Help with a sorcerer spell pick...

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Hi folks,

My solo sorcerer is nearly level 18, and I can't work out whether to take chain contingency or time stop first. I guess conventional wisdom says time stop is all-powerful, but chain contingency essentially gives me three free spells in every round I use it, yeah?

Oh, and which should I take out of protection from magical weapons and protection from magic energy? I only really want PFMW so that my projected image gets a few rounds uninterrupted by annoying meleers... would going with PFME ever pay off?

Cheers.

 

I think your PC is going to win by Time Stop + Altracity + Robe of Vecna combo. It should work against everything with no MR.
In fact, it gives you similar advantage like Chain Contingency - more spells casted in shorter period of time. But Contingency is limited in many situations, especially when you can't put so many various spells in.

 

One quick way of dealing with enemy encounters is to cast Spell Sequencer and Spell Trigger with triple Skull Trap. Since it will fail when cast out of range, it's easiest to aim it near - that's when PFME becomes very useful.

 

definately get time-stop first, no questions about that and its only more level till you get chain cont at 19.

I'm playing through with a solo sorc too atm (just hit 19). For my lvl 6's I took: mislead, death spell (a MUST for killing opponent summons) True sight (meh, good but also not so hot with Sula mod imp liches, etc) was planning contingency for 20. Nice to get a stoneskin up "on hit".

If I were to go through it again I would just scrath true sight and substitute PfME. With the Sula mod TS is just about useless really. You have to blast through the powerful mages/liches defenses first which includes SIivination and SI: Abjuration. If they happen to Mislead or imp invis ... you're just SoL. You end up in a summons battle, yours against his. By the time you get control of the fight his SI's have expired and its simple to mop up.

HOWEVER, that just seems how it is working at this current level 18-19. Throw in time stop, imp alacrity (of course using robe of Vecna) you can hammer out 3 ruby rays pretty fast and then tear into him. I made the mistake of not taking Imp Alac first for my HLA instead of dragonbreath Now ... do all that from a projected image and you can really go along time in a fight.

Tip that I found worked VERY well so far for when I get jumped. Use ring of invisibility NOT ring of air control to go invis. I think I got it from a fight in an inn? Combined with cloak of non-detection (essentially permanent SIivination) they can't pull you out of invis without being able to just see right through it or getting caught in aarea effect spell. Anyhow ... use that to go invis and immediately cast proj image. Now, they can see your image so I keep an invis pot in quick slot, pop that and go into your time-stop or summons sequence if you don't have time stop. I also keep all my Mord sword scroll on quick slot for PI summons. If you are fighting dispellers you NEED to make sure to throw SI:abjuration up ... can you say pit fiends? Using PI's and skel wars/Mord swords, you can rather safely grind through 3 or 4 pit fiends if you want to hehe.

One other thing I found for liches. They like to summon you on top of them now if you run out of range ... ugh. EASY solution, never get into range! fight him from range using summons and farsight from your PI. The bad bad part: there's a lot of liches in little small rooms you don't get to keep distance on. For those you NEED timestop and imp alac really really helps too. Otherwise wave bye-bye with all of his Area spells and pit fiends in-close.

hmm, reading over that, I think I just made my own case for getting prot from mag energy at 21 instead of contingency.

 

A quite useful 6th level spell is Death Fog - especially against improved liches (they are only few imune to acid). Spell Trigger: triple Death Fog, followed by another one (or Chain Contingency) creates 6 clouds in an area, which eat through Mirror Images VERY fast, instantly kill any PIs, Misleads and Simulacrums and cause spell failure. Eventually the lich drops dead, or deader anyway.

 

Guess I didn't exactly answer your 2nd question on PfMW or PfME. I'd say PfME since for your PI its super simple to get out of the way of melee fighters. Keep invis pots and/or imp invis scrolls on your quickslots. After you cast your proj image you can pop an invis pot right away to get out of the way of melee folk. Deal with them at your leisure at that point. Worst are the rogues ... think they are scripted with detect illusion at a high level or something. They WILL nail your PI even while its invis Area effect spells are about the only thing that takes points off of me atm.

 

Thanks folks!

I've got invisibility on tap thanks to the staff of the magi already, that's no problem (had to cheese severely to get the staff though; about a dozen skull traps to mind the encroaching barbarian/beholder and PFUndead/minute meteors for the lich, geh). My PI gets whacked a lot if I get jumped by heavies and have to summon an army on the fly. I was silly enough to sell my cloak of non-detection (I thought it only worked for hide in shadows), so now I'm wasting a lot of time with SI: Div.

Too late for me to take death fog; I've already got mislead/death spell/true sight. Spose I could take it instead of contingency at 21, but I'll be able to triple-ADHW things by then anyway.

I'm not using any tactics mods or anything, I'm too crap for those, haha. But that SIiv/SI:Abj nonsense oughtn't be too much of a problem with chain contingency and ruby ray. TS is effective enough against the basic scripts, thankfully.

I suppose I'll be taking time stop then, and probably PFME at 21 since contingency will just be a footnote by then. Doubtless time stop will be more useful than chain contingency with alacrity on.

 

Well, if you are playing evil and/or don't mind killing off innocent bystanders then the most devastating use of ABHW is with the Wish spell option. It clears out entire map areas quite nicely , since it'll target any creature already present in the area.

 

Glad I took time stop. Killed Firkraag; TS, alacrity, lower resistance trigger, skull trap sequencer, unloaded all 6 skull traps and got in 2 ADHWs before time started flowing again. Instant death for both big red and his mage. Now I can summon 3 planetars at once. This is just silly now.