Good luck hitting anything half serious with his ab. Thats problem of all companions - too damn low ab, making them useleff against tougher to boss monsters
Fire storm not only subject to reflex save which is nullified if enemy has evasion - its actually deliver two strikes - one divine, one fire, so its subjected to DR twice. Yeah, not very useful And fighters don't have DC. They has AB. Or to be correct - high BAB
Or you can just cast stone skin\premonition and run away, Or get halfdecent AC with ICE
A)You can control mercenary neither in build, nor in fight.
b)Both summons and familiar are really damn primitive in term of abilities whic are almost all passive
Which makes them pretty much unusable as anything then meatshield. Hell, no rogue companion ever even take knockdown. Nor does barbarian on nwn oc take cleave. Nor does divine casters are clever enough not to cast harm on undead

In nwn2 you can have DM paladin, bardic awesomeness, real controllable healer-buffer, and a mage in one party. Each one of whom you can control, making sure that they wont cast heal after you pretty much scratch you leg, won't dill their spellbook with useless stuff and wont waster three rounds to setup aganst three rats. Which insanely boost full party capability, since classes now able to actually play against each other. So classes had to be rebalanced with this though in mind.

You should use him as a meatshield not as a damage dealer.

Not saying that firestorm is useful against every enemy. Only that in offensive capabilities, druids/shamans are in par with sorcs. There are no spell that is useful against any creature. For example, Arc of Lighting is very useful against golems but not against enemies with high reflex save and lighting resistance.

For example, in this video i easily kill a white dragon with Acid sheath + Elemental shield + Ethereal visage. This strategy will simple not work against enemies with acid immunity, that can dispel and etc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Ayb--gpd0

My point is. Druids have similar offensive capabilities as wizards in NwN2. Storm call is similar to fireball, spells that ignore SR and can cure, wear armor and have meatshields.

PS : Correct me if i an wrong, but fighters row DC against spell effects.

Or you can cast stone skin/premonition and run away in armor with d8 hit dice instead of robes and d4 hit dice...

You can TALK to him and give orders. Of course, if you find a adamantine armor, you can't give to your merc, i agree that this is a flaw.

But talk to him IMHO this is good. I fell more like i an my character instead of playing with "action figures". This is more immersive. This is the main reason to play RPG's. I play games to do things that i can't do in real life. For example, i can purchase a Katana or a Claymore and practice in sword fighting in real life or go to a firing range, but ammo are expensive(a .30-06 round in Paraguay is US$3,00, a 12 gauge buckshot is US$2,00. I don't own a legal or illegal gun but i love shooting) so i spend more time in fps games(realistic fps games, not cod like games) than in firing ranges. Since i can't conjure dragons, stop time and cast fire from my hands, so i play rpg.

This is why for me IMHO cool spells, a good world to explore and immersion is much more important in a RPG fantasy game than history or anything else. History is important if increases immersion. To enjoy a good story, i can watch tons of different animes, read a book and etc. The crossroad keep in nwn2 is imho the best part of nwn2 campaign and the trial is the worst part.

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IMHO the best RPG in therms of companions is Dragon's Dogma. You can give orders, change his equipment but not take control of your companion in middle battle. Play solo or with full party are viable.

No, Panther can have up to 1d12/1d12/2d12 damage with +5 enhancement. Faerie dragons with confusion
bolt are very useful against certain enemies. And the Eyeball can cast a lot of spells. I an roleplaying a good sorcerer so, a good sorcerer with a Eyeball as familiar makes no sense. This is why i din't pick him but is my favorite familiar.

And meatshilds aren't useless. They can give a lot of rounds without any enemy attacking your, removing your spell mantle, making your do concentration checks and etc. I solo have no chance against Klauth's for example. Even with a high fire resistance.

You have real fighter for it. With higher hp, ab, ac, and most likely great cleave
Why would you use spell with reflex save when you have much better Ice Storm spell with higher AOE and no saves? Anyway - druid not even close to sorc. Asoc sorc can cast empowered polar ray. Druid can't. Sorc can cast Avasculate. Druid can't. Sorc can cast Flesh to Stone - druid cant. Druid entirely lacks ray spells which are attacks against touch AC so they does not provide saves
This stratagy has no place in party enviromen, Since it do not require any other classes to participate. Nwn2 is party game. And was balanced as such
There are no DC against spell effect. There is SR from races(41 from Draw for example), there are Spell save(+1 for every 5 spellcraft), and there is 3 type of saves. Fortitude for physical effect, reflex for dodge, and will. Pure fighters has high fortitude but low other two.
Thats what EK for xD
Here is one detail you seems to be unable to get. There are different styles of rpg. Solo rpg in its core has an idea that you ALONE should be able to go through every moment of game. So developers fill spellbok with such spells that you can SOLO any situation.Your partymember can permanently die before final boss or you can just not take him and play solo. This was at a core of NWN1 design. Core of Nwn2 design is that you have a party. How many times in OC and Motb were you alone as in fully alone? Once? Maybe twice if you were ass in MotB. It was decided pretty earlier that you will have fully controllable party. So many things were rebalanced under this idea. Other way would have been keeping all this stuff and rising difficulty to such a way that old solo strategy would simply not work because that dragon of yours would loose around one 1% hp from that tactic since he would have around 8KK hp and 58 AC so only pure strongest of strongest fighter would be able to scratch him at best in first round. And lets agree - this wont be fun

Ice Storm at lv 21 will do 3d6 + 9d6,in total : 12d6 total damage. A Horrid wilting spell at the same level will do 21d8. So even against enemies with infinite "reflex" that always will save, in terms of damage, 21d4 > 21d6. Against a single target, the best spell that don't allow save IMHO is the Isaac's Greater Missile Storm. You can do up to 20*2d6 damage .

And greater missile + metamagic...

Or you can simple put more and tougher enemies and note : ONLY SORCERERS LOST DEFENSIVE SPELLS. Imagine if they remove a lot of Paladin divine spells like Holy sword and cure serious wound because "paladins should not be healer/buffer", or if druid loses his elemental spells because "elemental damage is a job for wizards" despite the fact that NwN is based in D&D. If a class is a average healer and good tanker like Paladin in D&D, this class should be a average healer and good tanker in NwN. This game isn't based in generic MMO.

Note that there are MP modules in NWN with 4 or 5 players playing together an adventure and no 8KK hp boss or sorcs without any combat familiar and defensive spells...

Baldur's gate is a party game and allows amazing defensive spells and you can level up sorcerer and red dragon disciple at same time

Yeah, really fair comparing 5th level spell with 8 level spell. Really fair indeed. Also - horrig wilting do negative damage. OC filled with undead and there is a lot undead in MotB. Yeah...

If only missle storm was indeed able to be cast onto one enemy and did not walk astray when there are several enemies. But yeah,its quite nice indeed. Through the best solo target spell is still Avasculate. If its connect against touch AC(which is really damn easy) - it halves hp. And as a bonus if enemy failed fortiutud - it stunned xD Just for reference touch AC formula:
AC=10+Deflection bonus+Dodge bonus+Dex

Wrong analogy. Sorcs do not loose all defensive spells. They loose spells that would let them fully go solo leaving absolutely no need for other party as you keep showing by your video.

From my expirince most of this modules has one of three thing:
a)Buld for teen enviroment, around 14-16 lvl MAX
b)Has a lot of banned/dropped stuff and combination. Like "No pal/Blackguard combo", "no one level cleric dips"
c)Has heavy edited enemies, who are significally stronger to them in solo module
... while having no bonus from high charisma, since Baldur gate engine doesn't count cha score for your DC xD

Again. There are no useful in all times spell; if this spell can heal undead, this spell can be used by a Pale Master to deal 25D8 damage in a huge area while heal his spectre(never picked pale master, not sure) and note that few creatures are resistant to negative(or positive) energy.

And in MotB there are a lot of creatures with death magic immunity, so Avasculate will not be amazing in MotB. Avasculate is also classified as a death magic spell, although it is not save or die(source > http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Death_magic ). Against non death magic resistant creatures, instakill on fail > remove half of health.

This spell is good only against melee opponents that can't dispel and are not resistant to acid. And even with this abilities, a sorc probably can't solo a nwn2 final boss for example unless he have unlimited stop time slots and unlimited delayed fireball slots.

You don't need to do this. For example, Dracolich( http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Dracolich ) is a very hard enemy, even in epic levels, so you can put 2 or 3 of then in a dungeon designed to epic levels in party and they will probably gonna die without teamwork.

No bonus for CHA but
- d6 hit dice
- Up to +5 AC bonus
- Dragon's Breach up to 8d8
- +2 CON
- Fire resistance up to immunity in high level
- Can have health regen "can bring them up to 20 constitution (...) granting them a natural regeneration" http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Sorcerer
(...)

So if a sorc is a glass cannon, a dragon's disciple is a tank with a 105mm cannon and a little less ammo.

Yeah... It can... If only specter wasn't low ac and low ab low lvl rubbish which is pretty much owned by anything. And if you didn't have to pay CL for it

Assuming it will work. Hell, tell me that Power word: Kill is useful. Instakill aoe after all

Like every single melee enemy in game since without Companion and monster AI mod non of enemy casters use dispel. Ever. And there are maybe two acid resisting enemies in game


This doen't make it balanced fot party. It literally show that in nwn only way to encorage party play is to throw ridiculous treat like several boss monsters at once

Sorc is not glass canon. Sorc is glass pistol since low Dc even in BG means "enemy igniore my spells" Wizard is glass canon, sorc is support/utility, and dd is support\utility that doesn't die on spot. And if we compare it to something proper dd like Kensai\Conjurator dual class - DD sorc kit is really nothing to write home about

Was only a example. Pale master is not weak for nwn. In NwN2 since almost everyone have a +8 weapon with a 20D6 elemental damage and +50 attack bonus, yes, they are very weak.

Here is the final boss of hotu expansion (spoilers) - battle at 8:00 https://youtu.be/GEyMVFEmVF4?t=493

And the final boss of nwn2 MotB (spoilers) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY3tjfE8FuE

As you can see, you can easily do 100+damage in final boss in MotB, while HotU you can barely do 10+ damage. You are note "party dependent", you are gear dependent in nwn2.

PS : Fight a Archdemon from nine hells is much more interesting than fight a man without face that by some reason is immortal and can only be defeated after realize 4 summons and is dumb enough to summon companions and become mortal.

There are a lot of casters in HotU. This "acid/fire shield strategy" will not work against the first boss of HotU for example. To be honest, cast time stop + delayed fireball was the best way to pass the boss. Each enemy needs a strategy. This is why i love nwn1.

No, did you have played a session of DnD PnP? A monster have a challenge rating. Here is some monsters in 5e http://dndbits.com/monsters.php

If you are alone or in party, the DM should adjust the monsters based in CR but if a player is in a epic level, he is a "demigok-like" creature, so he should not have problem facing another "demigod-like" creature. Or you put more demigod like creatures or you put a creature that require a party of demigod like creatures like Tiamat for example that have a CR of 102 and is http://d20npcs.wikia.com/wiki/Tiamat,_Great-Great-Great_Wyrm_Polychromatic_Dragon

I was talking about BG. In BG sorcs are glass cannons but in nwn2 you are right. Sorcs are glass pistols. They lost all
cool and powerful defensive spells while melee fighters can make +3541654 weapons with a 50D20 fire, 50D20 ice, 50D20 negative energy weapon and attack 50x per round.

For example, shapechange become useless.

In nwn1 you can become a red dragon or a balor. A balor :

damage reduction: 30/+3
damage resistance: acid 20/-, cold 20/-, fire 20/-
immunity: electrical 100%, poison
spell resistance: 28

A nwn2 Horned Devil is useless compared to a nwn1 balor. And even if they add a balor transformation, will be powerless compared with the +800 sword with 50D20 fire, ice, acid, negative and positive energy damage that attack 20x/round.

Completed BG1 with sorc - no problem
Completed BG2 with sorc - no problem
Completed nwn1 with sorc - no problem
Completed nwn2 with sorc - a lot of problems.

Not so much actually. You are feat dependent. If you took too much useless stuff and spread yourself too thin - you feel it. Sorcs actually one of the most gear independent classes in nwn2. While entering MotB melee fighters meet up with huge dififcalty spike with around 40-45 ab enemies with high AC just forsing them to run to high stat gear, casters and warlocks enjoy mid save coupled with 15-20 touch AC enviroment. For me as a Pal\Sorc Akachi was piss easy. One Bigby interpolating hand remove most of his danger. And this is even without +8 cha items. Actually if I remember correctly I had maybe +2 cha item while wearing 0 arcane failure premade(noncrafted!) chainmail with ONLY crafted item I had - unenchanted mythril heavy shield. So no, you are not gear dependent. You are dependent on your build

Crafting is literally there to be an easy mod. Thats why in all my runs I mostly ignored it, apart from few low skill requering items

Oh, yeah, don't forget the fact that similar effects no longer stack. I cant play with Pal 6, fighter 4, CoT else wearing gauntlet of str and giant belt of str, buffing myself with bull str to stratosphere. I'd say gear effectiveness was actually cut in nwn2/ As well as crit effectiveness, since keen no longer stuck with improve critical. And by the way, strongest +stats items are premade. You can craft nature armor amulet at all for example

Every enemy need a stratagy in nwn2 as well. Its just different strategy. Based around different idea. Its not "choose correct spells" for job. Its choose correct heroes and feats for job

Itsstill not an excuse to bundle together three creatures, which, according to monster manual entry if I remember correctly, supposed to be:
A)extra rare
B)loners by nature

Completed NWN1 with sorc - primitive
Completed NWN2 with sorc - too simple with insane prc and clever controllable tank

Thats why I prefer bards and warlocks

Yes, because sorcerer in nwn2 isn't nothing like they are in DnD or in Nwn. They are much closer to a "generic rpg" sorcerer. DnD is very different because the fantasy classes are more closer to fantasy myths. For example, the druid is based in celtic druid. The paladin is based in religious order knights that are very religious. The magicians in myths are not like magicians in the majority of RPG's. This is why i love nwn1. The best spells aren't "a lot of damage number", are spells that have strong effects. If you strip this effects, then remove combat familiars, then put a lot of weapons that do more elemental damage per round...

Strategy in nwn2 : Get a +500 weapon that attack 20x per round with 50D20 fire, acid, cold, etc damage

note that a +5 weapon is pretty rare in nwn1, even in epic levels.

And... A epic paladin is extra rare too.

Sorcs in nwn1 can use up to 186 different spells. Primitive is restrict the sorc to be a damage dealer with less damage output than any good geared guy...

That is how I feel about it. Take away the crazy weapon enchantment and there goes 90+% of your damage.

In NWN2 (OC/MOTB), How you build your weapons seems a lot more important than how you build your character.

That just seems completely backwards to me.

Gear dependency is IMHO opinion the worst part of modern RPG design. In D3 even your summons are "%weapon damage" and in the majority of cases, the loot is random... Imagine a skinny 1,50m tall(5'0") guy, with the best sword ever made and little experience in sword-fighting. Against a tall, tough guy, who trains sword-fighting since childhood with a rust sword. Who will win in the majority of cases?

In some cases, like a werewolf, makes sense need a "enchanted" weapon to do damage against werewolf(in nwn they have 10/+1 DR)

I want to share a memory that I believe will reflect my view on gear dependency. A D&D based game/story we played over skype with my friends. I can't remember If I was the DM or one of the players but I remember I created that part of the story.

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After our adventurers wander deeper in to the castle, they enter a room, filled with a dusty bed a drawer and a few books. You see a shiny box that is clearly out of place in this forsaken place. You notice an old man laying on the bed. He slowly leans up when he notices you. Investigating you with wrinkled but wise eyes. You hear his cracked voice

"Get out"

At that point my friends discussed about what to do. The Fighter in the group was wounded but insisted that he could take that man out. The party was low level, around 7-10 I guess. Finally they decided to enter the room and see their options.

As you enter the room despite old man's warning, you notice he leans to back of the bed where you barely notice an OLD RUSTY SHORT SWORD. (It does D6 minus 1 damage).

Party members laughed how easy that will be. An old man with a rusty sword. They decided to take the box. The old man calmly grabbed his sword and stood up. Apparently he was grand master in short swords, 4 attacks per round (or 5?) with great Thac0 and AC. He butchered the mage and the cleric first who could do some damage to him before they died. After that, the already wounded fighter and ranger was a piece of cake. He took the shiny box from the corpse of the dead party member. Put it gently on the drawer and got back to his rest.
-------------------- End Of Memory ----------------------------

My friends never found out what was inside that box. They never forgot that experience either.

You cant go stronger then Bigby interpolating hand, wich turn Akachi into purse puppy, since -10 AB and broken grapple check which entirely depends on creature size and Akachi isn't dragonsized.

You cant get such item in game. Yes, you can be a cheap bustartd and make yourself Kaze build with two +8 kama with 3 8d6 different element damage in the end of the companion(because guess what - crafting has CL requirements. And spells, some of which are completely unabaliable for prebuild companion forcing you to skip nice stuff. Sand cant craft deflect arrow item for example). And once again - you don't need that to finish the game. Stuff that already in game is already more then enough. What is not enough is a correct feats. You will suffer in melee in Motb if you do not take Blind fight, since almost half of damn game has concealment 50. You will suffer if you don't push your AC to about 40, You will have problems if you have AB lower then 34. Crafted Weapon isn't that required. Build required. I never crafted any weapon in game. Only some mithral armor(fullplate, chain shirt, breastplate) and mithral heavy shields. Hell, just a simple example - if not to count Amulet of Betrayer Personified(to get which you need to eat your whole party and play solo the rest of game) and that bear belt(you need to eat one of your companions) best +str item you can craft is +8 belt. And you get +12 str belt for free. Also don;'t forget. In nwn similar effects don't stuck. They stacked in Nwn, so + 4str belt with +2 str gauntlet + bull streangh from BG gave you +10 str. Not much lover then NWN items xD

You contimnue to scream about fighters - how about original nwn fighters? Fighter/weaponmaster/assassin with keen schythe, IC(which in nwn stacked), weapon master crits, devastating critical and insane death attack die? Who used knockdown feat to setup 100% chance of sneak attack. Or Druid/Shifter/Dwarven Defender, whose raisen lord had somewhat like 50/- dr coupled with damage resistance. So 100 damage strike become 1 damage strike or classic. Or bard/RDD/ Blackguard with divine power and shield, high saves and crit immunity. Melee build always had more ways to become broken in nwn series xD Oh, and yeah, devastating critical man

Can use doesn;'t means will use. There are a lot of broken stuff in nwn. And there are a lot of cheap stuff. And when you play on full DnD its increadibly noticeable that game rules are build for party, and not for idiot mercenary(Hello, basilisk room in SotU)

What you continue to show is the fact that you don't want to adapt to new meta. Shapeshifting is nerfed, yes - but you have 0 arcane spell failure chain shirts and 0 arcane failure shields. You no longer can take one lvl of pal to get insane saves, but you have EK prestige class which is like 10 fighter levels in turm of HP, while you loose nothing as a caster. If you wanted to multiclass in nwn, your only choice was palemaster, where you sucrifised half of your levels as a caster, while getting few lame def feats, one summon and not becoming true gish. Nwn2 was shipped with a lot PrC at once, so idea was, that you don't go yardstick, but instead combine and mix. They even increased class limits from 3 to 4

Yes, DnD rules are made for a party game and guess what. Sorcerers are far more powerfull in PnP than even in NWN. There are a lot of D&D spells that aren't implemented in NWN and the Red Dragon disciple gains spell slots and start with d12 hit dice. Note that the majority of spells in DnD are not useful only in combat. Wish, wall of force, Teleportation Circle, teleport, Water Breathing, wall of iron... All useful spells that aren't in nwn

And in D&D spells that aren't subject to spell resistance are subjected in NWN ( eg : acid fog - no spell resistance in DnD 3.5 [url=http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Acid_Fog]http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Acid_Fog[/url] and spell resistance is applied in nwn [url=http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Acid_Fog]http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Acid_Fog[/url] ) so you can't use acid fog against VIX'THRA in nwn... As ive said, classes in D&D are based in myths. The majority of myths involving sorcery are not "combat myths" and the majority of spells in DnD aren't simple "damage dealer". If they aren't OP in D&D, they aren't OP in nwn.

As for the companions in NWN1, only because you don't take control of then doesn't means that they aren't useful. A Epic Dragon summon spell can cast buff in you if you talk to the dragon, cast aura of fear that is pretty useful, can serve as damage dealer and meatshield... About EK class, his hit dice is d6, but if you are saying that sorcs need a 0% arcane failure armor, a shield and dual class, you are saying that they are only viable if they are "knights"

About the guys with 50DR, i agree that this is broken, but you even as a fighter can counter his DR with elemental damage. If he have 50DR + immunity to everything, he is probably using edited items.The immunity to critical attacks aren't a problem. Only one in 20 attacks are critical, of course, you can increase to 2,3 or maybe 4 of 20 but...