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

I've seen a lot of discussion lately about how not to do things if you're going to face off against epic spawns as a d4. What do you actually want to have on your sheet for this?

What does "as a d4" mean? D4 HD all 30 levels? That's not really a big problem. It's just hitpoints. All the classes with d4 HD have available the tools to not get hit, so HP can be lowish.

I don't understand your question though. What do you want to have on your sheet for what? Epic spawns? Depends on what you want to do, obviously. I play a wizard/asoc/archmage (d4 all the way) and I can do fine "facing off against epic spawns" as long as I use my spells right.

So can you elaborate on your question?

MrPsion wrote:I've seen a lot of discussion lately about how not to do things if you're going to face off against epic spawns as a d4. What do you actually want to have on your sheet for this?

High enough primary casting ability score to cast your spells, and then the rest can go to whatever that gives you more AC or hitpoints. For example my under level 30 sorcerer at times has more hitpoints than level 30 melee builds.

who cares about hit points? Any full caster or bard can make themselves fully immune to pve with proper planning and execution. A wizard or sorcerer (d4 classes) can make themselves nearly impossible to hit in melee and get dr 30/- adamantine for those few times something sneaks through. In addition they can get all their saves to 30+ easily, immunity to death magic, mind effecting, and energy damage...

Their are PCs that can give them difficulty in pvp (mainly archers and monks, but others exist depending on player skill). PvE is never and issue for the average d4 caster.

chad878262 wrote:PvE is never and issue for the average d4 caster.

Depends on how you look at it, to be honest. Any one mob is never an issue for a d4 caster. But you do run out of spells real fast alone.

Deathgrowl wrote:

chad878262 wrote:PvE is never and issue for the average d4 caster.

Depends on how you look at it, to be honest. Any one mob is never an issue for a d4 caster. But you do run out of spells real fast alone.

Early levels, sure, but then scrolls are cheap... however once you have level 4 spells you should be able to "grind" with the best

Deathgrowl wrote:What does "as a d4" mean?

A build that is primarily arcane spellcasting classes

MrPsion wrote:

Deathgrowl wrote:What does "as a d4" mean?

A build that is primarily arcane spellcasting classes

Right. As already stated, if played right, you can do fine all the way.

Despite what chad claims, though, using scrolls is hugely expensive for grinding, and the DCs on scroll spells are horrendously low. Not efficient at all. Best choice for a soloing caster is to use a dominated creature or a summon, and then support it with spells when it can't manage on its own.

600 gold for summon creature 6... you can certainly get that back in a few chests and can use such a scroll to get more xp far above your cr. Like spending money on mage armor, barkskin and heroism potions at level 1, it's worth it

chad878262 wrote:600 gold for summon creature 6... you can certainly get that back in a few chests and can use such a scroll to get more xp far above your cr. Like spending money on mage armor, barkskin and heroism potions at level 1, it's worth it

This was about epic spawns, in the OP.

At that point, summon creature 6 isn't good enough and you're more than capable of preparing it. My point was that you are going to run out of spells real fast if you go for no companion and just damage spells. I kind of interpreted the question in this thread about whether you can go head-to-head with epic mobs as an epic mage, rather than using a meatshield of one kind or another. And in that case, you will demonstrably run out of spells very, very fast.

Deathgrowl wrote:

chad878262 wrote:600 gold for summon creature 6... you can certainly get that back in a few chests and can use such a scroll to get more xp far above your cr. Like spending money on mage armor, barkskin and heroism potions at level 1, it's worth it

This was about epic spawns, in the OP.

At that point, summon creature 6 isn't good enough and you're more than capable of preparing it. My point was that you are going to run out of spells real fast if you go for no companion and just damage spells. I kind of interpreted the question in this thread about whether you can go head-to-head with epic mobs as an epic mage, rather than using a meatshield of one kind or another. And in that case, you will demonstrably run out of spells very, very fast.

Well in epics you don't need summons... you can round up a dozen mobs and just drop a wall/ cloud spell or 2. And you will have MANY available casts (4th, 5th, 6th and 8th level slots without meta magic). Then just save your strongest spells for the boss (empowered enervation, energy drains, save or die, or polar Ray, maximized igms, whatever.

Lol, yes, I keep hearing people say "just do this" and "just do that", and especially the "round mobs up". I have tried that several times, with mostly poor results. In most of the epic areas, there's always going to be one or two highly dangerous ranged mobs with dispels (or worse - breaches) and damage spells that your mirror images, displacement and haste just won't protect you from.

Rounding the melee mobs up is also a stupidly annoying hassle in the high epic areas, as you keep making a long train of mobs which will arrive at your designated location for rounding them up at different times more often than not. Grease of course helps a little bit, but only indeed a little bit.

Then there are mobs that have haste themselves, for instance some of the skeletons in the Vault of the Dead, that you just can't run away from. They also blast you with quite powerful curse songs.

And then of course you have places like the Frost and Fire giant places where most of the mobs are just too far spaced out to make this particularly effective in the first place. Especially given the corridor like design of these places, meaning you often have to get into melee range to get past them and on to the next mob so you can gather up more, and eventually you will get hit, even with haste, mirror image and displacement. Again, in these places, there are also very dangerous spellcasters that will obliterate you in moments if you give them a chance. And you give a lot of chances by having loads of mobs aggroed on yourself.

In the end "just gathering mobs up", is too simple a suggestion for high epic content, and will lead to a lot of people who are new to mage play getting killed over and over because they are given advice by people who are far more experienced (both with the server content and the class) without recognising that experience colouring their perspective. I've had great mage players keep telling me this over and over for six and a half years, but it just doesn't represent realistic play at all.

And always remember on top of all of that how absolutely clunky the nwn2 pathfinding is.

The best advice for playing a mage in PvE that I was ever given was this: Make others do things for you. Be it player characters, dominated mobs or summons. You are always the most powerful before you have cast any of your spells. When others deal with the lesser threats, you keep your great powers for those times when it is necessary. The mage shines when others are being overwhelmed.

Fair points DG. However, i think it's also fair to have a care as to how we perceive wizards. Seems there are a consistent stream of request threads to make things easier on casters in general and fact is they're already the most powerful overall class. There have been several changes that were supposed to give options and instead have empowered wizards. Treating them as if they are more difficult then other classes isn't really accurate. It takes skill and practice, as it should.

One thing that should be said over and over again is that the highest amount of experience points per kill is not necessarily the best way to get the highest total of experience points per hour.

For example my Halfling Barbarian 20/Dragonslayer 6 could get something like 20-30~ experience points per kill from the Frost Giants in the Cloud Peaks. He could tank against a lone Frost Giant due to that high Whirlwind Frenzy AC, yet that part of the area was simply a suicide without a full party. Halflings are small, and giants are large, so giants get +8 added to their strength modifier when knockdown aagainst halflings, and they get another +4 if they use the Improved Knockdown feat. That modifier of +12 is the same thing as a character with 32 strength trying to knockdown someone with 10 strength. Hence, my '40 STR' halfling could only hope that the knockdown misses, because a hit would be an automatic nap on the ground. And I swear, even those mystics had knockdown!

Therefore, it made much more sense to grind at the Troll Claw Fjord where the mobs gave something like 4-17 experience points per kill.

It is the same deal with every character. You should not look at the experience points per kill, you should be looking at the experience points per hour. Which is why the 'arcanists of yore' basically just went after the bosses - they sneaked there with their Shadowdancer dip or while they were under effects of invisibility/eartherealness and just emptied their spellbook at a single boss and went away the way they came. It is part of the reason, why the boss monsters on the server are such silly 'MMO' creatures.


So once again, don't look at the experience per kill. Look at the experience per hour, or half-an-hour. Then look at how many chests you can loot while you are at it... And just profit.

Even grouping up 6-7 Giants and killing them all with one spell, raking those 280+ XP in seconds has its merits