Solo Shapeshifter Druid with Arcane Spells for Each Level

ariakas2

I am planning to add 1 arcane spell for each level to my shapeshifter druid. I am playing with scs. The reason is, I want my druid to stand his ground against arcane spellcasters. The first thing comes to my mind is spell immunity abjuration and an abjuration spell like pierce magic for lvl 5 and 6. What other spells would you pick?

My picks:
Lvl 1 - Shield
Lvl 2 - Mirror Image
Lvl 3 - Spell Thrust
Lvl 4 - Fire Shield: Red
Lvl 5 - Spell Immunity
Lvl 6 - Pierce Magic
Lvl 7 - Spell Sequencer ?

Danacm

Maybe add breach as well, or create a lvl 6-7 greater dispel custom spell or whatever.

I always hate that in bg2 and mainly in scs divine casters has no chance against a mage. No spell removals, no spell immunity, only shield of the archons for deflection.

ariakas2

Danacm wrote: »

Maybe add breach as well, or create a lvl 6-7 greater dispel custom spell or whatever.

I always hate that in bg2 and mainly in scs divine casters has no chance against a mage. No spell removals, no spell immunity, only shield of the archons for deflection.

This. I always want to play a druid but how he lacks in spell department is beyond joke.

Nuin

The irony there is that without SCS druids are outright beastly against casters thanks to insects, elementals, energy blades, nature's beauty... you can see SCS clearly made an effort to put them down. I wish there was some kind of middle ground.

Anyway, just check out the list of arcane abjuration/divination spells on the wiki. It's not a big list and gives you plenty to consider about.

Grond0

Nuin wrote: »

The irony there is that without SCS druids are outright beastly against casters thanks to insects, elementals, energy blades, nature's beauty... you can see SCS clearly made an effort to put them down. I wish there was some kind of middle ground.

There is now - the latest SCS version provides the option of giving druids some spells from IWD, which considerably enhance offensive capabilities (particularly at lower levels).

Skatan

For level 4 I would have chosen Improved Invisibility instead of Fire Shield.
For level 6 there's just so much to chose from, it's very hard to pick just one.

With your limitations (one spell per level) I would probably chose one of two paths and pick all levels accordingly; Either to withstand mages (only buffs) or to break them (dispel, pierce, breach etc) instead of a mix. But that's just me.

gorgonzola

I am far from being a SCS expert, the main reason i don't play it is because i don't want to put the effort to relearn the magic system and to have to switch to SCS one or vanilla one depending on if i am running SCS or my beloved Tactics Mod.
So maybe for SCS it is not true, but i think that the strongest pick for a level 7 spell is projected image, the sequencer pales compared to it.

Nuin

Grond0 wrote: »

Nuin wrote: »

The irony there is that without SCS druids are outright beastly against casters thanks to insects, elementals, energy blades, nature's beauty... you can see SCS clearly made an effort to put them down. I wish there was some kind of middle ground.

There is now - the latest SCS version provides the option of giving druids some spells from IWD, which considerably enhance offensive capabilities (particularly at lower levels).

Truthfully though I never had a problem with druids at lower levels. At lower levels druids gain new levels just about as fast as a rogue (in fact, from level 6-12 druids gain levels faster than any other class) which meant that you gained access to higher level versions of NPCs earlier (well hello, Ms. Dynaheir with Fireball). Ultimately you could end up with a much more powerful party in general (and this extends to BG2).
It also helps that the only NPC single class druid in BG1 (Faldorn) had a pretty nasty special ability.

I suppose if you're making your own custom party then the whole cleric vs druid thing makes sense.
Regardless, druids got Charm Person or Mammal at level 2 and that spell is just too fun when used strategically in BG1.

Danacm

The problem is not with druids. The problem is with the only serious ai mod the scs: the only option againts mages an another mage. If the mage enemy defended with si:abjuration, spell trap, im.invs, goi and PFMW mirror image etc there is no chance for a cleric, druid, fighter party.

Nuin

Wand of Spell Striking. Probably some other item effects too since quite a few of them don't follow regular "rules", like the Horn of Blasting.

lunar

I too found clerics and druids too easy to dispel and breach. They have difficulty to keep their buffs against scs mages, unless you go solo and have absurdly high lvls so dispel/remove magic fails.

So I tweaked Shield of Archons to basicaly work as a si:abjuration while in effect, blocking breach and dispel/remove magic spells, in addition to its regular effect. This way enemies need to remove it via a spell removal first. Only then the cleric/druid will be suspectible to dispel/remove magic. The same works in favor of the enemy clerics as well, I can't just remove magic or breach a fully buffed cleric (with globe of blades they are dangerous!) if he has Shield of Archons active. I need to cast at least a Secret Word first.