Neverwinter Nights - The revenge

[Jamski]

Go for it Duck. The thing to remember is to quick-slot the Divine Might and Divine Shield and hit the keys fast before each fight. It turns an average slogger into a DEATH MACHINE^tm

Oh, and with that in mind, seek out CHA gear. And don't forget you get a couple of Paly spells from level 4 onwards. Bless Weapon turns Undead into PUTTY, and you can cast that at level 5 (Paly 4) Aid, Eagle's Splendor and Bull's Strength are nice at level 2...erm, I guess you won't see level 3 Paly spells in the OC with this build - oh well.

-Jam

[Dis]

Originally posted by duke o' york
I appreciate their use in MP especially, but from what I looked at, Dwarven Defenders suXX0r. I've got a feeling that you're about to prove me wrong on this, and look forward to it, but despite their being the ideal "first person through the door/cave entrance" in MP and soaking up damage that would kill characters with poor armour, they just don't have enough for me to get excited about.

Oh, and while I'm in Dr Jamski's surgery, what is the level cap in the original campaign?

dwarven defenders rule!

I used a dwarven cleric/dwarven defender in HOTU. Very powerful build.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Jamski
Erm, if you have HotU installed, the level cap in the OC is 40

BUT

You'll probably only reach level 17-18 before running out of stuff to kill unless you hack the module about a bit

I didn't find a good use for Dwarven Defenders yet, mainly because I hate Dwarves

-Jam

I love dwarves. that makes you my enemy

[Jamski]

I'm really not convinced that the miniscule abount of DR they get at such slow rates is really worth giving up spell levels/sneak/bonus feats for. I mean, if you think the DR is good, take a monk. They get 20 DR at level 20. At level 20 a Defender has only 12/- DR. AND he's a dwarf, and he had to take 20 levels of Dwarven defender. (I mean ANOTHER 4 levels just to get +3/- DR is crazy. That's 4 whole levels for practically no reward.)

-Jam

[Dis]

roleplay dammit!

And they have d12 hitdice. I had already gotten level 9 spells with my cleric. I like melee clerics. So rather than take a fighter, I took a dwarven defender.

and dwarves are cool.

[DrSpike]

Duke if you want to try that RDD build do it for SoU/HotU. Don't do it for the OC.

[Jamski]

Yes, you'll get all the Paladin gear that's lying all over SoU which is nice

-Jam

[Vlad Antlerkov]

Originally posted by Jamski
* I suggest a two-handed weapon, as a shield will cause Spell Failure
**Or more Rogue levels, by preference

Problem is, the only 2-handed weapons rogues can use without extra proficiencies are bows and quarterstaffs. (Maybe if you take Martial Proficiency at startup, Expertise at 12, start taking Wiz levels at 13, then WW Attack at 15 and WM levels at 16...) And you have the minor issue of Power Attack, Cleave, and Great Cleave. Trying to fit them in there:

1 Rogue 1 (Dodge, Martial Prof)
2 Rogue 2
3 Rogue 3 (Weapon Focus)
4 Rogue 4 (+1 STR)
5 Rogue 5
6 Rogue 6 (Mobility)
7 Rogue 7
8 Rogue 8 (+1 STR)
9 Rogue 9 (Spring Attack)
10 Rogue 10 (Improved Evasion)
11 Rogue 11
12 Rogue 12 (Expertise) (+1 STR)
13 Wizard 1
14 Wizard 2
15 Wizard 3 (WW Attack)
16 WM 1 (+1 STR)
17 WM 2
18 WM 3 (Power Attack)
19 WM 4
20 WM 5 (+1 STR)
21 WM 6 (Cleave)
22 WM 7
23 Wizard 4
24 Wizard 5 (Great Cleave, Spell Focus Evocation, +1 STR)
25 Wizard 6
26 Wizard 7
27 Wizard 8 (Great INT 1)
28 Wizard 9 (+1 STR)
29 Wizard 10 (Greater Spell Focus Evocation)
30 Wizard 11 (Improved Crit)
31 Wizard 12
32 Wizard 13 (+1 INT)
33 Wizard 14 (Overwhelming Crit)
34 Wizard 15 (whatever, you rule anyway)
35 Wizard 16
36 Wizard 17 (+1 INT) (Devastating Crit)
37 Wizard** 18
38 Wizard** 19
39 Wizard** 20 (whatever, you rule anyway x 2)
40 Wizard** 21 (+1 STR/INT)

True, it is pretty sad to get Cleave at level 21.

Generally, I prefer to have my rogue characters to use two-weapon combat. (Gotta have that fifth and sixth attack. ) I suppose you could add a point of Dex to allow for Ambidexterity and Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, but sacrificing Great Cleave and all the feats that depend on it. It'd also allow for starting WM at level 13.

Also, pallies can't multiclass into bard. But yes, Pal/sorc/RDD would be quite insane when it gets into epic levels...

[Jamski]

Oh, Palys can MC to bard. YOU just have to change alignments and back. Most servers/modules have a way to do that.

Oh yes, the two-handed weapon suggestion - silly me. My character is using a rapier, with the other hand free/torch - I was just trying to improve on my build. Quarterstaffmaster would be quite cool though. There are always some mage-only staffs, and the Level 8 Mage Spell "Black Staff" will get some use. Hmmm... better off with a rapier probably, but a staffmaster would rock.

Hmm... two-handed sword is more ideal though. (or the pure CHEEZE of a scythemaster, for ANOTHER feat on exotic weapons)

-Jam

[Arnelos]

Heh, some of my more interesting builds I've tested (and at least remember):

Fighter/Bard/RDD <--- focus on being as tough of a fighter as possible with the various free fighter feats and weapon spec feats available only to fighters... then combined with RDD levels. Don't know if it's more or less effective than Jam's Paladin/Bard/RDD build.

Paladin/Sorcerer - a classic. It's gotten downright clicheed on a number of servers I've been on, actually...

Wizard/Paladin. This is the main character I'm playing with on Folderol these days. Basically you take 2 levels of Paladin, then 21 levels of Wizard, followed by gaming your levels of Paladin and Wizard such that you take as many paladin levels after that as you can EXCEPT for taking epic spells as a wizard (if you want them, which you do ). Sure, as a wizard you're probably going to lose automatic quicken spell feats, but you're going to gain 14 levels of paladin with all of their spells and abilities by the time you're to level 40.

Cleric/Rogue (perhaps with 1 level of Shadowdancer) - this is my other main Folderol character, but I actually just really like the combo. From a strictly hack n' slash perspective, you're combining a rogue's stealth and backstab capabilities (along with all of those skill points) with a Cleric's many buffs. The combination can be INCREDIBLY powerful. I've also thought of combining it with a single level of Shadowdancer (to get hide in plain sight) to make it even more powerful (to an exploit level, frankly).

Fighter/Rogue/Blackguard - a pretty straightforward build and the sneak attack abilities DO stack between Blackguard and Rogue while the Fighter levels give you more feats including weapon specializations (fighter only).

Ranger/Bard/Harper - I built this class at first just for RP value, but the build actually became USEFUL on a PvP LOTR server I've been testing where almost every means of defending against mind-affecting spells has been removed from the game other than spells. Under those circumstances, the Harper's resistence to mind spells is actually USEFUL (along with a few of the other Harper abilities that are hard to come by on that server). Elves are VERY popular on that server because of their increased resistence to mind-affecting spells, but I'm betting that my Ranger that will eventually pick up Harper levels won't do too badly. The fact that it's a PvP server and it also has a tracking system that makes rangers much more powerful... and to think I didn't even know rangers would be better off on the server and did that only for RP reasons.

[Arnelos]

As for races... I almost ALWAYS play Human and pretty much always have... regardless of the RPG (unless humans weren't available, of course). I guess I'm just ethnocentric like that.

After Human, the race I've played most is Half-Elf (little surprise there ).

FAR after that comes Elf.

I can't even remember playing a dwarf, halfling, gnome, or half-orc character other than just testing out builds. I certainly never played any of those when I used to play pen-and-paper AD&D... only humans and half-elves.

Hell, the only pen-and-paper half-elf I've even played was "Tanis Half-Elven", one of the pre-made plot-driven characters in the Dragonlance series (based on the Dragonlance novels). I didn't like any of the initial human characters and you can only play the pre-made ones because they're all so tied to the plot. Main reason I picked that character, though, was because he was the pre-ordained "party leader" and my role in that group of guys had long been as the party leader (previously with my human magic user).

I think part of it is the group of guys I used to play with as a kid. I mean, we all just neatly fit into some of the stereo-types in a certain way:

- The incredibly grumpy fat guy played the dwarf fighter.
- The annoying prankster with a WIS of about 4 played the Halfling Thief
- My little brother played the paladin (he was always such a power-gamer, though )
- The quiet guy played the Half-Elf Ranger
- The brute played a strong (but not terribly bright) human fighter
- The guy who couldn't stand people arguing and would just run off by himself and get killed played another halfling thief
- I played the human wizard, also the party leader.

[Jamski]

Some more thoughts about Multiclassing...

Since you only gain attacks/round up to level 20, any warrior/caster hybrid should make sure to take enough warrior levels before level 20, in order to get the maximum 4 attacks/round with the main weapon.

For a warrior/mage this means at least 11 of the first 20 levels need to be a class with Fighter BaB progression (fighter, ranger, paladin, barbarian, arcane archer, champion of Torm, dwarven defender, blackguard or weaponmaster)

For a warrior/rogue or a warrior/cleric the situation is less acute, and only at least 4 levels from the first 20 need to be a class with Fighter BaB progression.

A cleric/rogue, like Arnelos's idea above, would need at least 5 levels of a fighter-type class before level 20 (and possibly more, with some combinations of levels) in order to gain that 4th attack too, as although clerics and rogues use the same BaB table, neither class gains BaB at level 1.

Yes, its crazy, but taking 17 wizard levels, and then 4 fighter levels will give you 3 attacks/round, but taking 16 wizard levels, and the 4 fighter levels will give you 4 attacks/round.

Why all this fuss about an extra attack? Assuming you have Haste, who DOESN'T want to do 20% more damage each round? (BTW, Haste, with Rapid Shot and 4 attacks/round gives you a shot every second. You gotta love that)

-Jam

[duke o' york]

I'm glad that Vlad pointed out the inability of paladins to MC into bards, because of the alignment problem (* yet another thing sets duke off moaning about bards) - but that just means I'll dual to a sorceror at level 4.
I started the OC last night with the paladin build as suggested by Jam yesterday, taking 4 points of lore at the beginning, and 4 of persuade, which is paying off quite nicely because I'm getting loads more quests than I was before, and I haven't even left the city core yet. I didn't even mean to play at all last night, but the duchess started lengthy conversations with almost everyone she knows on the phone and so....
Will I have to dump my nice armour when I change to a sorceror? This could mean that I spend ages without levelling up to 4 just because I want to fight stuff. I've got the holy items quest, and an art "restitution" quest already, and I haven't even talked to everyone yet. I talked to some woman outside the halls of justice, and think I've got a quest there, but couldn't work out what it was. Never mind, I've got a list of them so I can find out if I get completist. It's quite funny having an INT of 8 because the "special" dialogue you get is sometimes quite inspired, but often it's just annoying, and the temptation to put another point on INT or spend tonnes of cash on an item that raises it is strong.

[Vlad Antlerkov]

Originally posted by duke o' york
I'm glad that Vlad pointed out the inability of paladins to MC into bards, because of the alignment problem (* yet another thing sets duke off moaning about bards) - but that just means I'll dual to a sorceror at level 4.
I started the OC last night with the paladin build as suggested by Jam yesterday, taking 4 points of lore at the beginning, and 4 of persuade, which is paying off quite nicely because I'm getting loads more quests than I was before, and I haven't even left the city core yet. I didn't even mean to play at all last night, but the duchess started lengthy conversations with almost everyone she knows on the phone and so....
Will I have to dump my nice armour when I change to a sorceror? This could mean that I spend ages without levelling up to 4 just because I want to fight stuff. I've got the holy items quest, and an art "restitution" quest already, and I haven't even talked to everyone yet. I talked to some woman outside the halls of justice, and think I've got a quest there, but couldn't work out what it was. Never mind, I've got a list of them so I can find out if I get completist. It's quite funny having an INT of 8 because the "special" dialogue you get is sometimes quite inspired, but often it's just annoying, and the temptation to put another point on INT or spend tonnes of cash on an item that raises it is strong.

Remember, you're taking the level in caster just to get to RDD. I don't care about being able to cast arcane spells with this build, and neither should you.

[duke o' york]

True, especially as the spells I'll get will all suck anyway. Are sorcerors at all affected by INT? I mean will it govern the number of spells per level you learn or anything?

duke is sorry, but he doesn't like .pdf manuals. If he had a paper one then he'd have read it all by now, but never mind.
He might also have learned to stop referring to himself in the third person.