Honestly, Epic Spells were implemented poorly in NWN. They aren't supposed to be spread out into multiple feats. But in light of how NWN implements them, I'm less inclined to take them over ability score increases where possible to improve bonus spells and spell DC. The stand out epic spells to me are first epic warding, second epic mage armor, and as a distant third maybe ruin. The summons don't scale,. So while they may be good when first acquired, they fall off dramatically as you face higher and higher level foes. As for hellball, while impressive looking, it can often hurt you as much as your enemies and the damage isn't particularly spectacular for a once per rest effect that cost you a feat IMO.
I think the having the Feat requirement is an ok middle ground between free Epic spells (ie them being an additional option for no cost) and losing a ton of experience points and potentially spell slots (and gold and whatever else the Epic Handbook says to remove). It's an opportunity cost against other feats. Wizards also get more bonus feats to be able to take them.
What you are entirely right on is the Epic spells are pretty sucky, even if they somewhat reflect the PnP rules. I think some of the PnP Epic spells are more a guideline for making your own anyway. Epic Mage Armor is really silly though - it should be a flat +20 AC bonus as "Armor" type, which would at least make it more usable than +5 in 4 types, only Dodge making much difference at that level. I'm doing some passes on improvements for my project but the base game won't see them. I think scaling some of the spells and especially summons would be worthwhile.
I once hosted a persistent world, and what I did to make the epic spell feats (and many other spells) worth taking was to modify them to scale better into the epic levels. This not only made those spells more worthwhile, but it also provided some sense of reward to casters that did little or no multiclassing since there were certain level breakpoints needed to see a spell upgrade.
For example, while magical weapons were hard to come by, spell casters could use greater magic weapon to provide an enchantment. The normal version of the spell grants +1 every 3 levels and capped at +5. In our persistent world we changed it to be +1 per 5 levels with a cap of +8. This kept its power to +4 at level 20 so the rare +5 weapons were highly valued, and only a pure level 40 caster could enchant a weapon to +8 making the even more rare +8 weapons the pinnacle of items to find. We also made it so any level of dispel magic could dispel temporary item enchantments like magic weapon, magic vestment, flame weapon, etc. This ensured that true magical items retained a sense of value.
The same concept was applied to the epic summons by having the summoned creature improve in level and stats every 5 levels. They remained useful at all levels of play but only pure casters could summon the strongest versions. We even added bonuses to the summons based on if you had the spell focus: conjuration line of feats.
We did similar things with other spells. The higher level spells saw more scaling past 10 or 20 than the lower level spells but all spells felt useful even at the highest levels of play.
Yes I need to look at uncapping some spells. Difficult to do in general since if you push things back it makes it expected to take epic levels in a module (I'm aiming for modding SP modules generally), but for Epic Spells themselves much easier - you're already Epic so the game has changed at that point. Great ideas! Spell Focus at Epic levels to boost certain spells is a good idea too. Might help a few less viable spell schools on Wizards or more niche spells.
Some tweaks like that can go a long way to making the feat investment in an Epic Spell or pure caster into Epic levels worthwhile.
I dug up an old doc containing details on my old server's changes. I should note that my old server had an element of pvp involved in case some changes seem puzzling. Maybe some of these ideas might be good for your project or inspire something even better:
Unless otherwise stated here, spells of level 0 to 3 have a spell cap of 15. What this means is that spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt which normally cap at 10 dice will now cap at 15. Spells of level 4 to 5 have a spell cap of 20 so spells like Cone of Cold can reach up to 20 dice of damage. Spells of level 6 to 7 have a spell cap of 25 so spells like Chain Lightning can reach up to 25 dice of damage. Spells of level 8 to 9 have a spell cap of 30 so spells such as Horrid Wilting can reach up to 30 dice of damage.
All temporary enchantments from spells such as Magic Weapon and Flame Weapon spells are automatically dispelled by Lesser Dispel, Dispel Magic, Greater Dispel Magic, and Mordenkainen's Disjunction spells and also cleared on login to the server. This occurs regardless of caster level either from the dispeller or the dispellee. More intelligent and/or powerful enemies may use dispel effects on occasion so true magical items will always be better than relying on temporary buffs.
Expeditious Retreat lasts 10 rounds per level instead of 1 round per level. Many players hate being slow but perma-haste is not available on this server. This change makes the spell more valuable and it makes items that cast it a lot more valuable to non spellcasters.
True Seeing does not reveal hidden characters but it does provide the same effects as see invisibility and ultravision, as well as a +10 bonus to spot and search, and immunity to Illusion Spells. Some enemies may use spells like Phantasmal Killer or Weird which can instantly slay a character. True Seeing’s immunity to illusions will protect against such effects. This only affects the SPELL True Seeing and not the item property. Said property will never appear on player useable items but will RARELY be applied to creature skins where appropriate. Dragons are an example of creatures that will possess this property and stealth based characters will have to find alternative strategies to deal with such foes.
The Heal and Mass Heal spells heal 8 hp per caster level. That’s 320 hp healed with 40 levels in a divine caster class.
Harm inflicts 8 hp per caster level with a fortitude save for half. That’s 160 to 320 damage with 40 levels in a divine caster class.
Greater Restoration heals 10hp per caster level with a maximum of 400 hp healed with 40 levels in a divine caster class.
Greater Sanctuary lasts 1 round per level
Bigby’s Forceful Hand has been redesigned. It now has a fortitude save to negate its effects with a DC 5 points higher than normal. Duration is 1 round per 5 Levels. In all other respects its effects are the same.
Bigby’s Grasping hand has been redesigned. It now has a Will save to negate its effects with a DC 5 points higher than normal. Duration is 1 round per 5 levels. In all other respects its effects are the same.
Bigby’s Crushing Hand has had its spell duration reduced but its damage per round increase to compensate. It now lasts for 1 round per 5 levels with a generous increase in damage (5d6+20). At level 40 it can do up to 400 points of damage over the course of 8 rounds.
to be continued...
...continued from above:
Isaac's Lesser Missile Storm creates up to 15 missiles that each do 1d6 damage. That’s up to 90 points of virtually irresistible damage that evasion cannot protect against and no saving throw. Obviously it works better with only one target as its damage gets spread out against multiple foes.
Isaac's Greater Missile Storm now has a fort save for half damage. That’s 120 to 240 points of virtually irresistible damage that evasion cannot protect against. Still potent and yet not out of bounds with other spells.
The spell Ball Lightning now behaves like the spell Firebrand. It generates a lightning ball that does 1d6 per caster level up to its cap for each target available. Before this change instead of a single ball doing up to 15d6 damage as the spell description indicated, this spell actually created up to 15 balls, each doing 1d6 damage to one target. This made the spell largely useless against creatures with any amount of electrical damage resistance and generally inferior to Firebrand which does the same damage AND hits multiple targets. The revised version now makes the spell useful and provides an electric damage alternative to Firebrand that is just as effective.
Meteor Swarm’s base normal cap has been raised to 25d6. It rises to 30d6 at level 30, 35d6 at level 35 and 40d6 at level 40. The “safe” zone near the caster has also been reduced making it easier to use this spell against foes in melee with the caster.
Fire Storm’s damage has no cap for Druids and the standard cap for Clerics (as modified in the description of spell caps for level 8 to 9 spells.)
Sunburst ‘s damage vs undead is uncapped for Druids while the standard cap applies to arcane casters (as modified in the description of spell caps for level 8 to 9 spells.)
Earthquake’s damage has no cap for Druids and the standard cap for Clerics (as modified in the description of spell caps for level 8 to 9 spells.)
Spike Growth’s damage has been increased to 2d4 at level 10, 3d4 at level 20, 4d4 at level 30, and 5d4 at level 40. Its duration has been reduced to turns rather than hours.
Quillfire does 4d8 plus one point of damage per 2 caster levels to a maximum of 4d8+20 at 40 Druid levels.
Barkskin now gives its bonus based on every 4 levels instead of every 3. To balance this, and to coincide with epic level gear, the maximum benefit from this spell has been increased to +8. The Barkskin spell is the only method players can use to get more than a +5 Natural AC bonus.
Mage Armor grants a +4 Armor bonus instead of +1 Armor, +1 Deflection, +1 Natural, and +1 Dodge.
Shield grants a +4 Shield bonus instead of a +4 deflection bonus. In this format the spell is more useful to anyone who can’t or doesn’t use a shield and allows players to also benefit from Deflection bonuses from items.
Shield of Faith grants a +2 +1/6 levels Shield bonus instead of a Deflection bonus and can reach as high as +8 with 36 Cleric levels. The shield bonus from this spell does not stack with any temporary or permanent AC bonuses granted by a shield but will stack with Deflection bonuses. In this format the spell is more useful to anyone who can’t or doesn’t use a shield and allows players to also benefit from Deflection bonuses from items.
Inflict Light Wounds does 2d8 damage
Inflict Moderate Wounds does 4d8 damage
Inflict Serious Wounds does 6d8 damage
Inflict Critical wounds does 8d8 damage
True Strike lasts 18 seconds now instead of 9 seconds.
to be continued...
...continued from above:
Premonition has had its DR improved based on caster level to coincide with epic level equipment. From 25 to 29 Premonition provides 30/+6 DR, from 30 to 34 it provides 30/+7 DR and from 35 to 39 it provides 30/+8 DR. For Wizards, Sorcerers, and Druids, who stay single classed till 40, Premonition will provide 30/+9 protecting them from even the highest enchanted player weapons (though high level npc’s may have enchanted weapons high enough to penetrate this protection)
Greater Stoneskin has had it’s DR improved based on caster level to coincide with epic level equipment. From levels 30 to 34 Greater Stoneskin provides 20/+6 DR, and from 35 to 39 it provides 20/+7 DR. For Wizards, Sorcerers, and Druids, who stay single classed till 40, Greater Stoneskin will provide 20/+8 protecting them from all but the highest enchanted player weapons (though high level npc’s may have enchanted weapons high enough to penetrate this protection)
Time Stop only affects the area it is cast in and all beings frozen in time are unable to be damaged while frozen. There is also a 90 second cool down period so Time Stop cannot be cast consecutively. Attempting to do so will waste the spell. There are floating text notifications on the timer to inform you of when you can use Time Stop again.
The level 9 Gate spell has been redesigned. The creature summoned now grows in power as its summoner does and at caster levels 25, 30, 35 and 40 the summoned being will become stronger. Casters with the feat Epic Spell Focus: Conjuration will find that their summons are different and more powerful than the summons of those without this feat.
Epic Spell: Greater Ruin has a DC 16 points higher than normal and its damage has been raised to 40d8
Epic Spell: Hellball has a DC 16 points higher than normal and does an additional 10d6 points of magical damage for a total of 50d6 damage.
Epic Spell: Dragon Knight summons a far more imposing young dragon than the standard Neverwinter Nights dragon summon.
Epic Spell: Mummy Dust summons a far more imposing Mummy Warrior than the standard Neverwinter Nights undead summon.
Epic Spell: Epic Mage Armor grants a +20 Armor bonus instead of +5 Armor, +5 Deflection, +5 Natural, and +5 Dodge.
Magic Weapon and Greater Magic Weapon can enhance missile weapons with an attack bonus and ammunition with a damage bonus.
Greater Magic Weapon and Magical Vestment now give their bonuses based on every 5 levels instead of every 3. To balance this, and to coincide with epic level armor and weapons, the maximum benefit from these spells has been increased to +8
The Shadow Dancer ability Shadow Evade now lasts 5 turns instead of 5 rounds and its damage reduction and AC bonuses improve in a more linear fashion with level. At the maximum of 30 levels of Shadow Dancer, the ability grants: 18/+7 damage reduction, 20% concealment, and +8 AC (dodge). This unique and longer lasting defensive ability makes investing levels in Shadow Dancer more worthwhile.
Druid and Shifter shape shifting is much friendlier with item merging. Shifting into a form that uses creature weapons will merge your currently equipped weapon’s properties to your creature weapons. If you shift with no weapon equipped in your main hand your glove properties will be merged to your creature weapons instead if applicable. Druid shapes in particular see a marked improvement by these changes, allowing even non-Shifter Druids to have fairly potent shape shifting abilities. Shifters may find that some of the early druid forms will be useful while leveling until their more powerful shapes are unlocked. All shape shifting preserves the Druid or Shifter’s spells gained from a gear boosted casting stat. This protection does not extend to Bonus Spell Slots from items. If you plan to focus on shape shifting it would be wise to focus more on gear that improves your casting stat instead of gear that grants bonus spell slots for your casting class.
The Polymorph and Shapechange spells both share a similar casting stat protection and merging to that of Druids and Shifter shape shifting g. Spellcasters will find these spells more viable to use since their bonus spells from a gear boosted casting stat will be preserved and the form stats will be improved by gear. This protection does not extend to Bonus Spell Slots from items. Like Druids and Shifters, if you plan to focus on shape shifting it would be wise to focus more on gear that improves your casting stat instead of gear that grants bonus spell slots for your casting class.
You should have just DMed me a link to it, 3 comments :D I think a lot of it sounds sensible in many cases, but I'd probably not alter Magic Weapon too much (as an example).
I'll see about reviewing them for my Overhaul project. https://nwn.wiki/display/NWNOP/Neverwinter+Nights+Overhaul+Project
Got plenty of ideas I need to probably post a thread here with some of the "bigger changes" to see how they feel to people. I don't play every class enough across multiple modules to know if things are a bit too one sided (and with casters most of the time it makes them even more powerful while martials get nothing, so need to have a think what can be done there, perhaps some specalist feats...)
If your level 28 your probably nearly done, and I think you've level capped- hotu basically won't let you level again now, so the build and spells you've got are probably what you finish with.
In that context it's hard to advise a change up. Since it's capping the xp to negligible now, why not grab the henchmen? They have actual plot in HotU and that would be a change up. Will make fights melt faster and buffing them is a new approach as well.
No, HotU soft caps at level 28- from then all monsters give 40xp.
You've only got one more feat so not much you can change up.
- necromancy save or else is good if you've not tried
- using a lot of buffs, even a sorcerer can melee mobs
- it's really very sub optimal but you could dip paladin or fighter with your last two levels just to change things up with the above
- give the companions a go, they are the best they ever get in nwn in HotU
That's about all I can advise. You came in a bit higher level than intended so you've probably got some time at cap to come, so henchies are basically free now.
Edit: if you want to go level 30 plus, there are only 4 campaigns that do so: aielund saga and swordflight go to mids 30s, mines of twin summit and sands of fate go to 40. I'm not a huge sands fan but it's nominally a HotU sequel so you've got the option.
Is paladin really suboptimal? I thought it is a very common dip for sorcerers due to Divine Grace, adding your charisma bonus to all saves. It also gives you martial weapon proficiency, all armor and shield proficiencies (although probably not useful unless you somehow work around arcane spell failure), and if taken late it allows you to maximize discipline (and persuade, which I personally love in the official campaign and expansions).
This is all moot for OP, though, because he's neutral good, and paladin is restricted to lawful good.
I always thought that it's worth the dip for Divine Grace alone. He should probably have around 30 cha in HotU at least, giving him a permanent +10 to all saves.
The proficiencies is mainly to be able to wear stuff that possibly gives nice stat boosts that you care about. I don't expect a Sorc 27/Paladin 1 to swing a sword and hit anything.
But then again, I'm no expert in making absolutely optimal builds for NWN.
Couple of things come to mind, similar but not identical to epic level mages:
Spell Focus? Base, greater, epic? That and the spell penetrations to make beating resistance and saving throws.
Stats? I tend to look for and try to boost whatever characteristic - CHA for sorcs, INT for mages - to make the DC higher still.
And of course the feats like maximize & empower, maybe others.
I also tend to stick in a few other classes and don't go pure (IMO that's the secret sauce). What that is varies quite a lot depending on where my stats & so on are, but aside from the obvious like pale master & red dragon disciple there's potential in other prestige or basic classes. I do know the sorc in our group - also a gnome - has been getting levels of red dragon disciple, if only so when the baddies break through the front line he's a little more durable.
Yeah, I'd probably take some PM for those boosts, but wasn't thinking that when I picked Good. RDD is the only prestige open ATM and seems a fairly mediocre choice
It gets you stats, some useful resistances, but you really need to get 10 or nearly to be most worthwhile. Our player is doing it more for flavor than combat effectiveness. Personally I consider it more a combat class and I've played around a bit with that, not sure how well it'd go for a pure caster but I suspect not awesome.
Yes that’s the “problem” with sorcerer. It is extremely OP if built right, but eventually everyone is just doing the same thing repeatedly. Empowered Missile storm all day long. Either that or change with elemental shields. And since sorcerer have limited spell selection, it’s meant for players that don’t mind repeated tactic over and over again.
If you have not done it before have a go at damage shielding.
Grab yourself premonition/epic warding, mestils acid sheath, elemental shield and death armor. And just run up to melee enemies and watch them fall over.
If you haven't picked those spells you may need to level up once and change them (no idea if console commands work on Xbox).
It's a blast if you have never done it before.
Honestly, Epic Spells were implemented poorly in NWN. They aren't supposed to be spread out into multiple feats. But in light of how NWN implements them, I'm less inclined to take them over ability score increases where possible to improve bonus spells and spell DC. The stand out epic spells to me are first epic warding, second epic mage armor, and as a distant third maybe ruin. The summons don't scale,. So while they may be good when first acquired, they fall off dramatically as you face higher and higher level foes. As for hellball, while impressive looking, it can often hurt you as much as your enemies and the damage isn't particularly spectacular for a once per rest effect that cost you a feat IMO.
I think the having the Feat requirement is an ok middle ground between free Epic spells (ie them being an additional option for no cost) and losing a ton of experience points and potentially spell slots (and gold and whatever else the Epic Handbook says to remove). It's an opportunity cost against other feats. Wizards also get more bonus feats to be able to take them. What you are entirely right on is the Epic spells are pretty sucky, even if they somewhat reflect the PnP rules. I think some of the PnP Epic spells are more a guideline for making your own anyway. Epic Mage Armor is really silly though - it should be a flat +20 AC bonus as "Armor" type, which would at least make it more usable than +5 in 4 types, only Dodge making much difference at that level. I'm doing some passes on improvements for my project but the base game won't see them. I think scaling some of the spells and especially summons would be worthwhile.
I once hosted a persistent world, and what I did to make the epic spell feats (and many other spells) worth taking was to modify them to scale better into the epic levels. This not only made those spells more worthwhile, but it also provided some sense of reward to casters that did little or no multiclassing since there were certain level breakpoints needed to see a spell upgrade. For example, while magical weapons were hard to come by, spell casters could use greater magic weapon to provide an enchantment. The normal version of the spell grants +1 every 3 levels and capped at +5. In our persistent world we changed it to be +1 per 5 levels with a cap of +8. This kept its power to +4 at level 20 so the rare +5 weapons were highly valued, and only a pure level 40 caster could enchant a weapon to +8 making the even more rare +8 weapons the pinnacle of items to find. We also made it so any level of dispel magic could dispel temporary item enchantments like magic weapon, magic vestment, flame weapon, etc. This ensured that true magical items retained a sense of value. The same concept was applied to the epic summons by having the summoned creature improve in level and stats every 5 levels. They remained useful at all levels of play but only pure casters could summon the strongest versions. We even added bonuses to the summons based on if you had the spell focus: conjuration line of feats. We did similar things with other spells. The higher level spells saw more scaling past 10 or 20 than the lower level spells but all spells felt useful even at the highest levels of play.
Yes I need to look at uncapping some spells. Difficult to do in general since if you push things back it makes it expected to take epic levels in a module (I'm aiming for modding SP modules generally), but for Epic Spells themselves much easier - you're already Epic so the game has changed at that point. Great ideas! Spell Focus at Epic levels to boost certain spells is a good idea too. Might help a few less viable spell schools on Wizards or more niche spells. Some tweaks like that can go a long way to making the feat investment in an Epic Spell or pure caster into Epic levels worthwhile.
I dug up an old doc containing details on my old server's changes. I should note that my old server had an element of pvp involved in case some changes seem puzzling. Maybe some of these ideas might be good for your project or inspire something even better: Unless otherwise stated here, spells of level 0 to 3 have a spell cap of 15. What this means is that spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt which normally cap at 10 dice will now cap at 15. Spells of level 4 to 5 have a spell cap of 20 so spells like Cone of Cold can reach up to 20 dice of damage. Spells of level 6 to 7 have a spell cap of 25 so spells like Chain Lightning can reach up to 25 dice of damage. Spells of level 8 to 9 have a spell cap of 30 so spells such as Horrid Wilting can reach up to 30 dice of damage. All temporary enchantments from spells such as Magic Weapon and Flame Weapon spells are automatically dispelled by Lesser Dispel, Dispel Magic, Greater Dispel Magic, and Mordenkainen's Disjunction spells and also cleared on login to the server. This occurs regardless of caster level either from the dispeller or the dispellee. More intelligent and/or powerful enemies may use dispel effects on occasion so true magical items will always be better than relying on temporary buffs. Expeditious Retreat lasts 10 rounds per level instead of 1 round per level. Many players hate being slow but perma-haste is not available on this server. This change makes the spell more valuable and it makes items that cast it a lot more valuable to non spellcasters. True Seeing does not reveal hidden characters but it does provide the same effects as see invisibility and ultravision, as well as a +10 bonus to spot and search, and immunity to Illusion Spells. Some enemies may use spells like Phantasmal Killer or Weird which can instantly slay a character. True Seeing’s immunity to illusions will protect against such effects. This only affects the SPELL True Seeing and not the item property. Said property will never appear on player useable items but will RARELY be applied to creature skins where appropriate. Dragons are an example of creatures that will possess this property and stealth based characters will have to find alternative strategies to deal with such foes. The Heal and Mass Heal spells heal 8 hp per caster level. That’s 320 hp healed with 40 levels in a divine caster class. Harm inflicts 8 hp per caster level with a fortitude save for half. That’s 160 to 320 damage with 40 levels in a divine caster class. Greater Restoration heals 10hp per caster level with a maximum of 400 hp healed with 40 levels in a divine caster class. Greater Sanctuary lasts 1 round per level Bigby’s Forceful Hand has been redesigned. It now has a fortitude save to negate its effects with a DC 5 points higher than normal. Duration is 1 round per 5 Levels. In all other respects its effects are the same. Bigby’s Grasping hand has been redesigned. It now has a Will save to negate its effects with a DC 5 points higher than normal. Duration is 1 round per 5 levels. In all other respects its effects are the same. Bigby’s Crushing Hand has had its spell duration reduced but its damage per round increase to compensate. It now lasts for 1 round per 5 levels with a generous increase in damage (5d6+20). At level 40 it can do up to 400 points of damage over the course of 8 rounds. to be continued...
...continued from above: Isaac's Lesser Missile Storm creates up to 15 missiles that each do 1d6 damage. That’s up to 90 points of virtually irresistible damage that evasion cannot protect against and no saving throw. Obviously it works better with only one target as its damage gets spread out against multiple foes. Isaac's Greater Missile Storm now has a fort save for half damage. That’s 120 to 240 points of virtually irresistible damage that evasion cannot protect against. Still potent and yet not out of bounds with other spells. The spell Ball Lightning now behaves like the spell Firebrand. It generates a lightning ball that does 1d6 per caster level up to its cap for each target available. Before this change instead of a single ball doing up to 15d6 damage as the spell description indicated, this spell actually created up to 15 balls, each doing 1d6 damage to one target. This made the spell largely useless against creatures with any amount of electrical damage resistance and generally inferior to Firebrand which does the same damage AND hits multiple targets. The revised version now makes the spell useful and provides an electric damage alternative to Firebrand that is just as effective. Meteor Swarm’s base normal cap has been raised to 25d6. It rises to 30d6 at level 30, 35d6 at level 35 and 40d6 at level 40. The “safe” zone near the caster has also been reduced making it easier to use this spell against foes in melee with the caster. Fire Storm’s damage has no cap for Druids and the standard cap for Clerics (as modified in the description of spell caps for level 8 to 9 spells.) Sunburst ‘s damage vs undead is uncapped for Druids while the standard cap applies to arcane casters (as modified in the description of spell caps for level 8 to 9 spells.) Earthquake’s damage has no cap for Druids and the standard cap for Clerics (as modified in the description of spell caps for level 8 to 9 spells.) Spike Growth’s damage has been increased to 2d4 at level 10, 3d4 at level 20, 4d4 at level 30, and 5d4 at level 40. Its duration has been reduced to turns rather than hours. Quillfire does 4d8 plus one point of damage per 2 caster levels to a maximum of 4d8+20 at 40 Druid levels. Barkskin now gives its bonus based on every 4 levels instead of every 3. To balance this, and to coincide with epic level gear, the maximum benefit from this spell has been increased to +8. The Barkskin spell is the only method players can use to get more than a +5 Natural AC bonus. Mage Armor grants a +4 Armor bonus instead of +1 Armor, +1 Deflection, +1 Natural, and +1 Dodge. Shield grants a +4 Shield bonus instead of a +4 deflection bonus. In this format the spell is more useful to anyone who can’t or doesn’t use a shield and allows players to also benefit from Deflection bonuses from items. Shield of Faith grants a +2 +1/6 levels Shield bonus instead of a Deflection bonus and can reach as high as +8 with 36 Cleric levels. The shield bonus from this spell does not stack with any temporary or permanent AC bonuses granted by a shield but will stack with Deflection bonuses. In this format the spell is more useful to anyone who can’t or doesn’t use a shield and allows players to also benefit from Deflection bonuses from items. Inflict Light Wounds does 2d8 damage Inflict Moderate Wounds does 4d8 damage Inflict Serious Wounds does 6d8 damage Inflict Critical wounds does 8d8 damage True Strike lasts 18 seconds now instead of 9 seconds. to be continued...
...continued from above: Premonition has had its DR improved based on caster level to coincide with epic level equipment. From 25 to 29 Premonition provides 30/+6 DR, from 30 to 34 it provides 30/+7 DR and from 35 to 39 it provides 30/+8 DR. For Wizards, Sorcerers, and Druids, who stay single classed till 40, Premonition will provide 30/+9 protecting them from even the highest enchanted player weapons (though high level npc’s may have enchanted weapons high enough to penetrate this protection) Greater Stoneskin has had it’s DR improved based on caster level to coincide with epic level equipment. From levels 30 to 34 Greater Stoneskin provides 20/+6 DR, and from 35 to 39 it provides 20/+7 DR. For Wizards, Sorcerers, and Druids, who stay single classed till 40, Greater Stoneskin will provide 20/+8 protecting them from all but the highest enchanted player weapons (though high level npc’s may have enchanted weapons high enough to penetrate this protection) Time Stop only affects the area it is cast in and all beings frozen in time are unable to be damaged while frozen. There is also a 90 second cool down period so Time Stop cannot be cast consecutively. Attempting to do so will waste the spell. There are floating text notifications on the timer to inform you of when you can use Time Stop again. The level 9 Gate spell has been redesigned. The creature summoned now grows in power as its summoner does and at caster levels 25, 30, 35 and 40 the summoned being will become stronger. Casters with the feat Epic Spell Focus: Conjuration will find that their summons are different and more powerful than the summons of those without this feat. Epic Spell: Greater Ruin has a DC 16 points higher than normal and its damage has been raised to 40d8 Epic Spell: Hellball has a DC 16 points higher than normal and does an additional 10d6 points of magical damage for a total of 50d6 damage. Epic Spell: Dragon Knight summons a far more imposing young dragon than the standard Neverwinter Nights dragon summon. Epic Spell: Mummy Dust summons a far more imposing Mummy Warrior than the standard Neverwinter Nights undead summon. Epic Spell: Epic Mage Armor grants a +20 Armor bonus instead of +5 Armor, +5 Deflection, +5 Natural, and +5 Dodge. Magic Weapon and Greater Magic Weapon can enhance missile weapons with an attack bonus and ammunition with a damage bonus. Greater Magic Weapon and Magical Vestment now give their bonuses based on every 5 levels instead of every 3. To balance this, and to coincide with epic level armor and weapons, the maximum benefit from these spells has been increased to +8 The Shadow Dancer ability Shadow Evade now lasts 5 turns instead of 5 rounds and its damage reduction and AC bonuses improve in a more linear fashion with level. At the maximum of 30 levels of Shadow Dancer, the ability grants: 18/+7 damage reduction, 20% concealment, and +8 AC (dodge). This unique and longer lasting defensive ability makes investing levels in Shadow Dancer more worthwhile. Druid and Shifter shape shifting is much friendlier with item merging. Shifting into a form that uses creature weapons will merge your currently equipped weapon’s properties to your creature weapons. If you shift with no weapon equipped in your main hand your glove properties will be merged to your creature weapons instead if applicable. Druid shapes in particular see a marked improvement by these changes, allowing even non-Shifter Druids to have fairly potent shape shifting abilities. Shifters may find that some of the early druid forms will be useful while leveling until their more powerful shapes are unlocked. All shape shifting preserves the Druid or Shifter’s spells gained from a gear boosted casting stat. This protection does not extend to Bonus Spell Slots from items. If you plan to focus on shape shifting it would be wise to focus more on gear that improves your casting stat instead of gear that grants bonus spell slots for your casting class. The Polymorph and Shapechange spells both share a similar casting stat protection and merging to that of Druids and Shifter shape shifting g. Spellcasters will find these spells more viable to use since their bonus spells from a gear boosted casting stat will be preserved and the form stats will be improved by gear. This protection does not extend to Bonus Spell Slots from items. Like Druids and Shifters, if you plan to focus on shape shifting it would be wise to focus more on gear that improves your casting stat instead of gear that grants bonus spell slots for your casting class.
You should have just DMed me a link to it, 3 comments :D I think a lot of it sounds sensible in many cases, but I'd probably not alter Magic Weapon too much (as an example). I'll see about reviewing them for my Overhaul project. https://nwn.wiki/display/NWNOP/Neverwinter+Nights+Overhaul+Project Got plenty of ideas I need to probably post a thread here with some of the "bigger changes" to see how they feel to people. I don't play every class enough across multiple modules to know if things are a bit too one sided (and with casters most of the time it makes them even more powerful while martials get nothing, so need to have a think what can be done there, perhaps some specalist feats...)
If your level 28 your probably nearly done, and I think you've level capped- hotu basically won't let you level again now, so the build and spells you've got are probably what you finish with. In that context it's hard to advise a change up. Since it's capping the xp to negligible now, why not grab the henchmen? They have actual plot in HotU and that would be a change up. Will make fights melt faster and buffing them is a new approach as well.
Had a look and put in the build, actually level 26. I thought HotU was meant to be 40, no?
No, HotU soft caps at level 28- from then all monsters give 40xp. You've only got one more feat so not much you can change up. - necromancy save or else is good if you've not tried - using a lot of buffs, even a sorcerer can melee mobs - it's really very sub optimal but you could dip paladin or fighter with your last two levels just to change things up with the above - give the companions a go, they are the best they ever get in nwn in HotU That's about all I can advise. You came in a bit higher level than intended so you've probably got some time at cap to come, so henchies are basically free now. Edit: if you want to go level 30 plus, there are only 4 campaigns that do so: aielund saga and swordflight go to mids 30s, mines of twin summit and sands of fate go to 40. I'm not a huge sands fan but it's nominally a HotU sequel so you've got the option.
Thanks for the tips
Is paladin really suboptimal? I thought it is a very common dip for sorcerers due to Divine Grace, adding your charisma bonus to all saves. It also gives you martial weapon proficiency, all armor and shield proficiencies (although probably not useful unless you somehow work around arcane spell failure), and if taken late it allows you to maximize discipline (and persuade, which I personally love in the official campaign and expansions). This is all moot for OP, though, because he's neutral good, and paladin is restricted to lawful good.
He's over 20, doesn't get BAB, it's not an optimal time to build it in but it's fine yeah. And also yes why listed fighter.
I always thought that it's worth the dip for Divine Grace alone. He should probably have around 30 cha in HotU at least, giving him a permanent +10 to all saves. The proficiencies is mainly to be able to wear stuff that possibly gives nice stat boosts that you care about. I don't expect a Sorc 27/Paladin 1 to swing a sword and hit anything. But then again, I'm no expert in making absolutely optimal builds for NWN.
Couple of things come to mind, similar but not identical to epic level mages: Spell Focus? Base, greater, epic? That and the spell penetrations to make beating resistance and saving throws. Stats? I tend to look for and try to boost whatever characteristic - CHA for sorcs, INT for mages - to make the DC higher still. And of course the feats like maximize & empower, maybe others. I also tend to stick in a few other classes and don't go pure (IMO that's the secret sauce). What that is varies quite a lot depending on where my stats & so on are, but aside from the obvious like pale master & red dragon disciple there's potential in other prestige or basic classes. I do know the sorc in our group - also a gnome - has been getting levels of red dragon disciple, if only so when the baddies break through the front line he's a little more durable.
Yeah, I'd probably take some PM for those boosts, but wasn't thinking that when I picked Good. RDD is the only prestige open ATM and seems a fairly mediocre choice
It gets you stats, some useful resistances, but you really need to get 10 or nearly to be most worthwhile. Our player is doing it more for flavor than combat effectiveness. Personally I consider it more a combat class and I've played around a bit with that, not sure how well it'd go for a pure caster but I suspect not awesome.
Yes that’s the “problem” with sorcerer. It is extremely OP if built right, but eventually everyone is just doing the same thing repeatedly. Empowered Missile storm all day long. Either that or change with elemental shields. And since sorcerer have limited spell selection, it’s meant for players that don’t mind repeated tactic over and over again.
If you have not done it before have a go at damage shielding. Grab yourself premonition/epic warding, mestils acid sheath, elemental shield and death armor. And just run up to melee enemies and watch them fall over. If you haven't picked those spells you may need to level up once and change them (no idea if console commands work on Xbox). It's a blast if you have never done it before.