Sell me on Hierophant

[Karond]

Personally, I would go down this route:

12 Druid
8 Hierophant
10 Hospitaler

Aasimar. 10, 12, 12, 14, 30, 10 for abilities.

Feats: Prodigy, spell focus conjuration, greater spell focus, improved expertise, expertise, extend spell, practiced spellcaster, oaken resilience, epic focus, 3 wisdom feats, Epic lightning, Greater Ruin, Vampiric Feast.

Hierophant feats: CL+3, Something extra (toll of nature perhaps).

DCs: 10 (base) +1 (prodigy) +4 (33 CL) +10 (base wisdom) +6 (owls insight) +3 (epic spell focus) = 34+spell level.

That is, you have a really high DC. That's storm of vengeance at DC 43. In addition, "Arch-druids" tend to rely too much on effects and too little on damage, so you've the option cause havoc with greater ruin 3 times per day, epic lightning 3 times per day and vampiric feast once per day (or change to something equally flashy). You can remove two epic spells to get another +1 DC, but I like the heavy use of epic spells here. It's after all what differs you the most from a dragon druid.

Plus, heavy armor druid with a heavy shield for 56 AC with improved expertise on. In addition, you've all the immunities from oaken resilience at instant speed, for more than you need it. That includes critical hit immunity btw, making you near invulnerable with the premonition or whatever you use besides the AC.

It's a really effective Arch-Druid. I think it's the strongest you can get even.

[Diamore]

Thanks to all for giving me several opinions and options. I think Ive kind of sorted out what I need.

[chad878262]

I have a W/Thaumaturge/Master Alchemist I have fun with on occasion, currently level 22... A druid would be neat with those two. Nothing wrong with Druid 10/H10/T5/MA5 if you can swing it (I haven't done any building to see how this would look). It is not going to be as powerful as the builds M3nt and Karond called out and has quite a few drawbacks (animal companion is useless, though might be ok if you can afford feats for it, no shifting), but on the upside you get the augmented/extended summons from Thaumaturge to supplement. End of the day the Druid companion would be more powerful, but if you want to go this route I don't see an issue.

I would tell you to be careful with your expectations regarding Master Alchemist. While being able to brew potions up to your characters Caster Level and for up to level 7 spells has a COOL factor, they are so expensive that no one ever buys them (I think I have sold elixirs to a total of two people for very specific purposes). Everyone WANTS to get potions of ShadowShield, until they realize the cost... (~3,200 gold per potion with NO PROFIT and that is for the minimum CL of 13...If they want it to last longer/be more difficult to dispel it is much more expensive).

So by the same token there may be a market for Tortoise Shell potions or Owl's Insight...until you tell them the price...then they'll probably stick to NPC sold scrolls or the 'standard' wands they can get. So you can RP a witch/brewer type, just realize elixirs cost makes them mostly unrealistic consumables. When you can spend between 10-50K (depending on the spell) for various wands and you get ~100-200 charges before it breaks and the same number of uses from elixirs would cost around 5 times as much, and you can't carry around as many uses at once, it becomes obvious that elixirs are a tough sell. I don't mean to push you away, because the RP is fun and all...I just want you to understand that even at very little or even no profit, not many will RP with you and actually buy the elixirs. Never brew the elixir until the price is agreed upon!

[Steve]

Well, Karond's Druid build shamed my Spirit Shaman in the DC department, that's for sure!

But then again...Druids!!

[Tekill]

Really good tips!
I was thinking of a Hierophant Druid with 3 levels of shadow dancer. Whaddya think?
Would hips synergize well with druid...with elementals shapes?
Do you think the hips would be worth the lower dc you would be sacrificing to get the hips?
After seeing you idea it may be better to focustomize on the DC. ...

[Tekill]

My auto-correct somehow came up with focustimize.
Is this a real word? Screw it, it is now! It's awesome.

[chad878262]

Is HiPS ever a bad thing? :p

DCs will serve you well, but with psc and spell power from Heirophant you should still get strong dcs, even with points going to DEX.

[nightingale]

A spirit shaman Heirophant can get the same DC as Karond's druid with blood magic, but... oaken resilience puts even the non-shapeshifting druid over the top imo, I think its better than +12 all saves and ac from divine grace and shield.

I would suggest only getting two +CL from heirophant. You don't need three for the extra DC and lets you get Oak Friend plus the nature one you like.

Shadowdancer would take away hospitaler to keep full caster level, that would take away an awful lot of feats including the two to qualify for SD, the 19 dex is a waste, and you'd want a good shapeshift form which would require not taking full heirophant nor epic spells. Probably best to just do d27/sd3 like someone mentioned. But yeah.. you'd still be a druid so why not?

[Steve]

A spirit shaman Heirophant can get the same DC as Karond's druid with blood magic,

You got a build plan for this?

[nightingale]

Hey Steve! Here ya go!

http://nwn2db.com/build/?261639 ((edited link, sorry forgot to make it public

(zen archery = blood magic, stormlord = heirophant)

Here is the calculation:

10 (base) 10 (base cha) 2 (eagles (potion!)) 4 (blood magic) 3 (ESF) 4 (32CL) 1 (prodigy) = 34 + spell level DC

and you even get the divine stuff. If you didn't get divine stuff you push it 1 higher.

While it is not as powerful as the druid, this shaman would make its saves against said druid more often. The shaman has to multi, waste stat points and feats to get DS and Divine grace, the druid is basically given something better: oaken resilience, and we coded oak friend as another giveaway for the druid, well, they are the defenders of nature after all

[Steve]

Well, you got the DCs there as stated, but a some great costs—something the Druid by Karond doesn't have. At least it's possible! Thanks.

[Diamore]

Oak Friend doesn't work. Invalid target.

Apparently this was noted a year ago. I just gained it and have the same issue.

[metaquad4]

Also, remember: For some strange design reason, hierophant's +CLs don't boost DC. So, unless you are multiclassing with something else then its not all that useful.

Edit: No divine champ!

12 Druid/8 Hierophant/10 Hospitalier would be a good option, I think.

[Invoker]

Also, remember: For some strange design reason, hierophant's +CLs don't boost DC.

No. Not design reasons. From the wiki:

Advanced Divine Spell Power
Type of Feat: Class Ability
Prerequisites: Hierophant 1, Divine Spellpower
Specifics: Available only to hierophants with the feat Divine Spell Power, the feat now uses your full turning roll to complement casterlevel and progress DC's (You can go beyond +4). You no longer suffer negative effects from rolling poorly.
Use: Automatic

So, if that is the case, that's bugged.

[metaquad4]

It is the case. I tested with my hierophant spirit shaman. Unless its been addressed and fixed in the past few months, its still present. From your statement, I'm assuming it has not. And you are right, according to the tooltip here:

"Spellpower
Type of Feat: Class Ability
Prerequisites: Hierophant 1
Specifics: This special ability increases a hierophant’s effective caster level by 1 for purposes of determining dependent spell variables (such as damage and DC calculation). This ability can be selected more than once up to a maximum of 3 times, for a total casterlevel bonus of +3.
Use: Automatic"

It should increase DC, but it doesn't it seems.

Even so, Hierophant 8/Hospitalier 10 should still be good. Blast Infidel, Oaken Friend, and 2 Spell Powers is fine.