Baldur's Gate Arcane Spell Guide Level 4
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- Hi this is part 4 of 10 videos going over every arcane spell in the baldur's gate series.
I play the enhanced edition with SCS on insane difficulty so this video is focused on that, but most of what I say applies to core rules unmodded as well.
If you are curious about a particular spell I have them ordered here by tier alphabetically.
S Tier Spells
Greater Malison 1:35
Improved Invisibility 4:40
Spirit Armor 9:35
Stoneskin 11:38
A Tier Spells
Minor Sequencer 15:36
Wizard Eye 19:43
B Tier Spells
Emotion: Hopelessness 22:06
Enchanted Weapon 24:19
Fireshield (Blue) 27:38
Fireshield (Red) 27:38
Polymorph Self 35:23
Remove Curse 44:19
Secret Word 45:53
Teleport Field 49:12
C Tier Spells
Confusion 51:15
Contagion 52:32
Farsight 54:05
Ice Storm 54:58
Minor Globe of Invulnerability 56:53
Monster Summoning II 59:33
Otiluke's Resilient Sphere 1:01:36
Polymorph Other 32:02
Spider Spawn 1:04:17
If you would like to see me play live, my twitch stream can be found here / davaeorn I stream daily starting at 10 am EST.
Please never stop to make BG videos, you are BG god, rewatching all guide videos for a 3rd time 🎉
Polymorph Other is by no means an excellent spell but one of my fondest memories of Baldur's Gate II is of it: after much debuffing etc. I turned the red dragon into a squirrel. So satisfying.
Definitely fun for sure, thanks for watching friend
@L Petillo Sorry for not answering you earlier; yes, I did get the same exact loot from the squirrel form as one always gets from his normal dragon form.
That's so awesome
I just turned the shadow dragon to squirrel!
My party was all level 10, I thought i had no chance but I wanted to give it a shot in case I could get this shadow dragon armor for my ranger..
Everythinf was going so bad except that Minsc was in the jelly form and tanking the dragon pretty fine. But still I just could not hit it with anyone.. Then i got Nalia to cast polymorph.. and I exploded of surprise that it worked.. it was so hilarious to arrow the squirrel with the epic music
@@olivierslupik400That's so cool. Did you do much debuffing or was it just one of the 1 in 100 chances that happened to work?
Something to note with fireshield that a friend and I discovered by accident during our first attempted fight against Irenicus. He was kicking our asses, so we used the efreet bottle as a distraction and ran away. The game started to lag and we checked out the combat log.
Apparently, the efreeti cast fireshield, and Irenicus had run out of spells but also had fireshield going. Irenicus punched the efreet triggering the efreets fireshield and Irenicus took some minor damage, activating his fireshield. But the efreet was immune to fire damage, and created an infinite loop of damage until Irenicus died.
Thought it was worth bringing up for your guide. This was in ee btw.
Also, love having found your channel. Its inspiring me to do another play through.
(Edit for grammer)
Nice! thanks for watching and commenting friend!
Jesus Christ that's insane
That's hilariously stupid
How is this game so full of spell-related bugs 25 fucking years after inception? Ok. I can get the bugs. But incorrect spell description? That's just insanely shameful. I volunteer to rewrite them for free. If I were anyone with any relevant position at the company, i'd take a weekend and just fucking do them. Rant over :))
Note that mindflayers don't have innate See Invisibility in default BG2, it's a component you can choose in SCS.
They don't possess it in the AD&D monster manual either, so BG2's implementation is accurate.
Correct. Thanks for commenting friend.
which is weird really, they can locate you by your thoughts....
@@trazyntheinfinite9895 Indeed, but there are long lasting spells that block that, especially by the time ilithids start appearing in BG2. Well, not in game, but you know what I mean.
The innate See Invisibility is the closest approximation to mindflayers' ability to simply detect the thoughts of any intelligent non-undead creature. SCS tried to make things more accurate to pen-and-paper since a lot of enemies that have no answer to invisibility in Baldur's Gate were not nearly as helpless in the original game.
Otiluke's Resilient Sphere is useful in BG 1 to protect the Arch Dukes from Saervok and the doppelganger at the coronation. I use scrolls instead of a spell slot.
good idea, it's not necessary now that SCS gave lia her true spell list but in the original it's a close one.
25:27 you know what enchant weapon is devastatingly good on :D Monk you put this on them they can do damage now on low level to "special protected targets" its the answer to Golems in black pits 1, other than your preists draw with the electric hammer
Glad I found your channel. Love Baldur's Gate but difficult to find solid youtube videos on it outside of lets plays
looking forward to advice on Divine Magic and also would be cool to get your input on the different in game characters and party compositions
@@leefellows8770 Thanks for watching. Divine magic is coming soon as well as party members. God bless!
Davaeorn Nice one
Merry Christmas and all that
Contagion has one use:
You can kill a neutral NPC with Attributiondrain, like Mindflayers do with Intelligence. That somehow does not count as kill and you dont get xp or reputation loss from it. With that you can kill for example sir sarles in bg2 after you completed the cleric quest and get back the Ilitihum.
Interesting! Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
Oh, that's awesome. I hate that uppity turd.
Oh fuck yeah, I hate that guy, I'd kill him even for nothing.
You have been so incredibly helpful to me. After watching your videos and the way you describe situations and why spells are good at certain things I’ve been able to breeze through the game on insane. So many spells that are good that I used to think suck, and so many spells that suck that I used to think were good. I’ve just basically changed my whole play style and gotten so much better. Again, thanks for sharing the knowledge that has taken you countless hours to acquire
Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
I know I’m like four years late to the party, but your videos have helped me so much. I never got into tabletop gaming, but it always looked cool to me.
I use Otiluke's Resilient Sphere all the time to secure party members with mind control that I can't remove. It stops them from attacking my party and protects them from getting eaten alive. I have never seen it fail to a saving throw on a party member (EE).
Nice!
thats actually a good idea
I use it to freeze and protect a low level summons to block a narrow passage. Then I fire away with ranged weapons.
That might have been an EE change, because in the original game it definitely required a saving throw on party members. I remember falling in love with it after using it as a stalling tactic in IWD2, and being extremely disappointed when it failed.
@@robertcampbell6349absolutely disgusting. Well played.
You're really underestimating polymorph self. I've completed a no-reload solo SCS with a mage using polymorph self as main choice. You gain bonus Thac0 from the polymorph creatures strength, so it's not that difficult to land hits. You can also run a minor sequencer with strength (level 2 spell) to replace your spiders STR. Now you're running 4 attacks with a high STR, and those attacks can poison. You should prebuff before you enter a fight, so that isn't a problem. I was able to 1v1 Sarevok without much trouble with Mirror Image, Blur, etc. It's different depending on which version you're running, but my spider was also immune to web. I could load the sequencer up with 2x webs instead. Last but not least, you can dispel your magical creatures weapon by using ghoul touch or another on hit attack. This way you can get the 4 APR in spider form while wielding a Two Handed sword on a F/M. In BG1, you'll deal more damage in spider form with a Two Hander than you would outside of it. Alesia ran a BG1 and BG2 solo SCS no-reload run that was documented on the old Bioware forum, she used the polymorph self spell through the entire run. The main problem is the flind, while it's the easiest way to get a +3 weapon, it isn't proficient in Halberd and you'll have a bad Thac0 from that. I have always been able to use sequencer in polymorph self form, both in BGtutu and BG:EE.
I really love your content by the way, looking forward to more!
Nice thanks for commenting friend, I think I probably am selling it short If I played solo more often I would rate it more highly. I should make that caveat when talking about this. God bless!
That won't work anymore in current versions. You no longer get the sword spider form from polymorph self but one of the slow ones. And overwriting the weapon was fixed and is no longer possible.
Wait, do you mean by ghoul touching yourself (that sounded wrong lol) you gain the ability to use a weapon as a spider? I assume you have to use the sequencer for that. Nevermind the absurdity of it, am I right to understand that's how it works in the original?
It's also great against things like liches, they can't do anything against the mustard jelly form.
@@quitschi9954 tbh alot of stuff cannot surpass the god jelly.
S:
Greater Malison 1:38
Improved Invisibility 4:42
Spirit Armor 9:35
Stoneskins 11:39
1:05:29 this is one of my faw spell on "not my main" because i personally dislike spiders, but its so good with web is game breading :D
Picked up bg again, last time I played was like 20 yrs ago. Will be watching this whole series for a well needed refresh. I have a wild mage and a Sorcerer in my current party.
Super fun to play for sure.
I always took fire shield red when I ran BG2, my sorcerer wading into all large melee crowds with Mirrors, stoneskin haste, popping prot magic weapon when they crowded, then sunfiring them while they took hundreds of damage on the shield each round. I think it ignored MR too like sunfire did. Even without stacking the blue one, the damage it did was insane. Truly made it feel godlike.
Patch 2.6 makes resilient sphere guaranteed when cast on friendlies. It has a cast time of 4, so anybody with one of the casting speed boost items can fire it off instantly. Two uses:
- As mentioned in the video: now that it isn't saved, it can rescue near-death party members reliably.
- You can take this in places like watcher's keep or narrow hallways and completely block stuff. It works on summons, and it doesn't matter if you use it on strong summons or complete trash like beastmaster animals; nothing is getting through your wall of garbage until you run out of sphere casts. There are some nasty enemies (like mind flayer area) where this should come in handy.
It's now a very good option to get the sphere on yourself with a contingency when you become "helpless".
In that way, it's very useful for a wild mage now. If you get Otiluke sphere in a Contingency with the "helpless" condition, it can be a life saver if you get the wild surges that hold the wild mage for 10 rounds (with no save). There are multiples surges rolls that do this, so it will happen at some point. Up until now, i don't think we had another way to prevent a quick death when this surge occurs. Sure, a clerical companion could remove the hold effect with a spell but this means your mage will be held (and an easy target) for a few precious seconds. And it means your cleric is right next to your mage, because remove paralysis has a touch range if i remember correctly.
In BG1, when you don't have Contingency, you can have another mage cast the sphere on your wild mage.
"complete dogshit", "designers should be embarrassed", "who the f uses this garbage", "you have to be high to memorize this spell"
Love it. Thanks for helping my spell strats
Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
Yeah, it's great! I do memorize all spells in BG II though...for the xp only!
This game has been in my life for almost… 16 years and I’m still learning new things everyday. Thank you
Thanks for watching and commenting buddy
Man Baldurs Gate really is the crown jewel of role-playing games. If this isn't the gold standard I don't now what is.
It really is one of the best ever made imo
@@Davaeornlol by the way during my evil playthrough in bg1 I went around turning all the beggars into squirrels. They don't turn hostile and no one cares.
This is fantastic, coming back to this game every now and then since I was a kid . I remember that my order brother didn't allow me to install the full game because our HDD was 4,3gigs and I had to juggle the cd,s in the middle of the night in hope I won't wake up everyone in the house . I developed special skill to eject the cd without making any noise :)
What a legend. Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
18:59 the problem with this lv2 spels bad, you may pick magic missal for 2 sleep or lv4 spell, its just not worth the work it gives (i like the bigger version for 3skull trap)
Since it has a shorter trigger than the detonation range, one way of using Skull Trap is to cast multiple of those close the enemy, polymorph yourself into an invisible mustard jelly and trigger the trap yourself. One particular use of this is to kill wizards before they can get their precast protections up.
Yeah it's definitely got uses for days.
At low levels a combo I used to do was Malison + Web. Then have the spiders walk in. I did not have to expose myself for more than a moment so it is a very safe strategy. It was pretty good when I did not have foresight into the game when I first started playing and it let me fight groups of enemies much stronger than me.
Problem with Minor Globe though is that it is inconsistent in how it works depending on installation. Sometimes your own spells can hurt you and sometimes not. There are select fights where I found Minor Globe useful and that was in very tight spaces using Wand of Lightning. Wand of Lightning would do extreme damage while you would sit there and watch the fireworks.
As for Teleport Field it is quite good when fighting invisible backstabbers. I believe it also ignores magic resistance. I do not have EE so maybe it is different? I think you could mention that some of these spells ignore magic resistance which can be significant. For example Contagion, Deafness, or the Fire Shields bypass magic resistance. I think Sunfire used to bypass magic resistance as well but I heard they changed that in EE? There are a couple of rarely used spells that ignore magic resistance which they do not say in the description.
Spiders and web is super fun for sure. I agree I think I should specify which spells bypass mr and which dont. To my knowledge a lot of aoe spells were coded really strangely and recoded in different ways, it is hard to keep track of the changes tbh =/ because it's not just old and new, it's original, old patch, new original, newer patches, etc etc. Thanks for watching / commenting though, god bless.
Got back into playing bg1 again recently after my gaming pc died as its one of few games my laptop runs. Great videos on the spells as a refresher or to learn other tricks. When i first played bg2 ee i thought something was off with enchant weapon but it had been a long time since i had done a full bg2 mage run.
Minor Globe of Invulnerability gives immunity to Skull Trap. So you can stand in the area of effect and unleash your Spell Sequencer loaded with three Skull Traps. Useful in certain places.
True, but by then you're probably using pfme anyway to protect yourself from horrid wiltings. I think if you could cast minor globe ON somebody that would be pretty damn spicy, but alas caster only.
Yes, PFME is supreme, but also level 6 spell while MGOI is level 4 and available in BG1. Maybe less useful with SCS. Without mods it’s easy to solo Sarevok with MGOI, fire resistance and invisibility
Immunity to remove/dispel is great though. Its a strong spell for magetanking.
There really hasn't been a game with such a diverse and interesting spell system since Baldur's Gate 1 & 2. I have not tried Baldur's Gate 3 yet and I won't until it is released and polished. I really hope the spell system is as fun as its predecessors.
I like sequencing 2 moderate healing spells on aerie, for instant burst of healing when someone's about to go down.
Nice! Thanks for watching and commenting friend.
18:39 Yep you were totally crazy. All I did in BG 2 when I was a kid if I was in town would be toi cast melf's minute meteors, then sequencer (magic missile and acid arrow because I thought it was the ultimate anti casting combo) then take an 8 hour nap.
I've been binge watching your guides (and making sure I add the S tier spells on my new playthrough). A sugestion, maybe... It could be nice to have some sort of "guide" on how to remove buffs from mages/clerics. I find that the many options (Dispel, Remove, Breach, etc.), sometimes, can be quite confusing. Anyway, thanks for the recommendations!
I've heard that a couple times now I'm probably going to make a video at some point soon. Thanks for commenting friend!
@@Davaeornlol sweet! Cheers, mate.
This is the link that I use - sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/SpellsReference/SpellProtections.htm
Polymorph Self to Ogre is good for Thief/Mage, as you can get backstab on the Ogre damage (and strength), which is pretty great, as you can one-hit kill most opponents. Combine this with Haste and Mislead, and you can take out a powerful group of opponents pretty fast.
Does polymorphism self with shadowdancer dual to mage still have hips? Sounds pretty nice if hes getting constant big backstab
@@ethosterros9430 I am honestly not sure, as I never played as a Shadowdancer, but I would guess that the back-stab would remain in effect.
@@TheLabecki so the stealth button stays clickable when u polymorph then? It would make sense if it does for thief mage that shadowdancer would keep hips but who knows. It sounds like a meme to begin with, albeit a cool one.
I never did a full play with a sd/mage but have been thinking about it.
God I wish there was more developers making new infinity engine games. There was nothing wrong with the engine and dragon spear was proof u can still make decent games with it. The development should be easy and cheap by now just pay your writers enough to make an engrossing story. Its sick how bad writing has gotten in recent years. Overpaid cg animators making flashy looking games and movies with no story.
And they did such a good job too keeping the classes balanced. I'll never forgive pathfinder for their meme 2 billion sub classes with differences barely constituting rp text.
@@ethosterros9430 It has been a little while, but I think the stealth button should still be clickable after polymorphing, although I mostly did the backstabbing with the mislead spell, which should give you automatic stealth.
I think the Infinity Engine still had some issues though, and actually prefer turn-based D&D. I am hoping BG3 turns out well.
Pathfinder does go overboard with the subclasses (and abilities), but I got used to it after a while.
Farsight has its use because wizard eye can be killed. Minor globe of invulnerability is useful for solo mages, for those nasty traps.
Thanks for watching! I don't think I've ever seen it killed once that's interesting, but to be fair I always send summons first wizard eye second. You're right about minor globe of course, I typically use spell immunity for traps but minor globe can work in a pinch as well of course.
@@Davaeornlol thanks for your insights. Come to think of it, spell immunity makes more sense for traps indeed. Too many better level 4 spells competing for a slot.
Looking forward to level 5 or maybe some divine magic. And you could also list game companions from S tier to RP. Would be a good video.
Also, I once had a playthrough with 6 characters that had solid range combat option. And I casted all sorts of aoe debuffs like web, stinking cloud, greese, entangle, etc. It was fun as hell, because no matter how good enemys saves, something will hinder them for sure. And in late SOD, when you fight big packs of demons, I found that ice storm was quite good. You could sit and watch demons get slowly obliterated because not only controll aoe, but damaging ones such as cloudkill and ice storm, so it is b-tier for me.
Thanks for watching and commenting! I think that would be an interesting video too, I do plan on doing divine magic and druid spells as well after I finish arcane. I try to pretend SoD doesn't exist, but yeah pretty much every aoe spell becomes much much stronger when fighting that many at once. God bless.
@@Davaeornlol I consider SoD to be fan-fiction in terms of story canon. Also some of the NPCs have terrible personalities. But I absolutely love the encounter design, especially on Insane difficulty (where what types of enemies you face changes as difficulty goes up. SoD is all about crowd control and micromanagement to survive the advancing horde. For anyone who hasn't tried it out, I really recommend it for the combat alone. It's worth at least one playthrough.
@@victorkowalski9737 I've only played it on insane I didn't know it changed the monsters just added more. I thought the combat was one of the worst parts of the game tbh. The problem lies in the fact that you only gain a level or two, so you don't get access to new spells or abilities (cleric gets level 5 spells, druid/mage already has them, while some mage spells are added for level 5 you didn't have before, they're mostly trash/not enough). Combine this with the fact that every fight aside from the lich/dragon/assassin/final fight is a mass of enemies, you do the exact same shit every fight. In bg1 your tactics will change as you level up and what you're fighting, tales of the sword coast is similar, as you gain access to level 5 spells for both mage and druid. Obv Bg2 is the same as 1, you'll gain spells abilities etc as you level. You just don't have this in SoD. Zero new spell levels for mages and druids, zero new abilities for classes, masses of trolls/spiders/undead/doesn't matter, you do the exact same shit every time. Combine this with underwhelming characters, plot, writing (across the board), stealing characters (and models, zero art was done by beamdog for this game, all of it came from IWD) even if your excuse is to "tie in" BG to IWD, it just falls flat. The BEST thing that can be said for this game was dungeon design was pretty good compared to bg1 but that isn't saying much since bg1s dungeons were all labyrinths. There were some things I liked, like decisions having later consequences, the dwarves, the Idea of finding more about bhaal (doesn't make sense but I like beamdog at least TRYING to do stuff) and a few other bits and pieces, but for the most part it was just so underwhelming I never want to play it again. I've literally tried to stream it at least 6 times and it's just so tiresome. You gotta understand I played dynasty warriors for YEARS. I literally MAXXED every character. For me to say a games combat is monotonous, it must be pretty damn bad. To each his own though, thanks for commenting friend!
@@Davaeornlol I see how the combat can become monotonous, especially because of all those massive encounter groups that infest every single map that require loads of AoE to eliminate. That's why I suggest playing Siege once just to see what it's about and to see some of the cooler ideas Beamdog had, but I don't think it is necessary to include it on most playthroughs. The dungeon designs are kind of neat, and some of the enemies and encounters strike that nice balance where they are hard and have some unique attacks without going full-on cheating. Unfortunately, by encouraging/forcing so much usage of AoE, a lot of the enemies that have unique attacks or traits get annihilated in a fiery field of death before the player can see them, because otherwise the player would get overrun. Great enemy designs that can't get utilized.
And that's my big criticism of Siege. It feels like it was *so* close to getting things right in so many ways. You can tell that they had some good ideas and they did really care about what they were doing, but the realization of it was off by just enough to make a lot of it fall flat in subtle but annoying ways. Story problems abound, and most of the new NPCs grate on the soul (Corwin is the most insufferable character I've ever seen in an RPG).
What would have really helped Siege would have been to leave the dungeons as they are, and then use combat encounters more in the style of the ones in Black Pits and Black Pits 2. Black Pits fights were really good at having themes, like a drow war party using poison, the halfling who conjures elementals when attacked, the necromancer who can overrun you with skeletons if you don't drop him fast enough, and stuff like that. That's the kind of combat that Siege really needed more of to keep it interesting through the whole expansion.
Beamdog had the puzzle pieces on the table. They just didn't fit them all together quite right. The result is an expansion that I feel is worth a try, but doesn't have enough variety for multiple playthroughs.
@@victorkowalski9737 I have issues with most all of Beamdog's NPC's, but Captain Corwin? I like how she's just a person that lives and works where you operate. She doesn't have a screechy yelling voice with stupid one-liners [the only others being an aged goblin, and, well, Dorn]. She's a professional soldier, and just all business. I like that a *lot*. Also, as an Archer in BG1, she kicks serious arse.
Lastly, yes. I agree with both of you on the combat aspect, but....
You've already seen everything else in the trilogy. Specialized parties, high level monsters and mages.. Small bands of fodder. This time around it's numbers. And nowhere else in the trilogy can your webs and fireballs really shine until this point. I quite enjoyed that. Also, the final battle against Behlifet? Shit, yeah.
Another problem with Polymorph Other is the same problem that exists for Fireball, Aganazzar's Scorcher, and a plethora of Fear-based spells: The Wand of Polymorphing exists. That, and although rare in SCS and only available through random drops in vanilla, the Bolt of Polymorphing exists too. So it's a very good effect but you can just use the wand and recharge it later if you really want it.
That said: The Wand of Polymorphing is amazing. Belhifet, the boss of Siege of Dragonspear, is a bastard who runs around summoning an infinite amount of devils. He's not terribly difficult if your whole party has +3 weapons (particularly ammo since you can shoot him while he struts around but trying to hit in melee is an exercise in Speed Factor Futility), but when I did a solo Legacy of Bhaal run there was no way I could kill him with his HP regen. I had to rely on two Lower Resistance spells and Wand of Polymorphing to hope he failed his save and drop to 5 HP where I could shoot him. Against enemies without Magic Resistance you can just take the wand, toss it between mages, and have them shoot over and over until the enemy fails their save. 4th level spell slots are in short supply, Wand of Polymorphing has 50 charges. Neither of these have a saving throw penalty but being able to delegate spellcasting to items definitely increases your versatility.
Very true indeed, also you would think a demon cant be squirreled.
1:07:18 i agree most what you told, my faw lv 4 spell hmmm I dont love stone skin as broken it is (im invisible most of the time or surrounded by summons) My favorite would be for now Spider swarm, You web the enemy, (you man cant touch them) you summon spiders to take them out, and you may ad a stinken cloud or hold monster to help your spiders :D sooner or later that 8 spider eating the fastened enemy will have net20-s :D and my party is safe watching :D (because im not sending anyone into my double web without the move free ring :D) 2nd will be Spirit armor if it will protect my man from tatus effects :D (i will use stone skin if i must but like any shield i wont like it :D, i like invisibility's)
You should be a salesmen because you really sold me on Minor Sequencer.
I could sell ice to an eskimo buddy
I've seen people using Mustard Jelly, to tank the ancient red dragon dude. That's, about, the only use I could find for it.
Never used polymorph others or polymorph wands because of the easy saves against this spell... However, I had Neera succeed to polymorph herself into a squirrel while attempting to blur... Despite her Adoy belt... On the other hand, she gave stoneskins to everyone in my party once in Durlag. So I love her after all. ^^
Lol wild magic is wild indeed
I think Polymorph Self is awesome when roleplaying.
E.g. fighting against weaker mob enemies or one/two mediocre enemies.
Edit:
Otiluke`s Resilient Sphere can be a very useful spell.
E.g. blocking enemies from reaching you.
It worked always on my party members, so I believe there is no ST for party members.
Or you can use it in combination with luring your enemies with your fighter/tank and cast the spell on your fighter, so to cast after that an AOE spell.
It is a fun spell and very powerful when used in the right situation.
Yeah it's a fun spell for sure, same with chromatic orb, it's just not very "good" without ridiculous prep that only works for one fight XD.
I'm following a solo Sorc Legacy of Bhaal run in UA-cam, and that guy swears by Emotion: Hopelessness as a god-send. Suprisingly. In my experience this spell is damn effective in Legacy of Bhaal, especially when casted multiple times (Edwin) and combined with Mallison, without resorting to the usual strategy of casting web and letting the lions chew on everything. At some point those spirit lions should become obsolete.
Yeah it would be a lot stronger in LoB since a lot of other spells aren't as useful, in this version though it's just not as strong :(
@@Davaeornlol After sleeping on it, I came to conclusion that it's so effective in LoB because it belongs to a family of CC spells that allows me to bypass the insane AC enemies have in LoB. The other ones (not including possibly some higher level spells) are Web, and the variety of Hold spells. Web requires me to use forms of freedom and the hold spells have too small AoE.
For spirit armor you missed that it inflicts 2d4 dmg upon the target. Makes it an a tier in my book
Only when it expires (usually resting) and only if they fail their save vs spell, you'll actually see it AS you cast so you know if they're going to take damage upon expiration. Thanks for commenting friend sorry I didn't respond in time I blame yootoob's algorithm. God bless!
I have been having a nostalgia trip with your videos. They really are excellent. Encyclopedic knowledge and a funny presentation style. Thank you!
Now, I haven't played the original BG1 since way back before Tales of the Sword Coast. After that came out, I did an outing and beat that with my character. Since then, I honestly haven't gone back. Been too much else to play and BG2 was really more replayable. For me. =)
I did want to add though, that I believe that spell sequencer was not in the original OR the expansion. Otilukes sphere and the Polymorphs, Malison and stuff like that got added with the expansion. Those manuals were some great bedtime reading. The boxes are some of the few game boxes that I have saved. Maps and all, but I digress.
BG2 really did expand a whole lot on the mage side of things. Mages scale late but really really fucking high.
Question. If I wanted to reexperience BG1, should I replay the original original, maybe with patches, or do you find the EE to be worth the money/changes? Some of the spell graphic changes doesn't really gel with the old style from the videos I've seen and all the new spells and kits are almost too much considering that you really only ever get to level... 9? Agree/Disagree?
Thank you a lot for making these videos, I can't wait 'til I get to the lvl9, 10 stuff. =)
A ton of spells were added with bg2/ tutu / bgee yeah. If you want to play bg1 don't play EE, it's the same thing as tutu, bg1 with bg2 engine, so kits, spells, etc etc. If you want a more realistic d&d adventure play the og, if you want a better gameplay experience play the EE. Bg2 and bg2ee are almost identical.
@@Davaeornlol Man, thanks for the reply. Much love!
Webx2 Sequencer+Polymorph Self: Spider.
Spiders are immune to being webbed, and a webbed opponent is automatically hit, so THAC0 is irrelevant.
This is a very popular strat but just not one I ever use because there just aren't any times I'd want to. You sacrifice a stoneskin or spirit armor for the polymorph and run into melee range, golems are immune, as are any enemy using minor globe (aka every arcane user yuan ti included) as are flying creatures and spiders, if you're fighting undead its not nearly as effective for obvious reasons, really anything that isn't humanoid fighters this combo just sucks, and I can't off the top of my head think of any of those situations in the game outside of the VERY beginning of SoA. By the time you get these in BG1 you're fighting sarevok already. On paper it looks like a great combo but in practice I never find myself using it. Maybe maevars guild? Even then because of the trigger spawns...idk. Thanks for commenting though friend!
@@Davaeornlol Those are solid points. Personally I would only use the combo for Baldur's Gate, as there are a lot of problematic ambushes in the wild with groups of bandits, and ogre berserkers are terrifying to fight up close unless they're severely disabled.
Otilukes sphere one time against frost salamanders my ice resist timed out. My tank got pounded to almost no life. Had him spirit to my bars then sprint to a corner while bard was casting it. And saved him. Everyone else was full health so they managed to win but that was one of the times otilukes saved my ass. Also I believe bards can still play their bard song from inside. So I’ve used it on my bard before. I play iwd. And I want to say it’s a 1 second cast on that engine. This was HOF difficulty btw.
ב"ה
Polymorph self into a spider also makes you immune to web, so combined with a double web sequencer you can actually do prety well. Especially good as an invoker that get an extra penalty to save against web.
Minor globe of invulnerability serves about the same purpose for a fighter/mage that want to be immune to the double web.
Yeah minor globe web definitely a better combo. I loathe the spider form tbh. Thanks for commenting buddy!
Otiluke sphere is useful only in one occasion. Is one of the tattics to kill Drizzt in bg 1. At list in original because he always target you. So summon, haste the summon, goes for him, cast otiluke sphere on yourself and let your summon kill him.
For beholder they were horrendously broken, but there were several methods to beat them.
1) Kill them from safe distance, as you suggest.
2) Have the Balduran shield, that I think is not from mod. It’s sell by deidre in advanturer’s mart.
3) Have the 5th level spell shield, that for some reason in original blocks the antimagic ray.
4) Time stop/alacrity them into oblivion
Interesting use for it, thanks for watching and commenting friend!
1:02:00 not sure about bg2 and EE overall, but in the original game, otiluke's sphere did NOT protect against poison damage. At least not from the dagger you get from the Beregost smithy. What I'd do is cast it on a boss and have my mage stab it and do 0 damage but it would decay to death from stacked poison damage inside the sphere :)
Interesting! thanks for commenting friend!
Hey man, your videos are great. I love the way you talk about the spells en explain them. I have been playing BG1 from when i was a kid and now i have two kids and still play it often. I agree with almost all of your ratings for the spells. I wanted to make a small defense for confusion lvl 4 spell. True that chaos is better and a sorcerer probably should not pick it because of slots, but put confusion, greater mailison and hopelesness in the spell sequenser for a lot of CC burst often helped me greatly. since confusion is actually level 4 and chaos 5 it can be put in the sequenser. on any normal mage it deserves a spot in his or her magebook imo. Although being far from the best lvl 4 spells avaiable, i think tier C is too low. B imo.
Fair enough! Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
Really liking these videos. You should consider doing divine/druidic/shaman spells too, I think it'd be fun.
Thanks for watching! I plan to, but I want to finish arcane before branching out :) God bless!
The mustard jelly was a good way to cheese the shadow dragon on regular.
Excellent and genius stuff - thanks!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Things like Farsight seem to fall straight into the "don't be shy to use it if you've got a scroll with it" category more than anything else.
It's an inferior version of Wizard Eye, but that just means it is much more expendable as a scroll than a scroll of Wizard Eye.
Fair enough thanks for commenting friend!
Spider Spawn cast via scroll should give you poisonous, phasing spiders. (scrolls cast at level 10 ). I’m not sure if you could get them to blink on your command, to hit your foes from behind, but at least they’re better than sword spiders.
Sword spiders have an APR of 4. I’m not sure if they can be improved hasted, or if you can cast enchanted weapon on them to upgrade their attacks, but they are not completely useless. Certainly if they can be improved hasted, a sorcerer could prepare a very fast, savage assault force.
Possibly!
I remember playing IWD and there Otiluke Sphere is great for blocking doors. You put one of companions to door, cast Sphere on him and all monsters attack him and can not get through. And you just slowly kill them all.
Haha spicy idea for sure.
I run with a Kivan mod for BG2, so the new Enchant Weapon is balls-to-the-wall amazing. It lets me get away with not using the Firetooth Crossbow on nearly every enemy type, as well as working really well with a Belm/Kundane user. Ultimately it's usage is going to depend on your warrior options, going from totally useless to really powerful.
On the topic of "Badass immunities" with the Mustard Jelly, you can use that (Or the Cloak of the Sewers) to not take damage from spike traps, like in the blood room of Bodhi's Lair.
I have a decent use for Ice Storm - I give it to Baeloth in BG1 to deal with Semaj and Angelo. Their Minor Globe will not protect them, and it continuously disrupts them. I will usually just toss someone in the middle of them to keep their attention and let Baeloth / Whoever keep those two out of the fight. Other than that, yeah, I can't find much other than "Ooh, pretty!"
nice! Thanks for watching friend
You know you can take minor sequencer by using it and then replacing it with another level 4 spell and resting.
That way you get an extra level 4 slot and your minor sequence is still in your special abilities cause it's permanent.
Would be nice to get your typical sorcorer spell picks for each spell level.
It's a video I'm working on, it will have solo sorc picks as well as for group play, should be up soon!
@@Davaeornlol "It should be up soon". ahhhhhh cmon bro, we need you to tell us what spells to pick! lol jk p.s. at least 1k of your views are from me watching these guides over and over again.
@@bigjoncash4297 I won't be able to make any new vids until my cpu comes sadly :( IT WILL BE HERE SOMEDAY I PROMISE.
Man.. everyth8ng so well organized, thank you so much! Truly
Not to nit pick, and with the added caveat that I'm not nearly as 'pro' or 'meta' at BG, but I personally remember using the mustard jelly form against dragons to tank. Seems like the black dragon in Mazzys quest, and a couple others. Mustard jelly form is entirely immune to those dragons physical attacks, allowing you to lazily wear them down with ranged and such.
Mustard jellies have some physical damage reduction but they're not immune to slashing which is what dragons should be doing, dragons in this game have a dragon claw weapon equipped which I believe is a plus 3 slashing weapon, which has no problem hitting mustard jellies. On insane difficulty the mustard form alone is definitely not gonna be enough to stop him from murdering your ass. I double checked the files from the original game and tested it in my version and firkraag killed my jelly ass in two seconds. Are you sure you're not thinking of liches? In the original game liches don't have their nasty hlas or really ANYTHING that can hurt a mustard jelly. It was quite common for people to kill liches by abusing jelly form.
@@Davaeornlol I'd have to go try it again sometime, but I'm certain it was a dragon. Pretty sure it was the black dragon in umar hills.
I agree, I thought it was slashing also, but i was once trying to do this quest and kill the dragon almost immediately after leaving irenicus. And since I comparitively suck, I found myself trying every ability I had available because I was failing hard to kill it. Pretty sure I did it in EE, too.
I'm currently playing through scs insane with reloads because I wanted to learn more about the spell system.
The vanilla gane is just too easy to auto attack like a brainlet, but there's a ton of options here.
Really looking forward to higher level magic use, thabks for all your fantastic guides.
I was testing Otiluke's Resilient Sphere in BG1EE and I noticed that party members no longer have a save roll. It must be something new with a patch. If they're hostile /mind controlled, I'm not sure. I'd have to test that.
Great series, by the way. I'm a veteran of the old infinity engine games but this is more detailed and in-depth of a guide than I've seen anywhere.
Yeah shit changes ALL the time so it's hard to keep track. Thanks for watching and commenting friend.
I love improved invisibility with Haer Dalis who also used Blur using defensive spin with his similicrum using the HLA Bardsong. Easy 20+ Ac
Hell yeah.
I like ice storm or fireball.. But this is more stacking. You know where enemies are with shadow or invisibility. Send slowing thing, then poison cloud, then fire storm, then ice storm, then fireballs. And you wait to see if enemies could pass thought.
> But to make it efficient you need a lot of casters... I hack the game to have my own teams of 6..
Fighter, Ranger Cleric, Fighter Mage, Fighter Thief, Stalker, Clerc Mage.)
I think Spider Spawn combined with Web is quite powerful still in SoA. Not sure how it works with SCS, but without mods I have made solo run with Sorcerer where I used Spider Spawn & Web all way through SoA
I think if you're solo it becomes more useful sure. If you're in a party it's pretty easy to take advantage of web without casting additional spells though.
Contagion would be good if you could cast it from stealth/invis on someone you knew you'd have to fight later or on npcs youd detected as evil. Unfortunately I think this would make them permanently agro same as charms.
Polymorph self is dumb due to THAC0. But for cleric/magic they can cast righteous magic to beef up the character before turning in to an ogre. Then it’s a busted crit machine.
Cleric/mage in general is a broken multiclass since the divine/arcane books were never meant to mingle.
Yeah it's pretty fun for sure, but you sacrifice the high level shit for a looooooong ass time.
Otiluke's Resilient Sphere supposedly work on allies with Free Action. Land it on an improved hasted dual wield fighter with free action, and they will be almost invulnerable. Results depend on your mods...
Interesting! Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
I dont know about for extreme difficulty with mods but playing bg2 as a teenager on normal difficultly I always found spider spawn quite good. My normal routine in a dungeon would be spider spawn for sword spiders - black spider figurine - summon woodland being on druid then maybe 1-2 other lower level trash summons from spells or items then group buff everyone and go brute Force several encounters until the summons all died then rest and repeat. Most the summons were just distractions bit the sword spiders buffed really seemed to do a lot of work in those mid level encounters.
Yeah early on in bg2 it's not terrible but it's not as good as using other things tbh, a lot of spells in bg aren't bad per se, you just have better shit to use for the level
I dont agree with Spawn Spider as tier C for Solo Sorcorer run. There are some fights in BG1 and Iranicus Dungeon which can be very tricky without Spider Spawn/Web combo... And it is the only decent summoning spell until lvl 15 animate dead.
I can't justify pushing back imp invis/spirit armor and stoneskin any further than they already are tbh. One charm spell and it's game over, you NEED to get your saves down ASAP. If spider spawn was level 3 I would agree, but since it's level 4 I just don't think it's worth the risk. Thanks for watching and commenting though friend God bless!
@@Davaeornlol Agreed. Finally realized they are way to squishy. Just completed my first solo no reload bg1ee SCS insane run. Went with Stoneskin and Improved Invis and will pick up Spirit Armor next
i tried some of these recommendations. I been using web+spider spawn+haste to clear out rooms that look dangerous..not as effective as I thought it was. im totally gonna have Edwin memorise Secrete word, I had no Idea it was that useful. Thank you soo much for explaining these spells! my first ever play through as a Mage is going pretty good so far (just got to the castle under seige by trolls) Cheers man! God bless
God bless you too buddy thanks for watching and commenting!
IN BG1 Xan should have Emotion: Hopelessness as an innate lol
I don't know if it changes in SCS but I remember successfully using polimorph other to shape Firkraag to a squirrel. I used it as a low level finger of death. Good stuff though
Polimorph into mustard Jelly on Imp familiar and send it to tank liches. Or 2webs on sequencer and polymorph the imp into spider.
Liches drop demons and planetars, necro liches will drop boneguards etc etc in my game, I find it too damn risky to let the imp out of my backpack for almost any situation, depends on your mods though obv, if it works for you then awesome! Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
@@Davaeornlol oh. Make sense I don't use mods só running imp on perma invis is pretty safe for me. The perfect scout since it's imune to most DMG and I can fireball him
Once I get Contingency, I'll often assign Improved Invisibility to go off when the character is helpless. If they get stunned they vanish from the fight.
I used polymorph other in legacy version to rid rooms of NPC's. Didn't take any agro or lose rep. And loot a room without hassle. Pretty sure you can't do this in enhanced edition.
5:44 i would correct this if you don't have 15 divination direct invisible for one fight vs a mage you are F-ed :DDDD and that is only normal difficultly :D (i love to use this spell well the global version of it :D)
The one thing I use polymorph self with the cloak of the sewers for is when I play solo as a swashbuckler and I need to fight some beholders. Mustard jelly is completely immune to beholder rays. It takes a long time but it’s worth the xp to kill them rather than sneak past them.
Yeah I don't trust it still because of the SCS modifications to beholders.
@@Davaeornlol not sure I can get SCS on my tablet. Lol I play EE on an iPad. It’s not terrible but it’s all point and click only. No key binding or anything. I used to play the original back in the day but never tried SCS or any mods or anything like that. I also play on core. Not sure if I’m ready for hard or insane yet if I’m still Effing up and dying on core lol.
When you have a cleric/mage you can do the classic Doom + Chromatic Orb. Insta-Kills a lot of stuff when you hit a high enough level.
Thanks for watching and commenting friend!
Man as a kid i cloud killed all the sewers in BG2 and killed all the illithids there. I was so suprised to find their corpses. I might have used other aoe spells, like im sure i fireballed a few times. I was struggling against the regular little dudes lol
Secret word in base game is A tier thou lmao cause most mages (all the way to ToB) will put up a spell turning and call it a day.
Something new confirmed on the Wiki. Teleport Field ignores magic resistance. 😛. So does…Contagion. Contagion consists of four effects. -2 to strength, dex, charisma and a slow effect. It does stack, so a spell SEQUENCER (level4) casting a triple Contagion will inflict up to -6 in all stats. Also, if the wiki is to be believed, all four effects are rolled separately, so a triple of Contagion will roll 6 times for the most useful debuffs. Three times for strength, and three times for slow. Highly likely to get some benefits using spell sequencer. 😛
Interesting! Thanks for watching and commenting friend
Stoneskin by itself makes fighter-mage tanking phenom
56:11 yes but this is the one few things that deal damage :D on lv4
I watched a video of a guy using time stop and polymorph self to ogre to kill drizzt in soa as a solo mage. T'was amusing
Yeah spider spawn.... You know how in BG1, you could have a max level party in full gear, get waylaid by enemies, step on a trap and get massacred by spiders? With that in mind, I picked Spider Spawn on my main Sorc and used it all the way in ToB. Put some webs in a sequencer and keep spamming them. Lolth be praised!
Hey man, love your videos! Like you, I started playing BG1 & BG2 when I was a kid..Love it then, love (understand) it even more now..I saw your Mage spells videos..Do you plan to do Cleric Divine spells soon?
Yes cleric is WIP thanks for commenting friend!
all great videos, but keep in mind some of the problems he has with particular spells such as polymorph may be only because of the difficulty he plays on. I beat beholders and the first demilich with a mage/theif and mage/preist who were jellies. Maybe if I could never save and played at his difficulty and with the particular mods. Minor sequencer works on the BGEE (at least on the switch) while polymorphed.
Also you can use items polymorphed.. Like the named spider summon for example among others
The problem is version difference and mods. In mine no quick slot items no casting and no on use while poly'd, simulacrumd/project image same thing. Tensers disables spellcasting but i think quick slots work im not sure i dont use tensers ever because it's crap. Thx for commenting friend
I had the game soft lock me due to cold damage the other day, when rescuing everyone's favorite Blade companion. Damned Thralls managed to freeze the Warden, along with the key to escape the prison... So fuck Ice Storm and Fire Shield (Blue).
Lol. There's always something new. Thanks for commenting!
Your teammates indeed have to save vs Otiluke's sphere. If I remember correctly only in IWD2 they don't get a save. And that makes it broken there.
Ah I didn't play IWD nearly as much bg. Thanks for watching and commenting friend.
You are wrong about secret word. I will describe from a solo sorc perspective, with scs (full installation).
First of all, Secret Word is a sweet choice for sequencer, same as Spell Thrust.
Main usage of secret word - is to get rid of GoI. Spell Trap does not protect from secret word. If your enemy has Spell Shield, Spell Trap, Spell Turning, SI:Abj, SI:Div, PfME and Prot.from Fire and invised, you can simply throw a sequencer with 2x spell thrust + remove magic(or dispel magic) to leave him without spell shield, without both immunities, and have a chance to dispell both PfME and Prot.from Fire, only in one round, so you can literally finish him off with adhw/hla's on a second round. However, if he also has GoI - you can't do it, GoI completely blocks spell thrust, and spell thrust won't even remove a spell shield. That's what secret word is for. To deal with the example above, you would need 3x secret word sequencer to get rid of Spell Shield + Spell Turning + GoI, and then Spell thrust -> Dispell/Remove Magic to leave him vulnerable, without even touching Spell Trap.
Just to be sure I tested it just now, secret word and spell thrust both get blocked by spell trap, however, if you cast them from a scroll they go through, dispelling protections, lastly, spellthrust works on spell shield (without spell trap up, again, tested just now), so I think we have a SCS version difference here. Do keep in mind these videos are now a year old so if you're using a different version of SCS (which is very likely) our shit isn't going to be the same. Thanks for watching and commenting though friend.
Dude I can't even list the times Ice Storm saved my life in BG2 , like against that demon that plays card games with you in watchers keep.
Also especially against demonigorgan , my party kept getting slaughtered , I tried to remove his spell protections then he'd summon other demons and just permanently kill party members then keep summoning more demons.
How i ended up killing him maxing out cold resist on my party members , simularcum my fighters , then my mages would debuff and spam ice storm , which stopped him from casting continually damaging him, then healing my fighters.
Ice storm is very useful with cold resist against enemies that attack quickly , since it continually interrupts em.
Awesome videos! Very helpful
This is absolute gold. Thanks man
Thanks for watching!
How could someone dislike this video?
just like this...it's easy, try it!
😱
Psych! I joke, I joke! I keed, I keed!
If I offend, I'm sorry! Please, please, forgive!
It's not for everyone to be sure. Thanks for watching friends!
Where would you put Dimension Door?
B Tier, it's stupidly fun to play with because you're fkn teleporting, but in practicality it takes too long to work and you don't get many 4 slots in bg1, so you're pretty much forced to take stoneskin etc over it.
I have had use for monster summon 1 and 2 to have any magic caster spam all kinds of shit on them, and also to have more targets for meele/caster to target and not just my party. So they have their use imo.
problem is what spells are you giving up for them. 3, 4, and 5 spell slots are pretty valuable. If there was a level 2 or level 1 weak summon it would be amazing.
Maybe it's different with SCS but I thought web+spider spawn a highly effective in any fight web worked. The swordspiders wiping out stoneskins and images in seconds. guess the big boss fights less so, and they get obsolete with higher summons in TOB. yet you can still throw them out to bait the death spells for before sending in the skellies and swords. I tried to check but they aren't immune to poison right?
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Level 2 - ua-cam.com/video/rb49jQYeI1s/v-deo.html
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Level 4 - ua-cam.com/video/9CTBDXn3LEA/v-deo.html
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Level 7 - ua-cam.com/video/_C4yhD6EdUQ/v-deo.html
Level 8 - ua-cam.com/video/rv1F0H52eGA/v-deo.html
Thank you for the guides !!!
21:40 Berserkers. Berserkers are the most broken melee class thanks to their rage ability. You are immune to nearly everything debuff related. From basically all mind effects to imprisonment, probably stun too. Probably not petrify i dont remember, but just jug a protection from petrification spell and I remember my berz simply putting ALL kinds of floating spell mini-gunning eye balls of macaronni back to the ground and below. They are better anti mages than the wizard slayer and imo anything else unless you simply outdamage them with nukes. Absolutely stupid pve
They really are, berserker to mage is the best class in the game hands down. Thanks for commenting friend!
So when listening to the analysis of contagion and hearing it pointed out that technically someone *can* die from their Charisma being lowered to zero i got to thinking how would that happen? Sure if your int is 0 then you're a vegetable, strength and con falling to 0 have pretty obvious causes of death too, but are they suggesting that someone with zero charisma is just too ugly to live? It gave me a chuckle :D
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