New player / True Flame Elf

[Jayim Duinara]

Hello all,

My name is Jayim Duinara; I'm brand new to Arelith, NWN multiplayer in general, AND brand-new to role-play. I wanted some help setting up my first character. =)

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Sorcerer class is my first love. I love the flexibility of being able to cast what spell I want, when and where I want it, however many times I want. Without having to fiddle with a spellbook and pre-plan what I THINK I might need, etc.

True Flame sounds even better; infinite spellcasting?! True, it takes away my beloved flame arrow, but Fireball, Ice storm, and IGMS FTW! =)

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Anyway, I want to play an Elf, but I can't decide between a Wild Elf and a Wood Elf.

From a RP perspective, I like the color ranges of Wood Elves better. I think their generally more placid nature is a better match for my character's personality. I like the culture of the Wild Elves better, and their bent for the arcane suits him better.

From a mechanics perspective I still can't decide. Wood Elves seem a natural extension into Arcane Archer with their Longbow Focus. Not sure if I want to do that. Wild Elves seem more durable. +2 DEX gives you +1AC, right? I'm assuming that is on top of the +1AC that's also on their list? Plus Toughness. A sorc is squishy no matter what you do, and with True Flame I lose all my defensive spells...

I guess I'd pick Wild Elf. I don't know. Thoughts?

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Abilities. I hate taking negatives in anything. And I hate 'wasting' points at creation by needing to spend two to gain one by raising past 14. I know that is probably very foolish of me. =( I get 7 more ability points through leveling up, right?

Anyway, I was thinking:
Str 10, Dex, 12, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 14.
Wild Elf would make it:
Str 10, Dex, 14, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 14.

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Gifts. I'm not concerned about ECL. I'm not going to 'run out' of xp to get, so it doesn't matter if I level slower. The question is what I should get.

I'm interested in:
Gift of Learning - He is very interested in history and lore
Gift of Confidence - Despite his difficulties, he's set off on his own away from his home.
Gift of Tongues - He has a minor obsession with dragons and dearly wants to learn draconic.
Gift of the Holy - He is very devoted to Savras
Gift of Greenfingers - Being a Wild Elf, he loves nature and feels most at home around plants.

Question, what exactly does Greenfingers do? It sounds like only Druids and people with the gift can grow plants. Aside from RP, what is the usefulness of growing plants?

I was thinking Learning, Confidence, and Greenfingers? (at 14 INT, I'd get four languages, right? Common, Elven, Draconic, and something else?)

Str 10, Dex, 14, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 16?

At any rate, what combination of these would you all recommend?

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Jayim's magic comes easily to him (True Flame). In fact, it comes TOO easily to him. It can overwhelm him and he frequently finds himself lost in the weave, at the expense of being able to see his surroundings (severe latency). If you see him standing and staring off into the aether, just give him a few moments, he'll comeback to himself eventually.

Family 'legend' has it that their gift and curse of magic comes from their many times distant ancestors: an evil Warlock who enslaved a metallic dragon. Many in the family don't believe it. Jayim does. He has a cold hatred for Warlocks.

Because of the difficulties with his gift, he feels both blessed and trapped by it, and it has given him a great empathy for Savras, the captive patron of magic.

He also has a great longing for order and stability, and thus has a far more lawful bent than his usually chaotic brethren.

Despite his 'magical epilepsy', he has still boldly decided to seek out adventure, searching for any information he can find about his mysterious and distant dragon ancestor (that he is convinced he got his magic from).

He takes his rest and respite in reading the histories and communing with his plants; safe activities in safe places where he can drift off without worry.

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What do you all think? =)

[Xerah]

Hi there

Welcome!

First off, in NWN it is important to focus on what you want to do. That means getting something that only improves something that is bad by a little bit isn't useful. For example, DEX on a Wizard isn't very useful.

I'm guessing you want to go the TF route because you like to blast things. If so, this is s good idea of the type of build you should use.

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=12878&p=107047#p107047

I'd have a look at that type of build and see if that's the kind of thing you're looking to do.

[Jayim Duinara]

Okay, so he's confident enough to go adventuring, even if it is a little foolish. I can lower his WIS score some. lol

Str 10
Dex 12 (Racial)
Con 14
Int 14 (Gift)
Wis 10
Cha 19 (Gift)

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I would still dearly love to know about that gift of Greenfingers...

[Durvayas]

It has to do with harvesting. Plants are normally one and done. This means that when people harvest resources from a plant, generally speaking, the plant is out of resources until a server reset.

Gift of greenfingers lets you 'tend' to plants.

Tending to plants allows the plant to be harvested again, in like six minutes(if I recall right). It refreshes the plant's resources.

Its incredibly useful if you are playing a cook, or just someone who wants to take advantage of nature's bounty. Those with nature deities also get piety for it, which is nice.

[flower]

Sorcery, on top TF, fits more Wild Elf. They are about spontaneous, wild outbursts of magic than Wood Elves

[Lorkas]

It has to do with harvesting. Plants are normally one and done. This means that when people harvest resources from a plant, generally speaking, the plant is out of resources until a server reset.

This is no longer accurate. Plants now respawn on their own after 4 or 5 IG hours without tending from a druid or ranger, but for so more quickly with tending.

[Jayim Duinara]

Okay, I had to remake AGAIN because I messed up on the character creation. *rolls eyes*

I was thinking, I hadn't planned on taking a background, however, I was thinking about the Natural Leader one...

Choose my race (elf) and then at the ability screen:

Str 10
Dex 10
Con 15
Wis 10
Int 14
Cha 16

With Sub-race it becomes:

Str 10
Dex 10
Con 17
Wis 10
Int 12
Cha 16

With Natural Leader it becomes:

Str 10
Dex 10
Con 16
Wis 10
Int 12
Cha 17

And with gifts it becomes:


Str 10
Dex 10
Con 16
Wis 10
Int 14
Cha 19

The addition to CON makes up the -1 fortitude. Basically, for -1 reflex I get 30 more HP.

Is this a good trade?

[Xerah]

Why are you taking an INT gift?

[Jayim Duinara]

Bah, never mind, it DOESN'T work. Because the base Elf race decreases constitution, raising constitution from 14 to 15 takes 3 points, not two like I thought it would.

That's what I get for trying to munchkin too hard.

[Jayim Duinara]

Why are you taking an INT gift?

Because I like skills and I want to learn a couple of languages. =)

[Xerah]

The INT gift will only give you one extra language and a fourth skill you can max. You're better off taking the language gift and con+cha gift. TF are really going to need the extra con unless you always have a buddy to travel with.

[Jayim Duinara]

*weeps tears of helpless rage*

Okay, enough of that. Apparently I missed the memo somewhere and unused skill points DO NOT carry over between levels. =(

Re-making my character... yet again... and waiting for ANOTHER server reset.

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Okay, now that I I have to use all skill points as I get them, instead of waiting to see what would be useful, I need a plan to spend them.

16 points to begin with, 8 points/level after that.

Sorcerer skills:

concentration
craft armor
craft trap
craft weapon
heal
lore
spellcraft

Which skills should I do? Obviously, Concentration and Spellcraft. I'm guessing Heal. How useful (or not) is Lore?

If I take those four, I've still got enough skill points for two cross-class skills. What are the most valuable ones for a sorcerer?

[DarkDreamer]

Just for note...Unused skill points do carry over between levels. I do this myself.

[Jayim Duinara]

?????

*sigh* A person shouldn't try new games when they are sick... so basically, I deleted my character for no reason because I was looking at my screen crooked.

I just looked up Sorcerers skill points: 2 + int modifier ( (2 + int modifier) * 4 at 1st level)

Since my intelligence modifier is +2, that gives me 16 points at build, and FOUR points per level, not eight.

So....

Concentration, Heal, Spellcraft, and Lore...

[Xerah]

*weeps tears of helpless rage*

Okay, enough of that. Apparently I missed the memo somewhere and unused skill points DO NOT carry over between levels. =(

Unused points do carry over.

16 points to begin with, 8 points/level after that.

Only 4 per level after that with 14 INT.

Which skills should I do? Obviously, Concentration and Spellcraft. I'm guessing Heal. How useful (or not) is Lore?

If I take those four, I've still got enough skill points for two cross-class skills. What are the most valuable ones for a sorcerer?

Concentration and Spellcraft are important. Lore is good for understanding languages. You can probably save the rest of your points for class dumps for Discipline if you are going the paladin route.

[Iceborn]

A little lore is essential to identify basic stuff.
With a very high lore skill, you can even translate languages you don't know.
And it's somewhat nice to justify your RP, I guess, if you are meant to be knowledgeable.
Otherwise, if the latter two don't interest you, you can put 5 points in it and forget about it.


Regarding your character in general, going pure true flame doesn't net you really anything worthwhile, so you can afford to multiclass later on to take other skills and abilities.