I sort of feel the bard thing ruins more than it gives. I cant make myself do a bard with less than 10 cha either, preferably it should be 12, but is those 3 extra AC from tumble really worth it? If I rather went wizard, I could do this:
Str 14
Dex 16
Con 12
Wis 12
Int 14
Cha 8
And still use allmost every scroll in the game and some other stuff, but get 3 less AC from tumble. Or are there other nice things about Bard that I forget in this process?
My intention with this char is more a sort of a bow using merc who will be quite dependant on a party or high ground. I do not intend to make him very usefull in melee, and the spot thing was more to hinder SD's from massacring his party members, and expose spies.
_________________ "Edwin do this, Edwin do that. Somebody get this jerk a banana!" - Edwin, BG II
Valygar 'Stonesnake' Stark -Human Ranger Garret Smith - Archer and peddler of deity-statuettes Dáin Saltbeard - Dwarven sailor and fencer. No, I'm not joking.
Oh great and wise build monkeys! I beg your assistance!
Remember the question about the drow shifter/assassin? Well, I tried using drow and have decided I don't like them. Something about being an elf, dunno why, keep having dreams about movie-Elrond glaring at me and that's a nasty glare.
Decided to switch to a Svirfneblin instead. This was also motivated by the failure of my Gnome Illusionist and Halfling Monk, so... any advice on feats?
5 levels of druid will not be RPed as anything but growing up 'wild' in the Underdark and the spells will be either dumped or RPed as an addition to the default Svirfneblin abilities.
Will be devoted to Underdark shapes and to oozes and jellies. Wanted to make him a part of the Ghaunadaur cult that seems to be going well. If he is a shifter then he will hopefully be a bit of a spy/assassin which will be hard with the Cha. beating I'd take.
So... throw it at me... I'd like to take as many Epic shapes as I can realistically; including Undead shape, Outsider shape... Construct Shape reskinned as a Bone Ooze perhaps? Shower me with your wisdom, i need something that will give me moderate fighting abilities as well as 6 levels of Assassin.
MASSIVE EDIT: 6 levels of assassin, not 8. C'mon, help!
I'm guessing you'll need druid5/15shifter/8assassin since you NEED 5 levels of druid to go shifter and you WANT 8 assassin levels.
The Incognitos wrote:
MASSIVE EDIT: 6 levels of assassin, not 8. C'mon, help!
druid5/17shifter/6assassin?
That's the good (better) kobold shape. Undead shape is no problem at all. But beyond that you must make the decision if you want insanely high and sadly useless Wisdom or not.
If you start with 20 WIS, you can get to 26 at level 24 and take Outsider then. For construct shape (WIS 27), you need Great WIS feats. (Unless you go 5/16/7 and take Shifter 16 on Level 28 after the final stat increase. Not a good idea, though, just take that Great WIS.) So, if you want Construct, just take some Great WIS. Epic feats would then be Undead, Great WIS, Outsider, Construct. You have one more, not sure what it would be, maybe Epic Prowess as it fits combat shifters. Armor skin is also nice. Then your build is settled. Besides WIS you would want CON, I guess, as it is not overwritten by almost all good shapes.
Dragonshape is hard and would mean using most epic feats for it. (Either 5/16/7 with 20 WIS going to 27 at level 28, taking great WIS 1,2,3 and Dragon Shape, leaving only one epic feat. Or 5/17/6 with 26 WIS at level 24, Great WIS 1,2,3,4 and the second shifter bonus feat at level 27 is Dragonshape. No spare feats, but epic kobold shape.) It is the best shape, of course, but I heard they have small tunnels in the UD ...
If you want the high WIS shapes, you should also be a Zen archer and be able to hit things when NOT shifted. Add high spot, even though spotting is bad when shifted because the skill bonuses don't merge very well into your forms. (Or rely on your true-seeing forms to spot things. That tends to work well ;)
The other route is to take WIS 13 and some useful stat instead. Snirfneblin doesn't help much with -2 STR and -2 CON, but maybe a decent amount of CON would let your epic gargoyle be an okay meatshield?
You would still have Undead and epic kobold shape (with a total od 8d6 sneak with 6 assassin levels), which both have a nice dark feel to it. The spectre and the epic kobold are also as sneaky as it gets for shifters. (Remember: You will still not have the equivalent of +50 gear, so any dedidacted spotter will spot you.) You also get the standard set of epic feats this way (3 from level ups, and one spare shifter feat which offers little to you, maybe epic energy resistance.) You wouldn't fight much unshifted, although you could pick up the usual set of Wepon foci for the short sword and use that outside with a medium STR or DEX. (High DEX would be overriden by the sneaky shapes anyway, medium STR at least carries over to kobold shape ...)
Oh, did I mention that I'm still advocating the idea of a Druid/Shifter/BG with divine might? ... Not sure if it's good, but it can't be much worse either. You would completely lose Move silently, though, or have at most 15 in it. (As a kobold or spectre, that would be about 30 MS, enough to avoid people with 0 listen. MS is bad anyway when shifted, as it's much harder to buff with spells than Hide.)
Umm ... That might not answer your questions, but there's your choice basically, I think.
Regards
Ts
edit: slight typo fix for dragonshape, as pointed out by belgianbonzai. nothing really changed, though.
_________________ Ralghok & Hazamir "The Weasel"
Last edited by Ts_ on Wed, Apr 22 2009, 14:09 PM, edited 1 time in total.
Oh, did I mention that I'm still advocating the idea of a Druid/Shifter/BG with divine might? ... Not sure if it's good, but it can't be much worse either.
I once started one once. Divine might/shield, in order to boost the AC without monk.
However, the AB is quite low, so you wont hit much, which is a shame for a short term buff like divine might.
Divine shield is not that uber either, as you already have a high dodge AC in most shapes. So you will max the dodge out, but stay on a sub-par AC, which is useless when you go flatfooted.
With all BG weapon buffs, you do can get nice weapons though, I think highest I went was Lvl42 scythe on the risen lord. But that was with some redundant stats combined (+4 weapon, +1 from BG widgets, +5 from scythe....). So it looked very epic, but it's not going to save your ass.
When the new shifter shapes arrive I might recreate him however, basing the spare feats on the new shape-stats.
Also the way you promoted him Dragonshape wont work, as you told him to take it on lvl 29 which he doesn't have as a smurf
---
5-17-6 is the best division of classes for svirf-shifters
6 being assassin, rogue, SD, bard or monk for a tumbledump and gaining the epic humanoid shapes.
If you go SD, you might however choose to go
5-16-7; as you will get HIPS that way, and you can use your non-kobold shapes for HIPS-abusing.
start normal, max wisdom, good amount of INT for skillpoints (unless you make a shifter specialized to one shape, a decent amount of skill-dumps will get you further then if you have a halfassed CON/STR/DEX, imo)
For 5/16/7SD follow this:
20 wisdom = 25wis at lvl 20.
21 26 wis
22
23 27 wis
24 28 wis + undead or outsider shape (i suggest a hipsing raksasha, as they get some nice hide/ms bonus)
25
26
27 29 wis
28 30 wis 16th shifter level = dragonshape
Taking one of the other classes for tumbledump:
with monk, you can do the same thing as previous, 7 monk will get you some really nice stuff, even if the monk AC is disabled...
If you do not go dragonshape:
go 5/17/6; make it so you can take undead and outsider shape (not necessarily in that order) and lower your start wis to open up for more INT or so... alternatively, if you don't want epic shapes, spread over CON and INT, and just take undead shape.
(edit: added the monk-dragonshape comment)
_________________ Click here for the navis & lukavi portraitpacks preview & download.
Last edited by belgianbonzai on Wed, Apr 22 2009, 17:41 PM, edited 1 time in total.
Thanks for the info on the divine might Shifter! That saves me some work ...
The hipsing dragon looks interesting. However, without sneak attacks, the main point of HIPS in combat seems to be to break the opponent's attack chain as often as possible. As you wrote: "HIPS-abusing". Besides, what's the Amia policy on Hips? Do you have to be near any shadow or near a shadow that is of a similar size as yourself? A tiny shadow cast by some flower probably doesn't help a medium sized SD either. Dragonshape is of course nice anyway, even if you don't HIPS in it.
About the Rakshasa: With the current setup of the shapes, the Rakshasa's main weapon (ice storms) would be very weak on a Druid 5. 3d6 physical + 3d6 cold damage, I suppose.
*sighs* It's a shifter ... Yeah, go dragonshape, it's the best, and rakshasa is probably not that bad to have, either.
Alright, so I have a 13th level dwarf (fighter 8/ Dwarven Defender 5) I'm going towards Dev crit and plan on taking one more level of fighter in epic for epic weapon specialization. I have 2 more pre-epic feats left, what should I take? Here's what I have:
power attack
cleave
great cleave
dodge
toughness
imp. crit.
blindfight
knockdown (from ring of the ram)
weapon focus (dwarven war axe)
weapon specialization (dwarven war axe)
and Exotic weapon proficiency.
Any help is appreciated. Also, if there is something I'm overlooking with this build let me know. I know it's not the greatest build, but it's nice and dwarven.
I have thought about it. Is IKD really worth it? I suppose it gives me the chance to knock giants over, but other than that. . . well I guess it's not bad to essentially get a +4 to knock down. Is that the winner then? Are there any other feats pre-epic that I should consider before IKD?
I think this is a good bet. Although Kegs doesnt have either of those. im trying to remember what i have. oh wait, hes a WM, so i have those useless feats.
speaking of which, does expertise AC stack with DWD stance AC?
_________________ "Earnest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part."
My intention with this char is more a sort of a bow using merc who will be quite dependant on a party or high ground. I do not intend to make him very usefull in melee, and the spot thing was more to hinder SD's from massacring his party members, and expose spies.
Going Wiz will make your Plan A better - you'd go WhateverYouLikeWithFullBAB10/Wiz1/AA19 and get that extra point of AA damage and AB, so you can open fire on zero notice and might well drop someone so fast they don't have time to do anything worthwhile. If they only have 250HP or so they might well be dead within two rounds, and if they fail the nastier onHit saves, they're pretty fubarred too.
However if Plan A fails, you're completely screwed because your Plan B stinks. The Bard option is all about beefing up your Plan B a lot, in exchange for a comparitively small downscale of your Plan A.
I've done the thing of being completely specialised in Plan A and having no Plan B, and while I certainly admire it when someone has the patience to put up with the complete splattering you take when Plan A is foiled, that's not me any more. I quit; multi-role people for me for now, please.
Okay, I think I need some help here. I don't care much about the build of the character, but I don't want to spend my (precious?) time leveling up to 30 and then having to rebuild simply because it "s@cks"... That happened already once, so I'm asking for the experts' advice I'll present the basic statistics and then ask a few questions :-p
What I have here is a lvl 7 PC (6 rogue levels and 1 assassin level).
STR:10, DEX:17, CON:12, INT:16, WIS:10, CHA:10
HP:43
SAVES : Fort=+3, reflex=+10, will = +2
Base atk bonus : +4
feats that might interest you : weapon finesse, weapon focus-short sword, stealthy.
skills : MS, hide, dis. trap, set trap and open lock +15, search +13, tumble +13, UMD +9 (ability bonuses included)
That pc will be Role played as an Assassin. ( famous class around here, I guess?)
About the skills : I'm doing my best to max the hide, move silently and the other classic rogue class skills. (locks & traps). What would be an "acceptable" skill rank for, say, hide?
about the feats, I'm going to take both ambidexterity and two-weapon fighting, when the opportunity arises. Quiz : what's a "good' AC bonus for a PC wielding two swords? How about the Hit points? I've heard something about "max HP" and it's got me confused :-p
Sorry for the long post, but as you already know, the assassin class has a competitive role IG and I wouldn't want to make -a lot- of rebuilds later on.
So, what do you propose for a PC that will manage to survive on this island we call amia?
Since you are already on the path of hide and move silently, I'd suggest you focus in on that with maybe some epic focuses. A really good H/MS is 100+.
I'm out of shape with my dex builds, so I'll let someone more current date field most of that, with an exception: It's not hard to get your hide into triple digits, and if you're serious about hiding, you want it there.
_________________ Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham
I'm out of shape with my dex builds, so I'll let someone more current date field most of that, with an exception: It's not hard to get your hide into triple digits, and if you're serious about hiding, you want it there.
Yeah, just takes some dedication, and, if you're going or considering going SD, i'd recomend ten SD levels, so you have access to the tenth level SD shop, which has items reinforced that you can only use with ten levels of that class.
_________________ Ael'thil Rilyn'tlithar Previously known as: Anubis
Thanks all for the help with the Undergnome Shifter/assassin. Going with the Epic shapes build (20 wis. start, up to Construst shape(Can't wait to re-skin them as Huge Gelatinous Cubes and Bone Oozes).
So, here's the other question... what to take for pre-Epic feats? So far I have Alertness and Point-blank shot. Next will be Zen archery I think. But what else?
-Is Improved Unarmed Strike a basic for Shifter?
-Is it worth taking Weapon Focus and Improved Critical in Unarmed Strike also?
-Should I expand this to include weapons used be some shapes or am I better off taking feats that aid with saves? (starting Dex and Str of 10)
Okay, I think I need some help here. I don't care much about the build of the character, but I don't want to spend my (precious?) time leveling up to 30 and then having to rebuild simply because it "s@cks"... That happened already once, so I'm asking for the experts' advice I'll present the basic statistics and then ask a few questions :-p
What I have here is a lvl 7 PC (6 rogue levels and 1 assassin level). STR:10, DEX:17, CON:12, INT:16, WIS:10, CHA:10 HP:43 SAVES : Fort=+3, reflex=+10, will = +2 Base atk bonus : +4 feats that might interest you : weapon finesse, weapon focus-short sword, stealthy. skills : MS, hide, dis. trap, set trap and open lock +15, search +13, tumble +13, UMD +9 (ability bonuses included)
That pc will be Role played as an Assassin. ( famous class around here, I guess?) About the skills : I'm doing my best to max the hide, move silently and the other classic rogue class skills. (locks & traps). What would be an "acceptable" skill rank for, say, hide? about the feats, I'm going to take both ambidexterity and two-weapon fighting, when the opportunity arises. Quiz : what's a "good' AC bonus for a PC wielding two swords? How about the Hit points? I've heard something about "max HP" and it's got me confused :-p
Sorry for the long post, but as you already know, the assassin class has a competitive role IG and I wouldn't want to make -a lot- of rebuilds later on. So, what do you propose for a PC that will manage to survive on this island we call amia?
You don't 'have' to be a shadow dancer to be a good sneak either; many, well most, people have mega-spot and uber-listen only with a very specific gear set. One that they don't have on all the time. So, if you're assassinating when they don't expect it then you should be sneaky enough.
Invest heaps of skill points in set trap(enough to get 60+ with gear)... there are some nasty traps around that make a great ambush.
With that high Int. score you will build up a really tough paralyze DC on your Assassin sneak attack so get yourself a bunch of Darkness spells and maybe Blind Fighting?
Are you going for the hallowed Epic Dodge?
Are you taking Improved Two-weapon fighting? (that extra off hand attack can be very useful)
Actually extra question... is Improved Two-weapon fighting worth taking if you'd have to get it at Epic level?
As far as I know, ice storm from rak-shape is determined by drood levels, and you'll need at least enough to put ice storm in an empowered slot.
I'd suggest 18 druid/10 shifter/2 whatever, myself.
_________________ Gahnn Bluetusk Aleksandr Vespermouth II "Malnutrition is scarier than any beastie."
Uhm...
I'm kicking around for a character idea and I figured I'd finally poke in here to ask about build creation.
Say it's Human, no subrace. Weapon doesn't matter so much, I don't think.
What would you do for a build designed around being able to tank under the assumption you can get mobs to focus on it?
I'm thinking something that will need lots of HP but also saving throws increased [if that actually helps]. Something I played with was a 30fighter that gave me room to get in Epic Toughness a few ranks as well as Improved Expertise for the AC. I got to 626HP with no gear bonuses.
I'm not looking for a character that so much as kills the opponents as is able to hold them off from killing everyone else.
Advices?
_________________ Weston Carter ~Salandran~ : Retired Carters Leave Amia
Joined: 06 Jan 2008 Location: ANU, behind the coffee mug (+10 GMT)
I think he's attached to human.
If you're looking for nice AC / saves, monks are generally pretty good though, but if you're attached to the fighter you definitely need the tumble-dump.
_________________ 2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player
Uhm... I'm kicking around for a character idea and I figured I'd finally poke in here to ask about build creation.
Say it's Human, no subrace. Weapon doesn't matter so much, I don't think.
What would you do for a build designed around being able to tank under the assumption you can get mobs to focus on it?
I'm thinking something that will need lots of HP but also saving throws increased [if that actually helps]. Something I played with was a 30fighter that gave me room to get in Epic Toughness a few ranks as well as Improved Expertise for the AC. I got to 626HP with no gear bonuses.
I'm not looking for a character that so much as kills the opponents as is able to hold them off from killing everyone else.
If you're looking for nice AC / saves, monks are generally pretty good though, but if you're attached to the fighter you definitely need the tumble-dump.
Yesh, attached to Human >.>
The only reason I wasn't thinking pure-monk was so the character could weild a weapon as I was inclined to think a "pikeman" kind of design around RP than so much practicality; although then I loose the shield.
Unless half-orc can weild spear with shield. I forgot to check that. Although I still think human is just how I want to go with it.
Noob Question: EDR? DwD?
And I'm looking a lot more on what feats are 'must-have' kinds. Like, is the 2AC from Natural Armor worthwhile or a toughness for 20hp? Or a epic con for trying to increase that modifier?
_________________ Weston Carter ~Salandran~ : Retired Carters Leave Amia
_________________ Fear is not evil… It tells you what your weakness is. And once you know your weakness, you can become stronger as well as kinder. - Gildarts Clive, Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima.
If you wanted something that had high AC but couldn't really hit very hard/well, couln't you do that as a pale master? Although I can really see how that might not fit the vision for the character.
As far as I know, ice storm from rak-shape is determined by drood levels, and you'll need at least enough to put ice storm in an empowered slot. I'd suggest 18 druid/10 shifter/2 whatever, myself.
Personally I'd go for 17/11
Epic gargoyle form can save your rear end plenty times and it only gives your ice-storm capabilities a small dent while still keeping enough druid levels for lvl9 spells.
if you're really going to focus on ice storming raksasha:
Alertness (for shifter)
quickened
maximize and/or empowered
toughness
expertise for when you're in mindflayer shape
zen archery when you're not shifted + your ranged touch attacks
epic:
raksasha, armor skin, undead if you can merge it in your druid RP.
_________________ Click here for the navis & lukavi portraitpacks preview & download.
Fighter 12 / BG 16 / Rogue 2 can tank like a mother****** and dish out damage equally well.
If it's pure tankage you are looking for, then nothing beats Monk 30. 60+ AC unbuffed, 40+ SR even if you don't invest in it, and decent saves. I'd make that a Dex/Wis hybrid.
For the role described I'd rate my current guy of Barb24/BG4/Rogue2 higher, and if Torzeng doesn't want to be a bad lad, Barb24/Cleric2 gives you four levels to play about with for a few options that compete in everything but saves.
My guy has only moderate CON/CHA to pay for Thundering Rage(chewed up three Great STR feats and dropped EWF, sniffle), so all on his lonesome he's on ~44.5 damage per hit 50AB/64AC/580HP when he gets riled up.
Can't spin that out all day, because he's only got a CHA mod of 9. In party, he can't usually Rage because of his mentalist RP, but he can spin out Divine Might alone, and Shield is the panic button. It's working fine.
With a pure-ish mage's Flame Weapon, and getting Sneak Attacks, he'll finish up on 59.5/hit, more if it's across the frost/fire divide.
Anyway, anything with Barb24, Divine Might&Shield and a Tumbledump will be bouncing around some variation of those numbers.
It's a basic principle of buildmonjkey hijinks that Divine Might/Shield and some way of boosting AB to make up for what you lose from the CHA is onto a winner. Cleric, Pally, Bard, Barb and AA all match that recipe.
Barbarian and AA are the ones with the shortest activation time; Barb uses the Haste Rage and can doubletap Might/Shield in the next round, then he's good to go, while the AA taps Might and opens fire.
Barb has the DR and HP to be the tanky one, out of that bunch.
I want to know something for my drow shifter. With 23 wisdom at level 22, will it actually be possible to have dragonshape at/before level 28 like I've heard?
Yes, if you were very careful so far. Let's assume you are not evil, otherwise it won't work anyway.
For this to work with your current setup, you would have to have 12 Shifter levels and 1 CoT level (or any odd number of Cot). Do you have that? Then do the following:
Level ups at 24 and 28 give you WIS 25.
Great WIS 1 and 2 on the regular epic feats at level 24 and 27 make that WIS 27.
CoT 2,4,6 until level 27 give you the needed Great WIS 3,4,5 for WIS 30.
Shifter 13 on level 28 gives you the Dragonshape.
-- General stuff about Drow + Dragonshape --
For an evil drow, I don't think you can reach Dragonshape at all because you miss out on the bonus feats from Champion of Torm, which is non-evil only. (You need 5 Great WIS and Dragonshape. So you need 3 bonus feats in 8 levels, something Shifter or Druid cannot do.)
The options to get Dragonshape on a non-evil Drow are (I think):
A Drow with Dragonshape at level 27 is also impossible, because you would need Great WIS 6 and Dragonshape, but you can only get Great WIS 5 until level 26 (2 regular + 3 CoT) and you cannot be a Shifter 13 or Druid 24 then either.
So you need Dragonshape at level 28, so it has to be a Druid or Shifter bonus feat. That's druid 24 or druid 28 or shifter 13 or shifter 16. (That already excludes epic humanoid form.)
Druid 28 doesn't give enough feats.
Druid 24/Cot 4 works. (no spare epic feats, at most 1 CoT in pre-epic).
Druid Druid 5+/ Shifter 16/Cot 2+ works. (exactly 1 even CoT level in Epic, no spare feats)
Druid 5+/ Shifter 13/Cot 4+ works. (2 or 3 even CoT levels in epic; the latter gives you one extra epic feat compared to all other options. You need an odd CoT level in pre-epic for that one.)
Joined: 17 Aug 2005 Location: Land of the Scorching Sun, Empowered by Global Warming
I've been considering a self-rebuild for one of my alternate PCs. Currently, he's DEX-based, Chultan, Monk/Paladin/WM (Dual-wielding Kama).
He will still be DEX-based and Chultan, but will be Monk/WM (Kama).
The build, as I tested and started off as, would have:
STR 8 CON 9 DEX 16 (will get +2 from Chultan) WIS 16 INT 13 (Minimum for the feats to get the PrC WM) CHA 12 (will go down to 10 with the -2 for Chultan)
Ability advancement would only be DEX, and the feat/class progression is as follows, Monk being taken from level 1 to 15, and WM being taken from 16 to 22, when I go back to Monk from 23 to 30:
Assuming the bonus to abilities, through gear, being capped on 12 at Amia and Weapon Enchanted to have +5 Enhancement, he got an AB of.. 38... and I totally forgot the rest, but it were 6 or 8 attacks/turn.
I don't remember the AC either.
It will be a b!tch to level it, but it might be good when he's max. Any ideas, suggestions or... whatever?
_________________ BlackDahlya
Once Upon A Time Played Adr'ael Ken'rahel, Auron Teken’ath, Aurora Mesodias, 'Daniel' Daoskinaxarijikkym, Eilin'ira, Helena Rios, Layla Faircurrent, May'Une Do'Ndar, Mellinda Tellus, Michael of Cliffside, Rizzen of Twilight, Valkirya d'Claddath
I'd go 23 paladin/ 3 monk/ 4 fighter or 20 paladin/ 6 monk/ 4 fighter, really. Also, your feats are as screwed up as humanly possible. Just drop WM, it's making my eyes bleed.
With the just mentioned builds, you could easily reach AC 60+, AB 50+, 35+ base damage. Those are approximated numbers, thought. But pretty sure you could reach those at least.
Not exactly sure what you're looking for: But if you really want to go monk/WM, I suggest slipping some fighter in there.
EDIT - Toughness is everything but a wise choice, if you're not level 20 fighter pre-epic or a DwD. Stay away from it.
Joined: 17 Aug 2005 Location: Land of the Scorching Sun, Empowered by Global Warming
Uncle-Opustus wrote:
I'd go 23 paladin/ 3 monk/ 4 fighter or 20 paladin/ 6 monk/ 4 fighter, really. Also, your feats are as screwed up as humanly possible. Just drop WM, it's making my eyes bleed.
With the just mentioned builds, you could easily reach AC 60+, AB 50+, 35+ base damage. Those are approximated numbers, thought. But pretty sure you could reach those at least.
Not exactly sure what you're looking for: But if you really want to go monk/WM, I suggest slipping some fighter in there.
EDIT - Toughness is everything but a wise choice, if you're not level 20 fighter pre-epic or a DwD. Stay away from it.
Daniel's build came up to back-up his story. As it was, despite being monk and paladin, he had low wisdom and his charisma was 10. So, he couldn't make use of the Monk AC, nor the paladin's saves, since there was no modifier to his charisma.
He's a cursed dragon who was able to turn human by, as he believes, Bahamut's grace (thus the paladin levels back there, he wanted to serve Bahamut as best as he could and he became a paladin).
However, he's still cursed to that human form and is unable to recover his original "stats". Besides, after years imprisoned in the shape of a wyrmling, he needed to learn to fight as a human when he was "gifted" with that shape. The kamas are simulating the claws he doesn't have anymore.
So, yep, he needs to keep the kamas and the dual-wield.
Perhaps old players and even old members of the staff might be able to help me with this, as they know the story of that character. ^^;
EDIT: The self-rebuild need to have in mind the background story. So, yes, maybe he could increase the paladin levels, but WM has to stay, as he got specialized in kamas exactly because he needed to "master" them.
EDIT 2: Besides, how the hells will I divide the stats? And which feats to take? >.<
EDIT 3: Also, it's DEX-based because he used to be a wyrmling, thus, not used to strength/force.
EDIT 4: *sigh* Right, forgot this too. Monk, not only because of his claws (or in this case, lack thereof :P) but also because he was taught and taken care of by a monk. So, yep: paladin because it was a way to retribute what, he believes, Bahamut did fro him. Monk, for the above. And WM, because, after all, he mastered the kamas.
EDIT 5: (Last, I hope!) The main build could remain, but it should be more efficient, as the way he used to be it was hard to RP him as proud as a dragon should be, as he was very bad both in PvM and PvP. Opustus example is good, as long as the Fighter levels could simulate the "mastery" of the kamas.
_________________ BlackDahlya
Once Upon A Time Played Adr'ael Ken'rahel, Auron Teken’ath, Aurora Mesodias, 'Daniel' Daoskinaxarijikkym, Eilin'ira, Helena Rios, Layla Faircurrent, May'Une Do'Ndar, Mellinda Tellus, Michael of Cliffside, Rizzen of Twilight, Valkirya d'Claddath
Last edited by BlackDahlya on Fri, Apr 24 2009, 16:40 PM, edited 4 times in total.
BlackDahlya: 16WIS sounds nice for the AC, but it's not worth going past the 14 cap on such a spread out build. Leave it at 14. Since you're not going to use Divine Might or Shield, I'd leave CHA at 12, Chultanned to 10.
That gives you six more points to put into STR/CON, where they will do you more good, methinkles.
Take Weapon Finesse by level 3. Dual-wielding already has to wait until level 21 to become viable on your first draft, so getting Finesse when you need it is the not-insane choice.
Toughness sucks compared to EWF.
It's bad, but not a complete trainwreck of a build: Monk4/Pally16 into Monk6/Pally17/WM7 is what I'd do if I was married to the WM requirement. It'll be a competent enough source of DPS, high 40's for dualwield AB, high 50's for AC, damage per hit admittedly will not be impressive outwith crits, but there will be lots of both. Also it's a source of Bless Weapon, Prot/evil and GMW+5, so there won't be too many parties that would find you useless.
I want to know something for my drow shifter. With 23 wisdom at level 22, will it actually be possible to have dragonshape at/before level 28 like I've heard?
Yes, if you were very careful so far. Let's assume you are not evil, otherwise it won't work anyway.
For this to work with your current setup, you would have to have 12 Shifter levels and 1 CoT level (or any odd number of Cot). Do you have that? Then do the following: Level ups at 24 and 28 give you WIS 25. Great WIS 1 and 2 on the regular epic feats at level 24 and 27 make that WIS 27. CoT 2,4,6 until level 27 give you the needed Great WIS 3,4,5 for WIS 30. Shifter 13 on level 28 gives you the Dragonshape.
-- General stuff about Drow + Dragonshape --
For an evil drow, I don't think you can reach Dragonshape at all because you miss out on the bonus feats from Champion of Torm, which is non-evil only. (You need 5 Great WIS and Dragonshape. So you need 3 bonus feats in 8 levels, something Shifter or Druid cannot do.)
The options to get Dragonshape on a non-evil Drow are (I think):
A Drow with Dragonshape at level 27 is also impossible, because you would need Great WIS 6 and Dragonshape, but you can only get Great WIS 5 until level 26 (2 regular + 3 CoT) and you cannot be a Shifter 13 or Druid 24 then either.
So you need Dragonshape at level 28, so it has to be a Druid or Shifter bonus feat. That's druid 24 or druid 28 or shifter 13 or shifter 16. (That already excludes epic humanoid form.)
Druid 28 doesn't give enough feats. Druid 24/Cot 4 works. (no spare epic feats, at most 1 CoT in pre-epic). Druid Druid 5+/ Shifter 16/Cot 2+ works. (exactly 1 even CoT level in Epic, no spare feats) Druid 5+/ Shifter 13/Cot 4+ works. (2 or 3 even CoT levels in epic; the latter gives you one extra epic feat compared to all other options. You need an odd CoT level in pre-epic for that one.)
Regards, Ts
At the moment my drow is 10 druid and 12 shifter. Will your master plan still work?
Joined: 17 Aug 2005 Location: Land of the Scorching Sun, Empowered by Global Warming
Uberuce wrote:
BlackDahlya: 16WIS sounds nice for the AC, but it's not worth going past the 14 cap on such a spread out build. Leave it at 14. Since you're not going to use Divine Might or Shield, I'd leave CHA at 12, Chultanned to 10.
That gives you six more points to put into STR/CON, where they will do you more good, methinkles.
Take Weapon Finesse by level 3. Dual-wielding already has to wait until level 21 to become viable on your first draft, so getting Finesse when you need it is the not-insane choice.
Toughness sucks compared to EWF.
It's bad, but not a complete trainwreck of a build: Monk4/Pally16 into Monk6/Pally17/WM7 is what I'd do if I was married to the WM requirement. It'll be a competent enough source of DPS, high 40's for dualwield AB, high 50's for AC, damage per hit admittedly will not be impressive outwith crits, but there will be lots of both. Also it's a source of Bless Weapon, Prot/evil and GMW+5, so there won't be too many parties that would find you useless.
I got Weapon Finesse later because Weapon Focus was necessary to get Weapon Master. So, I hurried up and took it as soon as I coud, so I could go WM as soon as possible.
Wouldn't his spell selection suffer with a Wisdom of only 14? This is what his current build has.
Also, do I keep the same feats then, only swapping Toughness for Epic Weapon Focus?
Is there any special order in which I should take the classes and levels? For instance, Monk only, then Paladin, then throw WM pre-epic and back to paladin after all 7 WM levels were taken?
I never quite understood why people say to take a specific class pre-epic or else things could be nasty.
_________________ BlackDahlya
Once Upon A Time Played Adr'ael Ken'rahel, Auron Teken’ath, Aurora Mesodias, 'Daniel' Daoskinaxarijikkym, Eilin'ira, Helena Rios, Layla Faircurrent, May'Une Do'Ndar, Mellinda Tellus, Michael of Cliffside, Rizzen of Twilight, Valkirya d'Claddath
Wouldn't his spell selection suffer with a Wisdom of only 14? This is what his current build has.
Newps. Paladins only have four levels of spellcasting, so WIS14 gets you all of them.
Quote:
Also, do I keep the same feats then, only swapping Toughness for Epic Weapon Focus?
Same as you posted except: Lv1 - Dodge, 2-Weapon Finesse Lv18 - Two Weapon Fighting Lv30 - Epic Weapon Focus)
Quote:
Is there any special order in which I should take the classes and levels? For instance, Monk only, then Paladin, then throw WM pre-epic and back to paladin after all 7 WM levels were taken?
I never quite understood why people say to take a specific class pre-epic or else things could be nasty.[/color]
I would go Monk3, then 16 levels of Paladin, then a last level of Monk at 20, pre-epic. That gets you the Monk AC before you start levelling seriously, then the GMW+5 and all day Pally buffs as soon as possible, and then the Monk4 tops up Tumble.
Then I'd take the last Pally level, just for more spell duration, then WM7, with the Monk5 and Monk6 coming in at levels 22 and 27, again to keep Tumble topped up.
The three reasons people care about the order classes are taken are BAB , saves and ease of levelling.
BAB: http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Base_attack_bonus That's why you so often see builds that are four blocks of a Second class and one block of Main, to use the terminology of that link; that sums to 16BAB pre-epic and bags the fourth attack per round.
Saves: If a save is favoured by a class, then you get 2 points of it just by taking a single level pre-epic. From then on, you get a point per two levels. If it's not favoured, you only get one point every three, with no bonus on the first level. Generally people take four tanky levels pre-epic for the BAB, but if they have to take a single level in another Fort-high class, it's worth putting it in early to get that free +2.
Ease of levelling: Varies case by case. Generally it means the timing of GMW+5, Tumbledumps, UMD dumps, or the central feats of a build like HiPS for an SD, Devcrit for a tank, IKD for a Sneakwhore etc etc.
Can't still see why those WM levels are a necessity but! Going Paladin/WM-only pre-epic gets you +1 BAB, going Paladin 16/Monk 4 bags you some lovely skill points and saves that will help you level up earlier, but it also gets you an annoying XP penalty.
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum
FAQ
Search
Login
.
