POLL: Normal mode powergaming party POLL

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I'm considering a 4-man party for normal mode only. Yes, a 6-man party is strictly more powerful (thank you, dynamic xp), but building the smaller party is more interesting to me. Standard "no cheating/bug abuse" disclaimers apply -- squatting, muling, ORS, BoH ID trick, etc, all banned. Latest patch, of course.


Party makeup:
Sorc 18 - this guy will be based on the "build your own sorc" poll
Sorc 18 with high INT for talking and skills
Cleric 18 with max STR for thrown weapons
DG tank (not decoy) 14

If you have a better suggestion, post it.

First some questions about the first sorc in this party:

1. Feats. The sorc in the previous poll had plenty of votes for Spell Focus Enchantment and Spell Focus Necromancy, but hardly any for the Greater versions of those feats. In a two-sorc party, this is may not be optimal. So should he get:
SF Enchantment and SF Necromancy (the orginal result)
just GSF Enchantment
just GSF Necromancy
GSF Enchantment and GSF Necromancy, give up two other feats to afford this

2. 3rd level spells known. The top winners were Fireball, Skull Trap, Flame Arrow, and Haste. Do we *really* want him guy to have three blasting options and only one buff option at this slot?
Yes; different blasts for different situations.
No; drop one of the blasting spells and replace it with a support spell like Slow, Dispel, or Ghost Armor

3. Regardless of your answer to the previous question, if we must get rid of one of those three blasting spells, which should it be?
drop Fireball; keep Skull Trap and Flame Arrow
drop Skull Trap; keep Fireball and Flame Arrow
drop Flame Arrow; keep Fireball and Skull Trap

4. 4th level spells known. The top winners were Stoneskin, Emotion: Hope, Mordenkainen's Force Missiles, and Ice Storm. In my opinon, these last two are dubious because of their low damage, and could be replaced with spells such as Confusion, Improved Invisibility, or Spirit Armor. Should we....
Keep Mordenkainen's Force Missiles and Ice Storm
Keep just Mordenkainen's Force Missiles
Keep just Ice Storm
Keep neither

5. Paladin 1/Sorc 17 or Sorc 18? Going the Paladin route gets the saves boost and the weapon proficiencies but loses out on 9th level spells (3 Wails/day), not to mention an 8th level slot.
Paladin 1/Sorc 17
Sorc 18


And a couple questions about the cleric:

6. What race should the cleric be?
Human for the extra feat and skills
Shield Dwarf for the extra CON
Half-Orc for the extra STR

7. What diety should he follow?
Bane, for the +2 WIS reward
One of the other eight (post which one in the thread along with your reason)


(I'll start a new thread later for the second sorc)


Finally, how should I build the tank? (This isn't a poll question) I don't want a JUPP-style decoy who sits there chatting with the monsters while the casters do the real work -- he has to deal out significant amounts of damage. Possibilities I've thought of include...

Monk 1/Druid 12/Bane Cleric 1 (for the quest). Max DEX and WIS, dump INT and CHA, leaves 30 points to divide between STR and CON.

Advantages:
- Barkskin, +5 AC by the end
- WIS bonus, +5 AC at start, up to +8 or so once I get all the WIS increasing items, potions, and quests.
- Druid casting. Entangle, Call Lightning, Thorn Spray/Flame Strike, Smashing Wave/Static Charge, Summon Nature’s Ally VI

Disadvantages:
- STR and CON suffer (though I could max them out if I reduce WIS or DEX by 4 points, but that gives up 2 points of AC)
- No room to dip into other classes for their benefits


Specialist Wizard 4/Fighter 4/other classes 6. Max STR, DEX, CON, dump WIS and CHA, 14 INT.

Advantages:
- Expertise, +5 AC
- Shield spell (duration will be low)
- Mirror Image (though the duration and number of images will be low)
- Can wear a physical shield when needed, +3 or +4 AC
- Takes some of the skills load off the talker sorc
- Three extra Feats, including Weapon Spec.
- Plenty of room to mix in other classes such as Paladin (quest reward), Rogue (skills, evasion), Monk (evasion). This also lets him use a wide variety of class-exclusive items. And he can take more fighter and wizard levels.

Disadvantages:
- -5 to-hit from Expertise -- a big big loss
- Reduced Will save (not too bad, he has SR)

Any comments or other tank-related suggestions?

Poll Information
This poll contains 7 question(s). 9 user(s) have voted.
Voting stops at April 10, 2007 18:32 board time.

Poll Results: Normal mode powergaming party POLL (9 votes.)

Enchantment versus Necromancy ? (Choose 1)
* SF Enchantment, SF Necromancy - 44% (4)
* SF and GSF Enchantment - 11% (1)
* SF and GSF Necromancy - 22% (2)
* SF and GSF Enchantment, SF and GSF Necromancy, giving up two other feats - 22% (2)

Fireball, Skull Trap *and* Flame Arrow? (Choose 1)
* Yes; different blasts for different situations. - 0% (0)
* No; replace one of the blasting spells with a support spell. - 100% (9)

If we must drop a 3rd level blasting spell, which one? (Choose 1)
* dump Fireball; keep Skull Trap and Flame Arrow - 11% (1)
* dump Skull Trap; keep Fireball and Flame Arrow - 11% (1)
* dump Flame Arrow; keep Fireball and Skull Trap - 78% (7)

Mordenkainen's Force Missiles and Ice Storm? (Choose 1)
* Keep Mordenkainen's Force Missiles and Ice Storm - 11% (1)
* Keep Mordenkainen's Force Missiles, add another spell - 33% (3)
* Keep Ice Storm, add another spell - 0% (0)
* Keep neither, add two other spells - 56% (5)

Sorc multiclass to Paladin? (Choose 1)
* Yes, Paladin 1/Sorc 17 - 33% (3)
* No, Sorc 18 - 67% (6)

Cleric race? (Choose 1)
* Human (extra Feat) - 11% (1)
* Shield Dwarf (+2 CON) - 67% (6)
* Half-Orc (+2 STR) - 22% (2)

Cleric diety? (Choose 1)
* Bane (+2 WIS in Chapter Five) - 44% (4)
* Somebody else (Post who and why) - 56% (5)

 

The easiest tank build would be a DG monk. That way you avoid xp-penalties and still get to deal out some damage and he also has great saves and evasion to avoid your fireballs if you use them. This makes your sorcs much more useful while you still deal out some damage.
Should probably have 16-20-14-3-20-1.
I usually play with physically weak decoys but my first decoy-type char was of this kind in a party with 2 casters, paladin/fighter, barb/fighter and cleric and the monk had slightly more kills than the paladin and cleric and a lot more than my casters.

Both your suggested builds works fine too, but for the second build you should take illusionist lvls and keep any other class/classes at equal lvl.
The 4 fighter lvls don't do too much of a difference take just one/two of those for the feats, one or 2 paladin lvls, maybe one monk lvl for saves and evasion, a starting rogue lvl for skills and so on, but he will loose some BAB from some starting lvls.
You could also just skip mirror image and make him a fighter/paladin or barbarian (or just pure class, just keep the lvls almost equal) with minimized cha and wis. Buff his AC with the sorcs and he'll do fine.

 

You could make a really nice tank by combining the Rogue, Barbarian (or Paladin), Fighter, and Ranger classes. The character will have Evasion, and with a high DEX (I suggest a Drow here), that'll be sweet. You won't get hit too often and can still dish out a lot of damage.

For your Cleric, I have two suggestions: either a female Drow (with 1 level of Monk) Cleric of Bane, as this character will serve as a decent decoy. The second suggestion is a Dwarf Cleric of Tempus. Dwarves get great bonuses, and they look cool with axes. My last suggestion is a human Cleric of Lathander. This would be a great cleric, and double as a blaster (I chose human so you could dump INT and still max Spellcraft and Concentration).

 

Since you're only interested in normal mode, just about any Deep Gnome variant is way beyond "good enough" AC for your tank duty.

You could try a paladin(1)/Rogue(1)/Illusionist(x) with STR 16, DEX 20, CON 14, INT 18, WIS 5, CHA 1. (Pally for Holy Avenger, Fighter would work just as good if you want to use something else.)

 

Well, two questions in the poll conflicted with my answers (before I realised). As I said "both SF & GSF: Necromancy" and "a different cleric domain", it would mean a basic lack of Enchantment spells.
Do not get too hung up on the +2 WIS - all cleric domains are decent, depending on your tactics.
If you want a party balance, pick the Battleguard of Tempus, to boost melee, as the 2 sorcerers will handle most spellcasting damage.

As I would never have a party with 2 sorcerers, I couldn't tell you which cleric domain I would use, because my choice would depend on whether I had a Bard and/or Druid - and also whether the character has mix-in levels of certain other classes, i.e. a Monk level would make me choose a Dreadmaster of Bane, Watcher of Helm or Demarch of Mask (this allows a reasonably good decoy-cleric, leaving your tank to be purely damage-output based).
As for the race, any race but human is good - clerics don't really need any skills but Concentration (& Spellcraft for Morninglords and Stormlords), and they don't need that many feats.
As you are powergaming, an Aasimar for the extra WIS would probably be best "powergaming" choice.

More posters in this forum = more different ideas. This makes your tank & cleric choices more difficult.
Therefore, it should be about what YOU want to do, not what I, or anyone else, would do...

(although suggestions are useful pointers to what you will finally come up with)

 

Mudde, DG monk 1/cleric X is better than your DG monk X with the same stats. The 20% xp penalty doesn't matter, for two reasons: cleric levels are much more valuable than additional monk levels, and dynamic xp means that if the tank falls a little behind, the rest of the party gets pushed that much farther ahead in the long run. In fact, my monk 1/druid 12/cleric 1 might not be achievable because of the 20% xp penalty. Hmm, druid 6 barksin is only one less AC than druid 12...

For the same dynamic xp reason, it doesn't matter if the illusionist build suffers 40% xp penalties -- it might even be enough to push the rest of the party to XL19. (OK, probably not. But it will get them to XL18 sooner, and that is worth something.)

Klorox, I only want one tank/decoy. Making the main cleric a Drow with a Monk level loses about three levels. You might say, "well we can do without 8th level cleric spells", but it is still severely delaying the important 5th and 6th level spells.

DA Rock, the sorcerer could still learn Enchantment spells even without SF Enchantment, they'll just not be as effective as they could have been. Chaos in particular will still kick butt. Anyway the OTHER sorc would mostly likely get GSF:Ench if this guy does not. Relying on your cleric's domain spells is a poor idea, because there are so few of them, and only one casting of each.

 

I hate xp-penalties so I do everything I can to avoid them. The monk has one real advantage over the monk/cleric - High reflex-saves. That and evasion makes the sorcs much more useful. Otherwise cleric lvls makes him more useful, but makes him lag behind in lvls.

The cleric is usually the character I want to lvl fastest, at least in the beginning of the game so that you get some healing and buffs. In normal mode races that don't have ECL are the best choice. Human have extra skill point (for spellcraft) and is therefore useful for druids and some elemental-heavy clerics. Otherwise the bonus to saves and the extra con makes shield dwarfs the best race, but any race can become a good cleric since no one has any penalties to wis IIRC.

 

bump, 1 day left on the poll

 

I prefer the tank that is monk/cleric/druid.

Taking only 4 wizard levels means he wont be worth much as a spellcaster - better to get the others to cast spells on him.

maybe: str 18
dex 16 (you dont need such high AC do you?)
wis 18
con 18
cha 3
int 3

Its very much a powergaming build, I hope my maths is right.

You could also do Paladin 1/Monk 1/ Cleric x, make it a female drow for the much needed extra stats points and lack of xp penalty. advantage here is that you get good saving throws.

 

Results:


Question 1: Like almost every sorcerer, ours has both Enchantment and Necromancy spells in his known spells list. However, Enchantment and Necromancy won't be equally important to him -- one of those schools will be used more, or in more crucial situations, than the other. Therefore, it is optimal to give the more important school a +4 DC bonus, rather than give each school a +2 DC bonus. GSF Necromancy wins, two votes to one. Sorry, guys

Questions 2 and 3: Dump Flame Arrow. The 5th place spell on the original poll is Slow, so we'll replace it with that.

Question 4: Dump Ice Storm and Mordy's Missiles. On the original poll, Confusion, Improved Invisibility and Malison were tied for 5th place. I'll cast the tiebreaker for the first two of those.

Question 5: No multiclassing to Paladin.

Question 6: Shield Dwarf Cleric

Question 7: Still looking for non-Bane arguments....

The Tank: Thanks for the suggestions; I'm still thinking about them.

 

The only reason to go "non Bane" is that you want a Cleric with high STR for thrown weapons. Tempus starts with WF: Axes, and Axes are the best thrown weapons in the game. With only one other Tank, Tempurian Clerics do make the best tanks.

Lathander has more blasting spells, but with two Sorcerers, I'm not convinced you need another blaster.