Aelis Eine wrote...
MagicalMaster wrote...
You say "1000 HP" and I think "Oh, four Maximized IGMSes will leave it at 40 HP to finish off, I can do that in 12 seconds. If I Time Stop, I could kill it with three Time Stops and five Empowered IGMSes and the other guy wouldn't even be able to move."
If by "mob" the OP meant trash in a mod with rest restrictions, that would be a pretty inefficient use of spells =p
Yup, I'm talking about regular enemies who are filling a whole dungeon and with limited resting. I don't see IGMS as that impressive in that case. Against a single target and especially a player who is actually bound by the rules it might be pretty dangerous I admit but I'm talking mainly about PVE now.
You're right, that is very common. Reason is probably balance within
other spells or PvP. The bigby hands are most common nerfed spell, IGMS
second one. IGMS against one target does most damage at all. Since this
is 6th spell lvl, you can memorise it silent at 7, empower at 8 and
maximize at 9, so pure caster can have around 30times. Since IGMS has no
save, but other spells its the only spell at epic that casters uses and
then players simply spam this on anyone. DMs often don't like this
tactic so they are often nerfing this spell instead they would add
damage vulnerabilities, lessen saving throws of monsters etc.
Yup. The problem is that they fail to realize IMO that the reason why everybody spams IGMS isn't that its that super powerful to require nerfing but because there is no alternative for offensive spells. At least I don't know one. Or mages should be content with casting their pitifully weak Meteor Swarms, wasting their few precious slots then get killed?
Introducing vulnerabilities and lessening saving throws would definitely help though to make save or suck or even other damaging spells viable. Of course what do we expect when the OC campaings themselves aren't balanced that way? In HOTU the Ice Trolls constantly saved my 40+ dc spells for example...
IDK about Bigby. Its a lvl 9 spell and is only effective against a single target though that target won't go anywhere for a while thats for sure( even most bosses can't resist it in my experience). It won't kill it though. I still don't consider it the most broken thing in the game myself.
Well thats obviously wrong, empowered spell still has spell level of the
default spell in PnP. Thus I guess that normal spell memorised on
higher level will do also - I couldnt find this information in rules,
but it would be extremely imbalanced otherwise so it makes sense.
Made a test today and it seems to be as its in PnP so my fault here.
You misunderstand me, in PnP you take single feat at epic levels
and that will allow you to attain 10th and higher spell slots where you
can memorise much more spells. So its even more useful than you
thought.
Seeing that, my own research and my experience with the PRC I think things would be better if more things would've been implemented from the PNP rules for casters. Simple things like a proper epic spellcasting system, actually caster oriented PRcs( Archmage, Red Wizard) or spells like teleport are already making things easier for casters imo. Those slots would be anoher step or that doubling metamagic feat. These things won't save you from the insane hp inflation problems themselves but if BW cared to implement epic casters better then we may have a more balanced game now IMO.
Well the PRC has both these classes. If you want to have dual
spellcasting progression in NWN without PRC thats possible too but only
with prestige class. To do it you would have to edit classes.2da and
collumns ArcSpellLvlMod and DivSpellLvlMod to values of 1(+1CL per lvl of this PrC) or 2 (+1CL at each odd lvl of this PrC)
Sorry, I always forget that Warlock is supposed to be an arcane class too, not divine. In that case I just need to adapt the Eldrict Theurge prc right?
Some PWs will nerf high-level arcanists even without making any spell
changes by simply placing spell resistances, spell immunities, improved
evasion, uber save levels, elemental immunities/resistances, magic
damage resistance/immunity etc. on their monster skins. Pretty much
makes them impervious to offensive casting effects and takes arcanists
completely out of the mix, probably because balancing their presence is
so difficult without complete spellcasting reconstruction.
So far Dungeon Spawner and Good vs Evil are the only modules I saw which allow epic play( idk that much about PWs) but aren't doing this. The mobs still have super health, devcrit and insane damage potential but at least I can kill things provided I'm a necromancer or prc transmuter.
The thing about epic level NWN is that it kind of has its classes on backwards.
In
NWN, high level mages are Con-based tanks that run around with damage
shields up and attract aggro so that things kill themselves by attacking
it. To that extent, it has the epic spell, Epic Warding to absorb
damage, and Acid Sheath and Elemental Shield which don't have damage
caps and when combined with Death Armor for good measure, return 135.5
damage on average every time someone hits it. Suppose that someone is a
dual wielding Monk with 10 attacks per round, the mage does 1355 damage
in 6 seconds just by standing there.
Conversely, high level
sword/shield/heavy armor fighters are usually squishy damage dealers
because their AC is capped by plate armor and they lack defensive
abilities unless they multiclass into caster classes like Red Dragon
Disciple or Pale Master, or they go Dwarven Defender, except Dwarven
Defender requires 13 Dex, but has no Strength requirement. However,
Strength-based fighters have a chance to instantly kill on a crit due to
Dev Crit.
And high level Rogues are healers because unless they
multiclass into Weapon Master or Arcane Archer, they tend to fall so far
behind in AB that they have trouble hitting things in epic levels.
However, they have the skill points to dump into stealth skills and Heal
and can use Heal kits without breaking stealth. With Use Magic Device,
they also get access to scrolls and wands for all classes, giving them a
wider selection of those to cast from than pure casters.
Once you get used to reversing your frame of thought, the classes become a lot easier to work with 
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Well of course there are ways I suppose to play arcanists effectively even with these rules and its actually very impressive that the community found ways to turn any class into a killing machine
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But I never really wanted to think about such a build because when game mechanics and what they are supposed to represent are so much at odds, it just stops being fun to me. I don't want to say that I'm an RP er or such and don't care about my character build because it isn't the case. I like if my character is as powerful as possible and can take on any chalange. But if a mage isn't a mage anymore but a tank then it feels weird to me. Same with Dragon Age BTW. Best mage? Arcane Warrior tank.... Seems like a Bioware thing.
Still my builder side is a bit fascinated so I'll try to make something like that. Any advice? Int/cha till I can cast lvl 9, then the rest to con? Take Extend spell and toughness I suppose.
And you can Shapechange to an Iron Golem with those shields on...yummy!
Only do so with m0bs/Bosses who have very high AB, otherwise it defeats
the purpose.
Well IG is seems like a requirement since even in Infinite Dungeons every mob is DevCritting anything they can find. My familiar and at least two quest givers tasted it already
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The PRC still exists, a few of us still lurk about on its page. prc.athasreborn.com/index.php
Thanks for the heads up! Honestly I didn't know if anybody is still there, but I'm glad this great mod still has some people left( got a few question I wanted to and will ask there). Though I read that there won't any new releases
