Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

dedude wrote: How are you building a facerolling shaman (without exploits)? I have been looking at the class a while now and can't really see it. Is it a DC build? They have good defense, poor melee offense and decent spell offense.

Never used exploits. Never needed them, aside from the fact I like challenge and thus they are incompatible with my idea of fun.

I would play one as a DC caster. STR 8 for sure, maybe even CON 8 (either that, or 10). Spellcasting Prodigy. Surely with a Monk dip for AC and movement speed, Hierophant being something I might consider, but not necessarily (I like it far more for Clerics). Blood Magic feat mandatory. Evil aligned. Wis to 19-20, CHA to the maximum you can get (min 26-28 base).

SS is inherently extremely hard to kill, because of its abilities and the nature of its spellbook. Furthermore, some of its spells are particularly devastating when you can count on high CL and DC (Ice Storm has no CL cap, Storm of Vengeance, Sunburst to quote a few), while others are just good regardless (hi, Moonbolt!).

Full Gr. CHA in the epics to get as high as possible, bar two epic spells (one save or die, one 3/day), complete the character.

There is this feeling that one needs to Shapechange to be ok, but that really isn't true. In fact, staying in your humanoid form and having a wand of Mirror Images slotted likely means you're next to immortal.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you would use exploits. Thanks for the help. I was trying to build a melee focused one, mainly for story reasons, but probably went for too much balance in the stat department. He has trouble with AB and I can't really see a way to build around that. The spell book only really helps druids in that department unfortunately.

dedude wrote:Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you would use exploits. Thanks for the help. I was trying to build a melee focused one, mainly for story reasons, but probably went for too much balance in the stat department. He has trouble with AB and I can't really see a way to build around that. The spell book only really helps druids in that department unfortunately.

Druids can overcome the AB issues by virtue of their animal shapes (and their power), combined with Natural Spell. For Shaman, that's not an option. However, you have a lot of power of your own accord, if you build in harmony with the class' strengths.

You need casting stats, metamagic, CL and DC to shine. Telthor companion is also pretty cool, if you're interested in that sort of things (and it can get you to lvl 30 very, very fast, in case you solo a lot).