AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - The Official Teach a Man to Fish topic (Build topic):

You have a curiously high number in UMD, so I am assuming it must be a strong point for the RP of the character - Otherwise, you can always drop a few ranks on it, try to keep Tumble as high as possible (in multiple of 5). Some decent points in Search is nice to have, but you can always sacrifice a few ranks otherwise.

The rest I can't touch without possibly damaging the personality of the character.

26 isn't high, especially for a non-cha focused PC. 30-33 is. That said, it's less of a priority than tumble 30.

I'd drop off some points of concentration and use items with a bonus on conc to pick up the slack (the +30 gloves are nice, but +15 gloves and some +10 items are also very accessible). Search & lore are useful for events so they're good to have high, but overall list #1 is probably the better one. If you do take points off conc or whatever I wouldn't know where to put them, maybe concentration 29, search 33. Or if you're on cha 8, top UMD up a bit higher... But this is all rather nitpicky, list 1 is pretty good as is.

Thanks guys!

Answers my question of whether there's anything important missing, and of whether to go with Tumble 25 or 30!

She's a pretty devout Mystran, hence the Use Magic Device, Lore and Search. I'll keep in mind that I can probably tweak her Concentration down slightly so I can boost one of those without having to pull points away from Tumble.

Spellcraft, though it scales on the score and note base stats, is still probably better kept at even 5's, since most of your higher level epic gear keeps it in those increments and anything uneven is kind of wasted. Concentration and discipline don't necessarily need to be maxed. It might help for some small percentage of the time, but in general it can be tweaked. Get the concentration or discipline gloves for the huge boost when you need them, and then swap them out. You only need infinity-max discipline when PvPing, and even then, just 25-30 and the gloves will make you virtually invulnerable to the disarms and such. Heal, lore, search... you'll almost never need max for those, and you can compensate with items. Heal you can munch because at max level, the little bit gained is not critical in any sense. I'd max spellcraft before those, just for times when the score gets lowered with certain spells or curse. Tumble, even 5's. Items won't help for the AC. And UMD... honestly, even 25 is probably too high most of the time. 25 will let you use pretty much everything on the server I've ever seen, and most of the time at epic levels you won't even need it. I'd keep it at 25 max. I've got that, and there's nothing I've ever been unable to use. No scroll or item anywhere, at all. Spot... well, if you're going to be a spotter, no score is really too high. Every point will count when countering sneakers build to min/max. But, really, you won't' have to max as high as most sneakers to make it work most of the time.

I think the save bonus from spellcraft like the ac bonus from tumble isn't increased by spellcraft bonusses from items.
I am not 100% sure though.

I tend to keep it at 30 if the build doesn't have an abundance of skillpoints.

The save bonus is increased by items.

I still recommend 33 because it's pretty important for skill checks in events. The PC in question doesn't look to be strapped for skill points.

25 UMD will let you use most items requiring it. My main has that, and still has items he needs a UMD item to equip, in order to use.

When making a monk/Cot build does unarmed strike count as a melee weapon for the CoT class?

Yes, according to the Classes and Feats page, "any Weapon Focus feat may be taken; they are not restricted to melee weapons."

16 monk/8 CoT/6 Sd. Any thoughts of how to make it work the best?

I really appreciate the discussion and reasonings being laid out for the recommendations.

I was trying to keep it simple -- I didn't realize that would complicate things further! Here's some further info on the reasoning behind certain allocations, if that might change your suggestions.

I definitely want to keep Spellcraft and Lore at max for thematic reasons. Goddess of Magic and Knowledge. You know how it is. For Spot, I'm wanting to keep it at max because of the tie in with divination and knowledge - there's knowing something because you've memorized it, and knowing something because you've observed it.

In regards to Search and UMD, my goal is to be extremely capable, but I don't need to be the best at them. It's a bit of a thing among the faithful to experiment with magic and to seek out ancient troves and repositories of magic. There's some emotional baggage for the character tied up in Heal, coupled with it being something else to be knowledgeable about (anatomy, herbs, diseases, poisons, etc.).

And Tumble, Discipline and Concentration I took because it's really hard to indulge in the arcane arts and further the study of magic when you're getting hit in the face. She's learning that lesson right now, and will take whatever steps to avoid face hitting that she can in the future.

tl;dr

33 for REASONS
Lore
Spellcraft
Spot

>20 for Reasons
Search
Use Magic Device
Heal

??? for reasons
Concentration
Discipline
Tumble

I'm definitely not strapped for skill points, even accounting for needing to do some cross class spending. I've got about 284 at level 30, give or take a few depending on my final level spread.

What I'm getting so far is that I can downgrade Heal, Concentration, and/or Discipline slightly in order to increase either Search or Use Magic Device, but whether it's worth it, and how much to do so is debateable. (And that I could do the same with Spellcraft or Lore if I were willing to do so.)

So really the only skill that has an important break point that's applicable to my character is Tumble at 30. UMD should be at 25 considering my character has average Charisma -- I can go higher, but I'll see somewhat diminishing returns above that.

The other skills can be 30 or 33 pretty much as I please and can afford.

Any further thoughts or advice to offer?

Save a few points for other skills like craft skills and stuff you can bump up with items (disable trap and such). Other than that, I'd say keep Discipline as high as you can.

sYuzan wrote:

What about stats and feats? Obviously Wisdom should be stupidly high and requires Great Wisdoms for Dragon Shape, what about other stats? Con? Dex? Also are there any feats that those more familiar with druids concider "necessary"?

Your feats aren't as free as I remember, and you have to take a WIS-boosted race for this to work. Obvious candidate is Ffolk human.

1 [optional]
1 [optional]
3 Extend Spell
6 Spell Focus Evocation
9 Maximise/Empower
12 Greater Focus Evocation
15 Knockdown
18 Blindfight

Not necessarily in that order, but since Blindfight and KD are essentially useless until you get Draggy, you might as well take the better ones first. Extend and Maximise are best at 3 and 9, says I.

21 Great WIS
24 Great WIS II
Druid24 Great WIS III
27 Great WISIV
Ranger1 Epic Spell Focus Evo
Druid28 Dragonshape
30 [optional]

If you're locked into a non-WIS race cos of Let's Pretend, then you'll have to go 29/1, because you have to have WIS30 before Druid28 - taking Great WIS V then won't unlock Draggy.

Thus your choices: 1Rogue, Tumble and UMD, but crossclassed Discipline and no Epic Focus.
Ranger1: yay to Discipline and Epic Focus, nay to Tumble/UMD
Bard1: nay to Epic Focus, yay to Tumble/Discipline/UMD.

Uberuce wrote:

sYuzan wrote:

What about stats and feats? Obviously Wisdom should be stupidly high and requires Great Wisdoms for Dragon Shape, what about other stats? Con? Dex? Also are there any feats that those more familiar with druids concider "necessary"?

Your feats aren't as free as I remember, and you have to take a WIS-boosted race for this to work. Obvious candidate is Ffolk human.

1 [optional]
1 [optional]
3 Extend Spell
6 Spell Focus Evocation
9 Maximise/Empower
12 Greater Focus Evocation
15 Knockdown
18 Blindfight

Not necessarily in that order, but since Blindfight and KD are essentially useless until you get Draggy, you might as well take the better ones first. Extend and Maximise are best at 3 and 9, says I.

21 Great WIS
24 Great WIS II
Druid24 Great WIS III
27 Great WISIV
Ranger1 Epic Spell Focus Evo
Druid28 Dragonshape
30 [optional]

If you're locked into a non-WIS race cos of Let's Pretend, then you'll have to go 29/1, because you have to have WIS30 before Druid28 - taking Great WIS V then won't unlock Draggy.

Thus your choices: 1Rogue, Tumble and UMD, but crossclassed Discipline and no Epic Focus.
Ranger1: yay to Discipline and Epic Focus, nay to Tumble/UMD
Bard1: nay to Epic Focus, yay to Tumble/Discipline/UMD.

Thankee, MooMoo. I used the optional feats pre-epic for Expertise and Scribe Scroll, because scrolls are <3 and Expertise helps me tank for my cat, especially later on. Ffolk human, of course. The last feat I'm thinking will be Epic Mummy Dust, Greater Ruin just seemed... not-so-druidic.

A fairly simple one: Drow Bard/Rogue/Assassin, using a crossbow. My only real concerns are what feats to take and how to arrange my bard/rogue levels, bearing in mind that I intend to max assassin. My combat options are fairly limited with a ranged weapon (particularly that ranged weapon), but called shot seems optimal. I have roughly 3 more feat slots open, however.

Is the Dragon Shape from Shifter really worth going all the way up to 30 wis and possibly losing both Outsider and Construct shapes?
I'd like those two forms for mostly RP, but if the Dragon is that good combat wise over them...
I mean well... being a dragon sounds like fun too.

In my Humbledore, Dragonshape works so much better as a Druid than as a Shifter that you'd be punching yourself square in the face to go the latter.

Someone rip this apart please. Never made a monk before.

Damaran

STR 10
DEX 19
CON 10
INT 10
WIS 14
CHA 8

1 M Dodge, Toughness
2 M
3 M weapon finesse
4 M
5 M
6 M Weapon focus (unarmed)
7 M
8 M
9 R Imp Crit (unarmed)
10 R
11 C
12 C* *Great Fort, Blindfight
13 C
14 C* Expertise
15 R Open (iron will?)
16 R
17 R
18 R Open (Lightning Reflex?)
19 R
20 R
21 R Epic Weapon Focus
22 R Defensive Roll
23 M
24 M Epic Prowess
25 M
26 M
27 M Armor Skin
28 M
29 M
30 M Epic Dodge

Arcane Crusader wrote:

Someone rip this apart please. Never made a monk before.

Monk 16 CoT 4 CoT 10 Rogue

Damaran

STR 10
DEX 19
CON 10
INT 10
WIS 14
CHA 8

1 M Dodge, Toughness
2 M
3 M weapon finesse
4 M
5 M
6 M Weapon focus (unarmed)
7 M
8 M
9 C *Blindfight, Imp Crit (unarm)
10 C *Disarm
11 C
12 C *Great Fort
13 R
14 R
15 R Expertise
16 R
17 R
18 R Imp Disarm
19 R
20 R
21 R Great Dex I
22 R Defensive Roll
23 M
24 M Great Dex II
25 M
26 M
27 M Armor Skin
28 M
29 M
30 M Epic Dodge

Are you taking Rogue there for Epic Dodge or that and Sneak Attack? If you're only going for Epic Dodge, you can get that by combining 9 Monk with 5 Shadowdancer. That'd let you get Perfect Self, Epic Dodge and HiPS, though damage would be lowered. No Epic Weapon Focus is also a painful thingy when you'll be fighting face-to-face.

Disarm and Imp Disarm require 13+ Intelligence, which you don't have. Despite the fact unarmed Disarm counts (AFAIK) as same size weapon as the target's weapon is, that's still also an attack with -4 AB, while the Monk will already have quite the low AB compared to most. Expertise, I suppose, depends on how much you like it. Can't use Flurry of Blows in expertise, but then again, you already might know that.

Also CoT doesn't get a Bonus Feat at 1st level, only Fighter does. So you don't get 2 feats at level 9.

Changes/clarification/questions. Original post edited.

1. Got rid of CoT for fighter and weapon specialization. Gonna need as much damage as I can get and +2 uni saves and purge infidel (no cha anyway and 4 lvls so useless) isnt that big of a deal vs an extra feat and weapon spec.

2. Yes taking rogue also for the sneak attacks. Again, damage is crap and I want to get as much as I can.

3. The 8/8/4 combo pre epic gets me 16 bab and a 4th APR. Figure I'm gonna need it.

4. I have two open feats. Any that a monk actually needs or is it just preference? I was thinking of grabbing the other two save feats.

5. Changed great dex 1 and 2 for epic weapon focus and epic weapon spec. I figure it would net me +4 damage with the fists at the cost of 1 AC/reflex. And I'm seriously not worried about AC with this fella.

Arcane Crusader wrote:

Changes/clarification/questions. Original post edited.

1. Got rid of CoT for fighter and weapon specialization. Gonna need as much damage as I can get and +2 uni saves and purge infidel (no cha anyway and 4 lvls so useless) isnt that big of a deal vs an extra feat and weapon spec.

2. Yes taking rogue also for the sneak attacks. Again, damage is crap and I want to get as much as I can.

3. The 8/8/4 combo pre epic gets me 16 bab and a 4th APR. Figure I'm gonna need it.

4. I have two open feats. Any that a monk actually needs or is it just preference? I was thinking of grabbing the other two save feats.

5. Changed great dex 1 and 2 for epic weapon focus and epic weapon spec. I figure it would net me +4 damage with the fists at the cost of 1 AC/reflex. And I'm seriously not worried about AC with this fella.

If you take your 4 fighter pre-epic you won't be able to get epic spec. And pretty much the best belt already has weapon spec unarmed on it and is common knowledge so would be pointless to take 4 fighter instead of 4 CoT and less flavor.

Your damage will not be crap. Monk with 1d20 fists is not terrible. You will also have a good stream of sneaks. You will be fine.

You are only able to take epic spec on a fighter or a CoT level in epic, so you are not able to get it and get the 16 BAB. (BTW its not for the 4th attack, you're a monk you get more than that unarmed).

Again updated. Completely forgot about the epic specialization. Been a while since I built anything. Also, I totally didn't know about the belt. Kinda nice to know. Thanks.

I guess I'll keep the CoT levels since I'll be getting free weapon specialization. +2 uni saves is great in that case.

I think the shadow of Dirk will loom overly large on any Dodger you make, unless it has a significantly different playstyle.

I thought about that already and it makes me sad. But its probably true.

Mind that your second CoT feat has to be on the Fighter list, so assign Expertise there and leave 15 as your Optional.

If my hasty calculations are correct, you're be on 17 Fort, 29 Reflex, 17 Will naked and without saves feats. You can reasonably expect Reflex to be 34 from a +10 DEX gearset* and Will to be 19 or 20 from the same, but Fort is likely to stay at 17. So I'd ditch Great Reflexes in favour of Strong Soul at start, and punt Dodge further down the line.

*I rarely manage to fit all my saves and skills in without needing to leave primary stats within potion distance

Really though, I'd go for something very unlike Dirk. I can't remember what I did after my Dodger WM, Frank, but I'm pretty sure it would have been a pure caster or a heavy slugger. Or, more likely, a Bard.

{edit - I found the player tools} Ah, it was a Dragonshape Druid, so in fact it was a pure** caster that turned into a heavy slugger at the end of levelling.

**well, like many of my WIS-casters he took Zen Archery and threw single-figure damage downrange just for something to pass the time.

Does this seem viable?

Strongheart hin

Build: Rogue 10 Ranger 13 Master Scout 5

Abilities:
Str 18-26
Dex 14
Con 10
Wis 10 (or did I end up on 8? not sure)
Int 14
Cha 10

Skills:
The usual for melee characters +ms/hide/about 2 more skills

Feats:
Skill focus Listen/spot
power attack
cleave
greater cleave
weapon focus and crit
overwhelming crit
dev crit
greater str 1 and 2
armor skin
crippling strike

Idea is to use grenades to confuse them so I can land crippling strikes

Your AC will be in the nether regions - dex 14 and medium armour prof only? You can get respectable AC at best if you max dex bonus on gear (+2, then cats grace, or spam the latter) which is painful IMO.
Next problem... Int is 14 but I dont see any ImpKD which is basically the point of burning points on int. You can't reliably generate sneak attacks on confusion grenades - mind blanks are the first buffs people put up because they know mind-affecting can be a save-or-doomed. What's the DC anyway? It may even be too low.

I have a similar build (strongheart ranger, str-based) which I considered Master Scout... will get back to you if I find my notes on it. But yeah as is needs work.

I know ranger/ms works wonders. I didn't consider the ac though but remember they modified the dex bonuses, so you can get +9 ac from all armors now. I may have overlooked some feats...and I just realized a strongheart will get +4 strength when the subrace is activated, which I'll put on con. So really it shouldn't be too bad? dev, a bit low ab but plenty of options to get sneak attacks for crippling strikes. The ac will be similar to most fighters. Also the feats aren't optimized, I don't need 2 greater strengths.

DEX 14 + 3 from boots + 2 from Cat's = 19. You'll have a surplus of 1 and I can't imagine a reason for you not to wear the +3 DEX, +5 AC boots fresh from the shop, unless they have been removed and switched to the epic bin due to straight-laced balancing. Wearing full-plate would be immensely more sensible, so if you wanted to stick to the Dev, it would be doable weren't it for the dreadful scarcity of your feats: it's a tragedy not to have IKD on a healthy Rogue10 that could merrily be plummeting 5d6 sneaks, but instead has to wait for a nonexistent summon or party members to smell to high heaven to distract the mobs from your sweet halfling snack.

You have two escape routes:
1) Ditch the STR. With DEX you'll land on all fours with less bother and the synergy of Ranger spells with MS/Rogue feats and skills is superb. EPIC DODGE!
2) Ditch the Dev. As much as it pains you, Dev is fairly lackluster in contrast to the all-round usefulness of the consistency of your SA.

How's a dorf barb 29/rogue 1? Viable, fun? No dev.
Also, is terrifying rage worth it?

Tacka wrote:

How's a dorf barb 29/rogue 1? Viable, fun? No dev.
Also, is terrifying rage worth it?

I play a very similar barbarian, and he's great fun at low levels. As long as you can keep your survivability high, you can deal a lot of damage while still remaining a viable tank. For that build though, you're better off taking another rogue level for evasion, as the 29th level gets you nothing in comparison except a little more HP. Also, I'd advise taking fighter levels. Bonus feats, free proficiencies, AND no xp penalty, since you're a dwarf. Try keeping strength and constitution relatively balanced.

I can't comment much on terrifying rage, since I've never played a character who had it. On the one hand, it's easy to make it completely irresistible, but it's also a mind-affecting ability, which means that 40% of monsters (and 100% of players) are immune if they see it coming. With that much barbarian on a dwarf with low-ish strength (in comparison to the 'normal' base of 26), I'd advise aiming for Epic Damage Reduction and possibly Mighty Rage. Both improve your durability by leaps and bounds, allowing you to focus your actual gear more on damage.

Alternatively, you could try for more of a 'purist' battlerager - forget about Strength for the most part, take Improved Unarmed Strike, and use a Use Magic Device dump to be able to use high-end monk gloves. The lack of monk levels mean you can be an unarmed combatant while using plate and a shield. This is nowhere near optimized, though.

29 gives +1dr; no ftr because no dev - not feat starved; h.armor proficiency is nice tho. Good point on terrifying rage, a potion can make it worthless.
How's 24 barb/4 ftr/2 rogue? ftr and rogue levels in epic.

It's the cookiecutter, for the simple reason that it's the best allrounder.

Guys. I've been playing NWN for for like 8 years and I still suck at builds. It's horrible I'm basically a lost cause.

People here keep telling me that going pure rogue is oddly viable if you're trying to make a skill monkey/sneak-attack-focused character. Is this accurate, or am I slowly but surely committing character suicide?

Also, if you're mostly going for rogue, is it worth it to go Master Scout? I'm fascinated by the class but the Discipline requirement really turns me off from the idea.

28 Rogue/2 Fighter is probably pretty viable. You lose 1d6 sneak attacks but gain 2 bonus fighter feats.

Or maybe go rogue 26 and fighter 4? for epic weapon specialization. Just don't take your last rogue level before lvl 27 so that you can have 30 tumble. I wonder if you know how to corner sneak? (I don't myself), if not you may consider rogue 20 SD 6 fighter 4. My suggest is to find a character building module online and download it, then run it in single player and play around with different build combinations.

But also find the NWN wiki online and search up on specific feats you want. I am assuming you want epic dodge so here's a link: http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Epic_Dodge
If you go SD you don't have to pick combat roll with your bonus rogue lvls, as you get it after 5 SD lvls, so with your 4 bonus rogue feats you could for instance pick crippling strike (recommended, with this you can make people's strength too low for them to dish out dev crits, or kill them which happens when someones strength goes too low), improved evasion which you need for epic dodge and then two skill focuses.

Rogue25/Fighter5 is what you get straight from the assembly line. 16/4 pre-epic layout to bag the fourth attack per round (Rogue16 gives 12 BAB, as per the 3/4 ratio, and Fighter4 gives 4 BAB, as per the 1/1 ratio, amounting to the BAB of 16, which yields the fourth attack). EWS can hence be taken on a normal feat at epic. Of course there's a myriad modifications to it that work equally well; spice it up as befits your palate.

Disregard these fools!
Do what your heart teeeeells you! Screw your build beyond words (and then be mad like me that your character isn't effective in combat).

Jokes aside, Rogue 30 is a fun thing, but is a "little" lacking in terms of combat. It gets superb damage against anything it can stab (More than 15d6 damage, yo!), but it just doesn't have spicy source of AC or AB or any sort of special abilities. It's pretty much the awesome sidekick you want to have in like... everything, but never the main star.

From an IC point of view, I can easily see him going Master Scout, and maybe slapping some fighter levels along the way. That would make the build viable in overall. Give you a fourth attack, a little more of AB, make you STRONK like a russian independent woman (who don't need no man), and give him a few nice tricks.
My recommendation is that you screw your build with whatever happens IC and then rebuild to fix stuff.

Rogue16/Ftr4 going into Rogue19/Ftr5, with Epic Weapon Specialisation and Epic Dodge is the base for a very solid character. The DEX and Epic Dodge take care of the defence, while EWS and 10d6 Sneaks take care of the offence.

It might not be impossible to find six levels of anything that can fuck it up, but unless you're doing that deliberately and know what you're doing(I've never tried, so I dunno), it's far more likely that you'll still have a good platform to play from. So you can take some of the spirit of Ice's advice and put those six levels in the lap of the gods without having to worry that you'll end up driving the build equivalent of that knackered Yugo that Tom Hanks and Dan Akroyd drove in Dragnet.

The other six levels can still be more Rogue or Fighter, mind. Rogue24/Ftr6 settles on bonus epic feat levels for both Rogue and Ftr, for example.

I played a Rogue23/Barb1/Ftr6 for some time, but that was a PvP tweak from 24/6. Tough wee sonofabitch.

Master Scout fits in here perfectly nicely. Rogue19/MS5/Ftr6.

Hokay. Posting this up here as I'd at least like a bit of feedback. I'm... sort of alright with builds.

So, for Aedan, my end goal plan is to have him be 21 Ranger/ 2 Rogue/ 7 WM (short swords). He's currently level 20 and has 17 Ranger/ 2 Rogue/ 1 WM. Of course, if I were to change this around, I'd need to gather some more DCs.

Primarily why I'm going for this whole build is to:

1) Get the Favoured Enemies as well as Bane of Enemies. A big part of Aedan's character is that he focuses heavily on combating undead and demons (outsiders), and those are represented by the favoured enemies.

2) Awesome critical threat range: Next level (21) I'll be picking up Improved Critical, finally. One reaching 7 WM levels, with a Keen short sword, that should have my crit range at about 13-20(?).

3) The rogue levels were mainly for Tumble and not cross-classing for Intimidate for the WM requirements. The 1d6 SA and Evasion are very nice, though.

So, any thoughts on this? How I can improve it or otherwise?

Should have the rogue levels nearer to level 30 so you can maximize tumble. Otherwise, you have the level spread right. Is he strength based or dex based? If Dex, might consider 3 rogue levels for uncanny dodge. I know, that reduces something.... Gotta love the build process!

Unless you rebuild you want to take another rogue lvl to maximize ac from tumble. Which means you'll have to offer either bane of enemies or the crit range, I'd offer bane of enemies. Otherwise having experience with rangers, I'd say you'll struggle with having enough feats for everything. I don't know if you're dex or str though, if you're dex you got enough feats for all the must-haves you can get with that build.

You're crippling your AB and AC by taking the rogue levels pre epic. I would take them at 22 and 27

What Polris said.
It would be mostly a pain to level up, but you can go straight Ranger until 21, get bane of enemies and whatnot there, then a rogue level to avoid crossclassing, full weapon master until 27, where you take the other rogue level if you want, and straight WM to 30.
You can switch a little the order, but this is basically the easiest way to do it without wasting points.

In other words, you can keep it up; the build is a little strange, but viable. The only thing is that you'll need to rebuild sooner or later if you want to make proper use of your stats.

Speccing WM on a Ranger is very feat-intensive, and offers no benefits in fighting undead. Make sure you grab a shield at some point, for the many times when dual-wielding would be a sub-optimal strategy (though with BoE that won't come up too often). I assume you're going dex so I don't need to whine about armour proficiency.

Personally I'd rather go Ranger 25/Fighter4/Rogue 1 (Ranger 25 gets a better pet), although the standard is I think Ranger21. WM is nice when you have the feats to spare but IMO incredibly cumbersome otherwise and you'd be better off rounding your feats out in other areas. Also WM-ness doesn't really seem to expand on your concept since it's just a hit-harder class, especially since the crits won't work against one of the enemy types you're meant to focus on fighting.

If you're going to be a non paladin undead basher I'd suggest you eventually rebuild to ranger 25 fighter4 rogue 1, since you won't crit against undead you'll deal more dmg this way if you get epic weapon specialization. Also, if you don't mind using scimitars or rapiers or a high crit range weapon, you can get more average dps with a 25 ranger than a wm. When it comes to armor, don't think about it, they updated it so you can get 9 ac with all armors now. Also 25 ranger lvls give a viable pve and pvp companion, an unbuffed companion can handle any unbuffed summon

Well, the big thing as well, is that he's not exclusively an undead hunter. It's a big part of the character, but he's not meant to only deal in the undead. The crits won't affect them, sure, but they'll affect most other things. Though, I do still like the idea of the fighter levels. As for the armours, my DEX mod can't reach what it's at without 0 AC armour. Even going for 1 AC armour will cripple my total AC.

Ok, then you are dex based? As in you use weapon finesse and your dex mod to determine AB? If so, you REALLY want 3 rogue levels for uncanny dodge. 23 ranger/4 fighter/3 rogue is a good overall compromise. 7 WM would get you 1 AB and some nice x3 crits and 2 more on your crit modifier. But honestly, +6 damage on every hit from fighter and epic weapon spec is worth waaaaay more. Add in Bane of Enemies and wow.... really good damage.

You make a very good point with that, actually. Think I'll go with that layout, then.

So, do shifter abilities take in consideration both druid and shifter levels?
Does this mean that if you don't want to rp the druid part and just go with Druid 5/whatever 5/Shifter 20 instead of Druid 10/Shifter 20, your shape abilities won't ever reach highest DC/damage/duration?

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