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...so I finally got my character ( pure wiz ) up to Lvl 40. It took one hell of a lot of games. I think I played HOTU six times alone and imported the character back and forth between the OC, SOU and HOTU. I finally have all the epic spells, several nice feats ( weapon focus longbow/longsword, improved critical, mobility, alertness, armor skin, etc ) to buff her up a little when it comes to melee fighting, and some nice equipment.

Not the kind of character you'd want to play either the OC, SOU or HOTU with, because, well, waaaaaaay overpowered.

Anyway, I reached Lvl 40 in the beginning of my last playing of SOU, and decided to take Dorna Trapspringer with me after soloing the last couple of times because of the XP. Lo and behold, Dorna, now at Lvl 40 as well, starts casting some powerful spells when we encounter a small group of goblins.

...only, she casts 'Gate' and summons a Balor. Without casting 'Protection from [...]' first. So I not only end up having to deal with the stupid goblins, but also with the Balor. Fun. Not. Ever watched your Lvl 40, relatively powerful character, get plainly levelled?

Pfah. There's no way around it, too, is there, unless I actively tell Dorna to not cast any spells at all.

I'm not sure if this would work, but if you case Protection from Evil after Gate has been cast, then it might stop the Balor from attacking you.

I agree with you on your rant though. One of the things I dislike about NWN and its expansions is the AI of NPC spell casters. If you have a spell casting henchman they just seem to cast any old spell rather than 'intelligently casting'. This is the main reason why I tend to either go solo or take Fighter type or Monk type henchman.

I think they generallycast in the order of highest spell level first regardless of how appropriate that spell might be.
I remember having a henchmen with loads of high level scrolls in a user-created mod...just because she had a ton of horrid wilting scrolls, she'd use those up before resorting to Chain Lightning and then standard replenishable bard spells...
If you could better tell a hench to use spells of certain levels in certain situations (e.g. use level 5 offensive up from now) then that might help...otherwise it would take a lot of scripting for a computer to recognise a situation to use certain spells.

[QUOTE=mr_sir]I'm not sure if this would work, but if you case Protection from Evil after Gate has been cast, then it might stop the Balor from attacking you.[/QUOTE]

I tried that, it doesn't work. At least, for me it doesn't.

[QUOTE=mr_sir]This is the main reason why I tend to either go solo or take Fighter type or Monk type henchman.[/QUOTE]

Well, in SOU, playing a Lvl 40 character, you have three choices: soloing, taking Dorna ( who automatically becomes 20 Cleric/20 Rogue ), or the half-orc sorcerer, who, to put it lightly, sucks. I'm playing solo until I can grab Deekin.

[QUOTE=Ravager]If you could better tell a hench to use spells of certain levels in certain situations (e.g. use level 5 offensive up from now) then that might help...otherwise it would take a lot of scripting for a computer to recognise a situation to use certain spells.[/QUOTE]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think they put some thought into Deekin's spellcasting ( I have a soft spot for him ). I usually give him every spell wand I find, like Wands of Lightning, Wands of Summoning, Wands of [...] Cloud, and he uses different ones in different situations. More than three adversaries? He summons, or he casts a spell of stinking cloud or ice storm. I gave him Caltrops one time and he used them every single time we ended up in a melee fight, but never when it was just one or two enemies.

Hmmm...I suppose it's the possible the AI is smarter in HotU....I know you have a greater selection of options when talking to henchmen in the campaign for that expansion, after all.