Seeking advice and tips on a Pure Cleric (Caster-Focused) build.

[Kstyles]

I value spells slots more than cheesy Evasion feats from Rogue / Monk multiclassing or four attacks a round from getting a dash of Fighter in the mix. ||| I mainly need a Feat rundown in leveling order of what to obtain to get the most "ommf" out of my casting |||. I have a general idea of getting a hold of the following Feats: Toughness, Combat Casting, Skill Focus: Concentration, Spell Penetration, Spell Focus: Evocation (Maybe?). Meta-Magic feats are also concerning for me as I'm not entirely sure which ones to get and in what order, Extend-Spell comes to mind first as buff spell lengths seem largely beneficial intially. On a side note, I'm gravitating towards focusing on the Healing and Magic domains as they stay in the line with Clerics being the archtypical healing class and Magic has a broad spectrum of both defensive and offensive spells for a bang for your buck domain to pick up.

Skill-Wise, with a base Int of 10 (On a Human), I would likely just run Concentration, Spell-Craft and Tumble (When I can obtain it). I'm having some trouble deciding what base Wis to start with as that may depend on the level cap on the given persistent server I intend to play on, perferably I would want to end on an even Wis number at the end of the level cap through stat raisies even if the server is somewhat higher in magical content and I could boost Wis through other gear means.

Though these sources may be somewhat antiquated, they are the only clues so far to guide me:

http://www.gamebanshee.com/neverwinternights/strategies/cleric.php

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/188666-neverwinter-nights/faqs/18890

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/188666-neverwinter-nights/faqs/19174

Thanks in advance!

[jonnin]

healing is nice but I consider it more useful on a hybrid to get the spells 'done' eariler (get heal or 3, usually is where I stop on a hybrid). As a pure cleric, consider knowledge instead -- you will be as effective as a rogue nearly with knock / find traps / identify trio of problem solving spells.

Not sure about feats ordering. Gotta have penetration and spell levels, but concentration? Meh, you are a tank, as hard or harder to hit than a good fighter... I wouldnt blow a feat on it. Silent spell is one of the first I get; its only 1 level cost and it bypasses silence. Hard to beat. Racially, being able to resist spells somewhat is nice. I would argue luck of heros maybe at level 1, and if you feel like it maybe the magical starter feats have some merits. Even spell focus you may want str to have a hit them option, or go with zen arch and use a ranged option, to stretch your spells out between rests against trash fights. Otherwise if it helps caster level /penetration/etc that makes your spells land, its good. Maximize or extend are great too, but you can go without those for much longer.

[Shia Luck]

It all depends on where you are going to play. What level will you reach? The domains you want to choose can be very dependant on environment and there's no use planning for lvl40 if it's a slow levelling RP server. I like strength domain for caster builds because you get divine power at two different levels and then you extend it so you get 2 levels of extended and one of normal. That way you get the best of both worlds. You're better than a fighter and can chew easily through the mobs and save your high level spells for the bosses. But it's not much use if you aren't fighting a lot. Does the environment have haste on items? If not Travel domain just became extremely attractive. Animal can also be good for a caster as your summons stay strong enough to tank for you for much longer and it's especially good if the level cap is low.

A few things don't change tho if it's a caster build, cleric or otherwise. You need a really really good reason not to make your casting stat 18. Increase that and only that. Get extend spell first. You will want your buffs extending. Still (silent is a good choice if cleric so long as you fight with silence on yourself, but note not every spell can be silenced or stilled. NWNwiki is your friend here.), empower and maximise are best thought of as spellbook management feats so you don't run out of spellslots for the spells you need and those you most use. Get still/silent soon after extend and the others as the relevant spell slots become available.

I don't think skill focus is a good use of a feat except in extreme circumstances. The best one to stop having your spells interrupted is expertise and imp expertise. +5/10AC means you are less likely to get hit in the first place. Alternatively or in conjunction, consider Trickery domain. Imp invis is a 50% miss chance for anyone attacking you physically.

If you like the idea of building characters and want to plan I cannot recommend Kamiryn's Character Build Calculator (from neverwintervault.org) and nwnwiki enough. If you want expert advice on a build you have made then check out the Epic Character Builder guild. (I'd give you links but my CTRL+C seems to have gone wrong. Easy to find with a search tho).

Have fun :)

[Bishop]

I always take Expertise/ImprovedExpertise on all my casters, its free 10 AB with no drawbacks. Spellfocus Evocation is must for caster cleric, Spell penetration is also good.
Then it kinda depends on what you want to get. Extended metamagic is obviously good, empovered/maximized is barely needed because cleric has good base spells on all spell levels (with correct domains). Combat casting is useless because Improved Experise is that much better, but its worth it for Improved Combat Casting on epic levels.

You probably want to have some physical damage capabilities even for pure caster cleric. Easiest choice here is to take Zen Archery and go for archer/slinger route. But that also means you want to take Point-Blank Shot and maybe Rapid shot too, because why not. You can also drop both Expertises for this route beacuse it will not work with any ranged weapon.
Another solid option is 1-3 of monk and/or rogue levels. Monk gives you Wisdom to AB bonus, unnarmed attack bonus with kamas and access to Acrobatics.
Third option is to get some fighter/Torm leveles and go for Shield/Scimitar or something like that.

Btw, for domains I highly recommend to take Trickery as a caster cleric. Imporved invisibility is one of the most broken defensive spells in original nwn and will help to survive lot of things that could kill fragile spellcaster othrerwise.

You can check e.g. this guide as example how to build powerful caster cleric
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/nwnecbguild/demolition-man-cleric-38-monk-1-rogue-1-t515420.html
There are obviously other methods to do it.