Power beyond my wildest dreams

Pregethwr · Post by **Pregethwr** » Fri Feb 01, 2002 5:34 am

I am playing through with a solo cleric/mage (I like spells). Although this is my third run through it is my first with the bonus merchants, so it is myy first experience of the robe of vecna.

Anyway my character hit 6million exp and I got my first level 9 slot and I chose improved alacrity to go in it, since I am always looking for ways to make my spellcasting better. I play with auto-pause on spell casting anyway (to run away from cloudkill and skull trap)

I got to a difficult fight and thought better cast it....

OH MY GOD

Before my eyes my little half-elf became an awesome unstoppable spell-spitting ass-whupin' monolith.

Who needs time stop? in the time it takes to spit out 8-20 spells the baddies hardly moved. Since she has all the spells in the game (except the druid only ones) she can do anything. A whole world of combos has opened up to me - if an enemy caster gets a spell off I can protect myself *before* it arrives, if an enemy hits me I can heal myself *in between* his hits. I can raise an army in less than 1/2 a round. I can cast greater malision and then doom everybody in the room.

Before this I wasn't looking forward to melissan, but now with this in conjunction with project image/wizard eye is making chomp at the bit .

Anyway so what I wanted to say is

1.) This rocks. Improved alacrity - for when you absolutely have to kill every mutha in the room.

2.) I would appreciate any cleric/mage combo suggestion. I want to enjoy my brief taste of absolute power

Stilgar · Post by **Stilgar** » Fri Feb 01, 2002 5:56 am

First cast timestop, and then improved alacrity, and see what happens,
talk about killer combo.

Never heared someone solo a cleric/mage, is it difficult?

Curdis · Post by **Curdis** » Fri Feb 01, 2002 6:01 am

Try searching for topics with the titles 'cheese' or 'why Aerie is the best' (So anything by User Unfriendly) or get the full skinny fron Xyx's spell guide (address is in his sig.). Stacking say three Holy Smites is supposed to be a real hoot (unless you have Korgan in your party). - Curdis !

Pregethwr · Post by **Pregethwr** » Fri Feb 01, 2002 6:09 am

I've never soloed anything else but I don't think it is particularly hard. The first few quests out of the dungeon are tricky but after that its okay. If you like spells I would recommend it though. I can cast 80+ spells at the moment

Skeletons are your friends, stoneskin is your friend... its not rocket science, triggering cleric spells.......

For the first time I appreciated cleric spells for something apart for buffing and healing. I would say it is only really now the mage part of the character is harder.

I know about timestop but why bother? the baddies don't react quickly enough, although the wish double timetop and improved alacrity would be something to behold.

Holy smites are awesome, they have casting time of 1 with robe of vecna\amulet of power so with imp alac I could cast 10 (yes 10) in a round. Nobody can resist that. Equally I can spit out 10 skull trap and cloudkill. It takes 1/2 a round for me to remove magic defences, breach then lower resistence.

Implosion has casting time of one so I can cast 4 of them no problem.

Anyway as you can see I am enjoying this.

Lelio · Post by **Lelio** » Fri Feb 01, 2002 7:04 am

What other stuff do you use with that character? Whats you AC and magic resistances?

Phantom Lord · Post by **Phantom Lord** » Fri Feb 01, 2002 7:32 am

Improved alacrity + timestop + multiple dragonbreath cleans most rooms just fine. Eats up all lvl 9 slots but who cares if there's nothing left to kill afterwards.

Pregethwr · Post by **Pregethwr** » Fri Feb 01, 2002 7:40 am

not sure if I have maximised it but my ac is -3 without shield -8 with the sentinel. Plus blur and stuff it gets down. Mostly I use stoneskin and mirror image to stop being hit too much.

Magic resistance is 25% with tear of bhaal but I don't use all the maximising eq. I try to roleplay a bit so I try to use all the eq that makes me a better spell caster (e.g. ring of wizardry) rather than straight power game stuff (ring of gaxx).

my thaco is -6 -2 with flail of ages and crom fayer or -8 with only crom fayer or staff of magi. All my saves are minus. I have over 90 hp.

I can use combo cleric/mage spells to make myself very hard as a warrior (e.g. globe of blades, righteous magic, improved haste tenser's transformation) the biggest problem being number of attacks (only 4 like that). i'm thinking of chain contingencying them for tight spots.

With chaotic commands, death ward and spell immunity I can protect myself from virtually all the insta kills in the game.

Contingency (50%) heal means I never die. Knock and detect trap means the only thing I can't do is disarm traps (but see above about surviving any of them)

I can cast energy blades as a 7th level cleric spell instead of a 9th level mage spell. My simalcrums will never be able to cast lvl 9 mage spells but they have all the cleric spells.

I can combine doom and greater malision to reduce enemies saving throws by 6.

Wonderous recall works on mage spells! (only up to level 5 )

Undead blow up at the sight of me.

And I use sanctuary all the time. A few baddies (immune to illuision I think) see though it, but mostly it allows me scout unmolested.

Because of the xp cap she is never going to beat a lvl capped sorceror or wild mage, but she can do literally anything. A thief can disarm traps and lay them but has no other advantages. Warriors are better fighters especially with whirlwind, but she is ok and anyway she will max out with 90+ spell slots. A veritable arsenal.

illusionist/cleric gnome is probably better, since the only thing you would really miss is horrid wilting, but I don't mind.

Lelio · Post by **Lelio** » Fri Feb 01, 2002 9:20 am

It sounds good, but i have no taste for solo playing. Its not roleplaying at all.

MindShadow · Post by **MindShadow** » Fri Feb 01, 2002 12:22 pm

Pregethwr you are a person after my own heart! Cleric/ mages rule! thank you for giving me some good ideas.

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Fri Feb 01, 2002 1:35 pm

try timestop and improv acuity with a sorc....

talk about evil, I once cast about 30 spells befoer I got tired, used up 6 full dragon breaths, 7 abu dahizims, and was starting on lower level spells before I got tired...

boy was that dragon surprised, but that tech reallly makes your mouse finger and wrist tired,

also, for even more fun, without using up spells!!!!

inc acuity and time stop will hasten wand as it is considered a cast... sell and recharge fireball wand, or flame strike wand, then hit time stop and inc acuity, then unload 30 charges into a non-red dragon.....talk about evil, fireball is not so hot a spell, but when you fill a room with about 30, everybody dies, quickly...

and you expend no spells, except 2....

a triple eathquake in a chain contingency cast by cleric mage is viciously evil, and with greater malison is evil... think AREA effect triple implosions...

the only problem with earth quake is it is saved against, but so is implosions, even the bypass magic resist spells, like eath quake and implosion, dragon breath, can be saved against, so a doom or malison is the armor piercing prequel to the nasty stuff...

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Fri Feb 01, 2002 1:38 pm

Pregethwr, try adding a sorc to this party, you will seriously be impressed at how nasty a sorc can be, once you get past the seriously intense planning a sorc requires...

you actually have to spend severla hours just planning, minimum, and quite frankly I have spent 20-30 hours on spell planning.

Ode to a Grasshopper · Mon Feb 04, 2002 2:54 am

Why not download the XP cap remover? If you're soloing you should reach lvl 40/40 without too much trouble.

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 3:55 am

giggle, I am talking about a 40th level sorc///
actually sorc/kensai, assassin, hive mother beholder...

Pregethwr · Post by **Pregethwr** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 5:21 am

thanks for the comments guys

I don't want to remove the xp just yet since I want to solo it without cheating too much. I have hit the cap quite early on in ToB though so I am not going to become much harder....

Timsestop is cool but I have only 2 lvl 9 slots (on reflection perhaps a gnome illusionist-cleric would have been better) and since everything worth worrying about is immune to timestop I don't think it is worth it.

I think a few of the final ToB battles are going to be hard but I am not worried much by anything up to then.

I have also found out that cleric-mages can be very good warriors. My spell trigger is improved haste, tenser's and righteous magic (there might be something better than this). Add chaotic commands, spell trap (from staff of magi), death ward and spell immunity conjuring (for maze). And you have -10 ac warrior with 4 attacks, thaco of -11 and -7 (dual wielding flail of ages and crom fayer naturally) doing 30+ each hit immune to just about everything. Add in stoneskin and mirror image and you can do some serious damage.

I know what you are saying about sorcs, and I cannot argue with the damage they can do, but it is the options a cleric mage gives you for a cool kill.

When, and if I finish I'll post on this topic to tell you what it was like.