Favourite NWN Prestige Class

[Wyrmlord III]

As much as I was left bored by SoU, and some parts of HotU, I think the NWN expansions at least shined in their introduction of prestige classes, which made these rather dull games a lot more interesting. Whether you started from SoU and worked across the long term to HotU to get every feat or skill level required to get a prestige class or directly built a level 20 character immediately in HotU with the prestige class, you have to agree that there was a lot of depth in this process.

I used to spend some time just thinking how I would give my evil Bard several ranks in Hide, Move Silently, and Lore, so that he could become both a Red Dragon Disciple and an Assassin - an evil creature with wings that becomes invisible, sneaks up on people, and breathes fire on them. The possibilities were limitless.

Now, NWN2otB also had prestige classes, but frankly, they were either the same as NWN, or left out fun classes like Shifter, or introduced ones that were really just the same as base classes (Sacred Fist). So we are not asking about NWN prestige classes.

So what were your top three favourites? Mine were:

1. Red Dragon Disciple: Too obvious. I mean, Immunity to Fire? Immunity to Paralysis and Sleep? Large bonuses to Strength? Slow transformation into a dragon? Fire-breathing abilities? How can I say no? A fighter or paladin who takes 1 level of bard just to get 4 levels of RDD has got back his bargain several times over. Losing 5 fighter or paladin levels for better strength and AC is a pretty easy call. One of the most fun and interesting classes to play in any RPG ever.
2. Shifter: This is the one idea that every other RPG should have overused to death till date. Playing a class of people who never have a form of their own but imitate other life-forms - from golems to dragons to Illithid mindflayers - is the one big dream of so many RPG fans. It was fun enough in NWN. But this concept could have been extended to social situations in other games - become a wolf and get quest clues from other wolves; transform into one of the villain's henchmen and infiltrate his inner circle; or get away with heinous crimes by shape-shifting. WHAT WASTED POTENTIAL!
3. Pale Master: This is the closest any RPG has allowed for having the player be a lich. Your arm rots away into bone but gains magical powers that allow it kill or poison a person with a Finger of Death. While you lose some spell-casting ability, your much much higher AC and HP mean that you are simply very very difficult to kill. Very good for combining with RDD, so that you become tough as mountain rock to kill.

 

[racofer]

Shadowdancer is just plain fun with a rogue.

 

[Hollywood]

Monk + Assassin for when you need to put your opponents nutsacks in poisoned vice-grips.

 

[Mebber]

Not very fancy, but i liked by Weaponmaster+CoT multiclass char.

 

[halflingbarbarian]

I used to run a halfling weaponmaster wielding a scimitar in those days of yore.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The only time I played NWN with a prestige class when I played a Dwarven Fighter who became a Weaponmaster.

With the scythe.

Let's just say getting regular critical hits doing over 100 HP of damage was...rewarding.

 

[Micmu]

Uninstall Wizard

 

[canakin]

I choose Weaponmaster because I'm the most boring person who plays Rpgs and I always roll fighters.

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Stormlord of Talos. I like zapping shit in the name of evil storm gods.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Arcane Trickster sounds the most fun in concept, but Monk + Shadowdancer was cool because you get a shadowbro to punch people in the dick. I'd say Arcane Archer because I like bows, but archers suck in NWN.

Invisible Blade is cool but something tells me they came up with it after watching some anime

Uninstall Wizard

 

[Krraloth]

Arcane Trickster sounds the most fun in concept, but Monk + Shadowdancer was cool because you get a shadowbro to punch people in the dick. I'd say Arcane Archer because I like bows, but archers suck in NWN.

Invisible Blade is cool but something tells me they came up with it after watching some anime

Uninstall Wizard

What about monk-bard-AA with zen archery? huh? HUH?

 

[catfood]

I voted RDD because the bonuses you get are just too good to ignore. But flavour-wise, nothing beats a PM. I remember having a NE gnome wizard with spell focus in necromancy and a a bithicng 'stache which I dualed to PM once I got the necessary prerequisites. He looked so badass with the skeletal arm. Too bad using it meant getting close to enemies, and those that could get paralized were trash mobs that died in two hits anyway. What a shit game.

 

[Krraloth]

TBH the class system is wasted on the vanilla games and expansions.
The mosy fun I had was on persistent servers with good balance and low magic settings (+5 max) aside from the grat challenge of PVP, if the server managers were creative you could always have a degree of fun with the fights.

 

[laclongquan]

Pale Master is overrated, precisely due to that skeletal arm. Useless tactically and offensive graphically. I dont see why you would want to choose it other than the "I am a necromancer I am so badass!" Drok!

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Funny how I uninstalled SotU before I even got to the point where you could choose a prestige class.

 

[catfood]

Pale Master is overrated, precisely due to that skeletal arm. Useless tactically and offensive graphically. I dont see why you would want to choose it other than the "I am a necromancer I am so badass!" Drok!

Uh? yeah that's the whole fucking point.

 

[kanenas]

Depends on the PW and its itemization.
It was amusing seeing bard/pala/RDD trying to justify their existence in campfire RP

 

[Monkeyfinger]

The basic bard class in NWN2 is a lot more fun and interesting than the prestige classes in any of these games.

 

[Coyote]

Shifter is a great deal of fun due to its versatility. Facing a bunch of rogues? Shift to a golem or undead and laugh off their sneak attacks. Need to carry a heavy load? Shift to a minotaur and enjoy your newfound strength. Use your wyrmling shapes to deal various types of elemental damage while also granting you immunity to them, harpy/mindflayer to take advantage of enemies with low willpower saves, basilisk/medusa for enemies with low fortitude saves, specter shape for draining strength, larger shapes for boosting the power of knockdown, azer chieftain for beating damage reduction, gargoyles for granting damage reduction, drider/drow for magic resistance, undead for immunities to death magic, sneak attacks, poison, etc. and healing from negative energy traps, vampire/risen lord/death slaad for regeneration, rakshasa for immunity to all but ninth- and epic-level spells, true seeing, and unlimited dispels (making them great against casters), golems for resistances and immunities, dragons for all the elemental abilities of wyrmlings plus immunity to sneak attacks and a strong melee presence in general, kobold for boosting rogue skills, and so on.

It's not the most powerful class in the game, especially in high-magic worlds where many of its bonuses and immunities become commonplace, but IMO it's one of the funnest. The only thing that would make it better is if it gave you alternative routes to complete quests when appropriate (and also maybe if the game made it clearer which equipment bonuses and perks transfer to which shapes).

 

[Terpsichore]

Warrior/Wizard/Pale Master is the most overpowered since you are basically a plate and tower shield wearing, still spell spamming wizard that can also just melee things to death with all the buffs.

 

[King Crispy]

Arcane Trickster sounds the most fun in concept

Very fun to play, yes, and I've talked about this several times before, but the AT is not very powerful. Self-reliant, however, which is great for certain modules, and very satisfying to see progress. I made mine as finely-balanced as I could, relying on many things working to perfection in order to get the most out of him.

For example, in the arena fights in MoW, especially against the heavily melee-based ones, if my Feint didn't fire off properly most of the time, which was reliant upon the Bluff skill, he could get in trouble. Therefore he'd try to prebuff anything that would boost that skill, but I also tried to play "fairly", within the scope of what a PnP DM would've "allowed". Made for some very intense, close, and rewarding fights.

By the way, he won every arena fight on the first try, again some just barely, but "retired" after about the fifth one I believe, because I knew subsequent ones he'd likely get stomped. I should reload the game with one of his saves and see how far I could get.

 

[Wyrmlord III]

Well, Crispy, doesn't self-reliance sort of defeat the purpose of a party-based game like NWN2? Of course, I know there are modules that are centered around a solo character, but those are the modules I personally find a little less interesting.

It's the same reason I never saw the appeal of soloing through IE games as a F/M/T. These games are meant to be played as a party, and the only trick to survival as a soloer is quick timing of spells or reloading and persevering.

 

[SCO]

F/M/C/T has the additional disadvantage that you're constantly under-levelled and thus your main advantage (if you do a team anyway) of lots and lots of spells gets irrelevant since any attack spell is just shrugged off by the really dangerous opponents (other spellcasters), while they always win a dispel contest against your buffs.

Frankly i'd never dream of doing this without fixing either the experience curve or the spells malus/bonus. It does make for only a slightly more unfair solo though.

BTW, i think i'm going to do a mod to have a F/M/C/T, by activating the thief abilities by hotkey. Thief seems the natural method to make this since they're mostly utility and their high level abilities suck (except use any item).

 

[Rhalle]

I used to play those multiplayer PvP arenas with a half-orc barbarian/fighter/weapon master with a scythe. It was a perfect build and the crits were disgusting.

But, yeah, RDD for singelplayer. I think even my Deekin was an RDD. Blackguard was fun for RP evil; it actually wasn't all that great mechanics-wise, but there were some cool Blackguard-only items in the 2nd expansion if I remember right.

 

[Utgard-Loki]

Pale Master is overrated, precisely due to that skeletal arm. Useless tactically and offensive graphically. I dont see why you would want to choose it other than the "I am a necromancer I am so badass!" Drok!

Uh? yeah that's the whole fucking point.

the pale master is actually a piss poor prestige class for casters, necromantic or otherwise (in nwn at least), since it has zero spell progression and only raises caster level every other level. it can be ok for melee builds though for the immunities and the ac boni it gives.

i don't really like either of them from a fluff standpoint, and none of them are any help whatsoever for people that want pure casters. so screw them.