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The lower-level Inflict spells only seem super useful for healing undead and as an improvised weapon for necromancers who have GSF.
To the point I can only recall one PC who bothered to prepare Inflict Light or Moderate and use it on the regular as a weapon.

I really want to use Inflicts for Holy Smiting, but it's just better to prep Cures as those Always Work and require no investment. Anything I really want to Inflict probably has good AC or good Will, but I can buff my touch attack AB way easier than my Save DC.

(edited thanks to a discussion on player-advice)
Specifically I'm comparing it to cantrips, which are only doing 1d4+1 (except Starblight) but doing it six times as often as Inflict. Without taking up a real spellslot, without the chance to lose them if you get hit while casting, and often having a chance to do a rider effect with GSF. They are a better 'do a small thing to participate' tool. to the point I will generally see Priests walk over to club some half-dead flanker to death with their relic before I see them pop an Inflict on it.

You need some Dex, GSF Necro and probably Blind Fight to be able to land Inflicts, especially if you plan to use them in PvP. Inflict Minor, Light and Moderate are particular miserable with their lower DCs, but those are the slots you can spare for a bit of plinking.

I'm not really considering 'slamming something with an Inflict Crit as one of those every 30s is serious damage'.
I am saying 'Hey, wouldn't it be cool if 1-2 Inflict Light or Moderates were a better backup melee plan for a Priest than Big Club? That feels more thematic. 

If there's a worry about balance (Inf Crit is big, I get it) you could just remove it off Inflict Minor and Light and  see how it goes. As the damage on those compares badly to "I could just flail with this Club with MW, when I'm not healing". Sure I hit less, but it's not too hard to get a 2-10 Club or something, and  I'm swinging that twice a round.

Priest Cure Spells Vs undead are pretty good because they don't actually get a Will save, you just need to land the touch attack. And if there's no undead around you can still heal. And yet nobody is complaining that Priest heal spam trivialises undead quests! The difference between 'trying to use Inflicts on living NPCs' and 'trying to use Cure on undead ones' has been like night and day.

But having to beat Touch AC, Will and potentially Concealment is rough. Ghoul Touch and Healing Sting lost the touch attack because DMs recognised that a spell that has to beat two defences is super weak. Could we lose the Will save on Inflict? It's nice to have somthing that can reasonably threaten bosses and PCs that have Big Will (everything wants Big Will).

Alternatively, take the Touch Attack off. Then GSF Necro gives you bigger damage but you don't have 2 ways to miss.

I've been trying out a GSF Evoker Priest and it's got me thinking. I don't see much use of Inflict because it's generally worse to maybe hurt an enemy than definitely heal an ally. And they don't get quite as much use out of their FW element without Cantrips.

1: Is it possible for a Domain to grant cantrips, such that say, Fire Domain could give Flare as a L0 spell?

2: Would it be possible to have an Element Selector for Inflict, like for Flame Weapon?
So then my Storm Priest could smite people with lightning rather than negative. It's a worse damage type, but it gives a good way to repeatedly proc GSF without cantrips.

Great character to lean on for my pursuit of Fucking Up Things From Beyond, and I'm really glad we did that Interview for Robert's biology book!

I'll miss the guy. He felt like professional, grounded scummy Merc, and we had some great conversations about how the Ring was different to 99, faith, etc.

RIP fellow member of Batshit Herbalism Club. I'm so sad we never managed to pull off the Improvised Bearstrike, I had one all set up to go for Bet Nappahi 🤣.

Really solidly played chaplain that reflected a lot of what I think is great about the Wyld as a concept. Definitely an inspiration for a future Kulamet!

I really liked that character. Someone who felt like she joined the Balladeers with eyes wide open to the power of a story and an inspiration, but never losing herself to that. Someone with a hard and grimy job to do, who really understood the importance of morale to soldiering.

[Screenshots]

Returning to EFU, I knew I wanted to play a ranger again, because they're fun. Not super stronk unless you optimise, but they have a lot of things to do and Search is always good for finding neat secret bits of the setting. I also wanted to try out Astrologian, as it looked to have some neat spells and mechanics.

Finally, I fancied trying someone for whom the only way was up. Enter Robert Angleton. Ranger of Izdu, failed Wizard, and even more failed Eldritch Pact Warlock. Born into a family of Evokers, but with no aptitude for it, Robert dropped out and became a huntmaster and astronomer for some noble in the arse end of nowhere. Then, at last, decided to reach for the Stars for Power, trying to make a pact with a Horror. As it came through, he realised the folly of what he'd done, and stabbed and stabbed at the Horrible Thing. About then, he fell unconscious and then Awoke. Years, and many many dead Horrors and Eyeballs later in the Rings, he made it to the Well. A man who'd had two gods go silent on him, and knew he was driving himself to die in the pursuit of an unfulfillable revenge. The name was a tribute to Charles Stross's The Laundry Files books.

The jocks thought he was a nerd, the nerds thought he was a jock. What he actually was, was an angry man looking to make up for a selfish past, and bury his shame under a pile of dead Lovecraftian horrors. Which is why I kept looting the Beholder Eyes and sticking them on the Horrible Trophy Bush in the Kula Shrine. Where possible, he tried to be calm, kind, and generous in defiance of his past. To be a healer, to care. When wound up, he was a spiteful little bastard who would fight like a cornered rat with bag loads of poison grenades and literally anything up to a broom.

I'm amazed I got this far as a STR-based ranger who ran around in robes, because the College didn't have a 0 Spellfail Armour option 😂. With Silken Mail and Practiced Caster we are truly in a golden age of Weird Little Guy builds. Strong recommend for Practiced Caster, it takes 1 level of a caster class from 'tokenistic access to wands/scrolls' to 'Yer a Wizard, 'Arry'! The number of times I left the Krak, explained I couldn't do circles no why would you assume that, shall be go back and get a proper mage?

He was designed as a healer, utility build, and bloody-handed destroyer of A: Horrors and B: Djinn. He ended up as a marksman for most of his later career on account of 'I have Point Blank Shot, and +3 Damage Stellar Blade Throwing Axes are quite respectable firepower for deleting Warlocks.' He also somehow became a well known alchemist despite having 0 Alchemy until I hit 10 for a bit. Quite reliably, nobody ever guessed right about his build or classes.

He died in a fairly epic way. Buffing up to try and take a shot at The Unifier with a Book of the Rogue, only to find that the front line had vanished and he'd just been KD crit into the floor. As his old mentor in history and Izdu, trapped in a robotic torture machine, pounded him into the dirt in front of the roughly 200 orcs Robert had just lit up with the Artillery while screaming OM URRAZIR!.
So in the end, Robert Angleton did die in a roaring rampage of revenge. Just... not the one he was expecting.

Screenshots
https://imgur.com/a/OehORgd

IC Books

• https://www.efupw.com/forums/index.php?topic=713024.0
• https://www.efupw.com/forums/index.php?topic=712885.0

Final notes
That which is made can be unmade. As the Arcana of the Tower predicts, Things Crumble and Fall. If my hypothesis is true, it's a sign of hope. Hope that with enough knowledge, force, and strength of will, we can go further still than in ending the creature known as Vae Mojem. That death could be brought to all Djinn. Hail Izdu, who Inspires and Curates! Hail the Wroth, who keeps on punching, with ever-bloodied fists. If you seek Retribution for the evils the Djinn have inflicted on this world, seek first Knowledge, as the whetstone to your knives.

I also lack accounts of the creation of the Major Courts not of Earth and Flesh. I will reward any who bring verifiable information to me. With dinar, service, or equipment from my trove.

[The Ritual Books of Vae Mojem, annotated Quotes]

Claimed origins of the Court of Earth and Flesh
I will refrain from citing these claims in full as they are carved in the wall of a live Brooker Sanctum. Suffice to say, if you know where in the Ashways Dretch is sold, you will find it. And one day perhaps, I can persuade the Accord to march against the Enemy of All. Until then, know this.

The foul walls claim that the Court of Earth and Flesh were formed from those who saw the Ash burning away the far rings, and sought to escape it to Somewhere Else. Those who 'made the bones dance'. A phrase found elsewhere in the Ashways, outside a clearly necromantic ritual site with a Negative Energy crystal. We know that Earth is a plane. We know that Flesh was a Seam in the City of old. We know that wizards have long created pocket planes such as Meredy's Magnificent Mansion for personal sanctuary or amusement. So what if some sought to do so permanently? Obviously, this is a highly plausible proposition, but from a source highly likely to lie. So we must corroborate.

Vae Mojem: The Court of Ice and Time?
This chapter is dedicated to the memory of Grenth Flamebringer. A friend and confidant in hard times, and a living reminder that one should always fight for a reason.

Fortunately, we have corroborating evidence from the library of the tower of Vae Mojem. A plane that appeared only once a year in the height of Winter, and was filled with novel forms of Ice Djinn. Grenth led an expedition to steal the very secrets from its Library. I am grateful to Maqqari A-, Selwyn N-, and Cogsworth C- for translating better than I could.

The Ritual Books of Vae Mojem, annotated Quotes
Given that the full text is probably a ritual involved in creating Djinn, I'm not fool enough to commit the lot to pages.

"Old Gods and Titans of the Elements Compound
You are Forbade!  You have lost your love, you have lost your way"

(As in the dark library, a rejection of the gods and world)

"Parched, Blistering Sands Wash Away All Hope"

(This segment mirrors that in the foul library, that the Ash is closing in)

"We Rebuke and Replace them as Our Want
Mercy Is Beyond us, But the pangs of flames unholy are not ours"

(They do not want to invade the Hells and become Demons or Devils. They want to replace the powers of old.)

"REJOICE- TIME CAN BE FROZEN"

(The Tower of Vae Mojem is of Ice and appears once a year. Or did. Its main Djinn is truly dead, the tower may no longer return)

This is almost certainly the text of a Ritual used by the occupant(s) of the tower of Vae Mojem to freeze themselves out of time, and to transmute themselves to beings of Ice (and probably of Time).  Of note is the fact that the mechanical beings of Vae Mojem were not, as one would think, constructs. They were Djinn to the core, as were the penguins and killer trees.

What this tower reveals to me is that there may be further Minor Courts of the Djinn that are aligned with the quasi-elemental planes such as Steam, Mud, Smoke, and Dust. And further, that the Tower of Vae Mojem appeared to forsake the pure powers of Gods, Elements AND Fiends (the Flames Unholy). They chose a Fourth Way, a new path to Evil.

On the Origin of Djinni

R. Angleton, Sandstone College

(Note, this is a pre-print edition. As the war with Iakmes heats further, I publish this late draft in case I do not make it back)

To those of you who know my full name, you know full well why I will not commit it to the same pages as I do this knowledge on the Enemy of All, the Takers of Names. I do not give it freely anywhere they may be near, in body, or mind.

It would be easy to assume the Djinn always were, that they are the old, old enemies of gods. That their place on the Marishyen God-pillars probes this. And yet these pillars cannot be that anciently carved, if they cover the relatively newer Domist faith of Il Modo too.

It is my proposal that the Courts were once mortal arcanists of the City of Rings.  They are somewhat different to the now-rare Devils and Demons of old, made as they were of Elemental Evil. The Djinn are, instead, I propose, Evil born of Elements and the World. Their cults are not simple affairs that just seek souls for power. The old Demons and Devils had personal domains, but a vast amount of overlap in the use of servitors of Pure Evil. Imps, Erinyes and the like.

Whereas Earth and Flesh use corrupt architects and cannibals. Water and Light go in for false idols of the Mother. And their boons and devices, such as I have seen, are deeply elemental. Flesh mauls that bleed acid. Shadowy obsidian spears. Always the element first and foremost, with the Evil within.

As we know, Shadow is a Theme of Alchemy but not an Element as such. And Light is associated with Positive and Chaotic Fey as much as anything else. So I propose that all Djinn are a Corrupt Alloy. A pure element, bound to the light and shadow of day and night, the blood and flesh of living beings. Pot-metal demons, escaping this Ash-corrupted world to a yet more corrupt one of their own imagining.

It really wouldn't. The thing I reckon people forget (I usually do) is a 5m AoE centred on yourself. So even if you want to use it to blow up undead, it's essentially a 5m cone for that purpose. And 'right in front of all the monsters' is not a happy place to be for a Priest. At best you will get some of your party and some undead. If it was kept as 1d8+level, it definitely wouldn't be OP. It's a mass top-off. I like using Healing Circle trinkets and they're Fine. Solidly Okay. Might satisfyingly blow up some zombos with Cure Light-alike. But that's not a L5 spell in that can. It's not really even a L3, no Astro ever preps it.

Whereas Circle of Doom is a ranged 6.6m explosion, meaning you can aim that sucker to hit the entire group without wasting it. Much more efficient. Plus if you really want to go wild, just have your tank drink Insulation. no friendly fire problem.

If you're worried it's OP, the proof of it not being OP is that 'Negative burst spamming undead are annoying but beatable'

I'd make the suggestion that it become a sorcerer token with a 1/day ability, but otherwise I'm all for it.

Funny version: Make it an undroppable 3lb Shovel with a 1/day Unique Power that just digs up bones wherever you point it, as well as the standard Unique Self Only for Shovels.

Yeah, this.
Or even better, have it as a tool to apply a STR mod as a Slashing Damage bonus to the equipped arrows.
Because that way you have a damage bonus that stacks with existing Mighty.
As it is, you're probably running +2 Mighty anyway, so aren't getting the full benefit.

I'd actually say that we need "Apply A Big Mighty on Rest" as a perk for every ranged subclass.
So for Marksman Fighter, something in Ranger, and probably a Rogue Perk.
Or again, a way to add properties to arrows. It works really well for Eldritch Archer, whereas the ammo stashes from Fighter or Rogue or Barb perks get burned through *fast*.

If the concern is that bows are just too convenient, they could be buffed in ways that only pay out for characters who buy into ranged attacks.  Although, currently they are 'the two handed weapon that has a worse STR bonus than a 1h weapon' so I don't see how that's the case.

tl;dr: Balance bows taking account of Eldritch Archer, where you can merrily run 16 DEX 14 CHA, and hit less often but do absurd damage on every single hit. It doesn't even suffer the usual caster attrition, as you can literally farm arrows between quests.

[Healing Circle]

I would agree and say 'do it for Healing Circle too'. But adjust both to 2d8/level, so they are essentially Mass Cure/Inflict Moderate. That's then an interesting use of a L5 slot for sustained damage/heal rather than One Big Hit. They are both terrible in vanilla NWN and even a big buff to Circle of Doom isn't that attractive. I've not even seen an Astrologian cast Healing Circle and they get it as a L3!. Making them rechargeable would balance them without making the trinkets with them suddenly OP.

Healing Circle
1d8 + Caster Level healing centred on you.
Spell Focus: Abjuration heals 2d8 +1 per caster level instead.
Greater Spell Focus: Abjuration heals 3d8 +1 per caster level instead.

Circle of Doom
Damage is increased to 4d8, +1 point negative damage per caster level.
All creatures hit by the spell must make a Will save (same DC as the fortitude DC for halving damage) or be Doomed for 1 minute per caster level.

To compare, Hammer of the Gods is L4 rather than 5 and:

• Has the same range and AoE
• Does 4d8 at 9, 5d8 at 10, so very similar damage
• Doesn't have a friendly fire problem.
• Can daze your enemies

Negative Energy Burst
Negative Energy Burst's will save negates the STR drain in addition to halving the damage.

Spell Focus: Necromancy increases damage to 2d8 + caster level.
Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy increases strength drain to 1 + 1 / 4 caster levels if will save fails.

It's not *bad* but anyone seriously down with Necromancy probably has Evil or Undeath domain to drop some Empowered Negative Bursts for better damage and big STR drain.

An 18 strength Ranger with only Two-Weapon Fighting and taking the -4 AB penalty to your offhand will still have more AB on each of it's attacks than a Monk at level 9/10. You even get Improved Two-Weapon Fighting without ever needing to meet the requirements for Dual-Wielding or Ambidexterity.

I'm confused. Are you telling me 'What if you buy a redundant feat on a Ranger, and run a weird optimised build that Just About Works and comes online at L9'? Because at that point why not grab myself a fighter level and take Improved 2-weapon Fighting at 8? I've already ignored the free feat I get from Ranger!

I also don't see why you compare it to monk, which doesn't typically dual-wield. Rather than to the Dual-wielder fighter Perk, which just stamps all over a Ranger with that bonus +2AB offhand and access to Imp. 2-Weapon Fighting at 8.

I feel like your complex solution just reinforces the point I'm making, which is:

• Dual Wield is the Ranger's Iconic Flavourful Combat Thing, as it allows 2-weapon fighting without a stat requirement.
• Except it's got a de facto stat requirement, unless you like getting hit a lot.
• Dual-wield in Medium opens things up to less optimised/buff-hungry builds and lets more people be Cool Hunters With Two Swords without focusing their build on making that work. Given that Ranger gets Medium Armor as standard.