Do you need a Mage in this game?

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Or could a Bard handle the duties just fine?

 

Take the Mage.

If you have a full party and are working at core rules difficulty, you might hardly get everyone to 2,500,000 XP at the end of IWD + HoW. If that.

That means the Bard would be L21 while the Mage is L16. At that level the mage will pull ahead of the bard. While the bard is at a higher level the mage has more spells. Also he is further helped by some mage only items.

If you were to play with a smaller party or at greater difficulty the amount of XP per charecter would be greater. Now the bard tops out at 4,400,000XP while the nage reaches L30 only at 7,500,000XP. Even at 4,500,000XP the mage has almost equal number of spells as well as being able to cast L8 and L9 spells.

The best use of the Bard is for his songs as well as a back up mage.

 

I would agree, get the Mage

 

Still, first few chapters of IWD are doable without any arcane magic, (as my two people party is doing now) but a good old fireball will make your life easier!

Afterall, it will be easier to kill a whole horde of Cold Wights with a warm fireball, than hacking, hacking, and hacking!

 

You don't really NEED the game. If you're not a regular spellslinger you can get along just fine without him. However, if you have HoW, the high-level spells are quite powerful and can make some of the later combats much easier.

 

It shouldn't be too difficult to beat the game without a mage if you have a bard.
But mage is the strongest class.

 

I'm playing a game with a Fighter, Fighter/Cleric, Fighter/Thief, and a Bard, and I'm doing just fine. The bard only misses out on a couple of spells, and while he can cast a lesser amount of spells per day, that isn't really an issue as you can just rest, or if you don't want that, you can just use the bardsong. Also, compared to the mage, the bard is a demon in battle, especially with blur, mirror image, stoneskin, Malavon's Rage, Morkedanien's Sword, and many other spells.

 

One big drawback of using a bard, IMO, is that they cannot use a lot of the spell-enhancing items that wizards can... sure, they have that Lute that wizards can't use, but they can't use the rings of wizardry, and are going to be unarmored until the Severed Hand, at least, since they can't wear the good robes.