Arelith

So, I'm building a pure level 30 druid. How utterly screwed am I for not dipping into ranger for discipline? (Don't try to convince me. I'm set on pure druid. Just wanna know what to expect!)

Any tips from pure squishies out there? Thanks.

Badly. Lack of discipline will get you killed. Lack of discipline will get you killed in PvE. Lack of discipline will get you killed in PvP. Lack of discipline will occasionally get you killed in PvP by someone twenty levels below you.

Anyone who can hit you with the +20 from a truestrike potion will get a free KD on you if you don't have any discipline, which then obviously leaves you an easy prone target for their continued attacks.

Yay!

So I'm basically playing the worst caster class and in the most precarious way possible (also, my AC will never be higher than the mid-teens.) Epic defender of the balance, everybody!

Also Freedom of Movement items seem rather prolific now.

Still, gonna embrace the terrible until the class is fixed.

Wytchee wrote:Yay!

So I'm basically playing the worst caster class and in the most precarious way possible (also, my AC will never be higher than the mid-teens.) Epic defender of the balance, everybody!

Also Freedom of Movement items seem rather prolific now.

Still, gonna embrace the terrible until the class is fixed.

If you make it into the teen levels I will throw you a party.

heavily distorted and blurry, eyeglowing memes

Baron Saturday wrote:If you make it into the teen levels I will throw you a party.

3.5k from 15. Where's my party?

Wytchee wrote:

Baron Saturday wrote:If you make it into the teen levels I will throw you a party.

3.5k from 15. Where's my party?

MOUNT UP, WE GON' PARTY!

Got to level 26 in a caster class with no discipline. It's really not as bad as people think.
Not only is there an assumption that you have it, meaning most people don't bother to exploit your lack of it, but you actually have to be in melee in the first place, which is something you can control to a degree.

Wytchee wrote: Still, gonna embrace the terrible until the class is fixed.

There's a big difference between building poorly and a class being bad.

Not to say druids aren't bad (Excluding dragon shape) but if they are balanced, a no discipline build is still going to have a super rough time.

While I believe another developer has a pure druid cookie planned, I wouldn't ever expect pure druids to be good. You're always better off multiclassing.

That said, you'll do fine in PvE. Honestly, Arelith PvE is super easy. Virtually anything will do fine.

Peppermint wrote:While I believe another developer has a pure druid cookie planned, I wouldn't ever expect pure druids to be good. You're always better off multiclassing.

That said, you'll do fine in PvE. Honestly, Arelith PvE is super easy. Virtually anything will do fine.

What about my barbarian true flame shadowdancer?

I mean most any competent player can tell when a druid lacks buff. (always.) Spot is powervul.

..plus this is like big neon glowing lights for it now.

Peppermint wrote:That said, you'll do fine in PvE. Honestly, Arelith PvE is super easy. Virtually anything will do fine.

This is largely true. My current build is an abomination and is managing just fine.

A druid without discipline? You'll do fine in pve. If you're really good at hiding behind your summons or party members, you can probably avoid getting targeted altogether. Pvp depends on who can get the first hit in. Ranged enemies are going to screw with you in pve and pvp, but you have a few options to avoid taking hits to begin with.

You could always cross-class some discipline, it's not optimal, but it doesn't sound like you're looking for optimal anyways. I'm a big fan of skill points, and rarely make characters below 12 INT.

Artos13 wrote:You could always cross-class some discipline, it's not optimal, but it doesn't sound like you're looking for optimal anyways. I'm a big fan of skill points, and rarely make characters below 12 INT.

Ehhh, the problem with this is that you'll never get enough to have a decent score. Even with full disc gear, you'll still max out at around 38 or so - Which, by the time you get there, isn't enough to stop anything of the same-ish level from doing whatever they wanted anyways.

I took a melee character with -2 discipline to level 30 and kept playing him without shying away from PvP for over a year. The only defeats I remember were when someone brought an army of undead, including a dominated boss dracolich whose phylactery was safely on another map, to the gates of the settlement where my character was captain of the guard. The other was because I didn't have NEP up pre-harm nerf. Neither had anything to do with discipline.

All that to say, sure you can do it. PvP is relatively rare here unless you're looking for it deliberately or play particular kinds of characters.

Peppermint wrote:I wouldn't ever expect pure druids to be good. You're always better off multiclassing.

I think this is a bit of an unfortunate attitude to have, even if it is mechanically indisputable. ^^

The drawbacks of multiclassing, be they a lack of survivability or utility, more than justify giving each pure base class a boon at 28. Pure wizard? No longer need spell components at 28. Sorcerer? You get a % chance to refresh a spell upon casting at 28 (similar to a wild mage). Druid? Elemental Monoliths. Barbarian? Rage cooldown reduced by a % equal to your intimidate skill. (Of course, I'm being silly here and merely brainstorming for fun, but hey, whatever.)

Yeah, pure builds will always be inferior to meticulously planned dip builds. I say give 'em all a boon.

I've played pure wizards (that didn't have wombo-combo!) with 0 disc, and I've won PvP encounters. Duels. 2v1s. 3v1s. a 5v1 and even a 6v1. You can't get knocked down if you don't get within melee range.

But druids don't really have that many spells to keep the fight going from a distance, like a wizard does. In PvP you'd really want to just run the heck away from anyone who might have KD. You should be fine in PvE!

The only tip I really have is don't get knocked down, and put your weapon away when fighting warriors. You will get KD spammed, and you will get the weapon knocked from your hands ... then you will die, and you likely won't get your weapon back.

On the plus side, as a druid, few characters will ever want to/need to be hostile towards you. There's a lot of ways for a druid to avoid hostility. You could just pretend to be different sorts of animals (might get a lot more animals once haks come out!). You'll technically be the most druidy druid at level 30, and even if mechanically that means nothing, conceptually it means something to me and probably a few others.

I don't like how necessary it feels to multiclass when you don't want to. I've been where you are, when I wanted to play a DRUID but had to settle for playing a druid who was also something else. When I wanted to play a CLERIC, but found to make it viable I'd need to learn to sing or at least some karate. I guess that's just NWN. It's been nearly 15 years of playing this game and I still try to fight reality.

The game is real time, and so when some warrior is charging you .. we don't all have the luxury of sitting around and deciding what to do, like when playing at a table, then rolling for it and doing it. Instead, you get your face smashed into the dirt.

I totally applaud your pure 30 druid and hope you get an awesome cookie at level 30.
It would be nice if all the non-discipline classes got some kind of toy at 30. Some sort of incentive to not multi-class for skill dumps. Normally I don't think you can hold onto skillponts through level ups and dump like 30+ into something down the line after multiclassing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's only a NWN thing.

I had a pure wizard with no discipline, and it was never an issue. Really even if someone cant kd your caster because you have high discipline AND is that close to you, it still leaves you open to a wand of silence potion of silence trick. Not to mention these casters who do that generally seem to focus heavy on discipline and constitution and were HIGHLY susceptible to a grease web combination then-or really just any reflex save spell where spellcraft didnt apply *cough* storm of vengeance. What I mean is combat situations are more complex than just saying someone or something is going to run up kd you and you can't do anything about it. There are plenty of other ways to die too.

Be mindful about how close hostiles or potentially hostile people are you to. Have exit strategies. I recall some fighter player ran at my wizard once. I used an invisibility wand and hit stealth. He used see invisibility and ran around looking to see where I'd gone. He couldn't find my character because I had hide and move silent. Might work even better for a druid; they've spells to buff such skills. Plus that new vine mine can help with that too? All the while someone is looking for you you want your nasty nasty summons to be harassing them. (You can even use darkness and hit stealth assuming someone doesn't have ultravision cast)

Clever spell combinations are useful too. I had an idea to use the slow bolts stone golems get to keep fighter types from being able to quickly get near me. Perhaps as a druid I'd consider casting stonehold on myself (assuming have freedom of movement cast). Be better with an item of it..I'm always afraid of someone getting clever with a breach wand, even though I focused on high saves. You can always recast it if you have more prepared; the idea is to keep them busy doing things other than attacking you while your nasty nasty summons harass. And yes yes someone could unsummon your summons...less easily if you have spell resistance on them, and I always carried a bunch of gate scrolls on my wizard anyway. I bet I had more gate scrolls than some fighter type has word of faith.

If people I thought might be hostile moved close to me, I would move away until they stopped trying to edge closer. Usually as this dance was going on I'd try to sneak in a "If you come any closer to me I'm going to get violent". When you are worried about a kd spam and someone hostile or acting hostile is edging up to "get the upper hand" I'd really call that a hostile action, buuuuut its probably one of those grey areas so I settled for just moving away until they gave up. I mean if they want to kd my character they should at least be a bit more clever. Approach with a smile and a ruse not the whole tough guy routine.

Also I never took Hellball of Greater Ruin. Had no evocation foci at all. Only had epic focus in Divination and Enchantment. I did take autoquicken I, II, and III. Autoquicken timestop or greater sanctuary or acid fog was often so quick as to be a Huuuuge surprise. I could swear the autoquicken spells didn't make initiative checks too. While the casting time was as fast as haste they certainly felt like they -started- casting a lot sooner.

Important to note that regardless of how well someone can do without discipline, having it is an extra safety measure with a class that usually brings other benefits (be it an extra spell focus, AC or UMD).

I also used to say that that the key is not getting in melee range, several years ago. But that is not something you always have control over, and it depends a lot on the people you're going up against, their level, their skill and their class. This is a RP server so many PvP situations can be avoided, were it a PvP Action/Arena server, it would be much more clear how there are times getting hit is inevitable, and that you can benefit from every bit of defense you can get, discipline included.

While Arelith is not PnP, multiclass plays a big role in PnP and many other DnD based games, and there's no extra glory for staying purist most of the time. But at the end of the day, this isn't a competitive server, so play what you think you'll enjoy most.

1. Run to the stonehold ruins
2. AE two greater gargoyles
3. Cast elemental swarm
4. Watch disipline no longer be an issue

Wytchee wrote:I think this is a bit of an unfortunate attitude to have, even if it is mechanically indisputable.

I've always wondered why people thought like this. Not even Elminster's a pure wizard, you know?

gilescorey wrote:

Wytchee wrote:I think this is a bit of an unfortunate attitude to have, even if it is mechanically indisputable.

I've always wondered why people thought like this. Not even Elminster's a pure wizard, you know?

I think Gandalf has some fighter levels, too. Look at how he dual wields that staff and sword!