Wild Mage and Spell Sequencer:Fun!

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Now here is what I discovered. I cleared the Copper Coronet from slavers, and then Yoshi did a little 'shoplifting' in Bernard's enhanced store, after gulping master thievery potions ofcourse, that fat guy really has a mean eye for willy hands. Anyway, good old Yoshi handed my Wild Mage lots of scrolls, VERY high level scrolls for that part of the game, like Simmys, Prismatic Sprays, Incendiary Clouds, Cacofiends, etc. etc. but most importantly, Spell Sequencer!

Now, I was only lvl 11 at this point, but that is the fun of being a wild mage, once you copy a spell to your book, you can try to cast it via Nahal's Reckless Dweomer regardless of your level. Say, if you have Time Stop written in your book, you can try to cast it even when you are at level 1, fresh out of Candlekeep and all! (though you need a lot of luck, otherwise it may be disastrous!)

Anyway, so I decided to prepare a Spell Sequencer which may come handy against the upcoming Slaver's Headquarters conflict. With Improved Anvil that place is tough.

I retreated to an empty back room, alone, in case of a wild burst or demon summoning accidents. Casted NRD and selected Spell Sequencer from my spell book.

As soon as the casting was finished, sequencer page came up. I put Greater Malison, Slow and Emotion in it, a nasty combo for hordes of enemies. But there was no wild surge at all!

Then I discovered it when I tried to launch a fireball to the group of hobgoblins in the start of sewers system, a wild surge happened and I got tangled. Well...it could have been a coincidence, but further experiments with casting Sequencer via NRD showed that there is no wild surge in the initial preparing of the sequencer, but the next first spell you cast normally will always end up in a wild surge!

My conclusion is, a wild mage can cast (minor) Sequencer, Trigger, and Contingency, and Chain Contingency via NRD with no chance of failure, they almost always work. I guess game engine does not count these spells as spells normaly casted, so the %100 wild surge chance when you cast a spell after casting NRD, does not count. HOWEVER, it happens when you next cast a spell, NRD's wild surge effect kicks in and you get a %100 chance of wild surge. I am not sure if level bonus also stacks with this roll, but the logic says it should, as it is the late-coming wild surge effect of NRD IMHO.

This is great, not only I no longer need to prepare Sequencer, Trigger and Contingency spells for my high level slots, but also I can cast these even if my level is not sufficient enough to cast them! All I need is having the spell scribed in my book!

Ehm, my only trouble is, is there a chance for wild surge from a spell casted by Sequencer/Trigger or Contingency? I noticed the level variation rule still applied to spells released from my Sequencer, maybe they can result in a wild surge too? Never experienced this though.

Any ideas, or experiences will be welcome! What do you think?

 

Interesiting! Wild mage is capable of and suitable for all sorts of cheese. Just try not to abuse the possibilities. (BTW, did you change your conjurer to a wild mage? I remember that you were playing a conjurere.)

Fortunately, you won't be able to steal anything from Bernard in IA v4. Even buying will be more difficult with the increase in prices.

 

Yes, in the half-year holiday (last two weeks) I started a fresh Easy-TuTu game with a wild mage, finished BG1 with him, and immediately continued on BG2 with this guy.

My conjurer in BG1 when I first played the game, was gone as I then got ToTSC and Easy-TuTu, save game was not compatible, that conjurer is thus lost in the catacombs beneath Candlekeep forever. (I still have the incompatible last save game though)

I did not want to continue playing my other Conjurer guy in BG2 game, (the one I wrote the story about the Beastmaster fight) as he was created at the start of the BG2 (when I still did not have BG1 at that time) when I first tried your IA mod.

Now that I have a cool character from BG1, and I enjoyed him soo much, (wild mage in BG1 rocks! Not extremely powerful but full of fun and suprise!) so I decided to go through the entire saga with him to feel the original feeling...for the first time! I do not regret my decision.

Though I played rather differently this time, went to Brynlaw quite earlier to save Immy. And I am having soo much fun, romancing Jaheira, for example, has never been that filling now that I am quite familiar with her ex-husband Khalid too! (may he rest in peace, he was a decent warrior and a trusted friend in my BG1 party, I will take care of Jaheira for him! ) I feel more familiar to Minsc and Immy too, can never leave them after all the adventures we had through whole BG1! It feels great!

As for the thing I discovered, I try not to abuse it much, BUT when I get a copy of Chain Contingency spell in the near future I may be tempted...being able to cast Chain Contingency via a 1st lvl spell all day long!....(drools)

 

Thanks for sharing this experience I will try a WM as soon as I can stop my Diablo2 madness and start playing BG2 again.

Not extremely powerful? I played a solo WM with tutu, went to the area south (or southwest) of Nashkel find that Cloudkill scroll and I was able to cast Cloudkill at 2nd or 3rd level. Just cast PfE before NRD though, you might "gate" a guest sometimes.

 

Well, most of the kill counts went to my fighters and especially bow-users like Imoen, Khalid and Minsc. Jaheira and My wild mage were very behind their kill counts. As I was busy trying to stay alive and disable enemies (via spamming mirror images and launching sleep, slow, hold person, confusion type spells) while Jaheira was the summoner and healer in general.

It changes as a mage grows in power though. Now that I have more serious spells in BG2 (Death Fog, Disintegrate, Finger of Death etc.) my kill counts increase rapidly. Can you imagine what will happen once I grab an ABDHW scroll?

All in all, being a wild mage is fun, but it has drawbacks as well, fourtunately I only had two lethal wild surges up to now:In BG1 I was trying to flee wounded, casted a Mirror Image to save my life...only, a cow landed on my head and ended it miserably ....Two:In Asylum, when I tried to disintegrate a Neo-Othyugh, 'caster became targeted' and I got dusted instead! (And I failed my %40 MR roll and save vs spell of 8, I even had Cloak of Balduran from Enhanced SoA mod, a ring of protection+2 from Aran Linvail, and yet I failed both rolls and died!)

I guess no one can dare a 'no reloads' game with a wild mage, eh?