Playing as a mage (or wizard, sorcerer, etc) in fantasy RPG's.

[Asmundr]

Oh, man. I thought this was going to be about Arcane spellcasters in table-top RPGs.

Anyways, I generally play the Mage on my second playthrough of a fantasy RPG. Once I get used to the combat, than I decide to 'tackle' being the Mage.

I do find their strengths to seriously overcome their weaknesses, but I find them very... bland.

The only recent fantasy RPG where I enjoy playing a spellslinger is Kingdoms of Amalur, because when you are in charge of their magic faction, the world actually acknowledges it... Unlike Skyrim...

Yeah, Skyrim let me down in that regard. You really don't feel like the Arch-Mage when you inherit the position sadly. I was expecting way more to being the premier magic user in the realm than a nice title and decent quarters.

Capthca: "read me, write me"
I'm a mage capthca, I'm pretty sure I'm literate. I need to be to keep my spell book up to date. *laughs*

 

[DoPo]

D&D also has a good system due to the inventiveness a player can have with magic (though usually at the DM's discretion). When I first played D&D I set up my Sorcerer to specialize in Divination and was laughed by my more veteran companions for it being a "stupid idea". This all ended though when we got to a dungeon and my divining spells allowed me to not only find the McGuffin's we were looking for but also make an accurate map (as my Div. Sorc. also took Knowledge's in Arch./Engineering, Dungeonering, and many others along with Cartography as both a Knowledge and Profession. things I was also laughed at for.)

Overall a good magic system is not one that gives he player many all-powerful spells but the ability to be inventive decently powered ones.

These two seem to be at odds. Spellcasing in D&D is giving the players all-powerful spells. The "decently powered ones" are just those doing straight damage. Starts straight from level 1 - Sleep automatically wins fights for you. Compare to the guys who need to go in there, do an attack roll, do a damage roll (hopefully) and repeat few times for each opponent. Versus waving your hands once and winning the battle. Or close enough, really. Then few levels later you can wave your hands and the opponent just drops dead. Versus a guy who still just waves a weapon around.

And that's at low levels. The gap between the two just grows as they level up. More levels later, the guy with a weapon is still only swinging it. Swinging it better but whatever. The spellcaster is flying, shooting lasers off their ass, straight up destroying enemies with a wave of a hand, manipulating space and time at will, go to, or send others, to other dimesions, and otherwise outperform any non magic user.

In fact, the linear warriors quadratic wizards holds most true for D&D. Except the wizards are exponential. The warriors get +1 attack per level. That's it. Well, they can also get a few other kinds of attacks, and occasionally get an extra attack, but whatever - it's still linear. The wizard, by comparison, gets new spells at each level. Automatically. Also, each of the old ones increases in effectiveness. The increase ranges from +1 to +dice. The warriors would be lucky to get an extra die or two to roll on attacks because they now wield the Sword of More Epicness Than Before. Wizards get that shit for free. Every level.

 

[Asmundr]

D&D also has a good system due to the inventiveness a player can have with magic (though usually at the DM's discretion). When I first played D&D I set up my Sorcerer to specialize in Divination and was laughed by my more veteran companions for it being a "stupid idea". This all ended though when we got to a dungeon and my divining spells allowed me to not only find the McGuffin's we were looking for but also make an accurate map (as my Div. Sorc. also took Knowledge's in Arch./Engineering, Dungeonering, and many others along with Cartography as both a Knowledge and Profession. things I was also laughed at for.)

Overall a good magic system is not one that gives he player many all-powerful spells but the ability to be inventive decently powered ones.

These two seem to be at odds. Spellcasing in D&D is giving the players all-powerful spells. The "decently powered ones" are just those doing straight damage. Starts straight from level 1 - Sleep automatically wins fights for you. Compare to the guys who need to go in there, do an attack roll, do a damage roll (hopefully) and repeat few times for each opponent. Versus waving your hands once and winning the battle. Or close enough, really. Then few levels later you can wave your hands and the opponent just drops dead. Versus a guy who still just waves a weapon around.

And that's at low levels. The gap between the two just grows as they level up. More levels later, the guy with a weapon is still only swinging it. Swinging it better but whatever. The spellcaster is flying, shooting lasers off their ass, straight up destroying enemies with a wave of a hand, manipulating space and time at will, go to, or send others, to other dimesions, and otherwise outperform any non magic user.

In fact, the linear warriors quadratic wizards holds most true for D&D. Except the wizards are exponential. The warriors get +1 attack per level. That's it. Well, they can also get a few other kinds of attacks, and occasionally get an extra attack, but whatever - it's still linear. The wizard, by comparison, gets new spells at each level. Automatically. Also, each of the old ones increases in effectiveness. The increase ranges from +1 to +dice. The warriors would be lucky to get an extra die or two to roll on attacks because they now wield the Sword of More Epicness Than Before. Wizards get that shit for free. Every level.

In the end though it is also ultimately up to the DM. I've seen DM's turn wizards into nothing quiet easily. When I DM myself I don't limit the magic any but the environment in which its being used (strong wind, smarter enemies, etc). I prefer to see magic users using their heads rather than using their most powerful spells right off the bat. I've also seen warriors become more quadratic by becoming very inventive in combat (again, up to the DM).

But yeah, D&D suffers the the Quad. Wiz. & Lin. War. tropes easily.

 

[eventhorizon525]

Generally I play mages in every game.

But I generally I mean almost exclusively.

However, I am also running a DnD campaign (3.5e with lots of homerules) in a custom setting with some changed magic rules to fit my preferences better. Mostly I just made sure to make their be heavy penalties RP-wise for certain spell usage, and other spells don't work the way they are listed (because they are broken to no end), and I don't allow random spell selection unless they can justify why there character would know it. So far has worked out pretty well, though the extra mechanics make converting more esoteric source books annoying.

 

[hydroblitz]

My main a Mage in WoW. I love pvp, because I can just burn down anyone in seconds. and the time travel shtick is pretty neat too (especially since my Mage is decked out in robes with moving gears on the shoulders and goggles over it's hood. time traveler indeed!)

but yeah. Mages are the greatest. I can teleport pretty much anywhere I need to go, summon food, polymorph (get too close to my glass cannon and you turn into a penguin for a bit)

Life is good when you're a Mage...

 

[skywolfblue]

I think WoW would have the best Mages that I've played.

DA1 had problems with spells being kinda ugly (except inferno, that was fun), being unresponsive, and being rather weighted towards either "hit everything in a 60 mile radius, or only one target".

DA2 had really awesome casting animations, I liked the "swing your staff around like a maniac" stuff. But the spells themselves were kinda dull.

Skyrim, well, there are some neat unique spells. But the fact that the basic spells don't scale ruins the whole picnic. Also the terrible casting system (if you want to cast more then two spells in a fight you have bring up a menu, select the new spell and swap it out... UGH PLEASE NO.). The spells are sure pretty though.

WoW took a lot of care to weave the whole "control" aspect into their mages. You have a myriad of tools to freeze or stun enemies in place, blink away, and then charge up whatever whopper of a spell you want to hit them with. I remember being so excited when I first got the Talent "Dragon's Breath" (Burning Crusade I think?). It basically stops all except boss enemies cold, and they wander around confused for a few seconds. It was such an awesome "STOP, let me get away" spell. I loved it.

Of course, I was rather terrible when it came to actually being any GOOD with a mage. I died so many times while leveling my mage up, so many screwed up Frost Nova's (murloc gank squads ahoy!).

 

[Asmundr]

Life is good when you're a Mage...

Amen, I always laughed at the guys in Skyrim that make fun of my character being a spell caster. I wish you could respond with how you can kill them in a variety of spectacular ways. That's why there are so many kinds of penalties on mages in games today. Magic can do pretty much anything ^_^

Magic and/or Technology - The choice solutions to life's problems!

 

[Brandon237]

In Dragon Age, I could never consider playing another class. Even Alistair who was permanently with my little posse had less than a quarter the kills my elven mage had. It was ridiculous. If my beautiful mage went down at any point I basically just reloaded / died on purpose to do the fight PROPERLY.

In Skyrim magic scales so badly and needs so many trees to be useful that you don't actually ever role a pure mage. Unless you want to suffer. Thief with illusion = A+. Warrior with alteration / restoration = perfect. Pure mage needs destruction to be viable. Destruction is shit. It is beyond shit. If there is another DLC it needs to completely re-empower destruction magic and give it some ability to scale. My mage starts strong and gets weaker every level. All my non-pure mages do the exact opposite -.-
It all comes down to destruction is shit, conjuration is bugged (and as your main form of offence, shit), magicka regen in battle is shit, above level 40 illusion is shit unless you want to run around like and invisible pansy mage the whole time.

And in Diablo 3... wizard was fun. But Diablo 3 is shit.

I absolutely disagree with your assessment of magic in Skyrim. Conjuration (get 100, make two Dremora Lords, and you're chillin) + Alteration (for armor purposes, the perks in this tree also shield you from magic) + Destruction (when you need to, but with 100 Conjuration you almost never need to) + Restoration (when shit gets worrisome). Illusion is kinda useless unless you already are somewhat decent in sneak. But yeah, I had a real easy time with those four trees combined (on Expert, then Master difficulty).

Edit:

For the OP, I almost also roll some kind of magic character. In WoW, I was a Druid. In DA:O, I was a Mage (spirit healer + arcane warrior). In Oblivion and Skyrim I was a warrior-mage. If I like the game I will probably reroll a thief of some kind.

I think I just have some kind of problem with branching out.

And that is 4 skill trees. With some master level spells costing a base cost of 800 magicka. Meaning that either enchanting or massive amounts of gear searching is also a requirement. Compare this to a stealth archer, which can obliterate pretty much anything with 1-2 less skills. And archery scales much better into the late game.
My stealth archer and mace and shield warrior easily crush anything on master, but after level 40 attempting this with a mage starts to feel like a waste of time. Even when it can be done, the low power of destruction, bugginess of conjuration (Cannot conjure things with certain perks/essential atronach stone buff) and overall derpness of the magicka regen means that compared to the other classes, mage is boring, difficult, does at higher levels to every random attack. Do you by any chance drop all your level ups into magicka?

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

I pretty much exclusively play mages wherever available.

Though I like to play an excessively buff 'tank' mage. Rolled with daedric armor, two handed sword, and casted spells 24/7 as a Breton in oblivion. Basically did the same thing in Skyrim.

Arcanum has some fun magic because it has a lot of utility spells. Plus the lore and the difference between tech and magic make it very interesting.

On DAO: Anders isn't a blood mage. You can make him a blood mage later, but at the time of your defending him, hes just the Harry Houdini of mages. It is way funnier though being a blood mage during your duel with Loghain, in front of the entire fucking court of Ferelden you can kill their de facto leader with blood magic, and no one says word one about it.

Too many people have said it but none have managed to state it properly. Here is how the game is played - you have a party of four people and you generally have the following roles - cannon fodder (warrior), beatstick (warrior), dead weight (rogues), God (mages). As for the party itself, you need:

- a dead weight - to open locks/disable traps. Since these can specialise in ranged or melee, maybe ranged is better, because they tend to survive longer in a fight. However, I've had several experiences with a melee dead weight that manages to use some of the more powerful abilities in the beginning and as such turns (very) briefly into a cannon fodder and a beatstick. Don't take more than one, it's a waste of space.
- beatstick - give them a weapon or two and give them the boring job - grind down the HP of the enemies. God should just stand back and do the actual work - buff/debuff and own the fight.
- cannon fodder - they are there to absorb damage, obviously. They can even turn into HP batteries for God later on (Blood Mages). You definitely need one to take the heat. Also try to keep him alive for a bit but he's not essential for the entire fight. Also, don't play a cannon fodder. Beatsticks and God should focus on finishing the battle, even the dead weight can be a more contributing factor there.
- God - one, preferably you, and maybe two to split the responsibility and double the effectiveness. The responsibility of God is to win. Pure and simple.

You're playing it wrong, I do nightmare mode with no pausing whatsoever and rogues are unbelievably awesome when backed up effectively. You can use warriors if you want but they are mostly unnecessary with a well speced rogue and a party of 3 mages. And I don't get any of my party incaped.

Get two nice daggers for Leliana, the best ones you can find/afford and enchant them with some good damage runes, does not matter which I just go with a panoply of all types. Get the suit of that light dragon armor whenever you can beat the high dragon. Spec dirty fighting to coup de grace. Spec below the belt to evasion. Get dual weapon mastery and the dual sweep tree to momentum. Set her to automatically turn on momentum at all times, and to chug heal salves as needed.

Be a mage, have Morrigan and Wynne in the party. Set Wynne to heals anyone who goes below 75% hp, the other two mages to 50%. Get them all the 3 direct damage single target spells -arcane bolt, winters grasp, lightning, and set those on auto attack whatever is closest. Then spec Wynn with whatever you want, I usually only use her for healing and a few buffs. I spec Morrigan and myself exactly alike with an emphasis on massive stun and debilitating spells. Ice cone, lightning cone to crowd control. ability to get storm of the century. mana clash. sleep+waking nightmare. force field+crushing prison. Petrify.

Leliana(originally wrote Liara...) will tank everything because evasion is great and the heals will be powerful, plentiful, and pretty well spaced out. The single target damage spells don't waste much mana at all and do very good damage for cost, leaving you open to control all the higher end spells. Space out your disables like petrify and cone of cold. Leliana will be swinging insanely fucking fast because of momentum with very very very high damage. She will take care of most bosses for you, and enemies that are petrified or frozen who she scores a critical hit on, will immediately shatter and die, this even works on the mini boss ogres. And with her+crushing prison+stonefist you can pretty much ensure that any mini boss is immediately dead.

If things somehow manage to get sketchy at all for her(which for me was usually because I was distracted and she ran straight into a storm of eternity I summoned to clear out a particularly difficult room, or potentially like a revenant being especially mean) all you have to do is pop a forcefield on her and she is invincible to everything while she waits for heals.

The real secret to DAO, beyond turning Leliana into a freaking wrecking-ball, is setting up good AI tactic sets.

There are specialisations for God, that (unless those of lesser classes) actually matter - they are the following:
- Shapeshifter - useless. Worse than the dead weight.

I always got shapeshifter on nightmare and It was amazingly useful. Becoming a flying swarm of insects makes you basically invincible to any enemies that aren't mages, you do good AOE damage to everything around you while regaining hp. It also lets you move way faster through places like towns to cut down on wasted time running. And morphing into a bear/spider just adds more stun moves for higher end humanoid sized boss enemies to keep them completely useless in any fight. Always get shapeshifter+bloodmage until awakening classes are opened up. Shapshifter is one of the reasons I took 0 damage whatsoever in my duel with Loghain.

Well, you did kind of save the world.

Technically you saved Ferelden. There are hundreds if not thousands of other Grey Wardens in the world. They simply weren't allowed to help Ferelden because Loghain is an idiot. The Orlesians were sitting on the border the whole time, eventually they sent that one Grey Warden guy in to investigate what the hell was going on, but he got captured and tortured by Arl Howe. And by all accounts the Orlesians have a much bigger population and a much more powerful army. Also they aren't idiots and would probably enlist help from the surrounding countries, if Ferelden lost.

 

[Zeren]

D&D also has a good system due to the inventiveness a player can have with magic (though usually at the DM's discretion). When I first played D&D I set up my Sorcerer to specialize in Divination and was laughed by my more veteran companions for it being a "stupid idea". This all ended though when we got to a dungeon and my divining spells allowed me to not only find the McGuffin's we were looking for but also make an accurate map (as my Div. Sorc. also took Knowledge's in Arch./Engineering, Dungeonering, and many others along with Cartography as both a Knowledge and Profession. things I was also laughed at for.)

Overall a good magic system is not one that gives he player many all-powerful spells but the ability to be inventive decently powered ones.

These two seem to be at odds. Spellcasing in D&D is giving the players all-powerful spells. The "decently powered ones" are just those doing straight damage. Starts straight from level 1 - Sleep automatically wins fights for you. Compare to the guys who need to go in there, do an attack roll, do a damage roll (hopefully) and repeat few times for each opponent. Versus waving your hands once and winning the battle. Or close enough, really. Then few levels later you can wave your hands and the opponent just drops dead. Versus a guy who still just waves a weapon around.

And that's at low levels. The gap between the two just grows as they level up. More levels later, the guy with a weapon is still only swinging it. Swinging it better but whatever. The spellcaster is flying, shooting lasers off their ass, straight up destroying enemies with a wave of a hand, manipulating space and time at will, go to, or send others, to other dimesions, and otherwise outperform any non magic user.

In fact, the linear warriors quadratic wizards holds most true for D&D. Except the wizards are exponential. The warriors get +1 attack per level. That's it. Well, they can also get a few other kinds of attacks, and occasionally get an extra attack, but whatever - it's still linear. The wizard, by comparison, gets new spells at each level. Automatically. Also, each of the old ones increases in effectiveness. The increase ranges from +1 to +dice. The warriors would be lucky to get an extra die or two to roll on attacks because they now wield the Sword of More Epicness Than Before. Wizards get that shit for free. Every level.

In the end though it is also ultimately up to the DM. I've seen DM's turn wizards into nothing quiet easily. When I DM myself I don't limit the magic any but the environment in which its being used (strong wind, smarter enemies, etc). I prefer to see magic users using their heads rather than using their most powerful spells right off the bat. I've also seen warriors become more quadratic by becoming very inventive in combat (again, up to the DM).

But yeah, D&D suffers the the Quad. Wiz. & Lin. War. tropes easily.

If you have people who aren't creative, that's when the tropes start to show up. My sorcerer hardly ever needs to fight because I try to find creative ways to win without using my spells. I have a Fighter who specializes in killing wizards by outsmarting them and luring them into ambushes.

 

[Doom972]

I usually go for a Mage/Warrior combo with more emphasis on magic than fighting. My characters are usually mages wearing armor and usually wielding swords.

I just like to be able to take a few arrows and have a way to finish a battle in case my magic runs out or my enemy uses anti-magic measures.

Some games make it very easy: in Diablo, you will always find and armor called Arkaine's Valor, which has no Strength requirement and stays very useful for most of the game. Dragon Age Origins also makes it easy by having a mage specialization that allows wearing armor.

Some games make it very hard: In Neverwinter Nights, which is based on D&D 3rd Ed, every piece of armor, no matter how light, gives a certain percentage of Arcane Spell Failure. In Baldur's gate, which is based on D&D 2nd Ed, a Fighter/Mage can use shields and cast spells, but armor makes it impossible.

In party based games, I think that mages are best use for crowd control due to their AOE spells.

One of my most interesting experiences was playing a Tremere (mage clan) vampire on Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. I would use my spells for crowd control and a shotgun for individual targets.

 

[kommando367]

My experience with magic differed a lot between games.

Oblivion:
Destruction magic is crazy overpowered, but most other spell are useful in certain situations.

Skyrim: Opposite of oblivion. Destruction is underpowered unless you fortify the hell out of it.
Illusion is nice for non-dragons. Enchanting is OP. Restoration, alteration, and conjuration are adequate.

Borderlands: Phasewalk is one of the best defensive powers ever and Phaselock is wicked powerful with the right upgrades.

Dragon Age: Blood magic(both), Mana clash(1), Haste(2), and crushing prison(both) are all standard for my DA builds. That's about all I remember about magic from those games.

Demon's Souls: didn't like magic in that game much. I just stuck with my Sword and Bow.

Dark Souls: Pyromancy is the reason I never found that game to be difficult at all unless you count tedium as a
form of of challenge.

2moons: I think Healer was the most powerful class in that game ironically, but the mage had better AOE skills.

Dragon's Dogma: That game's Mystic Knight class was pure awesomeness. Too bad the game had so many problems.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

I felt that being a mage in ES 4-5 was quite boring honestly. Just strafe and cast, or summon something and just let it do all the work.

Playing Torchlight 1 now though and it's pretty fun, especially considering how old it is.

Gotta get me Dragon's Dogma. Seen some gameplay and it looks like the one of the best games for magic that I've ever seen.

 

[zenoaugustus]

I absolutely disagree with your assessment of magic in Skyrim. Conjuration (get 100, make two Dremora Lords, and you're chillin) + Alteration (for armor purposes, the perks in this tree also shield you from magic) + Destruction (when you need to, but with 100 Conjuration you almost never need to) + Restoration (when shit gets worrisome). Illusion is kinda useless unless you already are somewhat decent in sneak. But yeah, I had a real easy time with those four trees combined (on Expert, then Master difficulty).

This argument kind of falls apart at "Get 100". And do what for the preceding 20-30 levels? Run like hell and hope your invincible Henchperson handles it? Or stand around soul-trapping a mudcrab corpse for an hour. Neithers particularly interesting play. The Wolf sucks, the Flame atronach won't keep mobs off you at all. Frost is decent, but overwhelmed in numbers, and torn apart instantly by dragons and enemy mages. Storm again usually darts away and leaves you completely exposed.

This is essentially Skyrim's magic problem in a nutshell. 100 Conjuration (or 100 Illusion when you get the "Affect everything" perk), is a god-mode. All the stuff leading up to it is usually well outpaced or inefficient vs the enemy numbers. Destruction doesn't even get the high end payoff and requires yet another 100 in Enchanting to really even resemble end-game useful..

See, I think you're looking at what I was arguing in the wrong light. I was verifying that magic is viable in the endgame. But you are right in the sense that the first 50 skill points for most magic trees are somewhat underpowered, and after that you start to become overpowered. That is a gameplay flaw. It makes magic rewarding if you dare to suck for a little bit, but it doesn't make sense scaling wise. But I also think you are undervaluing the flame atronach.

Regardless you are correct that Skyrim has a problem with magic. But this problem ends up requiring a lot of intuitive mixing of the different magic skills. So I still enjoy it.

And that is 4 skill trees. With some master level spells costing a base cost of 800 magicka. Meaning that either enchanting or massive amounts of gear searching is also a requirement. Compare this to a stealth archer, which can obliterate pretty much anything with 1-2 less skills. And archery scales much better into the late game.
My stealth archer and mace and shield warrior easily crush anything on master, but after level 40 attempting this with a mage starts to feel like a waste of time. Even when it can be done, the low power of destruction, bugginess of conjuration (Cannot conjure things with certain perks/essential atronach stone buff) and overall derpness of the magicka regen means that compared to the other classes, mage is boring, difficult, does at higher levels to every random attack. Do you by any chance drop all your level ups into magicka?

See, I find the mage to be the most interesting of the three at the end game because usually you need to find some form of mix between the magic schools to overcome obstacles. It's not so much a one trick pony (and if you want to talk about shit sucking in Skyrim, you might as well stop at melee). You need to mix Alteration with Destruction to start to take down enemies. Or you make an atronach to damage an enemy while you use an alteration armor spell and the restoration wards to tank the enemy.

And I almost never used the master spells on my mage. In my opinion, the best Conjuration spell is an expert spell (Conjure Dremora Lord) and an adept spell (Conjure Bow). Obviously you need to be an archer to utilize the bow. Destruction master spells are very situational, the adept/expert are usually more effective (and efficient magicka wise). For Restoration, apprentice heal is pretty much all you need throughout the large majority of the game. Expert Alteration is clearly the best (paralyze).

But no, I don't put all points into magicka. I usually aim to get health to 300 (with any style character). Obviously for a pure mage, stamina is irrelevant. But I would put most into magicka. And yes, you need equipment to viable as a mage, but please don't think that this also doesn't apply to the other classes. You need a good weapon to be a warrior. You need armor to be a warrior. You need a good bow to be a archer. Perhaps it is harder to find the mage equipment, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. And that doesn't mean that the other classes aren't gear dependent too. They are moreso gear dependent, honestly.

And I have a question for you. Later on you say that a high level mage is "boring". And earlier in your comment you say that your "stealth archer and mace and shield warrior can easily crush anything on master". How is that not boring to you? Where is the challenge? Of course it is different strokes for different folks, so I can understand that you prefer the others to mage. But that statement makes little sense to me.


Edit: and sorry for the goliath post. I don't mean to be overtly defensive or argumentative. Just trying to see where you are coming from.

 

[Brandon237]

And I have a question for you. Later on you say that a high level mage is "boring". And earlier in your comment you say that your "stealth archer and mace and shield warrior can easily crush anything on master". How is that not boring to you? Where is the challenge? Of course it is different strokes for different folks, so I can understand that you prefer the others to mage. But that statement makes little sense to me.


Edit: and sorry for the goliath post. I don't mean to be overtly defensive or argumentative. Just trying to see where you are coming from.

I do see a lot of the points in this, I probably neglected conjuration too much on my first mage >.<
Maybe another go with the setup you have outlined might be worth a try, even if the levels just before getting expert level spells are going to be a *****. And conjuration + magic resist/block/absorb is genuinely bugged, which probably led to my neglect of conjuration I will download a mod hotfix! Said everyone who has played a Bethesda game...

Admittedly above a certain level, Skyrim is just boring. But at least getting there (level 10-35 or so) was very fun with a stealth archer. Seeing the strength improve and the scaling work in a not totally awful manner was fun and kept me playing. Stealth archer started out super weak and slowly improved, required less maintanence, had more power et cetera to reach such OP state. Slightly less true of the melee character, but it made dragon fights a helluva lot more interesting (and long -.-).

But with Mage, I just felt weaker and weaker every level. Once I hit Expert level spells things just took a sharp nose dive. And the damage doesn't scale to any useful degree at all! If there was a "fortify destruction/alteration/conjuration/restoration/illusion strength enchantment, I would likely be set, even if it was only 5-15% per piece at 100 enchanting and relevant skill.
And I agree about not using Master level spells, they are... badly designed.

And you didn't come off as aggressive, it is about Skyrim, the design of which is... less amazing than many say

 

[Patrick Buck]

I almost never do, I don't like spellcasters. They seem to complicated. But I don't like fighters that much either, to boring. I tend to be a ranger, a rouge or a monk in DnD, and just rouges in other games... it's more fun.

 

[MrBenSampson]

I played through Dragon Age: Origins and Awakening with a mage as my tank in my party. The three members I had with me were Wynne, Shale and my dog, Zuul. I had Wynne's AI customised so that she never attacked anything, so that she could focus on healing/buffing the rest of the party. Shale and Zuul worked together to bring down enemies, but Zuul's priority was to kill enemy mages, while Shale's priority was to defend Wynne.

My character was an Arcane Warrior and a Blood mage, and I added the Keeper specialty in Awakening. The enemies would always surround her, and do no damage to her as she ripped them apart. This is what her combat tactics looked like in Awakening:

Self health Deactivate Blood Magic
Self mana Dark Sustenance
Self health > 90% -> Activate Blood Magic
Enemy rank is elite or higher -> Blood Control
Enemy any -> Blood Wound
Enemy rank is elite or higher -> Crushing Prison
Self surrounded by at least 2 enemies -> Nature's Vengeance
Enemy target at short range -> Thornblades
Self attacked with melee -> Activate One With Nature
Enemy attacking Main Character -> attack
Self surrounded by no enemies -> Deactivate One With Nature

The only change I'd make in hindsight is to have her switch to a staff when enemies are not at short range. The only problem she had was that she'd get into staring contests with archers, since One With Nature pins you to one spot while active. Also, my current playstyle is to use ranged weapons while the enemies are approaching.

 

[uzo]

I went through Baldur's Gate/Tales of the Sword Coast as a vanilla human fighter, and imported him across to Baldur's Gate 2/Throne of Bhaal. When you import you could choose specialisations etc. not available in Badlur's Gate 1 - so I went Kensai, with two-handed swords as my focus (using Sarevok's vampiric sword). Upon exiting Irenicus' Amn base (now at about lvl 11 IIRC), I dual-classed as mage. The weaknesses of a mage (no armour, etc) were the same as a Kensai, but the Kensai actually had some advantages that made up for it - meaning I didn't have to take many defensive spells.

From that point on I was quite possibly the most brutal force in the Forgotten Realms. Being already a rather fearsome warrior, I could now hurl a bazillion magic missiles by clicking my fingers and reduce resistance on my foes. That, coupled with very minor defensive spells (Mirror Image, for example, is one of the most underrated spells in AD&D).

In NWN and NWN 2 I went through as a sorceror.

But I'm always based on that original Baldur's Gate character; two-handed sword wielding fireball throwing engine of destruction.

 

[sXeth]

In NWN and NWN 2 I went through as a sorceror.

But I'm always based on that original Baldur's Gate character; two-handed sword wielding fireball throwing engine of destruction.

Surprised oyu didn't pick up Eldritch Knight in NWN2 (though it works best for a wizard, not a sorceror).


I'm off an on with playing the mage, as a lot of games with a group focus, it means you have to sit back out of fights a lot. And the tendency of many games to make mages have an absolute Low = Crap, High = God progression for them tends to make it a boring slog up to being a boring death machine that slaughters everything with whimsy.

In my last few RPGey things

Dragon's dogma - Played around with it, but I vastly preferred getting up close and personal (and Pawns tend to pick up the guardian trait and stay around you, which is problematic), so I ended up going Strider/Assassin/Warrior/strider.

Dark Souls : Yeah No. Considering the AI blatantly has unlimited ammo and spells compared to your miniscule arsenal, you're asking for an ass kicking.

Dishonored : Didn't find most of the spells all that useful, outside of being silly.

Skyrim : Started off originally with a Sword+Alter/Restore/Illusion(quickly dropped since Fear is dumb, fury's generally not helpful, and Calm is superfluos, not to mention every other dungeon is immune undead). Wasn't horrible, but the sword starts massacring everything and you can't be bothered spending time to cast the spells anymore.

 

[Sansha]

I usually go for warrior types, but I had a lot of fun as a mage in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.

Seeing a smouldering fireball form in your hands and then navigating it precisely through the air, watching your character's hands shake more and more as they charge up an electric bolt (which will damage you if you hold it too long), using an ice spell to freeze mobs in place or casting it at the ground to trip them, shrinking them to the size of mouses with the adrenaline effect of the weaken spell and flinging bodies around with telekinesis, or just slapping them around with a staff was all so, so gratifying.

And it was all part of just one viable approach. The stealth, melee and archery were executed with the same fluidity, spectacular animation and unmatched use of physics, even in multiplayer. I like a lot of aspects of the TES games, but this type of personal and visceral combat is what they've always been missing for me. Sadly Dishonored did too.

I think DM:M&M had the best video game melee combat ever. So swift, fluid, easy to learn but I found it hard to master. I loved playing Rogue in it, but stealth was a bit off.

As for Mage, I love playing casters in World of Warcraft. My main character is a Fire Mage, but I love playing Frost too. I haven't tried Mage on Skyrim or DM yet.

I do like the idea of using magic, though. Being a glass cannon suits me down to the ground, though I love stealth and daggery murder a bit too much to entirely give it up in favor of horrifying fireballs and crippling ice.