I love play as an sorc since i play games to do things that i can't do in real life. For example, i can practice with a sword, a crossbow or go in a firing range, but i can't conjure dragons, stop time and etc, so i've spend the majority of time in RPG as caster. Why i think that sorcs are underpowered compared to nwn1?

1 - No combat familiar

In nwn1, the combat companions/familiar can save your life a lot of times, you have no companion in nwn2. At the same way, druids can have a dinosaur companion, while sorcerers have an small dog... Why no more pseudodragon, evil eye and etc?

2 - Offensive spells are ridiculous weak comapred with his nwn1 versions.

For example, in nwn1 Evard's black tentacles get 1d4 tentacles + 1 / caster level (maximum 20)[1] tentacles, in nwn2 only 1d4[2]. If each tentacle can do 1d6+4, at lv 20 you can do 1d6+4*24 max damage in nwn1 and in nwn2 you can do only 1d6+4*4, 6x more damage in nwn1, is a very useful spell against spell immune creatures, but is useless against creatures with high DR.

Other example : Horrid wilting, damage up to 25d8 in nwn1[3] and 20d6 in nwn2[4] and note that there are a lot of undead creatures in nwn2 OC.

Other : Isaac's Greater Missile Storm, in nwn1 you can hit 20 missiles in a single creatures[5], in nwn2 you can only do half damage to a single enemy, since only 10 missiles can strike a single creatures[6]

3 - Removed defensive spells

- Time stop, Mestil's acid sheath, Epic warding... All of this spells was removed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRotBhIYX98

4 - Melee weapons become too powerful.

Find a weapon that do +1d6 elemental damage in nwn1, even in hotu is rare. In nwn2 i found my melee companions doing more elemental damage per turn than i(sorc) or my druid...

In this video > https://youtu.be/PY3tjfE8FuE?t=35

You can see at 0:35 how a melee attack can do up to 65 damage. If you can attack 2x per turn, so you can do more average damage with a melee weapon than any spell, even hellball and if you can attack 4x per turn, you can do more damage than hellball with his max possible damage(40d6 = 240 max)...

And note that you can only trow one hellball per rest.

sources :
1 : http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Evard%27s_black_tentacles
2 : http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Evard%27s_Black_Tentacles
3 : http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Horrid_wilting
4 : http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Horrid_Wilting
5 : http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Isaac%27s_greater_missile_storm
6 : http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Isaac%27s_Greater_Missile_Storm

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/nwn2db/sorcerer-guide-t403.html
If you choose bad spells no wonder that you have problems. Especially if you taking lameball

This "tutorial" is taking very specific situations, like against a lot of low lv monsters to "try" pass a impression of balance, any cleric focused on melee can kill a lot of low lv monsters faster and use the weapons that do more damage than a hellball per round... Ii never have seen any video of a single sorcerer taking faceless man in less than 2 minutes(as the fighter video)

PS : If you think that casters are "broken"(aka can do more than die and kill a lot of low level monsters) in nwn1, you should try DnD PnP. A Wizard focused in conjuration can create an army of constructs and a lv20 wiz focused in necromancy can raise 98 undead servants and if they are in danger, they can teleport. "which may be as distant as 100 miles per caster level" source [url=https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Teleport]https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Teleport[/url]

I had certain problems with sorcerer but it wasn't these. I thought the spell load was plenty strong. No problems there. You can win the game naked.

My main problem was the emphasis on companions in nwn2. In nwn1 I would just go it alone when sorcking and just nuke everything, and it was great. In nwn2 the companions get in the way of that agenda.

Another problem is that nwn2 is full of cutscenes that force your character to bravely stand in front of your companions and talk tough with a big group of melee thugs. It's just nonsensical for squishy characters.

And in nwn1 you could cast divine power as cletic, then boost it with bull str and blackguard bull str or just take devastating crit.

You was asking are sorcs valuable? Yesh - they are second best class in the game. First being wizard. If you collected rubbish like lameball and after that try to say that its a bad class - its just you not understanding new mechanics.

can sorcs suck? Yes if you waste your spells and collect ton of rubbish feats first of all being epic spells other then Mass fowl and Vampire Feast(through on casters every epic spell is a waste of time dew to it not getting any dc enhancements, which is btw mentioned in guide). Yo ucant empower them. You cant maximise them. And as ASOC you can throw empowered versions of 8 level spells. Enemies alive? Wail of banshee or other save or die? Undead? Well, for that there is Undeath to Death. Need to stop someone? Bigby spell line have you covered. Want something cool? Empower polar ray and shoot it into evemy. One tough guy? Shadow simulacrum him. All perpose damage spell? Orb of acid!

You can check additionally this guide(when site return from maitenense)
https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/922154-neverwinter-nights-2/faqs/68382 ICE and shield profiency fix this. And a level of EK will let you use pretty awesome chainmail in OC and you can get 0 arcane spell failure chainmail in mulsantir in MotB

Sorcerers are great in NWN2. They're one of my favorite classes. The biggest problem is that there are circumstances where the game will strip you of your debuffs (even ones that would have lasted a full 24 hours) and/or move you to the front of the party to begin battle almost in melee range of the enemy. These annoying anti-caster measures don't make the Sorcerer unviable, though.

One thing to keep in mind is that NWN2 is a party-based game so Sorcerers don't need to solo. This removes the need for the combat familiar to get through the low levels. It also means Sorcerers really don't need damage-dealing spells at all and can focus on their area of greatest strength: incapacitating and disrupting enemies. They still have plenty of great damage-dealing options and defensive options in spite of the ones removed and nerfed.

Actually greatest strengh of sorcerer in nwn2 IS its damage dealing abilities. Sorcs are awesome with metamagic since they do not neet to prepare it in advance. And Arcane Scolar in nwn2 just created to metamagic around. Asoc 3 gets Practical metamagic(empower) which lower penalty of empowered spell from 2 lvls to just one. So you can take polar ray(8 lvl spell!) and empower it! Making it do on crit something like 76d6 damage. No saves allowed. And ASoC 7 get practical metamagic(Maximaze) - only two levels to maximise! And free quick spell from ASoC5 is also increadibly usefull for sorcs. And since you dont need to choose spell - you can have as much empowered polar rays as your heart desire!

"This removes the need for the combat familiar"
"Sorcerers really don't need damage-dealing spells at all and can focus on their area of greatest strengt"

>> Why this remove the need of sorc combat familiar, but not the druid companion? A Druid can have an epic dragon as companion and sorc can't have a pseudodragon.
>> Why divine casters still have good offensive, healing, and defensive spells?

about "party game", in nwn1 you can have :
2 Mercs(1 outside of hotu)
1 Familiar
1 summon

Only because you can't take control of your party member, doesn't means that you need go solo. To be honnest, i rather control my character and give orders to others. Is more immersive.

In Baldur's Gate, you can solo or play in party if you like... D&D have rules designed to a party game and guess what. Sorcs are far more powerful in D&D pnp than in nwn1. Can you immagine if an epic sorc can raise a isle( http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/raiseIsland.htm ), build fortifications, create an army of animate armor, golem and other constructs and if he is in danger, he can cast teleport(lv 5 spell - http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleport.htm ) to go back to his island? And there are a lot of defensive spells in nwn that aren't in D&D like wall of force.

@Valkinaz, you are picking "OHK" spells because you know that the normal spells are useless. 25d6 damage of polar ray ridiculous.

Single target elemental damage - fighters(with OP weapons) > sorcs
OHK on save spells - Clerics(Implosion) > sorcs
Familiar- Druids > Sorcs
Defensive spells and healing - Cleric > Druid > sorc
Multi target elemental damage - Druid > sorc
(...) You can play as a caster. Play as druid or as an Shaman. Divine casters still viable(worse than melee due +50000D50 damage elemental weapons)

With at least 3 levels in Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep this spell can be empowered (treating it as a level 9 spell), causing it to do 38d6 points of damage. On a critical hit, it does a whopping 76d6 points of damage.

I assure you its far from ridiculous. Thats a really awesome no saves spell. xD

OHKO spells ARE normal spells. And if you allow save its easier to just kill enemy outright then waste time on him. Especially since you heave Flesh to stone spell which works even on death immune enemies

And if you don't allow saves - RTA created just for you. As a shaman xD Nice joke man xD Class that get DC from different stat that he gets spells itself is superior caster

I open you a small secret - Asoc can easily beat implosion DC on his banshee spell xD. And I would even ignore here necromantic ASOC RWT - This one easily achieving DC of 40+spell level.

Druid is better as multitarget? By what? Three storm spells which are centered on him? Ice storm that sorcs also has? Dont forget that druid cant pull out ASoC levels so no free maximise and quicken for him

Best weapon you can scraft is +8 with 3 5d6 elemental effects. Yeah, its still +15d6 per strike but its far from insane stats you try to blow it up to.

If you are interested - standart sork build for OC+Motb look somewhat like this:

sorc9/Fighter1/EK10/ASOC10.
With fighter taken on level 2 to get bonus IC, then build get 1 EK to get free Skillfocus(consentration) and thus becoming ASOC at lvl 9.Then you max ASOC and after that max EK with very very last levels being sorcs. You get practiced caster(sorcerer), spellfocus in either Necromancy or Evocation and 5 great Cha spells

As a result you get 32 Caster level caster(Practiced spellcaster bug), who wear Eldrich knight chain shirt(EK only +2 chainshirt with zero spellfailure and bunes slot of 3 lvl spell) in OC, which is upgraded to Eveningchain(zero spell failure +7 chain shirt. If I remember correctly - sold right in mulsantir) with Mythral shield(zero spellfail) and ICE(+6 AC for free) who throw OHKO spells, clearing rooms in seconds with RTA's on tough enemies.

Oh, and dont forget Boots of Sun Soul +5.Just 15 UDM(which is easy since your insane Cha score) and +5 Dodge AC and +3 Dex in one flusk!

Yes sorcs are perfectly viable in NWN 2. They have lost some spells from NWN, sure, and some others were nerfed, but all that means is that they've gone from horribly overpowered in NWN to "only" very powerful in NWN 2.

Yes, melee chars can potentially do more damage due to being able to craft ridiculously powerful weapons (although that only really applies to MotB, not the OC, SoZ or most modules). But sorcs still have enough damage output to kill any enemies within a few rounds, so it doesn't really matter.

And while the loss of the familiar is annoying, you can have meatshield companions that are way better than the familiar ever was, so it's not a big deal.

In the end, a sorcerer (or any caster really) is far more powerful than any melee char between mid to the start of epic levels, then they start to fall off because spells are limited to caster level 20 while weapons keep getting stronger. But it's really not a big deal, and casters are still more than strong enough to win encounters even at lvl 30.

Not exactly. Sorcs has a lot save or die stuff. Which when applied let them rank up more damage then epic fighter

Also you are incorrect that 20CL is limit. For example Polar ray do 1d6 damage per caster level. That means max CL for it is 25(since it stop progressing once reach 25d6 xD

A lot? Sorcs just have finger of death and wail of the banshee, plus phantasmal killer but that one's hard to land. The problem is that many monsters in MotB are immune to instant death effects. The undead can be killed with undeath to death, but that's about it. The fact is that in MotB, raw damage is king while crowd control, instakills, critical hits and sneak attacks are very often useless.

And IIRC Polar ray is the *only* non-epic spell that doesn't have a caster limit of 20 or below (except maybe ice storm, but that one does less than 20d6 damage anyway), and personally I found empowered greater missile storms more than good enough for single targets so I rarely used polar ray. So what I said about spells not scaling into epic levels is broadly correct.

Ennervation, through its not outright DD Thats just from the top of my head, There are few spells that igf you coun, go past 20 lvl

Vampiric Feast bypass death ward. Old nice bug xD Thats why its pretty much only useful epic spell(since it also does not get all epic caster and spell focus bonuses since its not a spell by game standart And as far as I remember K fixed Wierd in his pack(through Kpack is a bit different beast. There are some insane PrC through it still nice to have since K fixed few very very nasty bugs in feats. Like unworking uncanny dodge).

Enervation just drains 1d4 levels, it's not going to kill anything in epic levels. And again, most enemies in MotB are immune to level/ability drain anyway.

As for vampiric feast, it's an epic spell. Obviously, it's going to scale into epic levels, but I specifically mentioned I was talking about non-epic spells. Anyway, 1 cast per rest of vampiric feast isn't going to make up for the fact that casters more or less stagnate past level 20 while melee chars get ridiculously OP weapons.

Seriously, I've played arcane casters enough in 3.5 games in general and NWN 2 in particular, that I know what I'm talking about. Your nitpicking at my posts is both ridiculous and pointless.

@mystral, if you realy played DnD 3.5, you should know that a lot of spells in PnP that bypass SR like Acid Fog are subjected to SR in nwn1 like Acid Fog and that in PnP you can create an army of constructs or undead, can teleport... so how sorcerer/wizards are OP in nwn1?

EDIT : 5d6 *5 attacks per round + the melee damage...