Harper Mage Build for Nedrin

[Babuguuscooties]

In regards to no Blood Magi in the CoM: that was a rule I instituted when Aeili was alive (not that I ever had any apply for membership with the class... that I am aware of). It's not a class that meshes well with Mystran dogma of restraint & responsibility. Pale Master is barely more tolerable esp. once undead appendages are in view.

That said, the CoM is no longer my baby.

*hands off the wheel*

*CoM swerves out of control and crashes into a nearby tree* Way to go, Tsid! No one grabbed the wheel. I was sleeping.

[Sun Wukong]

If you dropped AM to 6, you can get all those feats you need like Prodigy and Able Learner. Well if you want them.

You can get Spell Power I and II for that +1 Epic caster DC, and perhaps Mastery of Shaping since you mentioned liking your summons. For example in the Troll Claw Fjord, your summons can kill the trolls and you just finish them off with a Fireball or something without harming your summon. Same principle would work with people you team up with. Altough, Energy Immunity fire would do the same thing to an extent.

Now, I do not know if Mastery of Shaping also works with AoE 'cloud' spells that you can cast, but if it does, Acid Fog, Cloud Kill, ETC, just became a whole lot more useful for you. I think this might be the case... But I am not really sure. Can anyone verify? (My days of playing an 'archmage' were years ago... Back when this PRC was a lot more buggy...)

As for other Archmage High Arcana abilities... They can be nice, I suppose, but Archmage 6 techncially gives most you can get from this PRC class. Thus, if you do not want 10 levels of Archmage, you can go for just 6. This means that you can get 4 additional levels of wizard, and go for a build such as Wizard 9/Harper Mage 5/Arcane Scholar 10/Archmage 6. You would not get any extra feat, but you could take Spellcasting Prodigy at level 1, able Learner at level 3, and the two feats to qualify for Harper Mage at level 6 and 9.

And speaking of builds... like this, Wizard 10/Harper Mage 4/Arcane Scholar 10/Archmage 6 could also be considered. You just have to spend the Wizard (10) bonus feat on a spell focus instead of getting it through Harper Mage. This would net you one additional point of will saves and cost just 2 skill points.

[Valefort]

Shaping doesn't work with cloud spells.

[Sun Wukong]

Awww...

Anyhow, Mastery of Shaping remains one of the best High Arcane feats to take as a Wizard. Toss those fireballs at your party!

[Babuguuscooties]

Awww...

Anyhow, Mastery of Shaping remains one of the best High Arcane feats to take as a Wizard. Toss those fireballs at your party!

Yeah that sounds great. I really wish NWN2db would update their site to function with all of BG's awesome new classes and feats

As a newbie its tricky trying to fix a build up that uses 2 classes that arent supported in the nwn2db

[Hawke]

Not going to lie, thanks to the 100% RCR I was able to correct a couple of mistakes while squeezing Harper Mage into my build. Like I thought it would give me Greater Conjuration at level 5 since I had spell focus conjuration already. Newp. Or how selecting the spellcaster feat was the same as Blood Magus where you can select other feats. Oops.

I think Harper Mage is one of those PrCs that are powerful in its own right.

[Deathgrowl]

I never go above archmage 4 on a wizard. I'm only interested in getting to 32 CL, and I don't want to lose more spell slots than that.

As a wizard mastery of elements isn't all that interesting. All the orbs are

Arcane fire is just not worth a level 9 slot.

SLAs are trading away your versatility for more casts of one spell.

Mastery of shaping is cool, but I personally prefer to use spells that don't need it.

That leaves me only with interest in spell power.

And it means I can have wizard15/archmage4 and 11 levels of something else. For instance wizard16/asoc10/archmage4. If you then put wizard level 10 and 15 in epic levels you can get +7 int from feats. That's 32 or 34 base int (depending on race).

[Babuguuscooties]

I never go above archmage 4 on a wizard. I'm only interested in getting to 32 CL, and I don't want to lose more spell slots than that.

As a wizard mastery of elements isn't all that interesting. All the orbs are

Arcane fire is just not worth a level 9 slot.

SLAs are trading away your versatility for more casts of one spell.

Mastery of shaping is cool, but I personally prefer to use spells that don't need it.

That leaves me only with interest in spell power.

And it means I can have wizard15/archmage4 and 11 levels of something else. For instance wizard16/asoc10/archmage4. If you then put wizard level 10 and 15 in epic levels you can get +7 int from feats. That's 32 or 34 base int (depending on race).

Well as far as optimization goes I think that's definitely a smart-sounding way to go about it. In my case I chose half-elf, which is in no way the most optimal race for playing a wizard. However, I'm okay with not being able to start with 20 INT so long as it doesn't mean my wizard is going to suck, as wizards are concerned.

Currently the RP path I want to take is leading me to consider Harper Mage. Not because its required, but because I feel it would add RP flavor. However, between being a half-elf and not completely min-maxing my build (I didnt use 8 wis and 8 int as many wizard builds seem to suggest) I am already taking a few hits from reaching the mechanical perfection most of these builds are aimed at.


Is there still hope for a half-elf wizard out there?

[Hawke]

Is there still hope for a half-elf wizard out there?

My Drizard is a Half Elf. If he was human he would have improved familiar.

[Deathgrowl]

Yeah, it's perfectly viable.

With wizard5/harper mage5/asoc10/archmage10 you should be able to have 10 + 1 (prodigy) + 12 (int) + 2 (greater focus) + 4 (epic CL) + spell level = 29 + spell level in your school of choice. That's fine.

Or 11 (int) + 3 (epic focus). Same DC in school of choice, though, but the base DC for other schools will be lower.

[Babuguuscooties]

Yeah, it's perfectly viable.

With wizard5/harper mage5/asoc10/archmage10 you should be able to have 10 + 1 (prodigy) + 12 (int) + 2 (greater focus) + 4 (epic CL) + spell level = 29 + spell level in your school of choice. That's fine.

Or 11 (int) + 3 (epic focus). Same DC in school of choice, though, but the base DC for other schools will be lower.

I was originally following Valefort's build here, but converted for a half-elf with only 18 base INT instead of 20.

[Deathgrowl]

Yeah, well. Same deal except you can get 1 more feat in epic levels, which is good.

Like this:
http://nwn2db.com/build/?275837

Now this takes able learner early so you can make use of all the skill points you have from all that INT and the harper mage's set of class skills.

Pick whichever secondary spell focus school you want at harper mage 5 so you qualify for archmage.

This should get

10 + 12 + 1 + 3 + 4 + spell level = 30 + spell level in transmutation.

[Babuguuscooties]

Yeah, well. Same deal except you can get 1 more feat in epic levels, which is good.

Like this:
http://nwn2db.com/build/?275837

Now this takes able learner early so you can make use of all the skill points you have from all that INT and the harper mage's set of class skills.

Pick whichever secondary spell focus school you want at harper mage 5 so you qualify for archmage.

This should get

10 + 12 + 1 + 3 + 4 + spell level = 30 + spell level in transmutation.

Thank you, DG! That looks pretty darn perfect.


EDIT: Btw, if I RCR atm from level 19 what level will I be able to get back to? 19 is like 60% return of XP or something?

[Deathgrowl]

You're welcome!

And it's 55%, I think.

[chad878262]

https://wiki.bgtscc.net/index.php?title=XP_Tranfering

Retired Character Rebuild (RCR) Rules:[edit]
The NPC allows you to store your character's experience based on the level of the character, delete the character, and then reclaim that experience on a new character.
Once a character is deleted, it cannot be restored.
You cannot store experience from another character until you reclaim the previous deposit. If you have a previous deposit the NPC won't even talk to you.
You can only reclaim stored experience with a character that has less than 100 XP.
The experience reclaimed from the NPC cannot raise your character past level 20!
You are responsible for transferring / muling your own items and gold from your old character to your new one. Please do not ask DMs to help you with this.
Below is shown the percent of XP you get back based on what level you are when you RCR. Reminder that you can never start higher than level 20 when you RCR and 3b20 rule must always be followed. Level 1-10 characters will receive 100% of their experience back! For those higher than level 10:


11 = 95% / 12 = 90% / 13 = 85% / 14 = 80% / 15 = 75% / 16 = 70% / 17 = 65% / 18 = 60% / 19 = 55% / 20+ = 50%