having a little trouble memorizing spells

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Hi, My wife and I are playing a party of 6 and she created a conjurer. The conjurer's INT is 18 and she took a potion of genius raising her INT to 21 or 22 (can't remember?) anway out of 5 scrolls, she failed 3 of them trying to memorize them and none of the scrolls were from her opposing school nor were the spell level beyond what she has. According to the book, I should have like a 95% chance or something of sucessfully writing spells but don't you think failing 3 out of 5 is pretty bad and a little suspicious. Anyone else have a similar problem?
Since scrolls seem much harder to come by than in BG2, my wife is so traumatized she doesn't want to try to write any more new scrolls!!! Is is something with being a conjurer? or is it just our bad luck??

 

The percentages aren't true; you will fail to memorize the spell much more often than you should. Why the designers did this I don't know, but the way around it is quite simple: do a Quicksave before trying to memorize, and reload if you fail. If a 100% success rate disturbs you, just accept an appropriate number of the failures.

[ May 12, 2006, 08:23: Message edited by: Cernak ]

 

I agree with Cernak. Reloading is the best choice, especially since many scrolls are unique.

If you don't want to reload then wait until you have gathered many scrolls and use TWO potions instead. 25 INT means 100 percent success.

Another option is setting the difficulty to easy before scribing, but don't forget to set the difficulty back afterwards since the XP gain is affected.

Without HoW installed you get far less XP on easy level, making the game more difficult.
With HoW you get more (+50 percent) XP compared to normal level.

The best solution is probably to install a little mod which sets the success at spell learning to 100 percent.
It's in the Ease-of-use pack and Icewind Dale Tweak Pack you can both download at SP.

 

Actually 25 is only 99% a natural 1 always fails in D&D so it can still fail with INT 25 and will do so with surprising frequency.

 

Did you check the .2da file or are you just quoting D&D books ?

 

Well, my wife had just about had it, and was ready to do the "reloading" thing you guys suggested, but I was against it. So we took a potion of genius and tried 3 spells and they all worked! needless to say, her faith as been somewhat renewed and she now feels easier with our new spells. I just hope it will work next time too! thanks

 

At least your lucky enough to have a partner who plays the game. I get nagged rotten if I'm on for more than a couple of hours. I would recommend only reloading on very hard to find spells, or on ones she really wants to use.

 

@the mad haggis

Hey, I'm not complaining. I realize how forunate I am! It took her quite a while to get hooked though. Is there anyway to tell what spells are rarer than others? We lost stinking cloud in the beginning and haven't seen it for a while..

 

All spells are rare, there is only one exemplar of many very useful scrolls. You'd better think about which spells are important. Stinking cloud isn't.

I don't understand why you don't install the flawless spell learning component, it only should add a little .2da file in your override ordners without causing other side effects.

It only saves you from reloading attempts like the maxHP/level up option.

 

Well, I'm trying to play the game like it's supposed to be played. Or at least, how I used to play it pen and paper style. If my mage doesn't have the ability to memorize a certain spell, than so be it. If she fails, then she wasn't meant to have it. (no matter how bad i want the spell) My original post was concerning just how odd I thought it was that my mage was still failing spells to be written even though her intelligence is exceptional. I just pretty much accepted the fact that this game is harder than BG2 (i'm only making the comparison because i just got done playing it).

 

Do you also accept the random rolls at level up and accepted the first roll at characer creation without adjusting stats ?

My opinion is that the IwD and BG2 designers mainly thought of players who would reload after a failed scribe attempt or bad HP roll at level up.

The random chance to get less than maxHP at level up or to fail scribing scrolls was only implemented for the hardcore AD&D fans which wouldn't have accepted the games otherwise.
(Maybe also because of the fact that reloading increases total gaming time )

If you play BG2 in normal mode, scroll scribing is always successful.

For me IWD1 wasn't harder.
At what difficulty did you play BG2 ?

 

Yes, I do accept the random rolls at level up and at character creation. I used to do the reloading thing, but I realized my characters became powerful too quickly, and I never wanted to put the game on insane, or anything harder than normal cause I just wanted a normal experience. Plus, I've always thought it was kind of cool if you had a weaker character....it gives him/her personality.

Actually in normal mode in BG2 (which I played) I did fail a few scroll scribes (unless I drank a potion of genius, then I never did).

When I say IWD1 is harder, I just mean I feel like I have to make a more strategic effort in battle; if I don't, I'm sure to be making my way back to the cleric's temple in Kuldahar (sp?).(^_^) I've never died this many times in BG2!