Deleting practised spellcaster feats ?

[muffinFBSL]

Yes I agree with the Druid change, and I agree with most of the Stormlord change. What I meant to insinuate, in that regard, was that I agree with a Practiced Spellcaster nerf, no matter how many builds it "kills"

[oyclo]

I don't like the feat at all.

And though I agree with dzidek's point of view a little, nothing stopped he Druid/Monk nerf or the Stormlord Nerf. Were there not plenty of players using those?

Just throwing that out there.

If the nerf is to prevent EK semi-exploiting thats ok.

But if you take 4+ non caster levels then it would be a rather harsh nerf that was intended to target someone else.

Its rather amusing that pure casters are having issues and yet we need to nerf people who made characters playable under the current system as if that will somehow help pure casters.

[muffinFBSL]

What are you talking about? As if EK is the only class abusing this. Contrary to the increasingly popular belief, 26 Cleric 4 Blackguard does not deserve full caster level.

[Larzs]

Why not nerf hips while at it?

NOOO!!!

Why not nerf hips while at it?

Soon !

I'll kill you...

Why not just fix the feat...I am sure this has been mentioned...but I am not going through 4 pages of stuff to see =P

[Blackman D]

another good one... banish form a decent wizard and it is gone... not to mention that divine spell... holy word or something.. no save bye bye summons

its word of faith and it actually has an SR check which balors are capable of resisting so not always the case, and you would need a damn good wizard not a decent one to banish a balor with more than a 10 or 15% chance...

[oyclo]

What are you talking about? As if EK is the only class abusing this. Contrary to the increasingly popular belief, 26 Cleric 4 Blackguard does not deserve full caster level.

If you say so, if you say so....

Did you know PnP has perfect spellcaster as an epic feat if you take practiced spellcaster it adds another 4 levels to your CL?

So really this is just your opinion.

[muffinFBSL]

We are not playing PnP. There are so many abilities that are not included, that you cannot pick and choose which things to include and justify them that way. It makes no sense. 26 Cleric 4 Blackguard does should not get 30 Caster Level. That is truth in NWN2.

[oyclo]

We are not playing PnP. There are so many abilities that are not included, that you cannot pick and choose which things to include and justify them that way. It makes no sense. 26 Cleric 4 Blackguard does should not get 30 Caster Level. That is truth in NWN2.

Yes, and as I said your opinion.

A cleric blackguard has to give up 2 feats, skills (which are low on a cleric) and really get hosed with righteous might, being we have no good aligned things to fight here, where a neutral/good cleric gets 9/evil damage reduction.

Also really the only reason would be for DM, which I think is just silly with a cleric like that, no synergy,

Multiclassing what 3.5 is really about, its how its set up, its how the feats are set up, they went away from old school D&D. Personally I liked old school better, but it is what it is, and how its set up. Saying retroactively because you don't like a feat, 100's of characters need to be nerfed seems a bit out of line.

[muffinFBSL]

I think Practiced Spellcaster had potential to be a fine feat if spells did not work the way they do in NWN2. Though when spells are as powerful as they are, and the server's only response is to give enemies a relentless capacity for dispelling, Practiced Spellcaster becomes a cheap feat, and mostly a life-line for a lot of characters, neither of which are good things. Is there a way to fix it at this point in a way that doesn't make people mad? Not really, but I would still prefer to see the feat go.

[Simian]

You know, I play a Spirit Shaman. It is a rather dodgy class, yes, and I have grandiose plans for multiclassing him with five levels of X that do not improve his casting ability. Purely due to game-mechanics, I need that feat.

Thus, I could not care less when I see some Gandalf sword-chucking a bunch of lizards. And neither should you, the path of the sword is the path of a true Wizard. It is what Tolkien wrote, you're not going to argue against Tolkien, are you?

[Xanfyrst]

Wizards in litterature/folklore existed long before Tolkien was born. Just saying.

[muffinFBSL]

I think therein lies the misunderstanding. I have no problem with gishes... that is not what deleting the Practiced Spellcaster feat has to deal with for me. My all time favorite build, of which I have made in multiple servers in NWN1 involves about a lot of Cleric, some Champion of Torm (DC), and some Dwarven Defender. For the sake of my point, let's say it is 20 Cleric/10 Dwarven Defender. I see nothing wrong with that kind of build, it is a caster who has picked up fighting levels. That build isn't playable on BG because of dispel.

Why is the dispel in place? Buffs are too powerful to be mixed with fighting ability, so anything less than pure casting needs to be dispelled. How is it possible to be a good caster and a good fighter when there is no dispel? Because too many of the spells max out their effects at very early levels and are too powerful to begin with, and dedicated caster levels don't earn you very much at all except for when there is dispel. If buffs and dispel weren't the way they are now, it would be fine to play a 20 Cleric/10 Dwarven Defender. You wouldn't be as good at buffing (in a variety of ways) as a level 30 cleric, but you would be better at a few things (things gained from the DD levels).

Every now and then, when you meet dispel, you won't do as well as the 30 cleric, but you wouldn't be utterly useless like a 20 Cleric/10 Dwarven Defender in BG. Because of the anti-gish massacre in the server, the environment is one where Practiced Spellcaster reigns, and full caster level is a necessity. If the buffing spells themselves were just changed, that wouldn't have been necessary. None of that really has anything to do with Practiced Spellcaster though... the biggest reason for me that it is bad is because it can work with classes like Warpriest, EK, Stormlord, etc. A PrC who gains a bunch of benefits at the loss of caster level can essentially take no hit to caster level at all. What's worse is, no one even takes Warpriest because Cleric/Fighter is better.

So I sort of lost my point with all that... umm... for me personally, wanting Practiced Spellcaster removed has nothing to do with being anti-gish. It isn't a feat that promotes multi-classing, it is a feat that is used by people who want to fill in every crevice of their build by keeping their caster level up while managing to evade actually taking more caster levels than they have to. Is there a feat for Fighters that allows them to gain the bonus feats and AB they lost when they dipped Rogue?

[Larzs]

I kinda wanted to make a wizard with a Sword in one hand and a staff in the other...sure...I wasn't gonna go up and stab stuff with it. But it looks so nifty! I did it in DnD...with a talking chess piece as my familiar! Hahaha!!

[xmalchi]

Will monkey grip let you dual wield a longsword and staff? lol...

[muffinFBSL]

Hmm, in NWN1 you wouldn't even need Monkey Grip. Staves were just considered medium weapons. Are they considered large in NWN2, like quarterstaves?