PVM mechanics and endgame numbers

[alper]

Hi all,
I have a couple of questions and if the community can help me sort them out, I would very much appreciate it.
The first is about the required caster level in PVM situations. I know the caster level around 26 is a very strong defense against dispelling attempts made by your adversaries but what I don't know is whether NPCs try to dispel your buffs frequently or normally what is the limit of caster levels of NPCs if they do try to dispel.
Am I to understand NPCs have the same mechanics(levels, abilities, feats, classes et cetera) and the same level of capabilities as PCs? Or do NPCs cheat to compensate for their apparent weakness to PCs regarding strategy and overall preparedness?
Can you give me some idea about the endgame numbers like AC, AB, and other several key indicators?
Also, I understand there is a cap of 12 on the soft increase in abilities, how do you even get to 12?
This has been discussed several times as I can see in the forum entries but people are beating around the bush as one can say.
In my case, I want to build a cleric with caster level 20 and I'm only interested in PVM with a party. I would like to know if I really have to go level 26 and take epic focus abjuration that's the reason for my dispel question. I don't want to be forced to take what everybody else is taking if it isn't absolutely essential. I want to have some leeway with my character if I can. I want a character that is decent but a little messed up (for example taking several arcane levels along with 20 divine levels because I want to throw a weak fireball in the mix) though not enough to break the character.
So if you can answer any of my questions (especially about PVM dispel) that would be great.
Best regards.

[Shadowy Reality]

Soft Cap
You can very easily enchant gear in the Enchantment basin. For a Cleric this would be +Str +Con +Discipline, you can add more if you want and have the gold. So if you enchant say, Amulet, Rings x2, Belt, Bracer, Cloak and Boots with that, you have +7 Str/Con from items. You can then cast Bulls Strength and Bears Endurance to reach +12 on both.

AB/AC
What you need for PvM varies wildly on the PvM you are doing, but for high end PvM:
Anything above 45ab is good. Most melee focused builds want to end closer to 50 though.
You want to be looking at 65+ ac to be a solid tank. Above 70 you will only be hit by high end bosses outside of 20s.

Caster Level
There are quite a few high end bosses that dispel and breach. I don't know what their CL is exactly but I don't think CL20 is going to cut it to be honest. When it comes to dispels, they follow the same rules as players, yes.

[NMan7496]

For Caster Level, CL 23 is considered to be "dispel bait" since your caster level is only one higher than the maximum CL to add to dispel checks (without focus in Abjuration), so any caster can easily do away with your wards. Most caster builds end up being 27/3 or 26/4 because of this. A good way to augment your defense against dispels is the Arcane Defense (Abjuration) feat, which increases your effective CL against dispels by 2.

For Ability Scores, Shadow Reality covered most of it. There a soft cap of +12 to ability scores, but these increases can come from multiple sources. So, if you have seven items that give +1 STR and then use Bull's strength for another +5, you can pretty easily hit the +12. Even without the spell, it isn't particularly difficult to hit +12, you just need to stack buffs from the right items, which you can find on the wiki with a full breakdown of their properties. To do this you will need to enchant items using the enchanting basin. Also, as a caster, you are going to want get +12 to your spellcasting ability score (Int for Wizards; Wis for Clerics, Druids, and Shaman; Cha for Favored Souls and Sorcerers) without using a spell so you can maximize your number of usable spell slots.

For AB/AC, Shadow Reality covered it completely.

As for mixing arcane and divine casting, with the absence of the Mystic Theurge prestige class (which was made for mixing arcane and divine casting), along with the inevitability of having a low CL and thus being dispel bait to mobs and unable to over come the spell resistance of late game mobs, I would highly recommend against it. It sounds cool, and is definitely an interesting concept, but on Arelith, as it currently is, it's just not viable.

[alper]

Thank you for your clear answers. I guess I will go build 26fb/4pal with 19 cha(and aim for 28 cha with soft increase) 8 dex 14 int 12 con and str for all the rest. I'm thinking wood elf. It will be a str fighter with heaviest armor though I can't see how I will end up with the numbers you mentioned for AB and AC, I have no idea.
For AC I will get 10 from magic vestment. With 12 dex and heaviest armor and shield I will get 12. Base AC is 10. That sums up to 32 AC. With improved expertise I can get 10 more. That leaves natural deflection dodge armor modifiers. I don't know much about endgame items but I can't get to even 60 like this.
Again getting to 45 ab is very hard as well. With bab 21 at level 30 getting weapon focus feats epic prowess, I will need a lot of str but it is more attainable compared to AC at least.

[NMan7496]

Remember that for any warpriest build, Divine Power and extend spell are your best friends. Divine Power will up your BAB to that of a fighter of your level (so +25 at 30) and increase your strength to 18. This will also give you a fourth attack at your highest AB. With extend spell, it will last for over five minutes per casting, so you will have it for a good long time.

[Shadowy Reality]

Charisma Battleclerics have a huge windup but can reach great heights.

AC: 10 Base + 8 Full Plate + 5 Armor Magic Vestment + 3 Shield + 5 Shield Magic Vestment + 5 Shield of Faith + 2 Dex + 1 Boots + 4 Barkskin Wand

That's 43 just there. You can cross class tumble for 3 more ac, which puts you at 47. Improved Expertise brings that to 57. Haste to 61. With Divine Shield and 28 Charisma which is what you seem to be going thats 70 AC.

If you get a tumble and UMD dip you get 3 more from tumble and 1 more from mage armor. 74ac

For AB, lets imagine you end up with 28 Strength with the +12 cap. Divine Power puts you at 20 BAB base.

AB: 20 Base + 5 Epic + 9 Strength + 5 Weapon + 1 Focus + 2 Epic Focus + 1 Prowess + 1 Aid + 1 Bless + 5 Divine Favor + 2 Battletide

That 47. If you get War Domain you go up to 53 using the Domain.

Some notes: Charisma Battleclerics are a pain to gear, their long windup is also terrible. If you end up going this way make sure you end up with 15 BAB at level 20, you do not want 16 BAB for the 4th attack. This is due to a quirk of how Divine Power works, extra attacks are always granted at the highest BAB.

These three builds were taken from discord, they may be slightly out of date, but may serve as an inspiration:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qw1 ... cMu0w/edit
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

[dallion43]

Thank you for your clear answers. I guess I will go build 26fb/4pal with 19 cha

Special: Favored Souls are unable to use the feats Divine Might and Divine Shield.

Plus no domains I belive.

Drop the pal;
26/4ftr
Take uni saves gear as 3rd stat, benefit from +6 dam plus feats. Prowless will fit, plus +1str at least.
As basic example.

Or 23fb/4ftr/3rou, +2abj.Def is a must! But don't do this on fb unless you really want to.

I personally consider 16bab 4 Apr better then 15bab 3Apr +1apr.dp, due to TS, 2maxapr at +1 more, constant, etc.
but this is a matter of opinion.

[Aardra]

As a battle cleric/favored soul, I would want 3 APR, not 4. Divine Power gives you fighter AB and an extra attack at FULL AB. If you already have 4 APR it's normal AB progression. Make sure you take your 4th fighter level after 20.

Divine Power AB with 4 fighter levels pre-20 (with haste):
+48/+43/+38/+33/+48

Divine Power AB with 4 fighter levels post-20 (with haste):
+48/+48/+43/+38/+48

Sure, it's a matter of opinion that comes down to how quickly you want to mop up trash mobs when not in DP. If you want to take epic weapon spec, you need that 4th fighter in epics anyway.

[dallion43]

https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Divine_power

The increase in base attack bonus is a simulation, so the increase counts towards the +20 attack bonus cap.

Please correct me if something changed since I played cler ages ago.

There is many builds with high AC. On a 3/4 with average main ab stat I prefer my TS to have +1.
I worded it wrong, yes, this is my personal preference not for a 26cl,fb/4ftr build, but for another build.

But lets just conclude you are right and end it here.

[AstralUniverse]

Divine Power AB with 4 fighter levels post-20 (with haste):
+48/+48/+43/+38/+48

This is not even right last time I check. Your BONUS attacks scale down in -5s like your normal attacks.

So for example, if you have 20 bab and you get bonus attacks from DP and haste, these BONUS attacks at will sit on +20/+15. Add
more stuff (like called shot, flurry of blows, kensai bonus apr, truestrike for spellswprd, cleave, attack of opportunity) and you'd get a 3rd bonus attack at +10. So basically stacking multiple bonus attacks has a diminishing return.

In your example you should get 48/43/38/48/43
with this progression, lets add an attack of opportunity.... say... after the 1st flurry of the round. Now we get:
48/43/48/38/43/38

I'd be glad to be corrected if this is no longer how it works since some EE update or something like that.

[NMan7496]

To my knowledge, free attacks (like the extra ones from DP and haste) are all added at your highest AB.

[Aardra]

To my knowledge, free attacks (like the extra ones from DP and haste) are all added at your highest AB.

This is correct. Both haste and DP add free attacks, so you get three at full AB in a round. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Ork]

To my knowledge, free attacks (like the extra ones from DP and haste) are all added at your highest AB.

This is correct. Both haste and DP add free attacks, so you get three at full AB in a round. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Extra attacks also follow the normal -5 AB attack pattern. For a cleric, you'd get 20/15 10/20 15 with haste & DP.

[Biolab00]

Charisma Battleclerics have a huge windup but can reach great heights.

AC: 10 Base + 8 Full Plate + 5 Armor Magic Vestment + 3 Shield + 5 Shield Magic Vestment + 5 Shield of Faith + 2 Dex + 1 Boots + 4 Barkskin Wand

That's 43 just there. You can cross class tumble for 3 more ac, which puts you at 47. Improved Expertise brings that to 57. Haste to 61. With Divine Shield and 28 Charisma which is what you seem to be going thats 70 AC.

If you get a tumble and UMD dip you get 3 more from tumble and 1 more from mage armor. 74ac

For AB, lets imagine you end up with 28 Strength with the +12 cap. Divine Power puts you at 20 BAB base.

AB: 20 Base + 5 Epic + 9 Strength + 5 Weapon + 1 Focus + 2 Epic Focus + 1 Prowess + 1 Aid + 1 Bless + 5 Divine Favor + 2 Battletide

That 47. If you get War Domain you go up to 53 using the Domain.

Some notes: Charisma Battleclerics are a pain to gear, their long windup is also terrible. If you end up going this way make sure you end up with 15 BAB at level 20, you do not want 16 BAB for the 4th attack. This is due to a quirk of how Divine Power works, extra attacks are always granted at the highest BAB.

These three builds were taken from discord, they may be slightly out of date, but may serve as an inspiration:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qw1 ... cMu0w/edit
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

The AB calculation with Divine Power has some error that i need to advise.
Divine Power puts you at 20BAB but the extra AB counts toward the soft cap of +20AB.
Hence, you have to take note of the maximum possible AB you can get.
For Battle Cleric, to take advantage of the (Fourth APR at full BAB) your BAB must not be higher at 15BAB.

Hence, the maths should work like this -
AB: 15 Base + 5 ( Divine Power ) + 5 Epic Level BAB + 9 Strength Modifier ( 28 Strength Cap ) + 5 Enchantment Weapon ( With Greater Magic Weapon ) + 1 Focus + 2 Epic Focus + 1 Prowess + 1 Aid + 1 Bless + 5 Divine Favor + 2 Battletide = 52 AB
[ Hard AB is 15 Base + 5 Epic Level BAB + 9 Strength Modifier + 4 ( Focus / Epic Focus / Epic Prowess ) = 33
[ Soft AB is 5 ( Divine Power ) + 5 ( Enchantment Weapon ) + 1 ( Aid ) + 1 ( Bless ) + 5 ( Divine Favor ) + 2 ( Battle Tide ) = 19
This means that your AB is already capped. True strike potion have no purpose anymore or any ability that adds soft AB like Divine Wrath or Battle domain.

And Divine Power add on Extra Attack at Full BAB.
If i am not wrong, the progression work like this
52 / 52 / 47 / 42 /
If hasted, 52 / 52 / 47 / 42 / 52

Edit : Because i'm using a monk, i can confirm that the current flurry of blow and haste works like this for me
34 / 31 / 28 / 25 / 22 / 19 / 34 / 29
The above is the confirmed written log from the battle description.

[AstralUniverse]

To my knowledge, free attacks (like the extra ones from DP and haste) are all added at your highest AB.

This is correct. Both haste and DP add free attacks, so you get three at full AB in a round. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Extra attacks also follow the normal -5 AB attack pattern. For a cleric, you'd get 20/15 10/20 15 with haste & DP.

I dont know if you and I are correct and everyone else is wrong or vice versa on this one. I dont know about any change Beamdog did to this system and afaik it still works that way. Bonus attacks have their own scaling down like normal attacks in -5s.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

This is correct. Both haste and DP add free attacks, so you get three at full AB in a round. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Extra attacks also follow the normal -5 AB attack pattern. For a cleric, you'd get 20/15 10/20 15 with haste & DP.

I dont know if you and I are correct and everyone else is wrong or vice versa on this one. I dont know about any change Beamdog did to this system and afaik it still works that way. Bonus attacks have their own scaling down like normal attacks in -5s.

https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Free_attack

This describes how "free attacks" are handled.

Free/extra attacks start at full base attack, and scale downwards from there. The extra attack from haste, if your BAB was 20, for example, would be made at BAB 20.

Essentially, think of all free or extra attacks on your character as being given a third hand with which to start an attack sequence. This hand is filled with "extra" attacks that scale just like your main or off-hand- but they still start at full AB.

https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Divine_power

Divine power awards one or more extra attacks on cast based on your character level compared to your BAB.

If you're a level 20 cleric with a BAB of 15, your BAB would bump artificially to 20 with divine power, and simulate that by giving you a free attack (which won't show on your character sheet) at +20, so your attack string would be +20/+15/+10/+20.

If you add haste to this, you add another free attack to the main-hand sequence; you'll wind up with +20/+20/+10/+20/+15.

[dallion43]

https://imgur.com/suSCA5R


20cler, 15bab, +6str, +1un.wf, HS+DP. 27/22/17/27/22 -> 27/22......

15bab vs 16bab(MAX soft)
42/37/32/42/37 vs 43/38/33/28/43

P.C TS has it purposes. Even for a cler.

[AstralUniverse]

Confirmation

Thank you kindly for taking your time to check it for us all.

By this test, everything is worked as it used to. Nothing new.

Bonus attacks scale down.

I'm a bit annoyed that SO many people dont know this and responded false info in this thread. Really shows how reliable these forums really are these days.

[Ork]

I'm a bit annoyed that SO many people dont know this and responded false info in this thread. Really shows how reliable these forums really are these days.

Without a doubt, take all advice on this forums with a grain of salt.

[alper]

In the spirit of "Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend", I thank you all.

[Aardra]

I've played NWN for like 18 years and I was always told that bonus attacks, if from different sources (eg haste and dp) don't scale down. Thanks for doing the legwork and dispelling that misconception.

I'm testing Tenser's Transformation right now, which grants two bonus attacks. Can confirm (with haste):

+38/+33/+38/+33/+28

[Exordius]

Mixing arcane and divine can work its just much more challenging then a pure build. The key is having contingency plans and abilities prepared so that if and when you get dispelled you can bounce back as rapidly as possible and survive long enough to do so. Having two or more of every buff and or summon is something a hybrid would be wise to do if it wants to maximize it's chances of survival in pve or pvp. Also while a straight 15/15 might sound cool its ultimately too weak... pick either wizard or cleric as your primary class and either go 18/12 or 20/10 so you get access to 9th level spells. Obviously your primary casting stat should be boosted as high as it can go, and your secondary casting stat comes in second. You wont be the most powerful or optimized build by any stretch but there are ways of making it work if you are smart and crazy prepared.

[Biolab00]

Mixing arcane and divine can work its just much more challenging then a pure build. The key is having contingency plans and abilities prepared so that if and when you get dispelled you can bounce back as rapidly as possible and survive long enough to do so. Having two or more of every buff and or summon is something a hybrid would be wise to do if it wants to maximize it's chances of survival in pve or pvp. Also while a straight 15/15 might sound cool its ultimately too weak... pick either wizard or cleric as your primary class and either go 18/12 or 20/10 so you get access to 9th level spells. Obviously your primary casting stat should be boosted as high as it can go, and your secondary casting stat comes in second. You wont be the most powerful or optimized build by any stretch but there are ways of making it work if you are smart and crazy prepared.

This is a huge trap. Never believe in it. I won't explain why.

[Exordius]

Not true, my main is such a build and he continues to thrive and effect the world despite being sub-optimal.

[Biolab00]

Not true, my main is such a build and he continues to thrive and effect the world despite being sub-optimal.

1) Please be honest and tell them how you manage the spell combination with 36 Sub-Hotkey

2) And how you manage to know how much wards you need to prepare since you will be dispel at a 100% chance almost everytime.

3) And if you invest too much spell in wards, how many spell are you using for offensive / crowd control. Main caster Lv18 means your Tier 9 spell slot is short of at least 2 and Tier 8 at least 1 and below Tier.

4)For PVE, you can avoid since NPC are dumb.
For PVP, you are a goner once you are dispelled. Bounce back after rebuff is a joke because there's so many wards that will be needed for a caster to survive.

5) How do you manage your DC and Attribute-Hungry low tier magic server?

6) I won't even mention more since the above 5 is killing people.

Please don't make people invest so much time into making a hybrid lv30 class only for him/her to scrap it.

It's a Sin.