How do people user certain classes or game features?

[Lurker]

The title is a bit vague, but that's intentional. I didn't want to make the topic all too specific, since it'll derail sooner or later anyway - if I'm not causing this myself due to too much mixing up questioning and opinionating about too many things all at once, which I tend to do. See proof below.

So - sorcerers.

Two game features that I regularly ignore are summoning and shapeshifting. The latter is something that I generally simply dislike, and is also more closely related to druids, but then again, that's a class that I wouldn't miss at all, on top of that. I also guess that I've a quite narrow minded way to play IE games, with little motivation to do things differently, which in turn might lead to getting bored by sticking to the same habits.

I play with heavy focus on charname, with the remaining 5 party members in between roles of support, muling, banter/flavor and so on. I finished a game of BG2+ToB (unmodded) back in the day with a sorcerer, relying on the usual combos for heavy nuking on more meaningful battles (chaining TS+IA+LR+GM+Finger of Death ended any dragon battle around the beginning of round 2), and MMM or EB for dealing with smaller obstacles, paired with Wish-resting to keep on rolling in the later stages of the game. Good times.

Currently, I'm more into warrior classes as charname, and use spellcasters mostly as sources for invisibility (simply the best party protection for a large chunk of the game), (improved) haste and for dealing with enemy combat protections, and I always have a skald (RR) on auto repeat. The last 3 party slots tend to be skald - mage - sorcerer. I can totally imagine a full run with those 3 companions ending up with zero kills in such a scenario.

With Ascension in mind (on insane, but no double damage; SCS, but without improved AI; generally maxed HD rolls for enemies) and having tackled the final battle of ToB multiple times recently, I noticed how draining on spell slots it is to actually trying to kill endgame opponents via spells only, and am wondering if it's at all reasonably possible for a purely arcane focused party to beat the final battle. Without using summons, and having warrior support (IMO a properly supported warrior class is the most efficient way to beat almost any encounter) and being bored to death due to the tedium.

So let's say a party of 6 sorcerers takes on this challenge. If two of them are strictly focused on Wish-spamming while under Improved Alacrity, one should never run out of "ammunition", but Yaga-Shura alone is such a drag due to his resistances and immunities. His only "vulnerability" is the - still - 50% resistance to cold; so sure, if I built a character specifically with this in mind - but then again, I find cold spells so lackluster that I don't use them anywhere else. So Yaga-Shura would end up with hundreds of magic missiles (or generally anything that in the end gets reduced to minimal damage) flying at him. Death by a thousand cuts - this feels frustratingly underwhelming.

So, while the usual opinion is that arcane casters, or especially sorcerers "end up absurdly powerful", would people think the same without any summons in mind? No meat shields, no way to trick around the lack of physical damage dealers, only relying on self-protections and nuking? And how about a solo run with this kind of restriction?

[InKal]

Party of 6 sorcerers? All of them can cast Simulacrum and then that Simulacrum also can cast Simulacrum, IIRC? So, this is not really party of 6 sorcerers but rather party of 18 sorcerers.

[Lurker]

5 hours ago, InKal said:

Party of 6 sorcerers? All of them can cast Simulacrum and then that Simulacrum also can cast Simulacrum, IIRC? So, this is not really party of 6 sorcerers but rather party of 18 sorcerers.

 

On 11/9/2023 at 4:35 PM, Lurker said:

So, while the usual opinion is that arcane casters, or especially sorcerers "end up absurdly powerful", would people think the same without any summons in mind?

I count Simulacrum as a summon, in his case. And the only 60% XP thing sucks, especially for dedicated nukers.