Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewind Dale 2

[BlueSalamander]

Farsight - No it's very useful but in higher levels. In higher levels your mage most likely will use Project Image a lot.

Fine, but until my character reaches the level for Project Image, it's useless.

Fireshield/BlueShield: Sounds good the way you describe it, but why do I have to learn about the way it actually works, on a forum?

Greater Malison: again, a case of incomplete/wrong spell description; how am I to know that it bypasses even spell resistance, and anyway why doesn't the game at least display who's getting affected in the log window. I certainly wouldn't have imagined that this spell would work on dragons.

Improved Invisibility - I was refering to the level-3 spell, invisibility 10-foot radius, which I think is nice to surprise enemies. I agree that actually Improved Invis is not useless. It's just that I would rather take another spare Stoneskin over Improved Invis.

Minor Sequencer - useless, do we really need two additional second-level spells?
Nonsense, for cleric/mages that means Doom+Chromatic orb, save-penalty that stacks with malison btw and a instakill effect in a single sequencer that has fast casting time = dragonkiller

Okay, the real benefit there is the quick casting of two spells at the same time. Still, you could get a spare Stoneskin instead of that, and cast chromatic orb in the traditional way. Can Doom bypass spell resistance? I wouldn't have imagined that it could work on a dragon.

Secret Word- I stand by what I said; when you want to remove spell protections you will use the other, more powerful/appropriate, spells, and not that one.

Spirit Armor - yes I know about the AC, but the thing is, a mage will get a good AC anyway just from items. Is it better to cast Stoneskin and then Spirit Armor or just memorise 2 Stoneskins? Personally I prefer to memorise 2 stoneskins.

I guess if you are used to games/campaigns where experience comes fast as Hell and you are able to hit level 20 with the entire party in just hours then BG2 may seem slow in the experience for you but I never had this problem.

No, if you compare with TOEE, Dark Sun or Neverwinter 2, the slowest of all for character advancement is Baldur's Gate 2. It may be due to the sheer size of Chapter 2. I expect the designers created Chapter 2 to be finished by characters below level 12, and so designed all the chapter 2 encounters and experience awards for characters of level between 8 to 12. That would be okay if Chapter 2 wasn't so huge.
Or they decided that the players must reach level 20 only at the very end, and so divided all experience awards in order to delay levelling up.

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Ok so it comes mainly down to either preference or you just not knowing about how spells work. I don't say that the spell descriptions were super-informative, but just so you know no game I played had descriptions like KotC. Just look at ToEE, where often you better know the spell from PnP and hope it somehow functions that way. Like the description for Tensers or Righteous Might - *you gain combat bonuses*.
I say preference because say you play Kensai/Mage and cannot wear helmets/bracers/armor. Spirit Armor would be your number 1 spell alongside stoneskin. I prefer flame arrow over fireball, also there are fireball wands. Does that mean fireball is useless?

A pity you never went as far as where the casting fun truly begins, especially if you take a lot of casters with you.
Hey I'll spoil it for you a bit:

- spell immunity is THE spell, Demilich spams Imprisonment : SI:Abjuration, SI: Abjuration/Divination/Alteration makes you immune to all dispelling attempts cause all those spells belong to either of those 3 schools
- mislead creates an image of you that can't attack or cast, and makes you improved invisible, however as long as the image exists you stay invisible, so if you park the image somewhat away out of range of dispels or True sight...
- nishruu and hakeashar are the summons vs Mages, they heal from magic used against them and drain the spells of mages (but also charges from items)
- contingiencies don't count towards the 1 spell per round rule, so you could have a trigger set up with 3x sunfire (penetrates SR) cast it, and immediately set a chain contingiency on enemy sighted and stick 3x Abi Dhalzims into it, all 6 spells hit your foes at once

The list goes on but I'll stop here.

Regarding the XP, you know there is some kind of level scaling in BG2, so if your lvl12 and you'll encounter a mummy, odds are you'll encounter a lich at lvl20. There are certain areas in game where there is more XP to be gained. I'm sure in the underdark you'll make more - much more - XP than in chapter 2, although it's much much shorter. Of course the requirements to level up increase too, so...

[BlueSalamander]

You've convinced me to try again. I'll go solo with a thief/mage this time. Possibly with Viconia at some point.
I guess with the extra XP from disarming traps and learning spells, and being the only character, that might go quick enough for me not to lose interest. Plus a single character should be easier to micromanage, and allow for "Protection from Fire + Fireballs" tactic.

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Ok it wasn't my intention to convince you to try again... I guess I just like to talk about BG2

However multiclass always level slowest, how about a dual-class instead? Also if you go solo, odds are you hit the cap in chapter 2, maybe you should install ToB first and remove the XP cap (otherwise you'll stop leveling after 20% of the game) and also install some mods, mainly the G3 fixpack, and G3 tweakpack (things like larger item stacks and removed limits from containers like gembags etc). However, remember wands of cloudkill/fire/monster summoning. Also if you like thief/mage... maybe you should take a look at the Rogue-Rebalancing mod (excellent imo). More rogueish equipment available, rogues can put 3 dots into dual-wield and a lot of other nifty things. However it also makes enemy rogues much more dangerous...

[BlueSalamander]

Yes, I have ToB and the G3 mods. I'll check out the Rogue-Rebalancing mod too, thanks. I never liked the dual class idea.

[VentilatorOfDoom]

maybe you should also install the ascension mod, although soloing with ascension might be a bit much, but if you have viconia/imoen it might be a bit easier than solo

[BlueSalamander]

I have a lot more to say about BG 2 and TOB as I managed to finish them a few days ago (except Watcher's Keep), with my thief/mage, Keldorn and the character's wife, Aerie. I've taken some notes and screenshots and I'll post them here later on when I get back from my holidays in France.

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I have a lot more to say about BG 2 and TOB as I managed to finish them a few days ago (except Watcher's Keep), with my thief/mage, Keldorn and the character's wife, Aerie. I've taken some notes and screenshots and I'll post them here later on when I get back from my holidays in France.

You left Imoen behind?

"(except Watcher's Keep)"

why? this is a good dungeon and killing the imprisoned one is fun.

[BlueSalamander]

Yeah I left Imoen as soon as I found her. I'll do the keep later on; I didn't have enough time and there was nothing in TOB pointing me towards it.

[VentilatorOfDoom]

In this dungeon there is a major amount of XP to be gained, a stat increasing machine, the deck of many things (which can get you 1,3 million XP alone or other effects if you so choose), dragons, a demilich, several regular liches and a large concentration of baatezu and tanarri, plus a lot of the most powerful equipment in the game (much of it even upgradable by cespenar)