If You Could Only Choose One NPC Divine Caster...
jacobtan
Member Posts: 655
Hi all,
Question as in subject. Assuming a party complete with fighters, thieves, mages and a bard, if there is only ONE more slot open and you want an NPC divine caster (Aerie, Anomen, Jaheira or Viconia) to round things up, who would you choose?
Divine caster is to fulfill the following roles:
1. Summoning (30%)
2. Debuffing (30%)
3. Melee/Ranged (20%)
4. Buffing (10%)
5. Healing (10%)
I have someone in mind, but I'd like to sound off other players to see if there is a convergence of opinions
Cheers
J.
Question as in subject. Assuming a party complete with fighters, thieves, mages and a bard, if there is only ONE more slot open and you want an NPC divine caster (Aerie, Anomen, Jaheira or Viconia) to round things up, who would you choose?
Divine caster is to fulfill the following roles:
1. Summoning (30%)
2. Debuffing (30%)
3. Melee/Ranged (20%)
4. Buffing (10%)
5. Healing (10%)
I have someone in mind, but I'd like to sound off other players to see if there is a convergence of opinions
Cheers
J.
0
Comments
I typically have 2-3 Fighter/Mages of various stripes hold the front line augmented by arcane buffs, some minor divine buffs, and Enhanced Bard Song. Jaheira will then cast summons (Greater Elemental Summoning, Summon Deva) and debuffs (Nature's Beauty, Dispel Magic) in an alternating fashion. This leaves her with little time for actual fighting and casting buffs. Not that I'm very impressed by divine buffs. They tend to give minor bonuses to hit and AC, but that's about it. I'll pre-buff, but I usually find them not worth the trouble to recast after they expire in a prolonged fight unless I can run away and regroup.
Summons :
Animate Dead (Level 3) - (Your best summon once you hit level 15)
Conjure Animals (Level 6)
Aerial Servants (Level 6)
You won't be using that many debuffs as a divine caster, you should leave that to your arcane casters. I'm still really curious as to who you're using to get your divine buffs.
I'll run through the list of common divine buffs that druids have no access to, that are of some relevance:
1. Protection from Evil - Mages get this, as with some items. -2 AC on front-liners isn't very great if the front-liners are already Fighter/Mages with Stoneskin and Mirror Images
2. Remove Fear - Mages get this, and I'm cheap enough to get a Planetar or Deva to cast it for me. Druids can cast Summon Deva
3. Chant - A loss of +1 to-hit and damage for the party, and -1 to-hit and damage for monsters
4. Draw Upon Holy Might - Contrary to most opinions, I don't think too highly of this. Short duration and caster-only. If I have quality front-liners I won't bother with this one (cleric base THAC0 is merely half-decent and definitely not for Aerie and Viconia, who usually have 18+ strength from equips)
5. Free Action - There are rings, and it negates Improved Haste anyway, which I don't like
6. Holy Power - As with DUHM, if I have quality front-liners I won't bother with this
7. Protection from Evil 10' Radius - Mages just have to carry more of this if really needed.
8. Champion's Strength - Same reasoning as #4 and #6. Giving up spellcasting is no-no
9. Righteous Magic - Again, as with #4, #6 and #8
Druids only really lose out on #3, and the group of self-buffs #4, #6, #8 and #9.
1. Summon Deva/Greater Elemental Summoning (L7 spells)
2. Summon Fire Elemental/Conjure Animals (L6 spells)
But I don't like a man who abandoned his wife and kid
2.) Remove fear is a level 1 divine spell, the mage has to use a level 2 arcane spell to get the same. You'll want to save your mage spell slots. Especially level 2 that will give you blur/Mirrror image.
3.) Chant is an alright spell, but really not that good.
4.) Amazing spell but not that useful on a pure cleric, and as you say short duration.
5.) Free action is alright, but as you mentioned you can get equip that does the same.
6.) Only useful on C/F
7.) You would give up 6 magic missile spells instead of one divine spell slot?
8.) C/F again.
9.) C/F again.
You happen to have missed out on the most powerful divine buff spells.
1.) Chaotic command. The imunities this spell grants you are immense. You'll be immune to anything from a mind flayers psionic attack to confuse from spells and umberhulk. This spell is bread and butter.
2.) Death ward. Put this on your fighters and they are immune to all spells that can kill them instantly. If you add protection from petrification (Level 1 mage spell) you'll be good for anything.
3.) Defensive Harmony. This spell has a short duration but it adds +2 AC to everyone in your party.
4.) Lightning/Fire resistance spells. Your mage will get something equal, but we're talking about giving up the few mid level spell slots you have on your mage to use this. Viconia will be sitting with many divine spell slots that can be used for these.
You'll want to use Viconia to save up several mage spell slots. The only buff spells your mage should get to help out the party are haste and improved haste.
Cleric -> Summon / Buff / Heal.
Mage -> Summon / Debuff / Damage.
Druid vs Cleric has been an age old discussion. I find clerics to be more useful than druids and if you have to pick only one divine caster i would grab the cleric.
The question is if you want a divine spell casters or a fighter with some divine spells on the side.
Viconia will give you the most divine spells and she comes with 19 dex and 65% magic resistance. As a divine spell casters no one comes close to her.
My consideration is not so much about Druid vs Cleric, but I'm trying to restrict myself to using a classic NPC when I already have planned for the rest of the party. I CAN get away with it by making a R/C, but I've played with custom characters before and I really didn't like it... the most I can do is to hold my nose and play with just ONE, and even then I might retch. So I'm trying to figure out whether I can really get away with ONE divine caster and using just the NPCs.
Druid vs Cleric is also an age-old argument that I think is pretty much bunk anyway. Both classes have their place depending on the composition of the party, play style, and the mods installed.
Jaheira
- Better fighter
- Druid spells
Viconia
- Better caster
- Cleric spells
- 65% magic resistance
- Single class level progression
- Turn undead
I'd say that bards are deadly if the party has many high-APR fighters and can spam strong summons like Planetars, Devas and Elemental Princes, since their bard song effect is amplified across all your allies. But for a party that is magic-heavy, bards are meh.
Now that we're at it, I'm wondering if Cernd can go head to head with Viconia...
Viconia :
STR - 10
DEX - 19
CON - 8
INT - 16
WIS - 18
CHA - 14
= 85
Cernd :
STR - 13
DEX - 9
CON - 13
INT - 12
WIS - 18
CHA - 15
= 85
Now remember that constitution 7-14 gives the same amount of additional health. So Cernd won't get anymore health out of his constitution than Viconia get from hers, that's 5 points that are useless.
CON 7-14 = 0
CON 15 = +1
CON 16 = +2 (Max for any none fighter class)
Cernd has abysmal dexterity and will lose out on quite some AC there while Viconia has 19 which is amazing for ranged weapon and she get the highest AC you can get (21 dex is the next breakpoint). You most probably won't give Cernd the gauntlets of dexterity as there are so many other NPC's that find them useful.
The difference between 10 and 13 strength is minimal at the most, give Viconia a spell to boost her strength or some gear (Weapon, Belt) and you'll be fine here.
Viconia has higher intelligence than Cernd meaning better lore.
They have the same Wisdom score.
Cernd have one higher charisma.
So you'll see Viconia is all around better. Now throw into the mix that she can use a full plate, turn undead and have 65% magic resistance. I really like Cernd but unless you're after a druid, Viconia is better at pretty much everything.
I think the only thing that Cernd really has over Viconia is the structure of the Druidic spell progression. At 3m experience, Cernd will get 6 L7 spell slots while Viconia will still be struggling with 2. Cernd's spell progression is basically capped at L25, but Viconia will only get her 6th L7 spell slot at 5.85m experience, meaning if you're pretty creative at using your extra L7 slots, Cernd is not irredeemable while Viconia plays catch-up. But thereafter, he loses steam. His MR is capped at 40% with a spell, can't use the better equips, and Viconia will outstrip him in spell progression very quickly, plus she will have Command/Turn Undead.
If Cernd can cast spells while in shapeshifted form, they would be more evenly matched. After all, he's that good at controlling his werewolf form, can't he cast spells in it?
The 65% magic resistance alone is enough to put her up with the best.
She can easily sit on
STR - 19
DEX - 19
CON - 18
INT - 16
WIS - 18
CHA - 14
The only thing holding her back is her APR, which isn't a fault of hers, just people used to having a fighter/divine caster combination.
Give me a skald or cleric any day over a half-orc berserker.
When we look at NPC strengths, there are some questions we need to ask:
1. Does the NPC have any meaningful special abilities that other characters in his category cannot duplicate?
- Anomen vs Viconia - Viconia has 65% MR, but Anomen can easily get to 40% MR with a spell. But his +1/2 APR as a F7 and access to grandmastery cannot be duplicated by Viconia. Viconia has a fair advantage in MR, but Anomen's APR advantage is massive in comparison
2. When we use the ideal build for an NPC (equips, etc.) is the same build accessible to other characters in his category?
- If Viconia can get to Str 19 with a belt, so can Aerie/Cernd. Viconia has no special advantage whatsoever. The same applies to Con 18 with a belt. Aerie/Cernd can take advantage of it too. No points for Viconia
3. For class-based abilities (e.g. druid vs cleric spells), how relevant are the abilities that are unique to an NPC?
- There are cleric-only spells and druid-only spells, but can one class access the spells of the other class by items? We should only count the spells that are truly unique, then assess their relevance. If cleric-only spells don't count for much, but druid-only spells can be game-changers (e.g. Nature's Beauty), then we need to give more weightage to druids
4. Minor abilities should be discounted
- Minor bonuses like 15 Str vs 14 Str, or 15 Int vs 14 Int (for lore in non-mage classes) should not be counted at all. These will be superseded by items and are inconsequential in normal play, so no points.
- I hear people gush over Viconia's 18 Wis vs Anomen's 12 Wis. Objectively, it counts for very little. It's just 2 L1, 2 L2, 1 L3 and 1 L4 slots. Do we even cast many of them in the tough fights (e.g. Ascension or Demogorgon), or does that one additional spell or two really count in the tough fights when clerics already have mountains of L1-4 spells?
On the above counts, I don't rate Viconia very highly. But she is, sadly, more potent than Cernd.
2.) But the point is that Aerie and Cernd are lacking in other areas. If you hand Cernd the belt Viconia will still be stronger with said belt than Cernd. The reason you're giving a point to Viconia here is because it's so simple and easy to get hold of these items, it's not nearly as easy to repair the flaws of some other characters.
3.) The cleric has a much better spell list to draw from. When you play a pure class druid you'll notice that on some spell levels you will have nothing usefull to pick (Unless Avenger, and even then level 1 and 2 sucks). The cleric always has something useful to pick from, and they also have MORE spells to pick from.
4.) I disagree with the lore part, it's a wonderful thing to have and 15 gives you nothing while 16 gives you +5 lore which is the difference between being able to identify a longsword +1 and failing. If you want to go for this then Cernd has so many useless stats that it's depressing.
1. MR is 2% per level, capped at L20 for 40%. Anomen gets 40% MR at L20. Not too far off Viconia since 7 levels in Fighter hardly hurts his XP progression. For Viconia, I'd say there is a way to tap into her MR, but for a character who supports from the back, wouldn't she be targeted LESS by monsters unless you put her at the front lines (and hence contradicting your strategy)?
There is a good way to use Viconia's MR, but I doubt it's as clear-cut as expected, at least in practice
2. Hmm. I'm not giving any points here to anyone. If Viconia is graded highly because of high strength from an item, and another character in comparison can also use the item, it is only logical that no points are given to anyone.
3. Druid vs. Cleric argument. There are pros and cons for both, though at the high levels, for spell selection, clerics win at the lower levels, but druids come out ahead at the higher levels. Situational I'd say
4. Eh... you can identify with spells, scrolls, items (glasses), at temples, bards... surely you don't need that measly lore bonus that will be superseded by another option? If that's the case, wouldn't Cernd's 15 Cha be more effective than Viconia's 14 Cha when it comes to being your "front man"? I know I wouldn't care for either since I'd have someone with 20 Cha anyway
Yes, Cernd's base stats are depressing. I don't like him, but I like to root for the underdog