Can't dispel all of it. Besides. Still need to hit the beasties and the thief's THAC0 isn't that great. While the thief is attacking with a bow, a simple Hold person from the mage, or a confusion spell etc disables him.

Have an experienced player create a level 20 mage to fight your level 20 thief and let us know how it goes, will you?
The mage wouldn't need to use more than a few spells to deal with a thief though.

My thief says otherwise.

Chain contigency in place with stoneskin, dimension door and improved invisibility triggering.

Next round. Hold person on the thief. Magic missile to damage the thief. Then a finger of death. Dead while you are still held by Hold person.

Whatever mages you run into in the game are usually at a lower level than the player character. Those are all scripted as well. They don't adapt at all to the situations.

Play vs another player playing a level 20 mage however, and you are toast as a thief.

Except that I don't see any glitches or cheating in the strategy I mentioned.

Not available until high levels and not at all in BG1, which I mainly play. I don't do multiplayer.

Except that:
1. Neither game has both Chain Contingency and Dimension Door available. (Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition does, but I am not sure if that spell can be put into a contingency.)
2. Even if it did, how would you target the Dimension Door? Since the other spells presumably target the caster, the Dimension Door would as well, and casting that spell on yourself isn't particularly useful.

I see over exploiting the system, and everybody in this forum knows your preferences with regard to glitches and exploits.

Which part of the strategy is a glitch or cheat?

I meant exploits. See my edited post.

1. I could have sworn BG2 has both. Which is the relevant game since we are talking about level 20 characters here.

2. Dimension door is great for getting some distance between your mage and the thief. Gives you time to destroy the thief in the next 2-3 rounds.
So what you are saying then is that your level 20 thief = great vs lower level mages in the game, that are all scripted to act in one certain way. And that equals a level 20 thief = more powerful than a level 20 mage?

That's funny, I thought we were talking about thieves vs mages.
Nowhere did I mention any level. That's not what I'm talking about at all.

I believe that, if the mage has Protection from Magical Weapons active, that the arrow will not work. (Unlike Mirror Image and Stoneskin, PfMW prevents *all* effects from the attack from working, not just damage.)

Also, if the dispel effect has a school attached (probably Abjuration), it can be blocked with Spell Immunity.

Furthermore, maybe the target you hit with the arrow is a Projected Image. Well, as a mage (or better yet, a sorcerer), I have more of them! (Also, Simulacrum, which can't be destroyed as easily.)

"What if?" This discussion is now in the realms of silliness.

1. In BG2, Dimension Door is not learnable by the player. (In fact, I believe all scrolls of it were repleced with Stoneskin scrolls (which is why there are two types of Stoneskin scrolls).

2. If you are casting it on your self, the spell will not actually move you anywhere (unless something somehow occupies the spot you were in (is that even possible?) in which case the game will move you to the nearest open space). Because you are using the spell via Chain Contingency instead of casting it normally, you *don't get to target the spell*; it just teleports you to the spot you were on.

This strategy would likely work in p&p, but due to the way the Infinity Engine handles contingencies and dimension door targeting, it's not going to work in BG2 even if you mod the game to enable Dimension Door.