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Behold the power of first level spells!

Xan successfully enchanted Tranzig with a Charm Person spell. Told him to go stand in the corner of the room. And cast Lightning Bolt on himself.

Toast! 
GrummashedtaterswubbleJuliusBorisovAedanCamus34sarevok57
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  • OlvynChuruOlvynChuru Member Posts: 3,075
    Here's what I do when I charm Tranzig: for each spell he has, I make him start casting the spell, then I make him move, interrupting the spell. Once he is out of spells, my party beats him up.
    mashedtatersJuliusBorisov
  • GrumGrum Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,100
    You can also switch his weapon choice from mace to fists so he can't even fight back (or at least not effectively)
  • ElendarElendar Member Posts: 831
    Whats the point of that? Tranzig never lives long enough to even get that lightning bolt off anyways...
  • PK2748PK2748 Member Posts: 381
    Spook is my favorite. Saving throw penalties actually make it seem useful in the long term unlike most first level spells
    LateralusmashedtatersJarrakulMirage
  • LateralusLateralus Member Posts: 903
    Elendar wrote: »
    Whats the point of that? Tranzig never lives long enough to even get that lightning bolt off anyways...

    Usually i would agree with you, but this party was in grave danger of getting slaughtered by tranzig if I didn't think of something. I'll spare you all the details but I should mention that I breezed through Nashkel and nobody had 2nd level spells and nobody had a very good chance of hitting him if he got that Ghost Armor spell off. If Charm didn't work I had a pretty good back up plan but far riskier.
  • LateralusLateralus Member Posts: 903
    Artemius_I wrote: »
    I maintain my stance on the almighty power of Blindness.

    It's a another great one but one time a mage was able to cast Confusion on my party while blinded! Surprised the hell out of me.
    mashedtaters
  • wubblewubble Member Posts: 3,156
    Raduziel wrote: »
    Magic Missile.

    - Scales with level (check)

    - No save (check)

    - No hit roll (check)

    - Ranged (check)

    - Low speed factor (check)

    The best spell ever to disrupt any caster.

    it also hits multiple times each of which has a separate chance of disrupting casting if I remember correctly.
    LateralusAerakar
  • DemivrgvsDemivrgvs Member Posts: 315
    wubble wrote: »
    Raduziel wrote: »
    Magic Missile.

    - Scales with level (check)

    - No save (check)

    - No hit roll (check)

    - Ranged (check)

    - Low speed factor (check)

    The best spell ever to disrupt any caster.

    it also hits multiple times each of which has a separate chance of disrupting casting if I remember correctly.
    Each missile also has a separate check to bypass magic resistance and each missile dispels a mirror image. Magic damage is also by far the best dmg type in the game together with crushing.
    wubbleDaevelonLateralusAerakar
  • BlackorbBlackorb Member Posts: 62
    edited March 2016
    Behold the power of the best level 1 spell in game Infravision!
    Why?
    Because you can see better in the dark like a cat ! :p
    Post edited by Blackorb on
    GrumAerakarsarevok57
  • BlackorbBlackorb Member Posts: 62
    edited March 2016
    Anyway jokes aside :D for baldurs gate 1 i like sleep

    - 50 % of baldurs gate 1 content cleared with out any trouble (check)

    For baldurs gate 2 spook and magic missle are my favorites
    wubbleAerakarsarevok57
  • SirBatinceSirBatince Member Posts: 882
    Speaking of sleep, how come victims dont wake up when hit? Im pretty sure it was like this pre-EE. Right now its a cheap clone of hold person. Thats just wrong
    [Deleted User]
  • YamchaYamcha Member Posts: 486
    Artemius_I wrote: »
    I maintain my stance on the almighty power of Blindness.

    Blinding yourself or the enemy ? (you can enter stealth as long as no enemy is in sight, easy when you're blind)
    wubbleMERLANCE
  • LateralusLateralus Member Posts: 903
    SirBatince wrote: »
    Speaking of sleep, how come victims dont wake up when hit? Im pretty sure it was like this pre-EE. Right now its a cheap clone of hold person. Thats just wrong

    Ironic name for the spell because it makes the game boring. I try to reserve it for OH CRAP moments (like being surrounding by poisonous spiders, bandit ambush, sirens, etc.).
  • OlvynChuruOlvynChuru Member Posts: 3,075
    When cast by a max-level bard or avenger, Chromatic Orb is nice because it's one of the few ways to turn enemies into stone in BG1 (another way is to dominate a basilisk).
  • RaduzielRaduziel Member Posts: 4,714
    +6 in save throw means +30% of not delivering any of the nasty effects of the spell.

    I really don't like it. Wish there was just a hit roll, like in PnP (and the effects are much more deadly too).
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,315
    edited March 2016
    lunar wrote: »
    Raduziel wrote: »
    Magic Missile.

    - Scales with level (check)

    - No save (check)

    - No hit roll (check)

    - Ranged (check)

    - Low speed factor (check)

    The best spell ever to disrupt any caster.

    Cons:Blocked by the shield spell, which every enemy mage in scs (unless kitted as an enchanter) has as a prebuff. Works well in the vanilla game, though.

    Also, since charm person has +3 to save, enemy mages are very difficult to charm as they have good save vs spells. The op was lucky to have it land.

    Its only +1 since Xan is an enchanter. That said for whatever reason Tranzig has a save vs spell of 4 (this has been the case since the original game). So you'd be lucky to get any spell that requires a save vs spell to work on him.
    Lateralus
  • DemivrgvsDemivrgvs Member Posts: 315
    elminster wrote: »
    lunar wrote: »
    charm person has +3 to save...
    Its only +1 since Xan is an enchanter.
    @elminster did EE changed something about specialist mages? Afaik the +-2 to saves has never been there within BG.

  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,315
    It's actually been in place since at least the original bg2. It just was never mentioned.
  • ShapiroKeatsDarkMageShapiroKeatsDarkMage Member Posts: 2,428
    You want to hear about badass first level magic? Hear this story.
    BelgarathMTH
  • DemivrgvsDemivrgvs Member Posts: 315
    elminster wrote: »
    It's actually been in place since at least the original bg2. It just was never mentioned.
    Strange, I remember I tried to test it in-game and I couldn't reproduce it (e.g. a target with save 19 could still dodge an Evoker's Fireball a couple of times). @elminster are you sure about it? If yes, does it work with any save type or only save vs spell?
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited March 2016
    @ShapiroKeatsDarkMage , At first, when I saw that the video you posted was over thirty minutes of nothing but a guy talking, I was going to give it a pass. But, Noah there actually has a pretty decent Charisma, and he got an instant reaction bonus from me, so I wound up taking the last thirty minutes of my day to hear him out, and I'm glad I did.

    I agree with him. First, Sleep, Charm Person, and Ray of Enfeeblement is a great volley of spells for three first-level wizards to use, if they were charged with taking out a heavily armed and armored party of six.

    This reminds me of SCS's "darkside kobolds" component for BG. Every party of kobolds in the Nashkel dungeon has one or two kobold shamans, who are scripted to cast Sleep on sight of the party. This is an instant party wipe for any party lower than fifth level, and there is no defense. So, in a no-reload, you have to wait for fifth level before going to the Nashkel Mines safely, unless you want to risk trying a thief strategy of stealth or invisibility and getting those kobold shamans backstabbed to death before they can cast.

    Second, I agree with him that if there is no chance for a player to die, the game is no fun. I can't believe the RPGA kicked him out because he changed the three spells from three useless first level Magic Missiles into an actually useful spell selection. Also, he wasn't trying to kill players with an unwinnable encounter. The dice rolls just went really badly for the players, which is a thing that happens in D&D.

    If they really have a rule that players cannot die, they should openly state that, and warn new DM's that they are not allowed to have players die in their games.

    The way my high school DM handled this was one of the reasons our games were so exciting. We had a house rule using the "unconscious at 0 hp, dead at -10 hp" system. We fell at 0 hp, and that blow rarely took us all the way down to -10. Since we were teens having a house party at his house, those of us who fell in the game often went upstairs and watched TV and socialized with other players who had fallen. (We usually had 6-8 players present, and when things started going badly in the game, there were usually more than one of us in the "waiting room". )

    After the remaining players defeated the bad guys, they'd find a way quickly to get us priority healing. Then, we'd be called back to the gaming table, which was downstairs in the basement of the house.

    That still didn't mean players never died. One of my friends had a character he'd been playing for two years mouth off to a trio of hobgoblins, after we'd been defeated and captured, needing to find a way out of the predicament. They all snarled and stabbed him at once, making their to hits, and getting high damage rolls. He died. He was devastated, and he actually mourned the loss of that character for weeks after. The DM was his brother, and he said later that his brother had thought he had full hit points and would probably survive the blows. He didn't realize the poor guy had already been hit and was down on hit points.
  • JarrakulJarrakul Member Posts: 2,029
    See, I took that video as mostly explaining how ridiculously overpowered Sleep is at low levels. And that's where I'm kind of "eh" towards the DM. Because it does make sense for the mages to use their best spells, and changing their spells from magic missile was definitely the right call, but I'm not sure it makes sense to give them a spell that's capable of knocking out the entire party at once without them being able to do anything about it (4 is actually below average for Sleep, which takes out 2d4 hit dice worth of creatures with no save), and then not modify the rest of the encounter to deal with that. The point of DMing is not to demonstrate that you know more overpowered BS than the players do. The point of DMing is to provide an interesting game. Which means making fights challenging and dangerous, but it doesn't mean making fights pointlessly lethal if the PCs haven't made any errors in judgement. Which is really what this comes down to. They lost initiative to the sleep mage, so they died. Without being able to even try to fight back. Against a random encounter that they saw coming and couldn't avoid. The more I think about it, the more I think my players would tar and feather me if I pulled that, and they'd be right to do so.

    Incidentally, this is also why I find claims of the weakness of low-level mages in early editions to be patently ridiculous. Yes, you die in one hit. Yes, you only get one spell. But if it's sleep, that one spell is more powerful than everything the entire rest of the party can do put together, so cry me a river.
    BelgarathMTHillathid
  • PhilhelmPhilhelm Member Posts: 473
    Speaking of Sleep, I once played a game with a DM and one other player. We each controlled two characters, and I ended up with a Kobold Sorcerer and a Kobold Thief (I had the D&D miniatures for them). One of my spells was Sleep, of course.

    Anyway, we were supposed to get a gem, or something like that, from a monster, but all of us were down on HP. I forget what the monster was, but there is no way we could have prevailed, wounded as we were. So my solution was to cast Sleep, so the DM rolled a save for the monster, failed, and cursed in anger. My Thief then snuck up and took the item and we ran off. The DM was actually angered that I defeated the encounter so easily, so had a bunch of monsters chase after us (I don't remember what happened after that).

    I was disappointed that the DM didn't like the fact that I used a non-combat solution to the situation. If anything, my Sorcerer should have gotten bonus XP.
    BelgarathMTHGoturalsarevok57
  • ElendarElendar Member Posts: 831
    Am I the only one that loves these infinity engine games but has zero interest at all in the pen and paper version? :P
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