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I was wondering... Does Neverwinter Nights have a fixed or expanding (variable) amount of experience points in their campaigns? If it is fixed, is it worth it to create multiclasses? I liked the idea of mixing a Ranger with a Sorcerer, but I'm not sure if it's the best strategy if I can only advance to be a mid-levelled character in each by the end of the game, when higher powers, feats and abilities are needed. What do you think? Does anyone have advice on how to best configure (weapons, skills, feats) a Ranger/Sorcerer?

My two cent would be to take the dual wield feat as ranger and offensive magic as sorcerer. But I've never tried to be sorcerer and someother class.

There is a fixed amount of XP in the original campaign. Whether or not they plan on doing expansions is something I am not privy to however. If you want a decent way to do a ranger/sorcerer....what do you want out of the character first of all?

Do you want say, a warrior that is able to improve his combat prowess by casting spells? Or an archer that does the same? Perhaps you want a sorcerer that has the ability to conserve spells by firing arrows at weak enemies, but still have the firepower to handle most other enemies you will come up against?

Ranged magic and archery is definitely what I am looking for. I seem to remember in the original NWN that there was a spot in the city of Luskan maybe that kept regenerating attackers. I gained about an extra 10,000 XP just knocking them down. So, I suppose the bottom line is that mixed classes are a handicap in the long run, but they give you an edge in the short.

Well.. if you should go for wisdom instead of dexterity, you'll eventually pick up the zen archery feat. Replaces dexterity for wisdom in ranged attack rolls. Check the manual for the feat requirements. Of course, if you're also a druid or a cleric instead of a sorcerer, it could become a great advantage. If you don't, you'll still get high will saves for free.

Tricky wrote:Well.. if you should go for wisdom instead of dexterity, you'll eventually pick up the zen archery feat. Replaces dexterity for wisdom in ranged attack rolls. Check the manual for the feat requirements. Of course, if you're also a druid or a cleric instead of a sorcerer, it could become a great advantage. If you don't, you'll still get high will saves for free.

At the cost of losing out on your Dex bonus to AC. Which is the second most important stat for a wiz/sorc they can have.

@ Reon Stoll: I would suggest going with the Arcane Archer class then. Even if you just pick up a handful of levels, they are good to have. My suggestion is to take perhaps 2 levels of Ranger, for the archery style feat, weapon proficiencies, extra HP and BAB bonuses. Then take Sorcerer levels until you have access to the Arcane Archer class. You will need to take Weapon Focus in either Short or Longbow and the Point Blank shot feats, and the second Ranger level should give you Rapid shot.

If you do go this route, you will be a level 2 Ranger/ 8 Sorcerer, with access to 4th level spells before you have the BAB requirements to enter Arcane Archer. The class has the same HP, BAB, Save and Skill progression as the Ranger class. Which means, if you take 10 levels of that, you will end up with 4 attacks per round by 20th level, and it will boost your Fort and Ref saves.

If that isn't your style, you can try shifting things around a bit to have less combat ability but more spells or something of the sort. Another route is to not go Ranger, but Rogue or Druid instead. Sneak attack 2d6, Evasion and Uncanny Dodge can be gotten by taking 4 levels of rogue, allowing you to grab 16 levels of Sorcerer. Taking a handful of Druid levels will give you some spells if you have a decent wisdom score a lot faster than as a Ranger. However, these two classes have a lower BAB progression and wouldn't be as good in combat as the Ranger route.

If you do go for one of the alternatives above, I would suggest a stealthy Rogue/Sorc. You could even decide to take the Shadowdancer prestige class instead of Arcane Archer in order to be able to hide whenever you want and some shadow based spell abilities. This would definately be a good build if you wanted a sneaky archer with spellcasting abilities. The ranger class can allow you to get access to this prestige class as well pretty easily too.

I think I'll let you do all the talking from now on.

Seems it would be better to go for two levels of Fighter sure you get Armor and Sheild you will never use but those don't come at the expense of other Feats they are just extra, plus you get and extra Feat to start.
With Ranger at least when I tried it you don't get Duel till 3rd level, iir and with Fighter you really only need 1 level then strait to Sorc, which gets you to thoe higher levels 1 sooner.
If you know you want archer you can specialise at low levels but you will have many weapons to choose from with FIghter the nice weapons at the start of the game are Moringstar, Longsword and Great Sword (nice weapon for your tank) they each have elemetal damge very nice for starting levels.
Persoanlly I wouldn't specialise too soon till you see what you have to work with.

Tricky wrote:I think I'll let you do all the talking from now on.

:laugh: It's a good idea for a character with the ability to use heavy armor, like a cleric. The only unarmored character that should consider taking that route is the monk, as he gets a bonus to AC from both Dex and Wisdom. Having a Wiz/Sorc/Rogue with light or no armor and no Dex bonus is going to be a suicide run though.

So the XP penalty for not staying within 1 level of each class isn't that big of a deal? Does it hinder advancement significantly?

I think if one of them is the character's 'Favoured Class', you are ok. That's how it was in NWN, anyway, iirc.

RoeanStoll wrote:So the XP penalty for not staying within 1 level of each class isn't that big of a deal? Does it hinder advancement significantly?

20% loss of XP, it can hit you pretty hard. You would want to pick Human, or Half-elf to make things easier on yourself. That, or a race that has ranger or sorcerer as Favored Class.

Sorcering (is there even a word like this?) - I think - is a full time job. Surely it is wise to mix in 1-2 levels of other classes but any more is a waste. See rangers can do 5*d6+not too much damage in a round. Why don't you use magic missile instead? Or, for a horde of low level mobs, there is a death spell. Two missile storms from good old isaac. There is no situation what a ranger/sorc can and a simple sorc cannot handle. Surely there are mobs with very high spell resistance. Well, they are immune to arrows and/or have at least 10 damage reduction, which you will not penetrate. To tell the thruth you have better chance with a spell penetrating high level sorc.
The other question is your stats. You have to put in dex instead of cha. This means you will not get those useful bonus spells.
And about the xp. First of all there is a level cap not xp cap in the game. So with a penaltised race (drow, deep gnome, etc), you can get to lvl 20 as well. Of course this means you have to go solo for a time (sorcs are ideal for this), or export your character and start again. Since xp rewards for quests stay the same no matter your level, you will get to lvl 20 with any character eventually.

That kind of is defeating the request on a ranger/sorc build suggesting the ranger class being dismissed.

Also, most people want to play the game straight through. If you are making a character and can't reach full 20th level in running through the game, most people are not going to do the export and restart method just to get 2 more levels. All in all, that seems like a horrid waste of time to me if you just want to get 2 more levels. If you really want the XP, you're better off just using the console to drop enough XP on your character to level and doing it all within a few seconds.

Magrus wrote:That kind of is defeating the request on a ranger/sorc build suggesting the ranger class being dismissed.

Also, most people want to play the game straight through. If you are making a character and can't reach full 20th level in running through the game, most people are not going to do the export and restart method just to get 2 more levels. All in all, that seems like a horrid waste of time to me if you just want to get 2 more levels. If you really want the XP, you're better off just using the console to drop enough XP on your character to level and doing it all within a few seconds.

Oh, he asked for my oppinion, well, he had it

Disagree. For example just playing through the tutorial nets 3k xp in around 10 mins or less. So you will get the required amount in an hour. That is not a lifetime.
Also, going solo for this amount of time nets also the required xp. And your party members will catch up as soon as you put them back. So you leveled up all your fellow party members just by going solo for a meagre amount of time.
And - this is the more important part - you have the chance to see what different paths in a quest yields, you will be amused on your party's reactions.
And the best is: lol, imagine the brawling contest with 3*lvl 20 char against those poor bastards

For the player that wants to be a sorceror/ranger, there's already the perfect class in the game: the Warlock.

It's essentially a ranged combat character that never runs out of arrows. Eldritch blasts scales as you level, so in the end you're 9d6 damage per blast. You can use medium armor (and crafted mithril full plate counts as medium armor) without spell failure, medium BAB, you get a bunch of spell like abilities (not as much as a sorceror, but some phenomenally useful stuff), use magic device as a class skill (so if you want to load up on monk gear and a Holy Avenger, you can) and can be a great diplomat and crafter.

Ranger/sorcerer

I went through the game as a wild elf ranger(11)/sorcerer(9)/dragon disciple(10) (I found the name Kavain to fit well as it means dragon spirit in Elven). He was a tough fella, I tell you. I levelled ranger to level 2 (archer style), then sorcerer to level 3, then ten levels of red dragon disciple and then 6 levels of sorcerer, then the rest as ranger. I used Shederran long bow (they can be enchanted), mithral chain shirt (10% arcane spell failure) and sometimes a mithral heavy shield (no arcane failure) when in close combat with a close combat one-handed weapon (sword of gith for instance). I didn't use ranged spells at all, but self-buffing and ranged damage and point blank shot and dodge+mobility did much. With dragon disciple you get an accumulated +8 str, +2 con, +2 int, +2 cha and +3 to natural armor class. At level 12 when at level 7 with dragon disciple, Lorne proved to be way easier than he was for Khelgar or Qara (I did test this as well). Level 1 arcane spells such as Expeditious Retreat, Mage Armor, and True Strike proved to be quite cabable self-buffs (and a scroll of some concealing spell). And Ray of Enfeeblement was a quite cabable debuff. .-D

Later in the game (Mask of the Betrayer) cloth armor can replace mithral chain shirt as you advance in dexterity and enchant cloth armor with +8, hehe. Don't forget to contruct a +8 dexterity belt in the Original Campain as well. ^^

There are probably other ways to do this, but I for one do not think ranger and sorcerer couldn't go together. If you were an elf, you could also level to level 2 ranger and then some sorcerer and maybe 3 levels of arcane archer, and then go more sorcerer and/or ranger.

And from a roleplaying point of view: Wild elves are almost natural sorcerers from birth, as I understand it, and being as feral and chaotic as they are, wouldn't ranger and sorcerer easily go together? Maybe wild elves have some dragon blood in them since they are natural sorcerers (and sorcerers are naturals by definition haha)? But that would make more sence if it was from a copper dragon than a red dragon. An aspect of the dragon deity Hlal is worshipped by some wild elves.


Regards from RSFO

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from my point of view the best mix-in class for a Sorc in D&D ever was and still be:

2 or 3 Pal levels (without a party and capped at L20 just 2)


adding levels of "Arcane Scolar" should be quite powerfull for the later levels:


e.g. an aasimar PAL 2 - SORC 8 - AS 10



as I'm quite yet not that familar with NWN (just reading me in to start the game), does anybody know...


...does levels as a red dragon disciple also count as a sorc/bard level for your spellcasting ability like the arcane scholar or red wizard?


...if so a PAL 2 - SORC X - RDD X could also be quite powerfull...

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