ok so here's my zen archer cleric, its ab is quite high when buffed and he gets a lot of divine spells with high dc to help him
It's only a straight lvl 40 build since you get rog at the very end, which means you wouldn't be able to use a bow for the most of the game, however if you plan to use it 1-40 then take rog lv early on, but that means losing UMD
build seems to work fine in PVP as well as in PVM
main tactics is go in imp expertise and try to fight your opponent with spells and when this doesn't work, switch to your bow and shoot him this char is also good at buffing others and healin. 38 lv caster means you won't be dispelled easily and you get 50 sr when buffed.
cons: only 3 attacks per round, unless usin unarmed strike (5 then but weak ab)
Human, Any Lawful
Cleric (38) Rogue (1) Monk (1)
Starting Stats STR 8 DEX 12 CON 12 INT 14 WIS 18 CHA 8
Your format is very difficult to read. All those numbers and brackets and parentheses and ellipses make my eyes cross...
It's usually recommended to post skill point assignments separately from class and feat selections. Especially if there are no real decisions (ie. boost Conc. and Spell. every cleric level) then there is no need to post skills points used/saved each level. Check out the sticky at the top of the page. It suggests something like:
Kaliban. _________________ I want my two dollars!
sorry for the format, I used a char exporter for it and that's why it looks like that, I would change but can't edit my post now...
Nicely done.
I am hoping someone can answer this for me: isnt spell penetration redundant with HIGH character lvls?
Oh, and also, taking the race ELF gives you access to longbow from the start yes theres xp penalties but..
Peace
taking elf would also mean less hp (-2 con) and one less feat so it would probably be great fortitude, however still an option
spell penetration is needed for greater spell penetration and epic spell penetration but yes it becomes redundant cause they don't stack
Edited By jedi1 on 11/11/05 20:21
take your monk earlier for easier leveling. you can use the rogue level at 40 for a skill dump.
taking monk a 21, for example, won't cost you any bab. You can use a single kama and cleric buffs and melee quite nicely.
take your monk earlier for easier leveling. you can use the rogue level at 40 for a skill dump.
taking monk a 21, for example, won't cost you any bab. You can use a single kama and cleric buffs and melee quite nicely.
but it means losing 19 discipline or so cause rogue doesn't get it as class skill, if you wanna use this build before 40 you can use a xbow or darts as you still will get ab from zen archery though I've never tested it and for the wis bonus to ac you can use heavy armor before takin monk level
Drop spell penetration feats, you can't crack an SR monk's protection and you can beat the toolset SR.
Drop combat casting/improved combat casting. It won't help you at all - you won't be casting in melee combat and if you are, you need to either change to defensive casting mode or move. You don't want to be using your bow in melee combat because even with point blank shot it still provokes AOOs so defensive cast won't hurt you.
Drop improved expertise, you can't have it active while defensive cast is on and you also can't use it with a bow equipped if I recall rightly.
Rearrange your feat choices then to pump great wisdom to the max for spell save DCs and extra spells per day. _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
If it's just a healer, I question the need for so many Cleric levels if it's just for healing/buffing. Why don't you just take more levels of the other classes, like 6 monk/5 rogue/29 cleric? You'd get more playability by being able to top up discipline, tumble, etc throughout your levelling career. _________________ .:\_/:. Only those who have known darkness in (OvO) their hearts will see the shadows in life... (|__|) ..".."..
I am actually speechless! Beside myself. jed i wasnt questioning why you took the single feat spell penetrate! I have built a few toons in my day, and i do realize that you need spell pen for gr and epic!
To me, taking penetrate with 38 lvls is truly a waste (as xylo points out). Thats 3 feats free. Taking fortitude saves, um why? theres 2 more free feats! Now, lookin at this: if you are using a bow, why do you need imp ccasting? combat casting, maybe, but icc? Nope. icc is usful for melee combatants, and bowers SHOULDNT be near anyone. Theres another free feat. The rest of your feat choice suggests a caster. Are clerics the best use for this?
Taking elf means you can use the bow from 1! (u suggest short i was assumin long, sorry bout that). It also makes your toon playable from lv 1 (which most of us here on epic builders applaud - 40 births are boring and rather dull).
Oh, and to answer about -2 con.. you are a cleric! Endurance! I have made many successful clerics with 10 and even 8 (when the stats r tight, like cleric/wm).
Looking again on the build I am starting to wonder how you play it? This is definitly a build that I would need to have a guide for to play (and i seem to only play clerics).
I wonder about what jenna said. Why go 38 cleric? All it seems to get you is spell duration. Once you get above 29 is there really a reason to go highr? Is there another class that can use better?
some things to think on. If you have the desire, maybe you can help us understand how you play this char. I would be interested because it would be very different than what i usually play (strat wise).
peace
hmm as I know the dc calculation spell level + 1/2 caster level + wis modifier so 38 levels mean a better dc. As a healer I mean a divine caster, so it's not only for healing.
The reason why I took imp expertise and imp combat casting is that I use this build in 1/1 fights in PvP on a PW, I just put away my bow and try to get em with maximized Ice Storms, Implosion, Destruction and blade barrier (maximized it is 120 dmg). If I ran out of spells I switch to a bow and try to shoot em (I chose a bow rather than a melee weapon cause of more ab), but this option is rather for PvM as there are many spell immune monsters there.
Also 38 levels of cleric mean higher DC against Mord's and breaches. Both fortitude feats are useful against devvers, as my saves are a bit low without them.
As for penetration feats I'm not sure, it's that I just thought they're useful for a caster, maybe I'm wrong, you could drop em, so you can take all non-epic feats pre-epic and take two more great wisdom and then take elf as your race.
Edited By jedi1 on 11/12/05 11:16
If it's a level 40 PvP char, maybe an idea would have been not to call it Zen Healer? That's just misleading _________________ .:\_/:. Only those who have known darkness in (OvO) their hearts will see the shadows in life... (|__|) ..".."..
sorry for the name, didn't think it would mislead anyone, it's just that I seem to identify cleric as a healer
More like a deity's minister and scourge. Clerics of evil gods exist too you know >:) _________________ .:\_/:. Only those who have known darkness in (OvO) their hearts will see the shadows in life... (|__|) ..".."..
Quote: Posted 11/12/05 11:13:05 (GMT) -- jedi1
hmm as I know the dc calculation spell level + 1/2 caster level + wis modifier so 38 levels mean a better dc. As a healer I mean a divine caster, so it's not only for healing.
Yhis is incorrect. The DC calculation for spell saves is 10 + wis modifier + focus feats + spell level. Caster level has no influence over spell save DC.
Quote: The reason why I took imp expertise and imp combat casting is that I use this build in 1/1 fights in PvP on a PW, I just put away my bow and try to get em with maximized Ice Storms, Implosion, Destruction and blade barrier (maximized it is 120 dmg). If I ran out of spells I switch to a bow and try to shoot em (I chose a bow rather than a melee weapon cause of more ab), but this option is rather for PvM as there are many spell immune monsters there.
You're still spending 4 feats for not much return in my opinion. You can replicate ICC by going into defensive cast mode.
Quote: Also 38 levels of cleric mean higher DC against Mord's and breaches. Both fortitude feats are useful against devvers, as my saves are a bit low without them.
I don't have a problem with the save feats, but there isn't really a serious way to defend yourself against mord's or breaches, they dispel defensive spells without a caster check.
Quote: As for penetration feats I'm not sure, it's that I just thought they're useful for a caster, maybe I'm wrong, you could drop em, so you can take all non-epic feats pre-epic and take two more great wisdom and then take elf as your race.
Penetration's not useful under most conditions if you have 32 caster levels or more. Unless your PW has modified it so that items can have more than 32 SR, or has included additional SR-busting things so that you can get through an SR monk's protection, you don't gain anything.
The maximum that something's spell resistance can be set to in the toolset is 32.
The maximum that a spellcaster can penetrate at all is 66.
The maximum that an SR monk can have is 70.
Monk SR can't be changed - that means that even spells that lower SR, like nature's balance or disjunction, don't lower a monk's SR. Since a monk is the only thing that can have an SR over 32, and an SR monk will probably be built to have more SR than can be penetrated at all, there's not alot of benefit to trying to penetrate more than 32 SR in most cases. _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
Quote: To remove an effect, the caster makes a dispel check of 1d20, +1 per caster level (to a maximum of +20) against a DC of 11 + the spell effect's caster level
this text is from mord's description in nwnwiki.org if it's wrong then let me know,
you can get more than 32 sr with a cleric spell(up to 53), but ok seems that you're right with spell penetration
imp expertise means gettin +10 ac with no loss, I still think it's a quite good.
Anyway it seems like I spoiled the build...
Quote: Posted 11/12/05 17:09:38 (GMT) -- jedi1
Quote: To remove an effect, the caster makes a dispel check of 1d20, +1 per caster level (to a maximum of +20) against a DC of 11 + the spell effect's caster level
this text is from mord's description in nwnwiki.org if it's wrong then let me know,
It's wrong. There's no cap on Mord's anymore, and that is for its dispel portion, not for its defense-stripping portion.
Mord's has three effects when cast on a single target: it strips up to 6 defense buffs from a list of spells in an order determined by the game, it lowers the target's SR by 10 if it's lowerable, and it tries to dispel magic the character with an uncapped dispel check.
When cast as an area effect it will try to strip 2 defense buffs from a list of spells from each target, lower each target's SR by 10, and try to dispel magic with no cap.
To put it on a bumper sticker - mord's is uber and there's no real defense against it.
Quote: you can get more than 32 sr with a cleric spell(up to 53), but ok seems that you're right with spell penetration
You're right, I keep forgetting about that spell because it's lowerable and can be taken out by a breach or disjunction.
Still, you're spending 3 feats for +6 penetration, bringing you up to 44. You're still going to fizzle 45% of the time against 53 SR... meaning that you'd want to use a nature's balance or breach or disjunction scroll on your target anyway... meaning you don't need the penetration feats because your scroll will handle that for you
Quote: imp expertise means gettin +10 ac with no loss, I still think it's a quite good.
It's not no loss, it's two feats. But if you don't have anywhere better to spend them, that's fine.
Quote: Anyway it seems like I spoiled the build...
Nah, it just could use some fine tuning. Most builds can _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
Strange that none of you hsa commented this. Going Elf doesn't change your staring stats. True, you get -2 Con, but +2 DEX. Move 2 points from DEX then. The xp penalty is a no-problem to, it will only be for two levels. But you WILL lose 1 feat and 43 skillpoints. Improved expertise is good in this build IMO. What other two feats gain you 10 AC? Very nice to have if you want to cast gr sanctuary or imp invis to reposition or save your behind and run. As for playablity, he gives a few suggestions to improve it in his OP.
this char is also good at buffing others and healin. 38 lv caster means you won't be dispelled easily and you get 50 sr when buffed.
