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I'll repost what I put elsewhere here:

First, lets get one thing straight: any fight that involves the staff of the Magi can be summed up like this.

"If I had an item that was implemented with horrendous lack of thought and forsight, I could KICK YOUR PANSY ASS!"

Also bear in mind, a druid could wait for you to cast first and probably get a insect swarm off. There is also a level 2 or 3 version (Creeping Doom,) with 50% failure rate and lower casting time as well I think.

monks can use wands and swarm you with summoned monsters then run. Also, in a waiting game, they can simply wait out your spells then use a wand of horror, at which point you are ... ahem ... screwed. They will have such low saving throws, only direct damage spells with have an effect, and none are powerful enough to kill a monk before he or she can run and hide in shadows.

The situation is also ridiculously favourable for the sorcerer, why aren't any duals taking place right after the characters duke it out with Irenicus in the final battle or Adalon or Fiirkag? or as soon as a sorcerer uses up his last spell?? why always after a full nights rest?

if I repeated someone elses posts, I apologize, I didn't read the entire thing

Staff of Magi: As I said many times, I agree that we should disallow it and also Cloak of Mirroring. For the spells we should disallow Project Image and Insect Plague.

Wands: it is probably better to disallow the usage of wands in duels. Anyway most of the wands can be used by only mages or clerics.

Duel of "exhausted" characters: why would an exhausted character want to be a dueling? If a fighter/monk/thief is reduced down to 25% of hp, he surely retreat to be healad. If the sorcerer/mage/cleric is running out of spells he surely retreat to re-memorize.

Blackrazor: interesting fighting abilites. Probably the best duel weapon for a thief/bard. The level drain is devastating, though I think the Amulet of Power would catch it. The strength and haste gain could also be important if the use of potions is not allowed.

Arenas: the "pit" can be used for pure fighting. Waukeen Promenade seems good for generic head to head battles. For other kind of battles (eg. team fighting a'la capture the flag) a real dungeon would be the best.

Stalker/Cleric: unfortunately cannot get haste, because have to dual earlier. The Gnasher is a very good weapon (additional damages for 4 rounds).

Draug Fea says, "Give me 1000 gold!"
John Smith the exhausted sorcerer says, " Kindly wait 8 hours while I rest and rememorize spells to turn you into a pile or incineratd powder."
Draug Fea says, "Oh sure, I don't value my life much."

You don't always have choice.....

1)Second, if we are gonna dissallow wands and insect plague, can we dissallow spellcasting as well? Both of those conditions hurt people other then the sorcerer by removing one or two of their main weapons

2)IF anything is dissallowed, it should only be things where their are less then 5 USES of it in the game, since you would prolly use them against some bad guys

3) Everyone has access to elemental summoning via those staffs

4)Ranger Clerics have these beutiful spells like summon Woodland Being who can launch volleys of holds at the mage and heal the ranger/cleric. and call lightning of course.

5)Monks abilities go through spell protections as far as I know, soo the mage has a really pissant chance of surviving 15 stunning blows without getting stunned.

6) if a mage uses all but a select few high level offensive spells, those nice Magic Resistant skeletons go after the mage ; )

it all comes down to whether the question is: which is the best character in the game or which can best the other in someone's dream word of ideal conditions.

A good mage/sorcerer would bring a bunch of scrolls with himself, but still he would probably retreat before using up all the memorized spells. Anyway we are talking about PC-PC duels.

1)Maybe you haven't noticed, but I had mentioned Staff of Magi and Project Image as well. About wands, see note 3).

2)I agree. Rare items (eg. Magic Resistance, 8th, 9th level scrolls) shouldn't be allowed.

3)Sure. What I don't like in those staffs is the number of charges. We were talking about duels, but if we allow any wand, the first two hour of every battle will be done between 100-100 summoned creatures.

4)Oh, I love the Woodland Being spell! This is what I miss most with my mage/cleric.

5)Yes, the stun (as a side-effect) would get through stoneskin. But a mage saves very well against spell. And even if it is stunned for 1-2 round, the stoneskin/mirror image + contingencies would still protect him.

6)The cleric can summon more Skeletons, but a sorcerer can summon more Earth Elementals and Mordenkainen's Swords.

"it all comes down to whether the question is: which is the best character in the game"

If you ask, which is the best solo character to play the game with, I already told my opinion: it is probably the ranger/cleric.
But again, here we are talking about PC-PC duels.

Originally posted by Kovi:
I think we cannot discussed short bow of Gesen yet. It has similar advantage like the Flail of Ages: the electrical damage cannot be catched by stoneskin. But, there are serious differences!
The Flail of Ages could be used faster (with haste) and have three different type of damage (4x3 per round). A Gesen could cause only 3(?)x1 damage per round, so it doesn't necessarily disrupt fast spellcasting (Vecna). And those 3 damages can be "catched" even with Mirror Image (not to mention a protection from electricity spell/scroll).
Another difference is that the Flail of Ages is melee weapon. In case of Gesen, when some summoned monsters reach the archer, he has to switch to melee or suffer serious AC penalties.

Your argument that the Flail of Ages could be used faster than the Gesen bow if the character was hasted is ridiculous. Of course a hasted weapon is faster than a non-hasted one.

Also, the Gesen bow does 1d8 additional electrical damage, not 1 damage. In any given hit, the bow could do more or less damage than the Flail. An Archer with grand mastery can also attack five times in any given round, as opposed to four times for a fighter with grand mastery. Arguing against the Gesen bow that mirror image will soak up all of the damage is also silly; the same goes for the Flail of Ages.

Three types of damage is better than one, agreed, but that assumes that an enemy is going to be absolutely prepared. It would all depend on how the duel was set up. We're also in agreement that it's tough to disrupt spellcasting when a Sorcerer/Mage is wearing the Robe of Vecna and Amulet of Power. In my experience, however, it's not as difficult as you might think; when you're attacking four and five times a round, as opposed to the spellcaster's one spell per round, the odds generally stack up against the spellcaster. With regards to summoned monsters, the -4 AC penalty can be tricky. I suppose I'd just keep firing at the caster.

Without a set of standards, this entire argument seems redundant. Nobody (myself included) is looking at this from an objective point of view. It's all just favoratism to a certain class, and the same endless arguments and rebuttles over and over again. I've posted twice now, so it's not like I consider myself above it. I still can't help but think this is going absolutely nowhere, however.

It seems that I made some mistakes in the post about the Gesen.

First, I had wrongly remembered that the rate of missile weapons cannot be hasted similarly to melee weapon. In fact a improved hasted caracter
can even fire at a rate of 6!

I have also used an ambigous term "damage". As I wrote in a later post, it meant the number of individual "hits" which would disrupt the spellcasting. In case of the Gesen it is 6x1, while with the flail it would be 4x3. Most of the 6 hits can be catched with mirror image, so there is a good chance of successful casting with the Vecna.

I agree that nobody is totally objective. But I think (and we have discussed it in another thread) that we have mastered different classes/abilities in solo play and in these duel discussions we can learn a lot from each other.

Originally posted by TheHellion:
I still can't help but think this is going absolutely nowhere, however.

It's not the end of the debate that matters, it's the debate itself. Through comparing strategies we all would use in such a duel, the hope is we can learn from eachother's strategies and more effectively play a different class than we are used to. Hopefully we're all more familiar with sorcerors, assassins, ranger/clerics, etc. after hashing all this out.

[This message has been edited by Rail (edited 03-04-2001).]

Point one) Get stunned once, any smart person will keep you stunned, and how good is good? even with a save verse spell of 5, the odds of lasting 2 round without being stunned is miniscule, after that just keeping swinging through your spell protections you will keep getting restunned and die eventually.

Also, monk has flame sword for going through stoneskin etc, Sling of Everard goes through mantle (+5 weapon.)

Also, if Celestial Fury's stun goes through protection spells, any but a cleric or another mage can stun you.

Also, I'm for every item being in the game, just not being abused. I.E. no flickering to invis every .5 seconds. (a DM would say, well, he just saw ya go invis, so he knows you are in the same spot. THUNK.)

Another question, is this adventuring setup or dueling setup?

BTW, I think a mage's save vs. spells is right around 2 at that level. I can't remember specifically. If anyone can look it up, please post here, but a 1 in 20 chance isn't good, even with the monk hitting 4 times per round.

And I think by "setup" you mean everyone talking about their rules proposed. They're talking about rules for a duel only. No one would be silly enough to set up rules for playing the game. Right? RIGHT?!?

[This message has been edited by Rail (edited 03-05-2001).]

uhhh, I'm pretty sure it is a fair bit higher then two, checking right now.

Save vs. Death, Parylization, something else
10
Save vs. Spells 6

based on this, we can figure out some odds ; )

50% chance of instant death on the first hit, 25% chance of surviving two.
49% chance of not getting stunned from the two swings remaining in that round.

Trump Card #1: Namara +2, 3 times per day user can cast silence 15' radius. which saves vs. spell at -5 and makes spellcasting impossible.
Duration: 2 rounds per level of caster.
9.1% chance of not getting silenced.

Basically, as soon as his survival becomes dependant on saving throws, he has lost.

Kovi: What's your beef with the spells Project Image and Summon Insects?

I don't think they should be disallowed at all. If someone abuses the Project image by summoning 6 million monsters, then they should be banned from the tournament.

I still can't see why you feel that Insect Plague, or whatever one it is, should be removed?

I don't really care about this whole which class is better arguement anymore... Just as long as those pompous socerers don't think they are invincible and that anyone facing them would have a really difficult time in beating them! BAH! Biggest load of CRAP I've ever heard. There are countless classes who could whoop a sorcerer in two, so please, no more of my class is better than yours!

Time to do something completely different I think...

@Giles- The only time I really counted, a while ago, my mage made 14 consecutive savings throws. That was about the norm. It doesn't seem likely that the 6 is accurate, even though that's what it says on the character sheet. It just doesn't match what seems to happen in the game.

Originally posted by Vehemence:
Kovi: I don't really care about this whole which class is better arguement anymore... Just as long as those pompous socerers don't think they are invincible and that anyone facing them would have a really difficult time in beating them! BAH! Biggest load of CRAP I've ever heard. There are countless classes who could whoop a sorcerer in two, so please, no more of my class is better than yours!

Time to do something completely different I think...

I think the sorcerors are done. They are a good class, but clearly not all powerful. Again, it depends far more on the player.

Others have pointed out that these classes are meant to be part of a team. They make up for eachother's strengths and weaknesses. Trying to say one class can beat all others is rediculous, seeing as how there are so many different situations and strategies. I, too, hope the "pompous sorcerors" understand that, as well. I think they do.

@Vehemence: "I don't really care about this whole which class is better arguement anymore... ".
Then why don't you ignore this thread?

Project image: there is a separate post about it. It is a flawed spell. Too strong, even without the summoning. After using spell immunity divination/abjuration it effectively makes a duplicate of the caster.
Insect plague: another flawed spell. 100% spellcasting failure and no saving is way too strong for a 5th level spell (especially against the dumb AI).

Stunning blow.
The base save vs. spell is of a mage at 17th level is 6, but the usual items (amulet of power, ring of gaxx) would cut it down to 2 without any spells.
Let's make a short analysis. With a save of 2 approx. 1 out of 10 hit would stun. A 21 level monk could continue stunning blow ability for 6 round at a rate of 4 per round. He needs an average of 2+1/2 round to make the first stun. But let's assume a very bad case (for the spellcaster) of three stuns in a row lasting 6 round. In this time the monk could hit 23 (one critical miss). The mage has 7 mirror image + 8 skins + normal contingency (we should disallow chain contingency): another 8 skins = 23. So even in the worst case the mage has a good chance to survive.

The quivering palm is another thing. Clerics have no problem with it, but mages have an extremely high base value of 10 in save vs. death, which makes them vulnerable to any death/poison effects (though the usual items would push it down to 4). In case of such dangers, the mages should cast spells which imcrease their saving throws (eg.: improved invisibility)

Flame sword: any weapon that has a special effect give the chance of disrupt spellcasting (flail of ages is the best, because of multiple and different damages).

Everard: the weapon has no special effect. The stoneskin itself would catch it.

Silence (Namarra): it would be a good point (is it really at -5?), but the Amulet of power keeps the spellcaster vocalised.

All of these cases can be avoided (for a short time) with a protection from magical weapon spell/scroll. If we disallow the use of a scroll the sorcerers would be in trouble. Anyway I think the sorcerers have to rethink the choice of spells as their lifetime is "extended" into such duels.

In the last days we were only talking about one basic issue: how to hurt a spellcaster (not only the sorcerer!). Fortunately we had some success. They are not invincible.
But we assumed a static and visible spellcaster. If attacked a wise spellcaster would probably move away (boots of speed), or go invisible (I mean a potion/spell not the Magi, of course).
We were also not talked about the battle odds. As they would depend at least half on the abilites of the player not the character.



[This message has been edited by Kovi (edited 03-05-2001).]

Well, I started the thread and this won't end it I'm sure, but I'm continuing to do experiments and post my opinions.

My final opinion (and last post on this topic) is this: WITH BEST PLAY, A SPELL-CASTER VS. FIGHTER TYPE WILL END IN A DRAW.

This assumes two things, first: sorcerer has staff of Magi, with which he/she can go invisible at will, all day. Second: the opposing fighter has cloak of mirroring. Reasonable assumptions, given their levels (17+).

One quick point: What sorcerer spells WILL effect a fighter decked out with cloak of mirroring? Seriously, almost 100% of a "maximized" sorcerer's offensive arsenal is useless. Certainly 100% of a "typical" sorcerer's arsenal. Even finger of death is reflected, as are area effect spells. Sorcerer is left casting greater malison + flesh to stone? or some other insta-kill spell, and fighters, at level 17+, with rings of X, bracers of Y, are just not going to fail saving throws, even with one greater malison. Maybe with 3 GM's, though.

This is how I think it would work with "best play". Sorcerer triggers greater malison + some kill spells that fail. Fighter runs away (much faster than sorcerer) comes back after GM wears off. Sorcerer thus gets gets one chance at quick kill, but it may be impossible for the fighter to even fail a saving throw at this level. Fighter returns sees nothing (sorcerer invisible) but a horde of summoned creates. Maybe fighter casts true seeing if he has it somehow. Sorcerer becomes visible, for a brief while. Runs away/casts sphere of chaos or something so the fighter can't just run in and hit him. The fighter fights summoned monsteres, true seeing wears off, sorcerer disappears again, figher runs away, comes back, sees nothing, etc. Unless somebody is stupid NOBODY will ever win this. The sorcerer just can't damage the fighter who can run away vs. timed spell effects (GM) and regenerate any incidental damage. Similarly the fighter just won't be able to hit the invis. sorcerer. Stalemate.

Remove both staff of magi and cloak of mirroring and it gets fun. Sorcerer CAN spit out lots of damage, but will be at least visible to start getting hit.

ONe thing that needs to be remembered, however. In an UNLIMITED battle, the sorcerer woud probably lose. Why? They are damn slow. A figher could see mirror images going off, triggers going off, invis etc. and just RUN away for a few hours. Regenerate any accidental damage. Unless the fighter is killed by the first big blast, which I don't think possible if he is cautious. Fighter then runs back sees socerer minus a few spell triggers, shoots some arrows at him from a distance, gets smacked by a spell, runs away, comes back in an hour, repeat until sorcerer runs outta spells. This is very boring, but will work. Even if the sorcerer attempts to not spell-cast until necessary, they have to do something vs. arrow attacks from range, which are slowly eating ironskins.

The true fun comes when it is a limited battle, for example defend a flag, stop somebody from getting through a pass, etc. In this case the fighter won't be able to just run away and wait,etc.

The sorcerer has one huge limitation that has not been mentioned much: time limitation. This also relates to the big advantages not mentioned for a figher-type like an archer: unlimited ammo, time, and greater movement rate.

Most of the time however, even with Figher vs. Fighter, with BEST PLAY, nobody will ever win. Hell, think about it gents, just run away when you get under 50 hitpoints. Even if he's faster than you, just weave around, you will regenerate quicker than his very occasional hits (he has to stop, pause, strike while you keep running). And if you are faster (boots of speed + ranger/monk) than your persuer it's simple. If you are in an enclosed setting it's different of course.

MY ULTIMATE POINT: Any PC vs. PC battle will depend 100% on equipment, terrain, time limitations placed on battle, other external variables. I can concoct a setting in which a sorcerer will have almost 0% change to win vs. an archer. Similarly one in which a paladin would have almost 0% chance vs. a socerer.

It ain't class. It's equipment and setting.

No more class warfare! Ha ha. Small joke there. Sorry.

I totally agree that equipment and settings are very important. But the original question
was: which class(es) are better in a duel.
That is why we started to setting up some rules.

The first area to think is the equipments. As I wrote earlier it is not a duel where the
kensai and a monk sit and wait how their summoned creatures fights against each other for the 2 hour.
Up to now we (more or less) agreed to disallow Staff of Magi and Cloak of Mirroring and the high level scrolls (Protection from Magic and also 7-9th level mage scrolls) also I suggested to leave out the extreme spells of Project Image and Insect Plague. There was also some word about disallowing wands (especially those with many charges). Finally there were recommendations about limiting the items by total cost and/or by the number of slots (only the quick items).

The arena also influences the battle and we made some recommendations here. A head-to-head solo battle mustn be held in small open area (the Waukeen Promenade arena is the max) which wouldn't allow a character to run and hide for hours. Otherwise even that first level kobold shaman would achieve a draw by peacefully sleeping in a hidden part of a dungeon. On the other hand teams against teams could fight in a dungeon especially with a capturing the flag type of settings.

The week end was great as I had good time with my baby boy (6 months old)...

But I still had the time to think about this whole debate.

I'm not necessarily happy with the outcome, but still my reasonning is this : the sorceror is very powerful (I was VERY impressed by the class when I soloed it) but not so powerful as to stand undefeated in BG Arena.

The sorceror class was one of the least popular a month or so ago. One thread on the BG Dungeon Tavern started the whole thing. I studied the class and managed to solo the game with it (with surprisingly very few reloads and no cheesy tactics). It appeared to me very powerful. I had so much knowledge about the class I felt I was invicible.

But I was wrong.

Insight and knowledge about your favorite class makes you a far more powerful opponent than you can look like.

To inform the community, I prepared the Sorceror's Survival Guide (with good success... again this week-end I have received 6 requests for the guide and the override files). With this came more conviction...

But I can now see a lot of people knows the game very much, and their favorite class also.

In BG Arena, the sorceror can certainly defeat a lot of opponents, but another batch of opponents can also defeat the sorceror.

It not only depends on equipment and environment, but also on strategies and tactics. The individual that plays the character as a lot to do in the outcome. A good example of this is the Flail of the Ages : the discussion has been going for weeks on the other forum and this idea was never given. Before Nighthawk came up with that idea, I think that most people would have think that the stoneskin can only be defeated by beating the skins out. Nighthawk is not a foe I would like to face. He is a real tactician and many classes in his hands would win.

So here stops my would-be arrogance. The sorceror is not the most powerful class. If one is, it is maybe the ranger/cleric. But even then, a patient assassin, a brave inquisitor, a laughting jester, or a clever sorceror can defeat this foe.

My final words : I hope that BG Arena project can someday be realised, until then, all is speculation. But at least, we all know more about the other classes than before this discussion, and hopefully, none of you thinks the sorceror is wuss... you can be surprised if you underestimate this guy... and you can look like a fool (like I did, to underestimate all other classes).

Cheers!

giles, the silence 15' radius of the namarra sword wouldn't be much of a factor in a fight vs mages/sorcerers since i can't see many mages going into a battle with any ammy other then the amulet of power, which grants a permanent undispellable vocalization effect on the wearer, i think.

keep the discussion goin, i'm learnin a ton about the classes

Originally posted by Giles the Sorcerer:
WE CAN'T TEST IT OUT. BG assumes your a friendly, so many many spells don't work (Wilting, invis, true sight.) against the other character.

You mean that you can't duel in MP?

I knew that Diablo2 was better

Originally posted by Vicsun:

I knew that Diablo2 was better [/b]

<smack> - don't say that in a BG forum