[thejeff]

It's a 50/50 shot for casters (mages scripted to "Cast spells" or for a particular spell.) to cast or attack physically. Even if you've given them 2 shields they'll still have a useless kick or something.

The normal casting AI applies, it's just that close combat spells tend to get higher priority, since there are lots of targets within range.

If you do give them melee bodyguards, make sure they're immune to whatever the caster is tossing around, tough enough to stay alive or few/weak enough not to trigger the 75% hp rout limit.

And Phoenix pyre only resurrects you if you're conscious when you die and it causes a lot of fatigue, so without life drain or serious reinvig it isn't foolproof.

That all sounds awfully critical. Really just intended to be a few caveats.