23 réponses à ce sujet

[Thunderchief0]

nwn2db.com/build.php

I haven't played the game in years but i have come up with this build to play. Could somebody who has been playing more recently please have a quick look over it?

It looks good in text but I was wondering what the reality of it might be like.

P.S. I built this on the assumption that no armor gives you maximum dexterity bonus rather than 0 bonus.

Modifié par Thunderchief0, 15 février 2011 - 05:54 .

[Arkalezth]

Left a comment there.

Thunderchief0 wrote...

P.S. I built this on the assumption that no armor gives you maximum dexterity bonus rather than 0 bonus.

What?

Modifié par Arkalezth, 15 février 2011 - 09:46 .

[Thunderchief0]

What I meant to say is that you still get a dexterity bonus to AC if you are not wearing armor to encumber you, just as you do when you are wearing armor. Would be silly if you were not agile because you are not wearing armor.

[Arkalezth]

Yes, obviously, you have no DEX limit to AC if you're unarmored. Though, with 20 DEX, you can still use light armor and get max DEX bonus.

[Thunderchief0]

Ok, here is what was going on in my head.

The 11 points in wisdom and charisma was so I can cast level one spells, though now that I think about it Level 1 bard spells come at level 3 right? To what extent does charisma help with Diplomacy etc?



Weapon Finesse I can get simply by skipping the tutorial so I'm not fussed that it is at level 3.
Doesn't Greater TWF have a very high DEX requirement? I'd gladly take it if I can. Does DEX from items count?

"-Canny Defense^: When not wearing armor or using a shield, a duelist adds her
Intelligence bonus or her Duelist level (whichever is lower) to her AC."

If I'm going to have 7 levels of Duelist should I bother having 15 INT or can I redistribute this elsewhere. Is it required for any skills I should have?

I chose RDD because I felt it would complement a no-armor character and I didn't want to be monk.
RDD gives 3 AC, 4 STR, 72 HP and Blind Fight at level 6. The Breath weapon is a bonus but all of this would be much better if I could squeeze another RDD level in. Maybe with MotB.
Is Elaborate Parry feat any good? If not I can swap one level of RDD for Duelist and get better bonuses.
So Feint is crap? Are the parry skills also no good? Should I bother with parry skill/feats at all?

I'm also considering that if I start as a Bard I can spend those many first skill points on a greater variety of skills for cheap while avoiding ranger skills which I could spend on with later ranger levels.

What ability stat allocation would you guys recommend?

Modifié par Thunderchief0, 15 février 2011 - 12:14 .

[Thunderchief0]

I took that quote about Canny Defense from the pdf manual. The in game description says Int bonus is added with a maximum bonus equal to duelist level.



The manual is also wrong about TWF saying prereq is DEX 13. Not that I need it for this build but annoying all the same. It's hard to plan when you don't know all the ins and outs.

[Arkalezth]

Don't trust the manual. nwn2.wikia.com is usually a more reliable source of information.

Thunderchief0 wrote...

The 11 points in wisdom and charisma was so I can cast level one spells, though now that I think about it Level 1 bard spells come at level 3 right? To what extent does charisma help with Diplomacy etc?

At 2 I think, but you have only one level anyway. From a pure power perspective, you can leave both WIS and CHA at 8. Even then, if you max Diplomacy, you should success most of the time. And 11 isn't better than 10, go always for even stats.

Weapon Finesse I can get simply by skipping the tutorial so I'm not fussed that it is at level 3.
Doesn't Greater TWF have a very high DEX requirement? I'd gladly take it if I can. Does DEX from items count?

Well, ok, but if you play a different module in the future, keep in mind that it's much better than Mobility (if you're DEX based).

GTWF needs 11 BAB and 19 DEX. Natural, no items/buffs.

If I'm going to have 7 levels of Duelist should I bother having 15 INT or can I redistribute this elsewhere. Is it required for any skills I should have?

Again, start with either 14 or 16. You can add INT to AC up to 24 INT, so yes, it's useful. Wether you prefer it to other stats, it's your call.

I chose RDD because I felt it would complement a no-armor character and I didn't want to be monk.
RDD gives 3 AC, 4 STR, 72 HP and Blind Fight at level 6. The Breath weapon is a bonus but all of this would be much better if I could squeeze another RDD level in. Maybe with MotB.

I know, the AC bonus is useful, the STR bonus isn't that good here. It's not bad, but there are more options.

I said 6 levels is no man's land because the usual approach is either take all 10 levels or stop at 4. Sometimes at 5 for Blind Fight.

Is Elaborate Parry feat any good? If not I can swap one level of RDD for Duelist and get better bonuses.
So Feint is crap? Are the parry skills also no good? Should I bother with parry skill/feats at all?

Parry is bad. So anything related to it is also bad.

Feint is great. Your Bluff score is what's bad. Feint needs high Bluff.

I'm also considering that if I start as a Bard I can spend those many first skill points on a greater variety of skills for cheap while avoiding ranger skills which I could spend on with later ranger levels.

What ability stat allocation would you guys recommend?

Keep in mind that you'll need 11 CHA to start as a Bard (you don't need 11 WIS to start as a Ranger though).

For skills, since this is for the OC: Diplomacy and/or Bluff (specially if you take Feint), Tumble, Spellcraft, UMD, Lore, Survival...

Modifié par Arkalezth, 15 février 2011 - 12:49 .

[Thunderchief0]

Thanks. I didn't realise Bards have to start with 11 CHA, but still it might be worth it for all the extra skills I can get. I'm working in the skills for the build right now and I plan to have Bluff up high so I might end up keeping Feint but I don't like the Combat Expertise prereq.



I might choose the Cleave route instead but the Power Attack prereq also seems to be a wasted feat with TWF.



Bookmarked that wikia page.

[Will Scarlet]

1. I think Swashbuckler would be a better fit than Ranger.  Free Weapon Finesse (1st level) and Insightful Strike (3rd level which adds Int bonus to weapon damage for finessed weapons). This will net you an additional +3 points for your ability scores (Wis 8).  If you don't have the expansion for Swashbuckler, Fighter would be my next choice [Either Bard 1 / Fighter 4 / RDD 10 / Duelist 5 or Bard 2 / Swashbuckler 3 / RDD 10 / Duelist 5]

2. I concur with 6 levels of RDD being no-man's land. My preference is either 4 levels (for +2 AC and +4 Str) or all 10 levels (At 9th level RDD, you'll get an additional +2 Int).

3. Spring Attack isn't needed (because you should be pumping Tumble for more AC).  There are better ways to get AC than Combat Expertise. Whirlwind Attack is a lost cause in this build.  I've never used the Feint feat, so I don't have an opinion there.

4. If you are going to dual-wield, you should at least attempt to get Greater TWF and Improved TWD.

5. Duelist (in my opinion) is best used for an AC boost which relies purely on your Int. 10 Levels of Duelist and an Int bonus of +3 will only give you +3 AC.  Int is very important for Duelists.

6. Strangely, I would only take Str 10 and Con 10 instead of 12 in each (+4 ability score points) and let RDD raise it up to Str 18 and Con 12.  Dex and Int should be your main two ability scores.

7. With a high Int bonus and Bard levels, I (personally) would invest a feat into Able Learner which would basically make almost all of the skills class skills regardless of what class you're leveling up.

Modifié par Will Scarlet, 15 février 2011 - 02:21 .

[Thunderchief0]

I just saved a whole heap of changes. Please take another look.



Would bard1/fighter4 unlock duelist in 5 levels?

[Matheau]

I think you are trying to do to much. Dual wielding/RDD/Duelist/Ranger just isn't going to work in 20 levels. As mentioned before, Swashbuckler is a much better match if you want to go Duelist because Swashbuckler, like Duelist, should have high DEX and high INT (plus all the Duelist pre-requisites are class skills for Swashbuckler). Swashbuckler lets you add you INT to your damage, which makes STR even less important.



You lose Precise Strike when dual wielding. +1d6 to every attack (+2d6 at level 10 Duelist) is more valuable than what you get dual wielding, especially without going all the way up to PTWF.



Parry is a vastly underrated skill that most people never bothered figuring out how to use properly. Against melee opponents, a high level Duelist in parry mode wins. Yes, there is a bug in the skill, but it only applies to enemies with 4+ attacks and you still always get to use Parry against three of them.



As the hypothetical, lets say a Duelist with 4 attacks and Improved Parry is fighting 2 enemies with 4 attacks each:



Scenario 1: No Parry Mode

- You throw 4 attacks against 1 enemy and have to dodge 8 attacks.



Scenario 2: Parry Mode

- You throw no attacks. You parry out 3 attacks each. Due to being a level 7+ Duelist, you are pretty much guaranteed to succeed all 6, since only the sixth one has a -3 penalty which is minor compared to your bonus. You have a very high chance of also Riposting all of those attacks. You only have to beat them by 5 and the Duelist bonus means you almost win the roll by default. That lets you throw 6 total attacks in the round (Riposte doesn't have the same limitation at normal attacks. You have to dodge 2 attacks due to the bug (though without Parry mode you would have had to dodge 8).



So, let's see, Parry let's you cancel out most, if not all, attacks against you and throw out more attacks per round than should be possible. That doesn't strike me as a very weak skill. It's just a situational skill since you shouldn't be running around with it turned on all the time.



Feint is kind of meh in my opinion. It's a "let's ignore the existence of any other party members" ability. It requires leveling a skill you may or may not want in the first place just to have a chance for it to work. Spell casters can get the same ultimate goal accomplished (remove DEX AC) with spells that can last multiple rounds and give more effects than just removing DEX AC.

[Will Scarlet]

After looking at the changes, my first opinion is to absolutely ditch the ranger levels.

Ranger is best if you are taking it to 21 levels. Taking 4 Fighter levels will get you 3 free feats (with your Dex, you can take TWF and TWD as Fighter bonus feats). This will give you space to take another 2 RDD levels (which will give you a +2 Int bonus).

Look at this scenario:
01 Bard - Able Learner, Weapon Finesse
02 Fighter - TWF
03 Fighter - TWD, Dodge
04 Fighter - Mobility
05 Fighter

Notice that with Able Learner, you can use your skill points from any class to level up Parry, Lore and Tumble on a 1-for-1 basis (just like it was a class skill). You've also got all of the feat requirements covered for Duelist and +4 of the +6 needed BAB. Take the next four levels in RDD (which will give you +3 BAB, +2 to AC and +4 to strength). You're now perfectly set for taking duelist.

Mobility is not that strong at 1st level, take weapon finesse ASAP. Its the difference that at 1st level you will get a +3 attack bonus (for Dex) instead of +1 (for Str).

[Edit]
In your build, drop the Strength increase @ 4th level and replace it with Dexterity.  Odd stat points are useless. 14 and 15 are both a +2 bonus.

Also, there is no way to unlock Duelist in 5 levels, it requires a +6 BAB.

Modifié par Will Scarlet, 15 février 2011 - 04:15 .

[Arkalezth]

Good point about Able Learner. I'm so used to see it in builds with Bard dips, that I didn't notice it hadn't been taken here.

No expansions, so Swashbuckler is out.

Thunderchief0 wrote...

I just saved a whole heap of changes. Please take another look.

Would bard1/fighter4 unlock duelist in 5 levels?

No, you need 6 BAB. That's only 4 BAB.

You lose Precise Strike when dual wielding. +1d6 to every attack (+2d6
at level 10 Duelist) is more valuable than what you get dual wielding,
especially without going all the way up to PTWF.

Obviously, that depends on the damage done by the off-hand. It can be a lot more in the OC.

Feint is kind of meh in my opinion. It's a "let's ignore the existence
of any other party members" ability. It requires leveling a skill you
may or may not want in the first place just to have a chance for it to
work. Spell casters can get the same ultimate goal accomplished (remove
DEX AC) with spells that can last multiple rounds and give more effects
than just removing DEX AC.

Rogues get free sneak attacks, it has unlimited uses, unlike spells (which spells do you mean, BTW?), everyone benefits from it...

You have to level up one skill, so what? One will probably end leveling it up anyway, since it's a conversation skill.

[Arkalezth]

Will Scarlet wrote...

After looking at the changes, my first opinion is to absolutely ditch the ranger levels.

Ranger is best if you are taking it to 21 levels. Taking 4 Fighter levels will get you 3 free feats (with your Dex, you can take TWF and TWD as Fighter bonus feats). This will give you space to take another 2 RDD levels (which will give you a +2 Int bonus).

I'm not comparing it to Fighter, but you don't need to take 21 Ranger levels for the class to be effective. Hell, it's a 20th level build. Ranger gets nice bonuses at lots of levels: 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 11, 13...

Mobility is not that strong at 1st level, take weapon finesse ASAP. Its the difference that at 1st level you will get a +3 attack bonus (for Dex) instead of +1 (for Str).

Mobility is not strong, period. Its only use is a prerequisite for PrCs. Never take it otherwise.

[Thunderchief0]

Specifics: At 5th level, the duelist gains the ability to strike
precisely with a piercing weapon, gaining 1d6 piercing damage. This only
works against enemies vulnerable to critical hits. Precise Strike is
automatically in effect when the duelist has no off-hand weapon or
shield. At 10th level, the damage increases to 2d6.


Thanks for pointing it out matheau. I just noticed this  

I guess this feat goes completely to waste because the whole idea of this build is no armor and 2 weapons.

I might try changing ranger to fighter like Will Scarlet outlined. If I take on able learner should I bother keeping that bard level, is the courage inspiration worth it?

==========================
Edit: oops. forgot I have to take bard or sorcerer as prereq for RDD.

Modifié par Thunderchief0, 16 février 2011 - 12:06 .

[Thunderchief0]

nwn2db.com/build.php

Made a new one with fighter as the base and I think it is a better build. I have sacrificed duelist level 6 to get RDD 10.

Is the loss of Flourish worth the immunities?

[Will Scarlet]

Two weapon defense at 15th level and no improved TWD? Remember, you're not wearing armor and need to find sources of AC wherever you can and as early as you can.

I think you are overestimating power attack/cleave/great cleave (3 feats) in this build. At 9th level, you are taking great cleave. That is extra attacks IF you kill something. You could also take Improved TWF at 9th level which is one extra attack every round. BTW, you can't power attack finessable weapons. You will still get the penalty for the attack, but no extra damage. With any kind of melee build, you want to be able to do damage all the way along the build. By postponing ITWF and GTWF until much later, you're sacrificing a lot of combat ability.

[Edit]
I would swap levels 9 and 10.  Get 4 levels of RDD before level 1 of duelist.  While, true, they will both give you a +1 to AC, the RDD level will also give +2 hp and +2 Str. Then take your next 5 levels in duelist and then finish up with RDD.  I don't see the benefit of alternate swapping levels back-and-forth.  In NWN1, it was used for skill dumps, etc.  With Able Learner, you don't have to worry about skill dumps, you can just keep levelling them up.

Modifié par Will Scarlet, 16 février 2011 - 12:27 .

[Haplose]

I think you're overestimating the value of Two Weapon Defence. It is a pretty poor feat. One that you take once you've run out of the good options. Well, if you want to, I would definately replace it with Luck of Heroes. +1 AC always and +1 to all saves is much better then situational +1 AC when dual-wielding only. Of course LoH can only be taken at level 1, so you'd have to shuffle some feats.

[The Fred]

I made this a while ago. It was meant kind of as an experiment, but seems to have a lot of what you're looking for. It doesn't dual-wield, unfortunately, but does get better saves, more damage, better health and a much better attack bonus to make up for it (and you get the Precise Strike damage, which is probably better than a second weapon unless you really stack on the enchantments). It's built as a yuan-ti for things like Spell Resistance and ability bonus, but if you didn't want the level adjustment, you could go human. There is a link to another build as a reply to the one I made which also exploits an oddity in the way damage bonuses works, too.

Modifié par The Fred, 19 février 2011 - 04:10 .

[Will Scarlet]

The OP doesn't have the expansions, so Yuan-ti and Swashbuckler doesn't help here. Otherwise, I think everyone who has posted here would agree to Bard 2 / Swashbuckler 3

[The Fred]

Oh, I see. I missed that bit. Well, yuan-ti is easy enough to drop (it gives lots of bonuses, but +2 LA is tough anyway), swash less so but it's tough luck I guess. Still, I think you can get a lot more from losing two-weapon fighting, cool as it is, and getting Precision Strike damage and a better AB. Perhaps simply swapping the swash levels for fighter would work.

[Arkalezth]

As mentioned in the comments of your build, a small race would be the best option. No need to take Monkey Grip for rapiers, shortswords will work as well.

Swashbuckler is nice in that case, but not necessary. Fighter 4/Bard 1/RDD 5/Duelist 10 would be a good split. Rock Gnome for no XP penalty.

Edit:

http://nwn2db.com/bu...52392&version=1

Modifié par Arkalezth, 19 février 2011 - 07:01 .

[The Fred]

That looks nice, though wouldn't RDD 10/Duelist 5 be viable as an alternative to RDD 5/Duelist 10? Duelist gives better BAB I think, but the RDD Strength bonuses make up for it and give more damage, and the immunities possibly outweigh the Duelist bonuses. That said, I don't know how useful those are, since I don't often (read: ever) play Duelist.

[Arkalezth]

Yes, both ways can work. Duelist 10 grants some more damage, from Flourish and better Precise Strike, and more uses and longer duration of Haste. RDD grants immunities, and some HP and skill points. AB and AC would be similar. Also, there's a lot of RDD 10s already, 10 Duelist feels more original.

I don't use to play Duelists either, not worth it for most (low level) modules.

BTW, for some reason (read: bug), the site didn't let me pick a gnome deity. I tried to build a new gnome now and I could this time. It has no impact on the build, but it's weird...

Modifié par Arkalezth, 20 février 2011 - 01:09 .