Two-weapon Fighter/Wizard Build

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Now that I've discovered that I casting arcane spells in armour that have no somantic components still incur arcane spell failures, it puts a wrench in my heavy armour, sword and board fighter/wizard build with 90% ASF.

I'm considering playing a two-weapon fighting build wearing light armour, so the ASF is reasonable. I'm thinking an elf with Str 14, Dex 18, Con 12, Wis 8, Int 15, Cha 8. I'll take 1 level of fighter, then the rest wizard until I reach a BAB of 8. After that I will take my second fighter level so my BAB is 9 and I can take the Improved Two-weapon Fighting feat. Then wizard from then on. I'll have TWF and Weapon Finesse at level 1, then AD by level 3.

I wanted to play a melee fighter/wizard. I'll have my summoned monster and familiar (pixie at start until Wizard 5, then switch to panther). My henchman will be the barbarian. I find that the magical melee weapons to be more interesting. There seems to be some interesting short swords and rapiers available in the game. I figure that for most battles, I'll do OK in melee and will have my spells for tighter situations and bosses.

A few things I'm considering is whether to start with Str 14, Dex 18, Con 12 or go Str 10, Dex 20, Con 10. It's a tradeoff between +2 damage, +1 hp per level or +1 attack, +1 AC. Right now, I'm thinking the former since I think the extra damage is better. Also, I completed the Peninusula and Beggers Nest with my last character and so far, I'm not too worried about AC as much.

Any comments and suggestions are welcome.

 

Any problems with spells or auras (like dragons, mummies, etc.) that can cause fear and the like since your willsave (you have wis 8) if you play solo with Daelan Redtiger. So i suggest you get the belt of guiding light (if i remember correctly) for those situations (fear specifically, HATE FEAR), cause they were always difficult fights.

 

NWN isn't very permissive of fighter/wizard multiclasses. Of course it's possible to play one (the beauty of these games is that anything is possible), but if you want to powergame a straight wizard is arguably a better choice even for a melee-oriented wizard. Those fighter levels really don't bring a lot to the table compared to wizard levels.

Something that you might want to look into is the exotic weapon proficiency for a double-bladed sword. These are 1d8/1d8 weapons, so it's basically like 2 longswords but with a -2/-2 penalty (after TWF and ambidexterity) instead of a -4/-4 since the second blade is treated as a light off-hand weapon. Also, your weapon enchants like greater magic weapon only need to be cast once and affect both blades. The idea is to rely on buffs (defensive and offensive) to bring your wizard up to scratch in combat. If the low AB hinders your progress through a particularly tough boss, you can easily revert to a more traditional offensive caster approach and blast away with IGMSs and whatnot.

Basically, I think it's a safer route since you don't risk gimping your character.

 

There are Prestige Class mods that can be installed, among them is the Eldritch Knight. That is probably your best bet for a powerful fighter mage.

 

What you could also try is a Monk 1 / Wizard X build.

You start off with a Human Monk , Int as prime , but not neglecting your other stats , with 15 in Dex.

You then take Two Weapon Fighting and Ambidexterity as your first level feats.

Why? Well the Monk has a better hand to hand BAB which he gets to keep when making use of his speciality weapon - the kama , which you get to dual wield thanks to your two shinny new feats , Oh and you also get cleave and evasion for free , not a bad start for any melee class.

With the monks DEX and WIS bonus , combined with all those monk specific items , you can easily cope without plate armour , throw in your WIZ specific spells (buffs included) your lower BAB is less of a factor , with some buffing and all those WIzard bonus spell feats, you should end up with quite the fun character at the end.

 

Thanks for your suggestions. I understand that NWN does not allow a good fighter/wizard build. It's actually more the 3E rules than anything else. I do want to try as it is the type of character I am most fond of for 25 years now.

I did try the two-bladed sword my first go around several years ago. I did not like it much since it requires Str for attacks plus Dex for TWF. I decided to go with two light, finessable weapons. High Dex helps with offence and defence. It also allows me to use armour with a lower ASF.

I am not using any expansions so the EK is not an option. If there is an expansion that has a Spellsword, I may want to get it. The EK is a crappy PrC from a flavour point of view. It is nothing but a mechanic that shows why 3E multitasking sucks. The SS at least has some cool abilities not seen in any other class or PrC.

The monk/wizard looks interesting, but it is a bit of a departure on what I want to play. I'll keep it in mind if I have a next go around.

I decided to min my Wis because Will saves are the strong saves as I will take many levels as a wizard. In fact at level 20, all of my saves will be the same across the board.

Based on my last couple of forays into NWN at low levels, I do not foresee many issues with a melee wizard. I actually found that by the time I have a summoned dire wolf, panther familiar and the barbarian, it was pretty crowded in melee. I foresee at higher levels, I'll be doing less melee. At lower levels, I seem to still be able to kick some butt in melee.

 

The expansions for NWN1 don't bring any true PrCs for fighter/mages (except perhaps the red dragon disciple which gives a lot of attribute bonuses, but it doesn't increase the caster level). What you could look into though is the Player Resource Consortium which adds a ton of PrCs (including SS if I recall correctly).

 

Thanks for the link. I do see the Spellsword PrC. I just wonder how well it works in a real-time version of the rules, especially Channnel Spell. The ignore ASF is the feature I'm most interested in.

 

I wasn't too impressed with the two-weapon fighter build. I found that although wearing light armour is nice in that your ASF is low, I still hate it when my spell fails even if it is 20% or less.

I decided to instead play a heavy armour, sword and board build and use Still Spell to get around the ASF. This way, I don't have to worry about Dex and can have a good Str and Int and decent Con. I simply take off my armour and shield to cast Summon Monster after resting. Then put my armour on. Any combat spells I use will be Stilled. It sets me back a few levels, but I find tha tmost of the time, I'm tanking anyway. Having a really high AC with Full Plate and Tower Shield keeps me alive and allows me to cast cone spells up close.

I'm level 9 right now (F1/W8). I can cast Stilled Fireball which is nice. I have my level 4 monster with me and panther familiar. I'm wielding a bastard sword which does a decent amount of damage because of my strength as well. Although I get only one attack, I have the cleave feat. This ends up working better than two-shortswords because I end up dealing more damage with each hit and can get a second attack often with cleave. The only thing I miss with the bastards swords is that there is no special weapon that the guy at the forge can make. I liked dazing with the special short sword. It's more of a cool factor than anything else.

One thing that really bugs me is the butchered rules with spells without somantic components. When I reached level 3 with my Wizard, I took Blindness/Deafness as one of my spells. Since it had no somantic components, it is supposed to ignore the Arcane Spell Failure. This is not the case with NWN. I had planned on learning spells without S components, but now I have to Still EVERY spell. So far I'm tolerating NWN because I am playing a group game with two friends.