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Struggling on the OC :(

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  • BelleSorciereBelleSorciere Member Posts: 2,108

    If you play Shadohaunt you can start HotU a bit higher.

    Or, if you want to know what happened between SoU and HotU, including how you got the relic (shameless self-promotion :-D):
    https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/fk-shadow-relic
    Maybe I'll try this next time I play Sou to HotU.
    fkirenicus
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    @BelleSorciere , Druids don't have access to Bear's Endurance or Cat's Grace on their second level spell list in the OC. They only have Bull's Strength for a stat buff. It doesn't make sense, but that's how it is. Community modders often add the extra buffs to the druid's spell list. I know Savant does for Aielund. But they're not there in the vanilla druid spell list.
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2017
    @Peteed1985 , What is your character's armor class? Nine times out of ten, if someone is struggling in melee, it's because their AC is too low. I've never played a shifter, so I'm not familiar with the AC of the various forms. I usually have my AC at around 25-27 by the time I face Desther. By high level play, I am usually running with AC above 30, and closer to 40 if I can find the gear.

    I don't even consider Red Tiger to be able to tank, because his AC is too low. He's more of a DPS fighter. He does better when my druids give him Barkskin. Or, you could keep him drinking potions of Barkskin.

    Sharwyn is lousy at fighting. The reason to take her would be for her song buff and to open locks.

    It sounds to me like your mistake with your character was cutting off your druid spells with low wisdom. The shifter prestige class is meant to be a druid with full access to druid spells, in my opinion.

    By fifth level as a druid, you're supposed to have a dire wolf from Monster Summoning III fighting with you, not just a lowly badger.

    Also, what about the Heal skill with healing packs? I always max it. Healing kits don't provoke attacks of opportunity, and work better in combat than potions. I always stop fighting and start healing when my animal companions, summoned creatures, or henchmen are in trouble.
    fkirenicus
  • Peteed1985Peteed1985 Member Posts: 63
    edited November 2017

    @Peteed1985 , What is your character's armor class? Nine times out of ten, if someone is struggling in melee, it's because their AC is too low. I've never played a shifter, so I'm not familiar with the AC of the various forms. I usually have my AC at around 25-27 by the time I face Desther. By high level play, I am usually running with AC above 30, and closer to 40 if I can find the gear.

    I don't even consider Red Tiger to be able to tank, because his AC is too low. He's more of a DPS fighter. He does better when my druids give him Barkskin. Or, you could keep him drinking potions of Barkskin.

    Sharwyn is lousy at fighting. The reason to take her would be for her song buff and to open locks.

    It sounds to me like your mistake with your character was cutting off your druid spells with low wisdom. The shifter prestige class is meant to be a druid with full access to druid spells, in my opinion.

    By fifth level as a druid, you're supposed to have a dire wolf from Monster Summoning III fighting with you, not just a lowly badger.

    Also, what about the Heal skill with healing packs? I always max it. Healing kits don't provoke attacks of opportunity, and work better in combat than potions. I always stop fighting and start healing when my animal companions, summoned creatures, or henchmen are in trouble.

    Thing is idk how to make characters and all the builds I found online are for level 40 starts - _- so got this build off someone who said it was good at lower levels. As a Minotaur I think I have 17 AC but am out right now so can't be 100% sure. My AC in dwarf form is 20 iirc. I don't seem to get any benefit to AC from my gear yet.

    I have healing skill but healing kits cost alot and drop less than potiins and can't be used in my shifter forms.
    BelgarathMTH
  • BelleSorciereBelleSorciere Member Posts: 2,108

    @BelleSorciere , Druids don't have access to Bear's Endurance or Cat's Grace on their second level spell list in the OC. They only have Bull's Strength for a stat buff. It doesn't make sense, but that's how it is. Community modders often add the extra buffs to the druid's spell list. I know Savant does for Aielund. But they're not there in the vanilla druid spell list.

    Dang. I just looked at the wiki and it included those spells in the lists. Weird.

    Looking again, it's on the druid spell list page but not in the spell list on the druid class page. All I can say is I haven't really played druids in NWN so I didn't know.
    BelgarathMTH
  • jwwjww Member Posts: 34
    @Peteed1985 - Nearly all of the benefits listed for this build won't happen until epic levels (21+), which you won't reach in the OC. You won't get Risen Lord until level 24. This will be a painful build to play through the OC, and would work better in a Lvl 1-40 persistent world.

    There are many, many good builds that will work well in the OC, but for new players, you might want to start with something simple like a high-strength fighter in heavy armor.

    Or if you want something fancier, an elven wizard is a good choice. Start with at least 16 int, 16 dex, 12 con, and scatter the other points around as desired. Elves get some nice weapon proficiencies without spending an extra feat or splashing a level of fighter, they search automatically without using the active search button, and wizard is their favored class so if you choose a second base class later, you won't be penalized. And since you'll be maxing int, you get extra skill points to spread around.

    Even a pure-class caster druid is going to have a rough start for the first 6 levels or so (much like BG, the first three levels of druid spells are somewhat lacking in offensive capability). They get to be pretty strong offensive casters later in the OC though, and are perfectly viable.

    You can play a pure shifter in the OC without bothering with spellcasting, but it's always looked more complicated than I wanted to try. There's a shifter FAQ on gamefaqs, but I don't know that I'd recommend it for new players:

    https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/188666-neverwinter-nights/faqs/27914


    I wonder if there should be a thread or a board with build suggestions for new players playing the low-level campaigns for the first time, since many of the online resources are for epic builds.
    BelgarathMTHProontBelleSorciere
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2017
    @Peteed1985 , Dang, not having ability to use healing kits in shifted form is a total deal breaker for me. Frankly, the Shifter prestige class sounds pretty awful.

    The AC for those forms is absolutely horrible. Anything strong is going to carve you to ribbons in melee.

    Most of the shifter builds I've seen say to take one or more levels of Monk, so you can get your Wisdom bonus to AC. But, you gimped your wisdom. I think gimping your wisdom was the bad idea that ruined your character. I mean, really, wisdom is the prime attribute of any druid. Maybe a low-wisdom druid looked good on paper because of the shifter prestige class, but as you've found out the hard way, it is a disaster in practice.
    FlashburnBelleSorciere
  • Peteed1985Peteed1985 Member Posts: 63

    @Peteed1985 , Dang, not having ability to use healing kits in shifted form is a total deal breaker for me. Frankly, the Shifter prestige class sounds pretty awful.

    The AC for those forms is absolutely horrible. Anything strong is going to carve you to ribbons in melee.

    Most of the shifter builds I've seen say to take one or more levels of Monk, so you can get your Wisdom bonus to AC. But, you gimped your wisdom. I think gimping your wisdom was the bad idea that ruined your character. I mean, really, wisdom is the prime attribute of any druid. Maybe a low-wisdom druid looked good on paper because of the shifter prestige class, but as you've found out the hard way, it is a disaster in practice.

    Sadly D&D back in 3.0 was not very well suited to playing how you want apparently :(

    Wanna play a dual wielding longswords fighter? You're garbage
    Wanna play a caster? You're out of spells and because you aren't in town you can't rest so you're now garbage

    dual wielding swords is the type of builds I enjoy the most but yeah...
  • jwwjww Member Posts: 34
    edited November 2017
    @Peteed1985 - You can dual-wield short swords, or a long sword and short sword, or a two-bladed sword. (Two-bladed sword costs an extra feat, but gives you the benefit of doing long-sword level damage (1d8) in both hands while still counting as a small-size weapon in the offhand so you don't have the penalty of wielding a medium weapon in the offhand. Plus you can get a magical one for free early in Chapter 1.) If you want, I could provide a brief description of stats and feats to aim for, for one of these options.

    You can rest almost anywhere you want as long as you're not near enemies, so playing a caster works fine.

    edit - but yes, 3e and 3.5 do have a lot more complexity which can be confusing. I like the complexity, but I understand why they simplified things for 5e.
    BelgarathMTH
  • Peteed1985Peteed1985 Member Posts: 63
    jww said:

    @Peteed1985 - You can dual-wield short swords, or a long sword and short sword, or a two-bladed sword. (Two-bladed sword costs an extra feat, but gives you the benefit of doing long-sword level damage (1d8) in both hands while still counting as a small-size weapon in the offhand so you don't have the penalty of wielding a medium weapon in the offhand. Plus you can get a magical one for free early in Chapter 1.) If you want, I could provide a brief description of stats and feats to aim for, for one of these options.

    You can rest almost anywhere you want as long as you're not near enemies, so playing a caster works fine.

    edit - but yes, 3e and 3.5 do have a lot more complexity which can be confusing. I like the complexity, but I understand why they simplified things for 5e.

    Thing is that "near enemies" is such a large distance that until you clear a whole area normally you can't rest and you run out of spells prepared within a few battles. At least at low levels.

    I personally like 2 longswords :( at least on a fighter type. Shortswords i'd be fine with if I was a rogue type but as a fighter I just like the look of 2 longswords.

    I would like a good guide for a couple of builds that match up well with playing the campaigns. One that uses 2 longswords and is maybe a battlemaster and one that is a caster.
  • jwwjww Member Posts: 34
    @Peteed1985 - These won't go into as much detail as the build you posted earlier because there's a lot of variation available. These are not completely min-maxed optimized builds, but they should get you started and should both do very well in the OC.

    Dual-wield:
    Human Fighter
    Str 16 (put all future attribute points in Str), Dex 15, Con 10, Wis 10, Int 14, Cha 10

    3 starting feats:
    Two-Weapon Fighting
    Ambidexterity (this is why you need Dex 15, even though you'll be wearing heavy armor)
    Weapon Focus: Longsword

    (If you use longswords in both hands, you'll be penalized. I highly recommend sticking a short sword or other small weapon in the off hand, instead. That said, the campaigns aren't super-hard, and you can make it work with two longswords.)

    Other good feats to take would be Toughness, Weapon Specialization: Longsword (requires Fighter level 4), Blind Fight, Dodge, Improved Critical: Longsword. (And Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, which will take at least level 9, I think.)

    The reason why I bumped up Int rather than Con is because these stats will qualify for the Weapon Master prestige class if you take Weapon Focus, Dodge, Mobility, Expertise, Spring Attack, and Whirlwind. (You'll also need 5 ranks in the Intimidate skill.) If you're not going for Weapon Master, you may wish to move those points back to Con.

    ====

    Caster:
    Elf Wizard (possibly a specialist to get extra spells per day)
    Str 12, Dex 16, Con 12, Wis 10, Int 16 (put all future attribute points in Int), Cha 10

    1 starting feat:
    Luck of Heroes (or any of the feats below that you are allowed to take at first level, but Luck of Heroes can only be taken at first level)

    Later feats (no particular order): Toughness, Extend Spell, Spell Penetration, Spell Focus (on schools you like to use offensively), Empower Spell, Maximize Spell.

    Special case: Weapon Finesse (as early as you can get it), then Weapon Focus: Rapier (elves get free proficiency in rapier and a few other weapons). With the 2nd level Flame Weapon spell, and 3rd level Greater Magic Weapon, you've got a great tool for bashing chests and doors, and you're even marginally competent in melee. Flame Weapon is seriously over-powered in NWN 1.

    Use equipment and spells to buff dex, and equipment to buff int (there's a spell to buff int, but it makes you think you have more bonus spells than you actually have, so I usually don't).

    There's a lot of spells to pick from, but look over them all and be sure to pick out defensive spells in addition to buffs and offensive spells.

    Skills: Always max out Concentration and Spellcraft. You'll have some extra points to play with -- Tumble, Search, Heal, Lore, Persuade (just a few points) are decent choices.
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    edited November 2017
    If you simply reduced that build's con to 18 and increased wisdom to 13 and dex to 12 you would have a character who was viable in the OC.

    The thing is the OC on normal is easy, you have to work really hard to gimp yourself enough to make it difficult.
    BelgarathMTH
  • BelleSorciereBelleSorciere Member Posts: 2,108
    jww said:


    I wonder if there should be a thread or a board with build suggestions for new players playing the low-level campaigns for the first time, since many of the online resources are for epic builds.

    I suggested a forum set aside for build discussions to JuliusBorisov but I think his intention is for build discussions to go in this forum.
    BelgarathMTH
  • ReibornReiborn Member Posts: 156
    you know you can save the game before a tough battle and reload - no xp loss there.

    about those fights,
    in the OC you can go to the inn and switch companions each time you want. I had splendid time with The barbarian one which just annihilated most foes easily.
  • Dark_AnsemDark_Ansem Member Posts: 992
    Never forget that NWN is a MEAN game if you play on D&D hardcore.
  • 11302101130210 Member Posts: 381
    edited November 2017
    Everyone's giving you all this complex advice. SO, I'm guessing you're having a problem at one specific part, right? The campaign isn't really hard ALL the way through. More like, there's specific sections where the difficulty is all ramped up.

    I'll give you the same advice I give my brother.

    I take him to the shop, go buy from Aribeth & the Mages Tower, ALL the potions you can get your grubby hands on! Potions of bless, endurance, speed, ALL OF IT. Drink ALL OF THEM. Try the part again.

    P.s. potions don't last too long. Drink it at the part you're trying to do.
    GreenWarlock
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