cernd
simples
Member Posts: 540
so i just brought cernd along for the first time ever. his annoying voice set and weird native american-ish portrait always sort of put me off.
did his personal quests and to be honest i like him a bit more now (his voice still annoys me though).
he is absolutely useless in combat though.
thoughts?
did his personal quests and to be honest i like him a bit more now (his voice still annoys me though).
he is absolutely useless in combat though.
thoughts?
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right now i'm in the annoying 13th-14th level bit, but insect swarm is making up for it. that's just a show-stopper for most mages isn't it
Another thing to keep in mind is his nature's beauty spell (obviously you won't get access to this until level 14). You can cast it while invisible without disrupting his invisibility. The radius is about half of that of a fireball, but considering it gives permanent blindness (if it doesn't kill an enemy) its worth it.
I'm just got him into my group for the first time now, and he's good. I don't like the shapeshifter kit, or his pathetic stats, but his quest was cool. He seems like a cool guy and I feel for his predicament(oops, I started talking about NPC's like real people again, didn't i) I loved the Druid-midlife crisis schtick. I also like Druids,(or the idea of Druids, at least) despite the lousy spells.
@meagloth honestly, i liked him more after the quest but still, that doesn't really say much does it. he's still a huge knob isn't he
Dual wielding with clubs with him is not a good way to go in my opinion because of the thac0 penalty and because of his lack of proficiency points. You only get to choose 1 proficiency point with him before level 16 (and he doesn't have either club proficiency or two-weapon style). Obviously getting -4 to your Thac0 on your main weapon and -8 on your off hand isn't much of an option, so if you are dual wielding you pretty much should take the two-weapon style proficiency. Especially given how slow his progress is when it comes to Thac0. If you are going to dual wield I'd recommend scimitars. Even then the best one of those for him is belm (because its APR bonus works while his form is active). I believe it used to be the case that you could dual wield weapons and then shapechange and still get the APR bonus given by the dual wielding. That is no longer the case (so dual wielding in this case doesn't do much in the way of benefits).
Also dual wielding outside of his greater werewolf form brings up the problem of his AC and dexterity. They both suck. You can bring this down with spells, the shield amulet, or bracers, but either way given the benefits to magic and elemental resistance, the strength and dexterity boost, and the AC boost I think his greater werewolf form is your best bet for melee (at least until you get some of the HLA forms that set your Thac0 to be lower than it otherwise would be). While in his greater werewolf form his melee damage will be sucky compared to a warrior but with his AC as low as it is he is more of a defensive melee character (pre-tob).
As it stands, consider using Cernd as a pure spellcaster rather than a warrior. He should have enough slots for Level 5, 6 and 7 priest spells to keep you happy, especially after you get items like Staff of Arundel and Heartwood Ring that add even more spell slots.
Pre-combat, summon fire elementals and elemental princes. In the heat of combat, cast strategic spells like Insect Plague, Implosion and Storm of Vengeance. Resummon the elementals when they go down. While waiting to cast another spell, you can nick a little more damage by using slings.
The Greater Werewolf form is not all that bad, but it is underpowered for late-SOA and TOB. It hurts your spellcasting, and you cannot even buff yourself while shapeshifted. No reason why you should bang your head against the wall when many other players have already got their lumps
question: in cernd's quest, where does the door in the noble's house lead?
The ending for this hadn't been fully written. If anyone's ever played the Cernd plot where he goes looking for his child, you'll see a bit of a plot (if I remember right) where the man he goes to see is involved with a Lich and there's some form kind of 'group' that the man is desperate to join.
This was originally a larger plot with a larger area, the lich staying at the man's home while the man attempted to prove that he was a competent magic-user and make the needed unholy sacrifices to get his admittance not only to the group, but to lich-dom itself. Cernd's child was part of this, as was Alaya. The nobleman's name does not come to me immediately, though.
Freeing Alaya would get her gratitude. She'd return to her father's home and be there afterwards, where she would give the player a powerful magic item that once belonged to her father as thanks. If the party wasn't on Cernd's quest, as well, she would take the baby with her (and Cernd's quest could always end there, instead).