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Yo!, I've always wanted to have a 'duelist' type character.. light or no armor, quick, rapier shortsword, etc etc... Would such a thing be possible in game and if so how?
I am told parry is a horrid thing due to you 'ignore attacking' but in all seriousness i find that boring to constantly hunt and hunt some more.

Thoughts?

Last edited by Silvarus on Sun, Mar 09 2014, 12:30 PM, edited 2 times in total.

Yes. I'd go for the standard dexterity based rogue/fighter/WM. It should work as counts-as-duelist just about perfectly. Wear fancy clothes and use a rapier. Add an off-hand dagger for extra authenticity, though you might not have the feats to do that properly.

Parrying isn't necessary.

But parry is broken?

Silvarus wrote:

Yes. I'd go for the standard dexterity based rogue/fighter/WM. It should work as counts-as-duelist just about perfectly. Wear fancy clothes and use a rapier. Add an off-hand dagger for extra authenticity, though you might not have the feats to do that properly.

Parrying isn't necessary.

For feats i was thinking stuff like knockdown, disarm, and a few others. I've never been the greatest builder..

I was hoping to get Deflect arrows but after reading it, it demands a free empty hand to do (which is stupid as i've seen videos of arrows genually being knocked from the air by rapier.)

So past that , i'd probbaly ask the professional builders to help me xD

kalcibone wrote:

Silvarus wrote:

Yes. I'd go for the standard dexterity based rogue/fighter/WM. It should work as counts-as-duelist just about perfectly. Wear fancy clothes and use a rapier. Add an off-hand dagger for extra authenticity, though you might not have the feats to do that properly.

Parrying isn't necessary.

For feats i was thinking stuff like knockdown, disarm, and a few others. I've never been the greatest builder..

I'm pretty sure Opustus or Uce have posted a build like that in the build thread. Most of your feats will go to the weapon master prerequisites, but after that you have a few more to choose from. Knockdown being probably the best of the best.

EDIT: I'd also leave that empty hand there. Dual wielding rapiers looks retarded, and a shield would look silly too, but I am a bit funny with trying to make weapons work as they do in real life in a game that butchers historical arms and armour as badly as DnD does.

Silvarus wrote:

I'm pretty sure Opustus or Uce have posted a build like that in the build thread. Most of your feats will go to the weapon master prerequisites, but after that you have a few more to choose from. Knockdown being probably the best of the best.

EDIT: I'd also leave that empty hand there. Dual wielding rapiers looks retarded, and a shield would look silly too, but I am a bit funny with trying to make weapons work as they do in real life in a game that butchers historical arms and armour as badly as DnD does.

...there is a build thread? *derp* Well never knew that.. happen to have an URL?(I THINK i found it)

I agree on the rapier idea, it would be the best to look and feel of the character.

How exactly is parry broken?

Small shield is also legit for duelismus.

555444333 wrote:

Small shield is also legit for duelismus.

That looks better with a short sword than a rapier though, all swashbuckler style.

The_Last_Helmite wrote:

How exactly is parry broken?

This skill was reduced from its original (pre-release) state and is considerably less effective than it may sound. Parry can only deflect the first attack in each of the three flurries in a round (for example, parrying an opponent with 5 attacks per round will only attempt to block the first, third, and fifth attacks).

Here's my advice and how I would do a duelist.

http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Duelist

No shield, no armor, a rapier / dagger / shortsword in one hand. Pure all-out style.. and a freaking moustache.

Swashbuckling ACP!

I'm kinda glad that prestige class isn't in nwn1.
The amount of people rolling gishes when it's available (wizards) is staggering.

Ha! There is an item called the Duelist's Parrying Dagger in game. Gives TWF, Ambidexterity, +4 AC and +4 Enchantment Bonus.

I say you go all in with Rapier and get one of those to your off hand at some later point. It will be glorious!

One of my mains was a fig/wm/rog spaniard from Amn who used rapiers and was Dex-based. It's very viable and quite a fun build. A few things.

Nothing is out of idiom for a fencer to use a shield. Most people are familiar with Hollywood's terrible and inaccurate portrayal of the fencing fop via Errol Flynn. Sure, random spoiled nobles strutted down streets with a rapier on their hip, but those people were -not- adventurer or soldier-grade fencers that are actually going to serious battle. In history, fencers have been at times employed as actual field troops and trained to fence with a shield called the rotella.

Parry is broken for the simple reason listed above. It more or less is useless on many of an attacker's strikes and at best will only muster a meager riposte. The very nature of the typical fencer rebuild means pathetic damage. You're not sneak attacking, you can't knock the target down. You're just standing there eating the handful of attacks parry isn't even acknowledging while occasionally firing back with pathetic damage, at best hoping for a crit. Mind you things are much worse in that the mode is exponentially more useless as an adventurer simply because you're typically beset with multiple targets and can only parry a grand total of 3 attacks per round ever. It's far more fun (and useful) to buy expertise feats and just emote being a parrying-freak.

Making a good Dex-based F/WM/R isn't too hard. Aim to end at 26 (or more) Dex and Epic Dodge. Get your standard melee feats: Blind-fight, Knockdown, Epic Weapon Focus, Armor Skin, Epic Weapon Specialization, Weapon Master prereqs. My level spread of choice was 6 Fig/5 WM/19 Rog. Take 4 Fig/4 WM before epic levels to gets the most attacks and AB you can. My fencer was also a maxed out master trapper capable of dropping epic traps mid-combat with the rogue feat Skill Mastery which is a nice alternate method to beat something your sword can't. Any build taking WM is going to be feat starved, buying 3 feats to dual wield is going to hurt a lot. I preferred to simply use Balanced Hands for occasions where an extra attack was more beneficial than shield AC.

I would still suggest investing in Parry if you're making a duelist, if nothing else, for the RP of it. Just because it is a sub-optimal stance for now doesn't mean it is completely useless. As well, omitting it doesn't account for changes or fixes we might make in the future, without rebuilding the character.

I am sure some DMs would appreciate the dedication to character and even let you use in some situations where applicable. Why tumble or dodge, when you defect? :wink:

I was hoping someday they might add Invisible blade or duelest in the game but they never did xD so im kinda childishly pouting xD

Dark Immolation wrote:

I would still suggest investing in Parry if you're making a duelist, if nothing else, for the RP of it. Just because it is a sub-optimal stance for now doesn't mean it is completely useless. As well, omitting it doesn't account for changes or fixes we might make in the future, without rebuilding the character.

I am sure some DMs would appreciate the dedication to character and even let you use in some situations where applicable. Why tumble or dodge, when you defect? :wink:

Because I can tumble or dodge, obviously. Not to mention tumbling and dodging actually -do- things for me. It's pretty erroneous actually thinking it makes sense a bit using a rapier to parry in this setting. Using a fencing blade to parry makes sense when you're in a fencing duel, put that fencer up against your typically trained warrior with a longsword and the fight is going to end up with a dead fencer and a confused warrior who thinks he's just fought someone with a mental problem. A weak, spindly "blade" is a terrible weapon for deflecting anything but other little, spindly blades, much less dragon claws and orcish greataxes.

By all means, build however you wish, but I'd rather see a mechanically solid character with a player who was happy behind it than a character that made poor choices and struggles to advance. Because the former will be a character I likely see and interact with tomorrow and months later while the latter will likely end up as a bad, unsatisfying experience that gets abandoned prematurely who leaves me wandering "Whatever happened to that guy you played? He seemed cool." This will always lead me too give the best build advice I can, even if the build concept is awful.

Wow. I'm gonna step back a second and try to sound not as snarky as I feel.

1. It is a fantasy game. The exact moment you try to bring logic of flimsy blades in a word where people break physics on a daily basis, I lose all interest in entertaining that argument. But needless to say, the fact that you can, mechanically ingame, proves such an argument incorrect by default. If that doesnt do it for you, imagine things like mithril and adamantine being fairly avaiable, and the fact that PCs are by no means normal. With enough of what seem to be mundane skills in PnP, you can literally do thinks like walk on air, swim up waterfalls, and climb perfectly smooth surfaces. The game we play is not one based upon common logic, but instead, fantasy and myth.

2. It is kind of pretentious to assume someone cannot be happy with anything but a streamlined, non-optimized build. A good deal of PCs on this server have things that aren't optimal in their builds, build towards their RP, and don't struggle to level. It isn't even that hard to level on Amia for the moment.

3. The key point of my advice, besides the RP aspect, was future changes. As in, there might be things possible in our future that not only makes Parry more worthwhile and not broken, but in the end, it would look downright silly to play a Fencer PC without.

When a person comes to the community and asks for building advice on making a solid character mechanically because admittedly they know little of building and need help, that should be what's given. It's fairly irresponsible to suggest newbies speculate on trap feats and skills as if the game were a stock market. Bad and broken options have been bad and broken for 12+ years and aren't likely to change any time soon. By the logic you champion, why did you stop at parry? Dirty Fighting, Bluff, and Blinding Speed all fit the swashbuckling idiom and are equally terrible wastes of resources.

1. "Cause... MAGIC!" is usually the most common retort said by anyone who realized what they just said or attempted was goofy or absurd. You're welcome to tell an Amian DM you want to swim up a waterfall or deflect a sofa thrown at you by an angry half-orc with your rapier and I wager you're just going to get a funny look and a flat query if you've been drinking. Me? I'd suggest tumbling out of the way. Pointing to some absurd page in some absurd book merely proves editors can drink far heavier than most of us, not that a DM anywhere going to let you do it. I'll wager good money most DMs don't think PCs have super-powers by virtue that their skill rank raised above 23 and would act accordingly to that.

2. All of what you say is true, but hey, some people like to juggle geese too. Unfortunately for your argument, the poster actually did come asking the community in help building a character that was solid mechanically. That's what they wanted and that's what was given. If they wanted something else, they wouldn't have posted asking for good build advice and would merely have continued on as they had before.

3. Rebuilds exist. If all of a sudden Parry, Blinding Speed, Circle Kick, etc become worth taking, you can do that. Taking trap feats and skills on the hope that someday, someone out there is going to do something about them is going to leave you wanting for a very, very long time.

I'm not really looking to debate any of that. All I can say is that if it can be done ingame, then goofy or not, it can be done and suggesting someone following rl logic just because you think it fits is a poor reason. "Cause... MAGIC!" is a completely fine reason in a setting where that is literally the reason behind a lot of things. The fact is, you can parry mode against a dragon, a claymore, an alien with tentacles for a face. You can knock a multi-ton create to its knees with a claw hammer with IKD if you want. We have PCs that one-hand six-foot swords and if you dont believe DMs have allowed PCs to do some pretty extraordinary feats in the past, you only need to look around a bit more.

Regardless, OP has his options laid out for him, and I think scaring people into thinking they have to have an optimized build on the server to survive or be solid does more harm than good. Strawman my suggestion out to Dirty Fighting and Blinding Speed all you want, all I'm saying is I have leveled a Parry-invested PC in the past. Easily. And I would hate to see a skill that has some functionality despite what many say about it go unused or a character concept which would highly benefit from it. No one is saying forgo Tumble or even max out Parry.

Quote:

I would still suggest investing in Parry if you're making a duelist, if nothing else, for the RP of it.

That's the bit that makes no sense to me since Parry Mode's marked inferiority to normal combat isn't OOC. It's a real IC facet of the Amian universe (your objection of using RL logic doesn't apply - the reasons Parry is crap have nothing to do with fencing on Earth) that focussing on making Ripostes means you instantly become incompetent at swordfighting, which would seem to run contrary to the goal of becoming an ace fencer. Why would any character spend time trying to learn it? It'd be like trying to become the next Usain Bolt by running backwards.

A question: Duelist! yes or no?

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