Vhaeruanite Priest/Devout Builds.

[Druchii]

Hi folks,

Just made this thread to see what ideas people have for a divine sneaky type build. I've not much do with Nwn2 so any help would appreciated!

I had wondered about making use ofnthe master of disguise prc for the RP but given insolent know how to build a sneaky priest before picking flavour prca anyway, im completely open to suggestions!

Dru

[Tsidkenu]

The only PRC that synergises cleric and rogue is Darkfire Disciple, which is still a rather poor PRC choice in any situation. Generally cleric+rogue is the worst imaginable class combination due to sheer lack of synergy: you won't have enough rogue levels to dish out decent sneak DPS, neither will you have enough cleric CL to do terribly much.

If you're more interested in RP than mechanics and you wanted to build a rogue/cler/dfd, i would also add assassin to that mix and build it more like a standard rogue with a touch of cleric flavour. Something like rg 11/cler 3/dfd 7/assn 9. Even that will be a very poor and difficult build, especially for the UD.

A more 'cleric' option would be cler7/rogue 3/dfd 10/hiero 10. Focus on WIS/DCs and not melee, dex or sneak attack. Use summons (eg. undead) as your PvE bait and flank them for your limited 5d6 sneak attack bonus. A possible modification of this is to go crossbow sniper & DEX for some true drow flavour, but otherwise not a terribly great DPS due to low number of attacks for crossbow. At least such a build will have a lot of summons to help and general cleric utility.

Rogue 16/assn 9/invisible blade 5 is a classic rogue two-weapon HIPS build and generally does very well on this server. You can swap out IB for Divine Seeker if you want more of a 'divine' flavour to your character concept, but it comes at the cost of 5 juicy AC from IB INT to AC feat.

[Max Hatchet]

I think it’s a demonstration of the wrongness of D&D (3e?) as a system. A cleric rogue SHOULD be a great combination. I had a drow one as a main character in AD&D and she worked fine. Or is it just the way D&D Power obsession works on PWs that means it’s a ‘weak’ combination?

[Steve]

Mechanically, a Rogue 3 / Cleric 14 / Shadowdancer 3 / Hierophant 10 would work just fine. CL would be 31 with Spellpower III (granting +1 DC), the Cleric spellbook would make this PC near invincible, and in general some good DCs against mobs and even in PvP (depending on your foe...another sneaky rogue would be slaughtered).

Difficult split though, as you need 19 DEX and 19 Wisdom to unlock SD and Hiero respectively. With such a build you won't be killing with Sneak Attack, but can max out H/MS and drop an Energy Drain, HiPS, then drop an Implosion spell, annihilating your enemy.

If you take Drow Domain for your Cleric, you'd get the spell Spidershape, and then can HiPS in and out as you murderate your enemies.

[Max Hatchet]

A Vhaeraunite using spidershape leaves a bad taste in the mouth flavourwise

[Steve]

What made Vhaerun’s abilities at stealth truly special though wasn't the abilities themselves but his skills at them. An entire percent of his clergy in his church consisted of clerical double spies, called masked traitors, clerics whom Lolth believed were under her employment but were in truth specialty priests of her son. This was possible because of his aforementioned skill. Lolth, who was more powerful than him, simply couldn't compete with him on the field of stealth and trickery.

[Shadowspinner70]

From what I know, Masked Traitors can go the whole Lolthite priestess build, save for the Vhaeraun god choice--they even get the spells of both gods!--but should definitely get those sweet bluff points. They also get some amazing abilities lore-wise, if I remember correctly. If you want to go priest of Vhaeraun, I'd splash in stealth or wizard since Vhaeraun is called the Masked Mage in S'shamath. With the lore on Darkmasks, perhaps splash in ranger.

"Vhaeraun's clergy was almost entirely male. The gender ratio was 99:1 in favor of men. A priest of Vhaeraun introducing him- or herself as such was always doing so in the sense of "member of the clerical hierarchy" but not necessarily in the sense of "divine spellcaster of Vhaeraun". An entire fourth of the clergy consisted of thieves, who may or may not learned other skills. The breakdown of the rest was 55% specialty priests called darkmasks, 10% normal clerics, 7% clerics with thief training, 2% crusaders, and 1% specialty priests called masked traitors."

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki ... f_Vhaeraun

So you don't need to be stealthy but you definitely want it as a cleric of Vhaeraun, especially if you want to go for something Darkmask-esque:

"A would be darkmask had to fulfill a number of requirements. Rudimentary skills in, namely in stealing, basic survival skills in the wilderness, hiding and sneaking, out of which hiding and sneaking needed special training. One also needed to be trained to be inured by the effects of sunlight, naturally a requirement a half-drow fulfilled by virtue of being a half-drow."

Only problem is, half-drow are generally not allowed to be priests of Vhaeraun yet. Woo for drow superiority! Female priests, on the other hand, from what I've seen are exclusively masked traitors. But back to a build: I think you can be somewhat flexible as a priest of Vhaeraun, given that the priest follows one of the archetypes or another one, whether it's a crusader, darkmask, cleric, thief-cleric, masked traitor, any of them.

[K'yon Oblodra]

Wonder how the build Steve suggests works in terms of skill points...
Hide, move silent, concentration and maybe spellcraft might be a bit of a stretch?

[Tsidkenu]

I think it’s a demonstration of the wrongness of D&D (3e?) as a system. A cleric rogue SHOULD be a great combination. I had a drow one as a main character in AD&D and she worked fine. Or is it just the way D&D Power obsession works on PWs that means it’s a ‘weak’ combination?

You're absolutely right, of course! Cleric/rogue is a fantastic combination in PnP where a player can get by with much lower CL because mobs will not be following BG-PW power curves. 5 hide/ms in PnP is the same as 30 hide/ms on BG.

Unfortunately, BG is designed in such a way that some degree of build optimisation is necessitated if one doesn't want to be a gimped and impotent spectator from the fugue. Of course, one is not forced into this mould and in fact I enjoyed the challenge of RPing such a gimped build as my first main. Took 2 years to get to level 30!

[Max Hatchet]

“Female priests, on the other hand, from what I've seen are exclusively masked traitors.”

What’s the lore or evidence for this? Because in lore there were male priests of Lolth, they just couldn’t reach high lvls

[Druchii]

Male Masked Traitors are possible according to lore I just checked.

[Max Hatchet]

Actually I’m not sure if the original quote meant Masked Traitors are ALWAYS female or that female Vhaeraunite priests are ALWAYS masked traitors. I’m not sure either of those things are true

[Shadowspinner70]

The simple answer is that I don't know; nothing is explicitly said. The site I used for the clergy of a whole clarifies male AND female, thereeeen goes off and says that clergy includes people who are not priests.

However, the 99:1 ratio of male to female and the 1% do match up and I have not heard of a priestess of Vhaeraun that is exclusive to him. It is probably possible to have female priests with full spells considering Vhaeraun's dogma about equality. The numbers wre probably because of politics; you wouldn't have the same protections as a Masked traitor in Lolth-dominated society and in Vhaeraun-dominated ones, their behavior is varied.

If I remember correctly, female zekyl were killed in Chaulssin.

Being a regular non-divine (not counting FvS) member of the clergy or Masked Traitor are probably the best routes for a female wanting to be part of Vhaeraun's church and for Vhaeraun himself.

...Vhaeraun is not picky about his masked traitors either, and he selects them.

It could range from actual support of Vhaeraun’s agenda, to grudges against specific individuals, to simple insanity. On sighting and evaluation of these rebellious thoughts, vhaeraun approached them and after a recruitment talk, granted the powers as a masked traitor.

So I doubt it and will probably have to continue research so for now, I recommend extreme caution when making a priestess of Vhaeraun.

And forgive the organization please, it's early in the morning!

[Max Hatchet]

There is no reason not to make a female Vhaeraun Cleric they are just very rare.

[Shadowspinner70]

I'll concede on that!