So far the only way for a mage to kill dangerous enemies (ie dragons) that I have found is Tensors. While this kind of works my attack bonus even with my strength buffed up to 30 and aid and bless running on me is incredibly bad (ie I cant reliably hit something with 34 AC like that Klauth).

Any ways to increase attack bonus beyond bringing a bard?

Wizards and Sorcerers can kill any enemy in the games with spells.

Because sometimes you just have to Chill Touch a dragon to death.

Yeah Klauth lasts almost two full rounds against IGMS, a lot longer than most enemigos for sure.

Hmm, never got any notification anyone replied to this.

Anyway no, Wiz cant kill any enemy in the game with spells unfortunately. Spells are complete garbage as is normal for D&D games (or at least computer games, I assume in the tabletop you houserule the class to not suck balls).

I mean IGMS which tristan is holding up as some kind of superweapon. 360 maximum damage per cast, but having to deal with DR and SR and such. Meanwhile a fighter just comes along and does anything up to 800 damage a turn just swinging randomly and that guy also can take a punch.

It's why tensors is the only spell that works against difficult fights, because it makes you a crap fighter temporarily. Sad really but it is what it is.

LOL.

People usually say that spells in D&D are overpowered, especially in higher levels. That's true for both D&D2 and D&D 3 and their derivatives.

You are trying to hit a dragon as a mage and you are blaming the game? That's going to make me laugh for a very long time.

I just loaded up my save game as a mage and killed Klauth in 10 seconds with only 2 spells.

Engerek01: "You are trying to hit a dragon as a mage and you are blaming the game? That's going to make me laugh for a very long time."

+1

That's pretty impressive. How did you reach that level of damage in a round? Or are you comparing a Mage's damage-per-round to a Fighter's damage-per-turn (10 rounds, if I'm not mistaken)?

What spells, because either you're lying which is my assumption (and I dont know why people do that) or you have access to some kind of super spell that I dont have.

And no, I'm not "blaming the game", I am acknowledging that tensers makes you a shit fighter, I am just also acknowledging that's the mages best option.

And the only people I have ever met who claim spells are overpowered are ignoring things. One guy that comes to mind is a fella who claimed it breaks roleplay as "A fighter needs to get up a mountain, he has to train, he has to buy climing gear, he has to buy cold weather gear and food, a mage just casts levitate or if he has seen the top teleport." which isnt really true unless the mountain is only a couple hundred feet tall :D Even flight spells or shapeshifts wouldnt help, the guy just taking con checks with climbing gear does just as well :D It's just 5 maximum greataxe criticals every round. Silly but the damage assumption from the IGMS also requires 40 max damage rolls a turn so neither are realistic.

800 damage might actually be low, thinking on it. +3 weapon, 30 strength (which is low) 12 base damage, +4 damage from weapon spec +12 from power attack and with a x4 crit multiplier. That's 184 damage a swing and not even particularily difficult.

You can't compare only max damage of both options to identify which is more effective. Such a method ignores the likelihood of that outcome occurring. If we're just going to assume best result, then Mage wins via Finger of Death (or similar instant-kill spell) every single time regardless of enemy HP. The more commonly accepted method is to look at average damage, including factoring in chances of a miss.

IGMS has a single 'attack roll' IF the enemy has spell resistance, otherwise you just deal damage. Your greataxe always has 5 separate attack rolls to make, the power attack damage is lowering the chance of the attack doing any damage at all, and the odds of getting a crit on all 5 attacks are ridiculously low (approximately 1/3,200,000, without counting the extra die rolls to confirm each is a crit).

However, lets run some very simplified math with wild assumptions all over the place, just to see how things work out.

First, assume Klauth is an Ancient Red Dragon using the stats listed here. I'll be basing most of my other research numbers from this wiki as well, just for consistency.

Level 13 Fighter has +13 (BAB), +10 (30 str), +1 (weapon focus), +3 (magic weapon) = +27 to hit. Ancient Red Dragon has AC of 39, 39-27 = 12 (minimum d20 roll needed to hit). The fighter hits with maybe 50% of his primary attacks, his first extra attack (39-22=17) hits maybe 25% of the time, and his third attack hits on nat 20. Even if he hits for max damage, his non-crit damage is 12 (greataxe) + 15 (2h str bonus) + 3 (magic weapon) + 4 (weapon spec) = 34 damage per hit. A 4x crit (greataxe + improv crit) deals up to 132 damage (again, assuming max damage). Knock 25% off his hit chance to add 5 points of Power Attack damage, or knock 50% off his hit chance to add 10 points of power attack damage.

Let's look at a Level 13 wizard:
13 (wiz lvl) + 5 (5th lvl spell) + 4 (Greater spell penetration) = +22 to break Spell Resistance for most spells that matter against stronger opponents.

Ancient Red Dragon has Spell Resistance 28, 28-22=6 so expect slightly more than 25% wizard spells that check SR will fail.

Cast Cone of Cold
Save DC: 10 + 5 (5th lvl spell) + 5 (30 int) + 2 (spell focus) = 20.
[Edit: That should be 20 int for the +5, not 30 int (which would yield +10).]
ARD reflex save is 19, so about he'll take half damage about half the time. Let's assume he makes the save every single time, since it should roughly offset his weakness to cold damage.
Spell damage is 13d6, so 3x13=39 damage (which is slightly below average).

In one round:
1 spell from Wizard, using average damage = 36 damage.
4 hits with max damage attacks from (hasted) Fighter = 34x4 = 135 damage.

Now lets account for misses.
Damage x Chance of success = expected damage

Wizard
36 x .75 = 27 damage

Fighter
34 x .5 = 17
34 x .5 = 17
34 x .25 = 8.5
132 x .05 (assume crit from 20) = 6.6
17 + 17 + 8.5 + 6.6 = 49.1

49.1 vs 27, so the Fighter wins! (as long as we compare Fighter's max damage versus Wizard's average damage, including Fighter feats to hit and damage, but not checking Wizard options from Metamagic feats (like Empower Spell).

Quick check on Wizard's damage from IGMS:
===
32d6, using 3's for slightly below average damage, yields 96 damage.
96 x .75 (beat SR) = 72.

IGMS average damage handily beats Fighter max damage.
===
Edit: I need to correct the above section. Not sure where I got that 32.
26d6 (lvl 13 x 2d6 per lvl), using 3's yields 78 damage.
78 x .75 = 58.5

IGMS average damage still handily beats Fighter max damage.
===

If we compare 15th level characters, then Wizard can now Empower IGMS, while Figher gets maybe +2 to hit.
If we compare 17th level characters, then Wizard can starting casting Time Stop and things just get silly, while the Fighter gets maybe an additional +2 to hit.

You are acknowledging you don't know how to play a mage.

Play a fighter instead. Sounds like you would like that better.

From people who actually understand how to use magic, the constant refrain is that high level spell casters are overpowered and fighters are kind of superfluous.

Really, you should just stop digging. That is just nonsense. BTW you can have "Maximized" spells in NWN, so it is actually fairly easy to get maximum rolls on IGMS, at the cost of higher level spell slots.

Your fighter example OTOH:

Weapon Spec is +2, not +4.
Power Attack is +5, Improved power Attack is +10, but -10 penalty to hit. You aren't getting any Crits at -10 to hit.
Crit multiplier is x3 for the GreatAxe

Basically all your numbers are wrong and you would get ZERO critical.

So you really don't know how fighters work in NWN either.

Each hit (5% success) chance has a 5% chance of critting, right? So approximately 1 in 400 swings will crit.

Improved Critical.

Peter... Peter my boy...

Those people who "understand magic" never actually give a basis for thier statement beyond mindlessly saying "linear fighters quadratic mages!!" as if that means anything. I mean look at you, you know I'm right but instead you're whining and splitting hairs about a couple of points of damage difference in feats :D.

Anyway I was actually using the NWN2 wiki as that's the game I'm currently on and the problem exists in both games (it's actually somewhat worse in NWN2 due to most buff durations being lowered. I know that's a bit of a fauxpas considering the original subject is NWN1 but hell.

Anyway moving right along from the NWN 1 wiki;

Weapon spec is +2 (+4 comes from imp WS in NWN2)
Power attack is +10 (In NWN2 it's +6 or +12 for two handers)
Crit multiplier is x4 with weapon master (basically whole point of taking weapon master)

So plug those in and you get 168 damage a swing. World shattering difference apparently :D. I would like you to notice I was only using +3 just for the sake of it. What's the highest + you get in NWN again? +5s are common, but best weapons are like a +8 aren't they?



Anyway shove your "PLAY A FIGHTER!" whining up your arse. Notice how I never started the OP complaining about the mage. I'm playing it for the flavor after all. All I asked about was if there is a way to increase attack bonus that I had overlooked. Pointing out the people are wrong came after.


Have you noticed how you're rattling on about how you're giving the fighter an unfair advantage by comparing maximum damage but what you're actually doing is taking normal swings and then multiplying them by half?

And you're also ignoring everything that fighter would actually have, such as bags of holding full of potions of bless and heriosm and such.

Your entire point is trying to make it a fair comparison and even in your "fair" comparison the mage still loses unless you bring time stop into the equation (which even that doesnt mean a whole lot, though it's at least a powerful spell).

You never said Weapon Master. You said fighter. This is known as shifting goal posts.

You are still neglecting the -10 to hit from that level of Power Attack.

For someone whining about how his mage couldn't hit Klauth, you would think getting -10 would be an obvious problem if you want to hit Klauth, let alone get crits.

Obviously, you have no real interest in answers, just in trolling people with your nonsense.