Neverwinter Nights Character Builds.

Using the PRC pack and trying for the most extremely overpowered build I can make.

I care nothing for it being fair. I only want to play singleplayer. And I only want to be damned nearly omnipotent.

There are currently 160 races and classes in the PRC pack. I am simply lost with the possibilities.

I am thinking about a Lich build. They have the best immunities for a meager expense of levels and some extra work in money. They require an arcane caster level of six levels, and the Craft Wondrous Item feat. Other than that, they are pretty flexible. Two posts from another thread are being posted here now.

The official PRC download link is here:
http://www.nwnprc.com/

 

I am thinking of this for the moment. Immunity to all spells besides epic spells is pretty uber.

http://prc.athasreborn.com/index.php?topic=1400.msg5889#msg5889

To hell with that build. This one give immunity to all spells excluding epic spells, and immunity to Acid, Electricity, Fire, Cold, Sonic, Negative Energy, Death magic/Necromancy, Mind Effecting abilities, Sneak attacks, Critical hits, and more...

http://prc.athasreborn.com/index.php?topic=1400.msg5887#msg5887

*Edit* My mistake. It only has six levels of Lich. It does not have half the appeal of the first build. Unstriking the first and striking through the second now...

*Edited again* Am I even understanding this stuff correctly? I am just not sure anymore.
"Sor 24 / Dragon Disciple 10 / Talon of Tiamat 6 + Demilich template" sounds like six levels that count toward lich, but I thought you needed level 10 lich to have immunity to level 9 spells. And the build says it does...

 

PRC is broken as hell, have fun with that .

Anyway, in standard NWN, can't beat Puff The Magic Dragon. Unless your a mage, then you win automatically.

 

Broken in that it is overpowered, or broken in that it is going to crash every few minutes? For single player, what mods would you recommend? (If not PRC?)

 

Borked in terms of its really, really OP - if you're going to play the OC, then PRC is going to be crazy OP - standard cleric/druid/wizard/bard/sd what have you is going to rip through anything in the OC. The basic array of NWN classes is really good - 500ish players and 8 years later and new builds are still being synthesized on the server I dev/play on.

There's a lot of PVM servers that you can play on (which I recommend - the teamplay elements are really good, and they tend to be better designed and have better AI than the standard game. At the moment for NS4 I'm working on an endgame planar area which is designed to be nigh-impossible without some good teamwork and strong characters. In contrast, there're players who solo the majority of areas on the server.

 

For anyone wondering, this is the link to the server mining uses. (And develops too.)
http://www.nsrealm.com/site/

 

I will probably move over to PVM servers after I finally finish the single player game. I never actually finished it. Actually I never even finished the first part. I played through the first chapter or the first few, but lost interest afterwards. And I never even touched the expansion packs despite owning them since just after they were released.

I have always looked at it as a game to play through on a laptop build sometime when I am sitting around in the hospital without Internet access. But I do not own a laptop, so I may as well play through it and get it over with. A nice friendly PVM server would be nice once I remember all the base material and learn the mods used by the server.

Presuming I do play your server of choice for PVM, what would be a good build to aim for? In order, my desires are survival, utility, and damage. I strongly prefer passives to temporary buffs even if the temp buffs are much more potent, simply because relying on temp buffs absolutely will kill you.

I love immunities, and enjoy resistances just as much. I could not care less if others think I am playing a cheesy build, so long as it works.

 

There's a bunch of really popular PVM tank builds which rely on passive / super long term buffs which are good fun to play.

My personal favorite is probably the shifter build - I don't think it requires too much special stuff either, and can play nice in a lot of places.

CURSED NO SPOILER TAG!

Anyway, pastebin it up:

http://pastebin.com/NFPhYZni

It doesn't have self haste, but in panther form it can get from A to B at hasted speed, which is great, and it has great tanking option in Construct Shape, and awesome ability based options in Gold Dragon (fire breath) and the outsider shapes. I've seen similar builds farming in lots of end game areas, and it can certainly handle any level 30ish areas solo or in a party with ease.

Notes: Azerblood is an ECL 2 subrace, so levelling is going to be slightly slower than normal, but still pretty quick.
No books are required - so if you get any tomes, keep them for other builds you make
Assign skills whenever, just keep in mind to dump all 23 spellcraft at druid 12 at level 20.

When shifted you'll have the best AB in Iron Golem form, but chose forms based on what gives you the best DI/DR and tools for the situation.

 

If I understand correctly, this can thrive in low magic areas just as well as moderate and can survive well enough in high magic areas. Thank you mining.

 

If you're playing on standard NWN, pick up Undead Shape in preference to construct, btw.

 

Yeah. Those immunities outweigh the advantages of constructs by leaps and bounds.

*Edit* I am playing singleplayer first to get my feet wet again. I will try a more vanilla NWN without PRC first and see how a Shifter plays. After that I may get into the PVM servers and see if I can actually enjoy a MMORPG again.
(Due to medications, I plainly suck at twitch games. My reaction speed is too low to compete without the ability to pause.)

 

NWN isn't very twitchy for a tanky damage reduction build. Especially PVM, where you can sit back, relax and pound on things while they whiff at you. Dextrous toons are more twitchy, because you need to keep attacking (if you go flatfooted you'll die quickly) and its highest for mages and caster or monk clerics.

 

I always hoped the original campaign of NWN would be more of a role playing game than a "Kill 10k unnamed bad guys that die in one hit" but was sorely disappointed. I play on what would be easy mode because I expect the choices to mean something and the combat to just be a metered way to give you enough levels for the real fights that happen based upon your choices.

Do not misunderstand me, NWN is probably one of the better CRPGs out there, but the role playing was almost an afterthought. Most situations have a dozen different ways to resolve, and none of the choices feel so important because no matter what you pick, things progress basically the same with few exceptions.

Playing through the first part of the game I am reminded of how sad it was to not be able to save Fenthick. (Spelling?) He was killed regardless of your choices. And it was something that happened in an unjust way in my petty opinion.

I *Always* try to play the villain, but always wind up playing the hero that will go to any lengths to help every petty squatter in CRPGs. NWN has a well made villain setting, but it still works out with you being the inevitable hero like every other game. Why can I not murder innocents for no reason? Why are townsfolk not applicable targets? The answer is sadly that the game was made to appeal to the would-be heroes of the world that play these games and pretend they are noble for no reason.

True Neutral I can do. Same for Chaotic Neutral. Lawful cannot be me. Good I can do with some complaints. Druid works well with true neutral if I recall correctly.

I suppose this post is off topic for this thread even. Typical. Time for bed. Good night cruel world...

 

NWN's OC is pretty blegh. I think the choices are always pretty lacking. There's just different means to the same end.

 

ANYTHING with lich is stupid overpowered.

 

Lich is supposed to be stupidly overpowered. It is supposed to balance the fact that positive energy damages you. So most heals would instead damage you. Harm should work as heals do for normal characters.

Sadly the OC never had liches in mind and neglects to have a campaign that is appropriately hard for one using a lich. It would require a massive undertaking to make it balanced. (Pun intended.)

*Edit* This seems incomplete without a more detailed explanation...

A Lich is supposed to be a mssive expense of time and money and effort with loads of possible kill points in the build where one wrong move or a bad group of monsters could kill you forever. Liches are supposed to be heavily resistant to magic, since they are animated by it, and they use wondrous crafted objects to attain their power too.

If the game were made for them to be a playable race there would be many more holy opponents in the game. And they would intelligently cast heals on you since that will do massive and almost always unresistable damage on the lich.

But the sad fact is that enemies do not try to heal you when you are undead. No-one throws Heal Potions at you expecting it to burn your decaying flesh away and shatter the phylactery you use to bind your physical form. Enemies with Sneak Attacks are stupid too, as they try these attacks against you despite the fact that Liches are totally immune to sneak/critical attacks. The game is old. It would take a year or more for even a knowledgeable person to rework the entire campaign to properly deal with undead player characters like Liches. And the average person will never even touch it.

I care little for difficulty in games. As a perfectly worded example, when playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I played the "Tell Me A Story" difficulty. I could have played normal or hard, but I wanted the game for the story and choices. I simply have much more fun playing most games in the easy mode because it allows me to focus on the cerebral parts of the storyline and ponder what it is that is happening and what it could have been if they made it another way.

In NWN I expected real role playing. Not a pseudo action game with turn based mechanics happening in pseudo-real time. I expected my choices to mean something. If I played a Good aligned character I expected Smites against that good aspect. That they very infrequently delivered on. But it should have had a more aggressive AI that actually tried to kill me.

 

Now for a completely unrelated subject. Can anyone tell me a way to make NWN not crash like crazy every few minutes? I cannot even make a character before I get a crash. I know it was made more than a decade ago, but I am playing the prepatched GoG version and I presumed I would not need to fight it to have it run stable.

Last night I got to the step before I actually finish the character creation before it locked up. But it was showing signs it was unstable before that. (The little [?] boxes on the selections were not working, and that always means doom.) It crashes instantly if I Alt-Tab out of the game, and I think I killed it myself by doing so when the battery in my wireless trackball finally gave out.

I do not think NWN likes Windows 7 x64 too much...

 

Lich => enemy cleric casts 50 mass heals per round through various cheeseball counterspell exploits, you instantly die.

 

oh god GoG

you need to run the critical rebuild

http://www.nsrealm.com/public/ns/viewtopic.php?p=1040356#p1040356

Also, it may be better if you just *cough* download a copy of the game which is totally legit because you own the game and have your own CD keys *cough* then put in the GoG CD keys then run the critical rebuild. The GoG build is really, really, really bad.

Also, run in compatability mode for WinXP and in admin.

 

Thank you. I am glad I asked. Again it is mining to the rescue!

I actually own a boxed copy of Diamond too. So I have more than one way to do this.

Oddly the GoG version is 1.69 too, except it never asks for the keys.

I just ran the critical rebuild. I set Compatibility mode to XP SP3, and I only ever run as administrator. (But I checked the box for that anyway.) I am giving it a try now.