Lack of long term / unusual Wizards spells (EG Contingency & long duration spell shields)?

[Telmorial]

I had a look through the manual and while the Wizard spells look a lot of fun, I couldn't see any spells which (for me) made the DnD/BG2 Wizard really unique and special for me. I'm talking about the more unusual spells such as;

1. Contingency spells: which you can setup out of combat and will last for ages. It will trigger a spell (or spells for higher versions of the contingency spell) when a certain condition has been met (your health below X % for example).
2. Spell triggers: Where you can store a spell out of combat to be triggered in combat by a keywords (IE it wouldn't use up one of the cast per day for the standard spells). These were very useful for emergencies.
3. Long duration spell shields: So in BG2, I could have a spell shield up which would last around a day.
4. Spells for specifically taking down enemy Wizard spell shields: In BG2 (and it looks like in PoE but for only that encounter I think), Wizards could have spell shields which absorb X levels/number of spells. Now the normal way to bring their shields down was to pummel the enemy Wizard which damage spells but there were also spells which specifically were designed to bring these shields down. This led to some great caster vs caster tactical battles.

 

Has anyone who has played the beta noticed these types of spells or does the manual list all the spells in the game? I know this is only the first release of PoE (I'm sure more advanced spells can be put into expansions and sequels) and I'm still very much looking forward to playing it but it would be nice to have these kinds of spells. I really loved the complicated caster vs caster battles from BG2.

[Tamerlane]

It's important to remember that the general power level of characters in PoE is in more of a Baldur's Gate range, not Baldur's Gate 2. It's not a perfect 1:1 comparison, of course - we're skipping the total ****farmer stage, notably - but it's the general gist of the 1-to-12 we've got before us.

 

Also, wizards are dorks.

[Telmorial]

It's important to remember that the general power level of characters in PoE is in more of a Baldur's Gate range, not Baldur's Gate 2. It's not a perfect 1:1 comparison, of course - we're skipping the total ****farmer stage, notably - but it's the general gist of the 1-to-12 we've got before us.

 

Also, wizards are dorks.

 

Yeh, that's true. I can't remember if BG1 had those kinds of spells, probably not. Well, they better hurry up and make PoE2 then!

 

And re Wizards being dorks....hmm, where's that spell, firebell? Hmm, furrball? You'll be in trouble once I remember it!

[teknoman2]

there may be spells like triggers in higher levels (if i remember correctly it was about lv15-16 that you got them in BG2), however the "per encounter/rest" mechanic makes some of them, like long duration shields, useless since you can cast a shield at every fight if you need it

[sparklecat]

there may be spells like triggers in higher levels (if i remember correctly it was about lv15-16 that you got them in BG2), however the "per encounter/rest" mechanic makes some of them, like long duration shields, useless since you can cast a shield at every fight if you need it

That's time you could be spending on something else, though, if your protection is already up when the fight's joined.

[teknoman2]

the "no long duration shields" goes along with the "no prebuffing" principle of the game

[sparklecat]

Yes.  I'm giving a reason why the encounter/daily spells mechanic doesn't mean that having buffs constantly in effect would be pointless.