So, I've been reading around the forum a bit, and all I could see about Palemasters was: „Don't build melee!,“ „The bonuses they get are worth not going full wizard!“, and „A PM's spells will be terrible (apart from necromancy)!“ So now to the ones saying that, why shouldn't I build him melee? DCs'll be bad anyway, necro spells are not the most damaging in the world (most are just insta-kill), and the arm does not really care if you cast spells or not...(being melee, it almost even supports a melee-tankish build) neither does the summon. (I get that that reasoning is a bit iffy RP-wise).
On towards a build idea... (It's not as detailed as it could be, since I'm on my tablet) 10 wizard, 4 bard, 16 PM
3 bard preepic (AB, saves bard song), 1 post-epic (tumble and discipline) main idea is as an AC tank, while summons and party members can kill stuff if neccessary. I realize his AB is terrible. On the other hand his AC can get pretty high: base+epic mage armor/equip+shield 5th tier+dodge (alone up to 15, haste, mage armor, epic mage armor, boots 5th tier)+armor skin+bone skin+30 tumble+improved expertise+base full plate and tower shield base =84 total AC this Palemaster would have a distinct problem against anythong that doesn't care about AC (spells, enironment etc) however those would be partially negated by having a decent CON... Dispelling effects would be annoying, as they would require a new summon of a monster, but you would/could have two qutie strong ones (EMD and the winterwight) and two slightly weaker ones (summon undead).
So could someone point out the flaws in this character, please, and enlighten me why a melee Palemaster is so terrible? Otherwise, could someone explain why I should build and play a class that (seemingly) does not synergise with a wizard at all?
Bard levels don't count towards winterwight. Generally you either go for a total 29 levels of Wiz/Sorc/PM, or you ignore casting altogether and just take 10 PM for the defensive abilities.
People mainly rag on melee PMs because they don't think necromancers should have any interest in martial combat, but the only real mechanical reason not to create one is that your BAB is gonna be low and that you have to invest a lot of levels into it (and your build is probably gonna look a bit wonky since you'll have to combine two "spellcasting" classes with one very different class).
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oops, yeah, forgot about the bard thing^^ the main reason i think there is a slight difference between what makes sense PnP lore wise and Nwn build wise is that in PnP you have more Necromancy spells... someone might actually manage making a pure necromancer in PnP, but in Nwn you would be allowed o cast 20 spells, most of which are summons and debuffs which don't really kill things that well. And since you can only have one summon at a time... And why the melee PM hate, which is basically a powerbuild, if even my one level of bard is extremely min-maxing, which is even more difficult to explain via RP?
It's really just because melee PMs are very cheesy, and kind of odd lore-wise (not that it can't make sense at all, when Risen Lords are a thing...). PMs get ridiculous defensive bonuses, and defense rules PvP. Personally I just think they're frustrating and not fun to play against, but that goes for a lot of powercheese.
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Palemaster and (Red) Dragon Discipline are both classes that make decent melee builds while ignoring that both of the classes were meant to empower the melee abilities of a caster, not ignore the caster bit. You'll probably catch some ire from players OOC and IC wise for making a Palemaster that is unable to cast spells properly, just know that if you decide to make one. (A tankish PM that casts spells wouldn't probably be anything that catches people ire too easily.)
To get back on the topic of building a Palemaster on NWN-Amia.
If you want to be hitting things, I recommend ignoring all casting ability, even Epic spells here need 20 Stat in Int/Cha/Wis depending on your class, so having that and enought Str for dev crit is a bit of a hassle, so I'd just go for 16 Fighter(Or barbarian)/4 Bard/10 PM.
And if you want to be caster, I recommend 15 Wiz/15 PM,gets high AC that doesn't care about flat-footing as it can get Auto-Stills and Heavy armor + Tower shield, losing 3 AC from going 30 Tumble to 15 is just a loss of 3 Flat-footable AC, only one Epic spell sadly but +5 GMW from 15 Wizard levels raises you to a proper buffing mage at least(Not to mention extended haste of 30 rounds(3 minutes).
If you want to be heavily focused on the role-play of the class and don't care about being effective at casting of any school but necromancy, the Wiz 10 / PM 19 / X 1 should also work. I think it's main attraction mechanically over the Wiz 15 / PM 15 is that it can get quite a few more epic spells, even more AC, and a skill dump.
Wiz 10 is of course a painful caster level to have ... But you still get the full choice of PnP spells (where caster level is probably applied differently a.k.a. ignored) and street cred in Tarkuul, of course.
By the way: No one has to worry about levelling with any of these builds. The PM summons always feel a few levels too strong. ;)
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A palemaster legitimately wanting to be a caster who stands in melee is less cheesy than the Dread-Bards of old which went Bard/PM/DD. Those basically relied on high AC and fished for 1's with scimitar. I don't guess a battlemage PM would too much different in fishing for 1's with death spells, but at least it fits the original idea of the class a little better. It is supposed to make you a tanky niche mage. It just so happens that the googobs of AC attract more melee PCs than wizards/bards/sorcs looking to stand on the front line.
Lorewise, it's whatever. How you reconcile the build's abilities to the PCs interests is another story. Where most of the cheese comes from is that most melee PMs or combinations require a somewhat contrived theme or end up being super transparent as cheese IC because the PC's RP never reflects it. It's either some sort of "dracolich disciple" that's melee focused for no particular reason or some Frankenstein's monster that has scales "cuz dey make me stronk" and has bone skin "cuz it make me stronk" and dragon stats because "I want to be stronger." Melee Wiz/Bard/PM might be a little better, but it suffers from the same smell. What's the narrative of this wizard/bard who wanted to be tougher in melee and saw the best route as studying undead? The trick is avoiding a story that makes more sense OoC than IC. We know what the end result of going 16 PM as it relates to a melee build, but for a character to do it IC seems kinda like... someone going thru 6 years of medical school and becoming a doctor expressly for the purpose of getting free tongue depressors.
My advice? Unless you really feel it's what you want, forget about the melee and just make a tanky PM which is easy enough. If you invest in them, you've got plenty of little graft tricks to do in battle that work well with the idea that you're tanking and degrading the enemy while your summons do the work. Since you're also investing in your INT, you've got a few workable Necromancy spells to throw in the mix too. Otherwise, your build will work, but like Larsaan said, it'll just be frustrating to play against and probably pretty boring to play as you won't be hitting anyone often or hard. I guess you could whore Tensers like a "spellsword" build, but that will be a problem in PvP with the build being easily dispel-able. Unless we've changed it, when you dispel Tenser's the Arcane Spellfailure stays until the duration would have been up. So you're back to you're no-hitting self and don't have access to any of your spells or scrolls either. Still won't die with 84 AC, but again, pretty boring otherwise.
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You think Magic is your ally... but you merely adopted the Art. He was born in it. Molded by it. Sometimes, an angel is simply a devil with better intentions.
Thanks all, but now, Dark Immolation, that concept you are describing with the "tanky PM" sounds interesting, but how would I go about building that? The "degrading the enemy" part sounds interesting... (Did I understand your post correct as posting/suggesting an alternative?) In general, I kind of like playing/would like to play a PM, but I have not found any satisfying build that does not look like a worse caster to me.
Thanks all, but now, Dark Immolation, that concept you are describing with the "tanky PM" sounds interesting, but how would I go about building that? The "degrading the enemy" part sounds interesting... (Did I understand your post correct as posting/suggesting an alternative?) In general, I kind of like playing/would like to play a PM, but I have not found any satisfying build that does not look like a worse caster to me.
Well with epic mage armor, armor from RDD and armor from PM, your ac is in the mid 70's. Problem is your bab is gonna be shite and so is your damage. You will also struggle to get or make proper use of some of the high end feats. Other thing, past a point AC stops helping because stuff is only going to hit you on a 20 anyway. Really, once you hit 70 people have to roll two 20's to crit and one to hit, so going all in after that is to just give you some wiggle room in case something lowers your ac.
It's an interesting pvp build, but it's a total mechanical gimmick that just doesn't work as well as normal builds. Roleplaying wise? I don't even know.
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robbi320 wrote:
Thanks all, but now, Dark Immolation, that concept you are describing with the "tanky PM" sounds interesting, but how would I go about building that? The "degrading the enemy" part sounds interesting... (Did I understand your post correct as posting/suggesting an alternative?) In general, I kind of like playing/would like to play a PM, but I have not found any satisfying build that does not look like a worse caster to me.
I was mainly talking about PM's undead grafts. Mix that in with with the few necromancy spells you'll have that will be decent and there you go. You're not there to do damage so much as weaken the enemies enough for your cohorts to mop them up, or occasionally get them with a Wail or Finger of Death. Unfortunately, being a worse caster in everything but Necromancy is kind of what Palemaster entails.
Edit: I have to add, I'm speaking pretty optimistically when I say "degrade." All the graft abilities are fortitude saves, so you may not get a lot out of them all that often. But at least you'll still have a good Horrid Wilting, Control Undead, and Fear, so you won't always be waiting for 1's on rolls.
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You think Magic is your ally... but you merely adopted the Art. He was born in it. Molded by it. Sometimes, an angel is simply a devil with better intentions.
Last edited by Dark Immolation on Thu, Feb 11 2016, 19:55 PM, edited 1 time in total.
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I don't think it would be smart to build a "Melee" Palemaster. They're not ment to be Melee. However, many people want the best and most powerful build. Palemasters are a prestige Caster class. There is a lot of lore behind them. But a basic run down is Palemasters are powerful Arcanist that want to extend their knowledge, and possibility life, with advanced Necromancy tactics. Such as Palemastary. It's not impossible for a Wizard to be very muscular (Strength), and want to extend his knowledge and life (Life, however, takes a lot of work and time). It just isn't a very solid idea.
Dark Immolation wrote:
A palemaster legitimately wanting to be a caster who stands in melee is less cheesy than the Dread-Bards of old which went Bard/PM/DD. Those basically relied on high AC and fished for 1's with scimitar. I don't guess a battlemage PM would too much different in fishing for 1's with death spells, but at least it fits the original idea of the class a little better. It is supposed to make you a tanky niche mage. It just so happens that the googobs of AC attract more melee PCs than wizards/bards/sorcs looking to stand on the front line.
Lorewise, it's whatever. How you reconcile the build's abilities to the PCs interests is another story. Where most of the cheese comes from is that most melee PMs or combinations require a somewhat contrived theme or end up being super transparent as cheese IC because the PC's RP never reflects it. It's either some sort of "dracolich disciple" that's melee focused for no particular reason or some Frankenstein's monster that has scales "cuz dey make me stronk" and has bone skin "cuz it make me stronk" and dragon stats because "I want to be stronger." Melee Wiz/Bard/PM might be a little better, but it suffers from the same smell. What's the narrative of this wizard/bard who wanted to be tougher in melee and saw the best route as studying undead? The trick is avoiding a story that makes more sense OoC than IC. We know what the end result of going 16 PM as it relates to a melee build, but for a character to do it IC seems kinda like... someone going thru 6 years of medical school and becoming a doctor expressly for the purpose of getting free tongue depressors.
My advice? Unless you really feel it's what you want, forget about the melee and just make a tanky PM which is easy enough. If you invest in them, you've got plenty of little graft tricks to do in battle that work well with the idea that you're tanking and degrading the enemy while your summons do the work. Since you're also investing in your INT, you've got a few workable Necromancy spells to throw in the mix too. Otherwise, your build will work, but like Larsaan said, it'll just be frustrating to play against and probably pretty boring to play as you won't be hitting anyone often or hard. I guess you could whore Tensers like a "spellsword" build, but that will be a problem in PvP with the build being easily dispel-able. Unless we've changed it, when you dispel Tenser's the Arcane Spellfailure stays until the duration would have been up. So you're back to you're no-hitting self and don't have access to any of your spells or scrolls either. Still won't die with 84 AC, but again, pretty boring otherwise.
Palemasters are relatively powerful Caster-based. If you max out your intelligence you can easily have a DC 38+ on Necromancy spells. Why would you want to cast Evocation spells, or other schools. No matter what the duration of your spells, Caster or Melee, doesn't last too long. They don't compare to a full arcanist by far. Also, Dark is right about the Tenser thing. You could go that route even as a Spellcaster too. You could use it as a back-up for when you're about to die or ran out of spells.
While I agree that maybe a Palemaster is about as good as wizard in terms of necromancy spells, I personally would read a slightly different role into the Palemaster described in Libris Mortis (haha, Libris Mortis, get it, the player or the book?... sry. moving on...) My first clue would be the undead graft. Now, you might say, magic, magic and more magic, but there is another aspect of it: Strengt. You actually get a +4 Strength bonus due to the arm. Why would a pure hyperspecialized magic-user need or even want/care about it? Maybe to make hitting people with the arm better... but you just want to touch the enemy, not really damage him... I propose the second clue. Armor. A Palemaster would actually gain light and medium armor proficiencies, also, he would actually reduce the arcane spell failure while wearing undead armor. Again, why would a normal wizard even care? He stays in the back, throwing spells while some summons tank stuff for him. My last presented clue is actually in the class description. It details why one might become a Palemaster and suggests a role in combat:
Quote:
NPC pale masters head special strike groups containing lesser undead, supplemented as needed with more powerful summoned undead.
While, yes, it's talking about NPC palemasters, but that isn't that different, right? But now, I want to look at two phrases/words „strike groups“ and „head“. „Head“ implies not being in the back, but in some way participating more directly in the battles. This would't mean he would be an actual fighter, but not „just“ a caster either. The secong phrase is „strike groups“, which implies some sort of special position, not just part of an army but a small squad of elite soldiers (or a bunch of undead) attacking quickly, and less of a direct focus on big, anti-group spells, but rather a more short ranged, melee-based approach to spellcasting.
Now, mabye I'm taking the wrong approach to looking at this class, but this is how I see it... By the way, sorry for the way I quoted from the book, tablets are terrible... Also, sorry for kind of abducting my own thread with a huge wall of lore/interpretation of lore...
Pretty sure that nearly all palemaster stuff here on Amia is homebrew and not mandatory. If you want to play some Frankensteinian half-undead melee monstrosity, I say go for it.
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No one's giving them grief because there's no mechanical basis for that mage stereotype in NWN, even though their should be. Dragon Disciple and Pale Master are both sort of failures in the same respect for us. They were went to be prestige classes for casters, but screw casters up so badly that they are rarely taken with that idea in mind. They are more beneficial to melee oriented builds that excel by gaining the AC and Stats that were meant to even out those original mage designs.
And yeah, I didn't mean to sound like you couldn't be a melee PM for some reason IC. Just that what I said, IC it seems like a lot of work for a small facet of the class. A powerful facet, mechanically. But a small facet in the scope of everything else a Palemaster learns along the journey. I guess you could reason it as instead of ICly being and pursuing the art of being a "bad" pale master(neglecting the casting element and abilities) being a "good" whatever else that simply uses a small part of pale mastery for a specific end. That's completely valid. Still a tiny bit cheesy from my perspective, but at least it's not... And who cares what a snob like me things? Do you. Responsibly.
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You think Magic is your ally... but you merely adopted the Art. He was born in it. Molded by it. Sometimes, an angel is simply a devil with better intentions.
I like to think of melee PMs as something like a fantasy version of a Shadowrun cyber-sammie. Someone who uses extensive body-modifications to become better in combat, to the point that normal people might not consider them fully human(oid) anymore.
For that matter, I'd love to see a refluffed and reskinned version of Palemaster that replaces bodyparts with magical artifacts and prosthetics, but that's getting into the realm of fanwankery.
Getting back on topic a bit, most official PM fluff paints them as a bit deranged. I wouldn't be surprised if one started losing their sense of self-preservation, as is common with most undead (not all, but it's not like many PMs garnish themselves with the limbs of liches or vampires).
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Playing a wiz10/palemaster 19/fighter 1 was probably the most depressing caster experience of my life. Realtalk, no one wants to have to make every level 7 spell Extended Mass Haste just to make it barely to a rest period.
Cool class, thematic class, garbage class for casters. Having 10 spell penetration isn't fun. DC 44 death arm is fun, but your psells are awful except for Wail and Horrid Wilting.
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I detect a melee PM Thread.
Right - so. Assuming you melee. Starting off: There's little compelling reason to go for anything that'd take more than 10 levels of the pale master class; due to the acquisition of Critical Hit immunity at that point in time. The ONLY REASON I can think of is for a single epic spell at 15th or 16th.
I'm going to need to concur with earlier, as well, that you should quite frankly evade bothering with casting capacity.
If you're going to melee as a pale master - and keep in mind, this is from the perspective of my low-magic server mentality - you want to remember that 'less is more' when it comes to thirty levels, and your AB'll depend on as many levels in a 3/4ths or full AB class pre-epic as possible.
That said, I'd say the following would work relatively well for an Amia environment - off the top of my head:
Cleric 16/Bard 4/Palemaster 10 (Biggest plus-point for this one is the presence of Harm and GRestore spam that more-or-less turns you into a complete annoyance. Your base AB is objectively bad, however; and your skill starvation is only comparable to trying to get good DCs out of a Sorcerer/Wizard multi class.)
Bard 4/Dwarven Defender 16/Palemaster 10 (Low-ish AB because of PM pre-epic, but every bit as nightmarish as DR on a Shifter - but combat-ready 24/7.)
Barbarian 16/Bard 4/Palemaster 10 (High HP, good inheritance of rage bonuses and DR. A good compromise on the DD's strengths and fighter.)
Fighter 10/Bard 4/Palemaster 16 (The 'old and gold' - Replace EMA for Hellball here for instant lols. (4 APR build is better due to the odds of a 20-fest.))
Fighter 16/Bard 4/Palemaster 10 (The incentive to go bard heavy is almost none; but this route allows you to easily get either a chunk of more epic feats (at the cost of AB) or a far more merciful pre-epic selection; with nearly full AB)
Bard 10/Shadowdancer 10/Palemaster 10 (Completely unfair - and unlike the above, DEX based. EDodge and shadow jump everywhere without being able to be crit. Your damage output will be cancer objectively, though)
Bard 4/Shadowdancer 10/Palemaster 16 (Basically the above, but with an epic spell to compensate being mostly inferior at melee due to AB)
Bard 4/Rogue 16/Palemaster 10 (Again, the same; but with in mind that you'll get Crippling Strike too; which can help)
There's no reason for any of these to not hit upwards of 70s AC. However, as far as how it measures up in the Amian build-meta, I can not personally recommend going Palemaster as a meleer if being put as a raw comparison to other options; since (as those aware of the Critical confirm roll can concur) it's possible to be fundamentally critical hit immune here without it.
Among itself - toward casters; the reliance on a summon is simply begging to be hit by Turn Undead, Control Undead, or otherwise - thus, the features of the class 'seem' to overtly be overshadowed in the field of casting to me; particularly when only Necromancy scales, and none of that scaling influences the SR penetration of the caster. Thus - if going PM, I can't quite recommend the Caster route either.
But maybe I'm just ignorant.
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It is possible to build PM that has devast + epic mage armor and kinda usable AB (I think it gets somewhere around 45) which means that you have sort of ultimate tank which with enough patience can solo most of Amia . Of course first levels will be annoying, but most PM builds are like that.
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It is possible to build PM that has devast + epic mage armor and kinda usable AB (I think it gets somewhere around 45) which means that you have sort of ultimate tank which with enough patience can solo most of Amia . Of course first levels will be annoying, but most PM builds are like that.
Finally: Pros: - HIGH AC + standard PM pros (immunities) - 16 BAB preepic -> 4 attack per round, good Attack bonus - devastating critical - low item dependency (you can build items only with stats without AC, because you have Epic mage armor) - with max Cha, you have +10 divine damage from divine might - with max Cha, you have +10 saving throws form BG Cons: - really annoying stats - low hit points without items - very dependent on stat potions (str,dex, con, cha)
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BlackDiamond wrote:
Nalkanar wrote:
It is possible to build PM that has devast + epic mage armor and kinda usable AB (I think it gets somewhere around 45) which means that you have sort of ultimate tank which with enough patience can solo most of Amia . Of course first levels will be annoying, but most PM builds are like that.
Finally: Pros: - HIGH AC + standard PM pros (immunities) - 16 BAB preepic -> 4 attack per round, good Attack bonus - devastating critical - low item dependency (you can build items only with stats without AC, because you have Epic mage armor) - with max Cha, you have +10 divine damage from divine might - with max Cha, you have +10 saving throws form BG Cons: - really annoying stats - low hit points without items - very dependent on stat potions (str,dex, con, cha)
I think, it really is powerbuild.
Debatably better on a Half Orc or Orog - with Fighter levels, 14 CON, and 14 INT.
Snag Improved Expertise and get more AC than the CHA was giving you anyway; and for the cost 2 feats, get only 4 less damage.
Fighter has this habit of making the greatest melee-builds.
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BlackDiamond wrote:
#StraightOutaAvernus wrote:
Debatably better on a Half Orc or Orog - with Fighter levels, 14 CON, and 14 INT.
Snag Improved Expertise and get more AC than the CHA was giving you anyway; and for the cost 2 feats, get only 4 less damage.
Fighter has this habit of making the greatest melee-builds.
But, you need 20 CHA for Epic Mage Armor And, base cons of all fighter builds are low saving throws.
Hmh. The need for 20 of a casting stat. I forgot that somehow.
Yeah, no. Cross any off my list that had EMA or epic spells; PM is pretty trash.
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. Of course first levels will be annoying, but most PM builds are like that. 
PM - +1 STR