43 réponses à ce sujet

[Arkalezth]

The Fred wrote...

The Stormlord PrC is a lot more powerful, but quite restrictive. You basically have to use a spear (or throwing weapons), you have to follow Talos, and I think that means you even have to be evil, or at least non-good or something.

That's not true in NWN2. It should be restricted to Talos, but game mechanics allow you to follow any deity.

[Haplose]

The Fred wrote...
As for domains, the easiest way to think of them is as two bonus feats. Those benefits (e.g. Luck, Blind-Fight, Evasion, Weapon Proficiency & Focus) tend to be more important than the bonus spells you get, though the latter aren't to be sniffed at - for a pure casting Cleric, something like the Magic domain is pretty potent. Note that you can take a single level of Cleric just for the domains, but then you have multiclassing issues.

Well, that's a bit of a narrow view. Domains are so much more then free feats (many don't even give significant free feats). Picking domains just for the feats is fine for a cleric splash (taken for example to get the divine feats via Turn Undead - like a FS would), but for a serious cleric the additionall spells can be just as - or more important. Having spells like Assay Resistance, Displacement, Greater Invisibility, Mirror Image, Greater Heroism, Premonition, Ice Storm, Barkskin, Spell Mantle can be very potent and valuable for a Cleric, who would have no access to them otherwise.

[Centra28]

What are some of the more valuable domains? Looking through the list, my assumptions are the following:

Air (for the chain lightning)
Healing
Knowledge and/or Magic (for the extra spells)
Protection
Sun (powerfull aoe spell)
Undeath

[painofdungeoneternal]

Domains which are helpful - tend to not focus on particular ones:
Any that give ice storm, it's bugged so it's going to ignore all immunity in default game so it's basically all magic damage, with a good chunk no save. Any of the other offensive spells not in the cleric list are like this.

Any which give improved evasion, uncanny dodge rogue type feats. One of which is only important if its working ( which will be soon i think on my PW but need to test ). Very important to ignore damage from opponent AOE's, and maintaining your AC when it works is a lifesaver.

Any which give mantles or other protections. The kaedrin domains really are uber with adding bigby spells

Strength domain - if you use divine power and especially if it's something which can be extended/persisted where you play. ( Especially if divine power is not capped )

Trickery Domain - invisibility.

( Sun ( for a turner ), magic, air, cold ( polar ray is pretty cool too ), trickery are generally the ones i focus on. )

[Haplose]

I'd say Magic(Mage Armor, Assay Resistance, Spell Mantle), Plant (Barkskin to free the amulet slot for a Wisdom item + snares), Time (Premonition), Earth (particulary for a StormLord multiclass, which needs the Toughness feat + Soneskin), Water (Evasion + Ice Storm), maybe Strenght (mainy for melee-focused clerics, to get these extra lower-level Divine Powers). Definately War with Kaedrin's pack for the Holy Warrior feat + maybe if you want StormLord and are feat starved, then without Kaedrin's PrC pack as well. Finally Animal if you like pets + True Sight (which is not very usefull in the official campaigns).

As for your picks:
Air: Chain Lightning is not bad, but as a cleric you have too many good level 6 spells already. You need to fit Heals, Harms, Blade Barriers there already. Not to mention Energy Immunity, Stone Body and Superior Resistance. And Blade Barrier is superior to Chain Lightning... well at least in theory.
Healing: At lower levels Healing Kits + some Healing skill are more efficient then spells anyway. At higher levels you mainly use Heal, Mass Heal and Restoration - spells that don't get any benefit from this domain. Well, the main long-term advantage is pushing Heal 1 level earlier. Hardly worth it in my opinion.
Knowledge: Spells to help idenify stuff + True Sight + C/C? With good lore on any party member you already identify everything, without needing spells. If you don't, paying 100 gold to any shopkeeper is enough. True Sight is pretty much useless in the OC, maybe it would be more usefull in some multiplayer campaigns/worlds. C/C - ditto.
Protection? Immunity to level 2 spells? At level 7? Hiding behing some barrier thingy? Come on. Why would you do that, if you can simply demolish everything in sight.
Sun - okay, if fighting Undead is your focus, this can work. Pretty much useless otherwise though. And to put it into good use you also need high Charisma to fuel Turn Undead. Maybe also consider the DoomGuide PrC for stronger Turning.
Undeath - Some useless summons? No. Okay, at levels 3-7 the Animate Dead can be pretty usefull. But becomes weak later on.

Edit: Well okay, Pain is as usually correct, Polar Ray from cold is cool as well.

Modifié par Haplose, 03 octobre 2011 - 08:43 .

[Arkalezth]

Trickery also gets you Feint without need for the usual requisites (13 INT, Combat Expertise). Maybe not so useful for a pure cleric, but it can be very good if you multiclass.

[Haplose]

True, definately a lot of potential there, though not for a typical Cleric.

[M. Rieder]

I once did a fire and ice domain for fireball, ice storm, and I believe wall of fire. I remember it being a fairly fun combination.

[The Fred]

Back in NWN1 I just used to take Magic and suchlike all the time for the far better spells. However, the feat benefits in NWN2 are way better. As I said, they tend to outclass or at least be more obviously good than the spells. If you are going for a casting-focused Cleric (less usual, at least as far as powergaming goes), they can offer some potent options (even a classic Divine Might meleer can take Strength for 3rd level Divine Might).

Things like Healing and Protection aren't bad, but they're not very exciting or manly. Personally I like Chaos and Luck, as Slippery Mind and Luck of Heroes are hard to get (well, you can get Spellcasting Prodigy AND LoH this way) as a Cleric. Evasion is good too but you need a good Reflex in the first place, and two levels of Monk or suchlike will give you it. I think there are some less obvious but still good options, though.

Either way, domains are very potent things which Favoured Souls just don't get. You get them at L1, too.

Re the Stormlord/Talos thing, yeah, I forgot it's not actually restricted, but it should be. Anyway I just don't like the flavour of Stormlord (the flavour in terms of Talos and whatnot, I mean).

[Arkalezth]

Time also lets you persist Haste, I believe that wasn't mentioned. Other hard to get feats are movement increases from Travel and Plant.

Maybe a bit off-topic, but the best use for Healing domain could be as a dip for bards (as long as you take healing spells), because they don't gain Heal at higher levels. Well, or for cleric if you're not going to reach a high level.

[Centra28]

Haplose wrote...

I'd say Magic(Mage Armor, Assay Resistance, Spell Mantle), Plant (Barkskin to free the amulet slot for a Wisdom item + snares), Time (Premonition), Earth (particulary for a StormLord multiclass, which needs the Toughness feat + Soneskin), Water (Evasion + Ice Storm), maybe Strenght (mainy for melee-focused clerics, to get these extra lower-level Divine Powers). Definately War with Kaedrin's pack for the Holy Warrior feat + maybe if you want StormLord and are feat starved, then without Kaedrin's PrC pack as well. Finally Animal if you like pets + True Sight (which is not very usefull in the official campaigns).

As for your picks:
Air: Chain Lightning is not bad, but as a cleric you have too many good level 6 spells already. You need to fit Heals, Harms, Blade Barriers there already. Not to mention Energy Immunity, Stone Body and Superior Resistance. And Blade Barrier is superior to Chain Lightning... well at least in theory.
Healing: At lower levels Healing Kits + some Healing skill are more efficient then spells anyway. At higher levels you mainly use Heal, Mass Heal and Restoration - spells that don't get any benefit from this domain. Well, the main long-term advantage is pushing Heal 1 level earlier. Hardly worth it in my opinion.
Knowledge: Spells to help idenify stuff + True Sight + C/C? With good lore on any party member you already identify everything, without needing spells. If you don't, paying 100 gold to any shopkeeper is enough. True Sight is pretty much useless in the OC, maybe it would be more usefull in some multiplayer campaigns/worlds. C/C - ditto.
Protection? Immunity to level 2 spells? At level 7? Hiding behing some barrier thingy? Come on. Why would you do that, if you can simply demolish everything in sight.
Sun - okay, if fighting Undead is your focus, this can work. Pretty much useless otherwise though. And to put it into good use you also need high Charisma to fuel Turn Undead. Maybe also consider the DoomGuide PrC for stronger Turning.
Undeath - Some useless summons? No. Okay, at levels 3-7 the Animate Dead can be pretty usefull. But becomes weak later on.

Edit: Well okay, Pain is as usually correct, Polar Ray from cold is cool as well.

Ok, humor me here.  What 2 domains would you pick for...

Melee focused Cleric

Caster foruced Cleric

[Haplose]

There is not one good answer to this, as it depends on several factors ,
mainly:
1. Your build
2. What environment you'll be playing in
3. Whether you have Kaedrins PrC pack installed. Well, for now, in order to not make things overly complicated, I will assume that you don't.

So Let's see. A melee focused Cleric.
1. Will you take the overpowered StormLord class? It has pretty steep feat requirements and Earth domain coud ease that burden. Maybe even pick War too (with a deity that favours Spears), then it's just one feat left and you're ready to rock.
2. Otherwise (or if you're somehow not feat-starved on a SL build) I guess I's go with Water (try to improve that Reflex save via Spellcraft and spells to get the most bang out of Evasion and Ice Storm is good) and Time (Premonition is a high-end protective spell and Haste at level 3 is nice for a cleric... and as Ark mentioned, you can even Persist is eventually).
Or maybe Strenght, can you Persist Divine Power as a level 3 domain spell? In theory you should be able to, but I'm not so sure about how it works in practice. If you can, Strenght would be very attractive, as Divine Power is the most important spell for a melee focused cleric. Turns you into a Fighter on steroids.

Now caster focused clerics...
1. Magic (Assay Resistance will allow you to pierce spell resistances of those nasty enemies who have them and win through magic despite their protections, while Spell Mantle will protect you from hostile spells in a caster duel... oh and Mage Armor is actually quite usefull for quite long as well).
2. If it's for the OC and MotB campaign, maybe pick Sun for Undead bashing (SunBeam is exordinarily strong against undead and vampires in particular). Otherwise I guess that would be Water. Evasion + Ice Storm combo is hard to pass on. But if you plan on multiclassing to a Monk, what you might very well do with a caster-focused cleric, then you get Evasion for free from monk and usefullness of that domain is diminished. If not for the OC and/or MotB and with Monk, then maybe Cold for the great single-target damage with no save on Polar Ray.

Modifié par Haplose, 04 octobre 2011 - 06:15 .

[Centra28]

Ok, well the time for talk is over. I'm eventually just going to have to "play it out", and get the feel for it myself. Considering that, I finally settled on a Cleric. Seems to be all the rage. I really like what you (Haplose) suggested about a melee cleric persueing Stormlord, so that's what I did! I took Earth and War domains, and snatched up greater fortitude on creation as my feat. So the only prerequisites left are lvl 3 Divine spells, I believe... I kind of had my eye on Stormlord already, I just couldn't pin down exactly what prestige class I wanted to persue. The suggestions above helped me narrow it down. I'm not sure about it being OP, but I'm just planning on playing through teh OC with it for now.

Thanks for the great thread. A lot of good info here.

[Arkalezth]

Centra28 wrote...
I'm not sure about it being OP

It's one of, if not the, most OP class in the game.

Haplose wrote...

Or maybe Strenght, can you Persist Divine
Power as a level 3 domain spell? In theory you should be able to, but
I'm not so sure about how it works in practice.

Definitely not in the vanilla game. Not so sure if you use Reeron's Spell Fixes and Improvements (don't remember if that's the exact name), as it lets you persist some other spells, like Displacement. I don't remember about Divine Power, but I don't think you can.

[painofdungeoneternal]

Divine power is not set like that by default.

It's pretty common to do that for various PW's and custom content.

I actually turned it off, since the effect has some wonky properties.

If you apply it, it's applied for the entire duration, which makes perfect sense, and if it's not removed in any way it works as expected.

However if it's dispelled or ends prior to it's original duration, it bugs out until that original duration expires, or until the player rests. I try to think of it as the remove effect function only removes the beneficial part the player wants, and it ends up blocking.

When this happens the game will not let you apply the effect.

This makes it seem like you can only cast it once and must rest, and i've been in quite a few pickles trying to get it back up and finding it no longer works. By keeping the duration normal, it ensures this is not going to happen too often for end users, i cannot fix the underlying issue, but allowing it to be persisted ends up making the player locked out of this for the entire day, instead of just for the combat duration.

There are some ideas to solve this ( per round application for example ), but this tends to start being a bit much.

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 05 octobre 2011 - 06:03 .

[The Fred]

If you're casting Divine Power as a 3rd-level spell, you probably *should* be able to persist it, but hey.

For domains, War is great, especially if you chose a martial or exotic weapon, since you gain a proficiency as well as weapon focus. It's like getting two free feats. For a melee type, Darkness can save you a feat on Blind-Fight.

Luck, Chaos and Water are pretty much always good. Stuff like Earth is not bad, but in terms of the feat bonus you can get it easily without much trouble (like Darkness' Blind-Fight).

For a caster, Magic is probably a strong choice, but the above ones are pretty nice and they're mostly defensive so they apply to most characters. Evasion + Slippery Mind will make you pretty resilient as far as saving throws go, for example.

[Centra28]

I just read through this thread again, and this is an excellent thread. especially for someone who is new to the game. A lot of great information here.

As it turns out, not a big fan of Divine magic - therefor, not a big fan of Cleric. I'm not too hip on the Stormlord either. I just don't like having to spend a min or two before each combat bout buffing my character up just to contend on the same level as my companions. Turns out I'm a simple kind of guy, I like simple melee damage, or a nuking wiz or sorc such as Qara. In fact I have more fun playing Qara than I do my own character heh. As for the spell type, I would have preferred the Favored Soul/Socr method. But I wouldn't have known had I not gone out and just done it. It just goes to show that you have to play around a bit to figure out your play style. I am happy that I chose to pursue the SL class because now I know exactly how I feel about it. If I had not, I would have always wondered.

[Dann-J]

I've had some success with a tank stormlord (fullplate, tower shield + monkey grip) in SoZ. He was quite effective in melee combat simply by using the Shock/Shocking Burst weapon feats to further enhance his spear damage before rushing in. The Enhanced Weapons feats apparently stack with existing weapon enhancements, and seemed to help balance out the medium base attack progression and the monkey grip feat penalty. He barely resorted to casting spells at all, except to occasionally heal himself (he wasn't the main PC, and I didn't micro-manage him, so he was mainly left to his own devices).

[GFallen01]

Cleric FAQ

Favored Soul FAQ

Stormlord FAQ

More FAQs

From my testing, Ice Storm doesn't ignore Cold Immunity, but the Bludgeoning damage sometimes seems to ignore DR/Adamantine. Interesting info about Divine Power, btw.

Modifié par GFallen01, 21 septembre 2012 - 01:17 .