New party - Ascension + SCSII scripting

[irook]

As you already said, you assume we both know the game so we know what will come. You assume well. From there it is obvious, I tried all of the spells and variants and other milion stuff during my play through BGII under many different mods or completely vanilla. I "developed" my playstyle. My playstyle do not bother with spells like Gate, summon demon here and there, invisible stalker or djinnies. I use Skeleton warriors occasionaly (75% MR), Mord swords (immune to physical dmg) and HLA´s summons (celestials and elemental princes). Those are worthy, because they had proven themselves to me.

With these facts here comes another one - when an experienced player tells you "sorcerer is better then mage", then it means this experienced player played the (modded) game (manytimes) with both mage and sorcerer, with party or solo, etc., and this statement is based on his empiric experiences. Which, as experienced player too, you should accept somehow. When I tell you, that sorcerer is the best arcane spellcaster, it is because I played all of those variants before and I "know" he is better. This is not because somebody told me "play as sorcerer! He is absolutely awesome!!!" So tell me once again something about herd and the shepherd. You can go with your head forward to the wall and maybe, maybe you will break it (the wall). But not this time.
Play with your mage or conjurer and try to be with him as good as sorcerer. It is your game. I do not say the mage is weak or something, but sorcerer is better (or stronger, more cheesy, what would you prefer).
Only mage who can compare to sorcerer is Edwin due to his broken necklace.

Now the smaller things to reconsider:
- I need 6 breaches everytime. I need 12 breaches, 20, 50... as much as possible. If I don´t like to sleep after each mediocre fight.
- I have my party at levels 25 or so, so the spells I had in Underdark I just brought up from my memory. My bad. Sorcerer should have 2 lvl7 spells on level 16 (or I think) and that were Mord sword and Ruby ray. Sequencer came right after next lvl7 choose. Sorcerer has 4 casting slots of lvl7 spells per day on level 16. So right after rest I am able to cast 4 RRR, 6 Pierce magic, 6 Pfmw, 6 Breaches and 6 secret words. Or, I can cast Mislead, Fireshield, Spell Imunities, Stoneskins, Cones of Cold or Emotions at the same numbers. Imoen can´t do such things. Even with those equipment with bonus spells. She needs protective spells for herself and disruptive magic for enemies at the same time. Her role is same as of my sorcerer. I found it necessary to be able to cast 2 RRR at instant or RRR and Breach in one round without need of triggers, sequencers or chain contingencies.
- sequencer, trigger and contingencies: another advantage for sorcerer. He needs to learned this spell and it takes one of his five precious slots, but after that he do not bother with it. The mage has two possibilities; let the one copy of sequencer/trigger/contingency be in his spellbook and cast it when it is necessary, or re-memorize his 6th, 7th, 8th or 9th lvl spell slots each time he wants to use this spell. I prefer not to bother - I choose sorcerer.

[galraen]

There are two problems with sorcerers, one they are cheesy, the first sign that Hasboro were going the dumbed down rout and changing the game from one for adults to one for kids.

The biggest problem for me though is that they are too one dimensional, because of the severe limits on the number of spells available to them they aren't flexible enough. However, due to the bad implementation of mages in the game, sorcerers in BG2 are sometimes superior to a mage. Use Gibberling's Three's tweak pack to use the correct PnP rules though and the balance swings back to mages. On top of having a lot more spells at their disposal (depending on having the high intelligence a mage should have of course) they also get more spells per level too, usual one per level if they are GP mages, even more if they specialise.

The ability to switch tactics to meet the demands of different challenges is what makes mages superior. Up against magic resistant Drow, then stop trying to hit them directly, use things like summons, and the comment

But your only solution (summons) can do the same to drows. Nothing.

is about as stupid a statement as I've ever read on Game Banshee. There are many summon that are effective against drow, icluding for example, Hakeshar and Nishru (sp?), and of course Skeleton Warriors, Mord's Sword etc. Of course Time stop, Improve Alacrity and using the time to buff the warriors in the party is another option.

Spamming area effect spells should also work well, drow should be resistant to spells cast at them, but the fire from fireball is fire for example, and therefore magic resistance shouldn't matter! That of course is entirely another argument.