AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - The Official Build and Taking Epic Prowess Topic: Mk. V

Ulir wrote:

Ya, have been checking the wiki a lot. Already got humans, and originally had aberrations instead of dragons, but thought I wouldn't be spending much time with them.

You will definitely spend much time on aberrations.
Sad but true fact - There's like, Zero dragons on the server. (I don't even think the RDD characters count as anything else than their base races either)

Windreaper, or does he not count of something?

pfffff naaa

Well, there are Dragon Summons. Including two kinds of very popular familiars, if smiting them takes your fancy.

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Sad but true fact - There's like, Zero dragons on the server.

Uh, sad? No, lore correct.

And there are about six dragons. But they do not exist for you to just farm as a boss....

I still think it's one of the worst favoured enemies to take. I'd take orcs over Dragons any day

I had in mind to favor the enemy that can be very dangerous and devastating to the wilderness if rampaging. Also favored dragons because they have true seeing, since I will be a sneaker

. Dragonshape, shapechange scroll users, wyrmlings, pseudodragons and such. More pvp oriented surely, and only two dragons I know of. Windy and the dracolich in the Gauntlet.

You say I will be spending much time on aberrations.. I say not

. Perhaps a few visits to the illithids, but other than that, I won't be. Of course it would fit neatly to have umberhulks as a favored enemy, but I will go with dwarf or elf.. or something. Still got time to ponder.

Last edited by oshizo2 on Sat, Jul 09 2011, 21:09 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Hey I am building a caster cleric. What I need to know is as a caster with 8 constitution and no toughness, could I take improved critical without taking weapon focus? I have weapons finesse and using a rapier . Reason I want to drop it is to get Zen archery. Will this break him as a melee when needed?

You can't finesse a scimitar.

No a cleric with the weapon focuses and 14 str gets 53 AB....

This means that without focus or epic weapon focus you can still net 50.

Caster clerics don't need melee feats.

hendrack wrote:

Caster clerics don't need melee feats.

Nope. But it's handy.

7 Feats pre-epic (8 if human)

#1 Maxedspell
#2 extended
#3 silent
#4 spell focus
#5 greater spell focus
#6 ???
#7 ???
(#8 ???)

Two/three feats left you can use as you please =)

Divine Shield might be nice to have. I have to admit, though, that on Salema (RP based caster/healer cleric build) I don't use Divine Shield often because she is usually invisible and just healing. However, there are times when not hunting that it can be very useful, mind you.

Of course, you also have to have a 13 STR and take Power Attack as well, so it might not be worth it.

PaladinOfSune wrote:

You can't finesse a scimitar.

yah i know i fixed that. i'll just grab improved critical no focus and plop in zen archery.

Very_Svensk wrote:

Two/three feats left you can use as you please =)

Second spell focus. Caster cleric.

hendrack wrote:

Very_Svensk wrote:

Two/three feats left you can use as you please =)

Second spell focus. Caster cleric.

Could work i suppose.

no second spell focus i'm taking great wisdom so i end up with 28 base. want better dc's on mah spells as i'm focusing on necromancy. i'm missing one bonus feat so i decided to take mummy dust with the one odd bonus feat.
2rogue/28cleric

Yeah...No.
Clerics don't focus in necro, they have like 2 spells for it.

They focus in EVOCATION!

Very_Svensk wrote:

Yeah...No.
Clerics don't focus in necro, they have like 2 spells for it.

They focus in EVOCATION!

....

I'm just going to be nice and post this instead:

http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Spell_school_ ... Necromancy

Course, most of them are befitting an evil cleric (which this might be for).

http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Implosion

Ozelotl wrote:

http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Implosion

What's your point?

Don't make me lock this topic. You take the spell foci that fits your character.

Definitely, there's no other point in Spell Foci.

To clarify, I was just stating the illogicality of Svensk's post. There's plenty of Necromancy spells for clerics and if that school fits the cleric, go for the gold!
Just saying =D

Chris is right of course. My point is implosion, in my opinion, is better than any of the necromancy spells. At least the instant death ones.

Yeah before it was fixed it got a +2 to DC for no reason and cuts through all immunities. Ala Golem and undead death immunity.

I think the +2 to dc is gone but the spell still functions as should be, and really, who doesnt love opening gravity wells to smoosh your foes into paste?

Yah he is a cleric of kiarasalee. So necromancy is the school choice.

You'll have it easier when the new domains are around. There's necromancy spells included, naturally.

Sweet. Caster clerics are fun.

Actually, the second focus a non-evil cleric might be interested in is conjuration.

Hend is correct. He plays one of the most amazingness caster clerics I've seen, in buffing, in pvp and in general....

Evocation and Conjuration are the main spell schools for Clerics currently...

This is not saying to take these, but take whatever matches your RP for your character.

Caster clerics do not need to take weapon focus feats or blind fight or anything like that. You will however want to consider taking greater wisdoms as a possibility.

Ulir wrote:

You say I will be spending much time on aberrations.. I say not

. Perhaps a few visits to the illithids, but other than that, I won't be. Of course it would fit neatly to have umberhulks as a favored enemy, but I will go with dwarf or elf.. or something. Still got time to ponder.

I had some discussions around favored enemies when I made my pure ranger.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19126

I still say:

Don't take animals/beasts/magical beasts at all.

Epic, I would say:
Giants, aberrations, outsiders, undead and reptilian (for yuan-tis and sahuagins).
Vermins are good all way through level 1-30.

Don't take beasts, to my knowledge, no critter in Amia are beasts. Magical beasts mainly for sphinxs and manticores, but that is no real big deal since you can dominate them instead. The worst true animals around are, to my knowledge, the icebears in Brogenstein wilderness and they are not dangerous in epic levels.

If you take reptilian at level 5, you have use for it through the kobold caves and troglodyte mound at low levels. In level 20+ you have use for it against yuan-ti's and sahuagins.

If you take giants at level 5 you have use for it when hunting trolls, ettins in Amia forest, ogres around Minmir bridge and giants in the spire in epic levels.

If you take undead at level 5 you have use for it in Cordor sewers, in black castle (? outside the trolls), the flaming crypt and electric castle around level 15, nes'ek desert around level 20 and the vampire castle in epic levels. Not to mention in PvP agains necromancer players.

If you take human at level 5 there are plenty of them all the way up to the barbarians around Brog when you're around lvl 20. Good in PvP after that.

If you take elves you can measure up against all PvP happy drows.

To this, I might add orcs, good both at low levels and around 18-24 in Brog.

Conjuration, Evocation, and Necromancy work out for a caster cleric just fine.

Conjuration is healing spells and Storm of Vengeance.

Evocation is EQ, Sunbeam, Implosion, Word of Faith, and Hammer of the Gods

Necromancy is Undeath to Death, Slay living, Control undead, and Destruction.

Everything else is rubbish, but rake yourself a satisfying duo from the trio.

PaladinOfSune wrote:

You'll have it easier when the new domains are around. There's necromancy spells included, naturally.

Wow, that sounds awesome. Out of curiosity, since no new spells are being added, where are the necromacy spells coming from. All i can think of are wizzie spells *shrugs*.

im thinking about making an epic shifter with 20 shifter levels.

Is going heavy on Wisdom and perhaps intelligence the best? Do I need to put alot of points to other abilities, considering that the fighting will be done in different forms?

Is going druid 10/shifter 20 the best when considering the shifter abilities/spell power of the forms? Or should I triple-class with something? Fighter to gain feats and 4th attack? Monk for unarmed stuff and tumble?

What feats are a must to have? Improved expertise? Imp. crit for unarmed?

I also read from the class changes that shifter gets the druidic elemental shapes and wildshape uses. Does shifter also get the improved forms of the druid animal shapes that druids receive at level 12?

Never played a shifter, but I don't think there's any reason to go more than 19 shifter levels in, though.

I'm not a great builder but I know a little bit 'bout shifters. Extremely heavy wisdom is the best for gaining the form feats. Start at 18, higher if you have racial bonuses, and you should be able to get dragonshape with maybe one or two feats to spare, or more. Int is good for skills and getting imp KD, most everything else is fluffy (it helps to have a non-trivial Con in case you need to un-shift in tricky situations, otherwise unless you need the scores for feats/fluff, forget 'em).

For castery shifters, I think you need a higher druid level because that's what affects your caster level? Not played one of those though, I got by on my "hitting things" ability and liberal use of the shifter bag o' tricks. I believe people abuse CoT levels in early epic to gain some extra great wisdom, which allows them to either get all forms or free up some feats. Post-epic shifter levels are mainly for upgrading forms you gained pre-epic (and bonus feats!), but you can do that with the form feats. So you don't really need many epic shifter levels, though it seems to work out. Feats in general... imp crit for unarmed works for some forms, but I don't think the ones that wield weapons will benefit. Imp KD if you have the int for it. The usual suspects (like Blindfight?). Weapon focus apparently doesn't work on unarmed shifter stuff, it may or may not work on armed shifter forms but the weapons are too varied to bother with that mostly.

As for the upgraded druid forms. Yes, you get them as Shifter. Fairly late though, I never got any use out of them...

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As for the upgraded druid forms. Yes, you get them as Shifter. Fairly late though, I never got any use out of them...

11/13/15/17/19 is "fairly late"?

Well... kind of? Since to get 11 shifter you need to be level 21 all up, whereas pure druids get them at level 12. That's some 9 levels off. I dunno, I just had trouble using them in combat. I've seen max-ish pure druids occasionally dropping into elemental form, so maybe it has its uses for a mainly-shifter as well.

Mm..yeah.. Shouldnt the shifter get improved druid animal shapes at level 7? You need 5 druid levels to get shifter, so that would be equilevant to 12 druid levels.

Okay, so all but Intelligence and Wisdom can be ignored, unless I want some specific feats like power attack or dodge. Oh... you can get those from items, if I have like boots with Dodge feat, or Paws of Bear gloves with power attack and cleave, do the feats get added to the shifter shapes too?

I remember that high Wisdom also increased the DC of mindflayers mind blast ability, does it do anything for the other special attacks?

The character will, or at least I will try to play him in a way that he cant just shift freely to anything he wants, he will need to have physical contact with a critter or a person in order to shift in to similar creature. For example, he needs to touch a drow PC or NPC in order to use the drow warrior form.

So I need to have feats that make him tough in majority of the forms, since he cant afford to specialize to only a few forms. So I guess improved knockdown, improved expertise are good? He will be human, so he has 7 feats (ignoring shifter necessity of Alertness) at his disposal pre-epic, imp KD and exp. are 4 feats, for the rest I thought about Blind Fighting, improved critical for unarmed attacks, since many forms use unarmed attacks and Toughness (That does work while shifted doesent it?).

I also noticed that some forms have been changed to being ranged attackers, like the medusa and manticore. Does Zen Archery work with these forms then?

And then the build... He will have at least that 19 shifter levels. Not sure about the 20th level now, but shifter levels do improve the DCs and damage of special attacks, he also gets infinite elemental shape, though thats a bit trivial. So I wont be taking any CoT fishyness in epic levels, itll be 9 epic shifter levels and then 1 of something, or 10th epic shifter level.

So how exactly do druid levels help shifters abilities? Do druid levels improve the shapes special attack DCs or damage at all, or is it just for caster level and spell penetration purposes?

If druid levels just improve CL and spell penetration, I dont think ill bother with going over 5 druid levels, the shifter wont be a mage usually, I guess going high on druid levels would be good if you play rakshasa or some other spell casting form alot.

So if thats the case, what to multi-class it with? Monk I guess is the common choice since it gives you tumble, discipline, some AC and unarmed attacks. But I can see fighter having its uses too, it grants you few extra feats, discipline and 4th attack for every form, as Monk only gives extra attacks for unarmed shapes. Which one would be better? Or is there some other options for a good third class.

Lord Jarski wrote:

im thinking about making an epic shifter with 20 shifter levels.

Is going heavy on Wisdom and perhaps intelligence the best? Do I need to put alot of points to other abilities, considering that the fighting will be done in different forms?

Is going druid 10/shifter 20 the best when considering the shifter abilities/spell power of the forms? Or should I triple-class with something? Fighter to gain feats and 4th attack? Monk for unarmed stuff and tumble?

What feats are a must to have? Improved expertise? Imp. crit for unarmed?

I also read from the class changes that shifter gets the druidic elemental shapes and wildshape uses. Does shifter also get the improved forms of the druid animal shapes that druids receive at level 12?

I feel a shifter is best utilized as a "caster" as opposed to getting in there with melee. Being able to spam HotGs, SoV's, wymling breaths twice per round far outstrips what the shifter could ever hope to do in melee. There are "melee" shifter builds you can use but going wisdom heavy is the better option imo. Pick ffolk as it helps maximise wisdom. Pump wisdom all the way. I prefer the druid 8, shifter 10, rogue 2 pre-epic as it gives both UMD and tumble but to each their own. I was able to grab undead, construct and outsider form by level 27. Monk no longer gives your wisdom bonus to forms anymore if I recall (if it does its been significantly neutered). Most of the shapes are also no longer unarmed, further reducing the usefulness of monk (although unarmed, you wont find much use for the druid forms as a shifter...heck, even druids get little use out of them save RP). Fighter could actually be good if you plan on specializing on a single form for fighting. I don't like being pigeon-holed however.

Feat wise, imp expertise is a must for laying the smackdown with wyrmling breath and not getting pwned in the process. IKD is always useful. Everything else is fluff really. I dont know if spell focus feats apply to the forms. There was some talk of giving the spell slinging forms spell focus feats but i dont know what became of that. Zen archery is questionable since i never found the manticore nor medusa that useful, archery being poor unless you are AA. Grab owls insight scrolls which stack with owls wisdom pots and you can get your DCs to very respectable levels.

Oh yeah, grab as many regen items as you can. My shifter would heal about 10hp every round. Very useful as you cannot heal in combat save for potions.

The key to playing a successful shifter is maximising your item merging.

Blackdragon12121 wrote:

I feel a shifter is best utilized as a "caster" as opposed to getting in there with melee. There are "melee" shifter builds you can use but going wisdom heavy is the better option imo. Pick ffolk as it helps maximise wisdom. Pump wisdom all the way. I prefer the druid 8, shifter 10, rogue 2 pre-epic as it gives both UMD and tumble but to each their own. I was able to grab undead, construct and outsider form by level 27. Monk no longer gives your wisdom bonus to forms anymore if I recall (if it does its been significantly neutered). Most of the shapes are also no longer unarmed, further reducing the usefulness of monk (although unarmed, you wont find much use for the druid forms as a shifter...heck, even druids get little use out of them save RP). Fighter could actually be good if you plan on specializing on a single form for fighting. I don't like being pigeon-holed however.

Well thats certainly good to know, guess the druid/shifter/monk can be scrapped then. Going 5 druid/6 fighter/9shifter pre-epic would give me that 4th attack for every form, and a heckload of feats, and then all epic levels would go to shifter levels. Druid/shifter/rogue sounds interesting too, would have a good AC and UMD would help gaining some good items.

I also noticed from AmiaWiki's shifterfix (which I just found) that most forms seem to have fixed abilities in Dex/Str/Con, making it rather pointless to invest in them, so all to Int and Wisdom is definately the way to go.

EDIT:

Oh wait..I miscalculated the ab, youd need to go 5 druid/7 fighter/8 shifter or 6 druid/6 fighter/8 shifter to get the 4th attack... Dropping the maximum possible shifter levels to 18...thats not good, I wanted at least 19 shifter levels.

Lord Jarski wrote:

I also noticed from AmiaWiki's shifterfix (which I just found) that most forms seem to have fixed abilities in Dex/Str/Con, making it rather pointless to invest in them, so all to Int and Wisdom is definately the way to go.

If your dex/str/con is higher, that is applied to be your shifted score, instead of the lower form score. If the form score is higher, that is taken as normal.

TeroSNS wrote:

Lord Jarski wrote:

I also noticed from AmiaWiki's shifterfix (which I just found) that most forms seem to have fixed abilities in Dex/Str/Con, making it rather pointless to invest in them, so all to Int and Wisdom is definately the way to go.

If your dex/str/con is higher, that is applied to be your shifted score, instead of the lower form score. If the form score is higher, that is taken as normal.

I think it's subject to a few bugs still

Lord Jarski wrote:

Mm..yeah.. Shouldnt the shifter get improved druid animal shapes at level 7? You need 5 druid levels to get shifter, so that would be equilevant to 12 druid levels.

Actually that might be how it goes and I misunderstood what Tormak said >.> sorry, I glanced at the class changes bit and it doesn't say when improved animal form kicks in, and working from memory is perilous. Improved animal form is still not really worth it as a shifter though - AC of animal forms is fairly low for any level, not sure if the right gear can fix that though due to merges. With pure druid you can ply enough defensive spells to make use of their incredible strength however (or party with a buffing caster).

Animal shapes are great fun out of combat though.

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Okay, so all but Intelligence and Wisdom can be ignored, unless I want some specific feats like power attack or dodge. Oh... you can get those from items, if I have like boots with Dodge feat, or Paws of Bear gloves with power attack and cleave, do the feats get added to the shifter shapes too?

If the item merges with the form yes (the system is complex and arbitrary, but most of the better forms merge all items... nwnwiki has some info, otherwise may need to experiment to find out).

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I remember that high Wisdom also increased the DC of mindflayers mind blast ability, does it do anything for the other special attacks?

Lizardfolk spells do get higher DCs, pretty sure anything spell-like does. Can't tell you much about this since I didn't play much of a caster-shifter, but I know a few people who read this thread have so they could give you more details.

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The character will, or at least I will try to play him in a way that he cant just shift freely to anything he wants, he will need to have physical contact with a critter or a person in order to shift in to similar creature. For example, he needs to touch a drow PC or NPC in order to use the drow warrior form.

Mind the lack of wyrmlings, hard-to-find (but present) driders, manticores, lack(?) of dire tigers. CRs of a lot of the other critters are out of whack with when you get the forms too, but it is a nice idea. Make friends and get them to help you handshake a mind flayer corpse etc.

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So I need to have feats that make him tough in majority of the forms, since he cant afford to specialize to only a few forms. So I guess improved knockdown, improved expertise are good? He will be human, so he has 7 feats (ignoring shifter necessity of Alertness) at his disposal pre-epic, imp KD and exp. are 4 feats, for the rest I thought about Blind Fighting, improved critical for unarmed attacks, since many forms use unarmed attacks and Toughness (That does work while shifted doesent it?).

I also noticed that some forms have been changed to being ranged attackers, like the medusa and manticore. Does Zen Archery work with these forms then?

Never used imp expertise but if it works as a feat should work okay here (always had a problem with my shifter's AC). Toughness should work, but if it didn't it would still be valuable for un-shifting mishaps. Zen should work, prolly not worth it. If you have spare feats, you could take craft potion (since you only get 3rd level spells anyway, and camo potions should sell okay if nothing else)

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And then the build... He will have at least that 19 shifter levels. Not sure about the 20th level now, but shifter levels do improve the DCs and damage of special attacks, he also gets infinite elemental shape, though thats a bit trivial. So I wont be taking any CoT fishyness in epic levels, itll be 9 epic shifter levels and then 1 of something, or 10th epic shifter level.

So how exactly do druid levels help shifters abilities? Do druid levels improve the shapes special attack DCs or damage at all, or is it just for caster level and spell penetration purposes?

If druid levels just improve CL and spell penetration, I dont think ill bother with going over 5 druid levels, the shifter wont be a mage usually, I guess going high on druid levels would be good if you play rakshasa or some other spell casting form alot.

See above on my non-expertise with casty shifters. You can do things like maximise the spell abilities with a high enough druid level apparently. I went 6 druid and I did have a problem with my spell abilities being fairly lacklustre, flayer mind blast did ~30 damage and the intertial barrier lasted a pitiful duration (don't know if it's better for shifters with more druid levels)

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So if thats the case, what to multi-class it with? Monk I guess is the common choice since it gives you tumble, discipline, some wisdom AC and unarmed attacks. But I can see fighter having its uses too, it grants you few extra feats, discipline and 4th attack for every form, as Monk only gives extra attacks for unarmed shapes. Which one would be better? Or is there some other options for a good third class.

Monk Wisdom AC no longer applies while shifted, don't know about the unarmed stuff. Still a good option for skills though (as is bard, if you want to play up the wandering collector of forms angle). I don't think you can get four attacks on a shifter though (Druid5/shifter10/Fighter5 is only +15 BAB which is 1 short of the threshold for 4 attacks). So any class that gives you the skills you want should work.

Edit: Well, I was heavily ninja'd. Ignore the stuff you already know and it's all good!

Honestly...I think you may be putting a bit too much stock into that 4th attack. At shifter levels of AB, good luck hitting anything worthwhile with it. 3 attacks (4 hasted). Out of curiosity, which form we're you thinking of doing most of your fighting in?

More wisdom, more wisdom, more wisdom! Seems to up the DC of almost everything! (Use owls insight + owl wisdom pots for +6 max to your DCs.

TeroSNS wrote:

If your dex/str/con is higher, that is applied to be your shifted score, instead of the lower form score. If the form score is higher, that is taken as normal.

Well most of the shifted ability scores seem quite high, if wanting an even higher score, Id need to invest alot of points to them. I guess having some constitution, 14 or so is good, since some of the wyrmlings and kobold commando have only 10 of it pre-epic.

Weeh, alot of new information. Okay, its getting clearer and clearer as to what I should do with the build

First of all, yeah, that 4th attack needs to be scrapped, im not going below 19 shifter levels, and its not in any way possible to get 4th attack without going below.

Secondly, the reason I inquired about the improved druid animal forms is due to RP-reasons, kind of, as he cannot just spontaneously shift in to creatures he has never even seen, let alone touched, he needs to at lower levels, use and fight as the animal forms which are easy to find in Amian forests.

Later on, I wont be too picky about how to "obtain" new forms, any summoned manticore, or the ones at Brog will do, pseudodragons for wyrmlings (red one at least), going to hunt some She-kats with drow PCs can lead to happy discovery of driderism, any summoned tiger or big feline predator can lead to dire tiger, lizardfolk/drows/medusas are a given, well, mindflayers will be hard, but luckily theres a friendly one at Zanshibon, just need to learn of him ICly

and so on.

To my knowledge, having more druid levels doesent affect illithid mind blasts or inertial barrier, dont know if it has been changed here though.

So now I am considering a build with 9 druid levels, to get the venom immunity and some spell power, 19 shifter levels, and 2 levels of something, monk would still be fairly decent even without the wisdom AC, considering he gets Cleave, Evasion, discipline, tumble and good saves. Rogue would be good too I guess, but he lacks discipline and I dont know how important it really is to have UMD.

Go harper scout. Gets you epic bonus feat, disciplin, UMD and tumble dump.
10druid/19shifter/1harper.

whoa whoa whoa, Harper scouts get UMD? News to me.

They don't.

The Official Build and Taking Epic Prowess Topic: Mk. V

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