Okay... I've tried to sift through the information on Shifters, but honestly, I'm still baffled.

I found a build... 5 druid/6 rogue/19 shifter, but... I can only guess the pre epic breakdown is:
5 rogue
5 druid
10 shifter

Then there's abilities.... I understand that the higher of the abilities comes thruogh, but you still need INT for skills. Okay... so if I built STR and CON heavy.... should be good?

I had a thought about going Risen Lord Shifter form specific. Does taking scythe feats help? Also, if I start as a rogue, I can get 8 wis and be dispel resistant, yes? I know most take Wisdom as a shifter, but... does the undead shape require it on Amia? It doesn't in vanilla NWN.

~signed~
Confused.

Undead Shape does not have an WIS requirement; you only need to be an epic shifter (you can take Undead Form at level 21 on a shifter level).
Your base STR and CON (and DEX) won't matter when shifted unless they are higher than the form's STR and CON (Risen Lord has 20 STR, 10 DEX, 30 CON).
Scythe feats would help, considering Risen Lord doesn't get any feats for scythe at all.
Risen Lord's AB is also trash and taking rogue over a full BAB class won't make it much better. Risen Lord's role is primarily DR and HP tanking, though there are builds to make it more formidable.

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Melsa

There are horrors beyond life's edge that we do not suspect,
and once in a while, man's evil prying calls them just within our range.

As said - no need to have high wis for Undead shape. Also if you go for risen lord, there is really no need to go with 19 shifters, cause you can get risen lord at shifter level 10 (if taken on 21st lvl with general feat) and I don't really think that Risen lord needs high AC.

With Risen lord I would go either with high str (dev crit on scythe, but with rogue your AB will be really low), or maybe high con (epic dmg reduction + risen lord reduction = soaking dmg and not being hurt physically + use elemental shield = damage others for poking you). If you go for reduction I would use barbarian or dwarven defender as they have even more reductions.

You could also think about other epic shifts, but that really requires high wis, meaning your other stats might be kinda bad (but since most shifts have better stats than your unshifted char, it does not matter build-wise), but it would fit more that 5-6-19 build (but not dragon shape, that is I think, easier and better to get from druid).

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Zendaer Amattis
Torgon Crimsonshade
Khalid Athanalo
CET time zone

I'm not locked into that build.. the barbarian sounds kinda cool.... hmm

Yeah, one more thing.

Risen lord is undead, which means:
- you cant drink healing potions
- since you are shifted you cant use healer's kits
- all heals and spells used against undead will damage you

So be prepared for that not only system-wise but also for that shock when you are in group of monsters with just 4 hp left

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Zendaer Amattis
Torgon Crimsonshade
Khalid Athanalo
CET time zone

Yeah. Speaking as a player with Shifter experience on Amia. Your best friend is Regeneration gear. There's plenty of them out there, too. Can easily get 11 Regeneration per-round. But that means you'll really need all the best items.

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I would recommed checking out 15 Barb/5 Druid/10 Shifter.

Keypoints would be Dev crit scythe, Terrifying rage(+ all the other fun Barb rages that you get for free with 15 levels) and Risen Lord from Undead form.

The 25 Str should give you some boost to AB and Taunt should lower creeps AC enought for you to score hits fairly easy.

As far as RP goes; Druid(whetever you chose to play the char as one or not), Shifter and Barbarian all seem very "primal" type of classes, so mixing them should be easy enought.

I can look more in to the builds specifics later if you're interested

Shifter/rogue isn't really any good since shifter forms that get sneak attack don't stack with shifter. You're better off giong assassin if you go this rouge because death attack dice will stack with it. An interesting build to play with would be Druid 5/Shifter10/Assassin15 since you can stack int and still get all of the wraith form death attacks, but the best shifter build in nwn is druid5/shifter19/Monk6. However if you go this route you have to be very careful how you utilize buffs, because there are certain bugs that if taken advantage of are exploits, for that reason I recommend against playing this build, as certain class features can to easily broken when combined in the wrong ways and I don't think our dev team have figured out how to fix them yet since NWN can be so wonky.

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Gerald Edmund
Discord: Metal Viking Guy #5433

DC taxation is theft!

Been thinking of the build bobo mentions, with high int and assassin levels. 5 druid/19 shifter/6 x would always work. The last class is for flavoring the shapes mostly. You can also focus on certain shapes that naturally comes with a certain levels of shifter, no matter your wis scores, like epic minotaur at level 13 shifter, or kobold at level 17. Then build for dev crit, or whatever you see fit.

An example is a dwarven defender/shifter that focuses on azer (outsider) shape and has temper issues. Flame on! Axe swinging, fiery dwarf heading your way.

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Personally I would say it comes down what shifts or gameplay you like / expect from shifter...

Some people like to change shifts a lot to get different playstyles in one character. (take lot of shifter lvls and maybe more than 1 epic shift)
Some like specific role and find shift(s) that fit their idea. (build for that, if you want risen lord, do it!)
Some just like certain shapes more and try to go with some universal build, that would work. (find them and use them and add something nice that works with all - more utility/defense/attack)

I personally like certain shifts and my shifter is mostly built around that idea.

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Zendaer Amattis
Torgon Crimsonshade
Khalid Athanalo
CET time zone

I'll just add two things that I believe you will want to know if you want to play Risen Lord.

First: RL is vulnerable against bludgeoning damage. So if you will meet anything with bludgeoning and you are going for that non-AC build, you'll get smashed. Since your only way to heal yourself in RL is regeneration + vampiric on scythe, bludgeoning is your worst nightmare Even the DR build with DwD (which should be one with the most DR) cant survive for long.

Second : There ARE monsters with weapon property On-Hit: Kill undead.

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