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

Hullo all,

I'm recently returned to the server after quite a long absence, and I was thinking of rolling a Darkfire Disciple of some variant, likely oriented towards Shar... only I don't really have any idea of how best to build it. I was thinking something along the lines of cl 7/r 3/dfd 10/H10 and leaning heavily into dex for that PTWF. But really I'm open to suggestions. How important is a super high CL? What sort of sneak attack should I aim for? Do I want to emphasise dex and twf or simply go strength and bash from the shadows? Assassin is a thought, given hips and I think one of the DfD abilities stacks... but I would need to get to 13 cleric before being able to gain enough hide/move silently, which kinda nixes the hierophant possibilities. I am open to any suggestions, any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,

Colonel176

http://nwn2db.com/build/?280554

This one's really good, but it became a bit worse since Divine Power nerf. The idea is having a typical Dex-based PTWF sneaker, but with a cleric spellbook. You can apply buffs on yourself while ethereal (Ghost step feat) so you won't get attacked / dispelled and then just do your rogueish stuff.

As an idea, I once made a shield-bashing Blackguard/Favored soul/Rogue/DD build with Feint, it was exotic and actually not as bad.

Darkfire disciple is meant for such sorts of melee builds in general just to give an idea, mixing it into DC-cleric builds is mostly a waste.

Ok thanks,

So you would suggest focusing mainly on the sneak attacks with a bit of supplementary buffing? Is 12 CL really enough? I've not really played with the phantom before, as I think that was introduced while I was away... is it superior to the rogue for this sort of build?

Thanks for the help, I'm not that used to making this sort of character

Note that without epic precision that sneak attacks are not always going to be effective. One way to address this is by making them less of a focus. With 3 rogue levels you're only going to have 5d6 sneak dice anyway, but with Hierophant you'll be able to reach CL 30 (or 32 if you want) so to me that would be more of a caster variant of DFD rather than a PTWF build. If you want a PTWF build or a Sword and Board build I would focus less on Caster Level and more on sneak dice or other ways of doing damage... Honestly wit just having 3 levels of rogue I would say the DFD is more for RP than build strength and you should focus on either getting EDM or max WIS, rather than on sneak dice.

C13/A8/DFD9 is a fine build for PTWF. Caster Level is only 24, sure, but HiPS can save you a decent amount of trouble. Can change this to C14/A9/DFD7 or C15/A8/DFD7 for slight differences in caster level/class abilities.
C7/R10/SD3/DFD10 is another option. Loses death attack goodness, but gets Crippling Strike and Epic Precision. CL only ends up at 19 and you only get 8th level spells though... Still, 8d6 sneak dice with epic precision is decent.
C13/R10/DFD7 - loses HiPS, but gets 9th level spells. This one is probably best as a STR based shield smashing build. Between Shield Slam and Blinding Strike alongside poison use you have options for landing sneak attacks and still get one use of dimension door to get out of trouble... Can of course go C10/R10/DFD10 if you so chose to get some additional Dimension Doors at the expense of CL... or you could just carry a wand.

Finally, since DFD only requires 2nd level spells you could go R10/C3/A8/DFD9. You would still get level 5 spells while having 12d6 sneak dice. You could build as either a sword and board shield slammer or a dex based PTWF build. The spells are there for short term buffs, RP flavor rather than being a focus. Think of it as a rogue with a bit of divine or the inverse of the original build.

So really, you just have to consider what you want to be. DFD is to sneak attack classes what SF is to monks. It add's the flavor of a hybrid priest/rogue, but it is nowhere near as strong as what a Sacred Fist is (or used to be). There are 3 approaches and they require different focus. If you want to be mostly a priest, than having Rogue is more about the RP and skill access than it is about sneak dice, so do not build around sneak dice (unless you want to be gimped). If you want to be a full on hybrid (50/50 split) than dispels can hurt, but when there is a lack of dispels you are probably the tankiest damage dealer out there. Finally, if you want to go heavier rogue, than you treat it as a Rogue that has some serious survivability thanks to all those wonderful buffs from the cleric list, but has a limited number of casts and sacrifices just a bit of a 'true rogue's' striker potential.

Whatever you decide, enjoy.

Thanks for that, really broke it down for me

I quite like the idea of the R10/C3/A8/DFD9, seems to get some of the more utility-based buffs with minimal disruption to classic sneak play. With that in mind, would this be a good baseline? http://nwn2db.com/build/?317450

I've not bothered with the skills, as they seem obvious, but would the inclusion of stealthy, extend spell and practiced spellcaster make sense, or would there be some obviously superior feats that I've missed?

Thanks again.

- I would drop stealthy from the build since you can get the feat from an item in the epic shop (eventually, it's quite expensive as I recall). I would replace it so you can get practiced spell caster pre-epic. You can then take great DEX in epics to bring DEX to 26, which will be 30 with Cats Grace from Assassin. Another option would be to grab blinding strike which is a FANTASTIC feat for any high sneak dice build.

- You might consider dropping DFD to 7 which will give you a base CL of 9 instead of 10...still get level 5 spells, but can increase Rogue to 11 and Assassin to 9, gaining 2 more sneak dice. Conversely, but adding those two levels to Cleric you could hit CL11 gaining level 6 spells, though to be fair I'm not sure that would benefit you all that much. I do think adding 2d6 more sneak dice is worth it though.

- While stealthy isn't necessary thanks to epic items I would absolutely go for PSC and extend, though I would have to consider those feats against blinding strike which is just really good. That said, CL 13 or 14 means GMW will give you +3 EB to any weapon, at least gives you option if you find a cool weapon that doesn't have EB +3/4 (i.e. if you find a weapon you can use that has on hit: stun or blindness). Caster level matters and extending those minute per level spells in areas where dispels aren't too big an issue is a big advantage. GMV, GMW, Divine Power, etc. are all nice to have longer durations after all.

Awesome, good point re stealthy, I think i'll drop that. Surely dropping DfD to 7 would lose me the final DfD sneak die? So i'd lose 1 CL and a cast of dimension door for one extra sneak die in total... Something i'll have to consider when I reach those levels. Blinding strike is awesome, and I totally forgot about it. It occurs that it would be possible to reach 19 Dex right from the start by sacrificing from Cha, Wis or Strength, Cha would be the most obvious (though I'm not a huge fan of rping 6 Charisma), but as long as I don't go below 12 Wis it should be fully functional given items. That way I'd be able to get PsC, Extend and Blinding strike and still reach 30 dex with Cat's Grace... might be a little minmaxy tho, and i'd need to pick up extra ability items. Either way, I'm thinking it'll play essentially like an assassin with an expanded spellbook and a little more fanaticism.

Final question: Am I right in thinking that going above 15 wisdom (to gain 5th lvl spells) is largely pointless, and I could get away with going with 12 and using a +3 wisdom item?

higher wis would give bonus spells, especially level 5 slots are nice for extended divine power. However, with the nerf having DP up isn't quite as essential so I think it is mostly up to you how important the bonus slots are. If you go with the CL9 variant (you're correct you only gain 1d6 sneak dice) you get a base 2 level 4 spells and 1 level 5 spell each rest... At CL10 you get 3 level 4 spells and 2 level 5 spells. So in the end the extra d6 may not be worth it.

As to WIS, it impacts bonus spells per day. At 15 you will get one bonus 1st and 2nd circle spell, but you could use a +4 WIS item (16 total wis) to get a bonus 3rd circle spell as well. If you were to get to 20 WIS you'd get 2 bonus level 1 spells as well as 1 bonus spell at levels 2-5. I personally would likely try to have WIS at 13 (+3 WIS item can be found in an 'off' slot allowing the neck to be used for natural AC). However, if you don't mind using wands, spiderskin is relatively inexpensive in which case no big deal to use your neck slot for a +4 WIS item, so 12 WIS would be fine.

In other words, you are not entirely correct as there is benefit to going higher in WIS. However, for what you are trying to do there is *more* benefit it keeping other stats higher... STR for carrying capacity, CON for HP, INT for Assassin spells, skills and death attack DC, DEX for AC and AB, etc.

Do note there is a relatively inexpensive belt that grants +3 STR and CON so you might consider having STR and CON stop at odd numbers, such as 13 STR/11 CON.

Great! I'll start rolling him up. Thanks so much, its been super helpful