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| How Do You Caster? | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 22 2016, 12:22 AM (689 Views) | |
| Pellease | Oct 22 2016, 12:22 AM Post #1 |
Greybeard
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Trying to break away from the gish builds. Built my first fully mellee this week. (Don't count SK as they seem to be the essence of gish in a way.) Now I want to build my caster. Problem is I never play them and don't know the first thing about a none melee caster. Preferably I want a cerebramancer. I want the main focus on being survivable and giving the character the ability to heavily influence and manipulate others, hence a focus in enchantment or whatever enchantment is for psion. Some thoughts for builds were 13 Psion/10 C/7 Wiz using Wiz for buffs and psion for offensive control, damage and save/dies. I'm also considering 10 psion/10c/5 Wiz/5 RW with a focus in Enchantment. (But I feel I would lose a lot of good spells this way. Necromancy is a pretty easy option, but I don't imagine this guy as much of a necromancer.) Other ideas were 10 Psion/10 C/7 Wiz/1 GC or rogue or SD to put the skills to use and maybe give a path of escape. Or even 10 Psion/10 C/5Wiz/5 GC so that they always have an escape to go and rest. Thoughts? Words of wisdom? I really want to make this build for the challenge and because I know nothing about this side of the game. But I'm scared for the same reason haha and I feel it will sufer way more from lag deaths. |
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| Tsidkenu | Oct 22 2016, 03:24 AM Post #2 |
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Slightly Less Inactive
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I'll chip in here since I've been playing a caster as my main for 3 years on BGTSCC If you want to go caster you have to choose very early on if you're going to go blaster or DC. To make a good pure caster you really need 30 CL in your primary class because so many monsters have Spell Resistance in the Planescape setting that you'll be set back if your caster level is not high enough to deal with it. You can get the spell penetration feat from items, though (eg. Robes of the Archmage, Power Stone Amulet). Blasters Blasters are best with Sorcerer (and Psion) simply due to the fact you can just cast whatever nuke spells you need at the time, using metamagic to utilise different spell slot levels (for sorcerer). Naturally, Sorcerer is best multiclassed with Arcane Scholar for those juicy Improved Metamagic feats, and such builds ought to focus on spells that do not have a save, or save with still negative effect eg: Level 1 lesser orbs/magic missile, level 3 Flame Arrow & Negative Energy Burst, level 4 orbs/ILMS, level 5 cloudkill, level 6 IGMS & Bigby's, level 7 avasculate & bigby's, level 8 polar ray & horrid wilting, level 9 bigbys. Take a 2-3 level dip in blackguard or paladin to get CHA to saving throws, heavy armour proficiency, still spell, auto-still spell 3 and Improved Combat Expertise and you've yourself a blasting monster that can barely be touched. The drawback? So many mobs on Sigil have inflated hitpoints that you're gunna find yourself running out of spells pretty fast unless you're a wizard/sorcerer/mystic theurge! The best blasters are always warlocks simply because they just never run out of magic. Blasters work best in a party where you have grunts to kill the cattle, while you nuke down the tougher foes/bosses one by one. DC Casters As you'd expect, a DC caster is all about getting the highest possible DC for a spell school (or range of spell schools) in Save or Else spells, eg. Wail of the Banshee, Weird, Finger of Death, Solipsism, (Mass) Hold Person/Monster, Confusion, etc. It only takes one such spell to make a group of your foes either helpless or plain dead. It is not necessary to take Arcane Scholar for such builds as you typically want as many epic feats as possible to increase your primary casting stat and take feats like Epic Spell Focus. The Enhanced Wizardry Specialist PRC (formerly Red Wizard) is the best choice here, something like Wizard 20/ Enhanced Wizardry Specialist 10, because EWS gives you a bonus 5 caster levels in your specialised school. You also want to take Practiced Spellcaster to boost your CL by another 4 besides, for a +9 total Caster level bonus. That is important because of the way DCs are calculated: 10 + Spell Level + Casting Stat Mod (INT for Wiz/Psion, CHA for Sorc/Warlock, WIS for Druid/Cleric) + (Greater, Epic) Spell Focus + Spellcasting Prodigy + Racial Bonuses (eg. Gnome & Ogre mage Illusionists) + Epic Caster Level Bonus All epic spellcasters get a bonus DC point for every 3 caster levels above 20, and if your caster level exceeds your actual level, these continue to apply and stack. So the above mentioned 20 Wizard/ 10 EWS was a gnome illusionist (+1) with Spellcasting Prodigy (+1), 36 INT (+13) & Epic Spell Focus Illusion (+3) would cast Illusion spells with a Caster level of 39 (+6 DC), meaning the DC for a level 1 illusion (eg. Color Spray) would be 35. Weird, a level 9 spell, would have DC 43. The drawback? Plenty of upper tier mobs have inflated saving throws, although if you know what spells work well in certain places you can prepare spells tailored for the location. In this regard Wizards tend to make better DC casters than Sorcerers, being far more adaptable with their spellbooks. |
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Not-so-inactive Characters Cherry Sapphire Xhallibysskg Timezone: Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time, GMT/UTC +10 | |
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| Mr_Otyugh | Oct 22 2016, 10:10 AM Post #3 |
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Generally speaking, if you want to make a caster which can reliably kill its foes with spells: scrap the idea of dual-caster. Sure you'll have more spells, but they're weaker and tend to take more time to put out to really make the difference. Dual-casters are decent for survival and support, but they suffer in the offense. Although it's not impossible to make dual-caster into offense, I've just noticed that they generally are that much less consistent in their offensive performance. It gets real tempting to sling spell after spell around, but you'll just run out of spells real quick if you don't know what you're doing. Summons, especially in SCoD, are great for spell conservation, however not an end all solution always, because they can be squishy which is why I'd reserve spell slots of lower levels to buff the summons hastily, but efficiently to get the best out of them. Other players also help with the spell conservation, and you can either buff them or debuff their enemies to conserve actually useful spells. Domination/control undead can also be useful to save your spells, but it can also fail if you don't have high enough DC focus. The higher level you get, the less useful your low level spells will be, I usually swap just about all of those to be only no-save spells or buffs to utilize for the help of allies, while leaving majority of high end spells to be offensive spells. Another good way to conserve spells is to use area of effect spells efficiently. Instead of targeting only single enemies, process in your mind if the target is worth spending a spell on to not require resting every 5 minutes. And feel free to lure enemies into a larger group to waste a greater amount of them in one go, at least if you feel confident about your survival. Focus into one efficient spell or method, use it to weed out masses, but assume that it won't solve all your problems. Just takes out or weakens the hostiles enough to finish off with other spells. To this end make a solid mix between damage and DC spells. Neither are good enough to solve your problems alone without being wasteful. The DC spells are great for weeding out the weak (and unlucky strong), damage spells tend to be reliable to finish off what remains, if your summon can't handle the remains that is. Lastly, when you are playing a caster, unless it's a warlock. You need to get in your mind that you don't always need to actively take part in ongoing fight (unless you're soloing, and not even then necessarily if you have summons and dominated doing your dirty work), because while some fights may take a bit longer when you aren't participating... if it is getting sorted handily and in short enough time, you'd just be wasting your spells to be forced to rest more frequently. Oh and do keep an escape spell always in the reserve. It should be in addition to all the basic hunting, it'll be that one spell you'll turn to when things go all wrong, and just get out alive if possible. |
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| Mick64 | Oct 22 2016, 07:21 PM Post #4 |
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One thing that hasn't been mentioned that's an interesting caster build is a wizard/cleric/theurge. You won't barely have any offense, but you have every spell in the game, plus tons of slots for summons. This isn't a solo build, but in a party you can empower your allies a great deal, and use summons while you stay ethereal. |
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Scripter. Login: Electrohydra I play: Anything. Blue Slaad. Lots of things too. Countless, ever-changing alts. | |
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| Whitefly | Oct 22 2016, 09:52 PM Post #5 |
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Your best bet is to just go summoning and buffs, otherwise you're just a less good version of what other people can do. There's a small niche for DC focused warlocks, but that's it. |
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Moxie Anafara Angas, aka Ixsaea; delightful Xaositectiefling Kismet Saljahasa; "really friendly" air elemental sort Ravvi Beaconberry; adorable hin adventuress | |
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| Gazoo | Oct 22 2016, 09:58 PM Post #6 |
Namer
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There is also the various combos of Druid/wizard/thurge/something. Wildshape with lots of bonuses (standard crazy druid AC buffs, wizard buffs + tensor). Quite effective solo, I hear. Iirc, a few players threw Red wizard in as the "something" for extra DCs). It's more a gish playstyle, though...fighting in wildshape with buffs. You could simply forgo advanced wildshapes and natural spell to be a more pure caster. Lots of other thurge single stat stuff: such as SS/Sorc/thurge, FS/Sorc/thurge. ______________________________________________________________________________ Back to your OP: There are a few cerebremancer characters on the server...so it obviously has appeal. Some have mixed in golem master as the fourth class. Nice caster summary by Tsidkenu. RW is an interesting fourth class for cerebremancer. Necromancy is usually the best option to minimize loss of useful mechanical spells. But you could probably live with an Enchantment specialist (without mirror image and displacement), if you plan accordingly. (further: Simulacrum is disabled on ScoD). It would be a bit redundant, however, to take telepathy as your psion discipline. |
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| Strawberry Jam | Oct 23 2016, 07:26 AM Post #7 |
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Generally speaking in NWN2 as a whole anything with a mind affecting tag is much weaker than it is in pen and paper. That means Enchantment, Illusion, and Telepathy are all second class citizens. That's for pve, if you wanted to do pvp with those spells then it's absolutely pointless, maybe someone will forget to be immune who knows :lol: For DC casting keep in mind that you want to keep your caster level as high as possible and get epic DC bonuses. Overall DC spells are much weaker unless they're save or die. Also keep in mind Psion doesn't have Practiced Manifester, Overchannel, Improved Overchannel, and the epic manifesting feats, all which improve your caster level. Also keep in mind that Psion doesn't have epic DC bonuses. Keeping that in mind a hit of 5 to your caster level and 2 class slots you will want to focus on getting psion buffs that wizard doesn't have and also some no save powers. In comparison with cleric theurge, psion cerebremancer has less hp/attack/save, more class skills, and far less heals, weaker summon, more direct damage. For psion like any other psionic class they use psionic manifesting which is a different system to magic, which means they have metapsionic feats as opposed to metamagic feats. The fact there's only 1 base class on the server is incidental for the following implication. The implication is that you essentially need to invest in 2 lines of metamagic feats instead of just one. You can also theurge sorcerer which uses the exact same meta magic feats but also has practiced spell caster and uses the same spell focuses too. Much more firepower. Cleric also uses the same metamagic system and also has practiced spellcaster, so does druid. |
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I like Ravenloft & dual wield pistols & physician base class & Psionics & Aberrations & character customization & Book of Exalted Deeds Sorcery: Magi Kingdom of Magic Spirit Shaman: Mushishi Psionics: Fullmetal Alchemist | |
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| Pellease | Oct 23 2016, 07:58 AM Post #8 |
Greybeard
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Yeah, I'm seeing how it won't be the best build. But oh well. What is disappointing is that he's evil so I can't get away with the neutral step around protection from alignment. |
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| Lucadia | Oct 23 2016, 03:01 PM Post #9 |
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Ah ha. Wait. Cerebremancers are perfectly fine for pve here in terms of being a caster, but the most efficient builds for them is 10/10/10 split or 10 wiz/9 psion/10 cer/1 splash here. Really dont let them scare you off saying they dont have this or that. Plenty of defense picking the right powers (60+ ac possible with 13 base dex). We have a cleric caster weapon that grants epic spell focus in enchantment, illusion and evocation that anyone can use (it dont work for psion). Metacreativity is the best focus for psion in taking on level ups. Im really going to disagree that all these other builds have "less" firepower then other builds being the one thats played a cerebremancer the longest on this server. |
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| Mr_Otyugh | Oct 23 2016, 03:11 PM Post #10 |
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Not less fire power, they have more spells, but those spells especially DC based are generally weaker, meaning they have to spend more spells to end a fight effectively. And you spend longer time on buffs to make the difference of being more potently protected than the single casters. They are viable, but not my first pick if I wanted to kill things with blasts is what I'm getting at. |
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| Lucadia | Oct 23 2016, 04:34 PM Post #11 |
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cebremancers spend less time on buffs then any cleric/hybrid does. and ..he didnt ask about a blaster persay. Just damage. More effective then a sorc. 20 psion is going have about 36 uses of energy wave (which is igms basicly) if you put every point into it. Avasculate + twin energy wave makes most bosses drop by round 2 or 3. Banishment still works on psion and all the mobs in the abyss and most of the maze. Thats 2-3 insta kills per cast. Impale is one the best single target insta kill spells since it vs reflex and has no spell resistance. Properly built yes, a psion can wipe out a spawn of enemies in carceri in 2-3 blasts. You will drain your power points like crazy and you will rest as often as any other caster. Then again you didnt spend 15 spells trying take down the same spawn. |
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| Mr_Otyugh | Oct 23 2016, 04:51 PM Post #12 |
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You'll have lower DCs meaning the percentages of successfully killing your foes are actually lower than on a specific caster, also meaning that you'll practically use more spells to achieve the same thing, and longer time giving enemies time to also respond. That and lesser chance to penetrate high end spell resistances (minus few spells). And I wouldn't count on the banishment working for long honestly, it should really be fixed in uniform to the other banishment. That's the whole gist that sets dual casters slighly below dedicated single caster. Also dual casters tend to be more forced to rely on the same few cheesy spells more due to slightly less reliable DCs and spell resistances to compensate the difference, leaving them technically less choice. Though I'll admit in the absence of epic DC boost for psions, they wouldn't really gain substantially more with the epic levels compared to other casters, which they should also get. |
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| Lucadia | Oct 23 2016, 05:45 PM Post #13 |
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I spend less time doing the same thing as a psion then I do as arcane caster. After you know..building five of them on the live server testing various builds out.
I think your confused. Banishment is the spell thats broken for arcane spellcasters and not working correctly by not calculating hit dice.. it works as its supposed to as the spell description and by pnp for psions. Dismisal was the other is the one that was "fixed". Dismis works properly for psion as well (as its supposed to) which is single target. |
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| Pellease | Oct 23 2016, 08:35 PM Post #14 |
Greybeard
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Ok cool. Thank you for the encouragement Lucia. I definitely want to make this toon happen. So you suggest a full 50/50 split arcane/psion? What do you think of the red wizard for the last five classes in wizard? Also: What are the must haves for psion? Also, what feats are on items!!! This kills me every time. The info on the epic concentrations just saved me a rebuild for sure. Any other important spell caster feats on items? And for anyone else who plays casters, what do you think of the auto quicken spells? Most forums say they are useless, but it would seem to me that a mordenkains disjunction followed by a mass hold or something of the like would be real useful. Only question is it is better than +3 int? |
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| Lucadia | Oct 24 2016, 03:20 AM Post #15 |
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+0 or +1 ecl race. Human 18 int Sun elf, tiefling 20 int. (+1 ecl for tiefling, sacrafice 2 feats +other stuff) Secondary bonus stats into dex and con. Wizard level 5 bonus feat: extend spell wizard level 10 bonus feat: wait till 21 or higher for epic feat (+1 int) Start with first five levels at wizard for defense buffs and bonus feat. Take able learner if your interested in being a skill monkey. 1 Wizard Spellcasting prodigy (human bonus: pratice spellcaster wizard) 3 Able Learner 6 skill focus lore 9 spell focus metacreativity 12 expanded power point pool 1 15 spell focus metacreativty 2 18 power point pool 2 21 Persist spell 23 Twin power 25 epic mage armor 27 great int 1 29 greant int 2 (great int 3 from bonus 10th wiz feat) Could drop great int 1 and 2 for meta feats on wizard side if your really blasty and want igms empowered and max. Iv not looked into if theres a way to fit arcane scholar yet. Int 34 (36 as sun elf)with +5 int item and +1 from iggwiv set or +1 int ioun ring. Base dc psion. lv 9 power with gear: 32 meta focus control and kill spells: 35: Some can be augmented to be higher Most mobs only have around 15 or less. Great for carceri daemon casters Base dc wizard: lv 9 magics with gear: 35 + focus items. 38 possible Illusion, Evocation and Enchantment. 37 with other schools Gear: Cross of St Cuthbert, Epic spell focus in Illusion, evocation and enchantment Ring of spell penetration: silvertongue shop: Has greater spell penetration at cost of -2 con Rings from the Carnival: Every school but transmutation: +2 focus Ring of Int Ioun stone: Carnival shop. 55k without appraise. Really the base build for a 50/50 split. depending on needs then it can be altered but expect lower dcs or staying power. Example if you wanted go tiefling, knock 2 wizard off, 2 feats off that list and splash one level cleric for evasion and another domain of choice. Unfortunately cebremancers are very feat tight. Prcs for 4th class are not really recommended. You lose more with red wizard then you would gain Power selections: Powers: Discipline: telepathy 1 Force Screeen. Precoginiotion Defensive 2 Control Sound, Dimensional swap , (2 choices) 3 Hussle. Danger Sense. ectoplasmic Form (free choic) 4 Energy Adaptaion. Dimension Door. Dimensional Anchor (free choice) 5 Power resistance. Ectoplasmic Shamberer.Domination. Phychic Crush. 6 Crystalize. Banishment. Greater Precogniton (free choice) 7 Energy wave. Mass ectoplasmic Cocoon. Reddopsi. Free choice 8 Shadow Body. Impale. Hypercognition. Free Choice 9 Astral Seed. Cheat Fate. Assimlate (free choice) Twin power works for all powers except 9th powers. Ah I believe ultrablast was on level 8 which is a area of affect that does sonic or magic damage that can be twinned. |
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