Is there a basic magic attack for mages?

[Raven]

I am not familiar with dnd 2 rules, so I am hoping someone can explain this to me.
I am playing a conjurer mage. I have 2 memorize slots but all my spells are non-damaging. Which means my only damage output is melee weapon. Is that correct?
Is there no basic magic attack I can do repeatedly? Like at-will in dnd 4 or cantrip in dnd 5?

[NuGuy]

Mages are severely limited in this game at low level. There are no cantrips.
Use your party members to melee.

Put your weapon proficiency in darts or slings. Do not melee. You can die in one hit.

The best lvl one spells are sleep, spook, blind. Sleep is incredible for groups of low lvl monsters at the beginning of the game.
Armor spell (long duration) or shield spell (short duration) are good for defense.
Magic missile isnt that great at low level but really gets good after a few levels.

Actually its probably best not to pick mage for your first character.
Cleric might be fun for a first run because you can wear armor and cast divine spells.

[fauxpas]

No, there are no "at will" abilities in ADnD, the closest you can come is to use Near Infinity to create a wand that simulates this by having a really large number of daily charges.

[Raven]

I see. Thank you for the responses.

[Leeux]

Yeah mages suck for a while at the start of the game, but don't get discouraged by that. If you like playing spell casters, a good option is to use a specialist, as they have bonus spell slots... if you chose the specialization well, you can minimize the losses from spells not available to you.

By the first third to middle of the game your mage will start to become a useful party member, by the end it will approach a level where you can star to feel the power, all if used properly ofc... and by mid to late BG2 they're walking gods on Faerun :D

Another option is to play Sorcerer, but you have to know or have a plan on which spells to chose or you can really bork it for late game.

EDIT: Also, keep in mind that the games have a lot of wands with useful on-use charged abilities and some other misc items with charges, and the best candidates for those are your mages (and often are the *only* candidate due to item use restrictions.)

[Raven]

I like playing summoners so thats why I went with the conjurer. So I guess that just means I will have to leech off of companions for exp till I can pull my weight, lol

[wendigo211]

If you are playing a mage to start, either:

1. Make sure you have an 18 dex and strength and put a proficiency point in daggers. Then go to High Hedge and kill the skeletons for throwing knives. With 2 attacks per round and a decent bonus to hit and damage, your mage will be a useful ranged combatant until he levels up enough to cast spells offensively.
   
2. Go Ankheg hunting (solo), Sleep will work on them, and you'll level quickly
   
3. Go Basilisk hunting (solo). You don't even need Khorax since you can cast Protection from Petrification and most of the time they just spam their gaze instead of attacking. You'll level even quicker by beating them.

[red255]

in BG1, you give your mage some throwing daggers, darts or a sling and have them stand out of harms way.

for damage you occasionally find wands like wands of fireball, and they do quite well annihilating enemy groups

[Raven]

I wish wands could be recharged like in later dnd editions. It would give the mage a more consistent magic output

[voehringer_nitron]

You can sell a wand and buy it back to recharge it, but that can be costly.

EDIT: Looked through my old posts, because I remember somebody asking about shops where you can steal wands. One of the "General Stores" in the southwestern district of Baldur's Gate you can sell and steal wands.

[red255]

I had plenty of wand uses after buying the 20 charge wands from the shop in Baldur's gate.

I only go for mages when its appropriate though. my usual approach is to beat things to death.

[Ryu Oki]

My favorite class is F/T/M. Slow starting due to xp being split between 3 classes, but once you start rolling through the story the levels come a whole lot easier. Benefit is that you get at least 2 weapon proficiencies in every slot you choose, a helm is equipable to prevent critical hits and extra hp from the fighter portion. Bonuses like find/remove traps as well as pick lock along with back stab from the thief role, and you can cast spells like a basic mage. Of course you will want 18s in all stats but wisdom and charisma (they aren't as necessary so 3's will suffice) to have the greatest chances (though accepting faults makes for a more personal experience) of success with leveling and encounters.

You might need to play till you are about to enter the Nashkel mines and restart so you can get tidbits of leveling out of the character, but like I said, once the ball starts rolling it's all down hill. By the time you reach BG2, you have a character that can just about solo anything when played right. And if you stay a relatively good character the bonus ability spells you get will give at least 2 cure light wound abilities (more evil play throughs give Larloch's minor drain instead).


Beauty of this game isn't to cookie cutter your characters from other peoples play styles, but to customize them for YOUR play style needs.

Another option that requires a bit of repeated play throughs is to use the dual class option. Start your character as a figher and get to level 9 on one play through. This way your character gets the max in weapon proficiencies as well as the ability to equip helmets. Then switch to a thief class and get a bit of some points in the abilities you want the thief to have (find/remove traps, pick locks, pick pocket, place trap, hide in shadows..........) Then you dual over to a mage for yet another play through. Once your character reaches the levels of the previous class those abilities are then available again (by rules). Thus you get all hp and weapon bonuses of the warrior, the back stab bonuses of the rogue, and then you can cast spells. This is time consuming, and of course (unlike F/T/M) the levels of the previous stop accumulating bonuses, they provide significant gains (especially from the weapon proficiencies of the fighter class) over all, with (seemingly) unlimited spell gains from the final mage class.

[Godsarm]

Wands , Scrolls and Potions of Explosions, Necklace of Missiles are your best options. At low level you will struggle to hit anything with missile/melee weapons.

First off, buy the Wand of Sleep and Wand of Fear at High Hedge...they are expensive but will be effective on just about everything in the game especially as they tend to come at you in groups, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, Gnolls, Ogres etc...Sleep is great on the lower hit dice monster groups and Fear is great on the higher hit dice monster groups. Neither do any good against Undead

I can't remember where you pick up your first Wand of Fire but these work great against Undead groups, especially Skeletons that have huge damage reduction against all but blunt weapons.

Wands of Frost are of limited use unless you have a clear line of sight, which usually means you are getting attacked. I consider it a point blank weapon if my mage is in trouble. Same for the Scorcher charges on Wands of Fire.

Wands of Monster Summoning...very expensive to recharge. May want to sell for a lot of gold as summoning scrolls are pretty abundant.

Wands of Lightening...if you have a death wish or no other option these things bounce all over the place.

Wands can be sold and repurchased with huge numbers of charges for a ton of gold...but it's worth it. Hint...don't use the last charge or it disappears

Scrolls obviously allow you to cast spells that you haven't memorized, no need to hoard the lower level scrolls, they are a dime a dozen.

Necklace of Missiles is another good choice, they can be sold and repurchased for max charges, which are less than Wands but another way to increase your firepower

Potions of Explosions, Fiery Burning, Fire Breath also can help, but there are fewer of them

[Gnarl]

It kind of breaks immersion to rest all the time to get spells refreshed nearly every battle. But most of the game you can, so it's okay if you have a magic heavy group.

[red255]

the first dungeon in BG2 I find resting is rather... immersion breaking. its not required but everyone has terrible spells memorized for getting thru there.

I'm not sure where immersion is broken resting in BG1 or 2 in your opinion.

Bg1 is pretty much mostly wilderness it takes days wandering between zones. surely theres enough time to set up camp

[AlexMBrennan]

I'm not sure where immersion is broken resting in BG1 or 2 in your opinion.

Try using traps to find out why - unless you think it is realistic that my party spent 2 days napping 10ft from the demon knight?

You can also rest in the IT mine which is similarly ridiculous because any guards you might have taken out would obviously be replaced by guards from the next shift (who would probably have noticed the giant pile of corpses and raised an alarm).