I started a game as a Fighter/mage and wondering whether to use a very unorthodox party which goes like this.

Me- F/M
Edwin- conjurer
Imoen- Thief-Mage
Nalia- Thief-Mage
Aerie- Cleric/Mage
Jan- Thief/Illusionist

This party would be very fragile at the beginning of the game, but later on they could be unbeatable, since there are so many spells in the game.

No one could harm you, as they would be dead, before they can do anything to you. You could effectively speacialise your mages.
Myself- Invoking spells
Edwin- conjuring spells(and everything else)
Imoen- disabling spells
Nalia- area affect spells
Aerie- Enchanting spells
Jan- Illusion spells

All would have the usual spells, like mirror image and stoneskon, magic missile and other must haves.

Anyone have a better team than this.

Good Luck. Let us hope you don't get interrupted in your sleep.

You play Dual class right? Since you want your Bhaalspawn to be Invoker. How will you make this work?

A better team? no.
A worse team? No.
Are all character classes balanced? Yes.
Are all teams strong in the end? yes.

The party you listed has alot of spell power as you mentioned but hrm, in terms of tank though hrm... its another story. You only have one guy that can fight and he won't even be that great of a fighter because hes not a trueclass fighter. So, when you start encountering monsters that are magic resistance you will begin to experience alot of difficulty with this party!

Plus, somewhat has to be attacked! therefore one person in your party is gonna be surrounded by a bunch of monsters, having his spell interrupted, and probably dying alot. Unless you can use quick offensive spells to kill the mob that is attacking before they come close range with your spellcasters... but in the later stages you wont be able to kill monsters instantly with one spell. So you definately need more tanking power just to divert attention from your spellcasters. Even adding one more fighter, perhaps a true class fighter would be great. Even minsc the ranger would be great to your party, and if you are feeling devilish get Korgan. He definately is the man.

Oh also your spellpower is pretty one dimensional in term of mage arcane arts. You have a pretty weak priest spell selection, because only Aerie can cast the priest spell . She is a multiclass and will never be that good at it. So fighting undead can be a pain because your main offensive will be from spells, and priest spells are definately the ultimate undead offense.

I actually like the party you have, it was similar to the one i play except i had 2 fighters and they were both true classes, ie true fighter and ranger type. That still leaves you with 4 spellcastesr in your party!! so maybe nalia being there is kind of overkill, shes not that good anyways ;P But yeah, other than that i think your party is great and well balance.

[This message has been edited by strange_machine (edited January 13, 2002).]

I don't know. From your history here, I'ld say that you have a very good grasp of magic. I think that you will do well.

[This message has been edited by Garret Jax (edited January 13, 2002).]

How about a religious party instead?

You still get lots of spells and your party members can wear decent armour.

Of course you can't wield edged weapons so if you meet a monster that is immune to blunt weapons, you're toast.

Yep, i have solo'd with a Fighter/mage,very fun.

Magic is the way to go in this game, if you have a L.18 fighter type character versus a L.18 mage.

9 times out of 10, the mage will win, along as he can cast his protections in time. Even if the fighter has all the best weapons in the game and the mage had none.

Once those protections are up, cast an invisibilty spell (shadow door works well), and then cast a very damaging or disabling spell. A good one to use is polymorth other, haha. or simply cast some summoning spells, such as genie summon and elementals, or if you fell you can handle it afterwards, some fiends, caco-fiends and pit fiends.

Or if you want to beat the fighter at his own game, cast black blade of disaster, deals out high damage, 3 attacks, considered a +4 weapon, and also lasts for a long time.

It could work, im my experience so is it much more fun to play with a magic heavy party. As mentioned above a tank or two is always useful but its fun to come up with new ideas and solutions to problem that doesnt includes "bash their heads in with a big stick"
Go for it!

Actually all my parties have been kinda unstoppable :grin: , however, this one performed exceptionally well:

Sir Donaldus, halfling cavalier
Krabat, halfling archer
Mazzy Fentan, swing role melee/ ranged
Amelie, mc gnomish swashbuckler-thief

Imoen joined later, just like Sarevok in ToB.

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited January 13, 2002).]

You are right, with 6 mages you don't need many tanks, however you had done a better job when you made your char a Kensai/Mage... Or when you had just one pure fighter. Then you could give all great fighter-items to the one fighter that would have gotten a great AC (Armor, rings, shield), THACO etc.. The good thing now is that your FM can get a better AC at the right moment with Stoneskin etc... The bad thing is that not all mages will have great AC for there aren't sooo much good Bracers of Defense and Elven chains in the game... in BG2 you might be unbeatable... I would beat you easily when I met your party.... few hit points so fireball or Cloudkill would kill your group quick.

This would work better.. make in multi and move the savegame from multi dir to singleplayer dir.
Fighter/Cleric
Sorcerer
Conjurer
Necromancer
Mage/Cleric
Mage/Thief

That would be strong imho and you would still have 5 mages.

[This message has been edited by Lukki (edited January 13, 2002).]

Yeh, that would be good, but NPCs are much more fun to use. Anyway, i still think i team group still rocks, until proven otherwise.

I agree with Headbanger on this one - in a serious encounter of any 6 mage team with some able fighters, let's say my 4-man party, you will have the problem that a fighter, when well equipped, can take and deal out an enormous amount of damage, even more when he's regenerating - or hasted.

It is hard to say wether your party will survive a direct onslaught of agressively meleeing fighters or not (personally I doubt that) - while beeing under a rain of arrows - or standing in a cloudkill, stinking cloud, maybe with greater malison - a shame the mages savingtrow vs. breath weapon is so poor ... ;)

However, with 6 spellcasters you'll be extremely busy with micromanagement to handle combat - fighters are way easier to handle and to manage. 6 mages are definitely a challenge to play - so I'd be interested to hear how your party performs in the game, keep us informed :)

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited January 14, 2002).]

if you got the collecter editon bonus disk you can give edwin the robe of vecna if you can afford it but thats kind of cheating, even if it costs heaps of gp to get.
btw what imo imho mean?.

Abbreviation of in my opinion and in my humble opinion.;)

o :)

I'd hate to play with so many spellcasters. You'd have to pause every damn second to give them orders, and when you're finally done it would probably be overkill anyway.

When having the right protection spells up, like stoneskin, mirror image and spell turning, the full mage party can wipe out tons of enemies in few seconds. But how can they deal with some though monsters like golems, 100% Mr, or Rakshasas, immunity to level 7 spells or lower! Well since there is the wonderful spell, lower resistance, and some very powerful level 8 and 9 spells these monsters can't mean a big problem. Yes, a mage party represents more destructive power when managed correctly, than a full fighter party. The lack of HPs is more than compensated with the practical defense spells. Also there are a number of strong summoned creatures that can fight for you, like skeleton warriors, invisible stalkers, mordenkainen's swords, elementals etc...

That sounds like a fun party to use in SOA since you'll have to strategize with spells rather than just point and click attacks as with fighters. As to temporarily hold off incoming monsters, you can probably summon some monsters.

However, if you're planning to import this to TOB, I'm just wondering how you're going to fight [tough ToB monsters edited out].

[Go read the forum descriptions. ToB spoilers are not allowed in the BG2 forum.] -Tal

[This message has been edited by Taluntain (edited January 16, 2002).]

Well, thanks for these spoilers in this SoA forum ;)

For all the powerful mages you fight in the game, I actually find offensive magic to be more then a little bit useless.

Alright, admittedly, the single target spells are pretty awesome, like finger of death and magic missile (when you tally it up 6 mages casting magic missile would be pretty devastating), and so on. My personal problem with magic, however, are the area of effect spells. Unless you are facing a bunch of archers or you don't mind slaughtering half of your party, you are limited to abi dalzin's horrid wilting. Now, thats a great spell, don't get me wrong, but it is lvl 8, and thus a pipe dream for half of the game.

And don't get me started on all of the magic resistant monsters, or the "spell ineffective" nonsense such as Abi Dalzin's Horrid ass kicking not working on liches and so on.

If I'm missing something, it'd be nice to be enlightened, but the game was easy enough just using summoning spells and the occaisonal Abi Dalzin's Horrid Wilting.

Hate to crash the "Gee, what's-your-favorite-group?" party again, but this topic has been beat to -----ing death! I apologize for my outburst, but it seems that this topic comes up every one or two months, and it just freakin' ticks me off to see these kinds of threads. Please, there's nothing wrong asking about a good party, but when the topic comes up over and over and over again, it just ticks a few people off.
There. I let it go. Carry on :o.

Actually, the diversified mage party sounds compelling, but don't let it degenerate into a slew where everyoen submits their favorite party.



[This message has been edited by creudzfeldt-jakob (edited January 17, 2002).]

Try this:

1Sorcerer
1Conjurer
1Invoker
1Necromancer
1Abjurer
1Illusionist


Someone say'd this before but it rocks so try it Trust me

Yeah, that was said before, but i can't remember who?

Oh yeah i remember now, it was ME.

Sometimes i even amaze myself.