Offensive mages/sorcerers?

Remove all ads!

Good analogy , Felinoid, esp. since the company that made 3e is the same that makes M:tG (and I think you're right on!).

I'm a much bigger fan of 2e... it's kinda what I "grew up" on. Since p&p D&D really isn't an option for me at this stage in my life, BG2 is the best substitute.

 

I would hardly call a 20th level wizard "the same" as a 20th level barbarian or fighter, Felinoid. The difference between them is night and day. Thing is, in 3E, the barbarian has a fighting chance against a high level wizard. In 2e, he's toast......unless the wizard he's fighting has the tactical knowledge of my two year old son, doesn't buff, and carries no wands.

By the way.....power isn't about character level in 3e any more so than 2e. It's about feat selection, tactics, equipment, luck, and stats........in addition to character level. In 3e, a properly played wizard will usually still win a fair fight. The difference is that the Barbarian at least has a chance of survival. (If he succeeds at tripping the wizard, for example, he may be able to keep him on the ground long enough to take the wizard out.) The same just can't be said about 2e. A well equipped high level fighter that ambushes a well equipped high level wizard is, well, dead.

 

3e - 2e
Feat selection - proficiency selection
Tactics - Tactics
Equipment - Equipment
Luck - Luck
Stats, level based - Stats, static
Level - Level
Class progression, static - Class progression, variable

^That's my point. When one class level is as good as another class level, it takes something out of consideration, putting more weight on the others. Combine that with the stats being level-dependant, and you get much more emphasis on the level. (Feats to proficiencies may not be the best comparison, but there are a number of proficiencies useful in battle.)

Only with ridiculous BG2-style contingencies and those absolutely ridiculous spell-speeding items. Most wizards do not set up "on attack" contigencies on a regular basis; 6th level spell slots are too precious to waste defending against a goblin. The long spell-casting times give the fighter plenty of chance to disrupt a spell, and win the fight. I've done it quite a few times myself against people who were just a little too high-and-mighty about their "uber" wizards (after having it done to me once ). Even a 1st level fighter can take down a 13th level wizard if he's lucky enough.

Mirroring your own words: In 2e, a properly played high-level wizard will usually win in a fair fight. But even a mid-level fighter or barbarian still has a chance to win. If you think anything else, you don't know 2e fighters (or 2e in general) as well as I do.

 

I grew up on 2e, too, Fel. I just gave 3e a fair shake rather than leaving it in disgust. Feats, by the way, aren't even remotely similar to proficiencies. Unless the fighter kills the wizard in one round (pretty damn unlikely), a simple stoneskin and some summons essentially ensures victory in any combat with a warrior. In 2e, stoneskin blocks all piercing, slashing, and crushing damage. In 3e, the spell is still great, but you can't cheese it like you could in 2e. It provides strong damage resistance which any warrior can still bypass with a good critical or a two handed weapon. Regarding stats.....stats are actually less important in 3e than they are in 2e, unless they really, really, suck or they stop spellcasters from using high level spells. A 2 point stat increase from 17 to 19 in strength won't, for example, take a warrior from a measly +1 to hit and damage to +3 to hit and +7 to damage, for example. So, yeah, stats improve with levels, but those increases aren't as valuable as they would have been in 2e.

 

In 2e stats do not get raised that often. This is one of the differences betweeb 2e and 3e.

In 3e, you cast mages cast more spell per day, (int bonus spells) but they are actually weaker. Since DC of a spell is dependent on its level, low level spells are easiest to resist. Same goes for stats, you get a stat point every four levels, but they don't do much, like you described.

And a fighter can not easily raise his STR from 17 to 19 by two point increase. BG2 has it wrong. IWD covers it very well, a fighter should bypass 18/xx to reach 19 STR. If a 18/20 STR fighter gets +1 str increase somehow, his STR becomes 18/30, not 19. If he already has 18/00, +1 str will bring him to 19. Half-orcs are exception since they get the bonus in character generation, they can have 19 STR to reflect their awesome muscle power.

 

@Silverstar: Strength enhancing items in 2e tend to set the strength score to a certain ammount. This makes aquiring a 19 or higher str a little too easy. In 3e, even with all the strength enhancing items he can get, a Hill Giant will still most likely be stronger than a human fighter. In 2e, a Hill Giant doesn't do much more damage than a fighter with exceptional strength. The broadened stat tables make creatures like Dragons, Demons, and Giants a lot more dangerous in 3e (as if they weren't already dangerous enough).

 

Sorcerer is THE most powerful class in BG 2: SOA/TOB if played correctly.

Early game: use Wand of Monster Summoning and Wand of Cloudkill. The wands combined with Web should be enough to make your way through first quests and to level 14.

Web is one of the best spells in early game. Web + Spider Spawn, Web + Cloudkill, Web + Melf's Minute Meteors are all very deadly combinations. Add Slow, Greater Malison and Emotion and you are sailing rather smoothly.

Early-Mid game: once you get Project Image the game will soon become boring. Unlitimed summons are a cake ...

Mid-Late game: you hit level 15. You may now summon your first Skeleton Warrior. Use Project Image mentioned before. Skeleton Warriors are very good summons being resitant to magic. There only purpose is to get you to level 16.

Late game: Skeleton Warriors, Project Image, and ADHW's (Abi dalzim's Horrid Wiltings) and of course Time Stop the games stops being a challenge. Most fights will be over before they start.

When it comes to equipment a Sorcerer should use: Robe of Vecna, Amulet of Power, Boots of Speed and of course the Staff of the Magi.

One of the beauties of being a Sorcerer is that you can select any spell from a given spell level depending on the circumstances and current needs, therefore maximising your spell usage. Before getting Project Image, I roughly need about 1-4 rests per major quest. When I obtain Project Image, I can afford to rest once every 2 major quests.

In some cases... it also depends on what the quest is, and what spells I have. For example, ONE Skeleton Warrior can clean house against the melee Gnomes and Sahuagin in the Planar Sphere, and absorb most of the spells that their spellcasters use. My Sorcerer can then use the Sling of Everand to KO all the Golems in the Golem Room and Engine Core Room.

That is ONE spell.


Keep in mind that a high level Sorcerer doesn't need to rest. Ever.

[ May 07, 2006, 18:33: Message edited by: Xen ]

 

I gave it a fair shake. Then I left it in disgust. "One man's trash in another man's treasure."

That's the luck part. ANY spell can be disrupted. Stoneskin may have a casting time of one, but there's still the initiative roll (something the IE games did without as far as I can see). Even a 1st-level fighter pelting the wizard with a long bow can manage to disrupt the spell. (Fighter's initiative = 1 + 8 = 9; mage's initiative = 10 + 1 = 11.) Okay, so a two-handed sword won't do it, but what fighter in his right mind uses that in the first place? Long swords are much better because they allow for either Single Weapon Style or a shield. ...Hmm, I know I had a point in here somewhere... Ah, right, my point is that it's not quite as one-sided as you make it appear. Any spell can be disrupted, and that weakness of the wizards never goes away.

Then your beef is with the spell, not wizards in general.

The same holds true for 2e. Most stats aren't 17 or 18 in 2e. Even a fighter is lucky to get a 17 or 18 in STR, as is a mage to get a 17 or 18 in INT to be able to use 8th and 9th level spells, because you can't just take a point from one roll and assign it to another like in the IE games.

And thank you for bringing up the STR conundrum, because it only points out yet another area where the games got it wrong. It takes TEN stat-increasing tomes to get from 18 to 19 in any stat. So with ten increases in 2e you go from 18 STR to 19 STR, getting +2/+5 more, while ten increases in 3e (18 STR to 28 STR) gets you +5/+5 more. Not so extreme now, is it?

 

High level fighter/clerics with exceptional strength casting draw upon holy might, anyone?. The jump in damage and to hit is sick.


When you gave 3e it's fair shake, did you do so playing PnP or a computer game?

 

Ah, but now you're into spells again (clerical spells can be disrupted too), which have limited duration. Not to mention that 'Holy Might' should be 'sick'; you're channeling the very power of your god. You should also be mindful about introducing anything from a supplement (Tome of Magic, in this case) into your campaign, as any DM knows.

And keep in mind that this STR conundrum is not "for example", this is the one exception. It's the only place in the stat system that is this weird.

I played PnP with some friends, as a sorcerer. I was even pretty excited about learning something new...until I actually did learn it. I have never played a 3e computer game, and only even held one once when someone sent me NWN instead of IWD by mistake (which I returned to get IWD). But we're getting pretty far off topic here.

 

Sorcerer is considered the most powerful class in the game in most polls, I believe.

With the robe of vecna and the spelltriggers you can kill most things on sight.

But of course you have to know what the spells can do, and how they work together.

I recommend that you check out Roman Grigoriev's Guide to Sorcerers on this site at tips and tricks. And then Xyz spellguide.

Personally I like tanking with the sorcerer thanks to stoneskin, PFW, mirror image, nothing can touch you, it's rather fun too watch twenty vampires beat themselves to death on your fireshield.

 

Silverstar painted the picture quite well, of the wizard who is useless at the beginning, but grows in power exponentially. You pay for that extra power later, by being so very easy to kill now. It's the reason why there are so many fighters of all levels, but very few mages who actually manage to stay alive long enough to gain that enormous power.

Having everyone equal and the same speaks to me of lack of imagination, or just plain rampant political correctness. (Well, really it's a necessary step for a system where you can take levels from anywhere, but that's not the point.) It makes it boring, having the choices not so different from each other. Granted, they're significantly different when it comes to tactics, but when the total level is the end-all of power, you might as well be playing Magic and comparing a card's power and toughness to see who wins the fight. "Okay, you're level 14 and I'm level 13. You win."


Well said Felinoid. I agree completely. Wizards of the coast has really mucked up dungeons and dragons bigtime. I mean if you think about it, its almost impossible to die in that game now. Especially on pen and paper. Just have your whole group take ranks in use magic device. And have the groups cleric or druid scribe raise dead scrolls like there was no tomorrow and wooohoo all excitement is now gone from the game.

 

This same Premise works on any of the arcane casters honestly. That's why I don't find a great deal of advantage to the Sorcerer over the Mage when I play. Others do and that is the right they have. I know the spells well and only have a few oddball things I can't prepare for regularly at high level.

Get a few scrolls just like the Sorcerer's find an absolute necessity for strange situations the player hasn't expected I understand and I don't even have to change my spell book.

While I do like the small ammount of Versatility. I prefer the greater number of spells the mages can choose from.

The game knowledge that most of us play with at this point only increases this fact. Which it really takes much more careful planning and game knowledge to work well with a sorcerer than it does any of the mages.

 

No it doesn't. There are seldom more then three spells each level that you need, and each level has most often some spell that is severely overpowered.

From a powergaming perspective there is absolutly no reason to cast another spell then project image for your 7th level slot for example.

Since BGII is an endless combatfest, on the fly casting is extremely good. If you need another pro magic weapon you got it, if one of your finger of death fails cast again until they die.
Need five SK warriors? done and done.

Not to say a wizard can't do the cool stuff too, but their lack of tactical ability makes them far less interesting from a powergaming point of view IMO.

 

Wizards loose alot of the usefulness they had/have in PnP when they move over CRPG since you obviously can't talk to the supreme being (the DM) about how things are likely to turn out if you act a certain way or various other oddity spells that don't have alot of purpose casting over and over again, but can really help things out if cast weekly or so on.

 

none of what your describing here is actual tactical ability. If what you claim is true then you can easily build a mages spell books to reflect this without any need for the sorcerer's abilities.

All your talking about is a little bit of versatility because you don't have to mess with your spell book.

Sorcerer's have no real tactical advantage over mages. They have a little on the fly versatility with a much smaller spell book. Yet With the lists that people give for the spells selections most of them neither meet my particular style nor do they make room for certain things like removing curse on a couple of the NPC's which gets you some decent xp but are too rare to waste a valuable spell slot in a minimal spell book.

I know the game well enough at this point that I can actually change my spell book as I'm going into places not only to fit the area. The level of my characters. But also those rare spell usages and not slow myself down or sleep any more often.

With a mage my spell book actually even tends to evolve. For example over time I slim it down so that I basically only have a bunch of Magic Missile's by the end of the game. I've got bigger things in higher spell slots that I just don't use those low level tactics that I had other picks for most of the time anymore.

And I manage to do the game without abusing the project image spell while I'm at it. It's actually one that I rarely use.

 

While that may be true, this is not...

Sorcerors get more spells a day than mages (except Edwin). I'd say that's a definite tactical advantage right there.

And I say this as someone who hates that sorcerors even exist in the game. Sorcerors shouldn't be in the game at all since they're 3e and BG2 is 2e, but that doesn't stop me from acknowledging that they do have significant advantages, which far outweigh any disadvantage of the smaller spellbook.

You can tailor your spellbook to the area you're going through, but only to a point. Maybe you find you need 2 of a certain spell in a combat instead of just one. The mage is screwed (you only had one left), but the sorceror says no problem and fires it off using the spell slot that the mage memorized a different spell in.

EDIT:
Mages do have their points as well. The larger spellbook definitely helps if you know what you're going up against and can memorize spells that are better suited for what you will face. Sorcerors would have to cast them from scrolls, or more likely just make due with the generalized spells.

Sorcerors may win the tactical battle, but I still prefer mages for their versatility.

[ May 10, 2006, 07:50: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

Huh? Apparently we don’t mean the same thing with the word.

I think you should actually play a sorcerer before you talk about them. How do you know how many MI and stoneskin you need, between rests? Unless you metagame to a ridiculous level how many breaches, how many meteors? Do you reload after each finger of death or do you always succeed on the first try? How do you know how often other NPCs will fail their saves and need a dispel magic? At high level the Sorcerer can just keep casting wishes until everyone are rested again. The list of times this influences available options are endless.

Unless you are talking solo that’s what the secondary mage is for. As I said before their are not enough spells for the sorcerer to be limited by the spelllist. More spell is just about flavour.

Good for you, not that it had anything to do with the point I was making.

 

Though I don't know how starwalker would look at it, I do find this rather insulting on his behalf. Also rather poorly argued. Need a lot of [any of the spells you listed]? Then memorize a lot of them. How do you know how many you need? Experience playing the game (you tend to find a good balance and remember what places you need more or less). Keep casting wishes? The mages did it first. Nothing you describe is anything more than what a mage can do, but not because a sorceror can't do more than a mage. It's because you're using irrelevant arguments, and not expressing the actual advantages of a sorceror over a mage (the reason why I stepped in at all).

If you want to talk about a sorceror still casting when a mage has run out of spells, do so. If you want to talk about a sorceror having more choices in the middle of a volatile situation, do so. If you just want to go around in circles about needing so many of this spell and so many of that spell, without addressing the difference between sorcerors and mages, by all means feel free to do that as well (though you shouldn't expect to convert anyone with that strategy ). But deriding the gaming ability or experience of someone about whom you know nothing, just because they don't see your well-hidden point? I'd pass on that.