Party of 5 casters and divine/fighter?

Comments

• Skatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352

  June 2015 edited June 2015

  I love spell-heavy parties, but it doesn't have to be all arcane. Why 5 mages and no sixth slot? If you want to keep the last slot open for NPC quests, then you can always use that one as bait/meat/fodder.
  
  Is it possible to play the team you suggest? Yes. Haer'dalis is a bard, so no spells above level 7. Jan and Aerie are MC, so they level more slowly. This means the first and best high level spells go to your Charname and Neera. You need to have someone in the front, to take the hits. Preferably two to keep the aggro. With your setup that should mean probably a buffed up H'D and a geared and buffed up Viccy. Or you can tank with your buffed up mage.
  
  You can easily steal a shitload of spells if you are into that sort of thing, also you can specialize a little so that one mage focuses on disablers while another fling nukes, if you are running low on spell scrolls for a certain spell. Haer'dalis levels fast, so as you probably already know, does good damage with ie Skull trap or other caster level dependant damage spells.
  
  Consider switching out one of your arcane's for another diviner; Jaheira or Anomen. Both sling spells, but can also double as tanks. Maybe this is not aligned to your plan though, but each would bring alot to the table with your setup since they can add both summons and buffs.
  
  So to summarize my 2 cents: possible yes, funny? Well.. it will be tediouos to have to buff every single fight. Hell, even a pack of kobolds can slay you without proper buffing since you don't have a natural low AC/high HP meatshield in the front to take the hits. It's fun to try out different charname and party builds, but if you want to play through the whole game wihtout losing interrest, a more balanced party is usually more fun. This is in my humble opinion of course.
  
  EDIT: btw, if you have Viccy I guess you won't mind evil party members and in that case Edwin is of course a solid choice. Better than Neera IMO but I guess you really like wildmages ?

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• semiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903

  June 2015

  Go for it. A 5-caster party is quite doable in BG2. Fun, too.
  

  
  I've actually done a no-reload SCS2 run of a party of 6 spellcasters, and they did well even though I tried to play them as fighters rather than mages. I did buff a lot, and even resorted to creating a custom auto-buffing spell, but enemies auto-buffed in my install as well, and the degree of buffing I did wouldn't have been necessary for a vanilla game. Clerics, druids, bards, and especially mages are very versatile.
  
  Jan was extremely useful in that run thanks to his flashers. The fun thing about flashers is that they are area-effect but don't harm your party, which means you can have Jan target somebody with poor AC, even somebody in your own party or one of your summons, and hit multiple enemies with a nasty stun effect. You can actually kill Kangaxx with flashers, though the spider gnome trick, which makes flashers on Kangaxx much more practical, might not work in EE.
  
  The lack of weapons and armor will weaken your party, and there are in fact very few staffs and robes to compensate. But spellpower is quite sufficient to deal with most any encounter in the game, even magic-immune enemies.
  
  Problematic enemies would include demons, drow, mind flayers, golems, dragons, liches, mages, and some other assorted enemies. Lower Resistance is very productive against dragons and demons (other enemies with magic resistance generally come in groups, and LR is single-target), Cloudkill hurts most anything, and your summons can provide melee power. Unfortunately, the only truly effective melee summons in BG2 are Fire Elementals (the druid version), Mordenkainen's Sword, Skeleton Warriors (only available at level 15), Devas, and Planetars. But mage-style elemental summoning spells can help out at lower levels if you really need them (to fight golems, for example).
  

  
  Any party can deal with any encounter, though some parties have more ways of doing so. Your 5-caster party will be fine, though it'll require some different tactics when dealing with magic-resistant or magic-immune critters.

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• werepacman Member Posts: 6

  June 2015

  Thanks for suggestions.
  I think I should make it more clear - 6 party members: 5 arcane casters. Because Viconia is either divine caster or fighter.

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• werepacman Member Posts: 6

  June 2015

  For group of magic resistant enemies like skeletons there is sunburst. Party should be immune to fire.
  But fighting golems could be complicated.

  0
• Skatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352

  June 2015

  You can use tenser's once you get level 6 spells, but eg. the golems in de arnise keep you may need other strategies against since most do that quest fairly early.

  0
• Wowo Member Posts: 2,064

  June 2015

  semiticgod said:

  Go for it. A 5-caster party is quite doable in BG2. Fun, too.
  

  
  I've actually done a no-reload SCS2 run of a party of 6 spellcasters, and they did well even though I tried to play them as fighters rather than mages. I did buff a lot, and even resorted to creating a custom auto-buffing spell, but enemies auto-buffed in my install as well, and the degree of buffing I did wouldn't have been necessary for a vanilla game. Clerics, druids, bards, and especially mages are very versatile.
  
  Jan was extremely useful in that run thanks to his flashers. The fun thing about flashers is that they are area-effect but don't harm your party, which means you can have Jan target somebody with poor AC, even somebody in your own party or one of your summons, and hit multiple enemies with a nasty stun effect. You can actually kill Kangaxx with flashers, though the spider gnome trick, which makes flashers on Kangaxx much more practical, might not work in EE.
  
  The lack of weapons and armor will weaken your party, and there are in fact very few staffs and robes to compensate. But spellpower is quite sufficient to deal with most any encounter in the game, even magic-immune enemies.
  
  Problematic enemies would include demons, drow, mind flayers, golems, dragons, liches, mages, and some other assorted enemies. Lower Resistance is very productive against dragons and demons (other enemies with magic resistance generally come in groups, and LR is single-target), Cloudkill hurts most anything, and your summons can provide melee power. Unfortunately, the only truly effective melee summons in BG2 are Fire Elementals (the druid version), Mordenkainen's Sword, Skeleton Warriors (only available at level 15), Devas, and Planetars. But mage-style elemental summoning spells can help out at lower levels if you really need them (to fight golems, for example).
  

  
  Any party can deal with any encounter, though some parties have more ways of doing so. Your 5-caster party will be fine, though it'll require some different tactics when dealing with magic-resistant or magic-immune critters.

  This run is an absolutely fantastic read and I learned a lot about the game and just what is possible from reading it.
  
  I'd totally recommend the full caster party and avoid anything that resembles a fighter. For the sixth slot I'd suggest going with Cernd.

  3
• abacus Member Posts: 1,307

  June 2015

  Summons can give you some melee umph when required... Skeleton Warriors, Elementals and/or Mordy Swords plus Haste can mince most things.
  
  I guess the biggest problem will come in certain areas of Watcher's Keep with the Dead Magic Zones... but you could just put your head down and run!

  0
• Arunsun Member Posts: 1,592

  June 2015

  The big problem about a full party of spellcasters is that the summoned creatures limits are still the same (You may still summon but one planetar, one elemental prince, and a total of 5 creatures) if you are not exploiting the project image bug.
  And even more boring, once you are high level, every fight will solve itself with a couple of time stop and horrid wilting

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• semiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903

  June 2015

  By the time your party of mages gets Horrid Wilting and Time Stop, you'll be in late SoA or early ToB, and the enemy will be casting Horrid Wilting and Time Stop, too. Until your party hits 3 million XP per party member, 18 million XP total, you're going to be playing without 9th-level spells.
  
  The thing about high levels is that you have to play the game for a long time at low levels to ever get them.

  2
• werepacman Member Posts: 6

  June 2015

  I am trying to fight without summons as it seems not fair. Enemy spends its spells and attacks on disposal targets while you attacking him.

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• JohannesN Member Posts: 8

  June 2015

  Certainly possible, I have made a run through SOA and ToB with a solo sorceror with SCS2 and Ascension installed. The battle to get out of drow city was a pest.
  

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