Spell Discussions: Level 3

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Oh boy, this is where things get interesting.

Clairvoyance (D)
-You rarely ever need to cast this. Helpful when you're trying to go from 1 side of the map to the other, but you can't see it. I like to have the whole map revealed without personally exploring it, so yeah. Use scrolls or have a mage memorize it to cast it the few times you need to.

Detect Illusion (D)
-I never bothered with this.

Dire Charm (Enc)
-Like the level 1 Charm Person spell, I never bothered with this.

Dispel Magic (Abj)
-This is a must-have. Even more so if you're solo. I used to look for certain spells that remove certain conditions, but I should've just stopped and casted this instead. Removes just about anything screwing with my party.

Fireball (Evo)
-Ah yes, good ol' Fireball. Good spell, especially for taking out a bunch of troll corpses with a huge radius. Perhaps others would like to elaborate more. This is one of those spells "every game's gotta have" if you know what I mean.

Flame Arrow (C)
-I used to like this, but the damage gap is way too big. With 3 arrows (max in SoA cap), you get 15-90 damage + the save for half damage. I rarely ever used it, as there are better alternatives. IF you think about it, the max damage is actually 45 for 3 arrows. Because if they are going to fail the save, you might as well use an instant death spell instead. Ya?

Ghost Armor (C)
-This is the upgraded version of level 1's armor. Only get this if you aren't going to have room to take the level 4 version Spirit Armor. As that is superior to this in every way.

Haste (Alt)
-This is a must-have. I don't care what you say. If the party doesn't all have Boots of Speed, everyone moves damn slow. But a constant casting of this will fix that problem. Also, if you're going to get Animate Dead, you'll DEFINITELY want this. 5 hasted Skeleton Warriors will wreak havoc.

Hold Person (Enc)
-They get no penalty to their save, and it has to be some sort of humanoid. And the area of effect is also small. Party friendly though. It's ok, I suppose there could be some uses for it.

Hold Undead (N)
-Not much to say about this. Does anyone even use this?

Invisibility 10' radius (I)
-I suppose this could be useful if you use invisibility like you would for the level 2 spell.

Lightning Bolt (Evo)
-This spell is dangerous and rather difficult to work with. However, there is 1 rather interesting use if you've got a cloak of reflection. A possibility of infinite lightning bolts from 1 casting. But I don't know how effective that would be.

Melf's Minute Meteors (Evo/Alt)
-This ain't too bad actually. I've read an Assassin's special poison ability will work on these meteors. Also, killing Kangaxx is easier with this. I used to throw these at enemies when my spells were ineffective.

Minor Spell Deflection (Abj)
-Not much for me to say. It's pretty weak.

Monster Summoning I (C)
-Also pretty weak, later becomes useless.

Non-detection (Abj)
-There's a cloak with this effect available early on. Either way, I can't think of many times that'd I would actually use this.

Protection from Cold (Abj)
-I haven't seen cold attacks used very often at all. If ever...

Protection from Fire (Abj)
-Yeah, lots of fiery action going on. This wouldn't be too bad with a fire resistance ring if you plan to use the Agannazar's Scorcher tactic. Complete invulnerability to normal fire attacks, and absorbs 50% of magical sources. Wouldn't that mean you'd immune to fire? Because you absorb 50, take 50... no damage. Unless by absorb, they don't mean actually absorb/healing... Bleh.

Protection from Normal Missiles (Abj)
-I think this is pretty useless. There aren't that many ranged attackers out there. And if there are, you send a fighter up to them and they'll switch over to melee.

Remove Magic (Abj)
-The offense version of Dispel Magic. A proper casting of Dispel Magic would do exactly what this spell does. I guess some would like this better than Dispel, but I need Dispel to remove negative effects on my characters. And there's no point in having 2 of the somewhat same spell.

Skull Trap (N)
-MUST HAVE!

Slow (Alt)
-This is pretty damn good. Makes things so much easier for your physical fighting characters, and they move slow as hell. Not to mention an awesome -4 penalty when they gotta make the save.

Spell Thrust (Abj)
-The first of the spell protection removers. It's weak, as expected. Won't do much for ya later into the game.

Vampiric Touch (N)
-This is good. I used to enjoy using this when I had them in my special abilities. Even though you can only gain hp once every 5 turns, it still deals good damage. Mainly used it when I was hurt and needed some quick healing. I wouldn't take this as a spell though, just use it from the special abilities. By the time you lose it, you won't need it anymore, anyway.


Alrighty, deciding the top 5.. there are actually quite a few good spells to choose between on this level. So I'm just going to list the spells I think would actually be worthy, then choose the top 5 after weighing out the pros/cons.

Dispel Magic
Fireball
Haste
Melf's Minute Meteors
Protection from Fire
Skull Trap
Slow

1 more thing on the Protection from Fire. I believe it stacks with a level 2 priest spell, which adds another 50% to your fire resist. Now you have 100% resist without the help of equipment. You can turn yourself into a suicide bomber by running into the crowd and casting fireball on yourself. Or better yet, sequence 3 of them.

 

Personally, I think that you need:

- Slow

- Fireball/Skull trap. Personally, I think that Fireball is better than Skull trap. Skull trap might have a higher damage cap, but the blast radius is smaller, and the casting range is unforgiving. I love to blast critters out of the range of my sight with fireball.

- Melf's Minor Meteors. If you're playing solo sorc, you really need this spell. Otherwise you have to do things the hard way (lower resist times 4). Good on stoneskinned mages as well.

Hence you're left with two optionals.

Good choices are:

- Lightning Bolt. Yeah, I know it's a little unpredictable, but if you pre-prepare, you can reap awesome damage on rebounds.

- Dispel magic.

- Protection from Fire. Try casting this on Fire Elementals.

- Vampiric Touch

- Hold Person

- Haste

 

I tend to go:
Haste - must have for summons (especially Skeletons)
Flame arrow (more damage than MM/melf's acid arrows - easy cast and forget type spell)
Melf's Minute Meteors - I used to use this almost exclusively for Golems (after trapping them in doorways), but It's quite good in upping your physical damage output and for use in cast and attack.
Remove *or* Dispell Magic - Depends on whether I have an Inquisitor
Slow - never used it before IA - however I have since found it to be very effective


I tend to skip fireball/lightning bolt and just use the wands. Less damage than casting at higher level, but more convenient.
Vampric touch - horrible in that you need to get up close and personal, which no self respecting wizard should do (awesome in IA, but thats not for this forum).
Invis 10" has its uses (especially in a thief heavy party), but its hardly required.

I'm going to be controversial and say that Haste is the only real must have - all the others have alternatives aplenty. To me its really a bit of a 'meh spell level.

 

eheheh
level 3 already?

here we go!

- Fireball
- Dispel
- Skull Trap
- Flame Arrow
- Haste

I do believe this were the top5 spells I used while playing BG2 ^^

Imp. Invisibility and the meteors are fine though!

 

Improved Invisibility as level 4. Invisibility 10' isn't quite the same thing, as attacking with this one dispels the invisibility completely (for a party-friendly Imp. Invsibility you need the level 7 Mass Invisibility, which is bugged in BG2, just like Imp. Inv). I find Invisibility 10' to be pretty useless - I usually only send one character to scout, and there aren't many situations where you need to have the whole party slip by an enemy.

 

Melf's Minute Meteors, combined with a high dex and boots of speed are devastating to enemy mages. They tend to go right through protections (stoneskin, etc.), and the high rate of fire means that it's tough for them to get a spell off before it's disrupted.

Flame arrow is a fun little spell if you're playing with friendly-fire on, but otherwise fireball is probably better damage-wise.

 

Clairvoyance...if you're really that desperate to reveal the map without exploring it, just cheat. It's not like you haven't seen all the maps already, and it saves time. I like exploring them all, though; make sure to kill all the random spawns.

Haste is a must-have, but only once. Given the fatigue it generates, it should be the last spell you cast before you rest.

Hold Person is great...as a level 2 priest spell. You've got much more options for L3 mage, so stick it in your cleric's spell list instead.

Lightning Bolt is incredibly useful if you've got time to line it up correctly using scouting (I particularly like having Imoen bounce hers down a hallway in ID to fry a bunch of gobbos), but is otherwise far too dangerous.

Melf's Minute Meteors is crucial for a gish, and worth it for others. The high enchantment and fast rate of fire are somewhat overpowered IMO for a spell of this level.

Protection from Normal Missiles is something of a BG1 holdover. In BG2, if you do go up against missilers, they usually have magic arrows anyway. And even if they don't you can use Stoneskin or Mirror Image to prevent spell disruption.

Skull Trap is better than Fireball in a strict combat sense, since it won't be ignored by the numerous fire-based enemies in the game. But its short range makes it useless for bombing. I usually go about half and half.

 

If you're really worried about hitting yourself with lightning, use the Cloak of Reflection/Deflection, or protect the entire party with Globes of Lesser Invulnerability with Limited Wish.

I really want to see what happens when you fire of a lightning bolt while wearing a Cloak of Deflection... millions of lightning bolts?

 

I think that it just bounces off you...not 100% on that though.

Though if you set it up right, I believe its possible to get a "lightning wall" going up between either an adjacent wall of another mirrored character. Insta kill?

 

Skull Trap is THE area of effect damage spell. It's the only level 3 spell that can match up with Abi Dalzhim's Horrid Wilting. Not having it in your arsenal would be foolish. The only problem is the trap part. Even though it says skull TRAP, it only works as a trap against yourself. It doesn't seem to ever trigger when an enemy runs through it. But when I run through it...

Once I got Skull Trap, I never took Fireball again. No point in having 2 area of effect spells, when 1 is inferior. The only thing Fireball has going for it is the ability to shoot 1 fireball off the screen to hurt enemies. They tend to start coming after me when they get hit once. There's also better alternatives for this.

Larger blast radius means you gotta be even more careful with your party members in tight spots, and there sure are a lot of them.


And what does casting Protection from Fire on Fire Elementals do?


Flame Arrow is just too weak. Skull Trap will do the same damage when Flame Arrow gets another arrow, but otherwise do more in between the level gaps. It's fire damage and limited to 1 target. There are better single target spells at lower levels.


Alright, well, I've got a decision now for the top 5.

Party:
Dispel Magic
Haste
Melf's Minute Meteors
Skull Trap
Slow

Solo:
Dispel Magic
Haste
Melf's Minute Meteors
Protection from Fire
Skull Trap


This layout makes the mage quite versatile. The Protection from Fire is one of the components to complete chaos at higher levels. It's not party friendly, hence it'd be perfect for solo. Having Slow on solo won't help you much anyway, you won't be fighting physically. Though having them move slower could be useful, but you have haste, so improve your own pace, to even out the race.


I still can't see it with Lightning. Could be useful solo once you get the Cloak and/or Globe of invulnerability. But that's too much just to use an unpredictable spell.

 

Never casted Clairvoyance before... it reveals the map like farsight does?

I heard that detect illusion is the same as the thief ability...

Dire charm seems to work better when they cast it on my party than when I cast it on them

I used flame arrow in solo one on one melee fights. I'm not good enough to target fireballs and skull traps to just hit him without catching me in it also (you can't count squares like in the old games). Which means the awesome damage of skull trap heavily hurts my sorcerer too. Good point about substituting this spell with lower level spells, it might take more time, but still gets the job done.

Never actually checked to see if the mage version of hold person is any different than the cleric version. Same goes for the resist fire and protection from fire. I don't use those often, and rely on items that grant resistance instead.

The first time I casted Invisibility 10'Radius, I thought, hey I haven't heard that incantation before...

Monster summoning I is good for making cannon fodder to absorb enemy spells. You can get 4 kobolds in one casting if you're lucky, 1 if you're not. Don't count on them to deal damage of course. No room for it at level 3 though.

Slow... I try to use slow against groups of fighters, but usually I end up casting web and damage spells instead. Still a great spell though.

Vampire Touch, great innate healing ability.

 

syuu:

Pushes their Fire Res over 100, which means that they are healed by fire. Then you can hit them with fireballs to heal.

blog:

LOL!

I actually used Monster Summoning I for a while, and it's not too bad. The fodder is actually ok, especially the kobold archers (yeah, I was stunned too.) And you can get four kobolds from just one casting if you're lucky (2 kobolds count as one summon when the spell is cast. Don't ask me why).

I love executing 'Death by Kobold' on my enemies. Paralyze them, and then have my kobold archers pick them off. I can almost imagine the AI as a human player, screaming "Oh no, ****, no, no, unfreeze dammit!", before dying in the most humiliating fashion possible.

As I learnt the hard way, don't underestimate the kobolds. Never underestimate the kobolds.

[ August 07, 2007, 11:08: Message edited by: The Mountain Hare ]

 

syuusaru, you top seven list is what I use.

I never bother with Lightning Bolt, I find it too dangerous.

The most used spell for me is Haste. I find that a lot of obstacles is easily overcome with speeded fighters and archers.

I am quite fond of using Slow in combination with Chaos, when there is a lot of enemies.

 

My gripe with picking 'Haste' is that I usually used 'Improved Haste'. Not only does it DOUBLE attack (instead of just adding one), it has no fatigue effect. And it's one of the only half decent spells in Lvl 6 (but that's for another thread, eh?)

Lightning bolt may be 'unpredictable', but you're guaranteed some pretty good damage on just one strike. And if you're in a narrow corridor, you can deal a huge amount of damage to just one foe. I'd argue that lightning bolt is the spell which deals the most damage in a single casting.

 

Yeah the idea with haste is to cast in on summons to increase their rate of movement (this is especially important with skeleton warriors). Also the extra attack per round is quite helpful in the larger battles that you rest straight after anyway. Also the whole 1 casting affects the entire party thing is awesome (I reckon I'd go mad if I had to cast Imp. Haste on each party member before every moderately sized battle).

 

Oh I agree. There is not many areas where you can't rest, and I would be seriously annoyed if I had to cast Improved Haste on every party member.

I am usally very careful and not very keen on using spells that are not party friendly, and lightning bolt certainly isn't.

 

Oh, I forgot to mention Dire Charm.

Try surviving Tactics without the ability to charm your high HP, high damage opponents.

 

A reminder that this is for the SoA without any mods.


About Protection from Fire, I thought you were talking about enemy fire elementals. I'm not sure casting fireballs would work. Chances are it would turn on you for hitting it, like most of the other summons. Even if it does heal it, it still thinks you hit it.

 

If Dire Charm works on Tactics enemies, who are a real bad bunch, then it should (and does) work on the enemies in vanilla BG2.

I just brought up the Tactics example to demonstrate that Dire Charm (and any Charm spell) is often underestimated, and is a life saver. With really tough enemies, it's often better to turn them to your side, instead of hammering away (and getting hammered by) at them.

As for Fireball, I don't think Elementals turn if hit by an AoE spell. You may want to check this though. It may vary with the patch and fixes.

 

The thing is, if these "really tough" enemies are susceptible to charming, they're also susceptible to instant death. Which a level 1 spell could pull off with some luck. If not, there are higher level spells that could do it. Besides, those strong enemies will come by later on in the game, when you're also a higher level yourself.

And the thing with the mod is that you probably won't encounter the same enemies or as you would in the vanilla game. Then again, I don't know anything about the mods as I don't play them.


And it really doesn't matter about those summons. They suck either way, not worth waiting 3 rounds everytime you want to summon them, and have a chance of them turning on you instead.