commissar7

Well, you just stole my thoughts, mixed them with our owns, and threw them on your keyboard. That is exactly what I meant, and indeed, part of the feeling I have comes from the limit of magic by having combat spells only. But I do think the obsession with class balance is also a culprit. I want to add that I only played the first Pillars without its extensions, and after reading some comments here it seems I would need to correct that mistake. It was an interesting read, thanks everyone. Now I just hope one of the Creators finds this and feels inspired by the Greatness of my grumbling.

Oh, I think I have been a bit misunderstood. By mage, I meant the spellcasting dude, whatever his name is wizard, enchanter or warlock. By spells,, it's not the usefulness I was talking about, but the "cool factor". And I strongly disagree about the variety in Baldur's Gate. You could invoke a dancing sword duelling with your enemies, make a door appear out of thin air that teleported you in another place, you could transform into a dragon! Invocations were not limited to elementals and shades, but Ogres, djinns and devils. You could call the haunting spirits of a place to demand informations about your surroundings. You could charm your oponents and then talk to them, you could even ****ing stop the time. Nowadays, mages in games are all about bursts and buffs, where is all the cool stuff? The most iconic spell of mages (save the fireball) was Chicken transformation. How cool was that? I thought "cRPG" meant also that.

Greetings, When Pillars of Eternity 1 was announced, as a big fan of cRPGs I was very enthousiastic. My favorite class has always been the mage, but alas, I found it to be not as fun as it could have been (and was in past D&D games). The gameplay received a lot of attention towards class balance, even if it's exclusively a single-player experience. And so, the mage archetype was a lot simplified in my opinion and was restricted to a fireworks cannon. This time classes seem to be less restrictive and "locked". Well why not. But will mages have invocations? Transmutations ? Can they transform themselves into pink rabbits? Others? Will they be able to transform a pink rabbit into an angry internet forumer? A pink forumer into an internet rabbit, maybe? .... or is it just about spamming fire/ice/sparks/stinky balls? I searched around but did not found anything about that.

Oh, there have been a bunch of answers, I did not see it. Well, I confess that I did not like magic in Divinity. Most of the spells were elemental-based spells, where fire melts ice, which becomes water who can be electrified etc .. That's quite nice, but why magic is now always limited to fire/earth/ice/storm spells? That's only used to make simple combos based sometimes on what type of ennemy there is but often just spamming the same combos of spells everytime. Also, in this game magic is similar to the physical disciplines (there is three if I remember, melee/archery/scoundrel). So whether you play a mage or a warrior, the gameplay is pretty much the same. I would talk about "abilities" rather than "spells". Me and some friends began a party of IWD:EE recently (I play a wild mage). There was one enjoyable fight I remember : We arrive in a room full of ennemies, I instantly banish a powerful-looking priest in another dimension so that he won't be a bother for some time, then I cast a silence spell on one of their mages to bother him. I am hit by an bunch of arrows so I create several illusions of myself to protect me. Then I invoke some ogres to distract the archers. After some time, the fight is nearly done, we will be victorious. I want to cast a haste spell to help my injured allies finish the remaining opponents. Wild magic says otherwise, it is a fireball instead. WoOoops. If there was a trap our thief could not disarm, or a magic item to identify, I could do it. With good planning and rest, you are powerful. But if all your spells are used or useless and a big troll is running in your direction ... you better run fast! I remember, it was even more interesting in NWN2. You could alter your spells by changing their duration, effect, strenght, or make it able to launch it without voicing. Now if I compare with the most recent games ... I don't play a mage anymore, even it's my favorite class. I think the old concept of the fragile, mumbling and ressourceful mage is slowly disappearing, sadly But like I said, I will play a monk instead I guess in PoE, and maybe spells will be changed in the future.

Yeah, I was afraid that was the case. It was indeed very nice to guess before crawling in a dungeon what types of monsters could be there and what to choose accordingly. T'was really a different approach of playing a character Maybe I'll have to wait for a mod, then.

Hello there. I was wondering something lately, having read the differents spells of the Wizard class. I found strange that the spellcaster has so few spell variety. There mainly are offensive spells of elemental damage with some added effects like freezing or stuns, several shield-like abilities and one summoning spell. Is it by design, or was it too difficult to implement? It is even more strange considering the wonderful work that has been done on other parts (graphics, lore, story, rethinking of the monk, all great). I am comparing mainly with the spells from DnD where you can transform things/yourself/others into other things, creating a dancing flying sword, alter reality, do stuff impossible to simple mortals. I am curious, because a lot of recents games are treating mages more or less like regulars fighers with just specials moves. No complaining here, just curious