AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

It is an odd thought that occured to me late last night as I was half asleep and jotted it down to ask this morning.

We all of us like to have our favoured classes we identify with. Mine will always tend to be a Ranger for example. But am I wrong in thinking that the Harper Scout must be one of the most underused classes to exsist right now?

And if it is then why?

AFAIK it gets dipped into for some pretty nice builds, although I would have thought assassin to be rarer tbh. As far as classes that I associate with myself, though, bard it is. I love playing bards.

And the big downside of Harper Scout is that you can only take five levels in it.

Harper Scout is used in quite a few powerbuilds.

The most underused class isn't HS or Sass or PDK.

Its Dwarven Defender. Hands down and without a doubt. People that make them abandon them because they just generally don't work on Crit heavy servers with unresistable damage like Amia.

I've had Harper Scout levels.

It's underplayed because it doesn't have any big advantage. You get +saves as a 1/day feat but there is tons of equipment to handle that.
1/day Cats Grace doesn't help much with an abundance of potions to do the same thing.
1/day invisibility is easy to be seen with as it's just that, invisiblity, anyone with built up spot or truesight will see you and it doesn't linger with concealment (like improved invis) when broken.
The Craft Harper Item does have some unique things you can't get without the harper levels (5). But I never got to look far through them and the peices I did create were never better than gear I already had at character level 18.
Bardic Knowledge only adds up to +5 lore bonus I believe and there is no shortage of identify potions or casters to do that for you.

This is all off the top of my head. But a past building topic points out basically that Harpers can't buff party, tank, do damage output, nothing special but really some RP potentials.

Edit:
I'll still call HS the most underused. Because when Amia still had character levels shown on the log-in, I would get jesting tells frequently about the fact I had Harper Levels. It was a huge joke to people that anyone would bother to take it. I don't know any powerbuild that had Harpers.

Double Edit:
Check out this to see how Harper gets looked at.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18137&hilit=Harper

See : thjat Lord of the rings thing in ooc for how HS is seen

MoshingChris wrote:

Harper Scout is used in quite a few powerbuilds.

The most underused class isn't HS or Sass or PDK.

Its Dwarven Defender. Hands down and without a doubt. People that make them abandon them because they just generally don't work on Crit heavy servers with unresistable damage like Amia.

DDs are the only characters that can get 600+ hit points with high fort saves and 21/- DR. They may not hit as hard as other characters... but by god, I always love having them around in my party with me.

Druids. Druids are my favorite class to play, always loved them.

I always thought the HS had some nice usage, always thought it had some usage. The Dwarven Defender is the most underused class, I never really liked it as much..

I've been playing on Amia for about a year and a half now and I don't recall ever seeing a single PDK, I'd have to say they are the most underplayed class.

My favorite class is by far cleric. There is nothing so versatile as a cleric. Powerful spell slingers or melee tanks or healers. I've always liked Greek and Roman mythology and reading about the battles and lives of the gods. That has carried over to NWN and I love the god RP.

feycourtier wrote:

See : that Lord of the rings thing in ooc for how HS is seen

Quote:

Lad: The men say it is hopeless, that we will not last the night.

Aragorn: This is a good sword. There is always hope.

Lad: I have five levels of Harper Scout.

Aragorn: ...

Lad: ...

Aragorn: There is almost always hope.

Galenson wrote:

MoshingChris wrote:

Harper Scout is used in quite a few powerbuilds.

The most underused class isn't HS or Sass or PDK.

Its Dwarven Defender. Hands down and without a doubt. People that make them abandon them because they just generally don't work on Crit heavy servers with unresistable damage like Amia.

DDs are the only characters that can get 600+ hit points with high fort saves and 21/- DR. They may not hit as hard as other characters... but by god, I always love having them around in my party with me.

Yes I never said they were bad, this is about underused classes and for their Power, which at level 6 is better than 70 percent of the prestige classes, comparably no one uses them, because no one likes dwarf RP. They make them, get bored and then move onto something else.

MoshingChris wrote:

Yes I never said they were bad, this is about underused classes and for their Power, which at level 6 is better than 70 percent of the prestige classes, comparably no one uses them, because no one likes dwarf RP. They make them, get bored and then move onto something else.

I like Dwarf RP, sadly I can't pull off the Scottish accent, and it's too burned into my brain for it ever to feel natural to see a dwarf speaking proper English...err, 'Common'.

You'd be surprised at how many classes suck and are used primarily for role-play.
My D&D group never has a bard, rarely a paladin (none of us are that 'good' IRL so...), I just played a Red Dragon Disciple (one of my better paper&pencil builds).

I say experiment heavily, don't be afraid of change, and do be open to creativity.
BTW, my Dwarven Defender (paper&pencil) is quite bad@ss, he is currently returning to the Temple of Elemental Evil (well, once our DM gets out of jail, lol)

Galenson wrote:

DDs are the only characters that can get 600+ hit points with high fort saves and 21/- DR. They may not hit as hard as other characters... but by god, I always love having them around in my party with me.

Last I remember I saw a DD build with 1k hp at level 30.

HellScourge wrote:

Galenson wrote:

DDs are the only characters that can get 600+ hit points with high fort saves and 21/- DR. They may not hit as hard as other characters... but by god, I always love having them around in my party with me.

Last I remember I saw a DD build with 1k hp at level 30.

How do you spell "Tank"? heheh

With a capital K

Kudark wrote:

You'd be surprised at how many classes suck and are used primarily for role-play.
My D&D group never has a bard, rarely a paladin (none of us are that 'good' IRL so...)

Both of those are very good classes. Bards are a bit unintuitive, though.

There was a point made I would like to expand on that really gets people going.

Can someone explain to me why mechanical happiness and RP happiness have to be mutually exclusive?

I had a person in my LARP play an old person who couldnt walk, and had other dissadvantages due to age. He was telling me about the limitation he choose (he was not compaining like other players I have), and I suggested a couple of skills that would allow him to bust it up now and again. I mean why shouldnt the old guy, when it is scene appropriate be a badd ass for a short time.

So my oppinion is to build a strong mechanical character, then RP a weakness, and then when appropriate become a badd ass. Hope this makes sense.

Anyways my favorite build would be a DD/Cleric. Here are the problems on most servers.
1) DD tanking at higher levels against sneak attacks and crits frankly makes me angry, espcially when I see an improved invis bard/wizard/pale master do it better. Hate/love that spell.
2) For RP reasons I have a very very hard time as a DD/Cleric to take the "trickery" domain which would give me improved invis.
3) I enjoy playing a cleric so I can heal people, but when people can buy heal potions cheaply and uses them in groups, it kinda makes my role less fun.

They're not mutually exclusive.

High end bards in parties kick ass!

tearin4242 wrote:

3) I enjoy playing a cleric so I can heal people, but when people can buy heal potions cheaply and uses them in groups, it kinda makes my role less fun.

Both Torzeng and I had characters like that. You'd be surprised how happy people are when they can just give you a few healing kits and never have to use a pot except in an emergency.

Bobo_Underhill wrote:

Both of those are very good classes. Bards are a bit unintuitive, though.

True that, and the limitations of NWN being 3.0 as well make some classes suckier. Bards have their place though.

Bards are 300% better in NWN than they are in PnP due to how Bard Song and Curse Song are.

Under played class? Purple Dragon Knight for sure, just as Isaiah has already mentioned. I don't even think it could be taken as a class here. Or can it?

It can, yes.

Galenson wrote:

MoshingChris wrote:

Harper Scout is used in quite a few powerbuilds.

The most underused class isn't HS or Sass or PDK.

Its Dwarven Defender. Hands down and without a doubt. People that make them abandon them because they just generally don't work on Crit heavy servers with unresistable damage like Amia.

DDs are the only characters that can get 600+ hit points with high fort saves and 21/- DR. They may not hit as hard as other characters... but by god, I always love having them around in my party with me.

minus the 21 DR, I have a hin with 615 hp and around 50 Fort, not to mentions EVERY save being over 30 for that matter.

Athyonn Ursidae wrote:

It is an odd thought that occured to me late last night as I was half asleep and jotted it down to ask this morning.

We all of us like to have our favoured classes we identify with. Mine will always tend to be a Ranger for example. But am I wrong in thinking that the Harper Scout must be one of the most underused classes to exsist right now?

And if it is then why?

Purple Dragon Knight beats it out.

Not true at all. There are half a dozen PDK's running around that I know of. And two or three HS's for that matter. No one knows how to use PDK's effectively but generally speaking my Sorc/PDK and Bard/HS/AA were some of my better builds. 5 HS nets two more epic feats + Stacking Catsgrace. Anyway its getting into build chatter now, but on the whole Harper Scout and Purple Dragon Knight aren't Bad classes the player base just uses them Horribly.

Mosh nailed it. It's certainly Dwarven Defender. It's easy to come to that conclusion too. Consider that there aren't many Dwarf characters to begin with, compared to all the other base races, and that DD is exclusive to only Lawful Dwarves. That's pretty damn limiting. The biggest group of Dwarves out there are followers of Brightaxe, who is chaotic by nature. It makes sense. DD totally is the least played. I've never even seen one before, I don't think.

As for my favorite class? People would probably be surprised to know that it's Wizard ^.^

But... my favorite class with all things considered, RP, everything, definitely Druid. Secondly, Cleric, then Ranger. Simply because I love nature RP and I love religious RP. Religious RP is my niche. ::nods::

Speaking of powerbuilds/powergamers, I think they should require DM approval. Not some half arse excuse as to why your PM Cleric is legit. Yes, you are telling me that your character went from one who could barely wield a weapon to a better fighter than Artemis Entreri in about a month game time? Bull shit

But as to the topic, I'd say Harper Scout.

o0GuNz_N_RoSeZ0o wrote:

Mosh nailed it. It's certainly Dwarven Defender.

Ooo, and I started one an hour before this post, BRING ON THE DDS!

I started a DD once. Gave up before even getting to the prestige pre-requisites.

I can imagine there being plenty of Harper Scouts out there, for reasons mentioned above.

The classes I've personally under played is Fighter. One's I've -never- played are Dwarven Defender, CoT, Blackguard, Pale Master & Purple Dragon Knight. All prestige classes, as it happens.

The class I've noticed the least is harper scout, since I always smile a little when I see somebody with the class.

Personally, I've never played a barbarian. I think I've tried all other base classes. There are of course plenty of prestige classes I haven't touched, too.

I've played bards and clerics more than anything, I think. Rangers and bards are my favorite to RP, though.

DD definitely. I've got a Monk/DD in my archive from a couple years back. Got him to 25th level, but can't recall the number of DD levels in that. The Dwarven RP was pretty sparse at that time, or happened on different timezones so I stopped playing him at some point. A shame really.

I can see DD as the least played. I had to think about it for a while, but I think I've seen 1 in my years here.... at least that's all I can recall seeing.

My personal favorite: Cleric, definitely.

I wonder what's with the lack of DDs, could it be Dwarf RP or do people just find that class unappealing? I'm making my Dwarf a DD for RP reasons, however outside of clan names I don't see much Dwarf RP going on. Heck, I remember when Hunar and his Dwarvern Posse crashed an Auction a couple of years ago becuase they were selling a Dwarvern articfact, you just don't see that kind of side to Dwarves as a whole nowadays (note: I'm not picking at current Dwarf RPers RP, It's just I haven't seen much Dwarvern RP outside of clans).

Yaster Galer wrote:

I wonder what's with the lack of DDs, could it be Dwarf RP or do people just find that class unappealing?

I'd say it's probably the lack of mention in the (power)build topic.

DD is a powerbuild in itself, you can tank a hell of a lot UNBUFFED, let alone buffed.

But if it's solely because of lack of mention in the build topic, that's kinda powergamer minded :/

Yaster Galer wrote:

DD is a powerbuild in itself, you can tank a hell of a lot UNBUFFED, let alone buffed.

I again refer to my previous post that mentioned the 1000 HP DD with 21 DR just to prove that point.

Seriously people! If I didn't dislike dwarves I totally would make one.

MoshingChris wrote:

Its Dwarven Defender.

Yarp. When taking plenty of DwD levels there are very few potential builds. But I don't realise why people don't take just a few levels of DwD, it can be a huge success!

Five levels of DwD gets you: an extra attack pre-epic if you're one of the "second classes": assassin, bard, cleric, red dragon disciple, druid, Harper scout, monk*, rogue, shadowdancer and shifter. And that's not all! Don't forget Sneak Immunity in combat!

Really I think people don't like the class because the prerequisites sting like hell. Dwarf isn't such a popular race anyway.

About the DwD EDR builds. They are real beasts in PvM, but they also require whole new gearsets. For example, my dwarf's AC is below 20, with a level 30 Bard it can actually be upped to not-useless. However, that build requires WM, twohandering and a lot of time to get used to the mechanics and new maneuver.

I wouldn't call it such a powerbuild; sure it can beat rogues and SDs, but that's mainly because they play it poorly. Against Dev Critters? No chance, not at least against the ones lambasting with a shield and a scimitar, at least. Please people, I encourage all to try one and then call the class "a powerbuild itself".

CON Buff + DD.

Just be glad that Barb and DD can't be taken together and we don't have 40 levels on Amia.

I think if there was a lesbian base class, every other class would be the most under played.

Galenson wrote:

I think if there was a lesbian base class, every other class would be the most under played.

True, but only because there are many out there who for whatever reason want to play out their bizarre fantasies. There is nothing that amuses me more than one woman and another woman pc together and knowing that both of the players are male. Expecially when each of the other swears the opposing one -must- be female. :twisted:

Regardless... back on topic.

I play a Dwd. And yes I would agree it makes a great powerbuild. The damage resist is awsome. I rarely bother to use any buffs other than a flame weapon scroll every now and then to increase my damage output, usually when fighting undead. My average hit is between 35 and 45 and I crit at about 150 if it isn't a dev crit. He has nearly 700 hp and is hard to hit. As far as dwarven rp goes I tend to stay out of it. He's a duergar.

He was the first character I made when I started on this server and I still play him atleast a few times a week.

Harper Scout is certaintly the least played Class, followed by Palemaster.

I say Palemaster because how many of those people who actually have Palemaster levels play their class correctly, rather then some fighter who used a variation of Palemaster levels to gain their crit immunity.

Rogue is my favorite class. Versatility! Intrigue! Espionage!

Ranger is a close second.

I've always wanted to play a cleric, but I tend to find any OOC restrictions like class and race hard to deal with, which is why I generally play ranger, rouge, or fighter humans exclusively. I like to leave my options as wide open as possible.

As far as most underused... I'd say Harper scout should get some love, but I don't think any amount of fixing to that class can really do much of anything. Besides, for Harpers, it's the heart that counts!

AlannaMolov wrote:

Besides, for Harpers, it's the heart that counts!

That made me laugh. Abit similar to how a parent comforts a kid who's lost in a race.

Selvec Darkon wrote:

Harper Scout is certaintly the least played Class, followed by Palemaster.

I say Palemaster because how many of those people who actually have Palemaster levels play their class correctly, rather then some fighter who used a variation of Palemaster levels to gain their crit immunity.

Palemaster is a great class if you are willing to delve into the occult, the hermetical, the very veyr creepy and the thematic that the class calls for.

Many do not wish to do this. Unfortunately.

Most under played class ever?

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