Help! I play caster, and need advice!

[mireigi]

False.

I'll show my reasoning, which is quite simple, if you show yours.

Vampiric Feast has Evil DESCRIPTOR. It is ALWAYS evil.

Entropic Husk does not, which means that while it is a brutal spell it can still be used in a non-evil purpose.

Entropic Husk is not in and of itself evil. Here it is the use of the spell that is. Vampiric feast is objectively evil.

Ok, I didn't check the descriptor for Entropic Husk, but how can something that destroys the soul, denying afterlife, not be classified as Evil? That seems like a mind-fart somewhere.

[Deathgrowl]

Whoever says afterlife is always preferable? If you're a lolthite male, do you think it'll be joy and happiness in the Demonweb Pits?

[dzidek1983]

i think its not evil cos it doesnt use negative energy to achieve the effect... if it would this would be a necro spell and evil...

idk if this sepll should be even available in this time period.. it uses powers of entropy.. isnt this linked to wild magic?

[Deathgrowl]

i think its not evil cos it doesnt use negative energy to achieve the effect... if it would this would be a necro spell and evil...

This again, dzidek?

Negative energy IS NOT EVIL.

[Darksider_war]

Whoever says afterlife is always preferable? If you're a lolthite male, do you think it'll be joy and happiness in the Demonweb Pits?

Being a female drow is more than enough if lolth deems you "a failure".

[dzidek1983]

i think its not evil cos it doesnt use negative energy to achieve the effect... if it would this would be a necro spell and evil...

This again, dzidek?

Negative energy IS NOT EVIL.

what???

bringing negative energu to this realm is an evil act.. so a spell doing so would be evil

Since many negative energy spells do not have alignment descriptor, they do not count as evil or good in themselves, so, in that sense, negative enrgy use is not automatically evil.

It does say that Channelling Negative energy (rebuke/command undead) is an evil act, in Vile darkness, but it does not have a rating, in Fiendish Codex 2.

[Deathgrowl]

How is bringing negative energy into the plane evil? It ISN'T.

Command/Rebuke Undead is evil because that is what evil clerics do as opposed to Turning which is what good and neutral clerics do.

Negative energy is neutral aligned. Positive energy is neutral aligned.

[mireigi]

Negative Energy is often considered Evil since it is the only type of energy that can cause undeath. It is also the only type of energy used with Necromancy.

While it is true that almost all Evil spells are Necromancy spells, this in itself doesn't make Necromancy or Negative Energy something Evil. It is a widespread misconception among the common men and women in Faerun.

The spells that are considered Evil are considered so because the effects they produce are something that only an Evil person would justify using. The effects are so vile that no matter the intentions or outcome, using the spell is considered an act of Evil and something only an Evil person would do.

[breteas]

Some one said: "How am I supposed to level?"

Perhaps that is more the issue with mages, than how powerful they are?

[clean_slate]

How does Arcane Scholar rank in PrC choices for a Wizard? I understand that spontaneous casting of Sorcerer works better with this PrC, but I don't know what else to pick on my good aligned Wizard.

[Deathgrowl]

Depends on the wizard. Improved Quicken is good for PvP they say. (I think it's good for PvE as well...!)

But ASoC is a blaster kind of PRC I suppose, because of the other two metamagics.

Archmage is a sensible choice for a DC wizard. Otherwise, pure wizard can be quite good indeed:
http://nwn2db.com/build/?182606 <--- This gets a 30 base DC in enchantment, illusion, necrmoancy and transmutation! 37 DC solipsism and hiss of sleep, 39 DC Wail.

http://nwn2db.com/build/?134777 <--- Lots of spell slots! And 30base DC in one school.

That being said, evil aligned or evil oriented casters are simply massively superiour to good aligned casters. Which is terrible for balance, but no one seems to want to fix it.

[dzidek1983]

the thing about good vs evil is kinda true.. we have more lets call it below chaotic good casters

but it doesnt mean you have to play any version of EVIL

Archmage or ASOC is for all alignments... its not only for GOOD but you cant say GOOD characters have no choice

we have some PRCS that seem made for EVIL... but generally we dont have ANY PRC that says require alignment EVIL

so you can be a LN wizard/ PM / RW / Shadow Adept

in fact we have a PRC that is only for GOOD wizards as it requires GOOD alignemnt and its Daggerspell Mage

so you will never see an evil DsM but you will see a CG Blood Mage

[Valefort]

How does Arcane Scholar rank in PrC choices for a Wizard? I understand that spontaneous casting of Sorcerer works better with this PrC, but I don't know what else to pick on my good aligned Wizard.

In the pure spellcasting PRCs you have Archmage, Thaumaturge, Arcane scholar, Frost Mage, Blood mage (few levels obviously).

If your character is slightly hybrid you have Eldritch knight (melee character), daggerspell mage (adds sneak dices), arcane trickster (more sneak dices !), stormsinger (requires bard levels), harper agent (useless feat heavy), dragonslayer (5/10 progression, for melee characters).

Thaumaturge is a nice and steady pick, archmage works also well.

Wizard 15/Archmage 10/Thaumaturge 5 ? That lets you use the only advantage good arcane casters have : powerful angel summons.

[Aelcar]

How does Arcane Scholar rank in PrC choices for a Wizard? I understand that spontaneous casting of Sorcerer works better with this PrC, but I don't know what else to pick on my good aligned Wizard.

In the pure spellcasting PRCs you have Archmage, Thaumaturge, Arcane scholar, Frost Mage, Blood mage (few levels obviously).

If your character is slightly hybrid you have Eldritch knight (melee character), daggerspell mage (adds sneak dices), arcane trickster (more sneak dices !), stormsinger (requires bard levels), harper agent (useless feat heavy), dragonslayer (5/10 progression, for melee characters).

Thaumaturge is a nice and steady pick, archmage works also well.

Wizard 15/Archmage 10/Thaumaturge 5 ? That lets you use the only advantage good arcane casters have : powerful angel summons.

It's a good analysis, but incomplete. There is a misconception in this sentence:

That being said, evil aligned or evil oriented casters are simply massively superiour to good aligned casters. Which is terrible for balance, but no one seems to want to fix it.

It's false, because it says "casters" when it should say "wizards", and even the latter would be incorrect, because nothing is superior to Wiz7/SD3/FM10/ASoC10 which can totally be good. You can build different, but not better. Evil has many, many more options, but that does not mean they are superior to that one, for instance. I will, however, agree with Deathgrowl in the advantages of evil WIZARDS vs good WIZARDS as far as BUILDING OPTIONS are concerned, if not strength.

When you say CASTERS, you instead are completely wrong. Good Sorcerers are very powerful, and have nothing to fear from anybody. Sorc10/ASoC10/AM10 can win against anything and deal with every situation pretty easily. Sorc6/HA4/ASoC10/AM10 or variants? Same: feat starved, but detection skills if you look for such things (not vital in a mage).

A safe bet for good sorcerers is the Pal/Sorc/ASoC/EK armored autostilled caster, which is literally immortal unless you have an ictus behind the keyboard and server reset is hours away, and retains bigbies and no SR/no save spells to win any fight. His AC is so high that even PvE is a joke. If you farm regularly and have scrolls and wands, there's nothing that can touch you, and you can kill pretty much everyone. It's dumb to play to parossistic levels, but it's extremely powerful. Ideal for noobs.

This story that good casters are weak needs a revision.

[dzidek1983]

i think the story always goes around PRC's and the CGU summon.. and what a GOOD aligned character shouldnt use (evil spells)...

like using CGU is evil and no good character should use it, hence the good ones are all on the loosing side when it comes to a long lasting powerfull summon

now we have PRC's, we could disagree but some if not the most of powerfull PRC's have tnedency to be played as evil mainly, Blood Mage, Shadow Adept, Pale Master, they could be LN or N but they are so much better RP wise as evil characters

now we dont have any (besides the mediocre DsM) PRC's that would require good alignments
sure we have lets cal lthem general PRC's liek the archmage or asoc
but they are not linked to any alignment