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

serbiris wrote:

+10% chance to do double damage is nothing to sneeze at. With your buffs, including Endurance, Premonition, Imp Invis, getting hit and damaged is less of an issue than the advantage of increased damage output, and if spellswords lack anywhere (aside from being useless without prep time) it's there. Imp crit is pretty much essential for any melee build along with blindfight, KD and weapon focus. An extra 30 HP isn't bad but additional damage output will make it less likely that you'll need the extra health when it comes down to the wire.

This.

Toughness is a feat many people hate. I personally like it, especially on a build that lacks substantial hit die. However, in this instance, I will agree with serbiris. In a scenario, all things being equal, fighting a clone, the guy who deals 2x damage more frequently is going to win over the guy who takes a single 30 HP hit once more.

Starting my first Cleric, so need lots of help. Visualize her as a mystic, chanting zen healer but who can defend herself with a moment's thought.

Have deity and domains worked out, now need the rest.

I've read 25 Cleric / 4 Ftr / 1 Rog is a common effective build. Sounds ok but I don't see her as much of a fighter.

Don't want her to be completely useless either, I suppose fighter levels could work. But what else meshes well with Cleric?

Are Divine Strength and Divine Armor feats worth taking and investing points in CHA for? One or the other or both?

I see her taking Divination SF for rp flavor. Would SF Evoc be useful due to large number high level of Evoc spells? Any other SF recommendations?

Just a bit of direction with initial concept then I'll see what I come up with for the real critique. Thanks.

EarthDreamer wrote:

Starting my first Cleric, so need lots of help. Visualize her as a mystic, chanting zen healer but who can defend herself with a moment's thought.

Have deity and domains worked out, now need the rest.

I've read 25 Cleric / 4 Ftr / 1 Rog is a common effective build. Sounds ok but I don't see her as much of a fighter.

Don't want her to be completely useless either, I suppose fighter levels could work. But what else meshes well with Cleric?

Are Divine Strength and Divine Armor feats worth taking and investing points in CHA for? One or the other or both?

I see her taking Divination SF for rp flavor. Would SF Evoc be useful due to large number high level of Evoc spells? Any other SF recommendations?

Just a bit of direction with initial concept then I'll see what I come up with for the real critique. Thanks.

What build you should go with, mechanically, depends a lot on deity and the domains you intend to choose. Domains tend to lend themselves toward a certain style of play or another. However, there are lots of routes to go with Cleric; though, in my recommendation, you always want to invest as many cleric levels as possible.

I've got 2 clerics: One Cleric 29 / Ranger 1 auto-quicken caster cleric. And one Cleric 23 / Divine Champion 6 / Bard 1 melee cleric.

The melee cleric has 20 Wisdom and 18 Charisma and makes very good use of Divine Might and Divine Shield (getting to 70 AC hasted with it up).

As RA noted above me, these two builds are VERY dependent on the domain choices available to them.

Cleric domains are Protection and Travel.

It'd be tough to play an offensive caster cleric, I'm terrible at hitting all the right buttons fast. But there are a lot of nice looking Evoc spells...
Is there a buffer-type cleric? I can see her fighting unarmed or simple quarterstaff, almost makes me want to take some monk levels, but she's CN, so can't do that.

With those domains, what makes the most sense?

I do like the Divine Champion levels instead of fighter, that fits better. But doesn't Cleric 24 give dispell immunity?

Cleric 24 does give the dispel immunity. The 23 / 6 / 1 was a compromise I made to maintain 4 attacks per round when the Divine Power change hit. Previously it was 25 / 4 / 1.

Protection and Travel would definitely lend itself toward the melee cleric type. As for buffer clerics, I suppose it's possible. It's losing out on a lot of their benefits over Wizard/Sorcerer though. Most of their buffs are short term self-buffs. If you're doling out the buffs to others, you're only using half the class.

Trying to figure out a build, think I've got it. The goal is to have a tri-rage barbarian on a dwarf. The epic damage resistance feats are there to make him more tanky. Should be able to drop them for dev if it will make the build better. Let me know if I'm missing something

Earth Genasi Dwarf
Barbarian 24
Fighter 4
Rogue 2

Str:19(25)
Dex:8
Con:19(21)
Wis:6
Int:12
Cha:6

Pre-Epic: Weapon focus, Power attack, cleave, great cleave, improved crit, blind fight, toughness
Epic: Epic weapon focus, Epic damage resistance 1,2,3, Great Str, Mighty rage, Terrifying rage, Thundering rage.

Thoughts?

Solvaras wrote:

Trying to figure out a build, think I've got it. The goal is to have a tri-rage barbarian on a dwarf. The epic damage resistance feats are there to make him more tanky. Should be able to drop them for dev if it will make the build better. Let me know if I'm missing something

Earth Genasi Dwarf
Barbarian 24
Fighter 4
Rogue 2

Str:19(25)
Dex:8
Con:19(21)
Wis:6
Int:12
Cha:6

Pre-Epic: Weapon focus, Power attack, cleave, great cleave, improved crit, blind fight, toughness
Epic: Epic weapon focus, Epic damage resistance 1,2,3, Great Str, Mighty rage, Terrifying rage, Thundering rage.

Thoughts?

Only problem I see is genasi. Never worth it, unless you're gonna get high will, IMO. But with those three combination of classes, you can't get much lower will. Any cleric with evo focus (many) or wiz/sorc with abjur focus will kill you instantly. Will save dc 37-40 or die. Mindblank doesn't work either.

Also personally I'd go for dev crit. Would allow you to drop con to 20 and put str back at 26, and free up one more feat for you. Armor skin maybe? Of course if you decided not to go genasi it'd mess with your abilities some.

Con 21 is required for mighty rage, and making him a genasi is the only way I can see to get all three rages. Will saves shouldn't be that bad with the increases you get through raging, though it is a weak point.

Cleave and Great Cleave become almost an annoyance after getting your fourth attack per round (APR), although it does make your career of Hulk Smash easier early on. At least take KD instead of Great Cleave, because you'll be sorry if you don't.

So dropping great cleave for knockdown. Would dropping cleave be worth it for either iron will or great fort?

It's a matter of taste, I suppose. Cleave and Power Attack can be attained from the Paws of the Bear for levelling up and post-epic max dammuge to monsters, so I'd probably ditch PA and Cleave altogether. Granted I'd choose EDR III over the other goodies on sale. But that's up to you.

If you aren't going Dev Crit, then I'd drop the 25 Str to 24, and boost Int to 13. Then I'd swap power attack, cleave, and great cleave for knockdown, disarm, and improved disarm.

Cleave got removed from Paws of the Bear quite a while ago.

The trinity of raging is a mad path, for sure. STR 25 is required for Thundering, alas.

Still figuring out this cleric build. I don't see her as a melee cleric, she's too tranced-out to be a decent fighter.

I'm thinking more caster/summoners type. And I'm considering Aasimar sub-race to represent that not-quite-of-this-world air she has, a little too "out there". Is it a pain-in-the-ass to take an "outsider" sub-race? Too easily killed? Could have her be spacey without the Outsider component.

Cleric 27 Bard 1 Ranger 1
domains: Protection, Travel

Not sure about the 3rd class. Like Master Scout but not crazy about the 2 pre-req feats, so instead considering Ranger to represent the same idea of lone survivalist. And Bard is for Tumble, UMD and to represent trance chanting.

I'm terrible picking feats. But here's a shot:

pre-epic: Cleric 20
1: Extend spell, SF: evoc
3: Empower spell
6: SF: conj
9: Maximize spell
12: GSF: evoc
15: GSF: conj
18: Craft wand

epic:
21: EMD
24: ?
27: ?

Cleric 23/26: Armor skin, ESF: evoc
Ranger 1: ESF: conj

Thanks for checking it out.

As Glim pointed out, this is probably best posted here:

What are the AC bonuses and other miscellaneous rules for a druid who has no shifter levels, using dragon shape?

Specifically:

Does the monk unarmed APR work in dragon shape?
What AC bonuses does a dragon shaper without shifter levels get? Do I get the +20 dodge listed on the wiki? Do I get no AC bonus?
What pieces of gear merge? I think all of them do, but, for example, if I had a druid with a +4 tower shield, would it merge to give +7 AC whilst in dragonshape?

Any other odd pieces of info I might not know about from the wiki or from the "Classes and Feats" modification post on the forums?

Monk UBAB works.
AC - you only get the 5/10/15 levels +1 AC (i -think-), not the WIS bonuses.
Gear - no clue. Check the shifter spreadsheet etc, i never could figure out how some of the item merging nuances work (like shields).

Last edited by MisterLich on Fri, Sep 12 2014, 8:30 AM, edited 1 time in total.

For AC, I know monk wisdom-based AC doesn't work, but traditionally dragonshape gets +20 dodge when you polymorph - the wiki states so, and that's been what I've experienced when using dragonshape before. But, do you still get that bonus on Amia?

Also I just recently have been reading/asking some people, and I'm confused as to how gear merges on dragonshape in Amia. I was under the impression it only merges armor (meaning helmet, armor, shield), and that's it - and it only uses the highest AC bonus, as a deflection bonus, it doesn't include all of them. This means that a +4 chain shirt and +1 large shield will merge to produce +8 deflection AC, leaving the large shield's AC out. Can an experienced shifter tell me exactly how gear merges in dragonshape? That's the only shapeshifting feat I care about.

For the other questions, thanks for the answers ^^

I doubt it, since it doesn't say so on the spreadsheet (which lists other properties and stats). The forms are all pretty much remade from scratch.

The base value of armour doesn't merge, so a +5 pair of socks would wind up better than a +1 Panzer tank(base armour over 9000, max DEX bonus 0.01) however, since all the mergey stuff is Deflection, and all the bonus is Dodge, your casting of Barkskin will still grant +5 natural AC.

If you're thinking: wow, that means I really ought to wear a Kumakawa since the feat merges, then you brain well.

Uberuce wrote:

The base value of armour doesn't merge, so a +5 pair of socks would wind up better than a +1 Panzer tank(base armour over 9000, max DEX bonus 0.01) however, since all the mergey stuff is Deflection, and all the bonus is Dodge, your casting of Barkskin will still grant +5 natural AC.

If you're thinking: wow, that means I really ought to wear a Kumakawa since the feat merges, then you brain well.

I understand everything except the part that says "all the bonus is dodge". Then I will indeed get +20 dodge AC, like in vanilla NwN, when using dragon shape on Amia as a druid?

All the bonus from the shape itself, sorry. It's been so long since I either operated or ran with a Dragon that I can't be sure, but it is ringing bells that they get no AC from Haste and Bardsong etc.

EarthDreamer wrote:

Shoptalk

Greater Ruin is a personal favourite of mine, although everyone else hates it. I mean, some 150 points of unavoidable, on-the-spot damage to some filthy sneaky sneak who can otherwise dodge the bulk of your output? It was even given a minor buff with the halved damage reduction from Negative Energy Protection. Other strong candidates would be Epic Fortitude or Epic Skillz, since I hope you picked up Spot with that Ranger.

Greater Ruin is positive damage, not negative. Thus, it received no indirect buff when Negative Energy Potions were nerfed. Hellball did.

Oh wait, sidebar. Amnesia. I hate myself. I'm sorry world. I blame Uce. /wrist

What's the BoT effect?

IronAngel wrote:

What's the BoT effect?

Changes the double-damage aspect of GR from Construct (default), to Undead.

wolfurt wrote:

IronAngel wrote:

What's the BoT effect?

Changes the double-damage aspect of GR from Construct (default), to Undead.

Which, may I add, gives a caster a massive boon for bosses like Vampire and Pirate.

Last questions about dragonshape

Can you cast while in dragonshape (I cannot remember this part of vanilla dragonshape)? I think you can't, but like I said, I can't remember.

Aaaaand lastly, if I were to cast barkskin or some other AC spell, and then polymorph into dragonshape, the AC bonus from those spells would still work, and not be converted into deflection and screwed up, correct? Because it's not gear merging, right?

You can't cast while shifted and any buffs maintain their buffs once shifted, but typical stacking rules apply.

Does anyone have any unique builds that involve 20 monk levels?

Define Unique?

There's a lot of cool monk builds. Monk itself is a cool class.

I rather like Monk25/Blackguard4/Assassin1. Decent spell resistance, lots of monk powers and aura of despair lowers target saves vs stunning fist by 2, making the already formidable will save required to make it even more troublesome. Not to mention the fact that you get to throw out 6 attacks a round with decent damage.

There's also a few others. Monk10/SD10/Blackguard10 is a decent epic dodger with good ol' monk saves and sneak attack.

Ranger10/Blackguard16/Monk4
Rogue13/BG16/Monk1
Monk20/SD6/Blackguard4
Monk19/SD6/Rogue 5
Rogue13/Monk9/WM
Fighter14/Monk9/WM7
Wizard21/Monk1/WM7
Wizard24/Monk1/WM5

Monk is one of those amazing classes that never gets old.

Thanks, Bob. Never been into Blackguards, but I'll look into some of these builds more.

bobofwestoregonusa wrote:

stunning fist ... will save

Important to note that stunning fist, unless Amia changed it and it isn't listed on the forums, is a fortitude save, one of the more common saves that people buff up. It's hard to catch a decently geared epic character with stunning fist, unless you're a WIS focused build and/or do something like what Bob suggested to decrease their saves.

bobofwestoregonusa wrote:

Wizard21/Monk1/WM7

This should be a taboo, Bob. Not to be talked about -.-

I had a barrel o'fun with a Monk21/DwD5/Ftr6 way back in the day before the quarterstaff tweak came along, so nowadays it'd be ever nastier with a stick in its hand. It's got the AB problem that all Monks do, so bossfighting is a chore without a Bard or Taunter (or both) but it's a freight train against mobs - highish AC, immunities ahoy and a torrent of DPS.

On the subject of the AB problem, I've been toying with the idea of a Monk20/Cleric9/Rogue1. I've played a Bard20/Cleric10 with great success - the way the numbers shake out it's as fearsome as a heavy duty battlepriest in a toe-to-toe duel, but with the Mass Haste/Bardsong party buffing that they lack. Divine Power doesn't scale with caster level except in duration, which makes for vicious bossfighting ability. The ability synergy is pretty much of muchness; on a Bard the WIS is kinda wasted, on the Monk it's the CHA but neither are getting pumped that high.

Uberuce wrote:

I had a barrel o'fun with a Monk21/DwD5/Ftr6

Why does Uce get more levels than me?

I'm thinking of rebuilding my 10 Rogue/20 Shadowdancer.

Instead of a typical rebuild just to get rid of the 7 year decay of not optimising his build much, I was thinking of running 5 Rogue/5 KC/20 SD. Is this possible, if so, how would I micromanage my build to get the reqs?

I don''t think that combination is possible- SD requires level 7 for the 10 in skills, and KC requires more BaB than you'll have with 5 rogue. (It could work as a ranger, but that's probably not what you want.)

Yeah, thought it wouldn't work.

Guess fine-tuning is my plan then!

I don't even have epic dodge.

GreatPigeon wrote:

Uberuce wrote:

I had a barrel o'fun with a Monk21/DwD5/Ftr6

Why does Uce get more levels than me?

Ftr4, blergh. Hungover. Monk20/Dwd6/Ftr4 give the wee scrap of DR in trade for 1SR and 10% speed, which is a tough call to make.

Are there items with +sneak attack available? Trying to manage a SD without rogue levels.

Hi Amians,

I have a Kelemvor Doomguide character I am looking to rebuild or start from scratch as I want to move away from a charisma based divine feat build.
Current build can be found here http://www.amiaworld.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=75806 for reference.

There are a few things I want from the build

:arrow:

Must be able to craft potions and wands (for wands of death ward and potions of bless weapon for starters)
:arrow:

Must have lots of Fortitude save (so have build in great fortitude and epic fortitude)
:arrow:

Must have have epic weapon spec bastard sword (the bastard sword being the favoured weapon of Kelemvor so I have to take the stupid exotic weapon feat

)

Prefer to have starting dexterity of 12 to get full AC from full plate that can't be dispelled.

Tried about ten different versions using different attributes and feats and this is what I have so far, could use some feed back on it so thank you in advance for your considerations.

------------------------------------------
HUMAN (LN or LG), 24 CLERIC/5 FIGHTER/1 ROGUE

Strength: 14 (16)
Dexterity: 12
Constitution: 14
Wisdom: 15 (20)
Intelligence: 14
Charisma: 8

1 Fighter: Exotic Weapon, Luck of Heroes, Strong Soul
2 Fighter: Weapon Focus Bastard Sword
3 Fighter: Great Fortitude
4 Fighter: Weapon Specialisation Bastard Sword
5-27 Cleric;
(6) Blind Fight
(9) Extend Spell
(12) Maximise Spell
(15) Brew Potion
(18) Craft Wand
(21) Epic Focus Bastard Sword
(24) Epic Fortitude
(27) Epic Spell Mummy Dust, Armour Skin
28 Rogue: Tumble dump 30 UMD 16 (only need 15 but to take into account negative Charisma Mod)
29 Cleric: -
30 Fighter: Epic Weapon Specialisation

Level 30 skill allocations
Concentration: 33
Discipline: 33
Tumble: 30
UMD: 16
Unallocated: 29 (undecided on how to spend these but key skills are covered)

Falling Spider wrote:

Are there items with +sneak attack available? Trying to manage a SD without rogue levels.

There are, but only +1d6.

There's a cute bow with 2d6 too.

I haven't seen the cloak with 1d6 Sneak drop or on sale in the usual vendors for ages, dunno if it's been taken out of the bins.

The rest of the items have alignment restrictions except for a dagger, but that's almost a worse restriction unless you're speccing in them already.

VitalTouch: I've recently played Clerics without Divine Might/Shield, but they were both casters pumping WIS and going for high spell DCs. Waaay back in the day (before summon nerfs and the server split) I had a melee treehugger gnome Cleric, but that could turn his EDK into an engine of lag-exploiting destruction so it didn't matter a jot that he was missing out on so much powah.

I can't see it being desperately hard to level up, just not as smooth* running as a CHA-user.

*smooth aside from the staccato Might/Shield refreshing, which is far and away my least favourite part about it.

With the cleric you have 3 "options".

You can do a pure melee cleric like the banites used to run with only up to 6th level spells because of low wisdom and stacked strength.

You can do the charisma/wis which gives 20 wis and 18 charisma normally.

Or you can do pure wis caster.

The first one has insane ab and damage, but no spells and gets boring imho.
The second one is my personal favorite because I like to go full bore holier than thou for 10 rounds at a time many times throughout the day and I usually play leader type characters who need the charisma.
The third gives the best party friend and clericy type of cleric.

The first is probably a lot weaker with the Divine Power nerf. I actually made something similar on a drow, Str cleric of Selvetarm, but made 20 wis (took Greater Ruin instead of EMD because I paired up with a mage and we wanted to synchronised-GR people we hated - but EMD is the smarter choice), not sure what her total strength was but 20-something. It managed 52+ AB with all the buffs running, and with Strength domain I could easily Extended Divine Power through near every fight for the 15 minutes until rest (and fill the gap with extended DF/prayers/battletides when the hunts ran long). AC was lame though, I didn't fit cha (or tumbledump) in like the noob I was (literally first planned NWN build ever). A proper built str cleric probably outperforms but I enjoyed the versatility for RP purposes.

I once made a dex cleric with 40 dex and 16 wis. Had 70 ac with expertise and haste. If not in expertise mode, with buffs running, hit 55 ab. Only 3 apr, but, wow, she took on big burly wm's and beat 'em. Unbuffed had 42 ab and 55 ac!

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