Automatic Spellcasting

[Jan Mistique]

I have played all the Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale games and am just starting on Icewind Dale II.

Only one thing has bugged me in all these games (not bad eh?!). That is that it is not possible (or at least I haven't found it to be possible) to set my spellcasters to do their thing without constant attention from me.

You can set a fighter up with swords in one slot and bows and arrows in another etc and when you tell them to fight with a selected weapon, they just get on with it. Not so the spellcaster. They seem to need instructions for every single spell they use. So, if I tell my entire party to fight, the spellcasters among them will use a weapon or their fists unless I set up a spell. OK so far. But, if I tell them to cast 'Chromatic Orb' for example, they will cast one spell and then stand around despite having more spells of the same kind and despite being overwhelmed by enemies!

Is it/would it be possible for spell casters to have some sort of automatic spell casting ability? I have used the paused mechanism to allow me to set the next spell but find this very tedious. I have stopped having wizards and scorcers in my party. Shame because the spells are really good.

Any advice/suggestions?

[Zelgadis]

To get spellcasters to automatically cast spells, you need to that characters screen and click on 'scripts'. Chose a spellcasting script of the character, or write your own, and make sure to turn on the party AI.

Personally, I don't like to use scripts with spellcasters, since they always seem to use the wrong spells and end up hurting my own people. And really, pausing to cast spells isn't bad, I actually think chosing which spell to cast and such to be one of the funnest parts of the game.

[Jan Mistique]

Thanks for that. It sounds unreliable to use the scripting and I don't want to get blown up! Perhaps I'm not meant to be a spell caster.