fable: I'd have to disagree with you. The game's ranged weapons aren't too well balanced but that's all. If you play techie, if you take either poison, springtraps, molotov cocktails, you'll find it more useful than magic. As for harm spell, remember that if you use Necromancery often, your alignement lowers. Such is the cost of the dark arts . I've played through with Harm in my repertoire as my sole Necromancy spell, used it a great deal, and never experienced a dip in my alignment. I'm not suggesting going for the big spells in that group; but that spell is so overpowering in itself in the early stages of the game, that you'll have it all over a technie at that point. Sure, traps, molotov cocktails, etc, are great, but you don't have them for some time. I played through as a dwarven techie and an elven mage. In the latter stages, they were about equal, but my elf made it up to a very high point in about half the time it took the dwarf to proceed.
As for balance, some of the spell colleges are pretty useless, while others are ridiculously overbalanced. That one spell which stops time...? You can get that relatively early in the game, and it blows just about any enemy away. You have to build your character carefully and hoard mana-producing items, but it's really a god spell. So are a few others, which I'd remember if I had 1) my documentation handy, or 2) a brain that isn't slowly oozing into senescence. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
