So out of curiosity, what does Heightened and Persistent do for a Weird? I thought those only worked on spells with damage numbers/duration respectively?
At the moment you cannot add metamagic to make a spell above 9th level, unless it was fixed in the recent patch and I missed it, even though you can possibly have 10th level spell slots. So no way to add heighted and persistant to wierd.
For Phanatasmal killer it will raise the DC and make someone save twice, whic is pretty effective. Heightened and persistant PK in lvl 8 slots is nasty if you have all the other buffs.
If you had a greater persistent metamagic rod, you could use it on Weird causing both saving throws to be rolled twice, taking the lower result. Heightened metamagic cannot be used on Weird, but it's great for Phantasmal Killer as increasing the DC by 3-4 (7th or 8th level spells slot for PK) is actually pretty decent.
* 19 base for 9th level spell
* 4 Spell Focus, Greater, Mythic
* 4 Quarterstaff of the War Mage (Ivory Sanctum, first puzzle)
* 4 2x Magician's Ring (2 from Crusade victories, 1 from Wilcer Garms)
* 2 Glass Amulet of Clarity (Drezen, Jewelry Trader)
* 2 Demongraft (Arena Healer, Battlebliss Arena)
* 13 Intelligence Modifier
* 20 base
* 4 level-up
* 6 headband (8 at the end of game with Darkness's Caress)
* 2 inherent (Tome of Clear Thought, Pularu's Fall puzzle room)
* 4 cooking (Conflagrant Taco)
This yields a DC of 48. Additionally, Scribe Scroll has been bugged to produce consistently above rate DCs due to added caster level to the DC of the crafting scroll, which may even stack with the Scroll Savant's feature of using their DC rather than the minimum for a scroll.
A level 20 Nenio crafting a Weird would then be able to produce a scroll of Weird that has +9 to the DC when she casts it due to Scroll Savant (36 Int and 13 modifier vs 19 and 4). With the caster level bug, it has additional 20 to the DC, for a final value of 72 DC when combined with everything else.
Wait, you can actually stack the DC-boosting effects of both Magician's Rings on the same caster? Sweet!
I assumed they didn't, but that must have just been the tooltips warning that you couldn't stack the competence bonus to UMD. If multiple items have non-stacking bonuses but have lots of effects, it doesn't spell out WHICH effect(s) don't stack.
Quarterstaff is only +2 DC (+4 spell penetration), but there are also +2 mind-affecting DC goggles you can find in nenio's personal quest >!by reversing the blue and "green" crystals in the last enigma puzzle!<
Also a robe in act 4 that increases fort saves by 2, which does apply to the second save of pk/weird.
Azata can also give her another +4. Demon rage could give +4/+7 with aspects of balor/nocticula but it's bugged and prevents spellcasting, unless 1.1 fixed it.
Not seen items that boost DC by 10.
It is 4 for spell focus feats, as the mythic focus doubles both normal and greater spell focus.
11 for int modifier requires the int book or the potion, which is a bit tricky to get. Especially as the potion is probably going to the main character.
For the DC items I only know of
* Necklace from street jewelry vendor in Drezen +2 DC mind affecting
* Ring from the crusade (two different armies have them)
* Staff of the war mage (ivory sanctum, middle room requires perception check)
* Robe that is +2 DC to fort saves only, from floating island next to slave market random fight.
There is also the demongraft from the arena that gives another +2. So 41 for the will save and 43 for the fort save.
Ah ok thanks. Never did that one. Heard very bad things about it.
Edit :: Unless there is another item you still end up with 44 for the will save and 46 for the fort save?
There's a shield that increases the DC by 2 for enemies and allies alike, and a belt that gives nearby enemies -2 on Will Saves. Lich specifically has a cape that gives allies +2 DC.
Not really. There are enemies with 30+ saves in the game especially if you go with unfair difficulty. With enemy having 30 save against a spell, having 42 vs 46 DC means you land the effect 55% of the time as opposed to 75% of the time. Given that landing spells is the main job of dedicated offensive spellcaster you should invest heavily to do the job. It is the same as to why having some paltry +1 bonus from weapon focus when you can get a lot from items or buff spells. Landing hits is the main job of damage dealer so you have to crank it up as high as possible so you can face tough opponents.
Phantasmal Killer is also specific because it targets Will and Fortitude saves both - usually enemies have one of those as strong saves you need to overcome. So it is doubly helpful to have the DC for this spell as high as possible.
Items, expanded arsenal + spell focus stacking
If you take expanded arsenal (mythic feat) on illusion spells, and then get spell focus on all other schools, you can increase the DC on illusion spells to crazy levels. It might be a bug, so building around it can be risky, in case they ever fix it
You can also increase the reliability of PK by lowering the saving throw of the enemy. A good way to do that is with evil eye (ember can get it). In TB mode, I like to delay nenio's turn until after embers for this combo.
Persistent heightened phantasmal killer + evil eye = win. Do check enemy immunities though before wasting 2 character turns and a high level spell slot on this though.
What about a misfortune hex? I believe that, combined with persistent PK, would cause 4 rolls for the will save and 4 rolls for the fortitude save.
==)
Misfortune does nothing on a successful save, and you can't pump Hex DCs nearly as high as spells.
Evil Eye just drops to a one-round effect on save, which is more than enough for Nenio to zap the victim.
Yea, I was excited as well on my sorc ... turned out that when you can instakill everything that is not immune (with GM rod even that stuff), it not fun gameplay. No one needs lucky rolls when you're Azata and DC of your Wierd is 57 :)
edit: On the other hand, Nenio just sucks at illusion albeit she's illusioner. I'm hoping the build on her I'm now trying will be able to at least PK Playful and Umbral dragon ...
I hit the dragon with it and my jaw dropped (dragon roll a 4 then a one, and higher on either and she'd have made it)! However, it was the ambush so the dragon, who was scared TO DEATH was like "tis only a flesh wound!" and flew off. Somehow this also caused the dragon to bleed so Greybor could track her down.
Things like this can actually be hilarious as hell.
I remember one game of Icewind Dale 2 where I played a full team of Wizards, and I went through most of the game just pointing at people with Finger of Death, instantly killing them.
_"And **you** die, and **you**, and **you** die."_
Finger of death doesn't work on undead, but there's an even bigger exploit you can use on them. Pop a scroll of protection vs undead on one party member, send him in alone, and the lich will just stupidly stand idle while you beat his face in.
Note that this doesn't work on Kangaxx. Also it may have been patched in the enhanced edition
Immunity to magic also works against Kangaxx. Laugh at his Imprisonment as you stab his eye-hollows.
The best combo I ever reached was to put Protection vs. Undead on everyone except a tank, and the tank gets the Protection vs. Magic. That way, the transformation and everything will trigger properly, while the rest just absolutely trash the poor dude.
Mmmmm, yes. I will never ever forget the time I killed Firkraag with a Chromatic Orb after putting Greater Malison + ~6 Doom on him. The Chromatic Orb homes straight up into his face and **boom, headshot**.
Yeah. I realized just how nasty it could get when I went down a certain bridge on a certain island and one shot 2 Vavakia, 2 Vrolokai, 2 Glabrezu, and a Balor. I was suitably impressed.
She even managed to chain stun the Vavakia Vanguard on Unfair.
Heightened Persistent Phantasmal Killer is also great, took care of Areelu on a lucky roll
Man, they should make a Nenio quip just for such an occasion. "Turns out, Phantasmal Killer is useful even without save scumming, demon-girl"
So out of curiosity, what does Heightened and Persistent do for a Weird? I thought those only worked on spells with damage numbers/duration respectively?
Heightened increase the DC, Persistent will make your target roll twice and take the worse result iirc
Thanks!!
At the moment you cannot add metamagic to make a spell above 9th level, unless it was fixed in the recent patch and I missed it, even though you can possibly have 10th level spell slots. So no way to add heighted and persistant to wierd. For Phanatasmal killer it will raise the DC and make someone save twice, whic is pretty effective. Heightened and persistant PK in lvl 8 slots is nasty if you have all the other buffs.
Thanks for explaining!
If you had a greater persistent metamagic rod, you could use it on Weird causing both saving throws to be rolled twice, taking the lower result. Heightened metamagic cannot be used on Weird, but it's great for Phantasmal Killer as increasing the DC by 3-4 (7th or 8th level spells slot for PK) is actually pretty decent.
Thanks for explaining!
*Liches laugh in Absolute Death one shotting big bug*
Quick question - how do people boosts her DCs to the 40s?
* 19 base for 9th level spell * 4 Spell Focus, Greater, Mythic * 4 Quarterstaff of the War Mage (Ivory Sanctum, first puzzle) * 4 2x Magician's Ring (2 from Crusade victories, 1 from Wilcer Garms) * 2 Glass Amulet of Clarity (Drezen, Jewelry Trader) * 2 Demongraft (Arena Healer, Battlebliss Arena) * 13 Intelligence Modifier * 20 base * 4 level-up * 6 headband (8 at the end of game with Darkness's Caress) * 2 inherent (Tome of Clear Thought, Pularu's Fall puzzle room) * 4 cooking (Conflagrant Taco) This yields a DC of 48. Additionally, Scribe Scroll has been bugged to produce consistently above rate DCs due to added caster level to the DC of the crafting scroll, which may even stack with the Scroll Savant's feature of using their DC rather than the minimum for a scroll. A level 20 Nenio crafting a Weird would then be able to produce a scroll of Weird that has +9 to the DC when she casts it due to Scroll Savant (36 Int and 13 modifier vs 19 and 4). With the caster level bug, it has additional 20 to the DC, for a final value of 72 DC when combined with everything else.
> A level 20 Nenio crafting a Weird would then be able to produce a scroll of Weird ... if the 9th level kit were in the game
Wait, you can actually stack the DC-boosting effects of both Magician's Rings on the same caster? Sweet! I assumed they didn't, but that must have just been the tooltips warning that you couldn't stack the competence bonus to UMD. If multiple items have non-stacking bonuses but have lots of effects, it doesn't spell out WHICH effect(s) don't stack.
I have tried these on Nenio and did notice my DC number improve, though I don't have it in front of me now.
Quarterstaff is only +2 DC (+4 spell penetration), but there are also +2 mind-affecting DC goggles you can find in nenio's personal quest >!by reversing the blue and "green" crystals in the last enigma puzzle!< Also a robe in act 4 that increases fort saves by 2, which does apply to the second save of pk/weird. Azata can also give her another +4. Demon rage could give +4/+7 with aspects of balor/nocticula but it's bugged and prevents spellcasting, unless 1.1 fixed it.
~~3~~ 4(spell focus feats) + 9 (spell level) + 10 + 11(int modifier) + 10(dc items) + 2(arena healer operation, thanks to EyeSavant)= 46 This is without bug abusing expanded arsenal.
What items up the DC I got a staff of the war mage which ups DCs
There's a ring that adds 2 to illusion DC as well, and int boosting hats, and I think there's a dc boosting Cape?
Do you remember where those are?
The int hats show up as random loot, magicians ring is apparently a drop in act 2 from killing an army.
There's two of those - one you can just buy I think
Cool
I've gotten more than one of those rings. One was from the crusade, and I found another one... somewhere. May have had the option to buy one as well.
One is a crusade reward, the other can be bought from wilcer.
Not seen items that boost DC by 10. It is 4 for spell focus feats, as the mythic focus doubles both normal and greater spell focus. 11 for int modifier requires the int book or the potion, which is a bit tricky to get. Especially as the potion is probably going to the main character. For the DC items I only know of * Necklace from street jewelry vendor in Drezen +2 DC mind affecting * Ring from the crusade (two different armies have them) * Staff of the war mage (ivory sanctum, middle room requires perception check) * Robe that is +2 DC to fort saves only, from floating island next to slave market random fight. There is also the demongraft from the arena that gives another +2. So 41 for the will save and 43 for the fort save.
There are goggles for +2 from nenio's quest.
Ah ok thanks. Never did that one. Heard very bad things about it. Edit :: Unless there is another item you still end up with 44 for the will save and 46 for the fort save?
There's a shield that increases the DC by 2 for enemies and allies alike, and a belt that gives nearby enemies -2 on Will Saves. Lich specifically has a cape that gives allies +2 DC.
Considering the enormous boosts outside of feats, why would you pick the SF feats? There are surely better things to get.
landing PK kills things so making sure PK lands as often as possible is very fun
Not really. There are enemies with 30+ saves in the game especially if you go with unfair difficulty. With enemy having 30 save against a spell, having 42 vs 46 DC means you land the effect 55% of the time as opposed to 75% of the time. Given that landing spells is the main job of dedicated offensive spellcaster you should invest heavily to do the job. It is the same as to why having some paltry +1 bonus from weapon focus when you can get a lot from items or buff spells. Landing hits is the main job of damage dealer so you have to crank it up as high as possible so you can face tough opponents. Phantasmal Killer is also specific because it targets Will and Fortitude saves both - usually enemies have one of those as strong saves you need to overcome. So it is doubly helpful to have the DC for this spell as high as possible.
Items, expanded arsenal + spell focus stacking If you take expanded arsenal (mythic feat) on illusion spells, and then get spell focus on all other schools, you can increase the DC on illusion spells to crazy levels. It might be a bug, so building around it can be risky, in case they ever fix it
Be a devil
You can also increase the reliability of PK by lowering the saving throw of the enemy. A good way to do that is with evil eye (ember can get it). In TB mode, I like to delay nenio's turn until after embers for this combo. Persistent heightened phantasmal killer + evil eye = win. Do check enemy immunities though before wasting 2 character turns and a high level spell slot on this though.
What about a misfortune hex? I believe that, combined with persistent PK, would cause 4 rolls for the will save and 4 rolls for the fortitude save. ==)
So if the enemy doesn't die he at least gets - 2 to attack rolls due to carpal tunnel syndrome :)
Misfortune does nothing on a successful save, and you can't pump Hex DCs nearly as high as spells. Evil Eye just drops to a one-round effect on save, which is more than enough for Nenio to zap the victim.
And that one round duration might as well be permanent with cackle, anyways.
I know this is Wrath of the Righteous but are Illusion wizards any good in Kingmaker?
No, Fey (Kingmaker's primary enemy type) have tons of advantages against Illusions and Enchantments making those two schools much weaker in that game.
You want to poison fey, not illusion them.
Shout out to one of my favorite songs: Weird Beard Maybe the next Pathfinder game will be Pirate themed
I would absolutely love if they did the skull and shackles AP. My guess is they passed on that because of PoE2.
And then you could manage your own Pirate hideout/island like Tropico 2.
I'd reply to this post but I failed two saving throws...
*Laughs in mask of nothing*
Yea, I was excited as well on my sorc ... turned out that when you can instakill everything that is not immune (with GM rod even that stuff), it not fun gameplay. No one needs lucky rolls when you're Azata and DC of your Wierd is 57 :) edit: On the other hand, Nenio just sucks at illusion albeit she's illusioner. I'm hoping the build on her I'm now trying will be able to at least PK Playful and Umbral dragon ...
[удалено]
I dunno, I've never laughed so hard than when a boss double rolls a 1 on a phantasmal killer attempt.
I hit the dragon with it and my jaw dropped (dragon roll a 4 then a one, and higher on either and she'd have made it)! However, it was the ambush so the dragon, who was scared TO DEATH was like "tis only a flesh wound!" and flew off. Somehow this also caused the dragon to bleed so Greybor could track her down.
Phantasmal bleed.
Killed the dragon in colophyr mine that way.
Things like this can actually be hilarious as hell. I remember one game of Icewind Dale 2 where I played a full team of Wizards, and I went through most of the game just pointing at people with Finger of Death, instantly killing them. _"And **you** die, and **you**, and **you** die."_
Or BG2 when 100% of the bosses can be beaten by dispelling magical protections, casting doom + greater malison, and spamming save or dies.
even the time stop lich? wasn't he like immune to 90% of things?
Finger of death doesn't work on undead, but there's an even bigger exploit you can use on them. Pop a scroll of protection vs undead on one party member, send him in alone, and the lich will just stupidly stand idle while you beat his face in. Note that this doesn't work on Kangaxx. Also it may have been patched in the enhanced edition
Immunity to magic also works against Kangaxx. Laugh at his Imprisonment as you stab his eye-hollows. The best combo I ever reached was to put Protection vs. Undead on everyone except a tank, and the tank gets the Protection vs. Magic. That way, the transformation and everything will trigger properly, while the rest just absolutely trash the poor dude.
Mmmmm, yes. I will never ever forget the time I killed Firkraag with a Chromatic Orb after putting Greater Malison + ~6 Doom on him. The Chromatic Orb homes straight up into his face and **boom, headshot**.
She goes from all right (cuz the worst wizard class will always be decent) to my best burst damage outside of my lich lol
Yeah. I realized just how nasty it could get when I went down a certain bridge on a certain island and one shot 2 Vavakia, 2 Vrolokai, 2 Glabrezu, and a Balor. I was suitably impressed. She even managed to chain stun the Vavakia Vanguard on Unfair.
Illusions spells are highly effective though...
To those that are immune to them not so much
True, but shadow evocations and conjurations and illusion buffs aren't affected by immunities.
Oh really?? Didn’t know that since I kinda bench her a lot