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

Tell me how viable this sounds:

Cleric base. Race? Uncertain. Neutral Evil, probably; domains of Water and Cold, or Storm and Cold. The goal is to blast everything in sight with cold spells and introduce a new ice age. Build-wise, at least, and maybe just a teensy bit RP-wise.

How well could this be made to operate and how could I maximize its longevity and deadliness in battle? Open to other PRCs besides Frost Mage.

Cleric can't progress in Frost Mage and doesn't really have any cold based spells... So unless you are talking about going C3/W10/FM10/ASoC7 or something I guess I don't get what you're trying to do. Cleric is just there for RP?

chad878262 wrote:Cleric can't progress in Frost Mage and doesn't really have any cold based spells... So unless you are talking about going C3/W10/FM10/ASoC7 or something I guess I don't get what you're trying to do. Cleric is just there for RP?

BAD CHAD! BAD!

Auril, has the following domains:
Cold, which grants the following spells: Creeping Cold, Hypothermia, and Polar Ray.

Storm, which grants the following spells: Gust of Wind, Call Lightning, Ice Storm, and Whirlwind.

Water, which grants the following spells: Poison, and Ice Storm.

Additionally, you could go for a build such as: Bard 4/Cleric 6/Frost Mage 10/Hierophant 10. Frost Mage allows you to continue with a divine spell casting progression. Get Epic Spell Focus (Conjuration) for those Ice Elementals and spend a feat on Beckon the Frozen, then high wisdom, Empower and Maximise metamagic feats to get most out of your Ice Storms, and something to increase your caster level beyond 30. (Practised Spell Caster and Spell Power III grant you caster level of 33, which gives 3d6 + 13d6 base damage Ice Storms.)

Offensive direct damage spell casting is still horrible on this server. But, you got your cleric of Auril.

Why 4 levels of bard if I may ask?

Forgot it requires arcane, but allows divine progression...whoops.

Still seems like a really poor way to go, not many spells that work with FM even with Auril domains.

Ice Storm and Polar Ray are the key spells for this, really. Creeping Cold is a fun early level spell to toss out on bosses; same with Hypothermia. But Ice Storm is powerful enough that I can see myself build around that, even if Wizard gets it at 4 instead of 5.

The build idea does sound interesting: focus on conjuring up big, nasty elementals (and probably extraplanar beings if I can get the right Dusty Tomes), use buffs and direct damage spells to support them as necessary; animate some dead in a pinch because Auril is heartless and gives no cares about the morality of that.

And hey, cleric of Auril!

Undead are immune to cold damage so youll find them ideal tanks for ice storm spam.

Piercing Cold...

Sun Wukong wrote:Piercing Cold...

Egads... I didn't realize that. It'll pierce allies, too, then?

Yeah, I think so... but it has been years and years. But you could still just use good spell placement to blast at enemies.

Piercing cold at level 10 Frost Mage, meaning you've quite a few levels to exploit summon cold immunities (eg. Ice Elementals) until it no longer applies.

This steps aside from your initial concept, but perhaps a build such as:

Sorcerer 6/Archmage 6/Arcane Scholar 8/Frost Mage 10 with Mastery of Shaping might be what you are looking for. Mastery of Shaping should let you spam those Improved Empowered/Maximised Ice Storms with impunity behind a wall of the dead and ice elementals.

Perhaps something like this one: http://nwn2db.com/build/?285378

Edit: the worshippers of Auril have a number of arcanists among their ranks.

Rune of Ice and Winter's Blast might be worth to consider, as that will allow you to keep blasting for as long as possible, and from the sound of it you want to create a blaster-intensive caster, so it would make much sense with at least one of these - Winter's Blast would be very suiting.

Winter's Blast
Type of Feat: Reserve
The frozen magic within you can burst forth in a hail of frost.
Prerequisite: Ability to cast 2nd-level spells.

Benefit: As long as you have a cold spell of 2nd level or higher available to cast, you can create a 20-foot cone-shaped burst of cold. This cone deals 1d4 points of cold damage per level of the highest-level cold spell you have available to cast. A successful Reflex save halves the damage.

Trigger Spells: Cone of Cold, Elemental Shield, Frost Breath, Shades, Ice Storm, Polar Ray, Hypothermia, Creeping Cold, Greater Creeping Cold, Glacial Wrath, Lesser Energized Shield, Energized Shield, Weapon of Energy, Orb Cold

Notes: 1d4 per spell level may not be much, but it will allow you to keep blasting those cold spells, and it fits perfectly with the theme of the build and character. Potentially 9d4, which is ~ 9-36 Dmg, that might be quite low compared to the other spells, but its something that will allow you to keep on blasting, which certainly will help while levelling when running low on spells.