Best race for a sorcerer?

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As a powergamer I see only benefits here. I would go as far as to add ECL race warriors to parties, like a duergar barbarian, just to get a boost to party XP gained, which raises my sorcerer's level.
Taking advantage of ECL game rules, to help your most important spellcaster level up, is not what I consider a game exploit. It's strategic party planning, nothing more. To consider this a cheat is a bit far-fetched: It's much more benign than reloading for sleep-ambushes, level squatting, skill point squatting, or muling. If you don't make use of reloads, delaying your level-ups, or abusing the Character Arbitration screen, then where's the exploitation taking place?

 

No. The human would have the higher chance of winning. The drow spell resistance grants only a 40 percent chance to kick in versus a 2 level higher caster and since the human has 1-2 extra feats (1 racial, 0-1 level based) you can assume he has spell penetration, so even 80 percent of the spells are unaffected by SR.
Besides the extra HP and other level dependening bonuses the 2 level higher caster has higher level spells available which are harder to save and have better effects.

 

Wow, that was a fantastic post. It certainly changed my perspective in regards to saving throws vs. magic resistance.

By the way, Drow can gain a +2 to will saving throws.

 

How about a deep gnome Fighter 3/monk 1/ranger 1/paladin 1/cleric 1/druid 1? He will freeze at level 8, providing tons of XP to push your sorc up to 20 or more.

 

Thanks countD, but your praise was premature I'm afraid. I just remembered to check if Madae had GSF:Enchantment, and she does. She actually has ALL spell focus feats. Tyrant's Dictum doesn't apply, because Hold Person is a non-domain spell (we know that thanks to you).

Madae's revised casting success against a:
lvl16 drow sorc = 59%
human pal1/monk1/sorc16 = 35%

 

Coin, the problems with your save example:
1. Using an enemy caster with higher level than the party -- most won't be. This makes SR look worse than it really is.
2. Using a will save spell, ignoring fort and reflex. How about this: both sorcs have Mind Blank (duration: 24 hours) on, so they make Will save 100% of the time.

 

True enough, but I did say this already:

Spell Resistance is indeed more effective against average enemy spellcasters, but the powergamed human sorcerer's high saving throws will also be effective. The powerful enemies are the most important though, and it's too bad that SR falls short in terms of spell defense.
The will save was just an example, but I'd say it holds true for reflexes (human sorc gets modifier from both CHA and DEX) and fortitude (human sorc gets modifier from CHA and CON). In fact, I deliberately chose the weakest saving throw (willpower gets a positive modifier from CHA, but the WIS modifier is a -4 penalty), to be conservative, and to test my own assumption.
Believe me, reflex and fortitude saves are not a problem for the powergamed human sorcerer!

 

The powerful enemies are more important, but the average ones are much more numerous. I don't think it matters much that the human sorc might defend better against Madae, when the sorc defends better against 98% of enemy casters.

Also, the drow sorc could easily have grabbed a few of the SR boosting items scattered through the game. The human sorc would not use these items, because there is no benefit to having just a few points of SR.

 

The most powerful enemies are the most important, because you need every advantage you've got to bring them down. Failing a save or two more when facing Isair and Madae, can mean swift defeat.

I can think of a few items which confer SR (not to be confused with magic damage resistance, item descriptions are often unclear about this): There's some armours, a shield or two, the paladin sword, and the Robes of the ____ Archmagi. If your sorc is evil, a robe will be available eventually, but good and neutral sorcs aren't that lucky, if I remember correctly. I managed to purchase the other types from mod mercants, though. The robe's 9SR is enough to increase your resistance by 45%, so it will give the sorc a much-needed boost. Human sorcs can wear it, but won't get any benefits from the SR, since there are no casters of such low level at that point. Also, the Holy Aura spell confers +25SR to all, so will effectively push your characters with SR over the top. A problem with your drow sorc here, is that it still has weak saving throws behind the high SR. It will still be affected by spells that bypass SR, like Tremor and Wail of the Banshee.
I like SR, but it's most useful for my melee frontliners (drow battleclerics) and decoys (gnome illusionist/rogue and drow bard)
A monk mix-in for Evasion later on suits my human characters fine.

 

Against I+M, you're going to be loaded down with save boosting spells anyway, probably to 95% saves even without a paladin mixin. It's silly to say that one build is better based on an advantage in the final battle of the game, ignoring the hundreds of earlier battles where the other build is better.

This is a little like the people who suggest wiz 17/cleric 13 builds because you now have a character who can cast every sorc spell along with heal and raise dead and most of the other good cleric spells ... ignoring the fact that from levels 2-28 (95%+ of your game playing time), you're going to be a crappy wizard or a useless cleric or most likely both.

 

How can you keep saying that, after the evidence to the contrary is piling up?
The drow's spells lag behind for most of the game, and the SR is a necessary boost to its poor saving throws, but it doesn't even make the drow on par with a human in terms of defense. Humans have way better life stats, more hitpoints, level faster, their spells do more damage (in hit die, not DC), and their mix-in options allow for boundless possibilities in the later game.
You're hung up on SR, but it isn't that big of a deal, since spells aren't the only way to take damage.

 

Coin, are you talking about the human sorc X, or the human paladin 1 monk 1 sorc X? Because if the human get two non-sorc levels, he's right back down to having a worse offense than the drow (less CHA) *and* he doesn't have SR, which I still think is better than the paladin save boost.

BTW, did you remember the drow +4 to will saves boost earlier?

 

That's the beauty of mix-ins. You can take them at any point in the game, when you find the bonus worthwhile. Like I said earlier, the risk of taking spell damage is of limited importance to a sorcerer (weapon damage is more dangerous), so I opt to take it much later, after normal mode.

I forgot. Sneaky little game rules that I totally forgot about. Drow have +2s.t. vs. spells, +2s.t. vs. Enchantment and immunity to sleep, making enchantment their strongest suit. I told you I was conservative when I chose an enchantment in the comparison. For reflex saves, fortitude saves, and non-enchantment will saves, the drow are still quite poor, but not as bad as I portrayed earlier.
For normal mode, drow vs. human will be very different, and hard to compare: +1DC vs. +1 hit die, SR vs. higher saves, and nothing vs. combat skills and hitpoints. But it is certain that the human will become more powerful in Heart of Fury mode.

 

If they were all level 1, I give the advantage to Deep Gnome, Well, they would have mirror image, blur, and invisibility already, SR, and higher AC .

But if comparing higher levels I will give the edge to Humans, as they will always have access to a level higher spells (which also gives them more lower level spells to choose from, and higher spell DC) as compared to Aasimar or Drow.

 

Not going to quote a dozen posts from this and the previous page, but I caught several massive errors in people's reasoning up there.

1) Spells rise in "power" both through caster levels and ability scores (DC), but you're sorely mistaken if you think those two things are exchangeable. All other things being equal, lvl 18 human's DBFB would do 18d8 damage, while the corresponding lvl 16 drow would do 16d8. But, since the drow has +1 DC on his spell, meaning 4.5% more enemies will fail their saves compared to the human, it will smoothe out the difference to some degree. In general though, higher caster level is pretty much always better - if for nothing else but longer durations on (de)buffs.

2) Spell resistance IS a godsend, even more so if it comes naturally and improves with levels. But it has its limitations, most notably you can't half-ass it. Either you get it extremely high or it won't noticeably help you. For example, a drow warrior in all-human party, being two levels behind everyone else WILL NOT be able to count on it saving his hide against the party's own spells regularly. Sidestepping to acquire a paladin level for the Holy Avenger does nothing short of miracles, though - even the normal-mode sword grants 15 spell resistance bonus, which would make yer drow warrior/pally count as THIRTEEN levels above your own party for purposes of spell resistance. And THEN we're talking business. Or, use that Holy Aura spell - any character with innate resistances will count as "good effin' luck penetrating my SR" for the rest of your spellcasters.

3) Party's level for Challenge Rating experience calculation purposes is an INTEGER, meaning you always round down. So, in fact, even a singular ECL+1 race in otherwise non-ECL party will make your party count as one whole level lower in terms of how much experience you receive for your kills during the whole game. And on that same account, 'erasing' the gap using the exp tomes from the Monastery on that ECL+1 character is about as stupid as it gets - your average party level jumps a whole notch just by leveling this singular character.

4) Saving throws NEVER lose importance. Sure you can cheese most of the Will saves with Chaotic Commands, Mind Blank and/or decent spell resistance, but you'd better score that Fort save when someone tries to Disintegrate, Finged of Death or Wail of Banshee you. In contrary to my thesis (in JUPP) about most single-target spells being behind spell resistance checks, Disintegrate and Finger of Death from my measly level 20 wizard eradicated my poor lvl 30 deep gnome monk test dummy with a whopping 86 spell resistance when he managed to fail the save. Count me as surprised when that happened - yes, it even read "spell resisted" on the combat info screen but apparently the saving throw is checked first.

 

about 3): Theoretically you are correct, but the game isn't as clear-cut as that. The characters first in line will get more XP, and will eventually level sooner than the rest. I try to put my ECL characters in front, so they aren't held back too much. The tome gives a great boost in XP, and it's definitely worth buying, even if you hesitate to use it directly. But in my opinion, avoiding level advancement for more XP, which should result in level advancement, is quite contradictory. Savour the bonus that ECL races give your party, but don't go too far in this. Personally I do a little level squatting, in terms of never leveling until I enter a new map (so that appropriate enemies spawn). I also pretend-rest for ambushes, so I can gain a bit of XP and loot. But when it comes to muling, or small parties, that's when I draw the line: You are limiting yourself so much that it spoils gameplay. Not buying the tome is like not killing monsters; it just costs you in XP on the long run.

about 4): This I've seen before: The drow ambush was decimated by my Wail of the Banshee. Tremor bypasses SR in the same way, so apparently some area spells also ignore SR.
BTW, my character's SR seems to get capped at 50SR. How did you manage to get 86?

 

Coin, Jukka has a good point about Holy Aura. If you're going to base your sorc comparison on the final battle, you have to assume that H.A. is cast, making the Drow sorc immune to spells (except for the spells that ignore SR). However, H.A. is short enough duration that you shouldn't count on it in every battle unless you are the type to rest every screen.

Jukka, the single ECL character will boost the rest of the party... right up until the part where they level up a *little* sooner than they were "supposed", to because they have been gaining xp faster than a vanilla party. Now they will gain xp at the same rate as the vanilla party. Through the entire game, most of the time the 5 human party members will be the "correct" level, and the rest of the the time they will be one level ahead.

 

Not quite the same thing, actually. You have to ask yourself, which is better: Having all members of the non-ECL party on the level they SHOULD be in various points in the game vs having your singular ECL character in that level while the rest of your party is at level where they should be PLUS ONE?

Yes, I'm aware that reaching the point of "level should be plus one" requires more experience points than "level should be", but you'll get there soon enough. Adjusting the current level by one in either direction means in the ballpark of 20-30 percent difference on the experience award for killing a monster, just take a look at the MONCRATE.2DA file if you don't believe me.

Oh, and I totally forgot. The main reason to have high STR (instead of WIS) on a sorcerer is called "ranged weapons that allow for STR damage boni" such as slings, darts (!) and thrown axes (with that notorious pally level). It's not like you really need to Magic Missile that final standing Orog down - might as well plant a slingshot between its eyes. With even the basic long term buffs, level 12+ sorcerer has 2+ attacks per round without sacrificing any feats for it, and the damage per round easily surpasses surprisingly many spells. Remember that you're only allowed one spell per round.

Edit: On the subject of what Spell Resistance is and isn't good for, guess it's time for more thorough testing. Expect to see results during the weekend. My dummy got 86 SR since i have the lvl 40 fixpack installed, but I guess it's better if I restrict that to 50 SR just to avoid having to double-check for possible SR overflows and such quirks.

 

JT, how about this point:
My Human SorcX/pal1 gets CHA bonus from a ring, so she can wear any robe. She is wearing the Robe of the Good Archmagi (9SR), and wields Cera Sumat (16SR). When I also cast Holy Aura (25SR), the resulting 9+16+25=50SR is the maximum SR. The drow will cap at the same SR, making the only difference between them, the saving throws!

Now this item combo gives my human sorc a SR of 25 mostly, which puts her at the SR-level of a level 14 drow. Even though the SR will be less reliable than the drow's at the end (also wearing a Robe o/t Archmagi, so 27+9=36SR), the saving throws do enough to compensate, and the human still beats the drow in the end. 'Sidestepping' to get a paladin level, like described in 2), for the drow sorc will give a big XP penalty, so I'm unwilling to discuss such a character; it isn't fit to move on to Heart of Fury anymore.

We've totally forgotten about the Aasimar sorc, which in these conditions will thrive with both high saving throws, AND be able to use Cera Sumat. Since it starts with 20CHA, it gets the best of both worlds.

But I must reiterate, that SR/High saves/Evasion isn't always vital for a sorc, as I demonstrate by not taking a monk mix-in in normal mode, and by not using Cera Sumat in melee with my sorcX/pal1/rgr1 (I prefer the mod item Equalizer sword; it gives +2d6 magic damage vs. lawful, chaotic, good AND evil. And I often use the Moonblade of Selune in the off-hand because it's light).

EDIT: Sir Rechet, I'm glad you agree with the strong sorc principle, I'm eager to hear what your results will be. About the XP thing: sometimes being one level higher in the party can double my XP gains from kills: I remember Black Archers giving 162 XP one level, and 81XP the next. But a bit of level squatting will do much more for your party than keeping one guy a level lower.

 

But most of the time, your "rest of the party" will just be at the level they should be -- no advantage. The rest of the time (I'd guess about 20-30%) they will be +1 level over the vanilla party.

Eww, who suggested high WIS on a sorc? Good human sorc stats:
18 CHA 18 CON 18 DEX 16 STR 3 WIS 3 INT

I do prefer bows to darts, because you don't have to stand so close, you get the added attack and damage bonus of whatever bow you find, and it seems that there is a greater supply of highly enchanted arrows than darts. Of course you can switch between arrows and darts depending on what ammo you have on hand.

Of course, in normal DND you have to choose between casting a spell or making attacks -- you can't do both in the same round. But IWD2 lets you do both...

I think it would make more sense to base things on the vanilla patched game... if we're going to have fixpatches, how about one to correct the ECL xp situation?