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

//Just a quick question on this - when an arcane trickster activates a ranged touch spell does it not show the usual 'sneak attack' text but still do sneaks? I tried with acid arrow and lesser orb of acid. The latter did seem to do high damage sometimes but never above the normal max of the spell alone so was impossible to tell for sure (only 2d6 sneak at the moment), there was also no sneak attack text shown.

Assuming it does work does the spell need to be cast within short range as is the case for ranged sneak attacks with missile weapons?

Many thanks,

Kas

//

You still need to satisfy sneak attack requirements, ie attacking a flatfooted or flanked opponent, and casting from within 30 ft. It works, 40+ damage ray of frost is great for a cantrip!

//Thanks, yes my chap is attacking from HIPS so should satisfy the requirement there. When he casts it seems he comes out of stealth then briefly enters stealth again on casting - I guess that was the workaround. Pretty sure its working with orb of acid now as he did 40 damage which is the max (5d8) so very unlikely without sneak damage added on if not impossible. Conversely I'm pretty sure Melf's acid arrow isn't adding sneak damage (did only 5 damage with one attack when it should be 3d6 + 2d6 sneak - OK technically possible but very unlikely) I will test with ray of frost as well.

Could it be that spells such as Melf's which have long range don't activate the sneak even if you cast them within short range?

Finally I wondered about empowering/maximizing spells - I guess the empowerment doesn't work on the added sneak damage??

Oh and you never see the sneak attack text for this type of attack then, right?

Cheers,

Kas

//

//PS is it really worth getting the invisible needle feat when there are 1st level spells that can do much more damage with sneak added? Are there areas later on where you really can't rest that would necessitate the use of a reserve feat like this?

Also can you use something like scorching ray to do ranged sneaks on multiple targets?

Thanks,

Kas

//

Invisible needle is useful if you have a tanky summon or party member to use as a flank. With HIPS this is made much easier because if you get aggro, you can hide and let the mobs return their attention to whatever summon/party member you have to distract the enemy and let you throw un-resistable magic damage with impunity. Invisible needle has the advantage, as opposed to proper spells, in that it is infinite in use so long as you retain at least one of its requisite spells memorized and unused in your spellbook, the higher level the better.

And I believe scorching ray + ranged touch sneak attack does work, but its hard to properly flank 3+ enemies at the same time and land that multiple sneak attack spell against them all at the same time.

//Great, thanks, will be fun to play around with it.

I noticed your main is a dark elf and part of a guild. Are you actively recruiting mercs?//

PM sent to keep this thread on track.

//On testing this out a fair bit soloing goblins, it seems fairly random whether it works or not.

Basically you still come out of stealth/HIPs to cast so the enemies can become aware of you (unlike when he fires from a bow for example). However, sometimes you seem to get your spell off before they 'notice' and you get the sneak, othertimes not.

My question is can you do anything to improve this? No speed factors in 3rd adition (I don't think?) so can't just pick a 'quick to cast' spell. Is there initiative and does this affect it? I guess quicken spell might be an option but I think that is +3 level .

For sure it will be more reliable to walk around with a buffed summon but he doesn't have anything that lasts long enough yet (only L3 spells). Any tips on decent summon spells here please? Of course partying works!

At the moment the invisible needle seems pointless - even when he gets to L4 spells if he took it he would do more damage shooting from a bow and can reliably get sneak attacks that way. I guess it may be useful if you have an opponent that resists piercing damage.//

Yes, the moment you start casting a spell it breaks stealth, and in those precious few seconds the enemy can turn and you will lose your flatfoot advantage (and thus requisite for ranged touch Sneak Attack).

Summon III is not too bad once buffed a bit, the boar for Summon IV is better, but undead are probably the strongest choice due to their natural resistances and crit/sneak immunities (Animate Dead is level 3, you can try that).

You will find a use for invisible needle when monster AC starts getting much higher. Remember that ranged touch attacks ignore Natural, Armor and Shield AC bonuses (but they retain Dodge, Deflection and Dexterity mods, unless they are flatfooted when they only retain Deflection). Thus a ranged touch attack will hit heavily armoured targets far more easily, though you only get one per round.

//All good, thanks.//

Kasmir wrote:
At the moment the invisible needle seems pointless - even when he gets to L4 spells if he took it he would do more damage shooting from a bow and can reliably get sneak attacks that way. I guess it may be useful if you have an opponent that resists piercing damage.//

The Reserve Feats were mostly added so that a spellcaster could do something during combat, after having exhausted all their spellbook, or...hold back their spells until truly needed, but not have to "stand around" while the meat shields slash and bash. Or if your mage needs a quick acid or fire based attack to kill off a Troll.

When Invisible Needle was first added, I did a bunch of testing with Luna, and the only solution to not being seen by the enemy when Range casting out of stealth, was to increase the Range of Invisible Needle. However, that was problematic, as there are only 3 ranges (short, medium, long), and long is so long that you can also attack a foe without it reacting (which means you can easily kill creatures without them running to attack you). This was deemed an exploit of sorts, so the range had to remain medium, which unfortunately, gives the engine enough time during the act of casting, to react to your toon, thus negating the Sneak Attack.

The other solution was to make Invisible Needle a quickened action. But that just made the Reserve feat + Arcane Trickster SAs just too awesome and essentially an unlimited high dmg situation. Would have been possible to create an Quickened Reserve Feat feat, I guess. Never thought about that until now...but I don't know if QC would approve such a thing (though often using up a feat slot is balanced means to get some "oomph" to otherwise situational Feats, like the Reserve Feats are).

So the trick with a Trickster using Invisible Needle is to get around the enemies flank while a meat shield takes on the foe directly, so that SA's work. It takes some practice.

//No worries, thanks for the insight, though it might be nice to have spells that could be cast from HIPS and always cause sneak damage when you are alone. Do quickened spells do that?
In any case you can still sneak fine in a party or with a summon which is fair enough.

Non-quickened spells definitely still cause sneak damage sometimes but I've no idea if there is a way to affect that - just luck of the draw it seems if the engine is slow to react.

I still can't see a reason to take invisible needle yet but maybe later to more easily hit high AC opponents as suggested above. As it is he does reasonable damage with a bow + sneak so the invis needle doesn't really add anything.

Now if you could 'cast' it without breaking stealth at all or only broke stealth after it was cast (as if you had fired an arrow) it would be worth considering. In other words make it an attack of some sort rather than a spell mechanic if possible? The damage at 1 attack per round is hardly OP compared with other things you can do. He's already done 61 damage with a level 1 lesser orb of acid

Anyway plenty of other feats to take first

//

//A related build question if anyone has experience please?

Clearly one of the build choices for an arcane trickster is to go for epic precision as early as possible (level 21). However, the build then has to take 9 rogue levels before epic, then the 10th at level 21 to get the bonus crippling strike feat and the epic precision feat at the same level (the builder says its possible to take the two feats in one level like this?).

However, going down this route severely limits your caster level until epic and you don't get to level 9 spells until Level 30 (which I am unlikely to see anyway!).

My first inclination for this build was to take as many wiz and arcane trickster levels as early as possible, given the build also needs 3 rogue levels (for AT) and 3 Shadowdancer levels (rules) by level 20.

The choices basically come down to:

(a) Take wiz/AT levels at every opportunity - level 9 spells by level 23, can't get epic precision, can get epic spells if you want to.
(b) The other extreme, go for rogue levels early, get epic precision at level 21 but then only be able to cast level 4 spells until you get into the epics (Level 9 spells at L30). No epic spells.
(c) A compromise on (a), taking a couple of more rogue levels early, that gets you to level 8 spellcasting and you can still take epic precision at L29. No epic spells.

As I said my first inclination was to go for (a) and just use spellcasting for situations where monsters can't be sneaked. It doesn't seem to me that epic precision would really make the difference against sneak resistant foes anyway especially if the alternative is that you can blast/summon/buff with much stronger spells instead? For sure (b) is probably the best build if you get to L30 but perhaps not as useful/fun to play up to epic levels? Are the epic spells useful to have at all (epic gate or vampiric feast perhaps?).

Having never played a high level UD character here how often do you come up against sneak resistant foes? Is epic precision as marginal as I think it is?

So from all this you can tell I'm not an expert builder and have spent most of my time RPing characters below L10 . However, I'd like to make something that at least works OK as a build as he progresses.

Cheers,

Kas.//