Sorcerers vs. Mages - An unfair comparison

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Dispel Magic will not work on the more commonly used protections such as mantles, protection from magic weapons, and the like. It will work on stoneskin (bug, spell description of stoneskin says that dispel magic won't affect it). Breach will remove these, so I have found it to be far more useful than simply beating the mage with SotM or Carsomyr.

 

When we talk about who is the most powerful spellcaster in the game, we must limit ourselves to magic. A multi or dualclass Fighter/Mage (or Kensai, Berserker, whatever) has various advantages over the single-classed mage (be it a specialist, a wild-mage or the sorcerer). Some of this advantages are higher hit points, very good melee power, and the ability to equip armors and the like.

In creating this topic, my objective was to compare the raw spellcasting power of each of the various mage-like classes. I am NOT discussing the melee power (or other abilities that may be gained by a multi or dualclass). I don't care if a Fighter/Mage multiclass gives me access to fair use of weapons and better hit points, I am talking about spellcasting power here.

If we compare a Sorcerer, a Wild Mage, a Specialist, a plain mage and whatever multi or dualclass combination of mage you want, then we have that the Sorcerer wins all others in terms of spellcasting power . That is, who can wreak the most havoc with the use of arcane spells.

In BG2:ToB, we have that the spellcasting ability of multi and dualclassed characters is highly limited by the experience cap. They are the first ones to lose in this contest. In second comes the plain mage, who can have a vast spell pool from which to pick but just lacks the greater memorization ability of other classes. Then we have that the Specialist mages are thrown out next, because they may get more slots per level to memorize spells, but they lose the ability to cast spells from one whole school (and while Conjurers get the best deal here, they still miss out True Sight, which is a very valuable spell). Lastly, we only have the Wild Mage and the Sorcerer. The Wild Mage has a nice spell in Nahal's Reckless Dweomer, and can memorize up to 6 spells per level. If it wasn't for the wild surges which are sometimes annoying, the Wild Mage would tie here with the Sorcerer. Another hands-up for the Sorcerer is that he doesn't need to memorize, you just choose what you want to cast. With the other mage classes you may be faced with a "I should have memorized this instead" or a "I should have memorized more of this" scenario.

True, Fighter/Mages or whatever can be truly awesome indeed. A mid-level Fighter/Mage can bring down a dragon alone quite easily with a combination of melee attacks and defensive spells. However, so too can a Sorcerer.

Lastly, and as I have said before, dualclassing has been severely crippled by ToB because of the introduction of HLAs. So, you want a Kensai/Mage with various weapon proeficiencies? Then when you dual over to mage you will only be able to choose from 1 or 2 HLAs at best.

I hope I have made my points clear.

 

I'll agree that on raw spellcasting power the sorcerer is the most powerful, but he is not far superior in my eyes.

 

Of course, that only applies in CRPGs.

 

Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, and I respect yours.

In my eyes, the Sorcerer can wreak the most havoc with spells. But that's me though.

Peace.

 

Peace man

 

Alright, the fight is over. There's nothing to see here. Go home, people! There's nothing to see here.

The argument appears to have ended with an agreement to disagree.

 

Heh, nobody has to agree with me, I just didn't want people to read this and think that the other classes are not worth playing

 

Even though I expressed my frustration at not being able to do that much with my Conjurer when compared to what I could do with my Sorcerer, I never, ever said that the mage classes were not worth using.

Please, don't put words in my mouth.

 

I never said you said that, I just wanted to say that that should not be thought.

 

now as i look at this page i see alot of long replies. im goinb to write a short one only becasue im lazy. k?


yea i think sorcerors far out power mages and i always have. my main problem is i never have the right spell memorized as a mage so i die faster but i solved tht as a sorceror.