Spell Progression Dragon Disciple

[=M$= Oroberus]

Greetings!

As there's the usual issue of Xzar being able to learn identify while Edwin isn't but I can't stand Xzar, I thought about playing a Dragon Disciple (also planning to go full circle: BGEE, BGSDS, BGIIEE, BGIITOB) but as mages in general are the lowest of the low i nterms of power score early on, I was asking myself what a proper spell progression would look like for a DD.

Should I go for Familiar + Identify first or Familiar + MAgic Missiles or go down the FMT route and going for Sprying Colors + Sleep for easy Ankheg farming?

What's your experience?

In general, with BGII in mind, Magic Missile is one of my most used 'spam just always' spells but based on it's low power score, it seems (mostly) useless in BGEE, especially as DD does not scale spell levels with a stat.

Any tips?

PS: No, going for a tank-DD isn't an option, DD itself is more then tanky enough I'd say

EDIT: On a sidenote ... wtf should I take as a thief for a evil party in BGEE? Does Montarons lockpicking and trap detection hold up or should I actually bring Imeon ,as she won't leave due to reputation (opposite to Safana - let it be known: I despise Imeon -.-)

[Hamish]

For an evil party, I would stick with Montoron, you can get to level 8 in thieving eventually and that will get lock pick/ trap detection to 100 easy. Fighter Thieves are better than thieves anyway. You could also pick up sharteal and duel her to a thief too, or stick with Imoen... keeping Montron and Imoen means you can duel Imoen to a mage for extra fire power.

[Amos]

Since you plan to take the DD through the whole trilogy I wouldn't pick spells that won't be useful after the beginning of BG1.
Find familiar needs to be cast once per game so you should cast it from a scroll instead of using up a spell pick for it.
Color spray and sleep do not affect creatures above level 3-4 so they quickly become useless.
Better go for spells that at least have situational use at higher levels. For example Blindness (death sentence if it sticks basically), Shield (the AC is bad but it makes you immune to magic missiles), Spook (short duration but nice -6 save penalty) and even Chromatic orb (can interrupt casters that are not immune to acid and also give the satisfaction of insta-killing a dragon with a level 1 spell if it fails the save...)

[K***boo]

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

Should I go for Familiar + Identify first or Familiar + MAgic Missiles or go down the FMT route and going for Sprying Colors + Sleep for easy Ankheg farming?

I can pick least bad option among these but you are aware that these are all bad options, right?

Find Familiar is something you cast three times in the entire saga. You want to burn a Sorcerer's slot for it? Just cast it from a scroll.

Identify never needs to be cast at all because almost every shop/temple can do it.

Color Spray is objectively worse than Sleep and doesn't scale at all.

Sleep is amazing in BG1 but becomes completely useless from BG2 onwards. You could argue that it's worth taking just for BG1 if you were playing solo but you're obviously not.

With a party to help you have no excuse to waste spell slots on things that don't scale, you never need to cast at all or that you cast literally three times.

[=M$= Oroberus]

and that's why I asked :D

I got no clue regarding wizards/sorcerers, as I've only played a mage once ... 20 years ago ... only in BG2 xD

I was aware, that the spells I took would most likely be just for utility but you are right (although I can't remember seing a find familiar spell in BG1 anywhere, got to check the wiki).

What would your suggestions be? :)

[Shaalanaar]

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

and that's why I asked :D

I got no clue regarding wizards/sorcerers, as I've only played a mage once ... 20 years ago ... only in BG2 xD

I was aware, that the spells I took would most likely be just for utility but you are right (although I can't remember seing a find familiar spell in BG1 anywhere, got to check the wiki).

What would your suggestions be? :)

http://www.forgottenwars.com/oogi/mage_1.htm

Here is a great resource that gives you nearly exactly what you want, the spells are organised by spell level and then by efficacy. (it is the author's opinion though)

For my take on this:
Sleep is king in BG EE, but useless later. It is worth it for how useful it is early on, but not at all mandatory.
Protection from evil is just great.
Magic missile is one of the better choices for level 1 imo, it scales with your spellcasting level.
You dont NEED identify, but I always take it. Its nice not to spend gold on identifying, but not necessary. You can also identify in the field, rather than going to town.
Blindness is great against enemy spellcasters and fighters alike. A very useful debuff.
Grease is a great crowd control option for level 1, and it scales into the later content better than sleep.
Chromatic orb is a good choice for an attacking spell as well. It is one of those that scale with your caster level.

For level 2, there are so many good choices. Blur, Mirror Image, Invisibility, Web, and Acid Arrow are my favorites in this tier.

For level 3, Skull trap/Fireball, Haste/Slow, and Dispel are all great in my experience.

(If you use the site, don't let the ranking of a particular spell keep you from taking it, if you think you could benefit from having it. Some of the spells ranked as "Bread and Butter" or "Cheep Beer" are better than they may seem at first glance. There definitely are useless spells though, not every spell is great.)

[Shaalanaar]

About find familiar, you only cast it a couple of times for the HP boost, and I think only Gorion's Ward can cast it (not 100% on this). After that you put the familiar in your pack, you don't want that little guy to catch a stray arrow. Familiars do not level up. It's best to use a scroll for this.

[Shaalanaar]

You can later find wands of sleep and fear, they make taking those spells a little redundant, but the spells themselves are great up until that point.

If you have an item with charges, like a wand or magic necklace or maybe a cursed bloody goblet, abstain from using the last charge. You can recharge items such as these by selling them to a vendor and then re buying them. There is a bit of a gold cost doing this, but gold becomes a non issue fairly quickly, and you get to reuse the items infinitely.

If you use the last charge of a charged item, the item disappears forever.

[=M$= Oroberus]

Originally posted by Shaalanaar:

You can later find wands of sleep and fear, they make taking those spells a little redundant, but the spells themselves are great up until that point.

If you have an item with charges, like a wand or magic necklace or maybe a cursed bloody goblet, abstain from using the last charge. You can recharge items such as these by selling them to a vendor and then re buying them. There is a bit of a gold cost doing this, but gold becomes a non issue fairly quickly, and you get to reuse the items infinitely.

If you use the last charge of a charged item, the item disappears forever.

Oh, I like that vendor-cheese, didn't knew that, although I played the original over and over again back in the day , thanks :D

Also thanks for the additional input and the link, checking it out

[K***boo]

Dudleyville has hands down the best and most detailed BG1 walkthrough on the Internet but their spell guide is terrible. Case in point: they put Sleep as "horse dung" when it's literally the single best spell in BG1.

When it comes to details, minmaxing, powergaming and general good advice the Play It Hardcore wiki is considered the best overall guide for the entire saga.

https://pihwiki.bgforge.net/Baldur%27s_Gate:_Classes_and_Kits#Sorcerer has an extensive write-up about the spell selection and it's hard to disagree with.

[Shaalanaar]

Originally posted by Kokiboo:

Dudleyville has hands down the best and most detailed BG1 walkthrough on the Internet but their spell guide is terrible. Case in point: they put Sleep as "horse dung" when it's literally the single best spell in BG1.

When it comes to details, minmaxing, powergaming and general good advice the Play It Hardcore wiki is considered the best overall guide for the entire saga.

https://pihwiki.bgforge.net/Baldur%27s_Gate:_Classes_and_Kits#Sorcerer has an extensive write-up about the spell selection and it's hard to disagree with.

I like the author's spell choices and reasoning in this, though my own spell choices would differ slightly. Bookmarking it!

[Wicket W. Warrick]

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

Greetings!

As there's the usual issue of Xzar being able to learn identify while Edwin isn't but I can't stand Xzar, I thought about playing a Dragon Disciple (also planning to go full circle: BGEE, BGSDS, BGIIEE, BGIITOB) but as mages in general are the lowest of the low i nterms of power score early on, I was asking myself what a proper spell progression would look like for a DD.

Should I go for Familiar + Identify first or Familiar + MAgic Missiles or go down the FMT route and going for Sprying Colors + Sleep for easy Ankheg farming?

What's your experience?

In general, with BGII in mind, Magic Missile is one of my most used 'spam just always' spells but based on it's low power score, it seems (mostly) useless in BGEE, especially as DD does not scale spell levels with a stat.

Any tips?

PS: No, going for a tank-DD isn't an option, DD itself is more then tanky enough I'd say

Magic Missile becomes to be important when you get at least 3 missiles, so at the beginning you can skip it. But later also in BG is very important.
You can take sleep, also if later is useless. It's not a problem to have 1-2 useless 1st level spell later, since you will use most of time magic missile. On the other hand you can take a wand of sleep very early and recharge it for few coins, so take it or not it's up to you.
Other spells that can be useful are spook and blindness.
I always take identify, too, a sorcerer doesn't need to choose and you always have when you need.
Familiar...you need to use it only once, so wait for the scroll an leave it.

I would take wand of sleep and save one slot, than, in order: spook, blindness, magic missile, identify, whatever you like (Larloch's Minor Drain or protection from petrification)

[AlexMBrennan]

Find Familiar is something you cast three times in the entire saga. You want to burn a Sorcerer's slot for it? Just cast it from a scroll.

There used to be an exploit where you could cast the spell, export the character and then repeat until you get 1000HP which would have been very inconvenient to execute if you were forced to collect the scroll from Nimbul.

Of course the exploit has since been patched so you no longer benefit from learning find familiar.

[Hamish]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Find Familiar is something you cast three times in the entire saga. You want to burn a Sorcerer's slot for it? Just cast it from a scroll.

There used to be an exploit where you could cast the spell, export the character and then repeat until you get 1000HP which would have been very inconvenient to execute if you were forced to collect the scroll from Nimbul.

Of course the exploit has since been patched so you no longer benefit from learning find familiar.

with 1000hp the challenge is to die haha

[=M$= Oroberus]

Originally posted by Hamish:

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

There used to be an exploit where you could cast the spell, export the character and then repeat until you get 1000HP which would have been very inconvenient to execute if you were forced to collect the scroll from Nimbul.

Of course the exploit has since been patched so you no longer benefit from learning find familiar.

with 1000hp the challenge is to die haha

Sounds like a viable Solo-Mage strategy for Legacy Of Baal *gg*

[cyrilverba]

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

Greetings!
EDIT: On a sidenote ... wtf should I take as a thief for a evil party in BGEE? Does Montarons lockpicking and trap detection hold up or should I actually bring Imeon ,as she won't leave due to reputation (opposite to Safana - let it be known: I despise Imeon -.-)

Shar-Teel is your girl.