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

From a lore perspective I kinda like the idea of a CHA based bard/rdd/bg Kobold acting as a All-Watcher.

And Bard/BG/RDD is generally cool. Considered going for it on my Halfer.

6 Bard/7 xDD/17 BG comes to mind, on that. Hard to stat, though. Especially if you want Divine feats

Alternatively you could do 20 Bard/7 xDD/3 BG as well. Still gets Lasting Winspiration if you do that. Course you could cheese it and go just 4 xDD.

a kobold Cleric/bard/RDD could fit dev-crit. Imagine the sheer chock of your opponent.

"A KOBOLD? WITH DEV? WHAT?"

How is the epic fiendish servant for the Blackguard?

For the pure lulz of it:

Fighter(28), Rogue(2), Tuigan
STR: 19 (26)
DEX: 9
CON: 14
WIS: 8
INT: 14
CHA: 8

01: Fighter(1): Luck of Heroes, Strong Soul, Power Attack
02: Fighter(2): Weapon Focus: Longsword
03: Fighter(3): Knockdown
04: Fighter(4): Weapon Specialization: Longsword
06: Fighter(6): Cleave, Great Cleave
08: Fighter(8): Improved Critical: Longsword
09: Fighter(9): Great Fortitude
10: Fighter(10): Improved Knockdown
12: Fighter(12): Toughness, Disarm
14: Fighter(14): Blind Fight
15: Fighter(15): Improved Disarm
16: Fighter(16): Weapon Focus: Greatsword
18: Fighter(18): Skill Focus: Discipline, Weapon Specialization: Greatsword
20: Fighter(20): Improved Critical: Greatsword
21: Fighter(21): Epic Weapon Focus: Longsword
22: Fighter(22): Overwhelming Critical: Longsword
24: Fighter(24): Devastating Critical: Longsword, Overwhelming Critical: Greatsword
27: Rogue(2): Devastating Critical: Greatsword
28: Fighter(26): Epic Weapon Focus: Greatsword
30: Fighter(28): Epic Fortitude, Epic Prowess

Hitpoints: 382
Skillpoints: 177
Saving Throws (Fortitude/Will/Reflex): 27/12/11

Concentration 33(35), Craft Armor 23(25), Craft Weapon 23(25), Disable Trap 8(10), Discipline 33(44), Tumble 30(29), UMD 25(24), remaining skillpoints 2

AB is 25 (base) + 14 (STR) + 3 (WF/EWF) + 1 (Prowess) + 4 (Weapons) + 3 (Bless/Aid/DivMight) = 50
HP is 382 base, 562 max
AC is 10 (base) + 9 (armor base) + 3 (shield) + 20 (+4 gear) = 42 AC; 35 with 2H weapon
Has the versatility to go sword/board or 2H with no difference in AB
Dev Crit in TWO weapons
Impressive AB, nearly matching a typical WM build (WM typically is 53 with same buffs/gear)
Can literally pick up any weapon and use it
Decent Fort save
IKD and Imp Disarm for foe-disabling
Dat HP
Evasion, UMD, and Tumble

I mean I know there can be better build, but you have to admit it's rather impressive for being a high-level fighter. I can easily see it doing well in PvE at least, possibly even in PvP (since it's really similar to any melee build when you get down to it). Also, the 2H is not a definite, it's just to show a second weapon can be added with only loosing EWS on it (assuming you want Dev Crit in both weapons).

It's a Tuigan, so spear for two-handed and scimitar one-handed?

Yeah I was mostly plugging stuff in basically to show what you can do with it. 28 Fighter/2 Rogue isn't optimal at all, but damn does that look pretty darn effective in PvE, at least :mrgreen:

Could also drop to a different subrace (or Human), drop the second Dev Crit and take Great Strength.

Out of curiousity, does BG need to have 14 wisdom to get the epic bg summon/vile book of darkness or whatever it is that they need to make the summon worth while? Was thinking of something like 9 fighter 3 rogue 18 bg as an alternative tank type character, suggestions, comments?

I don't know actually. But overall the BG benefits from 14 wisdom

http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Epic_fiendish_servant

According to that, nope! But yeah, if you are taking high levels of Blackguard you surely should want 14 WIS so you can get the goodies.

Unfortunately I can't think of a way to keep 14 wis, plus have enough int for improved expertise, and get dev crit, or at least over whelming crit. As I said, was thinking 9 fighter 3 rogue 18 bg, would say go Orog, in which case it would be 8/3/18 but that gives a +2 to str +2 to charisma, -2 dex -2 wisdom. Only bonus to the 14 wisdom is the free +5 on hit dispel weapon, but is the dc for the dispel even worth it? I mean with the int I need for improved expertise, will give me decent skill points I should be able to dump into UMD, which will allow me to use scrolls/wands anyways. Though this build is just something I made up in my head, was thinking 1 fighter 1 rogue (So will have the hide for bg) then 5 fighter 10 bg 2 fighter 1 rogue pre epic, tumble dump at 20, then go 8 bg 1 fighter 1 rogue at 30 for final tumble dump. This may look good in my head though, so putting it here to see if any of you awesome folks could help me work it out. Just trying to think of a decent tank build that's not too bad to play. Sorry, I get bored easily, so I like builds with toys and such, it's why I love Markus so much, even though his build is meh.

If you want to fit in dev crit and keep fourteen WIS, it might be best to take a bit more fighter so you can pop some feats on great strength. Personally, on an orog blackguard, I'd eschew it entirely, as well as rogue, and go:

FTR/BG/WM (scimitar)

Decide what your ideal CHA modifier will be, do not take more CHA and BG than necessessary to attain it and pump the rest in STR and you have a very durable build with a high crit rate and rather nasty crits to boot.

I'd contemplate going 12 INT on an orog and popping one level-up's worth into the stat as well, just to get a decent CON score.

What's the goal with BG18? And Fighter9? BG 16 gets you the epic fiend, and fighter doesn't get a feat on 9. Lose two BG levels, drop them into each other class for an extra feat, and extra skill points. Take rogue first level for the first level skill point buff, drop the second rogue level in early for evasion (and the BG pre-req), third on 17 (or 22) for tumble dump and extra sneak attack, last rogue level on 27+ for the last tumble dump. Makes for fighter7/rogue3/BG10 pre-epic, fighter3/bg6/rogue1 in epic. WM is nice, but trying to fit in the full epic fiend BG levels, WM feats, dev-crit feats, and (I'm guessing) the divine shield/damage feats is too much.

Yeah, hence why I said "with an orog". -2 WIS modifier doesn't really support more than a dip into BG for a buff to the other two classes.

Why not go for a human? It's the best race with no ECL, extra feat and extra skills.

Underdark, non-drow, character, I believe.

Naivatkal wrote:

For the pure lulz of it:

Fighter(28), Rogue(2), Tuigan
STR: 19 (26)
DEX: 9
CON: 14
WIS: 8
INT: 14
CHA: 8

01: Fighter(1): Luck of Heroes, Strong Soul, Power Attack
02: Fighter(2): Weapon Focus: Longsword
03: Fighter(3): Knockdown
04: Fighter(4): Weapon Specialization: Longsword
06: Fighter(6): Cleave, Great Cleave
08: Fighter(8): Improved Critical: Longsword
09: Fighter(9): Great Fortitude
10: Fighter(10): Improved Knockdown
12: Fighter(12): Toughness, Disarm
14: Fighter(14): Blind Fight
15: Fighter(15): Improved Disarm
16: Fighter(16): Weapon Focus: Greatsword
18: Fighter(18): Skill Focus: Discipline, Weapon Specialization: Greatsword
20: Fighter(20): Improved Critical: Greatsword
21: Fighter(21): Epic Weapon Focus: Longsword
22: Fighter(22): Overwhelming Critical: Longsword
24: Fighter(24): Devastating Critical: Longsword, Overwhelming Critical: Greatsword
27: Rogue(2): Devastating Critical: Greatsword
28: Fighter(26): Epic Weapon Focus: Greatsword
30: Fighter(28): Epic Fortitude, Epic Prowess

Hitpoints: 382
Skillpoints: 177
Saving Throws (Fortitude/Will/Reflex): 27/12/11

Concentration 33(35), Craft Armor 23(25), Craft Weapon 23(25), Disable Trap 8(10), Discipline 33(44), Tumble 30(29), UMD 25(24), remaining skillpoints 2

AB is 25 (base) + 14 (STR) + 3 (WF/EWF) + 1 (Prowess) + 4 (Weapons) + 3 (Bless/Aid/DivMight) = 50
HP is 382 base, 562 max
AC is 10 (base) + 9 (armor base) + 3 (shield) + 20 (+4 gear) = 42 AC; 35 with 2H weapon
Has the versatility to go sword/board or 2H with no difference in AB
Dev Crit in TWO weapons
Impressive AB, nearly matching a typical WM build (WM typically is 53 with same buffs/gear)
Can literally pick up any weapon and use it
Decent Fort save
IKD and Imp Disarm for foe-disabling
Dat HP
Evasion, UMD, and Tumble

I mean I know there can be better build, but you have to admit it's rather impressive for being a high-level fighter. I can easily see it doing well in PvE at least, possibly even in PvP (since it's really similar to any melee build when you get down to it). Also, the 2H is not a definite, it's just to show a second weapon can be added with only loosing EWS on it (assuming you want Dev Crit in both weapons).

I'm really tempted to actually try this, but out of curiousity, wouldn't it do better if disarm/improved disarm was taken out and expertise/improved expertise was put in it's place? When did you take the first rogue level?

First Rogue was at 26.

And you could do Expertise and Improved Expertise, however you likely will never hit anything when in Improved Expertise mode and in Expertise you won't hit as often (I know that goes without saying, but typically only WM builds can properly hit things when in Expertise mode). I chose (Improved)Disarm for super happy fun times when using a 2H weapon; you get delicious bonuses to your AB then.

But it's all up to need/interpretation. It was just a 'for fun' thing.

Ok, on a rogue/ftr/wm build, which would be better:

50 AB and 58 AC with 2D6 sneak attack (will have expertise, IKD, imp expertise, power attack, etc)
or
48 AB and 56 AC with Epic Dodge and 7D6 sneak attack (will not have imp expertise or power attack)

It may sound silly, but, I love the 50 AB, however... Epic Dodge....

I guess the question is.... is Epic Dodge really that good? And is 56 AC good enough?

Dex WM is hilariously broken. Screw that 2 AB.

err... it would be 47 AB with epic dodge.... still good?

Given you can pump it even higher with UMD? Yeah, totally. It's more than enough to wreck someone's, or something's, day. Especially if you have an excessively high crit range.

Gonna be rapier, so 10-20 crit range....Did a build out of it, I like it

. Much more versatile than the non Epic Dodge model. TONS more skill points too, so they can corner sneak fairly well also.

Thanks.

bidocks wrote:

Gonna be rapier, so 10-20 crit range....Did a build out of it, I like it

. Much more versatile than the non Epic Dodge model. TONS more skill points too, so they can corner sneak fairly well also.

Thanks.

http://i.imgur.com/vEUY0ne.png

Use this as a template? I designed it for a Drow friend. With a non-ECL race you can make it ten times better.
This build had to choose between Epic weapon Specialization and Crippling strike. If you play a human you can have both.
You also get +90 more hp (30 from +0 CON instead of -2, and 60 from two extra levels)
You also won't suffer having 2 less epic feats, -2 ab and -1Universal save

Yay for humans! *Rant*

Very_Svensk wrote:

You also get +90 more hp (30 from +0 CON instead of -2, and 60 from two extra levels)

How do you get 60 HP in two levels? That's basically the same build I use, with only 250 HP (same 12 Con), and the build you posted has 227 at 30.

Each level gives hp, right?

Example
D10 =10hp/level + con. 10+12 (buffed)* level (30) = 300+ 360 = 660 minus -4 per rogue level (rogue is d6).
That's -4 times (*) level of rogue = 13 * -4 = -52 MINUS Drow con(which is 2 lower.) which is -30 hp plus - 2 levels worth of hp

Oooh. Your expecting a +12 con bonus. That explains it.

...I really wanted an extra 90 HP... :/

Mages aside, I've never put the effort into maxing CON that Very_Svensk does.

For PvP, saves and skills are better; for PvM Regen is better. I don't play enough Paladins, BGs, or single-stat characters(ie pure STR-meleers) to ever find myself with filled up Discipline, Detect skills if used, saves and AC and then have room for attention to CON.

I've got one character, the Bard20/Cleric10, who maxes out Dodge without any boots, so he wears his uberlooted +6 CON shoes for boss fights, casts a Maxed Endurance and has +1CON kicking about somewhere, so he rocks a capped CON, but even so that's mostly to aid the personal challenge of taking any given boss without a Heal.

Bards can't cast endurance! So you must've request it! I seeee through youuuuu!

Anyway.
1 mythal power = 1 con.
1 mythal power = 3 fortitude.
2 mythal powers = 2 con = 1 fortitude, 30hp.
2 mythal powers = 6 fortitude.

What's best is up to you but personally I prefer to not get one-shottes by everything. Hp is the third most important stat after ab and ac,

Cleric 10 is enough for empowered endurance spam til you hit a six.

Trying (again) to build a thrower. It hurts, and I'm pretty sure it needs DC request gear to work well.

That aside, I'm trying to squeeze what AB I can from it (rogue build, so it rather needs it). Keep coming back to the 'good aim' bonus halflings get. That +1 is useful. But I've always been confused by how size modifiers to AB are explained. Small creatures get a bonus to AC against things bigger than they are, correct? And a negative hit to their AB? Or is it just based on size, with no care to what size the opponent is? If they get a negative hit to their AB, good aim just evens that out, which makes it far less attractive.

The NWN wiki link for it: http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Size_modifier

It seems it also applies to spot and listen... Small creatures get a bonus to spot?

Either my understand is really bad here, or it could be presented much better.

Casvenx wrote:

I'm trying to squeeze what AB I can from it (rogue build, so it rather needs it). Keep coming back to the 'good aim' bonus halflings get. That +1 is useful. But I've always been confused by how size modifiers to AB are explained. Small creatures get a bonus to AC against things bigger than they are, correct? And a negative hit to their AB? Or is it just based on size, with no care to what size the opponent is? If they get a negative hit to their AB, good aim just evens that out, which makes it far less attractive.

The way I always understood it:
A halfling has +1 AB for size, +1 AC for size. They also have +1 from Good Aim if using a throwing weapon. They have a +4 for hide, MS, spot, listen.

This all makes sense, in a way: Two small sized creatures would have exactly the same bonuses for opposing values (AB vs AC, hide vs spot), so they act just like we "un-bonused" humans do amongst each other. But a medium sized human against a small sized halfling is lacking that +1 AB/AC, so it's +0 AB vs +1 AC when the human attacks, and +1 AB vs +0 AC when the halfling attacks. (The same for hide/spot with +4/+0.)

Those halflings are simply better at that stuff than normal-sized folks.

Regards
Ts

BornToKill wrote:

Cleric 10 is enough for empowered endurance spam til you hit a six.

You do not use Empower to buff. You use Maximize?!

Very_Svensk wrote:

BornToKill wrote:

Cleric 10 is enough for empowered endurance spam til you hit a six.

You do not use Empower to buff. You use Maximize?!

Generally, yes. But spamming Empower can give you a +6 or +7, which maxmize never will. If you can live with a bit of uncertainty, it's good enough, imho. With empower, you can roll +3, +4, +6 or +7 on the stat buffs. It's exactly the same on average as maxed (but harder to manage), but just two castings of empower give you a nice +6 or more 75% of the time.

It also depends on what you want to do with your spell slots. A Cleric 10 might want to save the Level 5 slots for Warcry/Haste/ImpInvis.

Regards
Ts

You people are often silly. The Cleric10 bit on that build will never cast WarCry/Haste/ImpInvis because that all comes from the Bard20 spellbook. It does, however, have 5th tier spells therefore Maximised versions of level 2 spells like Endurance. The other 5th tier spell goes into Extended Divine Power.

Hah, forgot about that one at fifth. I usually have it at lower tiers

Uberuce wrote:

You people are often silly. The Cleric10 bit on that build will never cast WarCry/Haste/ImpInvis because that all comes from the Bard20 spellbook. It does, however, have 5th tier spells therefore Maximised versions of level 2 spells like Endurance. The other 5th tier spell goes into Extended Divine Power.

Oh.

So I'm rather inexperienced when it comes to anything about builds, tossing this one out there to see if folks have some suggestions.

STR: 16 (22)
DEX: 12
CON: 12
WIS: 8
INT: 14
CHA: 14 (16)

01: Bard(1): Luck of Heroes
02: Bard(2)
03: Bard(3): Knockdown
04: Bard(4): CHA+1, (CHA=15)
05: Bard(5)
06: Bard(6): Extend Spell
07: Bard(7)
08: Bard(8): CHA+1, (CHA=16)
09: Bard(9): Maximize Spell
10: Bard(10)
11: Bard(11)
12: Bard(12): STR+1, Curse Song, (STR=17)
13: Bard(13)
14: Bard(14)
15: Bard(15): Skill Focus: Perform
16: Bard(16): STR+1, (STR=18)
17: Bard(17)
18: Fighter(1): Blind Fight, Improved Critical: Longsword
19: Fighter(2): Weapon Focus: Longsword
20: Fighter(3): STR+1, (STR=19)
21: Fighter(4): Weapon Specialization: Longsword, Epic Weapon Focus: Longsword
22: Fighter(5)
23: Fighter(6): Epic Weapon Specialization: Longsword
24: Bard(18): STR+1, Armor Skin, (STR=20)
25: Bard(19)
26: Bard(20)
27: Bard(21): Epic Skill Focus: Perform
28: Bard(22): STR+1, (STR=21)
29: Bard(23): Lasting Inspiration
30: Bard(24): Great Strength I, (STR=22)

Appraise 5(7), Discipline 33(39), Listen 33(32), Perform 33(49), Spellcraft 33(35), Tumble 25(26), UMD 25(28), remaining skillpoints 25

Right off the bat?

Ditch luck of heroes, replace with expertise. Extend spell is a bit pointless on bard. replace with improved expertise. Skill focus perform is unnecessary, replace with IKD. Ditch armour skin. Literally anything else is better.

Dump remaining skillpoints in "heal".

Extend Spell is awesome on any caster, Bards included. Expertise is horrible. Never ditch Armour Skin unless your character intends to get hit.

Also, Bard25/Ftr5 is the better option. Bard25 immunises you from the various Greater Dispel spamming mobs, and it's the point where Bardsong gives +6AC and Curse gives -6AC, which is something the Ftr6 feat can't give.

(CL 24 is Greater Dispel immune ;D)

But yes, Armor Skin is basically required for real survival. Extend spell is nice on any caster, and Expertise is garbage unless you can guarantee you have the AB to hit when in Expertise mode (spoiler: usually only WMs do).

Expertise is useful if you don't plan on being a frontliner... it can give a nice AC boost when combat attention DOES turn to you, and give your damage dealers enough time to save you. Armor skin is useful enough I put it on almost all my builds.

Knockdown is only useful if you have the AB to back it up. If you aren't planning on being a frontliner, you won't use it much.

Extend spell is always useful, but with that many bard level might not be 'needed'. But it is also useful as spell management.

More importantly, don't take that 17th level of bard pre-epic. Take 4 levels of fighter pre-epic, to make the 16 AB requirement for 4 attacks/round. For survivability I would also make them early in the build, rather then late.

Bard 25 does give an extra AC, bringing it to +6 (or -6 in curse song), which is a nice point, but would cost you a fighter feat. Might not be worth it. If you go 25/5, take the 5th fighter level on a feat level in epic, to net epic weapon spec. I don't know if you really need the perform skill bonuses... Take lasting inspiration as soon as you can though. You could fit it in at level 24.

UMD is only useful in increments of 5, and that is after modifiers. If you get +3 from CHA, you only need 22 to get UMD 25 benefits. Item bonuses to CHA and UMD could make that even lower, 17 would probably be fine. Push tumble to 30, and you've got room for heal (which you should have some of), social skills or more appraise. Or drop a few points from INT into another ability if you don't need/want the skills.

I've tried building mages several times, but always screw up feats and levels, so need some help.

Going for a Wizard/Monk. Beyond that, details get murky. I see her as a conspiracy theorist/alchemist/gnostic/mystic.

Combos I've come up with:
Wiz 26/Monk 3/Ftr 1 (Is a melee wizard survivable without armor/shield?)
Wiz 26/Monk 3/Ranger 1
Wiz 25/Monk 3/Rog 2
Wiz 24/Monk 6 (Would this build get enough AB to make IKD viable?)

I think the weapon would be quarterstaff; does a magic staff count as a quarterstaff?

Looking for general feedback to get going in the right direction.

What's the big deal about Improved Knockdown? It's worthless ~90% of the time.

While most older PC's are IKD Immune due to high discipline, overall most PC's are not. IKD DC is calculated by your Attack bonus + 1d20.
To resist that you need more discipline then your opponent.

A Wm with AB of 51 has 51+1-20 = Between 52-71 in IKD DC. Which means his opponent requires MORE then 71 discipline.

Most end-game geared people have gloves of epic discipline, They give +30.
You get a maximum of 33 from skills. That is 63 in total.
Discipline is increased by strength and most strength based PC's have a 14 modifier (38 Strength buffed). That is 30+33+14 = 77.

And even if the PC is not strength based, they only need 10 or more discipline to add on their gear-score and they will, too, be immune. Most purchase the Rogue's helmet in Amia Forest since it provides +10 Discipline.

That is why most PC's are immune.

Yus, but I was generally just more curious about the use of Improved Knockdown over vanilla knockdown. We can pretty much say the majority of PCs are medium size, and with total knockdown immunity being all too easy as you said, I would personally take IKD only as a last resort.

The difference is adding or removing 4DC on your knockdown score. Or 8, if you face a halfling with IKD.

It's good in PvM because the critters have either Huge size like giants, or middling Discipline so that the extra 4 counts. Mostly the former.

Bards are a special case for KD/Called Shot/Disarm because their Curse Song lowers the target's Discipline; with a pure Bard they lower it by so much that even the ~70 score that Svensk mentioned will drop down to a very vulnerable low 50's.

I've fallen out of love for the fourth attack on 3/4 BAB builds. Unless you're a Cleric with 40AB on your bottom attack, it's going to miss so much that it's really only good for grinding gold and mythals out of the bottom end of the +3/+4 bins. I might be biased since my current main has 9 base attacks, going to 11 with Haste and Flurry, the bottom six or so miss bosses except on a 20.

On a Bard25/Ftr25 build it's probably still worth going 16/4, though. You'd still take the Ftr1 pre-epic for the profs, and still need to take WS, so really you only get to upgrade Ftr2 from pre-epic to epic feat, and the fourth attack is probably worth that.

After all the zillion Bard builds I've done, I think I'm finally able to say: just go pure and let the tanks flock to you.

Bard30 gives your party happy funtime stuffsthat no-one else can, and while KC5 is equally unique in its buffiness, it's also only five levels that can be tacked onto anything with a lick of CHA, so in any decent sized faction or even party, there's probably going to be one there already.

But..but... Is so hard to get max preform on a 3 bard. You need to waste a feat on epic preform

I was thinking about making a Druid, what are must feats a druid should have?

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