Who gets to scribe which rare scrolls?
Taylan
Member Posts: 76
It seems that for some high-level spells, the number of scrolls you're assured to be able to attain (through fixed drops, rewards, containers, and stores) can be scarce enough that you can't have all your mages scribe every spell in the game unless you're lucky enough to get additional rare scrolls as random drops. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Furthermore, some scrolls can't drop randomly at all unless you install the corresponding component of SCS. I'm assuming that this mostly affects high-level scrolls, effectively making sure that you can't ever attain more than X amount of certain powerful scrolls throughout the whole saga.
In my case I'll have three mages starting from mid-SoA: my PC who's a fighter/mage, Imoen, and Aerie. I intend to keep them throughout the saga (until the end of ToB).
Given that, is there anything I should be highly cautious of with regard to who gets to scribe which scrolls?
For example, right now the way I use my F/M PC is that I only have her cast battle buffs for difficult fights to become a near-invulnerable tank; otherwise she just runs around with armor and functions as a regular fighter. Now I'm not really sure if this is how I should be using an F/M at later stages of the game but if so, it would mean that she doesn't need any direct-damage spells and should instead just make sure to scribe all the battle buff spells like Mantle, Protection from Energy, Absolute Immunity etc.
Any thoughts/suggestions/warnings? Am I over-analyzing?
Furthermore, some scrolls can't drop randomly at all unless you install the corresponding component of SCS. I'm assuming that this mostly affects high-level scrolls, effectively making sure that you can't ever attain more than X amount of certain powerful scrolls throughout the whole saga.
In my case I'll have three mages starting from mid-SoA: my PC who's a fighter/mage, Imoen, and Aerie. I intend to keep them throughout the saga (until the end of ToB).
Given that, is there anything I should be highly cautious of with regard to who gets to scribe which scrolls?
For example, right now the way I use my F/M PC is that I only have her cast battle buffs for difficult fights to become a near-invulnerable tank; otherwise she just runs around with armor and functions as a regular fighter. Now I'm not really sure if this is how I should be using an F/M at later stages of the game but if so, it would mean that she doesn't need any direct-damage spells and should instead just make sure to scribe all the battle buff spells like Mantle, Protection from Energy, Absolute Immunity etc.
Any thoughts/suggestions/warnings? Am I over-analyzing?
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Comments
In my opinion it is best to have somewhat of a role distribution between all casters and populate the spell books accordingly and later fill with the other spells once you find them.
If you want your FM to be played as a fighter with a lot of protection, please do, there is nothing wrong with that. I can only say that you should consider a nice robe or bracers such that you get decent AC and retain your spell casting. It is good to be able to buff or debuff without problems.
Doesn't Spirit Armor take care of that? It's equivalent to wearing an AC1 armor and even buffs saving throws... I always use that when I want to be able to cast spells during combat. Or are there more important level 4 spells?
With that lineup, Imoen should get priority for the highest-level spells. After all, the other two will get spell slots much later than her. You shouldn't even need any level 8 spells for the two multiclasses until ToB, or maybe very late in SoA.
On the random scrolls ... it's more that random drops in vanilla follow a specific list with weird balance and a lot of holes. There are 58 spell scrolls that can drop at random, out of 188 spells available in the game. Fourteen level 1 spells are on the list. Sixteen level 7 spells are on the list. No level 2 or 3 spells are on the list, and only one level 4 spell is.
You can actually get a lot of the good level 6-8 scrolls as random drops in vanilla, just not all of them. All four of the level 8 spells I'm planning to give my current Dragon Disciple are on vanilla's random drop list, for example.
A fighter/mage in armor ... the problem is, you're going to get dispelled. And at that point, since you can't take your armor off in combat, you're just a weaker fighter who can use scrolls and wands. Or maybe you want to start off battles with an offensive spell sometimes; you can't do that if you're putting on armor for the fight.
Besides, having the best AC all the time isn't that important when you can protect from incidental hits with Stoneskin.
However you want to play is fine
Thing is, I'm playing SCS on insane difficulty and try not to cheese. I'm already having some struggles in SoA chapter 2, so I definitely see a chance that I could have major troubles at later sections of the game if I don't pick the right strategies.
Felt kinda bad when I had to semi-cheese the fight against Ployer with his wizard friends. I cut two of the wizards down to shreds before their pre-buffs kicked in, as they were still in the teleport-in animation and hadn't turned hostile yet... Comes out you can bribe them instead to turn against Ployer, which even gives more XP, but that ship has sailed.
Wasn't the only fight I had big struggles with though. Some fights in the de'Arnise Keep felt impossible until I started laying tons of traps with Yoshimo, then not only lured enemies into them but also fought them at doors/bottlenecks to decrease the pressure on my tanks. Setting all traps successfully required save/load cramming which could be argued to be a form of cheese, as you can basically turn a 40% success rate to a 100%...
Postponing fights is always okay with tactical mods. The difficulty goes up a lot with higher level foes, thus, try to catch on to the tricks or feel free to ask them.
I don't know scs myself, I play other nasty mods.