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

Hi guys

I'm new to arcane spellcasters and would greatly appreciate some advice
Do you have any preference and advice on choosing the opposing magic schools for a RWT necromancer? Which defensive/offensive spells would you consider essential to have and not make it an opposing school??

thx!

Divination is the best school to drop... it has almost nothing of worth and the few good spells it has can be replicated through other schools.

Divination will definitely be one of the opposing schools I will choose. I'm thinking which other school I should choose, considering my most powerful nukes and summon will come from necromancy, enchantment for dominate and some other offensive spells in evocation. While for defense transmutation, abjuration, illusion... some are just too good to drop. It's already sad that premonition will go since it's a divination spell. I'm even considering to drop evocation or conjuration for the sake of the more defensive spells the other schools can provide...

Ideas? Suggestions?

chambordini wrote:You can get promonition from illusion (shades 9th level)

good to know, then i feel better for dumping divination

chambordini wrote:I'd drop divination and enchantment, the latter doesn't really offer anything unique beyond 4 extra saves.

dominate monster is an enchantment spell.. very useful, right? I might be even to run with a PRC's summon, animate undead, summon and a dominated monster... (correct me if I'm wrong tho). Other than that, not very useful, I believe.

AkaeBR wrote:dominate monster is an enchantment spell.. very useful, right? I might be even to run with a PRC's summon, animate undead, summon and a dominated monster... (correct me if I'm wrong tho). Other than that, not very useful, I believe.

You can't have an animated undead (unless it's the Pale Master one) and a regular summon

Vermilion wrote:

AkaeBR wrote:dominate monster is an enchantment spell.. very useful, right? I might be even to run with a PRC's summon, animate undead, summon and a dominated monster... (correct me if I'm wrong tho). Other than that, not very useful, I believe.

You can't have an animated undead (unless it's the Pale Master one) and a regular summon

He's talking about a dominated mob, not a summoned creature which is different. You can make due without any school of magic, you just have to consider what you're losing and how you'll compensate. Evocation is a very useful school, but I have a level 30 wizard without it. Bigby is great, but you can be effective by adjusting tactics to use other crowd control spells. The only school I would not want to drop is illusion due to the strong defensive spells along with solid DC options, but even that isn't required to be successful, so long as you have other defenses to fall back on.

Underlined parts, chad:

AkaeBR wrote:PRC's summon, animate undead, summon and a dominated monster...

That's what was referred to, I think.

Ah, gotcha...should probably finish my coffee and make a point to read the entire thread. However, when talking about enchantment dominate monster can work with a summon or create undead, they just can't work with each other. Thus it isn't as if enchantment is useless with conjuration, you can utilize both.

Edit: If anything it's conjuration that is replaced by necromancy for the purpose of summons vs. undead. However, losing conjuration loses a fair bit of other beneficial spells (IMA, Acid Cloud, Flame Arrow, etc.) As I said, you can lose any school (or 2 schools) and be fine. Heck, with the custom spells Divination is certainly not worthless mechanically.

Don't forget that divination has a LOT more spells and utility in the game now. Some mechanical, and some RP related.

+1 to spell updates!

+1 to the new divination spells. very fun to play with. evocation is replaceable. wouldnt want to drop illusion. i think the orbs are conjuration and i would not want to lose those.

Vermilion wrote:

AkaeBR wrote:dominate monster is an enchantment spell.. very useful, right? I might be even to run with a PRC's summon, animate undead, summon and a dominated monster... (correct me if I'm wrong tho). Other than that, not very useful, I believe.

You can't have an animated undead (unless it's the Pale Master one) and a regular summon

I was able to run with animate dead AND summon creature (I-VIII) at the same time. That's why I assumed you could run +Palemaster summon + dominate monster = for a total of 4 summons/companions (that would be nice). Add the familiar and that would be 5.

Thx for the answers guys

AkaeBR wrote: I was able to run with animate dead AND summon creature (I-VIII) at the same time. That's why I assumed you could run +Palemaster summon + dominate monster.

Thx for the answers guys

In terms of lackeys you should be able to have

1 creature in the summon slot (which I believe includes animated undead as well as the Summon X line)
1 dominated monster
1 creature in the companion slot (e.g. Pale Master minion, Thaumaturge cohort)
1 familiar (fragile but situationally useful with the Improved familiar feat)