomyr. Give them to Hexxat and be sure to pick Use Any Item.. and spike traps. Lots of spike traps. You'll see how easily you mitigate, and surpass, -any- mage/boss protection removers.. and you'll even giggle a little as the resistance you meet seem futile at best.
1 mage is fine, 2 characters that act as mages, able to cast or read scrolls is also fine. 2 mages speeds up cheese kills with spells but 3 really speeds it up. On core rules you can pretty much do whatever. I'm sure 4 jesters with Jan or Aerie stats could beat the game.
Comments
Yesterday i did the Druid Grove with my Mage (well, 39 Barb dual-classed to 18 Mage, so basically a mage with lots of HP's right now), you know how long it took me to kill the Shadow Druid "ambush"? A round, lol.
I can cast a Planetar with no spell casting time, now i don't care if i get stunned by some lucky horn of blasting that may or may not stun me (you know it gets a save right?), but a Druid is not gonna stand up to a Planetar wailing on it for very long before they get vorpal'd and that assumes i'm lazy and don't even use any of the Planetar's vast plethora of spells.
Druid has some neat tricks and is a fun class, but it's no mage and placing a player controlled Druid Vs a player controlled Mage, assuming players know what they are doing, it's Mage 100% of the time. Incidentally if we are including items like the horn of blasting then i'll just throw in wand of paralyzation, yet another item restricted to arcane casters. Or maybe i'll just Dragon Breath on Inc to give me room to cast Time stop then drop 5-6 ADHW's on the area, or turn into a Mind flayer and devour that druidic brain matter all whilst the druid cannot move or act.
Heck if i have chain contingency loaded up with 3 ADHW's the druids wouldn't even live past the point where they turned hostile lmao.
As for Nature's Beauty then you know it has a casting time of 6 and only affects creatures in a relatively small radius, right? Just simply move away, you don't even need to interrupt it.
Now sure, there is a small portion of the game where the Druids stupid XP tables give them a level or 2 advantage, but that fails to account for the fact that at high levels they get ruined by the same tables, although i would also point out that Mages actually level up relatively quickly at the mid-level range, it's only when they are in reach of level 6 spells they slow down.
i apologize, it seems that something i wrote in my 1rst post on the tread derailed the topic to a druid against mage debate. it was not my intention and i hope that you have solved your doubts about if bringing only one mage in your party or have also a backup one. i also hope that the OT discussion has been useful to you as it shows how the power of each class depends on the player's preferences, playstyle and knowledge on how to play it.
i want to add a last thought to the tread, a mage is powerful on his own, but what boosts his power to the top are the items he can use, mainly the RoV and the SoTM. as in game we can have only 1 of each item a second mage will never have a power comparable to your main caster so he can be useful until your main caster reaches really high levels and/or with some play styles, but is never really needed. as your doubt are mainly focused on the late game, you did mention draconis, i grant you that the main caster will surely be more then enough to handle every situation.
so choose according to your own playstyle and don't worry about it.
On topic: a single arcane caster is definitely doable in ToB, with or without SCS. It might require a bit more surviving vs certain creatures (non-casters cannot interact with any creature naturally immune to normal weapons and PfMW, like liches, Tanova, certain demons), but it's definitely doable. My one and only successful no-reload I won without casting a single level 9 spell the entire game, and my spellcasters were a Skald (CHARNAME) and Imoen... Until she got chunked, and then Jan the rest of the game. I think Nalia might've been chunked as well, but I can't remember.
Edit: What I didn't know until I tried it was that Mordy's Sword doesn't count as a Summons.
1 mage is enough, a bard would be enough..
Especially if you already have a cleric.
When fighting mages, i find true seeing to be more important than any protection removers.
Especially since you have Hexxat, who can lay traps that blow through any protection there is.
PS! Save all the Tenser's Transformation and Improved Haste scrolls you find, and keep the Carsomyr.
Give them to Hexxat and be sure to pick Use Any Item.. and spike traps. Lots of spike traps.
You'll see how easily you mitigate, and surpass, -any- mage/boss protection removers.. and you'll even giggle a little as the resistance you meet seem futile at best.