Help with feats and spells

I had the same measuring distance problem, but you can turn on the movement grid and with a medium character in light armor you can only move 30' a round so if you can reach the enemy by walking, you can shoot them as well.

 

Oh I didn't know there was a grid option, where is it?

 

Being stuck at home with the flu, I now have the time to flesh out my party. I do have some general questions and questions concerning each of my characters, though:

1) Concerning skills, is it enough to spend points in either spot or listen, or should I spend points in both skills? Does the game make 2 separate checks, thus increasing my chances if I have ranks in both skills?

2) Concerning weapons, I do not know which kinds of weapons I should be assigning to my characters. While I do not plan to craft in the game, I do plan to exploit a bug in order to get both Scather and Fragarach. One sword will go to my rogue but I do not know to whom I shall give the other one. My fighter could possibly get a long reach weapon...

3) Concerning the fighter, I have been wondering if some of the following feats would be useful:
- Iron will + lightning reflexes = improved saving throws are good
- Combat expertise + Improved trip = incapacitating opponents sounds good
- Spring attack + Whirlwind Attack = could be useful
- Great fortitude + Diehard = you can stand up longer

I can't take all of these, so I have to make a choice here...

4) Concerning the cleric, I believe Mobility is a must. I want my character to act as a support melee and and a support caster. Summoning creatures alongside my druid and dispelling sounds quite appealing. So, should I go with power attack + cleave or spell focus (conj) + augment summoning? I guess I will also take spell penetration and greater spell penetration unless you tell me these are useless for clerics.

5) Concerning the druid, mobility might be useful with the troll bone armor + shield.

6) Concerning the rogue, I do not consider dual weiding. However, I want to take combat expertise + improved feint in order to trigger sneak attacks. Point blank shot and precise shot also seem useful for ranged sneak attacks. What other feats could be useful? Power attack + cleave? Sounds like a waste... My rogue will be carrying Scather anyway...

7) Concerning the bard/sorcerer, I have considering taking spell focus (evocation, enchantement and conjuration) so as to make the most of his casting powers.

8) Concerning the wizard, I am considering 2 choices (please note that I am a big fan of the evocation school):
- spell focus and greater s.f. for evocation + spell focus (conj)
- spell focus (evocation, enchantement and conjuration) like my bard

Thanks in advance.

 

I think you are missing a great part of the game by not crafting. By spreading the feats out among your spellcasters, they won't fall to far behind the rest of the party, and a party where the fighters and rogues are one level ahead means better meat shields for the casters.

 

Don't, it leads to a game-breaking bug on the on-hit AoO, whereby the game hangs for good and needs to be terminated through Task Manager.

 

Thanks for the advice!

What do you think about my spell focus choices for my bard/sorcerer and wizard? Are they a waste of feat slots? Are some of them weaker than others? Is greater spell focus (evoc) unnecessary?

How about spell penetration and greater spell penetration for cleric? I still don't know if they are must have feats or not.

Finally, dual-weilding is not an option as my rogue is a halfling and bastard swords are 2h-weapons for them (as long as you have the weapon prof). Well, I could still go for a human rogue and have him dual wield Scather with a shortsword. Off-hand weapon at highest BAB - 2 sounds good. I don't know... Power attack + cleave sounds better though...

I don't want to craft items as the weapons and armor that you can find in the game are already overpowered. I want to keep a semblance of challenge at least.

 

Clerics don't have a lot of good damage spells so penetration may be unnecessary, and higher-level enemies with high SR will probably make a save against whatever debuffs you throw at them. So I'd recommend a crafting feat of a combat-related feat instead.

Spell focus for bard and sorc depend on what you plan to do with them. I usually envision sorcs as a sort of spell-spamming machine for a few good spells, and develop them as such. So you could try to make a "spec" sorc with greater focus in whatever school he'll be spamming. Evocation for AoE damage, Enchantment for sleep/charm etc., Conjuration + Augment summoning if you wanna spam beasties. Bards, on the other hand, may or may not need focus feats. If you plan to have them use disabling spells like Tasha, then focus is pretty much required, as their save DC is lower than wiz/sorc. If you want to use them just for secondary healing/buffing, then those feats may be unnecessary.

Halfings probably make better ranged rogues with their bonuses - with a sling, maybe. I've found melee halfings to be lacking. Elves are generally the best melee rogues. A bit unsure on the Scather as well, though I guess sneak attack will make up for lower strength... I usually give my melee rogues finesse though, so no idea on how they hold up with bigger weapons.

If you do end up making a human double-wielder though, consider spending a feat on Exotic WP for Dao, gives you a light offhand with the stats of a longsword.

That's true, but it restricts variety. There's a lot more weapon type choices than there are magic weapons in TOEE, and selection is especially poor for evil characters. Crafting allows for more interesting builds that wouldn't be viable otherwise.

Also, that works fine if you're playing vanilla TOEE, but for high-level Verbobonc quests in NC you might want to pack the extra punch crafting gives you.

Lastly, it gives you something to spend the excessive amounts of gold you accumulate on.

 

If you have a basic grasp of game mechanics, which is very intuitive. It also shows a potential move would expose you AoOs and the like. Very useful feature...