Are you surrprised at the lack good aligned mages in BG1?

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There are 4 evil or neutral aligned mages in the game and of those only 1 is a useful mage right out of the gate, Edwin. The only good aligned mage, Dynaheir, is somewhat lacking by comparesone. what do you think about the mages in the game, and if you could add an NPC mage what would they be like ( stats and such)?

 

I'm not too bothered by the mages to be honest. They aren't as (over)powerful as in BGII and having only one in your party makes for fair enough gaming. I also don't have any problem with taking Neutral character in a Good party, so the alignment isn't really an issue.

Besides, you can dual class Imoen if you really want another good-aligned mage.

If an NPC mage was to be added, then it would be best if they were some form of multi-class, as there are sufficient standard mages as it is. The is a mod for one called Indira (a F/M), but I think that may be Tutu only.

 

I'm not really surprised because I can't remember the last time I actually took a mage along in my party in BG1. Mages are completely superfulous. Most of the power for mages in BG1 comes from their ability to use wands. The thing is, bards can also use all the wands that mages can use. They get an OK number of spells for levels 1-3. They get only 1 4th level spell (and that's not until level 10) and no 5th level spells however. For 4th and 5th level spells, you can always cast them from scrolls (granted, 4th and 5th level scrolls are in limited supply, so you have to pick and chose your spots). Still, a bard's usefulness in combat (Garrick and Eldoth are both very good with bows - although you have to spend a prof point with Garrick) easily overcome the lack of high level spells available to them.

 

We need more gnomes! A NG, gnome illusionist (like there's a choice).

My deciding factor on how good mages are is whether they can cast Identify and have a decent Lore to identify items without the spell. I find Xzar a better mage than Edwin.

 

Xzar is pretty good right out of the gate. It's just that Edwin is better.

 

Xzar is a more useful all-round wizard- in the classic image of one anyway, as he can use Identify. Edwin is more of a battle mage.

 

Two problems with this.

1: The division. Good and neutral characters get along just fine with 20 rep, but neutrals will leave an evil party with 1 rep. Hence, there are 3 good/neutral mages, and only 2 evil mages. A bit more balanced than the 1-4 split you painted.

2: Duallers. Both Imoen (good) and Safana (neutral) can become mages, and Imoen is a very popular dual (so much so that it's mandatory in BG2).

 

Imoen is the second best Mage in the game, and the best Good aligned one.

You have a lot of options in regard to her specialty school, and alse if (when for me) to dual class her.

 

If you give her the Tome of Insight, iirc, and that's all the way in Baldur's Gate. I suppose if you hurry by doing the bare minimum of quests, Safana could be dualled earlier enough to get her thief skills back.

 

No problems here.
1: The division along the lines of Neutral and evil on one hand and good on the other is just fine seeing as the topic is "The lack of good aligned mages". so my 1-4 split stands as there is only one good aligned mage standard in the game. I think there should have been at least one other, a non human specialist of some sort o maybe a multiclass.

2: It does not matter who can dual class. I still contend that there should be a decent good aligned mage. this disparity is found in other classes classes as well.

 

1. Then in that case there should be three categories. Good (1), Neutral (2), and Evil (2). Which would still show there being less good-aligned mages compared to others without having to resort to a faulty division.

2. Yes it does matter. Imoen is at the very least a decent good-aligned mage. Just because she doesn't start as a mage doesn't mean she can't ever be one. And moreover, it gives you flexibility in what kind of specialist you want her to be, or even the choice to go as a plain mage. None of the other mages have that; they're all firmly entrenched in their specializations and thus limited in what they can do. If you're going to exclude her because she's a better potential mage than the others (with the exception of Edwin due to extra spells), then of course you're not going to find any good ones.

 

1.It does not mater if the split is Good (1), Neutral (2), and Evil (2) or 1 Good, 4 Neutral/Evil. It still boils down to 1 Good aligned mage and thats kinda the point of the thread.
2. I agree that Imoen is a master work of an NPC and the best mage in the game.

I do not exclude her because she is or is not a mage or because she can or can not become a mage. Maybe I want to have her as a thief the whole game or maybe I have Imoen fatigue or I am playing a game in which I don't do raise dead, once an NPC bites it, thats it.
3. I am aware of the duel class options for the mages that are in the game. what I want to know is, if you could add an NPC mage to the game what would it look like?

On a personal note, Felinoid, I have long respected your opinion on gameing and other issues on the boards long befor I became a member. It would be nice to see you stop over analyzing the topic and show us what an NPC mage that you would add to the game would be like. I am sure it would be interesting.

If I could add one I would like to see:
Gnome Fighter/Illusionist
S14
D17
C17
I15
W08
C09
OR A Half-Elf Transmuter
S11
D17
C15
I15
W12
C13
Why a transmuter? Sumpin' new.

 

Yes, but the difference is between seeing 3 missing and 1 missing. When you divide it so that it is 1 to 4, the 1 side looks to be missing 3, sorely underrepresented. But the reality is that there is only 1 missing from that alignment as compared to neutrals or evils. Therein lies the [unintentional] dishonesty in the split, overemphasizing the problem (though a problem there surely be). It's like a graph that shows the extreme changes in production over time...where the y axis only goes from 1M to 1.1M units. You can call it overanalyzing, but really, that's the only way to catch such subconscious chicanery before it affects how you think about the subject. (Note: personal pet peeve.)

As for a new mage, I don't think there needs to be one. Between Edwin and Imoen, you've got a good NPC mage on each side of the alignment/rep boundary, and the other mages can be pretty decent if used properly (with the possible exception of Quayle). If we were going to pick something that's missing, how about a good bard? Garrick's decent, and Eldoth is kinda crappy (not to mention tied to Skie *shudder* ), but there's no good bard out there.

In fact, that may just be the solution to "missing" good arcane spellcasters. It's not like BG1 really requires a lot of arcane magic (or any magic at all, really), so a bard would serve the purpose rather well. Naturally a half-elven bard because they're provably better than human bards (the only difference is +5% to Pick Pockets). How about this?

Half-elven NG (for an even G/N/E split) Bard
STR 12
DEX 17
CON 8
INT 16
WIS 10
CHA 18

[ August 30, 2006, 08:46: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

With the ratio as small as it is and the higher number bein devided between 2 alignmenst I would hope that most people could do the math. And if you notice good aligned warriors out number evil 6 to 3, good aligned thieves out number evil 3 to 2. But when it comes to spell casters good has 1 mage and 1 cleric as opposed to 2 evil mages and 2 evil clerics throw neutrals into the mix and they have 2 mages and 4 preist! so good is sorely out number in the spell casting arena. so I do not see any unintentional dishonesty in the split. I do not count Imoen as a mage, that is totaly optional. I am not speculating about good aligned mages because I have a problem managing reputation or because there is no way to have a decent mage in the game. I just think it would have been nice to have a good aligned mage other Dynaheir, after all you have a good selection of good aligned warriors and evil anything you want. I don't consider the neutrals as much because I am concetrating on good alignment and so the neutrals fall in to the non-good catagory with the evils. There is nothing wrong with your logic, but I just don't think you are seeing my point of view (and before you say it, sticking your head up your rear won't help you see it either).
I think you have a good idea about the lack of a good bard, however Iwould prefer stats something like this:
Half-elven NG Bard
STR 11
DEX 16
CON 15
INT 14
WIS 10
CHA 18
I just want to see a bard with con.
What do you think about starting a new thread about "If you could rearrange the stats of the NPCs who's would you rearrange and howwould you arrange them"?

 

You 2 ignore one of bard's most usefull ability. Lore. With 16 or 14 Int and 10 Wis the lore is rather small. For bards I always go for at least 16 Int and 15 Wis.
My bard build is usually this:
Str: 10 (bards go for small bows or crossbows)
Dex: 18 (extra AC and pickpocket skills)
Con: 10 (since I don't use the bard as a tank, HP aren't really necessary, especially with high AC)
Int: 17
Wis: 15
Cha: 18

 

Lore is actually quite useless, seeing that there is only one cursed weapon, and once you've played trough, lore will be replaced by metagaming. And there are plenty of places to identify your stuff.

If there was some sort of random loot generator with, say, five hundred possible items, then bards would perhaps be worth it.

 

Good is a point of view, Anakin..... erhhmmm, sorry, got lost there.
Why not simply pick the mage you want and not give a damn whether or not he/she is evil or good? Evil mages CAN actually hang aroung good characters, you know. Personally I wouldn´t care much about it, since I would create a hyped-up (fighter/)mage as my protagonist if I felt something was lagging behind in my game.

 

I would say that a bard gets plenty of Lore even with a weak wisdom score. Unless you are trying to identify each and every item on first pickup with lore alone its not really worth it to invest to heavilly in inteligence AND wisdom. Besides at low level that bard will wander around with a chainmail anyways, so why not use those spell slots for identify ?

 

That's actually one of the things I hate about the bards in the game. Going with minimum (or near-minimum) INT for a spell-casting class like the bard. Yes, CHA comes first, and DEX is important, but INT should be just as important. And valuing CON over INT? Just take Eldoth and be done with it.

That's a nice PC, but we're talking about NPCs here. That'd be a mite overpowered for a tag-along.

As for lore, it's not useless. If every item in the game came identified or it was a free service, then it might be useless. As it is, the use is slightly limited, since it can be duplicated for a fee, but it's still a benefit. In particular is the benefit of being able to identify a cursed item simply by not being able to identify it. We all know the unique stuff, but cursed scrolls aren't so easy to pick out by appearance. However, all the protection scrolls have a lore value of 30 or less, while cursed items are at 100.

And Redrake, if we'd been ignoring lore we wouldn't have put a score of 10 into WIS and would have just let the character take a 10 or 20 point penalty to lore. Aside from that, it's superfluous to go overboard on INT and WIS for lore on a Bard. Bards get 10 points of lore per level, and your high INT and WIS give...10. Moreover, switching the WIS and CON scores puts your lore only 3 points lower (piddly for a bard) while boosting his hit points through the whole game by 17%. HP isn't just for tanking, it's also for surviving spells, missiles, or people and monsters who decide to attack the weakest link rather than the strongest. No matter how well you play, the bard's going to get targetted at some point or another, and those extra HPs could mean a lot. Meanwhile, you're not going to notice the difference between 67 lore and 70.

 

We are talking about BG1 here. In BG1 the AC is way more important than the HP's. If you play with Viconia or Shar-Teel you'll understand this. Don't forget that every monster has levels just like you and they have to score a hit just like you.