A wizard/Rogue build. Be gentle with me.

[Kiran]

Hi guys.

Me and a mate worked a bit on this build, mostly is catered towards being 18 as thats my RcR level for the char I want to do this for, so is okay him being super weak early on I guess.

http://nwn2db.com/build/?238742

Some reason when I try and do the skills section it has the words "Nan" by it after level 18 or so, not sure why, is this a bug or have I done something terrible?

Anywho, back to the build, there is no current focus on any weapon, meaning since I am new and do not have amazing gear, can use whatever light weapons I find/can afford which is nice for now.

Any thoughts, improvements, suggestions fully welcome - I am thinking I might need to limit my spell level to just level 6 spells for greater heroism and such, and perhaps take up more into rogue itself, but any suggestions are welcome.

[Snarfy]

Once upon a time I used to play a Rogue/Wizard/Arcane trickster/Assassin, and I can tell you from experience that you might not have a pleasant time trying to hit things in melee until you reach level 23 with this build(thanks to expose). You will also need to be very precise with your hiding in plain sight timing to avoid being dispelled, which is going to be your second biggest problem after possibly being unable to hit things. 18 BAB is pretty low, even lower than the 19 BAB I endured with my old build. Chances are you will end up filling your spellbook with the same type of spells that I did to drag up the weak martial potential, which is to say buffs, buffs, and more buffs. With 17 base INT you'll be lucky, even with a +3 INT item, to have enough spell slots to cast anything offensive. Not that you will want to... because those spells will be weak(other than ray of enfeeblement). A lot of the feats you've chosen aren't going to help you much(combat expertise, feint, toughness), so at the very least I would swap those out and take practiced spell caster, and the two weapon fighting and weapon finesse feats earlier. Then again... you might want to re-think this concept entirely, because it's not an easy one to manage.

Sadly, creating a viable rogue/wizard on this server is darn near impossible. I had a build for one made for me by another player(which I've secreted away, and I'm not sharing! ), but perhaps some of our build guru's can offer up something that will be less painful for you to level

[chad878262]

you're going to struggle... Here are some pointers:

- You only manage level 8 spells. flip Rogue 11 to Wiz 7 and boom, you have 9th level spells!

-10 levels of rogue, yet no epic precision...this is a mistake. At Rogue 10 you take crippling strike and epic precision without question.

-If you are going for 25 DEX you should also have perfect two weapon fighting. Since you stop at GTWF you should stop DEX at 19 (required for SD) and pump INT for better spell casting power.

- You really have to decide, do you want to be more rogue/gish? If so, as listed above you need epic precision and PTWF. If not, stop DEX at 19, focus more on INT getting high as possible and see below...

- Dispel fix is going to make this dispelled by sharpteeth Orc shamans even at max level. Grabbing Practiced caster somewhere along the lines will help a little (assuming you also switch R11-W7 you'll have CL 21). This is simply a weakness of this type of build...If you want more rogue goodies you have to sacrifice CL. You should keep in mind that Epic Precision does not apply to RTA spells. So gaining your sneak attack dice will only work on non-sneak immunes.

You could consider focusing more on being a caster and use spells for sneak immune enemies and sneak attack on those that aren't immune. If you are going to do this you would also want to consider daggerspell mage, which would require you to drop ShadowDancer or Arcane Trickster and may be out of the question for you. for your current classes you could think about R3/SD3/W14/AT10 with PSC will give you CL27 at the expense of SA dice and Epic Precision (which you didn't take in the current build anyway.)

[Kiran]

Yeah I was worried in regards to a lot of the things you both just said.

Mainly what I am going for is heavier focus on the rogue than the mage, mage is more for the buffing than anything else as I am still new to server and not got great gear/lots of coins to spend on scrolls/buffs generally.

Basically looking for a rogue build with a bit of buff/survivability, maybe I went down the mage/daggerspell route too far? Are there some more viable options instead? Happy to learn/improve.

I will be starting out at level 18, so I can be weak to begin with, thats okay, but like to start getting strong around that level.

[chad878262]

the problem is there are no real options to get decent mage buffs while focusing on 'being a rogue'. Not if you want a semi-viable build anyway. You can find a few combinations of "gish" builds that gain decent AB and still hit 25+ CL. However, if you are a Rogue build, in order to gain 9th level spells you will not hit 21 BAB (thus you only get 4 attacks per round, so with greater two weapon fighting you can get 3 SA out of HiPS, max). In addition, your CL is severely hampered. Basically, going the trickster route on a rogue heavy build is severely gimping you. You are far better off focusing on being a rogue and relying on UMD for buffs. dispels are not an issue because your build will be dispelled as often as any wand you use.

this is all not to say you can't do it...feel free to try anything you want, but what snarfy says should very much be understood. If you don't go in understanding your limitations you are going to be very frustrated playing this PC.

Just in case you are interested, here is a CL30 wizard that has decent RTA damage using daggercast/AT Range sneak attack, but no HiPS...

Note the only way to get CL30 and HiPS is W26/27 (or some combination of full caster progression classes) / SD3/4 with practiced spell caster. You cannot make an AT with HiPS and CL30...you also cannot make an AT that is good at TWF because low BAB...

http://nwn2db.com/build/?238747

[thids]

Wizard6/ek8/at8/assassin8

It hits the sweet spot of cl25 in case dispel gets reduced to nwn2 original values. No rogue but it's roguish enough.

[chad878262]

even if the dispels stay as they are I like it... Nice build Thids.

http://nwn2db.com/build/?238757

Prioritized getting 9th level spells over HiPS, but level split could be juggled depending what you want to get first. Main thing is due to cross class skills able learner is a must as juggling classes is impossible early on and would be a pain late. So long as you follow the 3b20 rule you could definitely prioritize Assassin over AT to get HiPS by level 24, but in the build I posted I chose to go for 9th level spells by 21. vamp feast is always going to be saved against, but still a nice heal when needed, especially since you cannot get Expose Weakness. Based on your original comments I think this build more fits the mold so again, credit to Thids for a real nice idea.

[UnGround]

So, I also always like the rougish wizard type builds. This is my build, and my main is lvl 20 right now. A bit underpowered, but I have been able to solo many things on the way up.

Not sure how the Epics will go, but feel free to give it a try.

http://nwn2db.com/build/?212929

Note that will the dispel fix, this build is suddenly a lot less viable. However it isn't hard to get AC 40+ and decent AB with buffs. If you can dodge the dispels with HiPs or keep backup spells memorized it isn't too bad.

I have been considering dropping acidic splatter and maybe pulling back in PTWF or another feat - I haven't been that impressed with it.

[thids]

credit to Thids for a real nice idea.

To be fair, I didn't come up with the build. I played it for over a year, though an unoptimized version, without ptwf. I took the idea for the split from blixen or someone else on nwn2db, don't remember anymore. It's a pain to level up until the point you get hips.

[Kiran]

Cheers for all the replies and ideas.

Been testing out some of the different builds, I do like them, but I must admit I find myself perhaps a bit on the weak side damage wise though things really cant kill me with all those damn fine self buffs, mirror image is my new favourite toy!

But think I might have to drop some mage levels to get some more bab/stealth attack, missing a lot of attacks, though when I do hit from out of stealth and they get paralyzed, the giants especially.. oh what fun!

[chad878262]

Are you buffing with just defense? What about (Greater) Heroism, Greater Magic Weapon, Bulls STR, Cats Grace, Keen? Are you using Stealth to gain sneak attack? You can run around a corner and re-enter stealth (as annoying as that is) until you get HiPS but honestly with all the Gish buffs from your wizard spells you should still be able to get in hits even without...

[Dawrf]

Don't know why, but I got reminded of Lippi Gallows: http://nwn2db.com/build/?30749 (Arcane Trickster Feinter build, based out of Sorcerer. You could have a look at that, if for nothing else than inspiration.)