Deathsinger/Eldritch knight

[JIŘÍ]

How are these classes played, and can they be part of some really strong builds?

I managed to handle maximum of 24 CL, it appears as dispel bait.

Also with deathsinger, it lures to center it around INt but at same time, wouldnt be going sorcerer as base caster class be much more flexible?

[Hoihe]

I only have experience with Bladesinger thru a friend, Deathsinger may have it easier as it can use evil spells and PRCs.

However, her experience with it was absolutely horrid and disappointing. She went for an even Str-Int distribution and wiz10/ek10/bs10. Damage was abysmal, AB was low. Spells were out of reach since to survive, she had to use up all her spell slots on buffs, and a few spare sets too. What spells she had left lacked in DC due to lack of left-over free feats to get spell focus feats.

If you play a bladesinger the "viable way" (aka buff up and bash stuff), you might as well play a fighter with UMD. You'll be more viable. If you actually want to play a bladesinger that uses offensive magic, I recommend swashbuckler5/duelist7/shadowdancer 3/wizard 15. So long as you don't want to take 40 AB monsters, and are fine with being weak vs crit immunes, the non-bladesinger build much better reflects the Bladesinger P&P experience than Bladesinger/Eldricht Knight could ever do with BG's balance systems.

Swash5/du7/sd3/w15 is capable of holding its own without any buffs beyond GH, GMW, Keen. Using just those 3 buffs, it can solo the yuan-ti temple (idk UD equivalent) if you have a vampiric weapon. If you don't you may need to add Mirror Image. It can handle the yuan-ti boss using Spell mantle to soak her spells, then Breach + Assay, followed by IGMS and other blaster spells to kill her.

Meanwhile Wiz10/EK10/BS10 won't have enough spells left over to kill the queen, must be fully buffed to even get to the queen. You might be able to use epic spells on the queen, but they're not enough to finish her off - and said friend had Greater Ruin, Dragon Knight and Epic Call Lightning Storm.

Now, said friend changed over to wizard/Arcane trickster/Daggerspell mage/rogue. Is decent in melee, actually plays like a mage rather than an afk buffbot for summons or glorified UMD fighter.


For some comparison, said friend at level 30 wound up constantly dying and unable to contribute to DM events, while my swash5/du7/wizard15/sd3 build could survive and cast spells and fight even at level 22.

[Theodore01]

A Rapier wielding Swashbuckler (7), Duelist (10), Dragonslayer (10), Wizard (3) turned out to be surprisingly strong.
Has good damage & saves also, and few spells (cl13) to help out a bit.

[zhazz]

Drow Wizard 17 / Deathsinger 10 / Dragon Slayer 3

Attribute     Base  Final  Mod  Buffed  Buffed Mod
--------------------------------------------------
Strength        14     14   +2      18          +4
Dexterity       18     18   +4      22          +6
Constitution    10     10    0      14          +2
Intelligence    18     26   +8      30         +10
Wisdom          10     10    0       0           0
Charisma        10     10    0       0           0

Spell stuff
Spell Level: 9
Caster Level: 29 +2 Spell Penetration
Caster DC: 21 (+2 Fox's Cunning)
Metamagic: Extend, Empower, Maximize

Unbuffed Resistances, immunitues, DR
Fortitude: 14
Reflex: 17
Will: 22
Save bonus vs Spells: +6

Spell Resistance: 41
Immunities: Fear, Sleep
Damage Reduction: 1/-

AC, AB, Damage, and Attacks
Naked AC: 18
Buffed AC: 57
Buffs: 5 Shadow Shield + 6 IMA + 4 Shield + 4 Boots + 4 Ring + 2 Cat's Grace + 5 Bearskin Armor + 5 Bladesong Style + 1 Haste + 3 Combat Expertise

Unbuffed AB: 27
Buffed AB: 44
Buffs: 5 GMW + 4 GH + 1 Haste + 2 Cat's Grace - 3 Combat Expertise + 8 Sembian Fencing

Damage: 1d6 + 1d4 + 17 = 23 avg (+3 vs dragons)
1d6 Rapier
1d4 Deadly Defense
+ 5 GMW
+ 10 Combat Insight (8 Base + 2 Fox's Cunning)
+2 Sembian Fencing

Attacks per round: 2
Calculation: 5 Base + 1 Haste, reduce to 2 with Sembian Fencing.


Note on Eldritch Knight[/u]
6 levels of Wizard can be substituted for Eldritch Knight. Doing so will incur the following changes:
Caster Level: -1 => 28
Attack Bonus: +3 => 27 Unbuffed, 47 Buffed
Metamagic: Lose either Maximize or Empower
Epic Feats: Replace one of the above Metamagics to keep Great Intelligence+1

Is it worth it? Possibly, though 44 AB should be enough to hit most things frequently.

---

Edit: Added notes on Eldritch Knight

[chad878262]

How are these classes played, and can they be part of some really strong builds?

For a Wizard focus is on getting INT as high as possible (at least 26, 30 w/ fox cunning) and STR/DEX of around 14. However, it is very dependent on what you want to build. For the 'standard' W10/BS10/EK10 the best route is to go long sword and with all your buffs you end up with about 54 AC, 40 AB, ~30-35 damage per hit with your long sword. Add to this the standard ridiculous saves that all wizards have, decent DCs and bonus spells and you can have a very strong "Nova" attack with song of celerity (especially fun with Greater Ruin, but also with some other spells like finger of death or disintegrate etc.) on top of having great ways to handle large groups of mobs. For example you get a half dozen {insert mob group here} and drop a wall of fire on them while having your sword buffed with blade weave (DC16 Daze on hit). Now you can alternate targets every time one fails the daze and watch as you melt them.

If you want to go for Rapier you can do more damage per attack at the expense of caster levels by going (for example) either W5/SB5/EK10/BS10 which will have caster level 24, but BAB27. You'll do more damage thanks to double INT and you'll have higher AB, but the downside is you'll want to equip as a 'fighter' build so you have as much undispellable AC as possible. If you want to go for even more of a 'fighter' type and less caster you can go W5/D7/BS10/EK8 which is CL22 and loses double INT to damage, but gets more AC from INT and the bonus damage from Duelist somewhat makes up for the loss. Then of course you can also go W8/SB5/D7/BS10 for CL18 (and only level 7 spells) but will have very good damage.

Finally, for a drow Deathsinger it is possible to even go W6/SD4/EK10/BS10 without too much min/maxing which will have BAB26 and CL 25 for a HiPS-mage. This gets solid AB + access to Expose Weakness, but to be honest the damage is total crap so you will have much more reliance on song of celerity/clouds alongside the EW bleed damage to help out against crit immune/high DR enemies in epics.

It is a matter of what you want to do. Do you want to have spells that you use for only short term buffs/song of celerity/weaker clouds or do you want to be closer to a 'full mage'? Blade Singer and Death Singer can be very effective, but the style you want to play has got to marry with the way you build your PC. If you want to have effective spells and use save or x spells you can't sacrifice CL too much. If you want to use a lot of spells for celerity then you need to either equip as a fighter and avoid using dozens of buffs or waste a feat on a reserve ability (seriously, it is a waste) or you need to get as much INT as possible and maybe even use bonus slot items where possible so you can have your cake and eat it too.

In the end comments like:

She went for an even Str-Int distribution and wiz10/ek10/bs10. Damage was abysmal, AB was low. Spells were out of reach since to survive, she had to use up all her spell slots on buffs, and a few spare sets too. What spells she had left lacked in DC due to lack of left-over free feats to get spell focus feats.

are simply false as I played a Bladesinger (W10/BS10/EK10) to 29 and a Deathsinger (W5/SB5/DS10/EK10) to 29 and both were essentially immune to PvE. mid-50's AC with mirrors and displacement on top of having all saves in the mid-30's or higher and immunity granted by standard wizard buffs tends to make you immune to everything. Their damage is perhaps a bit lower than a DragonSlayer since those builds can tend to afford to go after Northlander Hewing and/or IPA while stacking STR and wearing heavy armor. However, the lack of high INT means fewer spells and lower DC's, which is where Blade Singer / Death Singer shines. When you factor in Nova damage by using Celerity and Clouds the damage per round a Blade Singer can do is ~150 to a targeted enemy plus about ~30 damage on turn to a group (depending on what cloud you are using) plus whatever you put on your celerity for the Nova, but then even level 4 spells can give you another ~65 damage meaning you can do ~215 damage to a single enemy in round 1 without using too many resources.

Like anything else, sometimes NWN mechanics are simply different from PnP and thus require different play styles than what would be used in PnP. Most commonly this boils down to a PnP group having maybe 2-3 encounters between rests while NWN is often dozens of mini-fights. This makes spell economy far more important in NWN engine, but in no way is it difficult to play. Bladesinger, like just about any gish is easy mode. If anything it is somewhat boring to play, but in no way is it weak.

[Steve]

Wiz10/BS10/EK10
...basically this build will hit 41 AB with 6 APR, 30.5 damage per hit, 53 AC without combat expertise, dodge, or extra 1-weapon bonuses taken into account, DC's of 24 + spell level, CL 29 and a lot of spells due to high intelligence (8/8/8/7/7/7/7/6/6/6) without using any spell slot items. The build also gets an epic spell feat, I'd possibly go with Greater Ruin so I could cast it onto my weapon before hard fights - but the choice is ultimately the builders.

What’s not to like...except the Pointy Ears?!?

[yyj]

A lot of people take classes for the rp or flavor they offer, not all builds need to be min/maxed.

Chad's approach is good.

[JIŘÍ]

What means the term "Nova" and why cast great ruin on your blade. Is it not restricting? As a spell you could flexible cast it where you need it.

[chad878262]

What means the term "Nova" and why cast great ruin on your blade. Is it not restricting? As a spell you could flexible cast it where you need it.

"Nova" is a term generally used in mechanical D&D discussions to indicate a spell or ability that allows for a character to do a high amount of damage once or a limited number of times. In this instance Greater Ruin allows you to do ~175 extra damage on your first sword attack.

With regard to why cast greater ruin on your blade, yes you can cast it where you need it, but you get 3/day (with 2 min cooldown) so you can theoretically cast with Song of Celerity, then buff yourself up, then when you go to a boss area (for example) you could cast Ruin on the boss and also hit it with your sword applying an additional greater ruin. The key is if you cast a spell you can't attack that round, so applying ruin with Song of Celerity allows for doing both. A favorite tactic of my bladesingers I played was to apply a spell like Ruin on my sword, then when I go up against a boss I would cast (quicken) grease and another cloud (wall of fire, cloud of bewilderment, cloudkill, Acid Fog, Incendiary Cloud depending upon the type of enemy). What this would do is essentially provide for something like ~27 damage per round (wall of fire) for 15 rounds or ~405 total damage (or more with empowered wall of fire) on top of ~175 damage in the first attack and ~120 or so weapon damage per round. So you see in this instance the cloud over time does more damage than the one cast of Greater Ruin, thus having Greater Ruin on your Sword with Song of Celerity while using the first round of combat to throw down your cloud(s) will then give you more total damage over time.

[Hoihe]

A lot of people take classes for the rp or flavor they offer, not all builds need to be min/maxed.

Chad's approach is good.

The only viable Bladesinger are those who minmax all their epic feats into greater int rather than getting epic spells or ESF for flavour. The only viable bladesinger are those who don't get either wisdom or charisma in the positives for RP. The only viable Bladesinger are those that pretend to be a worse fighter in exchange for free UMD.

How are these classes played, and can they be part of some really strong builds?

For a Wizard focus is on getting INT as high as possible (at least 26, 30 w/ fox cunning) and STR/DEX of around 14. However, it is very dependent on what you want to build. For the 'standard' W10/BS10/EK10 the best route is to go long sword and with all your buffs you end up with about 54 AC, 40 AB, ~30-35 damage per hit with your long sword. Add to this the standard ridiculous saves that all wizards have, decent DCs and bonus spells and you can have a very strong "Nova" attack with song of celerity (especially fun with Greater Ruin, but also with some other spells like finger of death or disintegrate etc.) on top of having great ways to handle large groups of mobs. For example you get a half dozen {insert mob group here} and drop a wall of fire on them while having your sword buffed with blade weave (DC16 Daze on hit). Now you can alternate targets every time one fails the daze and watch as you melt them.

If you want to go for Rapier you can do more damage per attack at the expense of caster levels by going (for example) either W5/SB5/EK10/BS10 which will have caster level 24, but BAB27. You'll do more damage thanks to double INT and you'll have higher AB, but the downside is you'll want to equip as a 'fighter' build so you have as much undispellable AC as possible. If you want to go for even more of a 'fighter' type and less caster you can go W5/D7/BS10/EK8 which is CL22 and loses double INT to damage, but gets more AC from INT and the bonus damage from Duelist somewhat makes up for the loss. Then of course you can also go W8/SB5/D7/BS10 for CL18 (and only level 7 spells) but will have very good damage.

Finally, for a drow Deathsinger it is possible to even go W6/SD4/EK10/BS10 without too much min/maxing which will have BAB26 and CL 25 for a HiPS-mage. This gets solid AB + access to Expose Weakness, but to be honest the damage is total crap so you will have much more reliance on song of celerity/clouds alongside the EW bleed damage to help out against crit immune/high DR enemies in epics.

It is a matter of what you want to do. Do you want to have spells that you use for only short term buffs/song of celerity/weaker clouds or do you want to be closer to a 'full mage'? Blade Singer and Death Singer can be very effective, but the style you want to play has got to marry with the way you build your PC. If you want to have effective spells and use save or x spells you can't sacrifice CL too much. If you want to use a lot of spells for celerity then you need to either equip as a fighter and avoid using dozens of buffs or waste a feat on a reserve ability (seriously, it is a waste) or you need to get as much INT as possible and maybe even use bonus slot items where possible so you can have your cake and eat it too.

In the end comments like:

She went for an even Str-Int distribution and wiz10/ek10/bs10. Damage was abysmal, AB was low. Spells were out of reach since to survive, she had to use up all her spell slots on buffs, and a few spare sets too. What spells she had left lacked in DC due to lack of left-over free feats to get spell focus feats.

are simply false as I played a Bladesinger (W10/BS10/EK10) to 29 and a Deathsinger (W5/SB5/DS10/EK10) to 29 and both were essentially immune to PvE. mid-50's AC with mirrors and displacement on top of having all saves in the mid-30's or higher and immunity granted by standard wizard buffs tends to make you immune to everything. Their damage is perhaps a bit lower than a DragonSlayer since those builds can tend to afford to go after Northlander Hewing and/or IPA while stacking STR and wearing heavy armor. However, the lack of high INT means fewer spells and lower DC's, which is where Blade Singer / Death Singer shines. When you factor in Nova damage by using Celerity and Clouds the damage per round a Blade Singer can do is ~150 to a targeted enemy plus about ~30 damage on turn to a group (depending on what cloud you are using) plus whatever you put on your celerity for the Nova, but then even level 4 spells can give you another ~65 damage meaning you can do ~215 damage to a single enemy in round 1 without using too many resources.

Like anything else, sometimes NWN mechanics are simply different from PnP and thus require different play styles than what would be used in PnP. Most commonly this boils down to a PnP group having maybe 2-3 encounters between rests while NWN is often dozens of mini-fights. This makes spell economy far more important in NWN engine, but in no way is it difficult to play. Bladesinger, like just about any gish is easy mode. If anything it is somewhat boring to play, but in no way is it weak.

I want to see Chad play a Bladesinger with a positive charisma or wisdom score, one that doesn't pretend to be a fighter with free UMD, and one that has Greater Ruin, Epic Call Lightning Storm and Dragon Knight rather than wasting all epic feats on boring stat boosts.
My friend played a bladesinger. She had 45 AC, nowhere near the so called 50+ AC you cited. She had <40 AB, yes, but damage was (1d8 + 5 + ]7*1.5[ = 17-25). Where are you even getting your "30-35" damage, considering it's nowhere near that? It's nearly double of the above cited damage.

She had no feats left over to get any spell focus feat (without using up an epic feat for GSF), and could only afford either Maximize or Empower.

Where do you even get your 40 AB?

With 20/14/10/21/8/12, with Bull's, GH, GMW, she could get 25+7+5+4+1=42 AB, 43 if she went for Epic Prowess rather than epic spell or GSF/ESF.
Your build would get, due to 14 str, 25+4+5+4+1=39 AB, 40 with epic prowess on a build that already gave up on epic spells or ESF to get Gr. Ints.


My friend played Bladesinger. It was a (do-me) torture, nothing else. Useless in events, useless in dungeons. A level 22 weird build (mine) was a better mage and a better fighter than she was at 30. And she plays mages well, as shown by her other characters so it's not a lack of ability. Oh, use MI/Displacement? Yay for Displacement and its 3/6 minutes duration that's useless when RPing or in an event.


Both Deathgrowl and Ravial could see and agree, chad. They even started working on a way to make Bladesinger viable other than a cookiecutter "pretend-fighter-with-UMD" build and with more varied stats. Alas, they were driven off before it was implemented.

[JIŘÍ]

Who needs positive charisma or wisdom?

Do all characters on server have positive these ability scores? If not, then there is nothing to debate about

The Chads build, if i understand it right, anyway, would have like +10 plus inteligence. Combat insight would add it to the damage, and because the weapon would be held two handed i suppose it would add multiplier for two handing weapons.

And this build uses offensive non DC based spells or spells when save is passed matters not too much (as effect is still partially kicked off). Plus wardings.

I don't know, i had lots of friends who failed with type of character where i had success and vice versa, i failed in the builds they managed to make a cake walk (that was more often outcome ).

Wards will always fade off during role play, i am not sure how is this a relevant argument, and in events NPcs were usually outperforming entire party or outright immortal with invul (yes, remembering the devil related thing here), so i suppose thats not argument either

[Zkenic]

Im baffled by this description of deathsinger being weak because it doesnt get all the epic spells and has min cha/wis.

20wizard/10bladesinger Moonelf - 26int(30buffed), ESF, 3 epic spell feats, int to damage. Yes, it will have less BaB than an EK/Wizard/BS but if your main focus is being an epic wizard (all the epic spells) instead of a gish this class can still provide that. Also that build will have 55AC, which is way higher than most wizard builds with CL 30 and 3 epic spells will get. 10base+5MBP+5dex+6IMA+4shield+1Onehand+3CE+3tumble+4dodge+4def+5nat+5int

If you are saying you want to have a 26BaB, 30 int wizard with auto-still casting, 3 epic spells, ESF, int to damage on hits, then yes the bladesinger wont do that all for you, but just because there are some limitations and you have to play it smart to make good bladesinger doesnt mean the class is bad.

[Hoihe]

Im baffled by this description of deathsinger being weak because it doesnt get all the epic spells and has min cha/wis.

20wizard/10bladesinger Moonelf - 26int(30buffed), ESF, 3 epic spell feats, int to damage. Yes, it will have less BaB than an EK/Wizard/BS but if your main focus is being an epic wizard (all the epic spells) instead of a gish this class can still provide that. Also that build will have 55AC, which is way higher than most wizard builds with CL 30 and 3 epic spells will get. 10base+5MBP+5dex+6IMA+4shield+1Onehand+3CE+3tumble+4dodge+4def+5nat+5int

If you are saying you want to have a 26BaB, 30 int wizard with auto-still casting, 3 epic spells, ESF, int to damage on hits, then yes the bladesinger wont do that all for you, but just because there are some limitations and you have to play it smart to make good bladesinger doesnt mean the class is bad.

Lolno
With max gear
And full buffs
I was getting to like
52?
And guess what
Lower than 30 cl
So it'll get dispelled.
And it kept getting dispelled.

Also

>CE
>Barely able to hit 40 AB and has no EW/HiPS. Will hit like twice a round at most with CE on.

[chad878262]

<edit to remove mean statement. I do try to be nice...mostly>. anyone is free to "see me play a bladesinger" whenever they want, so long as it's when I'm in game.

[chad878262]

you win Hoihe, you got me to actually show you a build as requested:

I want to see Chad play a Bladesinger with a positive charisma or wisdom score, one that doesn't pretend to be a fighter with free UMD, and one that has Greater Ruin, Epic Call Lightning Storm and Dragon Knight rather than wasting all epic feats on boring stat boosts.
My friend played a bladesinger. She had 45 AC, nowhere near the so called 50+ AC you cited. She had <40 AB, yes, but damage was (1d8 + 5 + ]7*1.5[ = 17-25). Where are you even getting your "30-35" damage, considering it's nowhere near that? It's nearly double of the above cited damage.

http://nwn2db.com/build/?327357

This build has 40 AB (41 w/ haste), 53 AC without CE being activated(54 w/ haste) and does an average of ~27 damage without even going for specific damage feats. In addition, it fills your requirement by having 3 epic spells. Your friend had low AC because she boosted STR too much which *only* adds AB. By going Combat Insight your INT stat will give you additional spells, AC and Damage. You could of course drop the WIS/CHA to boost STR to 16 if you really wanted to, but here I went ahead and met your requirement by having 10 WIS and 12 CHA. Math.