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Author Topic: Build: Cleric 7/Master of Shrouds 28/Hierophant 5 (Ghost Whisperer)  (Read 2253 times)

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May 26, 2022, 09:06:39 PM
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This build is an extremely powerful divine gish with a twist.  This build has access to several "I win" buttons between high-DC Implosions, crazy ghost gang summoning, and devcrit.

What this build gives you: full cleric casting with no loss of caster levels and extremely good SR penetration; cleric buffing and healing; 17 pre-epic BAB for 4 attacks/round; 35/40 undead turning; devastating critical at level 24; extremely high save DCs for their spells, particularly evocation (implosion will end up with DCs in the 50s with WIS-boosting gear) and necromancy; heavy armor and tower shields; bonus Death and Evil domains; and the ability to summon up to 8 ghosts at once - the ghosts summoned by this build get ridiculously powerful, becoming epic wizards with epic spells at high levels.

Weak points: only constructs with magic immunity will give this build trouble - it can devcrit or implode anything else; AC on this build is decent due to heavy armor use, tower shields and racial natural armor bonus but is not godly; saves don't really get any notable boosts - be sure to mitigate this shortcoming with the best save-boosting equipment you can find; you have to wait until character level 25 for 7th level spells, 28 for 8th level spells, and 31 for 9th level spells.  The ghosts you summon are incredibly powerful but will sometimes turn on you after all the enemies are destroyed (at levels 34, 37, and 40 the ghosts cannot turn if you have gear granting +12 to CHA), it is a good idea to run away before all the enemies are dead and wait for the ghosts duration to expire.  If you absolutely want to avoid them turning, you can take the Weapon of Legacy Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, but you will take an attack penalty or the Sunsword which would require you to take bastard sword for the weapon-specific feats.

Build Name: Ghost Whisperer

Race: Half-Ogre
Alignment: Any Evil
      
Strength 20
Dexterity 6
Constitution 10
Intelligence 12
Wisdom 16
Charisma 14
      
Lvl   Class
1   Cleric 1: Weapon Proficiency (Scimitar), Domains: War, Protection, skill points all into Concentration, Lore, Spellcraft
2   Clr 2
3   Clr 3: Power Attack
4   Clr 4: 17 WIS
5   Clr 5
6   Clr 6: Cleave
7   Clr 7: Spellcraft 10 then no more points into Spellcraft
8   Master of Shrouds 1: 21 STR
9   MoS 2: Spell Focus (Evocation)
10   MoS 3
11   MoS 4
12   MoS 5: Improved Critical (Scimitar/Rapier), 22 STR
13   MoS 6
14   MoS 7
15   MoS 8: Extend Spell
16   MoS 9: 23 STR
17   Hierophant 1: Spell Power +2
18   Hiero 2: Great Cleave, Spell Power +4
19   Hiero 3: Spell Power +6
20   Hiero 4: Spell Power +8, 24 STR
21   Hiero 5: Spell Power +10, Overwhelming Critical (Scimitar/Rapier)
22   MoS 10
23   MoS 11
24   MoS 12: Devastating Critical (Scimitar/Rapier), 25 STR
25   MoS 13: B: Great Wisdom
26   MoS 14
27   MoS 15: Greater Spell Focus (Evocation)
28   MoS 16: B: Epic Spell Focus (Evocation), 18 WIS
29   MoS 17
30   MoS 18: Holy Warrior
31   MoS 19: B: Great Wisdom
32   MoS 20: 20 WIS
33   MoS 21: Improved Turning
34   MoS 22: B: Great Charisma
35   MoS 23
36   MoS 24: Spell Focus (Necromancy), 16 CHA
37   MoS 25: B: Great Wisdom
38   MoS 26
39   MoS 27: Greater Spell Focus (Necromancy)
40   MoS 28: B: Epic Spell Focus (Necromancy), 22 WIS

Spell Suggestions:

- Implosion: instant death to everything, even those things immune to death magic, in a medium-sized area
- Wail of the Banshee: instant death in a huge area (you can spontaneously cast this from the Death bonus domain 1/day)
- Sun Burst: huge damage to undead and permanent blindness to all
- Aura Versus Alignment: protects against some nasty status effects like fear and paralyze
- Hammer of the Gods: a good mid-level battlefield control spell
- Wrack: good low- to mid-level save-or-lose spell
- Sound Burst: good low-level battlefield control spell
- Buffs: the cleric's real strength. Some suggestions, and remember you have Extend Spell to stretch them out: Divine Favor, Righteous Might, Battletide, Prayer, Recitation, Freedom of Movement, True Seeing, Premonition (fate), Mantle of Egregious Might (war)
- Recovery Spells: Heal, Lesser Restoration, Restoration, Greater Restoration, Regeneration
- War Domain Spells: keep one copy of the highest War Domain spell you have available prepared at all times to maximize the damage bonus from Holy Warrior

Note, make sure to buy off the half-ogre level adjustment as soon as you can (level 6 and 9).  If you are OK with a high level of cheese (and have level adjustment turned off) you could switch a spell focus feat for Craft Wonderous Items and you would then qualify for the lich template and the demilich template at level 21.  The half-ogre model is terrible in the PRC, I recommend this one: https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/hakpak/original-hakpak/dynamic-ogre-half-ogre


May 31, 2022, 10:41:41 PM
Reply #1

Good to see a non-uber race build with a different spin from the Eternal Undead Master:
http://nwnprc.com/index.php?topic=1400.0

A couple of small bits.

Not going for Epic Spellcasting? The build ends with 22 Wis. Epic Mage Armor, Deadeye Sense and Epic Warding are must haves for serious OP cheese. All it costs is a few skill points and 1 Epic feat. Also, the S-craft skill points boost magic saves.

Corpsecrafter makes your undead minions a little stronger. Not sure if they are considered 'created' vs summoned. Worth a look.

With TWF, Div Might is a big heavy damage bonus adder w/ the right gear. I would probably go Div Shield as well and just Dual Wield. Also nice if you load up a big bad bow.

Unliving Weapon is great to blow up Undead traitors. Destruction Retribution is also something to consider.

Would go for Plant domain to get Creep Doom. Protection is meh vs Div Shield + high Cha gear. The only thing that sucks about CD is that the Undead tend to run into the CD cloud and soak up damage. Love CD + Storm of Vengeance + missile attacks.

Stop Heart is a great killing spell. You just have to stock up on Baccaran. Slay Living was pretty good, too.

I would stay away from Dev-Crit and just toolset items that give Dev-Crit as a bonus feat. Way too many feats and strength tied up in DevCrit for my taste. Div Might + high Cha gear + Deadeye Sense are a great set.

An easy way (albeit costly) to dispose of the treacherous undead was: cast Gr Timestop (Epic spell), cast Unliving Weapon on 6 different ones, cast 1-2 Fire Storms. Done deal. They would effectively blow each other up. Funny to watch.

Might go for Extra Turning over Improved Turning. They aren't usually that treacherous. ET is 6 additional OP undead summons.

Undead Mastery may (??) give you summons headroom to bring on a fair bit more firepower.

For added flexibility for a very high Wis build, consider Zen Archery to add the missile dimension into the arsenal. CD + SoV + missile attacks are serious fun. Stacks well with Div Might + Shield.

Love the build and thanks for posting.

Fermi was a Pyrokineticist


June 01, 2022, 03:14:06 PM
Reply #2

Note that in the PRC, Spellcraft does not add to saves, nor Tumble to AC.
That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die.


June 01, 2022, 04:04:37 PM
Reply #3

Fermi was a Pyrokineticist


June 02, 2022, 03:08:32 AM
Reply #4
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Re: build suggestions

First, many of these are not possible: you can’t take any domain but War because you need it for Holy Warrior and the other domain must be one of the three MoS domains to qualify. You cannot take Extra Turning instead of Improved Turning because MoS already gets it as a bonus feat. You can’t have undead mastery, it is a Dread Necromancer thing. Also, as Strat points out, those skills are no longer useful.

As I’ve said before, use-limited abilities generally suck in NWN. They are fine for games where only a few encounters a day are assumed (4/day in PnP for instance), but the encounter rate in many NWN modules makes them undesirable. For example, maybe a times/day ability will be useful against the first monster in Swordflight, but what about the tenth? What about the 100th monster you have to fight before the module even gives you the possibility of resting? Epic spells, divine might, and divine shield all fall into this category.

Devcrit and PRC vorpal are THE best pure offensive abilities there are. Nothing kills faster aside from maybe the extreme damage builds (which this build cannot replicate). This build can’t make a vorpal weapon (the better option) because it cannot get both of the required spells, so devcrit it is. And the requirements for devcrit (except overwhelming critical and power attack) all dramatically improve devcrit. This build is primarily a devcrit build with use-limited options to deal with the enemies that are immune to devcrit. And my desire is to not post cheater builds, so no toolset solutions.

Corpse Crafter and (particularly/mostly) Destruction Retribution will work, and may be a decent swap in for this build, but I don’t think there is a combination of two feats that would be better swapped out for those two.

And Improved Turning and +12 charisma items are required in this build as it is the only way to never lose control of a ghost (aside from a couple WoL that are not good fits). Until I get phylactery of undead turning implemented, that is.

Some of the spells look cool, but the player can decide on those.