I an not saying that MM8 is a bad game, but you can have high level characters at start of the game, even a Dragon, and in end game, you can take even high level dragons in few turns. For example, if you have 2 dragons with high level, you can do 400 damage per turn with base attack, if you have 2 high level lich's in your party casting Dragon Breath, with lv 20 Dark Magic, you can do more (25*20 = 500) * 2 = 1000 pts of damage. 1000 + 400 = 1400. You can kill a high level dragon in one round. I know that the chances of do "max damage" 4 times are not high, but take a dragon in 2/3 turns isn't rare for end game...

Also, the "souldrinker" works best for healing than my cleric grand master spells. A lot of dark magic spells in MM6 costs a lot of SP like Armageddon( 150 in MM6 VS 55 MM8), the damage heal spell in MM6(Moon Ray) costs 90 pts of SP, works only outside at night and damage/heal only d4 HP. Souldrinkerin MM8 costs 60 SP and do 25 + d8 HP damage/heal and can be used indoors.

In MM6 i see a good balance between "magic", dark magic is more powerful but costs a lot of SP. In MM8, elemental magic is only useful as supporting magic(fly, invisibility, etc), a master in elemental magic in MM6 can trow Static Charge, Cold Beam, Flame Arrow and magic arrow without any SP cost.

Indeed MM8 is "easiest" and smallest game and feels unfinished (e.g., only 1 promotion, can't level above 200, etc.)

Also, MM8 features Ruby Dragons who have 1937 HP, so they will take more time to be killed :)

And another big BUT. In MM^ and MM7 you aren't limited in leveling, and MM7 has Well which grants infinite experience and skill points. Thus, endgame teams from MM6 and MM7 can be potentially MUCH more powerful than in MM8 :)

And, of course, MM9 has the Divine Intervention glitch (from what I have read); if you hotkey that spell, you can use it infinitely, making any enemy that can't kill the spell's caster in one hit trivial.

(By the way, I assume you mean MM6, not MM^, right?) Then again:

In MM1, my understanding is that you aren't meant to level up past the teens.

In MM4 (alone), you can't train past level 20; 23 is the permanent cap if you save permanent level boosts, and 33 is the cap if you allow temporary boosts. Otherwise, you can't level up any higher without visiting MM5.

No, he meant MM^. Best game of the series.

-Yes, MM8 lets you romp over most things pretty handily in the end game, even without blasters.

-Dark magic still reigns supreme on damage. It does have a couple of drawbacks though. Dragon's Breath is great...unless the enemy is right next to you. A high level lich cannot survive his own Dragon's Breath. It is definitely still expensive when compared to other magic options, as well.

-Comparing Souldrinker and Power Cure:
20 points in Dark magic, and Soul Drinker healing gives 45 to 510 hp, divided by the number of party members

With 5 party members, each character gets 9 - 102 hp (per monster hit by the spell?). This might be capped by each monster's available hp, and the damage (and healing) might be reduced if a monster resists some of the damage; I don't know whether these two factors affect the healing potential of the spell. Costs 60 mp.

For contrast, figure 10 points in Body Magic, and Power Cure provides 60hp for every member of the party. Costs 30 mp. Half the MP cost, less than half the number of skill points, guaranteed healing amount, can safely be cast anywhere. If I need party healing, I want Power Cure over Soul Drinker every time.

-The "free" spells from MM6 are generally worth what you pay for them. By the time they are free, their damage is irrelevant except as a finisher on a 2hp monster.

-Put Fly, Invisibility, Torchlight, Wizard Eye, Town Portal, Enchant Item, Llyod's Beacon, etc in one bucket, and put Dragon Breath, Souldrinker, Shrapmetal, etc in a second bucket, and I'll take the utility spells every single time.

@Bookwyrm627, the free spells are good in some situations. If you wanna save mana or run out of mana, you don't need to use a bow that will do in max 20 pts of damage and can use a spell that at lv 12 can do 12-72) damage, is not useless, also with the small "recover time"...

About party healing over 2, i disagree. There are a lot of times that my party are all with mid/low level and a single of souldrinker heal everyone. About melee range, there are ways to prevent this. Reanimate one of then, they will "group" and you can blast then all at once, if you can't do this(no corpse), you can use slow, clerics can summon elemental, if you have a lot of casters, you should avoid melee combat... About cost, i can trow 10 DB per rest...

In neverwinter nights 1, high damage spells like Isaac's greater missile storm can only be trowed 4 times/rest for wiz and 6 for sorc. Of course, the "system" is very different. You don't have SP in nwn1 or in D&D. If you use metamagic, you can trow more if you count the maximized/extended...

Actually, I think I played that one. I remember one part where I had to kill off my entire party or else an enemy would target one of my living characters with an attack that crashed the game; by going in with no living characters, the enemy would have no target and therefore wouldn't use that attack. And then, of course, there's Paladin's Quest and its sequel where you can afford to throw out high damage all the time. Of course the "system" in those games is very different; spells cost HP (typically less than the extra damage you would take if you didn't use those spells) which can be restored by using cheaply refillable medicine bottles.

Flame arrow can miss. It does 1-8 damage on hit.
Magic Arrow can miss. It does 3-8 damage on hit.
Static charge always hits. It does 2-6 damage on hit.
Cold Beam always hits. It does 2-6 damage on hit.

None of these spells do much damage, and the two arrow spells can miss!

The guaranteed hit from Static Charge and Cold Beam can be useful for making sure you finish an enemy that is nearly dead (guess how I use them?), but the master level arrow spells are worth exactly what you pay for them. None of them are for use at Master level as anything more than a rare situational spell.

There are several low cost spells that remain useful later (poison spray is a favorite of mine, being reliable damage for cheap), but they do cost mp. If there are a lot of enemies in view, then yes, a single Souldrinker may heal everyone quite a bit. However, don't cast it if you can see friendlies that you don't want to hurt, don't cast it if you can see undead, don't cast it if you absolutely need effective healing right now (it is unreliable healing), and it doesn't do anything unless there are enemies in view (which means they can see you and target you). Power Cure has none of these drawbacks, just a simple transaction of mana for hp for every character in the party.

Avoiding close range combat isn't always feasible, depending on the particular monsters and the dungeon layout. I was simply pointing out one of the biggest issues with Dragon's Breath, namely that it will happily butcher everything in range, including your party. If enemies are that close, then just switch to a different spell. Toxic Cloud is a safe, hard hitting spell without blow back.

If you can throw 10 Dragon's Breath spells per rest, then you are packing at least 500 mp and you are way beyond powerful enough to end the game. *shrug* As you noted, NWN 1 has a very different system than MM8 or MM6. I'm unclear on how it is relevant.

You are right, about arrow, there are a long time since i've played MM6(but will play again), since i was wrong and damage isn't "per skill level", even a arrow is better than this 4 spells. About souldrink, "clearing" plane of earth/fire, this spell looks very effective in damage dealing and healing but i agree that he is only better than cleric in some situations(aka tons a of monsters)

Static Charge and Cold Beam both have their place, primarily in making something with only 2-3 hp left die (whether so the living monster doesn't block the shot of the next party member in line against something healthier, or if the victim is about to get over water or something). The two arrow spells (and spirit arrow) are just filler.

Souldrinker looks good on paper, and healing while doing damage can be useful, but it doesn't do as good a job at either as more dedicated spells. If I'm not in cover or heading for cover, then I've got room to maneuver and focus down individual or small groups of monsters. Too much damage on a wide area, without actually finishing off the targets, tends to cause monsters to flee, and chasing down lots of fleeing guys wastes time and is a good way to lose loot if they get over water or outside the map boundaries.

To be fair, maybe I just haven't used Souldrinker enough to really appreciate its power. Dragon's Breath tends to overshadow it in ranged damage, toxic cloud is great single target damage even up close, and if I can survive lots of mobs being in my face, then I can probably just mow them down in melee anyway.

Imagine a toxic cloud(the damage is pretty similar 25+d8 vs 25+d10) that hits everyone that you can see, and the damage dealt = damage healed. This is Souldrinker, yes, the damage is insignificant compared to DB(d25 * Dark Magic level VS 25 + d8 * dark magic caster level, so at DM level 20 you will get 50~500 damage VS 45~185) but be able to kill everyone, even fleeing monsters while i can heal my party with a single spell is not a useless ability.