all mages party - tips, advice wanted

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okie yesterday i started another game where i wanna try party consisting from mages only. well mage/thief will do also. i just gotta lockpick all those chests to find one Ruby Ray or Simmy and see the traps ect ! anyways

currently i have my char (sorcerer), Kelsey (sorcerer), Jan, Edwin and Adario (from TDD hes assasin lvl 12 dualing for mage atm). all at lvls 9-12.

im looking for some advice/strategies against tougher/magic resistant enemies especially golems, drows, undead and demons.

eventho i was usualy quite heavy magic user when playing before i always used brute force to beat baddies like that but now i dont have that option so ...

so far i managed to finish Slavers quest, Shadow Thieves quest, some minor quests and got Staff of Magi of course (cant be without it ) and now i would like to move on Planar Sphere from obvious reasons. i know what im about to face and im not too confident to be honest.

any tips or advice from Sphere and in general will be appreciated


PS dont suggest Mordenkainen Sword, i cant cast it yet. lvl 5 spells most. btw can anything kill this thing? i think i saw Kangaxx or some other lich to kill it with some (death) magic? so i thought casting Protection from Magic on it would make it invulnerable ?

 

I can't figure out for the life of me what you're talking about in the last alinea.

Summons seem obvious with an allmage party, though a few duals from fighter to mage wouldn't do your party harm either. Other than that, use the good protection spells. (MirrorImage, Stoneskin, Blur, etc.) Otiluke's Resilient sphere can come in handy when facing multiple foes.

 

Now that you have the staff of the magi, golems and such shouldn't need to be much of a problem. just sent the mage with the lowest THAC0 ahead and let him/her hit the baddies with the staff, then re-equip the staff immidiately. Because golems can't detect invisible creatures they can't target you. A bit cheesy but it helps.

Further more, summons are always good. You can get the staff of air(or whatever it's name is) from the planar prison quest, which summons a air elemental. The planar sphere gets you the staff of fire (IIRC). While the enemy pummels the meatshields, you can use Lower Resistance to cut their MR down and pummel them with whatever spells you like, and with a lot of mages it's always cool to use MM

The main thing you need to know is that mages are not fighters! They use summons for that, only fight toe-to-toe when there is no other choice. Then use all available spells to protect yourself. Get your strongest fighter type mage the lowest AC possible when you need to enter melee combat and equip him/her with the staff of the magi.

If you can find doorways or such on the map and face numerous opponents, put one invisible character in the doorway and let the rest of your mages use their slings or bows or whatevers to kill the enemy of. No need to waste valuable spells, but it's very boring with their high THAC0's. Good luck, and let me know how it goes, maybe I'll give it a try myself.

P.S. Isn't it great when all mages stand in formation and let loose the same spells at the same time

 

Mordenkainen Sword, lvl 7 mage spell. i was asking if casting Protection from Magic on it, the summoned magical sword, would make it completely invulnerable to anything the game can throw at me for the spell(s) duration of course.

i still got no guts to go to Shpere lol right now going to do playhouse quest which i find easier and rewarding

edit:


tx thunder Sphere is next!

(i hope lol)

[ March 01, 2003, 18:23: Message edited by: Deda Jag ]

 

I once tried using casting spell immunity divination with my projected image seeing if I could make it immune to true seeing. Unfortunatly it dispelled itself by doing so. And IIRC if you use a protection from magic scroll, you remove all magic that was previously cast on the character which probably will dispel the sword.

The sword is immune to all physical damage but is easily destroyed by magic missiles and simular magic, making it ideal for magicless monsters.

By the way, there are only two scrolls of protection from magic scrolls in the entire game AFAIK and using them on a summon is absolutely not worth it. I only used them with Gankaxx and the twisted rune quest on my strongest fighter. Well worth it at the time, but in your case I probably wouldn't use it since no magic can pass through the sphere, making your mage a fighter with low hitpoints, bad armour class and an even worse THAC0.

 

Well, mordenkainen's sword, as beforementioned, is only susceptible to magic. And with 6 mages, I doubt other mages will prove a difficulty. MS should foremost be used against melee opponents, because that's where that spell shines!

 

Get a high dexterity, intelligence and charisma. You may want constitution instead of charisma to get hp though.

Aformentioned stuff - power up on spells, robes and other items.

Fighting kangaxx - be warned, if he casts maxe (whatever at your protagonist you may be subjected to a nasty little thing, I made my save but it still thought I'd died, so it went into the cutscene mode (like before it starts the death movie so you can't do anything) stuttered and stayed there with everyone standing like muppets waiting for something to happen!

 

weee lots of input tx

just got from Planar Prison and heading to an Inn, its getting late. tomorrow Umar Hills and Sphere ...

few comments

no

and no

im sorry but i've tried both before on more than one occasion. casting Spell Immunity from Diviation while in Project Image wont dispell it. for your 'stunt double' it actually works the same way like if you'd cast it on yourself (with some exceptions). try Necromacy against Dalzim for exmaple.

also casting Protection from Magic on MS wont dispel it either. it will cancel haste or anything what was casted on it before but thats about it. so it makes it completely invulnerable right?

once i get to cast Project Image theres no limit to anything

im big Project Image abuser. thats my opening. i mean you cast ONE lvl 7 spell and after that you can cast anything from your book without losing any spells plus you can cast anything in your qiuck slot! plus items?! thats nuts! so if someone really wanted its possible to use Protection from Magic in almost every encounter ...

thats not something i wanna do because its no fun etc but i was just toying with the idea of an invulnerable sword

agreed. there are some encounters where it would come handy tho. Kangaxx for example. i mean if i cast the sword itself he is gonna kill it. however if Protection from Magic (or Undead perhaps) would protect the sword he should be powerless against it (in theory)

 

Fighting Kangaxx is not so hard if you are prepared for the battle! Just put traps (4 should kill the first form, but use 5 or 6 just for precaution) with your Mage/thief near his coffin, create 6 MS near his coffin too (in a circle position, with all preotections you can cast and Haste) and make someone open the coffin! When Kangaxx reveal to be an enemy, all the traps will kill his first form almost imediatly, to then become the Demi-Lich. It will take a few seconds to Kangaxx destroy all the Swords, so just sit and wait his death (in the case you are with the Ring of Ram you should use it when he's almost dead for using it in the beginning of the combat will throw him far distant from the Swords...it really makes a good weapon against him).
Good luck!

 

Yes you're right it will make you completly invulnerable, watch out for timestop and the deamon.

You could nail it with protection from evil and/or protection from magic weapons, make sure you're resistant to his dispells or things could get messy.

 

okie so far its most fun and kinda challenging to play only with magic.

i took Valygar along for Planar Sphere so he could have his chat with his 500 year old relative. i havent let him kill anything xcept for one Imp and that was by accident i sneaked by golems since they are really hard to kill without wacking them.

Spell Trap from Staff of Magi plus Spell Immunity (Necromacy/Conujration) worked well on Laverok?. fun fight breaching his protection few times before he goes down.

Tanar'ri proved to be most exciting fight since he managed to Hold my protagonist and i was helpless 2 x Lower Resistance from Edwin and Hold Monster from Jan made the demon immobile just as he was moving to kill my sorcerer. after that he couldnt stand 4 mages unloading thier fireworks for very long. sweet i ignored remaining demons.


next day was Unseeing. IMO thats pretty much one man mission with Staff of Magi/Fire and haste. hasted Fire Elementals tore apart anything in matter of seconds (try this against Bone Golems!). only in the pit i let my sorcerer to play around with Skull Trap and Wand of Fire/Lightning, while the rest of my party were invisible like for most of this quest.

everything went smooth upto the point when Unseeing Eye appeared. i used 'the device' followed by quick MM and Skull Trap yet Unseeing have decided not to die. Spell Trap from Staff of Magi saved the day. i had no magic protection on me at all sicne i was not expecting this to happen.

Kangaxx next? hehe still got no clue how to go about him. i tried to wack his demi form before with one attack per round mage weilding Magi/Rynn but i think i couldnt kill him for some reason. i mean i was dealing some damage (~2 a pop?) but it had no end, literally. i was there for 20 min wacking him and nothing lol. is he regenerating too or something?

ya for his first form i prolly use Yoshi and his traps. not only to get an easy kill but more importantly Kangaxx will most likely send this traitor where he belongs! i might come back to check on him in chapter 7 right? and if i give him Celestial Fury he could even become a legend in BG3!


i gotta say so far i enjoy myself with all mages in party a lot. there are situations 'designed' for figthers so pure mages party can have a hard time dealing with them (and the other way around). also one is prolly not going to kill everything in the game playing with mages only. it seems that with limited healing and number of spells which can be casted per day/encounter its just not feasible thing to do.


edit:

just did Kagy.

1x Simmy scroll i found somewhere, 5 x Protection from Undead on my party, 1 x unprotected Yoshi for traps/dialogues, 1x Staff of Rynn/Magi, 2 x Haste and 6x Melf Minute Meteors lol Edwin got the kill in his bio with lvl 3 spell! oh ya Yoshi is where he was expected to end up. i wonder when i have the means to bring him back (in Chapter 7?) if hes still gonna be there

[ March 02, 2003, 18:39: Message edited by: Deda Jag ]