Neverwinter Nights 2 - PvP dueling

[IthilanorStPete]

A friend of mine and I are going to have a little PvP tournament, using characters designed and built with Neverwinter Nights 2, but played out on paper. Each of us is going to make 4 characters, then we'll do a 3 round single elimination tournament. For the first round, our characters will be lvl 10, then level up to 15 for the second round, and the final two will go up to lvl 20.

I'm not entirely sure what some optimal builds are, and I'd like some advice on what to do. All I really know is that I want to make one pure caster, probably Wizard/Red Wizard of Thay or Sorcerer/Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep, and one gish, presumably with the Eldritch Knight.
The available base classes can be found here; the prestige classes here. Other info about what's in the game can be found elsewhere on that wiki.

Any help is much appreciated.

[Eldariel]

The best character in the game is Cleric/Stormlord. Beyond that, I cannot help you much; while not as amazing as in PnP, with MoTB a Monk 1/Druid 19 (or hell, you could even toss Shadow Dancer and Sacred Fist in there, although Sacred Fist is still buggy with Wildshape IIRC) can reach some really nice numbers - I did some AC math here (note, if acting as a team, he can bum the Mage Armor from an ally thus freeing the Wizard-level for Shadowdancer which is a much more brutal class due to Hide in Plain Sight being sick in the game).

If you're playing by PnP rules though, Shadow Dancer becomes far less appealing - it merely owns NWN2. But yeah, I'd frankly go with two Clerics and two Wizards (Arcane Scholar/Red Wizard of Thay, depending on how high you go - Scholar first, the metamagic reducers are sick) if going for optimal characters. Maximized Greater Missile Storms as the primary attack for Wizards, Clerics use their normal stuff.


But if you play the matches by PnP rules, everything changes. NWN2 just lacks decent melee attacks and such and totally gimps Druids leaving the other casters as the kings (also, some spells are inexplicably un-Persistable such as Divine Power even though you can learn it in 3rd level slot).

Oh, and of course the lack of Teleports, Flight, Contingencies, Time Stops and so on makes the plan of "get up to the skin and beat the **** outta them" much more functional.

[JeminiZero]

Most important question: What gear is permitted? At Low/No magic, casters are indeed very powerful, but as the gear level escalates, melee classes can gain the benefit of spells without being casters and they start to shine.

Also how are you handling grappling and knockdown? In NWN2, knockdown characters could only stand back up, whereas in PnP, they could do other stuff like cast. This makes a real difference when it comes to the perma-knockdown brokenness that is Bigby's Forceful hand.

[ex cathedra]

While I think I'm better at optimizing for 3.5 than NWN2, I might be able to assist.

Firstly, however, you've left out several key pieces of information:
Sources; Of NWN2, Mask of the Betrayer, and Storm of Zehir, which (if not all three) are you using?
Wealth. What sort of equipment will be available? I'm hoping standard craftable stuff for your character level.

Now then, after you provide that I might be able to assist more fully.

A few key things to consider;
Full casters are not as overpowering in NWN2 as they are in 3.5; the vastly limited spell selection, combined with some of the mechanic changes, goes quite a ways towards balancing the casters and melee classes.

In my opinion, it's harder to make a terrific arcane gish in NWN2 than it is to make a clericzilla. Grab some levels of cleric, warpriest, stormlord, and perhaps WM and go to town with some persisted haste, etc. Divine Power, Favor, Righteous might and so on may be helpful, as well.

Use Death Ward. Or, use the red wizard/arcane scholar and pump out DC Mid-30's FoDs and WotBs. Don't forget to Mord first, as well.

[IthilanorStPete]

Sorry for leaving out some needed info. Here it is:
-We'll be using NWN2 + both expansions.
-Gear...we haven't worked out exactly how much we'll have, but it'll probably be pretty low quality.
-I figure we'll play by PnP rules for the technical stuff like grappling/knockdown.
-One additional thing: I'm only familiar with playing NWN, and I'm not familiar with playing Clerics - so what's "their normal stuff"?

[Eldariel]

Clerics' normal stuff: Persistent Spell, Extend Spell, Greater Magic Weapon, Magic Vestment, Divine Favor, Divine Power, Righteous Might, Greater Visage of the Deity, Divine Might (a feat to burn Turn Undead uses for smiting the living outta people) overall just line up the buffs and Persist what you can, Extend/Quicken the rest and cast the remaining ones last.

Then go to town superbuffed, while maintaining access to stuff like Heal, Harm, Holy Word, Finger of Death, etc. to drop people/get through überdefenses. Pick some domains to expand your spell list to contain some handy Wizard-spells (Greater Missile Storm is a godsent in NWN PvP).