Help with a "gish" summoner

[rieitdd]

Hello!

It`s been years since I last played Nwn2 but now Im getting the itch to actually play on a more sandboxy style (thanks to my pnp DM dming a mix of princes of the apocalypse + rise of tiamat in a sandox style)

So I come to you, ancientes the board to help me with a build for a character Im thinking about.

He will prolly have some sort of draconic link, be it by blood as a sorc or by being favored by a draconic god as a favored soul, a LN or LE mercenary style, he doesnt care much about necromancy and such so he can technically go that way, altough it`s prefered not too and he is a power hungry character that will do anything for a little more power, cliched I know but his background of betrayal and search for his missing father requires it.

So as for the requirements

• Must be survivable(heavy armor prefered as they look cool)

• Spontaneous caster(Sorc,FS or SS, all are good to me)

• Melee possible(separating enemies from their heads is always fun)

• Solo achiever(able to go into epic places, kill stuff solo , the more he can solo the better)

• Posssible to actually play 1 - 30 (can be a little hard at the beginning but not impossible, its been years and I dont really recall much of the server)

• Zero to Hero(or evil overlord) he starts from scratch so no equipment whatsoever so tips on where to get some initial stuff is always welcome

• Summons like Thaumaturge or PM ones are really desirable if they can hold their own on epic levels

• Not easily dispellable preferably

The type of play is basically summon, buffs and fight, with the possibility of one or two spells to clear out the trash or do some major damage every now and then (in nwn1 I usualy went with sorc/bg which could wail or finger stuff while using full plate acid sheat annd elemental shield + warding to laught at ppl trying to damage him. . . .tenser + swords for when spells were low, donnt know if that kinda of uberness is possible here, but something close with added summons would be nice )

I personally was thinking on Sorc/EK/ or FS/Stormlord/ with Thau and then something else (if needed) but didn`t work the specifics out and dont even know if those would work (SS is also an option but dont know if they have anything like Tenser or Divine Power to go melee)


PS: the title says "gish" cause divine casters are also ok for him, it`s just a minor change in BG.

thanks in advance and I`m sorry about the bad english and big post

[chad878262]

I think it'd help to narrow down your selection a bit, but to give you a (very) high level overview of some options...

For Favored Soul, it's pretty easy as they are basically just buff and bash... FvS26/Rogue 4 or Blackguard 4 will give you either Evasion/Expose Weakness (not needed, but never a bad thing) with light armor or Epic Divine Might with Heavy Armor. For summoning just grab Greater Planar Ally as one of your level 8 spell choices and then grab either Epic Gate or Epic Dragon Knight.

For Spirit Shaman it is a little tougher since the Druid Spell List does not include a whole lot of Attack Bonus buffs. Obviously plenty of summoning options in the Druid spell list, but you'll need to figure a way to get in to the 40's for AB. You'll want a STR based Shaman to compensate and since you need a minimum of 15 WIS (with +4 item to cast level 9 spells) or 19 WIS (for Heirophant) you aren't likely to be able to make an EDM Shaman without serious min/maxing (and since you can't really dump CON or DEX if you're going melee, EDM isn't a great choice anyway). You might consider something like Spirit Shaman 10/WarPriest or Hospitaler 9/Dragon Slayer 7/Heirophant 4 which will give you 26 BAB and CL29. Note this would require you to go SS10/DS3/WP or Hosp 4 which will give you CL14 (and thus grant level 7 spells by 17 so that you can take Hierophant levels 18-20 and meet the 3b20 rule). You'll have to be careful with spell picks in order to ensure you have adequate buffs as well as summoning spells. The benefit of Hospitaler is one extra pre-epic feat (2 if you consider that WarPriest will 'cost' you taking combat casting) and 2 epic feats which can be 2x Great STR resulting in +1 AB/Damage. However, WarPriest allows you to add Taunt as a class skill along with 1/day Battletide and 3/day Haste. While limited these buffs will be welcome in boss fights. Finally, when you really need AB, Spirit Shaman makes fantastic use of Shapechange.

Finally, with Sorcerer you have nearly limitless options. The key is knowing all of the spells (and there are many custom BG ones) since you have such limited selections. You need to make sure to get all the key buffs, as well as summons to support your RP idea. Here are a few splits to consider:

S6/BG4/DD10/EK10 - This is a standard EDM Sorc. 21 STR/21 CHA minimum, ends up with 22 BAB and 26 CL. The lowish CL can make areas with mobs that cast Greater Dispel a problem. While individually Greater Dispel isn't a huge problem (20% chance to dispel each ward), when you get spammed you will end up running out of your buffs pretty quick. In areas without Greater Dispel or when you only have to worry about getting hit with one occasionally this build will be a wrecking ball of destruction and nearly immune to anything in PvE. As an added bonus, with Epic Dragon Knight and Automatic Still Spell you have your summoner, dragon blood, heavy armor gish all wrapped up in a neat bow. If you don't mind dropping to 21 BAB and losing out on Divine Shield for AC boost you can go Sorc 7 / BG3 to get CL27.

If you don't like going below 29 or 30 CL, you can go for worse saves and somewhat lower spike, but more consistent damage by doing something like S6/EK10/DS10/Thaumaturge 4. This will get CL29 and BAB 25. It misses out on the Planar Cohort, which could be obtained by dropping EK to 9 and upping Thaumaturge to 5. You lose one BAB and are still at CL29, but you'll have a permanent summon of Greater Planar Binding. In addition, the Contingent Summoning from T4 uses the Cohort slot so regardless if you go for T4 or T5 you can have 2 GPB summons instead of 1. However, with T5 you are not limited to 30 minutes for them. With this build you're looking to have CHA of 15 or 16 (19/20 w/ +4 CHA item for level 9 spells), and max STR. By taking Northlander Hewing you can get damage similar to EDM build, albeit with fewer APR.

Finally, if you want to be a 'gish' by using Shapechange (which you can also do on Spirit Shaman as stated above) you can go Sorc 5/Arch Mage 10/Thaumaturge 5/Dragon Disciple 10. This is possible by going for Spell Focus Conjuration at 1 and GSF Conjuration at 3 which will allow you to qualify to take Thaumaturge at level 6. This means no Prodigy or Luck of Hero's, but that is ok. What you are going for here is Epic Spell Focus in Conjuration AND Transmutation. This will allow you to do your summoning (with Cohort) from Thaumaturge and (with Augment Form to get medium BAB progression) utilize Shapechange on yourself to become a gish. Since you are utilizing Shapechange you can ignore STR (outside of what you want to have) and go max CHA. You still won't focus on DC's, but will have solid summons and be a solid shapechanger to join in melee. In some instances you will change out of form and will have ok DC's for cloud spells, Conjuration/Transmutation damaging spells (Deadly Lahar, Disintegrate, etc.) as well as save or X (like flesh to stone). Arch Mage makes sense because you already want to have Spell Focus in two schools so being able to get +3 Caster level (spell durations, extra protection from the uncapped dispel from mords and +1 DCs) on top of a couple other special abilities is a no brainer.

There are of course other ways to build...but this should give you several ideas that you can go for or start with as a baseline. I'll leave it to you to research the class/PRC requirements and abilities and determine what you think will be the most fun to play. All of them have their own strengths and weaknesses and require different play styles (spell selections, feats, etc.) The wiki is your friend! Happy gaming,

[rieitdd]

Thanks for the reply!!

Im going Favored soul for now thinking of RCRing into arccane later to skip the earlier levels.....(also considering spirit shaman, or might go druid. . . dragon shape is just in line with the character background, problem would be the non spontaneous spellcasting which is a bother)

one question tho, how do you get thaumaturge at 6?

Sorc doesnt get diplomacy as class skill so you wont be able to take 6 diplomacy by level 6, only at level 9 will you have the necessary diplo for thaumaturge, or am I missing something?

Also, on one of your suggestions you mentioned Dragon Disciple, I look over the class but failed to see what is the bennefit of it, what does it bring into the table? (flavor aside of course)

Edit: might keep on Favored soul too!! I love the class, the combination the supportive spells. . . .. but I know from experience that at later levels the lack of aoe and slow killing power will annoy me.

Thanks

[chad878262]

one question tho, how do you get thaumaturge at 6?

Sorc doesnt get diplomacy as class skill so you wont be able to take 6 diplomacy by level 6, only at level 9 will you have the necessary diplo for thaumaturge, or am I missing something?

Whoops... guess it's be Sorc 9/T5/AM6/DD10. This would be a gish mixing summons and shapechange.

Also, on one of your suggestions you mentioned Dragon Disciple, I look over the class but failed to see what is the bennefit of it, what does it bring into the table? (flavor aside of course)

DD is for stat buffs and rp flavor. More charisma means more spells and this more buffs for you and your helpers.