Cleric and Druid: SP Necessary?

[dodrudon]

Do clerics and druids really need spell penetration feats? For cleric, it comes in handy with implosions and harms, but for druids, all their good damage spells ignore SR.

I'm wondering if I can sacrifice Spell Penetration feats to get another focus for cleric....

[thedomicron]

100% necessary. spell penetration is the AB of casting. bombard is the much better dmg spell compared to eq's d6 it does d10. and it needs spell penetration to hit, unless you want to see little puffs of smoke showing your spell was wasted.

[bort]

..Not to mention that EQ is a level 9 spell for Druids anyway, so they'd only get half as many EQs as they could get Bombards (level 8) if they have the Still or Silent spell feat.

Then again; Clerics and Druids seem to mostly just heal in hell anyway (although being able to implode the occassional thing can be very useful).

[phalthallus]

Just a very slight correction dome: EQ is goes from d6 to d8, just as bombs go from d8 to d10. Still less damage, but not quite as much as you said. And sometimes the positive damage is better then divine, and/or the SR ignoring works better. Especially for those druids (like me who took 5 epics over maxing wisdom. I'm not too sorry that I did either, as bort just mentioned that druids just heal anyway in the hells.

And I ALWAYS have enough spell pen to heal my teammates.

[booboospooki]

I had a quick look at Druid spells on the NWNWiki:

Spell resistance applicable:
Bombardment, Call lightning, Charm Person or Animal, All Healing and Harm, Dominate Animal, Drown, Entangle, Finger of Death, Fire Storm, Flame Lash, Ice Storm, Poison, Slay Living, Storm of Vengeance, Sunbeam, Sunburst

Spell resistance not applicable:
Creeping doom, Crumble, Earthquake, Quillfire

I double-checked the spell changes forum for the above mentioned.