Sell me on Hierophant

[Tekill]

Blackguard/SS/Hierophant - nice alternative to the SS-shapeshifter type build.
Just like Karonds build is a nice alternative the the druid-dragon build.

I think I am going to attempt Karonds druid build for an UD toon. But I find the build is really end game focused- really great if you are already lvl 30 and have your end game equipment aready..
- low strength in heavy armour - not much room for carrying loot.
- low level companion and non shape changing focused - harder to grind out experience.

I will probably be soloing a fair bit so I am going to need an animal companion. I can swap out the focus feats (losing some dc on conjuration spells) for Natural Bond and this Hierophant animal companion feat.
I take 9 levels of hositaler which will give me a 24 level pet.
That is if Natural Bond stacks with Hierophants animal companion.
First, can anyone confirm if these two feats will stack?
Second, is a 24 level pet viable at level 30?

[dedude]

What is this secret Hierophant animal companion feat you talk about that only a select few seem to know about?

[Valefort]

If you already have an animal companion you can pick animal companion progression as a Hierophant feat.

[dedude]

Ah, cool addition. Maybe we could add a description of the feat on the wiki?

[Valefort]

Feel free to do it

[dedude]

Feel free to do it

Hahah, yeah I would love to, but that is so much easier if you know what the feat is called, and exactly what it does. The wiki has too many vague descriptions as it is.

[chad878262]

Feel free to do it

Hahah, yeah I would love to, but that is so much easier if you know what the feat is called, and exactly what it does. The wiki has too many vague descriptions as it is.

You can level up in JEGS and take the name/description straight out of the in game detail.

[Valefort]

Feel free to do it

Hahah, yeah I would love to, but that is so much easier if you know what the feat is called, and exactly what it does. The wiki has too many vague descriptions as it is.

I think I called it "hierophant animal progression". Yes, very original.

[dedude]

Feel free to do it

Hahah, yeah I would love to, but that is so much easier if you know what the feat is called, and exactly what it does. The wiki has too many vague descriptions as it is.

I think I called it "hierophant animal progression". Yes, very original.

Hieropant animal progression
Type of Feat: Class Ability
Prerequisites: Hierophant 1
Specifics: Upon taking this feat you instantly turn into a hierophant animal. You gain large flappy ears, a thick trunk, and an impressive memory.

There, ready for the wiki

[Valefort]

[RunEMC]

newbie here

if you went hierophant after your druid levels, and chose cleric spell level progress. (20druid,10heirocleric (or maybe 20cleric, 10heiruid))
Would you gain cleric lvl spells = Hiero lvl?
Would be shared spell slots or seperate?
and i assume the practiced feat that allows higher class level casting to work in both cases, pushing extra cleric towards your max hd and the feat a 2nd time pushing druid, or would that be redundant as it only counts overall caster level?

[Tsidkenu]

Hierophant only progesses a single spellcasting class, chosen by feat at your first Hierophant level. In the case you describe, the build would have to be something useless like Druid 17/cleric 3/hierophant (cleric) 10 which, with practiced spellcaster and 3x spellpower would have 9th level CL 21 Druid spells and 7th level CL 20 cleric spells.

Better to stay pure class when using hierophant.

[RunEMC]

so it would still require being able to cast 2nd level cleric spells in order to gain heiro cleric progression?

[Sun Wukong]

That is because of this server's 'three by level twenty' rule. You must have at least three levels in all your classes when you reach level twenty. Thus, you cannot leave some levels into the epics and so forth.

As for why it would be a bad idea to make a Druid/Cleric/Hierophant (Cleric), on BGTSCC, dispel checks have been fixed and the power of dispel spells have been increased. Therefore, both your druidic and clerical spells will be stripped away easily. In stock NWN2 you might have relied on your character's HD to protect against dispells, but it will not work here on BGTSCC. You really need caster levels against the dispels you encounter in game.

[chad878262]

so it would still require being able to cast 2nd level cleric spells in order to gain heiro cleric progression?

I think I know what you are asking so let me explain a bit differently.

As I understand it, when creating a PRC there are certain things you can't get around. One of these is selection of feats at level 1 of the PRC. Often times you have metamagic (as with hierophant) and the ability to select a class that you don't have spellcasting for as your progression. Either of these is a VERY BAD IDEA.

So when you take Hierophant 1 as a pure druid, take Druid casting progression only, pretend all the other options aren't even there. Otherwise you will be nerfing your character.

Now, if you HAVE cleric levels and WANT to do something like Tsid mentions there is nothing wrong with that, but based on your posts I think you were considering some sort of divine theurge with natural and priestly spells. Not possible with just Hierophant Druid and doing what you suggest will just cause you to have a lower Druid CL and no Cleric spells.