Newbie seeking advice for an Eeevil/Neutral party...

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Greetings and salutations!

As stated in the title, I'm still rather unfamiliar with D&D 3e... as well as D&D in general, I suppose (although I have some minor experience with AD&D 2e). All these new feats and skills and such can be overwhelming for my feeble mind. Now, I lean towards a balance between powergaming and roleplaying, so I'm not looking for the most efficient setup, but a relatively effective one nonetheless. Still undecided on whether I want a party of four or six.

Anyway, I personally tend to favor rogue types (specifically assassins) who dabble into the arcane arts to bolster their -- or their allies' -- abilities. Having always favored dark elves in practically all representations of them through various games, choosing a Drow seemed appropriate enough. Thus, this is what I have planned so far for my main charater:

Drow (Male), Neutral Evil/True Neutral - Rogue (1)/Specialized Wizard: Transmuter or Diviner (X)
Not too devastated over the loss of Abjuration/Conjuration, as a Cleric will be able to somewhat cover for the former and the the latter, while the same could be said for a Druid to a lesser extent. Speaking of Druids, I am somewhat contemplating the Rogue/Druid path, as I do like nature-based magic, although I am uncertain how that combination would pan out in the end. Probably a little too flashy for an "arcane assassin" sort from a roleplaying point of view. Preferably, I'd like to stick crossbows (and possibly short blades), when I'm not casting for whatever reason.

And that's pretty much all I've got so far. No ideas on skills, feats, and the like.

Thematically, a Paladin wouldn't find my dastardly party-to-be pleasant, so a Bard seems capable enough as a diplomat. However, I feel like multi-classing the Bard with something, as I enjoy variety... possibly a Sorcerer, although that may be redundant and may in fact lessen variety. JUPP guide suggests a Human Bard/Dreadmaster of Bane/Druid combination, which does seem rather interesting.

Then, of course, I'll need to find a tank, Cleric, and possibly a Sorcerer. Feel free to offer any suggestions or tips! Constructive comments would be greatly appreciated! Really. Please. I will genuflect in your general direction.

 

Have a look through the guides section to get an impression of what feats are useful for you, and what builds are efficient. If you like drow, you'll be happy with their options in this game. Humans and Drow are the most powerful races here.

 

How big or small do you want your party?

If you have any arcane spellcasters or archers, then you'll want ~2 tanks (plus a couple of summoned skeletons to cover the rear).


My favorite games have been 4-character parties, which can be:

• Rogue 1 / Wizard++
• Bard / ???
• Cleric (Bane)
• Druid

Rogue/Wizard: Diviner is a great choice; Transmuter gets a perk in the Underdark but IMHO it wasn't worth losing out on so many good spells like stoneskin. Drow all the way for this guy.

Bard / ???: you want a level 11 Bard in your party, so don't split this evenly with another class. Instead just dip into appropriate classes. My Bard ended up a Bard 12 / Fighter 4, and she was a brilliant archer. Bard 1 -> Fighter 1 -> Bard +10 -> Fighter +3 -> whatever you like. My character was Human, but anything which can handle Bard and a dip class is fine. (Good dip classes are Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, and I wish Paladin were available.)

Cleric (Bane): Clerics are great. Not much to add here. Consider taking a Martial weapon feat, or being a female Drow for free Longsword proficiency.

Druid: for this one I went Deep Gnome, and the AC boost is great, but I didn't really use her animal forms very much, and high-level Druid spells are very disappointing. Maybe a Deep Gnome Monk would have been a better choice.

 

Thanks for the input, fellows!

@coineineagh: Indeed, the Drow bonuses are what caught my eye when I was contemplating my main character. Good ol' Spell Resistance. While I have looked through the guides concerning feats and skills, I always find myself so indecisive, but I suppose I'll give it better thought.

@Nifft: For party size, I am undecided. Between four and six, though I'm leaning towards less than six for a little more added difficulty.

Indeed, Stoneskin was a bit difficult to pass up, and I may lean more towards Diviner after all. As for the Bard, I believe that I will be attempting the aforementioned Bard/Dreadmaster of Bane/Druid.

Now, I don't remember how well Clerics fit the tanking role, but I'll be utilizing a female Drow (as suggested) for the healer/secondary tank position. Now to figure out the primary tank...

 

Be aware that the JUPP and most other party building guides are thought experiment about what's most powerful at level 30, so handle with care unless you want to cheat up your party to level 30 right at the start which I don't think you'll do.

In a normal game your characters will be level 16 at the end (just like Niffts bard) and of course even lower during the game.

I recommend a party of 6, the game was balanced for this. Because of the dynamic XP calculation a party of 4 will still end at level 16 just like a party of 6 since you just get 0 Combat XP when you are considerably higher level than the CR of the monsters you face.

Multiclassing your casters like Bard/Dreadmaster of Bane/Druid won't work. Pure casters progress reaching new spell levels all the time during the game, low level spells are pretty useless late in the game when you're supposed to be able to cast high level spells.

If I'd play an all-drow party I'd choose

sorcerer
cleric
druid
bard
rogue1/transmuter
barbarian

You loose a lot if you don't keep the first 3 casters pure, the high level spells bards get at level 12-16 are surely more useful than low level stuff from other classes, the rogue1/transmuter works as perfect thief and backup caster, the barbarian gets special abilities like damage reduction at higher levels, no need for fighter levels since weapon specialization is inflexible, annoying and not worth loosing barbarian benefits.

Most important for doing physical damage and speeding up combat is strength, a tank with low strength is worse than a summon, max strength at creation and at level up for your tank or just feel useless.

Some of the most useful combat feats (rapid shot, dodge, ...) require 13+ dex, you might even want to take 14 with your druid in case you find a potion of holy transference.

 

@kmonster: Noted. Actually, this is not meant to be an all-drow party, although I suppose I didn't word it properly in my original post. I suppose I won't limit myself to under six members, as it will offer me more flexibility when it comes to assigning party roles. Still, the party appears to be a little magic-heavy (which is not necessarily a bad thing) now with all those pure mage-types. Hm, I'll have to tinker around with some ideas, still.

 

i took care in my iwd_4dummies to make the party strong and easily playable throughout the game. I detailed class level picks, skills, feats, stats and even spell picks as you level up, in what i believed is their best order of priority. The excelsheet gives a comprehensible overview, though you'd need to read the wordfile for full explanations.

The only downside is that this takes a tremendous amount of text to document and explain properly. I'm not happy that it became such a long read, but for completeness it was unavoidable.

 

@coineineagh: Righto! Thanks for the heads up! I'll go over it and see all the things I need familiarizing with. Thanks for the help, everyone!

 

Err..? I concur that early versions of JUPP were pretty much exactly that, but now that the really wonky ideas such as dual-class caster builds and level-squatting are out of the picture, the performance is fairly solid even at normal levels.

Or, if you prefer, there's absolutely nothing to sweat about Normal mode anyway, no matter your party composition, and most of the really NEEDED stuff is available by HOF mode. Unless going into degenerate cases such as soloing on Insane difficulty.

 

Definitely put a Dreadmaster of Bane in there.

 

I personally just play normal games - I've no interest in HoF what so ever. I have completed this game 2 or 3 times (can't remember since I'm a chronic restarter). That being said - I'm not a big fan of multiclassing. Sometimes there is worth it - in my first game (that I finished) I had a human rogue (2)/wizard (x) and was pretty happy with that (yes he would probably been better as a drow).

My last game was indeed an all drowparty and it was the best experioence I've had with this game. Check out "Revenge of the Drow" for the whole story. But I find evil to be more rewarding and effective in this game. Who cares about paladins and their weak sword?

 

Why do Drow PCs have to be evil?

 

They don't (who said that they do?). But this tread is about evil (or did I miss something again?).

Obviously most players are "evil" - getting the most XP tends to be neutral evil. Not being stunned by Blasphemy is a great reason for choosing an evil alignment. But drow as a race is not "evil" - it's just juicy to pick that race as they have great advantages.

 

I took your previous statement to imply that you had a) an all drow party and b) that you find an evil party to be more rewarding to mean drow parties ar better. Which would imply they are then evil. I don't think most players prefer to be evil. Nor do they try to get max XP. At least not the first time running through a game, which is usually the best experience one has with a game, imo of course.