Wizard or Sorcerer?

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Which one's better in this game? I know that in other D&D games sorc usually won out, but what about here?

Also, what do you guys think about this party:

Half-Orc barbarian
Human Fighter
Elf Ranger (dual weapons + longbow)
Human Cleric
Half-Elven Wizard or Sorcerer

I'm considering maybe taking both a sorc and a wiz instead of the ranger, and perhaps making the fighter an archer+sword & shield. Or perhaps taking out the barbarian? Is one spellcaster (not including cleric) enough? Tell me your thoughts.

Thanks

 

Nice party. One thing I would say is replace the cleric with a bard, first time I played through ToEE, I used a bard instead of a cleric, and wasn't short on healing. Trust me, a bard with a crossbow and spell penetration is all you need for healing and some magic. Plus he can converse.


As for having a ranger, the only good part of having one when I played through was the entangle spell. I would recommend taking a druid/fighter instead, and specialize in a ranged weapon or dual-wield or whatever.

And although the sorcerer is good, I would take the Wizard solely for the item creation feats. The Gauntlets of Dexterity +6 and Gauntlets of Giant Strength +6 are incredible, and the extra feats are nice. Anyways, you can get a really good NPC sorcerer (Level 10! And a demon to boot) later on when you're in the temple. So definitely go with the Wizard.

 

Agree, Wizard is definitely the way to go. You'll also be able to scribe spells into your spellbook as you go...

Also, specializing in Glaive is a good thing. Though some might say that it's exploiting doughnut reach. (Reach in ToEE is broken, as you can hit people next to you).. From what I hear it's supposed to be like a doughnut, People 15' out are outside the donut(not hittable), people 6-10' out are in the doughtnut (hittable), and people 2-6' are in the hole in the middle (not hittable)...

ToEE allows that closest center "hole" group to be hittable as well.. So if you have a fighter with greater Cleave, and weapon specialization(glaive), and you get in the center of a group of goblins, it quickly turns in to a bloodbath...

Anyway blame Zhuuge for the doughnut analogy he was the first person I've heard use it..

 

Thanks guys!

Any others have comments?

 

A donut, that's rich...

Yes, I agree , go with the glaive, and combat reflexes and a bunch of fighter feats to specialize in it. There is a masterwork glaive somewhere in the Temple that you can enchant yourself.

If there are any magical ones in the Temple I would love to know but I doubt it.

 

Do people generally agree a rogue is useless? If so, what is a good replacement PC?

I like having a cleric around, but I would have made her with a higher strength and charisma, less dexterity and constitution.

 

Personally i found Rogue, Wizard, and Sorcerer to be mostly useless.

Rogue becose you have very little use for one.
Wizard and Sorcerer becose most of the spells i picked at least made little difference, and becose almost half the enemies in the entire game tries to kill your wizard/sorcerer no matter what. I had bugbears charge through Dwarf-Paladin/figher, Elf-Ranger, halfelf-Druid with tonns of free attacks of oppertunities, just to get to the Wizard and beat him with sticks and rocks. Half the fights in the temple itself i had to reload becose the wizard died within rounds.

Might just be that im not good at wizards

I have heard of others playing through with a game with 5 wizards so everything is posible.

My sugestion for best team ? 4 fighters and 1 cleric.

Wizard vs Sorc, i would recomend Wizard then, beeing able to learn more spells (handy for item creation, wizard strongest point (next to teleport)), And the "scribe scroll" feat you gain for free completelly rules, and makes sorcerer useless if you know how to use it.

[ March 26, 2005, 19:26: Message edited by: raptor ]

 

I took a wizard(x)/fighter(1), elven. With a longsword and high Tumble skill plus the Armour spell, she was quite a fearsome combatant. I probably switched to Finessed rapier, as her DEX was 22 (with gloves) compared to STR 14, but I can't recall.

 

You should go with the Sorcerer. 2 for a fun and easy game.

I first finished the game with a party of 1 fighter, 1 wizard, 1 cleric, 1 ranger and 1 thief. Then I tried again with a party of: 2x fighters, 1 cleric and 2x sorcerers to see the difference. It was so much easier... like a walk in the park
Situations that was nearly impossible before was over before it began (almost). A couple of fireballs each round followed by slow and magic missiles or web will take out anything. When I picked up the 3rd sorcerer on the fire node I took out the Balor alone with damage from magic missiles.

The offensive power of a sorcerer far exceeds a wizard. Even though the wizard is able to learn more spells so what? Most of the time you only use 5-7 different spells anyway (offensive evocation spells like magic missiles, fireball etc. And also spells like web, knock). Maybe it is not as pretty as all the other fancy pancy stuff a wizard can do... but it is effective! AND it gets the job done very very fast!

The thing being said with the monsters allways go after the sorcerers... well - no groundbreaking news here: You all know it... use it to your advantage. It will give the fighters plenty of room for teaming up on approaching monsters.
By the way... why do you think monsters allways go after the spellcasters? Because they are lethal (not just to one creature at a time but often to a large group). Nobody really cares about the fighters!!!

So go with 2 sorcerers and feat like spell penetration (greater), maximize damage etc. focus on evocation and so on.

 

Just a quick input, Remember that the wizards "Scribe scroll" allows him to cast more spells per day than the sorcerer. simpyl scribe out a horde fo spells and have stacks of 20 or 30 spellscroll lying around in inventory. And you have a much larger firepower than any sorcerer will have unless he spends a feat to do the same.

 

Sure... if you have the gold and xp then everything is possible.
But another downfall of a wizard is that he can only memorize a certain number of the spells he has in his spellbook. A sorcerer have access to all the spells he knows at any time. Major advantage... Too many times when playing a wizard you end up in situations where you would have wished that you had memorized other spells for a specific situation (the fact that you don't know what to expect). Then you end up with a wizard that is useless for the rest of the battle. (sure he can do some fancy but rather useless spells after he used up the 1 fireball spell he memorized... or he can do a dance! But who really cares?)

 

Personally, I found him to be very useful, if only for his sneak attack (5d6 at level 9, hit 4 times IIRC), which can deal a lot of damage if connected.

 

Scribing a level 1 scroll as a level 1 caster cost you 25 gold, and 1XP loss. As most level 1 spells save the offensive like magic missle doesnt have any real bonus to having high casterlevel it doesnt matter if its scribed at casterlevel 1 or 15. Identify, true strike, jump, sleep, summon monster 1 etc (some have duration difference on level but usually irrelevant) This means that for 1000 gold, and 40XP loss you could scribe a copy of every level 1 spell for wizards in players handbook. considering reading/casting a scroll is considered equal in all aspects to casting a spell from memorisation, i dont see why a wizard would be more limited than a sorcerer in choice of spells Hed actually have more spell available (level 1 wizard would have hes normal 1 spell slot +1 for high int, +40 scrolls. compared to sorcerers 4-5 castings of their 2 available spells) and would be ready for almost any situation.

Not to mention that sorcerers Usually have the problem with learning so few spell that whenever they do need that featherfall spell, they realise they only have magicmissle, burning hands, mage armor, and identify.It is easier to pick a spell such as featherfall, or detect secret doors when it doesnt Limit your combat abilities becose it wont burn your enemies to cinder.

Sorcerer is undoubtelly the best fireballer or magicmissler around, If thats what you want to do. but there is a reason why Wizard got that scribe scroll feat for free, with it a wizard can rival with any sorcerer in pretty much any situation if you use it. If you dont use the feat, then you are basically inferior to the sorcerer in most situations (save item creation)

Okie i guess thats enough steam for one evening.

 

Hmm... you do make quite alot of assumptions. First of all you think that a wizard have access to all the spells he needs. Remember he has to find, buy (or study at a cost) them first where a sorcerer can choose the spells from a list. So the wizards success is based on the fact that he needs to gain access to spells he needs. You could end up in situations where you don't have ex. Web or Fireball spell at all?
Also the advantages you give are made around a single feat (scribe scrolls). I do believe a sorcerer can choose that feat also but I'm not sure. If it is the case then I think it would be fair to not use that as an advantage for a wizard?!
Also you mention only cheap 1st. level spells. But how exspensive (in terms of xp and gold) are spells of level 6 and higher to scribe.
I do agree that "in the real fantasy world" he he a wizard would perhaps be a better choice due to the more spells available (more fun to play) and due to the fact that there would prob. be more than one way to solve a pusle and many more different situations you could end up in, but in these kind of games (TOEE, BG II, IWD etc.) I would still use a sorcerer because of the offensive powers. Not just magic missiles and fireballs but also higher level spells like ex. icestorm etc.
If you disregard having spend x amount of gold, time and xp on scribing all the scrolls you think you would need I still belive that in many cases you end up with a wizard that has memorized the wrong spells for the situation (or don't have enogh of them).
But try and make a party with 2 fighters, 1 cleric and 2 sorceres and see the difference

 

One thing to remember is the level 10 limit. A higher level wiz with quickened or heightened spells from a broader selection should be better, but with the limit, the soc seems the better choice. Why not one of both. Another question is the cost of the scrolls for the wiz. Those 3rd and 4th level spell get expensive. I never had an over abundance of cash in this game with 5 or 6 char. Always kept those extra magic items.

 

I would agree... and to be honest, unfortunately in these games there are too much focus on combat situations where only (well almost) direct offensive spells counts. Even if you could remember the Featherfall spell would you choose to do so in this game? True if you play a pen & paper AD&D game it might look different. But then again I don't see the role of a sorcerer as a defenssive player that can cast a spell for any situation, but rather an offensive center of the group with one purpose... destruction of foes. The number of available spells for a sorcerer is way to limited to fill out any other role.
I liked the combo of two sorcerers (later three) in this game because you always faced large groups of monsters. So my first sorcerer would (almost always) cast web to keep like 80% of the foes in one place. That gives the two fighters plenty of time to finish of the remainders that were not stuck in the web. Then all the offensive spells like magic missiles, melf acid arrow, fireballs, lightning and icestorms would rain down of the remainders.

 

@Little Man With BIG Nose:

"Hmm... you do make quite alot of assumptions. First of all you think that a wizard have access to all the spells he needs. Remember he has to find, buy (or study at a cost) them first where a sorcerer can choose the spells from a list. So the wizards success is based on the fact that he needs to gain access to spells he needs. You could end up in situations where you don't have ex. Web or Fireball spell at all?"

Wizard gets all cantrips, and 3x level1 spells +1 for each inteligence modifier he/she has. I doubt anyone would be playing wizard with less than 16 int, more likelly 18, so you start with 7 level 1 spells, you also gain 2 spells of any level you can cast per level. level 10 wizard would then have 25 spells in ADITION to whatever spells he find and learn from scrolls or spellbooks(compared to sorcerer with 15 spells known, and cant get any more in any way.). So i do think you would gain acces to what you needed

"Also the advantages you give are made around a single feat (scribe scrolls). I do believe a sorcerer can choose that feat also but I'm not sure. If it is the case then I think it would be fair to not use that as an advantage for a wizard?!"

Hehe, yes a Sorcerer can *waste* a normal feat selection on this feat, but whats the point ? it makes you able to scribe more scrolls of the same spells you already can cast many times. The wizard gain the advantage of scribing all the spells he ocationally have a use for (feather fall, detect secret doors, animate rope, etc) In adition to any extra defence spells he might want to take ? and then use entire memorisation on offensive spells. He just gains much more from this feat than a sorcerer can.

"Also you mention only cheap 1st. level spells. But how exspensive (in terms of xp and gold) are spells of level 6 and higher to scribe."

Sure, level 3 fireball, scribed as a level 5 caster (5D6 dmg): 375 gold and 15 XP, i still dont see this as a bad thing. At level 5, you still gain 300XP for killing a normal orc, you can get a score of them with that scroll, it certainlly makes up for the XP penalty in my eyes. But yes i would probablly have made less higher level scrolls than low levels.

Level 6 chain-lightning, scribed as a level 11 caster (11D6 dmg): 1650 gold and 66 XP. Again the XP is irrelevant, but the gold might start to suffer a bit more.

Level 9 Meteor Swarm, scribed as level 17 caster: 153 Xp, 3825 gold.

but by the higher levels wizard will usually have enough memorisation slots that he isnt as bothered by this anyways. Still not as much as sorcerer, but in most cases you run out of most other things before you run out of sorcerer casting points at 15+ level anyways.

"I do agree that "in the real fantasy world" he he a wizard would perhaps be a better choice due to the more spells available (more fun to play) and due to the fact that there would prob. be more than one way to solve a pusle and many more different situations you could end up in, but in these kind of games (TOEE, BG II, IWD etc.) I would still use a sorcerer because of the offensive powers. Not just magic missiles and fireballs but also higher level spells like ex. icestorm etc. "

Absolutelly agreed. for CRPG's like these i'd definitivelly say sorcerer. Especially since the only game where you could actually use the idea i have mentioned is in TOEE, And even there it is a bother. (though you get the instant skipp of time it takes ot make them.)

"If you disregard having spend x amount of gold, time and xp on scribing all the scrolls you think you would need I still belive that in many cases you end up with a wizard that has memorized the wrong spells for the situation (or don't have enogh of them)."

Well, at least in P&P you can always get around with those 40 level 1 spells costing a total of 1000 gold, and since 1000gold for scribing equals 1 day of scribing, you could probablly scrive them while your teams fighters and rogues lie healing in the local Inn, and the cleric patching up hes teammates and armors. So no time wated


Hehe, When all comes down to it, its a matter of taste, Wizard Can overcome pretty much any disadvantage he has to sorcerer if you are willing to do a bit of work. Sorcerer could also walk around this by taking 1 level of wizard to get acces to scribe scrolls for free, get some level 1 spells, and ability to find and scribe more. So by using wizard he would actually overcome most of hes weaknesses again.

Okie done for today, you may all sigh in relief now.

 

Be warned that specialist wizards may not really be what you would expect from a D&D computer game. They really expect you to have half of your memorised spells from your specialist school. I ended up having Clairvoyance in the slots I could have spent for fireball. Not like Clairvoyance was so bad. It even fit my great wizard character (an elven princess with a rapier). Just be warned.

 

Agreed. I'd tend to avoid Specialist Wizards in ToEE, unless you are going for a backup mage in a party with a regular mage, or trying something like a "novelty party" filled with all mages.

In other 3E games, like NWN, specialist wizards are much more realistic choices since they don't block you from as many schools (lose only 1 school) and don't force you to use your bonus slot for your special school. So in NWN, a very good wizard build involved using a Necromancer specialist.