Charismatic Archer?

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Sarielle wrote...

I went with the rogue/AA build. I enjoy handling my own locks/traps for a change. Feels very powerful at low levels. Nice change of pace! lol.

The only difference in combat is sneak attack at that point (and Bard has Bard Song).  And while 2d6 sneak at level 3 might be nice, I'm just warning you that most tough enemies will be sneak and/or crit immune.  So unless you want lock/trap skills, you are much better off going with bard/AA.

The easy fights might be a harder (especially at the lowest levels), but the hardest fights will be much easier (especially at the higher levels).
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               Yea, Rogue/AA is like playing Rock, Paper, Scissors with only a scissors. You cut through paper with ease, then you hit a rock and have to slowly ****** away at it. Like with the hordes of skeletons with crit/sneak attack immunity and 50% piercing immunity that the OCs love to throw at you.

Of course, once you get SD it's almost impossible to actually lose unless you're fighting a dragon or some other True Seeing enemy. But you'll have to be prepared to take a very very long time to kill certain things.

Lock/Trap skills shouldn't be a biggie actually. If I remember right, a Bard taking 1 rank Open Lock and Disable Trap and buffing the rest with Song can open almost everything in the OCs because of Take 20.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Aelis Eine, 19 novembre 2012 - 11:20 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Sarielle]

               Ah well, we'll see how it goes. Not starting over yet again. '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               It can work, but you'll have to be a pack rat and hoard a lot of scrolls, potions and traps. Especially Claritys and Mind Blanks, Death Wards and Ice/Sonic traps. And know when to use them too. It's really tedious and I hated doing it when I played one, but if you do your skills right you should never hit a brick wall, just lots of very very steep brick slopes that will make you curse and swear at the broken archery system.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Aelis Eine, 20 novembre 2012 - 02:55 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Sarielle]

               At least I've got the packrat thing down, haha.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Luminus]

               

Sarielle wrote...

Ah well, we'll see how it goes. Not starting over yet again. '>

Don't forget there are always magic arrows. Plus wands, scrolls, rods etc. Yeah, they don't do as much damage or have DC high as proper casters but still do their job.

SoU has kobolds, gnolls, giants, animals, people, bugs, mephits etc. 
www.gamefaqs.com/pc/563551-neverwinter-nights-shadows-of-undrentide/faqs/51548 . Section 18.

HotU has drow, orcs, trolls, duergar, slaads, vrocks, driders etc.
www.gamefaqs.com/pc/563552-neverwinter-nights-hordes-of-the-underdark/faqs/51555. Section 18, also.

Those are weak to sneak attacks and you have companions for everything else and Imbue Arrow also.
It's not like the campaigns are swarmed only with undead.

There are, yes, have Cleric-focused Dorna pummel them with maces or hammers and Valen smash them to a million pieces with his Heavy Flail while you shoot elemental arrow that DO damage.

It's not fun being perfect at every situation. Switching tactics is fun.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Luminus, 20 novembre 2012 - 03:11 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               In SoU, there was an undead crypt in Chapter 1, and the Interlude was almost completely undead.

In HotU, there was a part with Vampire Monks and a Dracolich, and another part with Adamantine and Mithril golems. They all have high SR, so scrolls will be wasted on them.

I honestly wouldn't bother with elemental arrows. If you have a stack in your inventory, cool. If not, don't waste gold buying them unless it's the infinite ones at a certain spoileriffic place. Just take the Weapon Finesse feat and use a mace yourself. Scroll it up with Bless Weapon and Flame Weapon. Saves a lot more time.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Aelis Eine, 20 novembre 2012 - 03:11 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Luminus]

               

Aelis Eine wrote...

In SoU, there was an undead crypt in Chapter 1, and the Interlude was almost completely undead.

In HotU, there was a part with Vampire Monks and a Dracolich, and another part with Adamantine and Mithril golems. They all have high SR, so scrolls will be wasted on them.

I honestly wouldn't bother with elemental arrows. If you have a stack in your inventory, cool. If not, don't waste gold buying them unless it's the infinite ones at a certain spoileriffic place. Just take the Weapon Finesse feat and use a mace yourself. Scroll it up with Bless Weapon and Flame Weapon. Saves a lot more time.

The gold you would spend on buying weapons or enchantments for it, is going to buy arrows. Since AA takes care of the enhancement bonus part. But yes, if you find them it's even better.

But neither the Bard/AA can deal with those enemies. I'm not talking about a Divine Might archer.
Also the golems are immune to all magic, does that make a mage useless too? And before you say that mages have summons, those fall quite easily to the golems and they have damage reduction also.

About the undead crypt, which she probably got past it or not, she has Dorna for it. Maybe some wands too. Even if she didn't take UMD, a Wiz level provides you access to them anyway, unless I'm mistaken.

And I am not sure the Dracolich is easy to beat with ANY build. Maybe with Paladin that has Lay on Hands or one that uses Divine Might?

Still, according to the FAQs, the majority of monsters are sneak attackable.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Luminus, 20 novembre 2012 - 03:28 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

Luminus wrote...

The gold you would spend on buying weapons or enchantments for it, is going to buy arrows. Since AA takes care of the enhancement bonus part. But yes, if you find them it's even better.

But neither the Bard/AA can deal with those enemies. I'm not talking about a Divine Might archer.
Also the golems are immune to all magic, does that make a mage useless too? And before you say that mages have summons, those fall quite easily to the golems and they have damage reduction also.

About the undead crypt, which she probably got past it or not, she has Dorna for it. Maybe some wands too. Even if she didn't take UMD, a Wiz level provides you access to them anyway, unless I'm mistaken.

And I am not sure the Dracolich is easy to beat with ANY build. Maybe with Paladin that has Lay on Hands or one that uses Divine Might?

Still, according to the FAQs, the majority of monsters is sneak attackable.

The only thing really needed for an undead-killing mace is a +2d6 damage when you get to that point. If I remember right, a +2 mace is about the same price as a stack of 99 1d6 arrows, and those 99 arrows will be used up in about 3 minutes on an archer with Rapid Shot and Haste. The +2 mace lasts for ~3 hours of gameplay before it needs to be replaced with a +5, or simply needs a GMW to cover the AB.

Mages don't actually need to cast spells to kill things in epic levels. By that point all they really need is Acid Sheath, Elemental Shield, Death Armor and maybe some resistance items and buffs if they dont have Warding yet. Then they can just kind of stand there and chug potions while everyone kills themselves.

I think the Dracolich has 26 SR? So with a Mords (-9 SR) and a Greater Spell Penetration (+4 Caster level check), just about any mage should be able to open with a GMS, Time Stop and drop 3 more GMSes kill it before it has a chance to react.

A fully buffed Cleric should be able to drop a Heal or Mass Heal on it from Greater Sanctuary and follow up with a quick hit to take it down. If not, it gets about 4 more tries or so, so the odds are against the Dracolich avoiding all 5 GSed flatfoot healbombs.

For Melee, other than the Paladin, Just about everyone else will have to go through its 3 heals. A straight up Str-based Bard X/Blackguard 4 with Divine Might and Curse Song might be able to buff their damage enough and cut its Concentration enough to interrupt its heals.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Aelis Eine, 20 novembre 2012 - 04:12 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Sarielle]

               Yeah, crypt wasn't too bad. I don't have the difficulty ramped all the way up, though. It's in the middle by default so that's where I left it.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_cds13]

               Well, as a bard I wouldn't see the fact to bring with you another bard (i.e. Sharwyn or Deekin) as a real problem. Let them cast the "bard song" while you use the "curse song", that would be a nice sinergy. You don't have to worry to put any points on "lore", they would recognize items for you (Deekin is better than Sharwyn at this while Sharwyn is a better fighter than the kobold).
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Luminus wrote...

But neither the Bard/AA can deal with those enemies. I'm not talking about a Divine Might archer.

Bard/AA potentially has more AA levels, can raise AB/AC/Damage with Bard Song, and can debuff AB/AC/Damage with Curse Song.  If you raise your AB by 2 and drop their AC by 2, you're often doing 40%-60% more damage per round.  And taking the equivalent less.  Something like a 17 bard/23 AA would really rip stuff up with +2 AB/+5 AC to friends and -2 AB/-5 AC to enemies (could do 20/20 if you wanted the longer bard song).

Luminus wrote...

And I am not sure the Dracolich is easy to beat with ANY build. Maybe with Paladin that has Lay on Hands or one that uses Divine Might?

I've always shredded it.

Though I've mainly played Weapon Master, Sorcerer, and Cleric.

Here's something I'd find amusing: give me a general build type to do the Dracolich with and I'll see how I fare.  I'll try to do it within the next weekish and FRAPS it.

P.S. What golems were immune to magic?  That's not really ringing a bell.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               And, the cult dracolich in HotU is generally not as tough as the standard NWN dracolich, though it has a higher SR (32) and is pretty much immune to turning. A couple of the Maker's golems have relatively high SR (32) and many have SR 26. None of them has the level 0-9 spell level immunity that standard huge iron golems have. Any caster who can use a stack of Mord's scrolls won't find their spell resistance to be a big problem, though relying on scrolls or items for offensive spells may not be reliable.

The shield guardians in SoU are immune to spells of level 0-4, though there is a plot crutch for casters (or anyone else) who find them to be too much.

AAs tend to be very effective builds, particularly when coupled with an effective tank. I tend to prefer the rogue/AA route for their stealth and efficiency in dealing with non-sneak-immune mobs. Interestingly, I would say that HotU chapter 2 is tougher than chapter 3 because roughly half of the four main quests feature crit/sneak immune opponents. But, by the time the PC has access to Rizolvir and some gold, very little is left to challenge him, particularly if one exploits the dialog for the smith. Really, to make HotU more challenging, the first thing to do is to ignore Rizolvir as a smith...

But, keep in mind that there is little point in considering level 40 builds when dealing with the SoU and HotU match-ups. A player is unlikely to be higher than level 10 when he first encounters the SoU shield guardians and will probably be in his lower twenties when he hits the Maker's golems and the cult dracolich.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Sarielle]

               Got to the part in Act 2 where I am forced to solo for a bit ... and didn't crawl into a corner and cry like a little girl as per previous playthroughs. Having a very good time, guys! Things take a bit longer on sneak-attack immune stuff but I've gotten around most things just by packratting scrolls (which, let's face it, I always do this anyway) and using them intelligently. I've also gotten lucky with finding special arrows so I haven't run into any, "Seriously, I am 100% useless" moments.

It'd been so long I totally forgot Drogan died and what Heurodis actually was, hah.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               

Sarielle wrote...
Got to the part in Act 2 where I am forced to solo for a bit ...

Where would that be?  Can't figure out how to thaw out your stoned henchie?  I don't ever remember leaving Deekin behind.  He sulks if I do.