Going after the Cowled Wizards

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I was thinking the other day, about the fact that if you practice magic without a license in Athkatla, they will send mages at you, sending higher and higher level mages until eventually they give up.

And I realized - why would an arrogant and powerful Bhaalspawn, perhaps one of Evil alignment, not simply assault the Cowled Wizards themselves, in their stronghold? I mean, you know they have taken Imoen, and you know where they are. Why would you not bust in there and start killing everybody until you get some answers?

I suppose the only reason is that, despite being a powerful Bhaalspawn, you arent quite powerful enough? Its a pity the game didnt explore the option of a more direct action against the Cowled Wizards further. I mean perhaps you could have bribed a Cowled Wizard to ship you to spellhold but then set you free? Or used Stealth to get in some how.

I guess I just think its odd that, all of the options for getting Imoen back, including those added by the Alternatives mod, seem to be ignoring the elephant in the room, which is that the Cowled Wizards are responsible, and yet nothing happens to them. Perhaps a Lawful or Neutral Evil PC, once he has retrieved or at least rescued Imoen, might want vengeance on those who wronged him, like he wants vengeance on Imoen. I mean if he knows he is not powerful enough to take them on after leaving Chateau Irenicus, after finishing the stronghold quests and going through the underdark, there is a good chance he will be at least level 16. And could have enough allies, such as the Shadow Thieves, who would probably love more control over the city, to pull something like it off.

EDIT: now I'm thinking about creating such a mod myself! As if I have the time!

 

Naah not really, Alternatives is for that. Mass killing cowlies could be nice for an insane PC still.

 

Alternatives covers that by adding a Paladin path (I think). Or at least a Paladin would feel comfortable with.

Yeah there are already a lot of options, most of them neutral to evil. I just think its a massive oversight - they are practically ignored by the protagonist. Perhaps the reason is that he has bigger things on his mind, like rescuing Imoen and later getting Imoen's soul and his own soul back?

 

I agree it would be fun and in many ways make sense.

Seeing as it is not available though we can console ourselves with the thought that the reason we don't get the option is that when fighting Irenicus each Cowled Wizard he kills is immediately replaced. If you attacked them in their stronghold then surely they'd have some magical alarm system which would ask all of them members to come to their aid which would mean a battle against hundreds of mages O_O So much magic!

I'm not saying that is why you can't do it but it kind of lessens the sting of being denied epic battles against the evil [CENSORED]s.

*Day dreams of coming back to Athkatla and waging war on the wizards who forced him to travel through the Underdark, across stormy seas all to rescue an innocent whom they had wrongly imprisoned* *Happy sigh*

 

Having thought about it... if I were to write such a mod, and I may yet, it would comprise two parts - the sending to spellhold part, and the revenge part.

The sending to spellhold part would have you do quests for an ambitious wizard who wants to eliminate or impair rivals in the cowled wizards. He would still need money - a bribe and/or transport fee. Doesnt betray you though, although he would probably hire the same captain that everyone seems to hire, who probably would betray you.

The revenge part.... I see two options. First is that you try a frontal assault, and find out that not only do they have MASSES of high level wizards, at least 1 or 2 at level 18/19, but I just thought of something extra brutal that I would give them. Such a feat is not intended to be possible at all, if you get my meaning. The extra brutal thing would be golems that are immune to timestop, but only activated when the head of the Cowled Wizards casts his own timestop. Hasted Golems running around while you are timestopped? Ouch.

The second option would be to find allies for such a cause. In my head, no one but the Shadow Thieves would even consider it, and even then Aran Linvail (if he is still alive) would reject the idea for being bad for business. A younger Shadow Thieves associate may help though. I'm thinking their aid would probably be in the form of poisoning to disable most of the wizards and make it a more fair fight.

However, other members of the government, such as Chief Inspector Brega, reside there. While he is not in any way responsible for what happened, no doubt he would feel compelled to defend the Cowled Wizards as part of the same government. Which means you would be forced to kill an otherwise innocent man - leading to unavoidable reputation loss and possibly further consequences. Not necessary an issue for evil characters, except that perhaps the city guard would attack you on sight.

I'm just thinking aloud here. I probably would not have the time to make such a mod.

 

Why would there be any reason to believe that there are alot of mages at spellhold? Irenicus takes it easy enough, I think that the Cowled Wizards would be more over confident with the facility and that the bulk of their force is elsewhere.

 

Yeah, Spellhold isn't their stronghold, it's where they shove people who didn't pay them money or were one memory slot short of a wizard level.

They'd more likely have people trained to resist and break arcane magic, perhaps wizard slayers and clerics paid or part of their cause there instead of masses of mages. Useful people overall but ultimately no great loss to their overall wizarding power.

 

The impression I got was that they'd be way too powerful to take on directly. Fending off those who show up to apprehend you is one thing. The stronghold itself would be packed with wizards, with some of them doubtless a very high level. Now I imagine those who play through the game regulalry might be up for it. But for a new player who goes there as soon as he can and doesn't really know the D&D rules? I don't think it'd have been a good idea for the designers to include, the Cowled Wizards would either have been too difficult or unrealistically easy. The mod ideas sound cool though.

 

Deise, this is what 8people and my self just stated, spellhold isn't their stronghold it is merely a prison, which because of its location the cowls just send people there and forget about them.

hence the line "let them rot in spellhold"

 

Something else to consider. Many of you are forgetting that when Shadows of Amm was released, the XP cap was 2.8 million experience points. A character at that level was unable to cast ninth level spells. In fact, he had just gotten his first 8th level spell.
The character in question would have been nowhere near powerful enough to conceivably take on the entire cowled wizards.

Still, I don't see why an opportunity to launch a direct assault on Spellhold without the Shadow Thieves subterfuge wasn't available. Nor the ability to find the Cowled stronghold with an impossible fight that forces the party to flee.

Heck, I remember when I first got the game. I cast a spell on the promenade, and the cowled wizard gave me his warning. I recalled that in Baldur's Gate I (no TuTu or Trilogy back then) you could cast Charm Person on people and talk to them. Some of the named characters would give you some interesting tidbits. I figured that doing so I could ask them where they take their prisoners so i could arrange a little jailbreak.
I had no idea that rescuing Imoen was such a major quest. I expected to get her back fairly quickly as she filled an important part of my party in BG1.
Everyone knows Charm Person doesn't work the same way in BG2, but I wanted to attack outright.

 

Yeah I guess had they included an option to take on the Cowled Wizards, for it to be believable, it would have to be nigh impossible. Especially for level 16 casters, as SlickRBCD points out. But I guess a lot of players would not take the hint that this was not supposed to be the way you did it, and would try and try again, and eventually give up saying the game was too hard. You would probably have to point out very clearly to the player that a frontal assault of any kind would be suicide.

@8people

Thats a good idea, at the very least they would have wizard slayers. They might have clerics of Oghma - do you get Clerics of Mystra? Maybe Inquisitors, Wizard Slayers, Assassins and high level mages.