How to build a Valkyrie

Winged Human Female.
Servant of (probably) Zolaras or Torgat (both for thematic purposes).

But what classes?

I could see cleric, warblade of torgat, and fighter working. Perhaps some wizard/sorc for the raven familiar (for RP spicing), although a ranger with a hawk companion could work as well. Ranger may work very well because it's a martial class, and has ride as a class skill Perhaps cleric/ranger, or fighter/ranger?

The Raven familiar would be pretty awesome, but it also looks just like the hawk, so I suppose it could go either way.

I've done it!

It hit me while I was eating a snack during my break at work tonight.

Bard 12/ Weaponmaster 7/ Sorceror 21

1-11 Bard
12 Sorc
13-19 WM
20-39 Sorc
40 Bard

Feats
1 - Dodge, Expertise
3 - WF: Spear
6 - Mobility
9 - Spring Attack
12 - Whirlwind Attack
15 - Imp Crit: Spear
18-36? (I want Still and Extend spell in there somewhere, the rest depends on whether I focus more on hitting or on casting.)
39 - (Hopefully) Epic Spell: (Hoping for Epic Warding, but EMA or one of the splodey spells will do fine.)

Four attacks per round
Some bard spells, semi-useful song
Full sorceror casting
Charisma synergy
Raven familiar
Maxed Taunt, Tumble, Discipline, and Spellcraft.
Jacked-up Impaler crits (possible even more jacked up, depending on the feat path taken in epic levels.)

Comments?

For the epic spell selection, defensive spells, it's a tossup between how much use you want to get out of the spell. Mage armor will give you more mileage day to day, while epic warding with just 21 caster levels powering it will give you great DR/soaking, but only for 21 rounds, or until you've taken 1050pts of damage... not shabby at all, but limited use.

For boomers, either would be good. My tendency is to go for the defensive spells first, then the boomers if I got the feats to spare.. which you go for will depend on your play style with the character (which you should be very comfortable with by level 39!)

Still spell... for this build which doesn't get heavy armor from any of the three classes, I would skip that feat and use mithril chain for no spell failure. Not only do you save a feat, but you'll get your 9th level spells without any failure (whereas with still spell, I think only mords and powerword kill are the only two without a somatic component).

Extend spell.. yes. Yes. And yes.

I'd consider toughness too, for an extra 40HP, as the build will be low on HP overall due to the sorc and bard levels.

The stat spread I can see being very brutal here (13 dex and int min for WM reqs, cha focused for bard/sorc, then some str for AB)... depending on what you start with and what you want to finish with, for your epic feats, I'd consider either a couple spell focuses in evoc or necromancy for your spell power (better DCs), or great strengths to help your AB, along with EWF... I'd lean towards more hitting power myself, and focus your spell selection towards "spellsword" type of spells to help your melee punch... especially given the WM focus on the spear.

For my first runthrough, that's more what I'm leaning towards, since I'm most comfortable hitting things in the face until they die from it.

Any spells in particular I should be keen on, since my options are going to be pretty limited?

acid sheath, fire shield, flora razorleaf shield, silvania goldn aura, death armor, improved invis, acid/shock/frost/flame weapon, greater magic weapon (until high level), haste, keen edge (until higher levels), stone skin, greater stoneskin, premonition, ethereal visage, shadow shield, energy buffer, stat buffs, tensers transformation, tempests protective gale, tempests stormshield

flame arrow, bigby interposing hand, spell mantle, greater spell breach mord's disjunction, contingency sunburst, bigby crishing hand, silvania nova of life

I'd skip keen weapon and shock weapon. Keen won't work on the impaler (and it gets keen anyhow), and the elec damage on the impaler will also be way better by level 30 than what a 11 caster level shock weapon spell can provide.

Also, use the nwnwiki to compare the bard and sorc spell lists. They share several spells, so you could say, take imp.invis with your bard levels, and that'd free up a sorc spell known slot.

Likewise, for the shorter round/level duration spells, such as haste, having haste from both bard and sorc could offer a decent number of extra casts. It'd mean an extra quickslot, or being comfortable with numbpad radial-menu casting though.

Wail of the banshee is a good spell too, fitting for the valkyrie image.

ANd for the DR spells, Dave mentioned a lot of good ones. Just keep in mind that with sorcs and the limited spells known, having premonition, stoneskin and greaterstoneskin all at the same time isn't very useful.

If you were to go for two DR spells, I'd say (for the upper epic levels when you got all your spells), premonition and shades would be good. Shades gives you not just stoneskin, but fireball and cone of cold all in the same spell.... so you can either boom with it, or use it for defense.

Darkness as one of your sorc spells could be VERY useful. Just be sure to have true-seeing or ultravision (You can grab ultravision with a bard level spell).

With only 12 Bard levels, won't I have really limited duration on any useful spells from that list?

Yes, but 12 rounds can still be useful, 24 for extended.

You'll want to keep the bard spells more to the turn/level or hour/level spells, but still would want to pick up wounding whispers and warcry at least.

This marks the first time I've ever been excited about playing a spellcaster of any kind.

Complex.... but so rewarding if you really make yourself a student of the workings/mechanics of magic.

Then its just practice and experimentation... which leads to discovery and in my opinion is the most fun thing in all of NWN.... my Sunburst vs. Beholders and invis+ black blade of disaster vs. mind flayers moments are at the top of my list of great NWN memories

And as I just told Manny, according to the NWN Build Search Engine, I'm the first one to use this class combo.

This will probably be the thing to finally get me excited about magic. For Derik, it was hellball. For me, it's having the best Valkyrie I can put together.

Maeglin Dubh wrote:This will probably be the thing to finally get me excited about magic. For Derik, it was hellball. For me, it's having the best Valkyrie I can put together.

Well... he certainly does seem to have an almost unhealthy fascination and love for that spell...

As for you, I hope the concept works out as well in play as it does on paper

I know Gabriel is my own Opus of character builds... but he was a freaking pain in the
ass to get started...

I'm going the Dev Crit path with most of my post-epic feats, leaving room for Extend Spell. I'm going to be taking mostly Spellsword spells, but if I wind up with enough explodey spells I'll take Empowered as well.