Trying the dark side, but...

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I played through BG1EE, SoD, and BG2EE and am getting ready for my second playthrough. This time, I thought I'd try out using all evil or neutral characters...see what it's like to be the bad guys for once. However, I have one concern. During my first playthrough, My PC was an Inquisitor (Keldorn's low dex bothered me too much), and I found that I relied pretty heavily on his Dispel Magic. Anyway, you obviously can't have an inquisitor in a party like I'm going to make. So my question is...for anyone who's played through without one....do you find that you miss it a lot, or that it's no big deal?

Thanks!

 

No big deal, as Dispel Magic is present as both wizard and priest spells as well. Both have similar properties. Only defense is Spell Immunity: Abjuration, so your probably good on that front.

For playing evil party I tend to play a true neutral or chaotic neutral character myself so I can switch sides if the evil route didn't play out as I thought/hoped.

 

I find remove magic to generally be more useful than dispel. You don't remove your own buffs. Also even an inquisitor's dispel doesn't work on things you need breach or ruby ray for.
Things like Mantle and protection from magic weapons are what you generally need dispel for anyways, so your physical attackers can take those guys down.
Although Dispel does work on Mirror image and Protection from Normal Missiles, it seems to have a low success rate against Stoneskin, mantle, or protection from magic weapons even when cast by an Inquisitor.

 

These are great points; thanks for sharing!

 

I'm going to necro this post to make the case for my favorite class, the Bard, straight class, or kit. The strength of the Bard in reference to the op's question is that since Bards level-up so quickly, and for fewer XP at that, their Dispels or Remove Magics will always be more powerful than anyone else, other than an Inquisitor. For example:

Let's compare single class Mages, Clerics and Bards, at two different XP levels in the early to mid game;

Lets say, 675,000 XP, as an example. Mage will have a caster lvl of 11, a Cleric one of 11 [Druid 12] while the Bard will have a caster lvl of 13, plainly superior.

Or say 1,125,000 XP so now the Mage has a caster lvl of 13, the Cleric one of 13 [Druid 13], while the Bard has a caster lvl of 15, again superior.

In the case of Dispels/Removes, every bit of caster lvl closer to, or superior to, the original casters lvl the better the chance for it working.

One could easily play a Chaotic Neutral Bard yourself, which fits in with the originally voice "middle of the road" vis a vis alignment for an Evil or Neutral leaning party - I would suggest the Blade, myself. Loads of fun! Or take Haer'Dalis, also a Blade, on a romp through the Prime Material. If you do mods, I'd also suggest doing a search for the Keto NPC mod - excellent mod, certainly in the top five of NPC mods. Sadly, she has no ToB content, but very interesting, and useful, for SOA.

Necro off, return to your regularly programmed surfing.

Lasivern the Blade

 

Well, I rarely find Dispel Magic very useful, even the Inquisitor's extra-powerful version, because it often does more harm than good if you catch your own party in the area of effect and thereby de-buff them. As @SlickRCBD has already said, Remove Magic is a safer bet.
As for Inquisitors, I've generally found their True Seeing more frequently useful than their Dispel Magic. But no, it's no big deal to be without one, you can have a great game with any class at all ... it's all a matter of what suits your taste and your playing style. Since you want to try an Evil/Neutral party, your closest approach to the same experience as playing an Inquisitor would be to roll up a Blackguard ... but no, try something completely different for a change! Perhaps an Evil Fighter/Cleric if you want to be front-row, or leave the physical combat to NPCs and become a Neutral kitted-Thief->Mage. Or anything! In my own current run, I'm trying a Shaman for the first time (and I'm just about to fight the Final Battle), and it's been a fun run.