Baldur's Gate Level 1 Arcane / Mage Magic Spell Guide
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- Trying my hand at an arcane magic spell guide for the classic PC game, Baldur's Gate.
This video covers Level 1 mage spells.
An audio only version is here -- soundcloud.com/user-485786824...
This series will take an analytical / rule / power game oriented approach to discussing the strengths and weaknesses, and use cases, for each spell in Baldur's Gate, BG2:SOA, and TOB. The spells are assessed across the entire saga and mainly using the unmodded Enhanced Edition releases (so no SCS, although I do touch on SCS frequently)
Thanks to:
BG Reddit - / baldursgate
Davaeorn - / @davaeornlol
BG Wiki - baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/B...
NearInfinity - github.com/Argent77/NearInfinity
0:00 - Intro
5:20 - Armor
12:22 - Blindness
19:58 - Burning Hands
28:00 - Charm Person
33:28 - Chill Touch
38:57 - Chromatic Orb
44:33 - Color Spray
55:27 - Find Familiar
1:18:40 - Friends
1:22:56 - Grease
1:26:43 - Identify
1:28:56 - Infravision
1:30:21 - Larloch's Minor Drain
1:33:10 - Magic Missile
1:37:25 - Protection from Evil
1:40:30 - Protection from Petrification
1:48:05 - Reflected Image
1:50:31 - Shield
1:54:42 - Shocking Grasp
1:56:58 - Sleep
1:59:34 - Spook
2:02:37 - Conclusion and overview of spell ratings for entire level - Ігри
I like how baldur's gate spell guides are slowly turning into a genre on youtube.
Baldur's Gate seems to be making somewhat of a comeback. Davaeorn, Coredumped, WesJ and I recently found a new guy in Zarania who does informative videos while playing SCS on Insane.
Probably a lot of people coming back and replaying the series in anticipation BG3.
Blindness is good for multiclass mages. Make a gnome fighter/illusionist with a bow and you can consistently grind ankhegs for xp and money at level 1 solo with blindness.
As much as I love Davaeorn and watch his streams, these new guides are excellent for those of us playing unmodded. There are so many spell that I cast without having any idea if it's worth my mage's time or whole turn.
Thank you! Appreciate the kind words. Dav is still awesome lol.
Hey, thanks for putting out this detailed video - always good to have more BG spell discussion :) Really interesting to see the different values certain spells have to a solo player vs a party player - blindness failing is less of a big deal when it's just one out of your 6 actions in a round vs the only thing that you are doing!
One suggestion for your next video - increase the volume on your voice, as I had to turn mine up pretty loud to hear you clearly!
Thanks a lot for the kind words and the tip. I will jack the voice volume next time.
Rubbishes Blind. "But saves..." Cast it twice. 80% failure chance on Tarnesh. Who is a wizard and has unusually good saves vs spells. Fire Giants in ToB only have an 8.
Praises Burning Hands.
Because it does...damage. Slightly more total damage than a level 1 magic missile! Its sooooo good. Neither spell reliably kills the target(s).
El.Oh. El.
You pronounced "coup de grâce" correctly. Bravo !
Good Video
3 things I observed during my current run (havent played BG1 for years): Sleep's excellent in almost all wilderness parts, since large groups of low level enemies can get quite dangerous just due to their mass - 5 archers firing at you, each getting like 3-4 arrows off (un-cced), before theyre dead basically guarantees a couple of hits/crits. Sure, you can prevent most of that by micromanagement, but doing that on each random encounter really kills the flow of the game for me. Sleep is just: Fire and forget.
Sleep also hits some Spiders, which always come in packs and are immune to Web - while their poison can get quite dangerous.
So sleep is one of my most used spells pre BG-City.
Spook and Blindness: both are illusion spells, thus benefit from the ST malus an illusionist gets and there are some really strong illu companions and Multiclass options for the PC itself.
If Blindness lands (and chances are not bad if you have like 2 or 3 Mages/Bards etc starting the fight with that quick ranged cast, one key enemy is completely useless and a free kill.
Spook is also pretty strong on said illu or bard - for example it takes out the Wyverns in the cave of cloakwood IV for a couple of rounds, which you can farm by rezzing inside that cabe for some nice XP and gold
Great stuff man. Good to see bg content still coming up looking forward to the next vid. I'm liking the similarities and contrasts with Dav's guide
Hey awesome! this encourages me to get lvl 2 out there. I have it planned but not done yet.
Larloch's has a use with SCS installed if you play with higher settings. Pretty much every mage comes with pre-casted Shield, meaning your Magic Missiles cannot be used, but Larloch's can.
This is of very limited use, however, because crazily quickly mages will come with Minor Globe anyway (I think 'insane' setting does this) and if you have means of dispelling it (Spell Thrust from bandit camp), you probably graduated from level 1 damage spells anyway and you're blasting that mage with Skull Traps and Acid Arrows or Wand of Fireball. That said, I were in situation where that "skips Shield" property came in handy and saved no reload run, but that was from Bhaalspawn evil powers. I'd probably never memorize it normally.
Chill touch is totally OP. Consider being a fighter mage at the end of TOB with DUHM to set strength to 25, and having picked greater whirlwind 10 times. Well your chill touch is now hitting for an average of 20 damage, 10 times a round, for 10 rounds. That's 2000 damage with a single casting of a level 1 spell!!!! By contrast, magic missile does a mere 17.5 damage on average, so chill touch is 114.29 times as powerful. As you rate magic missile 9 out of 10, logically, chill touch should therefore be rated 1028.57 out of 10.
But it removes your weapon. Wouldn't your weapon, on a properly built F/M, hit a lot harder than this? And have much better THACO?
In the unmodded game, dragons are not immune to blind, and you can stack up the RNG against them really hard in 1-3 rounds. A blinded dragon is basically dead. Also works vs mages w/o globes pretty well, though in most cases, you're better off using chaos vs those.
Edit: unless it was patched, you can have your pickpocket familiars pickpocket *YOU* and then use those items from their quickbar, ignoring all restrictions that otherwise exist. There are some bizarre applications for this. Spook in sequencer can cheese a fair few human mages before protections are up, and keep them from putting them up for several rounds. Very good with Jan in BG2.
I`m loving how deep you assert these spells.
The thing with magic missile and larlochs is that they are auto hit, the best use for them is disrupting casters, and shredding mirror images.
Out of the two magic missile is far superior, but based on alignment you can also get minor drain as a power which is basically one free interrupt of an enemy spell so long as you breach their spell defenses first.
Thanks for this. Very informative
guides for the core game, no mods, core rules, are needed, your guide is better for my taste.
Hard disagree re blindness. It's almost a complete disable for 2hrs as a lvl 1 spell that you can use for the entire saga. Sure you can use other spells that use saves but those are higher lvl spells.
I once petrified Firkaag with chromatic orb very early in the encounter. Then had to use stone to flesh on him so i coukd get the loot. Then he killed almost my entire party.
I like to have Aerie put Doom and Chromatic Orb in a Minor Sequencer as a low rent Finger of Death. When she gets Spell Sequencer, she can put Doom, Greater Malison, and Chromatic Orb in the Sequencer.
Armor can be useful if cast immediately before area transitions, as it's duration means it'll still be up if you get jumped by a random encounter when traveling between most adjacent areas. Usually superfluous, but it can keep you alive if you get that nasty ring of archers ambush while walking the Baldur's Gate-Beregost-Nashkel road. Made obsolete by the Invisibility spell, once you get enough slots to cast it.
just tried the game for the first time and this video was super helpful! :D
So dav is a mini version of my best man at my wedding, creepy.
Although I haven't done it in years, I believe you can use color spray to knock out neutral npc's without drawing agro. This is great if you want to loot containers in a shop and some other things like pickpocketing.
Thanks for making these! I’ve noticed there’s no solo content on UA-cam, aside from a couple playthroughs. I’ve have no idea how much content you plan on doing or not doing but I would love to listen to someone just talking about solo. How to approach it, boss management, pros & cons, ect….
Color Spray and Burning Hands revisited...
SCS has increased the power of Color Spray. Capable of putting to sleep enemies below your level. Of course, it is still a level 1 spell, so many enemies are immune.
Color Spray, Burning Hands, and Dragon Disciple breath weapons are all cone type attack spells. Casting these spells, along with Prismatic Spray, Cone of Cold, on YOURSELF, in BG2EE, as long as you're not facing full left or right on the screen, will cause the spell to execute like Sunfire, covering 360 degrees. 😮😮 Check the wiki for details. (under Exploits). 😈
I have nothing to say but i will comment to boost the algorithm 👍👍
Lol, appreciated thanks!
I feel like for Sorcerer you would NEVER memorize the find familiar spell cause you can't get rid of it and putting in a spell you are only going to cast once in baldurs gate 1 and once in shadows of amn is kinda.... Meh. I'd take identify over it personally even though glasses of identity are a thing, or even spook.
You’re def right, I agree… I think I said I take it as one of my starting spells, but only if playing mage.
Even if playing mage, I now know that in a lot of installs there’s a scroll in the first floor of the inn at Candlekeep, so that would work well for a high INT mage in lieu of having it as a starting choice.
Sorcerer, I totally agree. Use a scroll.
first thing you should have done is state your settings to provide context to your analysis.
i.e. sleep is great in core rules but is beyond useless in LoB meanwhile grease does keep forcing a saving throw check which you can manipulate.
and as other have said blindness is not a 3/10, it is arguably the best disabling lvl 1 spell and it will carry you through to Amellysan, and magic missile best role is disrupting spell casting and taking down stone skins.
I use Blindness to farm Ankhegs, works well 👍
I actually used sleep and chill touch for solo farming xD
Great video!
Btw I think it would be helpful to put the ratings for each spell in the description alongside their timestamps
Noted!
@@WJ_24 thank you, it was very helpful
At low levels, Larloch and Chromatic do practically the same damage as Magic Missile. I find that the Chromatic effects tend to hit surprisingly frequently too. MM completely eclipses them at higher levels though.
sleep is 10/10 until you get to BG, after this i kinda agree with you. Xan+Sleep means that most of your fights will be very boring. just set AI on and let your party kill all the enemies that will be taking a nap
I have to disagree (albeit only slightly) about armor. You're right that Shield is functionally superior, but you can have both cast at the same time, such that when your shield (or ghost/spirit armor) runs out, you are only reduced to base AC 5 instead of base AC 10 if you happen to not notice.
I find this to be well worth the single memory slot you need for it, especially at low levels where magic missile only fires one projectile (and thus can be substituted by the wand instead) and chromatic orb has particularly weak effects. One armor, 1-2 shield, and the rest of the slots composed of blind, sleep, and grease imo. Color Spray if you're feeling frisky, I guess, but between blind and sleep you have CC for everything you'll see at early levels anyway.
As to Blind, it's a save at a -4 penalty at level one; up to -6 if you're a mage/cleric with doom. It's not "one of the best spells in the game" but it's the only CC you have for undead at low levels and the only way to reduce enemy AC at same. Obviously once you're casting level 3 and higher spells you can erase it and take other things. It adds a -4 penalty to AC as well as thac0, though, and the potency of that for early "bosses" cannot be understated. Tarnesh is a bad example because he's a mage. He doesn't use thac0 and AC. He uses the fact that horror/MM is a deadly combo to a low level GW. Instead, take your blind spell to the ankheg farm, and kill them en masse, and drag their shells to beregost to get multiple levels and the best plate in the early-mid game before you even hear Basillus's name, and thank me later ;)
Fair points, although Sleep also works on Ankhegs and it is somewhat a playstyle choice. I am really biased towards spells that scale into late game since if the criteria is what can disable a level 1-5 enemy there are lots of options. Not to say it's a bad spell!
Thanks for the comments and interesting takes!!
Volume could be mixed significantly higher. I'm wearing headphones and I can hear my own keystrokes over you at max volume. Luckily I have a volume booster add-on for my browser, but I really shouldn't be forced to turn it on. Otherwise, though, this is a good and very thorough coverage of the subject matter.
Just noticed you already received this criticism from someone else, but I'll leave the comment up to give you the page interaction.
Thank you, I tried to fix this for level 2. Appreciate the feedback!
Great analysis. Hire Safana for her innate charm ability to unlock those Easter Eggs 😉
Early in the game sleep is the most important spell especially against arching enemies like kolbolds bandits black talons et cetera
The main viability of charm is making civilians ignore you while you rob them blind, but the devs are nice enough to give us Algernon's cloak for a measly 55 pickpocketing score so yeah pretty much never memorize.
I don't know if you agree, but there are, in my view, enough potions of insight that you can dump wisdom, and still be covered when you need to cast wish. At least, this worked for me. (Comment in relation to your stats discussion in the find familiar section).
What do you think?
For me, wish is so powerful that I am casting it all the time. And sometimes when I am dispelled/ debuffed. It is too important to bank on the potions and be using actions to chug potions. I would much rather have to chug potions of genius to scribe scrolls (so dump stat INT)!than insight to cast wish. Plus considering that there are 3 WIS tomes in BG1, it’s not that hard to get wisdom to 18.
Hello. Amazing guide. What is your game difficulty on solo runs? Is it possible to play mage solo on LoB?
Thanks a lot. I play Insane difficulty but usually I have the extra damage turned off. So enemies have higher HP, better saves, tougher strategies, more of them, etc, but no double damage. This makes the game a lot more manageable at lower levels and more fun for me overall since I try to do no death runs.
Thank you for your response. Hope to see your Mage solo Ironman run. With your comments and strategies.
Hey Jdubs, I’d love to see you do a solo mage walkthrough of BG 😀. Liked. Subbed.
Thanks man! I don't know about walkthrough but def will try to continue these guides and do level 2 soon! Thanks for the comment!
@@josephdunn3582 Maybe not a walkthrough then. How about you just playing it as you see fit?
Is there any difference between the dps of a wizard and a sorcerer? Same lvl same spells same items.. etc etc ? :] Btw have you done a solo mage guide?
It's all the same. Sorceror and Mage spell progression tables (how many spells you get at which level) are slightly different, but a spell cast by a mage at X level is always the same as the same spell cast by a sorceror at the same level.
@@WJ_24 any chance for a solo build guide? :D I am almost done with my first run through the game. Already wanna do something new hehe
I do think chromatic orb is better for caster level 1-4 than magic missile is, if you're REALLY dead set on using damage spells at the early levels. Sure, its not doing as much damage, but you're really only losing out on about 2-3 points of damage per shot on average, and early game enemies are much more likely to fail saves, even some of the chapter 1 and 2 assassins will fail their saves pretty often, even with a +6. 2d4+2 damage is not enough to justify wasting any of your spell slots at those early game levels. Granted, you should probably be using sleep or color spray at early levels instead anyhow, but if you do need those damage spells for whatever reason, don't switch to magic missile until you're shooting at least 3 bolts per cast. Only reason you should be using either spell at low levels tho is for interrupting enemy spellcasters, and the damage difference is too minor to care about, whereas the possible benefits of a free debuff on top of the interrupt greatly outweigh the extra couple of points of damage. After all, the reason why its so good at breaking stoneskins and mirrors is because of the large number of missiles at high level, meaning its not doing its one job you need it to do at 1st through 4th.
Good guide! I would actually argue that the Fairy Dragon is the best from a power gaming perspective however because it gets AOE invis in SoA and ToB, which is situationally useful compared to the others. Only marginally so, but its still my favorite pick for that reason
To be fair regarding Orb; by the time you have time stop you can also do doom/greater malison and chant on sequencers so you only need to use two rounds to set up something like that; though you're right, it's still not worth finishing with the orb unless you're just being sarcastic. I end up taking orb because most of the level one spells become useless against everything because of the Hit Dice limitations on what they can affect; and having all my slots be MM, spook, and grease just bores me a bit.
Literally just use blind tho? He rubbishes it but it makes a creature completely helpless. Yes there's a save vs spells but that's true of almost everything in AD&D. Three of them (so a sequencer...) is a 50% chance to blind a Beholder. If you throw in the regular cast on top its 60%. With first level spells. Malison (which can be cast from outside LOS) and the sequencer of three Blinds ups it to 65%. Killing the Beholder requires 6 Magic Missiles from a 9th level caster during which it is blasting the crap out of you.
Why doesn't level 4 rating get a description? ôO
Hello! I have a dude in the spell of identifying, the dude is that I create a Cleric/Mage but I cannot identify nothing! I memorize it but I cannot, i only can when I find a pergamine that has this spell, can you solve it? Thanks.
Hola! Tengo una duda en el hechizo de identificar, y es que hace unos días cree una maga/cleriga pero sin embargo, no puedo identificar nada por medio de hechizos! Memorize este pergamino pero solo puedo identificar objetos con hechizos de pergaminos y en tiendas, podría alguien solucionarlo? Gracias y adiós.
Hmmm , to use the identity spell you need to have an item that has a blue background, then you right click on it, click identify, and click “spell”. First you need to have identify memorized in your mage book and rest. Also, you can’t be wearing armor because you can’t use mage spells, even identify, with armor on.
@@WJ_24 ok, but when I try to identify an object with blue background whit spell, I have not the spell of identify in the mage book but 2 days before, I memorize it to my mage book... I do not understand what is happening... Can you solve it? Greetings from Spain🇪🇸 and also I don't have armor.
@@hectorsostorm9602 No pudiste escribir el hechizo en tu libro de hechizos. Existe la posibilidad de no escribir el hechizo del pergamino en función de su puntuación de inteligencia. Encuentra otro pergamino con identificar e inténtalo de nuevo, y aumenta tu inteligencia con una poción para tener una mejor oportunidad. Google translate
You failed to write the spell to your spell book. There is a chance to fail to write the spell from the scroll based on your intelligence score. Find another scroll with identify and try again, and raise your intelligence with a potion for better chance.
@@chazdomingo475 Puede ser que lo haya fallado al memorizarlo, pero más tarde me encontré otro y no me deja memorizarlo.
@@hectorsostorm9602 you have to "equip" the spell on your sorcerer. It being writte´ in the book is not enough. Furthermore then you have to go to sleep. Then you will find it in de actionbar of the magician.
From that moment, you can click on the item with blue background and identify it but only once day.
Cool video, but I think you did not mention the fact that familiars get new powers in BG2, notably the mass invis for the Chaotic Good.
This is a very valid point, I need to look into this and maybe revisit it! To be honest, by BG2 I never even take the familiar out of the pack since I got so tired of losing CON in some stupid mistake. But this is a valid point that I should have covered -- the familiars get stronger thru the saga. The only one that really gets a useful new ability, though, is chaotic good as you mention. So many of the other buffs / differences are just to make this thing a marginally better fighter, when you never want to fight with your familiar anyway. Great comment though thanks for alerting me to this.
Spells like Chromatic Orb are so much better in Icewind Dale, actually many of the Icewind Dale spell equivalents I like better.
Hey.
I think I would rank grease a bit higher, because when I was playing bg1 as a kid, I usually resorted to killzone tactics, when you get a bunch of cc spells (web, stinking cloud) in one area, forcing your enemies to save against multiple threats. And I found, that grease wasn't so bad on top of webs and stinking clouds. It was the original bg1, without ee or tosc (89 000 exp cap), so even 2 level slots were somewhat scarce. So I would rank it 3/10 just for combos.
Sergey thanks for all your thoughtful comments. I am learning from them!
Grease is good against enemies that are immune to sleep like the undead, and if you're an enchanter or using Xan then you're locked out of web. Mainly enemies you don't want to get into melee with. Though if you're min maxing you'd never roll an enchanter and lock yourself out of evocation.
@@RyanofAndor very fair. Maybe at the end after level 9 I will do some type of blooper video where I go back and talk about the ways in which I was probably wrong.
voice volume a little bit low
Chromatic Orb is a pretty good troll killer at higher levels; even taking into account the save bonus opponents receive. Chances are, you'll be able to petrify/kill at least one or two with an Orb spell when going through D'Arnise Keep or other troll heavy areas. Magic Missile is generally better but there are occasions where memorizing one or two Orbs is worthwhile.
Bless ye for making this, knowing dav's is already out there. He has a ton of knowledge of the game, but the overuse of the f word makes me cringe
Great and useful video but terrible audio. I almost cannot hear you on a iPhone speaker.
I am a 30th years old BG player - ask me if you want to know something. I am the best. I don't know the mechanics or whatever fancy shit, but from practice I can tell more! Yeeeaah! You are no match to my power!
ive been playing for almost 40 years now i was even a beta tester for bg2 and bg3 and was on the offical roster for the un19 Larian Studios
So u are 60 lol bullshit
awesome guide, but where is the rest? :)
I just posted level 2! ua-cam.com/video/ig8aYA5ljno/v-deo.html
@@WJ_24 Great news! :) Thank you so much for letting me know!
This doesn't work for LoB difficulty
Volume low for anyone else?
Ur not just hitting with fists when chill touch is used wtf
daevor s guides are too incline for unffair dificulty scs lots of mods
I didn't hear a single word you said in this video.
What manner of Satanism is this
Yes, much better doing 3 damage than having a 50% chance of completely disabling an opponent and winning a fight. Terrible analysis.