Am I making any horrible mistakes with my character?

[dhynds2003]

Hello everyone,

3 weeks ago I knew absolutely nothing about the game mechanics of Neverwinter Nights or really even about any rules or terminology of DnD. After about 15 characters and lots of research on the internet, I think I've decided on the character I want to build. I'm not trying to make the perfect character (most of my design decisions are trying to create a character that will be fun for me to play), but I would like to avoid making a really dumb mistake that I would regret later. Without any respec options, I would appreciate any feedback before I get to much further along (currently level 3). So basically here is the general info on my current character and my current plan on how to develop her.

Ashira Incendia

Sorcerer (planning on using all 40 levels on Sorcerer)

Fire Genasi

Neutral Chaotic

Mystral Anscendancy

Strength 8
Dexterity 14
Constitution 12
Wisdom 8
Intelligence 10
Charisma 20 (planning on putting all additional points in Charisma)


Focusing on Concentration, Spellcraft and healing. Looking to start focusing on lore after I complete Arcanist Job and get 4 extra lore and an extra intelligence point (if I'm correctly understanding how that works).

Feats so far include:

Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Penetration
Spell focus - Evocation

Planning on filling out the feats as follows (not necessarily in this order):

Non-Epic

Greater Spell focus - Evocation
Combat Casting
Quicken spell
Enhance spell
Maximize spell

Epic

Auto Quicken Spell X 3
Epic Spell Penetration
Epic Spell focus - Evocation
Hellball

Planning on incorporating a lot of evocation spells (especially the one's that get specific improvements with an investment in Evocation spell focus), but not really looking for to much advice on spells as I plan on experimenting with that.

If I forgot anything relevant please let me know. Thanks for reading and again, any opinions would be greatly appreciated.

David

[Bargeld]

Looks pretty good to me!

Get rid of combat casting, once you have AQ3, it won't have any major effect.
Good choice only getting greater spell pen with 40 levels... that is a smart choice. Just beware of pure clerics with spell resistance buffs and SR focused monks.

With evo focus and high chr, you might consider taking greater ruin, your DC should be high enough to allow a few builds to fail the save, dealing 200-250 damage. Also, research the bigby's line of spells, they are strongest when wielded by a pure caster with evo focus.

[MrAsimov]

I have to agree, you should probably take something else instead of combat casting.

More importantly,you get 7 more epic feats. You get the 6 bonus epic feats for being a sorcerer, but you also still get the 7 for general feats at levels 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36. and 39.

The job bonuses, both ability and skill, are magic adjustments to the stats. This means if you need a stat at a required level for something, the bonus won't be included in your total. For example: The Mystral Ascendancy job gives a +1 Cha bonus. The +1 cha from job bonus WILL improve your spell DC and will allow you to cast more spells if it helps you reach a high enouigh cha to get bonus spells, BUT there is a REQUIREMENT of 19 cha to cast level 9 spells. 18 cha plus the job bonus of 1 cha does NOT work. You still need 19 BASE cha in order to cast level 9 spells.

[Alkapwn]

Id drop Penetrations and pick extend, still or silent, shield prof. (2 nice sheilds in game that have no spell failure and small shields only 5% fail) well worth it
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[dhynds2003]

Thanks for the reply's everyone. I now have so much more to think about.

I'm shocked I have 7 more feats to choose.

So the -4 concentration is pretty negligible when an enemy is close? Or automatic quicken spell negates this?

Also does anyone know what a Golden Pan flute does? Pan had a divine intervention in my gaming session last night.

Finally, just wanted to say that after trying just about every MMO the last couple years this game has been such a breath of fresh air. Major props to everyone involved in creating this game. In my opinion, the atmosphere and world feel (in a 10 year old module no less) surpasses any MMO (many that had 100's of millions put into them) I've tried.

[Lokey]

If there's a perfect character, we've gone very wrong

Pure caster is fun and can do effective things, but sorc is in the spell selection and there's hard choices to make there (skill selection and spells). The higher damage evo spells come at spell levels where important protection/utility/buff is too.

Fire gen gives you a big weakness (turning) for not that much gain, there's some other choices lurking around for more cha. And there's always halfogre.

[Frendel]

Combat casting only helps when you're in defensive casting mode iirc, so it's useless unless taking as a prereq for improved combat casting for a bard perhaps. The shield proficiency feat will pay off the most. I'd not worry about focusing in lore either. You can take Identify as a sorc spell and ID most everything you'd need. Epic warding and epic mage armor are recommended too.

[Rufio]

Epic mage armor is good, but I don't know if i'd bother with it on a pure sorcerer. There is almost no way to avoid having a really low AC without multi classing, even with epic mage armor. You'll have to rely on bigby spells to keep monsters away as a pure caster, which is good with a party, but hard when solo.

That said, it is with considering taking 5 levels in a class with some defensive abilities for future caster builds. It might be hard to add defense retroactively, but casters can have very strong defenses with planning.

[Bargeld]

You can get 60+ AC as a pure caster with shields and EMA. Toss out some -10 ab lvl 5 bigs and those KDs won't always hit you.

[dhynds2003]

Thanks for the replies everyone.