AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - The Official Teach a Man to Fish topic (Build topic):

Death Attack is unfortunately not very good for anything other than being an additional bit of income on damage. NWN's engine applies spellcraft to the assassin widget and freedom of movement gear gives you immunity to the paralysis. I have very little trouble rolling a 40 on most saves on a well built PC that takes spellcraft. On amia all you really need to do is buff Fort to a reasonable level and then dump into spellcraft.

That way you're safe from pretty much everything but DC 49 stunning fist builds. And even then if you gear vs dev crit you'll still make the save 50% of the time.

What about a Wizard(or Sorc)/Cleric?
Kinda inspired by mystic theurge. I know Sorcerer/Cleric has better synergy with Cha focus, but I don't know how to play a Sorc, and I like the 4 extra feats a Wiz gets.

Anyone have ideas?

Wiz 24 / Cleric 5 / Bard 1?

Just trying to see if this idea has any traction at all.

Hi All,

New to the forums and Amia, the below is what I'm building just looking for advise on if you think its bad and why and what could be done to improve:-

Sorcerer 20 / Red Dragon Disciple 10

Stats:-
Strength: 8
Dexterity: 14
Constitution: 14
Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 8
Charisma: 18

With throw all extra stats in Charisma.

Skills:-
Concentration, Spellcraft: Maxing as i level.
Persuade: spare points.

Feats:-
Maximize Spell
Empower Spell
Extend Spell
Quicken Spell
Spell Penetration
Combat Casting
Spell Focus

Familiars:-
Panther: Took for the damage it can do as i mainly play with a dwarfen defender friend.

Spells:-
Level 1: Burning Hands, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Protection from Alignment, Summon Creature I
Level 2: Ghostly Visage, Melf's Acid Arrow, Resist Elements, Eagle's Splendor, Bulls Strength
Level 3: Flame Arrow, Haste, Fireball, Vampiric Touch
Level 4: Ice Storm, Improved Invisibility, ElementalShield, Enervation
Level 5: Cone of Cold, Energy Buffer, Dismissal, Lesser Mind Blank
Level 6: Chain Lightning, Globe of Invulnerability, True Seeing
Level 7: Delayed Blast Fireball, Spell Mantle, Shadow Shield
Level 8: Premonition, Horrid Wilting, Greater Planar Binding
Level 9: Time Stop, Wail of the Banshee, Mordenkainen's Disjunction

There's not much that can be done about that build without brutalizing it.

Dragon Disciple... just don't mesh well with sorcerer - you can still take the class, but you won't get anything good mechanically out of it. And I put emphasis in mechanically. Dragon disciple is a wonderful class, and I'm shamelessly biased about it so let me just limit myself to the mechanical facts.

It depends what are you looking to play - You can't really use your best sorcerer abilities because you don't have enough levels or the score for it. Basically, you could only play the "sit back and relax" buffer sort of caster - the only good alternative is shifting the stats so you can properly go spellsword.

I mean, the relatively low amount of sorcerer levels means that every spell with DCs will come up short. It means that the duration of the spells is shorter. It means that you can get dispelled with only a little of luck. Unless are comfortable with your character being naturally weak in comparison to others... refer to the first line.

No, while there are definitely better things you can be doing, Sorc20/DD10 can certainly be made serviceable for PvM. You'll be easily dispelled, but not every mob dispels and you'll have the spell slots to patch up your buddies when it does happen. You won't have an epic summon but that's okay, if you plan on only going out with allies. If you take all the spell focus feats your spell DCs will be near 40, which is about as good as it gets (and the only benefit to those 10 levels of Dragon Disciple). Your buff spells will last long enough.

That said, make sure this is what you want before embarking down this road. For someone who's just starting out on Amia I probably wouldn't recommend it, and a more generic Sorcerer build will give you almost everything you want Roleplay-wise without causing any frustration. Plus, you can invest up to 20 sorcerer levels before you decide to branch off. But Sorc/DD, while workable, is pretty much purely for the Roleplay of it and grants very few benefits at significant costs. Better to look into it later but if you're set on doing it now, it's technically an option. Standard Sorcerer build is 23+ sorcerer levels, 1 rogue level where you drop all your skill points into Tumble for an AC boost, and up to 4 fighter levels for survivability feats. You'd also grab a few epic spells as well. You can go more Sorc levels if you want.

For feat choices, don't worry about Quicken Spell and Combat Casting. Maximise/Empower - pick one, no real need for both. Empower outperforms Maximise by the numbers, but Maximise is neater and safer. Spell penetration is fine if you're going 23 or more caster levels, greater is good too, but make sure you get Greater and Epic spell focus in at least one spell school (Necro, Ench - those tend to work well).
For spell choices, once you get in game you'll learn what spells are most desirable and so forth. Mass Haste, Isaac's Greater Missile Storm, and so on. The great thing about Sorcs is that you can reshuffle your spell list whenever you level, so it goes great with the learning curve.

Also, EarthDreamer: Mystic Theurges were weak even when they got 2 caster level progressions for the price of one. Sorc/Cleric doesn't have great synergy either, you're better off with a more traditional spellsword build. The problem is that when it comes to making a Caster, you need a lot of levels in the class to really get anywhere, which makes taking two caster classes means only one of them is really going to count. For a class that really mixes both, well you can go bard, throw in some Divine Champion for good measure, or a Sorcerer who believes/acts like a "gifted" servant. Playing a sorcerer doesn't really take any special tricks - they're just like any other PC, except arcane prowess comes to them naturally.

Thanks all, I originally planned to go into a transmutation so i could become a bad ass Red Dragon but i did some research and it isn't that great thus i went down the caster sorcerer route and decided to go into RDD to make up for it.

I do love the idea of 1 rogue for tumble dump (out of interest how many points would you recommend putting into this?)

Is it worth taking paladin for the Armour / Divine Grace?

Maybe a Sorcerer 28 / Paladin 1 / Rogue 1?

Also I've read that DM's can do custom spells maybe get a custom shapechange for a lower level spell and decrease the potency of the spell so its mainly for visuals?

About the tumbledump:
Naturally, 30 points. No more, no less. You get a lovely +6 to AC.

About paladin, I wouldn't know. In any case, if you wear heavy armor (and most likely tower shield too), you'll have to either resign to not use somatic spell at all. Use Still Spell - or get the three glorious Still Spell feats, which may be sort of painful since they are epic feats.

Ask Serb. He's wording my thoughts better.

Amia Capped the Saves bonus from Divine grace, so you'd only be getting +1 Universal saves.

Personally, It would be better to go 29 Sorcerer 1 fighter, You get a bonus fighter feat, and you'll get a bonus Sorcerer feat (Sorc Bonuses are at 23, 26 and 29). Which would be enough for the Three Auto Still spells, leaving your epic level 21 24 27 and 30 feats free for an Epic Spell focus and a couple epic Spells!

(I'd recommend taking the fighter level at ECL 29 for Maximum Discipline Dump) The only downside is you'd have to cross class for tumble, costing 30 points, but only getting 15 ranks. (Which is nice, because you get enough to evade Attacks of opportunities all the time, and at least -some- AC, +3)

So, a good way to go about that would be:

~29 Sorcerer
~1 Fighter (Taken at level 29)
~32 Discipline
~15 Tumble
~33 Spellcraft
~33 Concentration

Rather than taking fighter as a class, which does offer bonus feat but it is not magic oriented bonus feat, I would recommend taking ranger. Ranger allows you get discipline and bonus feat such as spell focus. For example, if you go Epic Evocation Sorcerer, you could take the Epic Spell Focus Evocation on the Ranger lvl. Thus enabling you to use Sorcerer class feats to get something else, like epic spell for example.

Ah, forgotten about that bonus Ranger feat. Do What Magiros said!

Many thanks for the advise all, I'm level 14 now with 2 points in RDD doing a rebuild would take me back to level 8 with one point already in persuade will having 31 in discipline be better or 14 in tumble be better? I don't think i can face leveling from scratch just for the 1 point.

I'm most defiantly looking to go 29 sorc and 1 ranger now.

I'm gonna say Tumble, but stop at 15 or stop at 10, 14 isn't helpful. 2-3 points of AC isn't ideal but you're still better off. 31 points of discipline won't be enough to be any good unless you max your gear bonus - which means finding one of the rarest epic gloves on the server and cutting out other important gear to raise discipline. You will be screwed in melee with a fighter type (they all have KD), but... well, the trick with playing a mage is not to be in melee with fighter types.

You're planning on rebuilding out of the RDD to free up those levels? Well, I'm not crazy about a 29/1 auto-still build, I think there are better things to be taking with those feats, but it's viable (I mean, it's pretty good) and I don't feel the need to really argue against it.

Tumble is only really useful each 5 base ranks. I suppose you can get 14 to negate Attacks of Opportunity, but why would you when you can get another extra AC point just for another rank?

But in any case, I disagree with Serb here.
Discipline would be more valuable than Tumble, if you can max it with items, which is not at all complicated considering that there are +10 discipline helmets and you can slap +5 on each item with the mythal system.
Being a caster, you are going to get smacked time and time again, and any creature, player or NPC, with knockdown will most likely hit you to begin with. So you may as well try to be ready to prevent getting floored and hope it's enough.

So, with SD 13, what can be done? I'd like to make a guy with epic shadow lord, but I'm not sure what to do, besides a typical rogue/SD.

Bard 8 (7) / AA 9 (10) / SD 13 is pretty good.

Monk 6 / SD 13 / Assassin 11 might work. I'm not exactly sure what assassin gets at that level off the top of my head.

For lols, Cleric 15 / Rogue 2 / SD 13 would be bad but could be pretty interesting for roleplay/requests.

Bobo_Underhill wrote:

So, with SD 13, what can be done? I'd like to make a guy with epic shadow lord, but I'm not sure what to do, besides a typical rogue/SD.

16(17) Barbarian 13 SD 1(0) Ranger
16 Rogue 13 SD 1 Fighter
13 SD 9 Monk 8 Fighter
16 SD 5 MS 9 Monk

Terrifying sounds fun.

Bobo_Underhill wrote:

Terrifying sounds fun.

Just have a way to kill them as they run away. I recommend a bow!

Heyo.

So, another old timer is trying to make me return in drow form, but I have fudge-all idea how to build within the restrictions of the race, both in terms of what classes would never be associated with drow, as well as the ECL and other fun things this server has in place.

I guess what I'm asking is, more than "just" a good build, what would be a fun and effective thing to play? I'm not looking for something that will complicate RP for me, since I'm only just about to get into reading up on the race and culture of the drow, so something simple and fighter-y would be good. It'll be a male, too, if that has anything to say in regards to the build.

Hope you guys have some ideas for me.

Simple and fighter-y would be Rogue13/Divine Champion10/Master Scout5. The same also works fairly well with Knight Commander instead of MS, and it can be either STR or DEX. Neither of the builds really excel in anything, but they show a steady performance and are easy to gear and adjust to your fancy.

That looks like pretty much what I'm looking for. Thanks, 'Pusty. You wouldn't happen to have a detailed version of it, would you?

I have it in my brain, covered in a mist of fart. Give it a go, you twunt.

Damn you. Well, not really. After looking over some drowsy stuff, considering which hours I'll be playing and which part of the playerbase appears to be online those hours, and what those two factors put together would do to my fun-factor's final score, I'll probably just end up staying on the surface, in which case I don't really have much of an idea what to play at all.

Thanks for the help anyway, you lovely dollfaced finn.

Dakotaen wrote:

Heyo.

So, another old timer is trying to make me return in drow form, but I have fudge-all idea how to build within the restrictions of the race, both in terms of what classes would never be associated with drow, as well as the ECL and other fun things this server has in place.

I guess what I'm asking is, more than "just" a good build, what would be a fun and effective thing to play? I'm not looking for something that will complicate RP for me, since I'm only just about to get into reading up on the race and culture of the drow, so something simple and fighter-y would be good. It'll be a male, too, if that has anything to say in regards to the build.

Hope you guys have some ideas for me.

If you're still looking for help, drow's stats and SR make for a very nice sorcerer. Just go with 26 sorc/2 other stuff and you're gold.

The1Kobra wrote:

Dakotaen wrote:

Heyo.

So, another old timer is trying to make me return in drow form, but I have fudge-all idea how to build within the restrictions of the race, both in terms of what classes would never be associated with drow, as well as the ECL and other fun things this server has in place.

I guess what I'm asking is, more than "just" a good build, what would be a fun and effective thing to play? I'm not looking for something that will complicate RP for me, since I'm only just about to get into reading up on the race and culture of the drow, so something simple and fighter-y would be good. It'll be a male, too, if that has anything to say in regards to the build.

Hope you guys have some ideas for me.

If you're still looking for help, drow's stats and SR make for a very nice sorcerer. Just go with 26 sorc/2 other stuff and you're gold.

By other stuff he means 1 Ranger 1 Rogue, but since you're wanting a fighter-y thing send me a pm and give me more details and I'll flood you with mixes of this and thats.

Hi, did a search on the forums and came up with a few results but I wanted absolute clarity as its been a few years since some of the replies.

I want to use Epic Gargoyle Shape (20/- Slashing, 20/- Piercing, 20/- Bludgeoning, 25/+10), Epic Damage Reduction 3 (9/-) and Dwarven Defender Damage Reduction (9/-).

Some of the posts said that Damage Reduction will not stack, yet the wiki says "The other exception is that the sources of X/- damage reduction (barbarian-, dwarven defender- and epic- damage reduction) stack with each other."

Will I receive any improvement on my total Damage Reduction when in Gargoyle Shape by having these other forms of Damage Reduction? My hope is that the 25/+10 becomes 43/+10 but I'm suspecting that it will be 25/+10 until I meet some damage type stronger than +10 and only then does the 18/ get applied.

Apologies if this has been answered conclusively elsewhere and I missed it. Thanks.

If I am correct, it will work like this:

If you get hit with a slashing weapons that deals 100 damage:
20/- slashing, 9/- negates, 9/- negates, 25/+10 negates, meaning you take 37 damage (with no other factors in play).

The not stacking is referring to 10/+1 and 15/+1 (or 5/- and 10/-) won't stack, you only get the benefit from the highest one. That's if I am remembering what I have read before right. So 9/- from EDR3 and 9/- from DwD should stack to 18/-, then you get the benefit of the gargoyle's 20/- vs the certain damage types and then the 25/+10 that nothing short of a NPC can break, haha.

However there is a problem: You can't have 9/- from DwD and Epic Gargoyle, because Epic Gargoyle requires Shifter 13 and that level of DR from DwD requires 17 levels

Even in default NWN you'd need 11 Shifter levels for the Epic Gargoyle. The other thing to remember is that at 13 Shifter you are only getting a AC bonus of 20 and the best I can figure is a max AC of 40. So, you're going to get hit a lot and you won't have very good offense either, I think high 30s at the very best (plus you'll have a bit less DR from DwD: 6/-). So things could still swarm and stomp you down, depending on the situation. And if we're talking PvP possibilities, smart people would just avoid you and smack anyone else around then come back to you.

Now, I could be wrong on some of this, but this is my initial two cents based on playing Shifters

The1Kobra wrote:

Dakotaen wrote:

Heyo.

So, another old timer is trying to make me return in drow form, but I have fudge-all idea how to build within the restrictions of the race, both in terms of what classes would never be associated with drow, as well as the ECL and other fun things this server has in place.

I guess what I'm asking is, more than "just" a good build, what would be a fun and effective thing to play? I'm not looking for something that will complicate RP for me, since I'm only just about to get into reading up on the race and culture of the drow, so something simple and fighter-y would be good. It'll be a male, too, if that has anything to say in regards to the build.

Hope you guys have some ideas for me.

If you're still looking for help, drow's stats and SR make for a very nice sorcerer. Just go with 26 sorc/2 other stuff and you're gold.

Thank you both! As I later wrote, though, due to the hours I'll mostly be playing, and how many are actually around during those hours, I'll be going for a surface character instead, so I might have a semblance of hope for some RP. :wink:

Sorry for wasting your time, Gents.

NAUX wrote:

Hi, did a search on the forums and came up with a few results but I wanted absolute clarity as its been a few years since some of the replies.

I want to use Epic Gargoyle Shape (20/- Slashing, 20/- Piercing, 20/- Bludgeoning, 25/+10), Epic Damage Reduction 3 (9/-) and Dwarven Defender Damage Reduction (9/-).

Some of the posts said that Damage Reduction will not stack, yet the wiki says "The other exception is that the sources of X/- damage reduction (barbarian-, dwarven defender- and epic- damage reduction) stack with each other."

Will I receive any improvement on my total Damage Reduction when in Gargoyle Shape by having these other forms of Damage Reduction? My hope is that the 25/+10 becomes 43/+10 but I'm suspecting that it will be 25/+10 until I meet some damage type stronger than +10 and only then does the 18/ get applied.

Apologies if this has been answered conclusively elsewhere and I missed it. Thanks.

Where did you find the resistances of the shape? I was looking for the ones for risen lord and could not find them.

Naivatkal wrote:

If I am correct, it will work like this:

If you get hit with a slashing weapons that deals 100 damage:
20/- slashing, 9/- negates, 9/- negates, 25/+10 negates, meaning you take 37 damage (with no other factors in play).

The not stacking is referring to 10/+1 and 15/+1 (or 5/- and 10/-) won't stack, you only get the benefit from the highest one. That's if I am remembering what I have read before right. So 9/- from EDR3 and 9/- from DwD should stack to 18/-, then you get the benefit of the gargoyle's 20/- vs the certain damage types and then the 25/+10 that nothing short of a NPC can break, haha.

However there is a problem: You can't have 9/- from DwD and Epic Gargoyle, because Epic Gargoyle requires Shifter 13 and that level of DR from DwD requires 17 levels

Even in default NWN you'd need 11 Shifter levels for the Epic Gargoyle. The other thing to remember is that at 13 Shifter you are only getting a AC bonus of 20 and the best I can figure is a max AC of 40. So, you're going to get hit a lot and you won't have very good offense either, I think high 30s at the very best (plus you'll have a bit less DR from DwD: 6/-). So things could still swarm and stomp you down, depending on the situation. And if we're talking PvP possibilities, smart people would just avoid you and smack anyone else around then come back to you.

Now, I could be wrong on some of this, but this is my initial two cents based on playing Shifters

You only need 14 Levels of DwD for 9/- DR

But you need 5 levels of druid and 5+13+14 > 30...

GreatPigeon wrote:

You only need 14 Levels of DwD for 9/- DR

But you need 5 levels of druid and 5+13+14 > 30...

*stares* Well fuck me sideways, my eyes landed on 9/- and 17 and my brain said 'WELL THAT'S THAT' lol

Also:
There's a link on this post that leads to the shifter spreadsheet

I may or may not have downloaded it months ago.

Thanks for the reply. I was aiming at 14 DwD for the first 9/.

The NWN wiki says that I receive Epic Gargoyle at 11.

greater wildshape II (lvl 11)
epic harpy Y Y
epic gargoyle Y Y
epic minotaur Y Y Y

Is this incorrect?

I was planning to make a Wyrmling Shielded Epic Gargoyle with DWD DR.

// Edit: I read that post, Wildshape at 13.. a large amount of suck.

Amia has done it a bit different:

Shifter Level 11: Epic Greater Wildshape I
Shifter Level 13: Epic Greater Wildshape II
Shifter Level 15: Epic Greater Wildshape III
Shifter Level 17: Epic Humanoid Shape
Shifter Level 19: Epic Greater Wildshape IV

Is the build still viable with 5 Druid, 13 Shifter, 12 DwD? The idea is to tank mobs and let them kills themselves whilst I chug potions, no need for AB, and what little AC I get won't really help as I'm trying to get hit. Or is all this a flawed concept?

The concept is a valid one, however bear in mind that there are things that even with that ammount of dr will blow right through it. Are you set on gargoyle shape? Or are you just looking for a tanky shifter build? Cause if you'd like I know of one that's got more dr than the gargoyle. Using the example of 100 slashing damage it would only cause the build to loose 17 damage rather than 37 with less than a +6 weapon.

The idea was to make use of the Wyrmling damage reflection shield whilst tanking so things killed themselves. Not sure that can be achieved any other way without more heavy shifter investment. I'm all ears on hearing your concept tho, here or in PM.

I believe those wyrmling shields only work while in wyrmling form now. They are always active upon using the wyrmling shape until you unshift from wyrmling.

But there's always Elemental Shield pots!

Sadly, the wyrmling damage shields are no longer castable but are permenently on the form's skin. Meaning you cant cast the damage shield then shift into something else. You can somewhat emulate it with either potions or the knight commander aura. As for the build, 5 druid / 10 shifter / 14 dwarven defender focusing on undead shape is the build. You've got one level to throw around so you can use it with an ecl race, or throw it on whichever class you'd like. I think when I built mine it was 5/10/15 just for the extra few hit points. If you want the full build, I can pm it to you.

Gah, build destroying blow after blow! The cost of those potions would stack up way too high. I figured it would be Undead shape, which I've never been fond of.. is it possible to request a new shape appearance for the lich form and still keep it's statistics?

It's been requested a few times to get it reskinned. Mind you it's still undead and other pcs will respond as such. Once you get undead form, the gold prices of a stack of fire shield pots is negligable.

*edit. I went ahead and pm'd you the build. It's pretty flexible and I think it has all the things you want.

*second edit. I'm not saying the gargoyle build is doomed to fail. In pvm you'll do fine. Not much can touch you except for things in epic areas which will tear you apart because of critical hits. It's the same thing that eventually kills a dwarven defender with 18 levels. Since they can be critted, all the dr in the world cant block some of the massive damage some things (players mostly) put out.

I'm really new to this, so apologies in advance. Trying to iron out a build for my alchemist character, using a concoction I picked up from this thread 19 rogue/5 MS/6 Fighter. Here is what I have so far;

Human (Chultan)

STARTING ABILITIES:
Str: 10
Dex: 20
Con: 14
Int: 14
Wis: 08
Cha: 06

Ending up at;
Str: 10
Dex: 28
Con: 14
Int: 14
Wis: 08
Cha: 06

SKILLS:
- Disable Trap: 32
- Discipline: 33
- Hide: 32
- Listen: 2
- Lore: 6
- Move Silently: 32
- Open Lock: 30
- Search: 25
- Set Trap: 31
- Spot: 32
- Use Magic Device: 20
- Tumble: 30

If anyone could take a look and give me some pointers it would be massively appreciated!

Simple, but fine nonetheless.
The only real wonder that I have is:
6 of charisma and 8 of wisdom? That's a darn hard thing to play from my perspective.

True. It's terrible min-maxing, I can fix that with a little tweaking of my starting stats. Does everything else seem ok? I had no way of testing the master scout levels so i'm unsure if the feat progression is accurate. Would you say ESF:Discipline is worth taking? Also, would taking epic fortitude instead of will be more effective? I really don't know what sort of saves i should aim for.

Just playing around with a potential Healer build.

I've noticed that the "Empowered" healing from the Clerics Healing Domain that affects the basic healing spells is actually applied to any basic healing spell that the user casts, regardless if its from a Druid or Bard. I know at higher levels that even though Cure Critical Wounds is not that useful compared to Heal and Greater Restoration, but I'd like to focus in Bard and have many empowered casts at my disposal (4d8+20+50% with empower), falling to Healing Kits as a primary source of healing.

I was considering 24 Bard, 5 KC, 1 Cleric to get the most of the +Heal from 5 levels of KC and still get the Healing Domain, but that would clearly mean missing out on 25 Bard and that +6 AC Bard Song/-6 AC Curse Song.

Mechanically speaking, is it plain stupidity to go all the way to 24 Bard and not take the extra level for the +6/-6 Songs for the sake of a "gimmick" and theme or is it an interesting sacrifice?

Thematically, I think it's a great idea. Music can heal all wounds kinda vibe. But you asked for mechanics, so here goes.

Depending on your starting charisma, you would get 6 or so cure criticals. You can get more if you take silent or still spell, but in my opinion those are wasted feats on a bard. Your heals on those spells would be hitting for 36-78 a pop. The good news is if you do want to be a healer bard, with the medicant aura a +1 heal kit is going to be healing for 59 a kit without buffs, so with an extra 25 heal on your gear, you'd be healing twice a round for 84.

So it's up to you if that's worth the +1ab/ac.

Ylaern wrote:

True. It's terrible min-maxing, I can fix that with a little tweaking of my starting stats. Does everything else seem ok? I had no way of testing the master scout levels so i'm unsure if the feat progression is accurate. Would you say ESF:Discipline is worth taking? Also, would taking epic fortitude instead of will be more effective? I really don't know what sort of saves i should aim for.

Sorry for the delay, but I'm not around these days as often.

Epic Skill Focus is a good choice - you can still max your discipline with items and everything, but if you don't have better epic feats to take, this will help you one way or another.
Fortitude is generally the "can't be wrong" save, because you are going to want to max this as well. Having a high will is also interesting because it means that you don't have to quiver in your funny boots each time somebody is casting a spell if you are going around without mindblank. (Or the other 4000 will save effects)
Since you don't have spellcraft, your saves against spells are going to be a little sucky, so you can either try to balance it with the epic save feat which would give you a saving chance - even better if you boost it with items, or you can neglect your Will entirely and just pray to the gods that you won't need it.

Brilliant, thanks for all the help!

Because my 'style' of building characters apparently borders on masochism, I am both stymied and frustrated beyond all belief by this supposedly simple concept that simply will not work mechanically. Every time I make an attempt, it winds up horribly mediocre in every way aside from its focus, and even that focus isn't up to par. My issues are more or less legion:

I can't get enough skill points to invest in what I need to invest in, much less what I want to invest in
My feat spread feels wrong, like a mishmash that leaves me wanting without the investment having proven worthwhile
The preferred weapon isn't available except by forfeiting a large amount of skill points to get proficiency for free since I don't have enough feats
As an offensive spellcaster, the DCs are worthless in an end-game where the vast majority of monsters and players have saving throws above 30
As a defensive spellcaster, the arcane origin doesn't allow for enough worthwhile buffing spells to counteract the detriments of the base

And so forth. To be frank, there is more to that list, but I'm too angry to comprehensively list them all right now. Pan'lamin's weakness was acceptable as a function of his being an RP build because he was designed as a support character, but this individual is supposed to be able to hold their own. The one good thing I can say about them is that they have Epic Mummy Dust, but I despise the standard of sitting about under invisibility while my summoned creature does all the work.

I want nothing more than for this to be viable, but it won't work, no matter what I try. S.O.S! Please Assist!

I have a sinking feeling that this is simply a matter of an unjust comparison to the upper echelon. In my mind, a 'good' build is one that can solo through the Abyss without any trouble and run through all of the epic boss locations on a regular basis, and anything less is incapable of pulling their weight in a standard epic party, much less, for example, an epic event. I theorize that this is a major fallacy, and I hope I gather evidence at some point that my theory is correct. So I want to ask some questions Re: Epic Characters immediately.

What is the benchmark for a 'successful' max-level character? Is there such a thing? Is a character's worth predicated entirely on self-sufficiency like I think it is? What should they be able to do, either with or without help? For skills specifically, my instinct is that if my character is good at something, to put all 33 ranks into it, but is there another function of mastery? Because with so many skills on this build that the character should excel at, maximizing them all is simply impossible.

I apologize, as I've filled in enough ranting words to fill a whole week before even getting to the build itself.

The base concept is a gnome artificer/spellsword, based off of Dexterity. So far the non-negotiables are 21 Wizard levels (for Epic Mummy Dust), mastery (see my question about skills) in crafting and using/manipulating devices, which means Craft Armor, Craft Weapon, Craft Trap, Disable Device, Open Lock, Set Trap, likely Search, and Use Magic Device at the very least, so you can see my problem. My original thought was to add Rogue and Master Scout, but for being a heavily skills-based class, the latter isn't very skillful, so it was mostly to add another layer via crafting scout-specific items like the trap upgrades. Transmutation focus and self-enhancing with spells.

Where the masochism comes in is that I wanted to dual-wield light hammers, to represent taking traditional crafting gear into the battlefield. It was only when I had run through the SIXTH iteration of the build that I thought I liked and realized that not only didn't it have anywhere near sufficient skill points, control spellcasting, or melee efficacy, it didn't have martial weapon proficiency. Then my soul shattered itself and I gave up.

Now that realism has kicked in, I want to be more lenient. All I want is Mummy Dust, decent defense (which is why I used Dexterity), and massive amounts of skill points. Everything else...flavorful, yes, but at this point I'm willing to sacrifice flavor for mechanical efficacy, which I absolutely hate doing.

Does anyone have any ideas? Reassurances, even! It's been hammered into my head that I need 60 AC and 50 AB, atop DC 40 spells and an epic summon to have a hope of besting even the lowest epic mobs, and that sounds ludicrous, so I hope I am mistaken. And yet, a large enough part of me believes that to where I feel I have to ask.

27 wiz/2 rogue/1 fighter/ranger gets around 280 skill points. That's enough to max 8 skills and have points left over. You wont be able to melee as well, but a spellsword build doesnt get as many skills. Frankly, it looks like you're trying to do too much with one build. Figure out if you want a caster or spellsword and search the build topics for a build. Let us know what you come up with and we can help refine it from there.

*Edit: But to reassure you, bards can solo anything on the server with 8 str/con/dex. Any build can solo with the right gear and tactics.

Overneath wrote:

What is the benchmark for a 'successful' max-level character? Is there such a thing? Is a character's worth predicated entirely on self-sufficiency like I think it is? What should they be able to do, either with or without help? For skills specifically, my instinct is that if my character is good at something, to put all 33 ranks into it, but is there another function of mastery? Because with so many skills on this build that the character should excel at, maximizing them all is simply impossible.

The base concept is a gnome artificer/spellsword, based off of Dexterity. So far the non-negotiables are 21 Wizard levels (for Epic Mummy Dust), mastery (see my question about skills) in crafting and using/manipulating devices, which means Craft Armor, Craft Weapon, Craft Trap, Disable Device, Open Lock, Set Trap, likely Search, and Use Magic Device at the very least, so you can see my problem. My original thought was to add Rogue and Master Scout, but for being a heavily skills-based class, the latter isn't very skillful, so it was mostly to add another layer via crafting scout-specific items like the trap upgrades. Transmutation focus and self-enhancing with spells.

Dammit Overneath, you're so long-winded. If you don't want to be curt, at least give us a TL;DR.

There aren't any benchmarks in building, mind you. Being a spellcaster or having UMD is the best way to ensure your survivability in PvM, but that feels like taking the easy way out after having gone through all the vanilla flavours. PvM and PvP have always been part of the appeal of Amia for me, so inventing new characters to fill empty niches feels extremely rewarding. Going Gyro Gearloose on Amia is a sort of nerdy creative process which may lead to symptoms of OCD and a lot of mental calculation when it's already way past your bedtime. Most gaming cultures have taken to calling this "expanding the meta", but it sounds way too competitive for Amia.

Solvaras hit the nail on the head, though. I'd recommend having a look at Uce's Bard's Yardstick Build in the Build Subforum for lasting inspiration. :wink:

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