Most powerful class/build for 1v1? In Nwn1 and Nwn2

[Kuba]

Anyone wanna try arena with me? Im especially curious about Nwn2, anyone still plays it? I always wondered how 19 level sorcerer + 1 lvl warlock + 10 lvl arcane scholar of Candlekeep would do against polymorhped drow warlock of same level (or 28), whether quickened assay resistance + Bigbyhand would be enough or not. I only see some RP servers there...

Just recently I discovered that multiplayer works there if I put modified client extension... I know I might be 10 years too late

But I could try NWN 1 too I guess. I would like to test out sorcerer vs rest there

I'm obsessed about it :D

[wendigo211]

For vanilla NWN, it's probably cdaulepp's Exalted Sorceress build. For NWN2, it's probably Mithdradates' Shadow Sorcerer Mk II[nwn2db.com].

Problem is that basically no one plays vanilla PvP for either game. Pretty much any PvP server will modify/ban some of the more powerful abilities and that changes what's required for an effective build.

[red255]

I probably would ban timestop yes. If we were banning things dev crit is probably off the table.

a ranger with bane of enemies vs the player races. not sure about PvP but any multiplayer server should ban timestop for human decency.

[Kuba]

I always take bigby's crushing hand over timestop anyway. This damn thing can stop almost everyone including almost every ending boss in any neverwinter nights!

Originally posted by wendigo211:

For vanilla NWN, it's probably cdaulepp's Exalted Sorceress build. For NWN2, it's probably Mithdradates' Shadow Sorcerer Mk II[nwn2db.com].

In nwn 2 i would take 1 level warlock to get Dark one's own luck for bonus saves from charisma, and to deal with "sneaky" opponents - clairaudience/clairvoyance sorcerer/wizard spell

Btw in nwn 2 pale master isn't that good, because it's levels don't adds to caster levels right? So it's used for AC bonus rather than being a core of build?

[Kuba]

Another question which bothers me, are monks really mage killers in pvp, or well prepared mage can deal with them?
Would casting spell breach and mordenkainen's disjunction (and assay resistance in case of nwn2) be enough to lower their spell resistance and beat them?

There are so many questions and I would like to answer them in practice...

[Reifam]

I'd add anything with Pale Master as a suggestion. Devastating Critical is a god-tier feat, especially when combined with feat choices and Keen to drop your threat range to 12-20 or something like that. Becomes like every other round fort save or die. PM shuts that down.

[Selphea]

Originally posted by Laserowy Kuba:

Another question which bothers me, are monks really mage killers in pvp, or well prepared mage can deal with them?
Would casting spell breach and mordenkainen's disjunction (and assay resistance in case of nwn2) be enough to lower their spell resistance and beat them?

There are so many questions and I would like to answer them in practice...

It depends on the Monk build and class adjustments. In vanilla NWN, it's incredibly difficult for even an unprepared mage to die to a pure SR Monk. They'll always walk around in Greater Sanctuary so the Monk can't see them, and have True Seeing to see through any stealth shenanigans. If they see the Monk they just need to cast Acid Sheath and Epic Warding, provoke an Attack of Opportunity on themselves and the Monk is dead.

There's archer Monk builds, but again you'll still need extensive adjustments to spells, because an Exalted Sorceress build has 50% conceal and Deflect Arrows which negates most arrows, any remaining arrows still need to break through Warding and default archery is terrible in NWN.

There used to be PvP servers. They'd have pages of spell and feat changes. Eventually players would find the meta and run the same 3 builds anyway, which are usually some variant of Monk splash caster, Monk splash shifter or Monk splash melee/archer. And then people kind of moved on to other games. You're about 15 years late sadly.

[elvendualwielder]

Originally posted by Laserowy Kuba:

Another question which bothers me, are monks really mage killers in pvp, or well prepared mage can deal with them?

Monks are kinda bad in 3e, fun as hell but really bad. All their abilities are self conflicting at best. Example: Immunity to poison and natural disease, AND good fortitude save. The point of a good fortitude save is to make poisons and disease a nonissue, so why have both?
Example: You need Strength (punching things, and to make up for a 2/3 BAB) to hit things hard and consistently, you need Dex (can't wear armor), you need Constitution in order to not be killed by a stiff breeze, and you need Wisdom (all your monk abilities are based off it). And in NWN you can raise ONE of these stats to an 18, ONE to a 14, and the rest are at 10 or 8.
Example: Stunning Strike and Quivering Palm. Fortitude Save DC (10+Wis Mod). Nothing beyond a CR 8 monster has that low of saves to routinely fail that, and in the case of Quivering Palm, you also have to use it on things that 1) aren't immune to critical hits and sneak attacks, 2) are of lower level than you.

Can a well prepared mage deal with them? Give a mage a day of prep and they can deal with anything, including diety tier threats (looking at Dragonlance tells us that).


In terms of personal power, you could go with so many builds. One of the ones I had a lot of fun with was an Elf Rogue who dipped a level into Shadowdancer for Hide in Plain Sight. Every fight was the same after that, hide until I shank someone and tumble away to hide again. No one could find me even with See Invisibility or True Sight (wasn't invisible, just hiding so well no one could find me). A Fighter/Purple Dragon Knight/Champion of Torm was a lot of fun as well, being a front line tank that could significantly buff the party while wielding a 2 handed weapon. Or go with a 1 Sor/4 Fighter/X RDD and just roflcopter through the game with stats that are WAYYY too high for anything to stand toe to toe with it.
edit:clarification

[Kuba]

Thanks for all answers. And what about sorcerer vs wizard? Would sorcerers's metamagic be too much for wizard? I know that wizard might have higher spell DC, but there are things like quickened spell mantles...

[elvendualwielder]

Metamagic? More useful for a wiz than a sorc, the major difference being how many spells you get how often.
Sorcerer gets fewer spells but can cast them more.
Wizard gets more spells but can cast them less.
It's up to you, the player, which type of caster you want to be, and you can make metamagic work with either.

[Doom]

Originally posted by Laserowy Kuba:

Anyone wanna try arena with me? Im especially curious about Nwn2, anyone still plays it? I always wondered how 19 level sorcerer + 1 lvl warlock + 10 lvl arcane scholar of Candlekeep would do against polymorhped drow warlock of same level (or 28), whether quickened assay resistance + Bigbyhand would be enough or not. I only see some RP servers there...

Just recently I discovered that multiplayer works there if I put modified client extension... I know I might be 10 years too late

But I could try NWN 1 too I guess. I would like to test out sorcerer vs rest there

I'm obsessed about it :D

It is not quite possible to answer your question, because servers do not run vanilla combat and very often introduce bazillion of custom fixes which alter combat in insane ways. For example, on Arelith Bigby is subject to reflex save.

For Vanilla NWN2, you'd need to go there:
https://nwn2.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Power_Builds
And look for Obsidian Sorcerer and the like.

Also go here too:
http://nwn2db.com/

Typically a forum of each server has a powerbuilding section, where people spent time building instead of actually playing. A lot of trash talking and looking down at newbies is frequently involved.

Originally posted by elvendualwielder:

Metamagic? More useful for a wiz than a sorc, the major difference being how many spells you get how often.
Sorcerer gets fewer spells but can cast them more.
Wizard gets more spells but can cast them less.
It's up to you, the player, which type of caster you want to be, and you can make metamagic work with either.

Sorcerer can spam the same spell through metamagic abuse. For example:
Several fireballs, followed by several still fireballs, followed by several empowered fireballs, followed by several maximized fireballs, followed by several quickened fireballs.

Also, Maximized Isaaac Greater Missile Storm in NWN1, and Maximized Enervation in nwn2.

[Selphea]

Originally posted by Laserowy Kuba:

Thanks for all answers. And what about sorcerer vs wizard? Would sorcerers's metamagic be too much for wizard? I know that wizard might have higher spell DC, but there are things like quickened spell mantles...

You can probably count the number of viable spells on one hand and metamagic usually has little bearing other than number of spells or damage.

Sorc's advantage over Wizard is saves, AC and ammo. No one's going to bother casting Fireball, Meteor Swarm or any other Reflex spell on an Exalted Sorc because their Paladin saves and Monk Evasion will negate it. Wizard's advantage is they have a wider variety of spells, although most spells are either useless or very situational in PvP.

In a mage vs mage, both mages will usually prioritize a spell mantle over everything else and Sorc has more mantles at their disposal.

After that they'll try to break the other mage's mantle with a flame arrow, spell breach or mord's, then land a disable like a Bigby, then no-save damage spells like Ice Storm or Isaac's.

You can try summons but summons won't be able to touch Exalted Sorceress AC. You can try Greater Sanctuary but a Mords on the floor removes both the GSanc and mantle.

In that sense the caster classes have the same narrow options, just that the Sorc has higher saves, AC and more spells. Some very low magic servers may give Wizard an advantage by not having Haste items. So a Wizard can pick up both Autostill and Autoquicken with less compromise than a Sorc. But the Sorc can also take both, just at the cost of Great Cha. Neither Mantles nor Missile Storms nor Breaches are affected by lower DC anyway, and Bigby would still be an auto hit.

Wizard is still a great PvE class though, just that in PvP you can't Identify or Find Traps a Sorcerer to death, and knowing Stone to Flesh doesn't mean much if you're the one getting stoned.

[Kuba]

You are all (propably) right, though I had nasty surprise at the end of HotU while playing sorcerer. I didn't have any acid spell :) But I loaded save in Cania and devil trademan had two scrolls of Black Blade of Disaster which killed him by death rolls - he failed

There is similar nasty surprise in Nwn 2 against iron golems, if you don't have electric spells or summons/Tenser transformation. But Khelgar can do the job though

Did any of you tried nwn 2 arena btw? Another scenario I wonder, is warlock vs sorcerer.

Specifically whether polymorphed (over 400 hp, 5 regeneration + 25 regen, spell resistance and 40 AC without items) drow warlock who using spells by clicking on "eye" icon, could beat well prepared (protection from acid, displacement, high saves from 1 lvl of warlock and spell dark one's own luck, quickened spells to beat spell resistance, bigbys etc) sorcerer. I would bet on sorcerer but what can I know if I never played it online

[Selphea]

Never played NWN2 PvP. It's actually quite a different game as many things were nerfed. In PvE, because you can't do hasted casting or Dev Crit anymore and because HiPS was nerfed, while melee caster prestige classes were added, the meta shifted to spellsword builds.

For an RPG PvP experience i'd suggest League of Legends, DotA 2 or Guild Wars 2. They have bigger communities and are designed for PvP. And there's still that dynamic like how do you do Warlock vs Lina in lane, when do you use this skill, what items do you build and so on.

It's no big deal to have missed out on NWN's PvP heyday. Titles change and people move on all the time because something else gets designed to fit the purpose better.

NWN is still good for the flexible and easy to use toolset and variety of mods, since there's been nothing around moddable multiplayer RPGs for this long. But it was definitely not designed for PvP and other games have taken thar mantle.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by Laserowy Kuba:

In nwn 2 i would take 1 level warlock to get Dark one's own luck for bonus saves from charisma, and to deal with "sneaky" opponents - clairaudience/clairvoyance sorcerer/wizard spell

Not really needed since Greater/Superior Resistance and Protection from Spells exist. You can expect that any caster is going to have saves high enough that casting a spell with a DC is going to fail against them. Casters in NWN2 don't need Paladin/Blackguard/Warlock dips.

Btw in nwn 2 pale master isn't that good, because it's levels don't adds to caster levels right? So it's used for AC bonus rather than being a core of build?

That's actually the bug in NWN, NWN2 fixed that and they do get a caster level increase and learn new spells. The problem is that in both NWNs the PM gets 1 caster level every other level. In PnP they're supposed to gain one caster level every level other than first. In NWN they are used for critical hit immunity and the AC bonus, in NWN2 they are just used for the AC bonus since there are spells that grant critical hit immunity.

Originally posted by Laserowy Kuba:

Another question which bothers me, are monks really mage killers in pvp, or well prepared mage can deal with them?
Would casting spell breach and mordenkainen's disjunction (and assay resistance in case of nwn2) be enough to lower their spell resistance and beat them?

Selphea answered this already but I'll expand a bit more. The SR Monks give up a lot of feats for Epic Spell Resistance, that tends to leave them vulnerable to mage summons and damage shield spells. They're worse off in NWN2 since there are spells like the Orb spells that ignore Spell Resistance and some of the casters you face in PvP might be Eldritch Knights who are better meleers than Monks anyways.

Monks are horrible in every edition of D&D, but there are some psionic prestige classes for Monks that can make them viable in 3.5 and the Sacred Fist is a pretty good prestige class for them in NWN2. They are good in Pathfinder: Kingmaker which uses an "unchained" variant of the Monk that gives them Fighter AB progression among other perks.

Originally posted by Laserowy Kuba:

Thanks for all answers. And what about sorcerer vs wizard? Would sorcerers's metamagic be too much for wizard? I know that wizard might have higher spell DC, but there are things like quickened spell mantles...

Metamagic benefits the Sorc more in the NWNs in part because they didn't implement this rule:

Sorcerers and bards choose spells as they cast them. They can choose when they cast their spells whether to apply their metamagic feats to improve them. As with other spellcasters, the improved spell uses up a higher-level spell slot. But because the sorcerer or bard has not prepared the spell in a metamagic form in advance, he must apply the metamagic feat on the spot. Therefore, such a character must also take more time to cast a metamagic spell (one enhanced by a metamagic feat) than he does to cast a regular spell. If the spell’s normal casting time is 1 standard action, casting a metamagic version is a full-round action for a sorcerer or bard. (This isn’t the same as a 1-round casting time.)
For a spell with a longer casting time, it takes an extra full-round action to cast the spell.

source[www.d20srd.org]

Metamagic is a tool that lets spontaneous casters manage their spell slots better. It's really the flexibility of the sorcerer to use their spell slots as they want that gives them an edge. If a sorc needs a quickened mantle and has a slot available they can cast it. The wizard can cast a quickened mantle as well, but only if they memorized it the last time they rested.

Having more spell slots isn't really a benefit for a Sorc in PvP, the match will likely be over before either a Wizard or Sorc has exhausted their spells against each other. It's the ability to pick their spells on fly as opposed to the last time they rested that gives them the edge.

While it's not a replacement for actual PvP you can try the following modules, they might give you a taste of what NWN2 PvP was like:
Battle of the Builds[neverwintervault.org]
Mithdradates' Hall of Training[neverwintervault.org]

I'm not sure what the equivalent to those modules would be in NWN.

[Shiroi Ren]

NWN allows impossible builds for sorcerer like pal/bg/sorc. This one helped me against devastating critical when I was fighting against my friend.