Death Atk Paralysis- Useless?

[ARHicks00]

Death attack is useful against mages

Hilater's Misdirection Wiki Entry

I never said Rogue dominate Mages. As Rogues are at the bottom of my personal tier list with mages at #1. Mage can pretty much nuke the area with a Wail of Banshee and it's bye bye rogue while the mage sits behind a death immunity spell.

[Shadow]

Death attack is useful against mages

Hilater's Misdirection Wiki Entry

I never said Rogue dominate Mages. As Rogues are at the bottom of my personal tier list with mages at #1. Mage can pretty much nuke the area with a Wail of Banshee and it's bye bye rogue while the mage sits behind a death immunity spell.

I do not think DA is warded by immunity to death. Rather it is warded by protection from good, evil, neutral, chaotic, lawful spell. As it is a mind effecting spell in the game engine. Whenever it is warded or an enemy has immunity to it the golden denial always says immune to mind effecting spells.

[ARHicks00]

I do not think DA is warded by immunity to death. Rather it is warded by protection from good, evil, neutral, chaotic, lawful spell. As it is a mind effecting spell in the game engine. Whenever it is warded or an enemy has immunity to it the golden denial always says immune to mind effecting spells.

I was referring to the fact that Mage doesn't have to see a Rogue to nuke the area and Mage would be protected from his own death spell with the ward while the Rogue would have no choice, but to eat it.

There so many ways for a mage to take out a rogue.

[Deathgrowl]

I've seen assassins paralyse Frost Giants so many times it's ridiculous. Completely pacifies an otherwise hard-hitting mob.

[ARHicks00]

I've seen assassins paralyse Frost Giants so many times it's ridiculous. Completely pacifies an otherwise hard-hitting mob.

Depends on the frost giant fort saves. As someone who plays a mage gish on dalelands. The DC of bladeweave is 16 will save. My mage gish hits up to 4 times. The most dangerous area in that server is the werewolf area. When fighting the werewolves, he either kills the werewolves without procing his bladeweave because they manage to make their saves or he make the battle real short when the werewolf in question finally rolls a 1. The same applies to assassin. It's either the Sneak attack damage that kills the NPC or it is the roll of 1 against the Death attack that makes short work of his opponent. And like my mage gish, 9 times out of 10, when dealing with an opponent with a high will save, it's the bonus attack damage and not bladeweave itself that attacks for most of the damage. The same applies here for DA. No one is saying DA doesn't do anything, but against PCs and NPCs with high fort saves and immunity paralyze, it is useless.

Is it bittersweet when DA or bladeweave procs? Yes, but is it something I can heavily rely on? Nope. That's why I often play classes or use build that have more than one way to skin a cat.

[Deathgrowl]

Depends on the frost giant fort saves.

See picture in spoiler:

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As for the rest, I have never actually played on Dalelands, so I can't speak for Death Attack's usefulness there. I have no idea what the balance is like there. But I can for BG. Death attack has a DC of 10 + assassin level + int modifier. If you have 10 levels of assassin and 14 int, you have a 22 DC. With Fox's cunning from the assassin spell book, that is 24 DC. That isn't bad for a practically spammable DC effect that you will do 4 times in a flurry with two weapon fighting (or more with a monk assassin with kamas) or 6 times in a flurry with manyshot on an archer (because of the double DA bug).

[Darkwind]

Just to follow up on my own post, as I said I've been sort of doing QAs job this past few weeks on my own w/ build test drives. It is one thing to build it in NWN builder quite another to run around and beat stuff up in real time.

There was a 'sweet spot' for DA when I built it w/ a Swashbuckler build that could double dip on the high INT score. When I was running that build my buffed Int modifier w/ items was about +7 so at DC27 it suddenly started hitting ALOT and became an actual useful attack vector instead of a 'one off'. Even at DC25 the math starts to fall off quite a bit. It still hits but you simply can't rely on it as a tool.

But a Swash/Rogue/Assassin is a nasty little piece of work and I was very pleased w/ that build overall for the DA and its overall lethality. (I still RCR'd it anyways because I'm ADHD right now w/ the RCR being open still, I'll 'settle' on something when I'm forced to)

[ARHicks00]

Depends on the frost giant fort saves.

See picture in spoiler:

Hidden: show

As for the rest, I have never actually played on Dalelands, so I can't speak for Death Attack's usefulness there. I have no idea what the balance is like there. But I can for BG. Death attack has a DC of 10 + assassin level + int modifier. If you have 10 levels of assassin and 14 int, you have a 22 DC. With Fox's cunning from the assassin spell book, that is 24 DC. That isn't bad for a practically spammable DC effect that you will do 4 times in a flurry with two weapon fighting (or more with a monk assassin with kamas) or 6 times in a flurry with manyshot on an archer (because of the double DA bug).

It's the same as here. Again, you're relying on a fail save which is what my bladeweave does. But as I said, DA only work with initiative so you can only use it once per person. In addition, you're rely heavily on a roll below 3 to 4. You know how often my pure fighter got fear by a vampire on a low roll when they cast that spell? No group is going to stand by why you trying to paralyze one of them. Lastly, as it was said another post, the RNG in this game is bad so if you got multiple DAs on someone, it's because the RNG in NWN2 is bad.

[Invoker]

Mage can pretty much nuke the area with a Wail of Banshee and it's bye bye rogue while the mage sits behind a death immunity spell.

Wail of the Banshee does not hit friendly targets, mage included. It also will not kill the Rogue, who's certainly under Death Ward if he's fighting a mage. You need to dispel him first.

I do not think DA is warded by immunity to death. Rather it is warded by protection from good, evil, neutral, chaotic, lawful spell. As it is a mind effecting spell in the game engine. Whenever it is warded or an enemy has immunity to it the golden denial always says immune to mind effecting spells.

Correct. It's Mind Blank (or Lesser) that you need, not Death Ward. Unless you are immune to paralysis, of course (like Dragon Disciple, Pale Master or anyone with Freedom of Movement, for instance)

I was referring to the fact that Mage doesn't have to see a Rogue to nuke the area and Mage would be protected from his own death spell with the ward while the Rogue would have no choice, but to eat it.

There so many ways for a mage to take out a rogue.

Nope. See above.

I've seen assassins paralyse Frost Giants so many times it's ridiculous. Completely pacifies an otherwise hard-hitting mob.

Depends on the frost giant fort saves. As someone who plays a mage gish on dalelands. The DC of bladeweave is 16 will save. My mage gish hits up to 4 times.

Deathgrowl is correct. The one you are describing is actually a 18.5% chance ca. for Bladeweave to affect your target, every combat round. Which is very good, and happens often unless you kill very quickly (at that point, I'd argue you don't need any 6 secs/lvl buff).

That's 18.5% chance of transforming a mob (or a player) in a free kill. Death Attack is objectively very strong, considering the full Assassin kit instead of taking it in a vacuum.

But a Swash/Rogue/Assassin is a nasty little piece of work and I was very pleased w/ that build overall for the DA and its overall lethality. (I still RCR'd it anyways because I'm ADHD right now w/ the RCR being open still, I'll 'settle' on something when I'm forced to)

Damn! It was your Drow, wasn't she? I liked her

[Darkwind]

Damn! It was your Drow, wasn't she? I liked her

Well the entire point of test driving the builds is I will settle upon one eventually, and I do like that build sooooo....


Also, quick question re: DtkAtk / SnkAtk. I did a little modified version of the build with a ranged weapon instead of the dual weapons. For whatever reason I don't get sneak attacks from range?

What's up w/ that? I am stealthed. I turn on rapid shot I fire manyshot and.... nothing. It still hits well enough but I don't get all those 'Sneak Attack' procs like you see in melee.

Is there some trick to this I'm not understanding? Occasionally it will fire a single sneak attack but the multiple shots off the first volley that are sneak/death dice don't work at all. Pretend you are talking to an idiot because well... yeah. And tell me what you need and if there is a special something that has to be done to get it to fire. I'm assuming bow / xbow isn't relevant.

[chad878262]

lso, quick question re: DtkAtk / SnkAtk. I did a little modified version of the build with a ranged weapon instead of the dual weapons. For whatever reason I don't get sneak attacks from range?

What's up w/ that? I am stealthed. I turn on rapid shot I fire manyshot and.... nothing. It still hits well enough but I don't get all those 'Sneak Attack' procs like you see in melee.

Is there some trick to this I'm not understanding? Occasionally it will fire a single sneak attack but the multiple shots off the first volley that are sneak/death dice don't work at all. Pretend you are talking to an idiot because well... yeah. And tell me what you need and if there is a special something that has to be done to get it to fire. I'm assuming bow / xbow isn't relevant.

You have to be within 30 feet of the enemy to get sneak damage.

[mrm3ntalist]

What you mean with the SA dont happen? The DA damage is not added or the DA paralyze is not triggered.

If i remember correctly, when using DA with no SA dice, you wont get the over head messa "Sneak Attack" however the damage is applied normally.

For the DA paralysis to trigger, you need to make certain that the mob is not in "combat mode".

[ARHicks00]

Wail of the Banshee does not hit friendly targets, mage included. It also will not kill the Rogue, who's certainly under Death Ward if he's fighting a mage. You need to dispel him first.

1. I am well aware, but i was not talking about any specific this server or situation

2. Theorycraft.

Nope. See above.

Unless deathward can stop ice storm, my statement stands. What you really want to say is "UMD counters everything." Sadly that is not true either due to duration limitations and dispel.

Also see #2

Deathgrowl is correct. The one you are describing is actually a 18.5% chance ca. for Bladeweave to affect your target, every combat round. Which is very good, and happens often unless you kill very quickly (at that point, I'd argue you don't need any 6 secs/lvl buff).

That's 18.5% chance of transforming a mob (or a player) in a free kill. Death Attack is objectively very strong, considering the full Assassin kit instead of taking it in a vacuum.

1. Death attack is not bladeweave. It works on intiative instead if every round.

2. If someone has a high fort save, it is difficult to land.

3. DA is useless for the most part because 2/3rds of the creatures in this server either gave high saves, have a lot of immunities, or travel in mobs. You also have to worry about missing your attacks.

4. My point was the damage you do, whether your opponent gets paralyzed or not, the majority of damage comes from Sneak Attack. DA just allows you to do the same damage without violence resistance.

5. DA is strong against low saves and non-compentent. mages. It useless against undead, magic wards, constructs, etc.

[PiaMango]

I have been testing out a 10rouge/11monk/9assassin usually hitting 3-5 attacks in the first flurry which should give a 15-23% of paralyzing a mob. From actually testing it feels more like somewhere between 10-15% which is still a decent chance to instant win an encounter but not sure if its worth giving up epic dodge for (rogue16/monk11/shadow dancer3).

[ARHicks00]

I have been testing out a 10rouge/11monk/9assassin usually hitting 3-5 attacks in the first flurry which should give a 15-23% of paralyzing a mob. From actually testing it feels more like somewhere between 10-15% which is still a decent chance to instant win an encounter but not sure if its worth giving up epic dodge for (rogue16/monk11/shadow dancer3).

10% is one time out of 3 to 5 attacks to land to land a successful DA. 20% is one to 2 times out of 3 to 5 attack to land a successful DA. My point being you'd have to rely heavily on HIPS or a very high feint to use DA often. Moreover, it's not the DA that's helping you win the battles, but SA and HIPS.