28 réponses à ce sujet

[Mysstic1]

Hi, planning on a first run-through of SoZ.  I've always wanted to do a sneak attacking, stealth-based party but the OC and MotB were terrible for this, with all the crit-immune opponents.  I heard that SoZ was more friendly to that sort of thing, so I was wondering, would this party work?

Three party members who are Rogue 3/Swashbuckler X/ Shadow Dancer 1/ Champion of the Wild 2.  They're almost full-BAB from Swashbuckler, almost full sneak dice from Kaedrin's Daring Outlaw feat, they have HiPS, and they've got INT to damage and DEX to damage.  Very hard-hitting.

Party leader will be a high INT, high CHA build designed to be a super Feinter with plenty of skills to serve as the map leader.

I figure that with the party leader Feinting each opponent to open them for sneak attacks, and with three full-BAB party members dual-wielding full sneak attacks against the feinted opponent, things should die fast.  Everyone has HiPS after level 8 in case anything goes wrong.

Does this sound workable?  I haven't read any spoilers for SoZ so I don't know if it would be as effective as I hope.  Does anyone have any advice?

[Arkalezth]

Well, it could work, there are some crit immunes but not a lot. However, being your first playthrough, you might miss some sort of caster. I don't know, give it a try...but buy lots of healing kits and potions.

Keep in mind that CotW needs heavy armor proficiency, so you'll have to spend lots of feats on requirements with that build. If you also want Greater and Oversized TWF, you may run short on feats.

[Mysstic1]

You're right, CoW really puts the screws to feat choices. Swashbuckler comes with a free Martial Weapons and Weapon Finesse at lvl 1, and a free Mobility at lvl 7 if I'm willing to delay Shadow Dancer levels until after that. That helps out with the feat choices, but even then CoW couldn't be added until level 18, and I'd have to drop Greater Two-Weapon Fighting and Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting.

It might still be worth it, since Dex to damage is probably more valuable than an extra attack at a very high AB penalty. I was thinking of making the party leader a bard, so the bard's inspiration would offset the -2 penalty to attacks for using an oversized weapon in the off-hand. The bard would have some arcane casting to use in emergencies, and some healing spells and a regeneration song to heal up party members between fights.

I'm just glad to hear that it seems doable. Thanks!

[Mysstic1]

Oh, and I'm not set on taking CoW. A 1-level dip into Monk would work great, too. That gets rid of a lot of useless feat choices and allows all of the two-weapon fighting feats to be taken, adds a WIS to AC bonus, and adds an extra flurry attack if kamas are used. The bard's inspiration can offset the -2 penalty for flurrying.

Ooh, I'm looking forward to playing a bard and his party of backstabbers now!

[Mysstic1]

Er, I meant a 2-level monk dip, to avoid xp penalties.

[The Fred]

Wizard/Rogue Arcane Trickster? You wouldn't have four the same, but you'd have a character capable of some small spell support whilst still being able to sneak attack. You might want a divine caster, though.

[Mysstic1]

I considered it, and I still may do an Arcane Trickster as my party leader. An Arcane Trickster would be a powerful sneak attacker with reserve spell feats. The thing is, I'm kind of tired of micromanaging my other NPC party members. I did a lot of that in the OC and MotB, because the AI can't be trusted to run casters. Since buffs vanish between encounters in SoZ, that's even less of a reason to use them.

So to take a break from running the NPC's I wanted to make them more melee oriented. Since I've had that sneak attack party idea for awhile I thought I'd give it a try. I found that rogues like Neeshka in the OC took a lot of micromanagement too, in order to position them properly to fire off the sneak attacks. To avoid that I thought of using a Feinter instead One party member feints an opponent, and then the rogue can unload on them from wherever he or she is, even if the mob is facing the rogue. I like that. No micromanagement necessary, even for positioning. And if the mob is vulnerable to one rogue partnered with a Feinter, then adding more rogues with more sneak attacks becomes a real force multiplier.

That just leaves the party leader, who has to be a high CHA feinter. I thought of running Bard in that position because it adds some arcane power for special occasions, plus some healing ability, plus it has strong skill points to serve as the overland map leader. The party leader spot has a lot of shoes to fill, and a Bard is a jack of all trades type of character. An Arcane Trickster is a better caster but a worse healer. Plus their buffs only last for an encounter, while a Bard's inspirations can always be active. Less resting and less micromanagement that way. So I'm thinking maybe a Rogue 1/ Shadow Dancer 1/ Warlock 1/ Bard X.

[The Fred]

Hmm, well, I guess you could do something like Bard 7/Rogue 2/Arcane Trickster X, possibly taking Cleric or RDD levels (EDIT: Warlock 1 or 2 is probably better). Using Bard as your spellcaster class is not really ideal, but it'd let you be a bluff-based Feinter without losing too much sneak or attack and still getting some spells. A Sorcerer or Rogue would probably be better, though.

Modifié par The Fred, 24 mai 2011 - 10:02 .

[Arkalezth]

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[The Fred]

That works quite nicely. You can also use Blackguard for the Sneak Attack, which gives you a better AB, save bonuses, and potentially divine feats, etc. It might just be easier to go Wizard/Arcane Trickster, though, and take a different char as the feinter (one feinter, one AT, etc), since Wizards get their 3rd-level spells faster.

[Arkalezth]

You'd need 7 BG levels to qualify for AT. 3 levels of Rogue or Neverwinter Nine work too, though Bluff will be a bit lower.

[The Fred]

Hmm, I saw a build with BG, but maybe it used something else for at least some of the sneak. It's probably not worth 7 levels and then the 5-7 you need for the spellcasting reqs.

[Arkalezth]

BG 7 is good for a 15-20 level character because of the improved skeleton companion...but it's not the best for an AT in SoZ.

[The Fred]

Yeah, my point exactly.

Slightly tangentially, I made a roguish Sacred Fist feinter a while back, just for fun really. It's not that great - if you have four rogues all relying on a feint you might want it to be more reliable - but it gives you Cleric spells for all those nasty crit-immune undead (kind of a deal if your whole party rely on sneak attack damage). Maybe something along those lines could work?

[Arkalezth]

Yes, that could work, it has Feint (Bluff isn't great though), and it's a decent OM leader, fast and skilled (well, it can take the most important skills for the OM, at least).

I think I'd make it Human, to keep the skill points with 0 ECL, and take Negotiator as the bonus feat. Luck can be changed for Travel for even more speed in the OM.

Modifié par Arkalezth, 25 mai 2011 - 04:59 .

[Mysstic1]

Thanks for the great suggestions so far. It seems there are a number of ways to improve Bluff, and no one character can do them all. I just have to pick the best combination that can also serve as a party leader. Here are some of the things I've found:

Cleric 1- free Feint feat with Trickery domain, no Combat Expertise required first. This frees up two feat slots in an otherwise feat starved build, and lets Feint be used right from level 1 or 2.
Wizard1- The spider familiar provides +3 Bluff.
Warlock 1- A starting invocation gives +6 Bluff, lasts for a whole day, castable at will.
Shadow Thief of Amn- +4 Bluff by level 3 from class abilities, and two free feats given out at level 2 and level 4, to further help out with feat starvation.
Silver Palm- +2 Bluff, can only be taken at level 1.
Skill Focus (Bluff)- +3 to Bluff.
Negotiator- +2 to Bluff.

That stuff adds up to a +20 to the check, not counting any CHA bonuses that the character has. Of course, it's not practical in a single character. For instance, there are no base classes in that mix that provide Hide as a class skill for the Shadow Thief prerequisite.

Some other tangential bonuses from classes include:
Invisible Blade 5- can't roll less than a 5 on a Bluff check at level 5, at the cost of three feats to take the class and a pretty crappy bleeding damage ability instead of sneak dice.
Heartwarder 10- A +5 to CHA equates to a +2 1/2 to Bluff.
RDD 10- Gives +2 CHA, for a +1 to Bluff.
Nightsong Infiltrator- The Infiltrator himself loses out on 5d6 of sneak attack dice, but can grant all of his allies within 30' a +2d6 to their own sneak attacks whenever the target is denied their Dex bonus (such as after a successful Feint).  That would add an extra 2d6 to the three other sneak attacking party members, which might be worth taking.

Modifié par Mysstic1, 25 mai 2011 - 06:51 .

[The Fred]

Warlock is by far the best way, IMO, since at L2 you can use Dark One's Own Luck, too, if you're a high-Cha character. However, I'm rather impartial to Cleric with the trickery domain for early access.

[Arkalezth]

Half-elf, half-drow and tiefling also get +2 to Bluff.

[Mysstic1]

I'm leaning now toward a Cleric/Warlock/Heartwarder/Shadow Thief of Amn as the Feinter. The Heartwarder could be taken as early as level 6, depending on feat selection, and Shadow Thief of Amn would open up at level 13, even with Hide as a cross-class skill. Feint would be useable by level 2, Warlock would give +6 Bluff, Shadow Thief would give +4 Bluff, Heartwarder would give +2 Bluff from their Heart of Passion class feature, and another +2 1/2 Bluff from the extra five points of CHA. Another +7 Bluff or more from feats, another +2 1/2 from throwing attribute gains into CHA, +2 Bluff for the right race, +3 Bluff or more from starting CHA, and that comes out to a respectable +29 to Bluff, in addition to maxing out the skill itself.

I'll have to measure out the Bluff total at each level, but at a glance it looks like the character throughout it's lifespan would have about a 50/50 shot of pulling of a Feint even against a max-Spot, max-BAB opponent of the same level. More for creatures that aren't full BAB or full Spot. Considering that three dual wielding, almost full sneak, almost full BAB party members are waiting to mow into them every other round when Feint works, it should be effective.

Now I just have to decide whether to raise Cleric or Warlock spellcasting, when taking Heartwarder. Also, the character can't serve as the party leader anymore (no skill points). I can re-work one of the sneak attack NPC's to do the job, or split the work between all three by shifting back and forth between them on the map.

[Arkalezth]

You don't need THAT much Bluff. About 35-40 at level 20 should be enough.

[Mysstic1]

You think so? I've never played a feinter so I wasn't sure. I'd heard somewhere that mobs tended to have high Spot skills.

Well, it would be great to get by with less. It opens up more character building possibilities. I'd love to ditch the Shadow Thief, for example.

[Arkalezth]

Yes, you need a good Bluff score, but without sacrificing other aspects of the character for that.

If you're interested in more opinions, you can ask for further advice here: http://nwn2db.freeforums.org/index.php

[Mysstic1]

I think I can get the Bluff pretty high without gimping the character. Warlocks don't have many good feat choices, so using them for bluff feats won't really hurt. A Warlock X/ Cleric 1/ Wizard 1/ Heartwarder 10 would be a pure Warlock except for two 1 level dips. Cleric would give Feint with no prerequisites, usuable as early as the beach fight, and would also provide the Spell Focus: Enchantment feat used to get Heartwarder later. The Wizard level gives a +3 Bluff familiar, and access to the Truestrike spell.

I was thinking of using the character as the Feinter in normal fights, and as the Big Gun in boss fights. If something absolutely, positively has to die, then this character can fire up Maximized Eldritch Blast + Empowered Eldritch Blast + Truestrike and then use an Eldritch Glaive. At level 20, that's up to 206 pts of damage in one Truestriked glaive flurry, with a very high chance of getting the maximum three strikes against the opponent's touch AC. Ouch!

So the character could start the game at level 4 with about a 20 Bluff, good from the get go, and have the Big Gun feats by level 12. Until then, the AoE electrical invocation that only affects enemies or the knockdown AoE that only affects enemies are good for crowd control nuking in many situations. And the character can still have about a 50 Bluff by the end.

How does that sound?

[Arkalezth]

So, in most fights, you plan to only feint with that character? Feint, feint, feint without attacking? Why not feint, attack several times, repeat?

[Mysstic1]

Well... let's examine the damage potential of the party against sneak vulnerable opponents at say level 20.

If the warlock attacks each round, say with eldritch glaive, he's doing 8d6 damage for 1-3 attacks at medium BAB.  Pretty good.  Meanwhile, the three rogues in the party are meleeing.  If they're in position to do a sneak, then that's 8d6 damage for 7 attacks at full BAB.  If they're not in a position to sneak, then it's just 7 normal attacks.

8d6 on 7 attacks at full BAB beats 8d6 for three attacks at medium BAB.  So, given the enemy is sneak attackable, the rogues should have a much better damage output.

I don't know how SoZ is, but in the OC it could be quite difficult for the rogues to land their sneaks without a lot of fiddling with positioning, which I wanted to avoid.  By feinting, all three of the rogues get their sneak attacks no matter what their position, the feint has a very high chance of working, and their damage output is greater than the warlock's would be.

I think the math is in favor of using the Warlock to Bluff when the enemy is vulnerable to the rogues, and doing AoE's or Eldritch Glaives when they aren't.

Modifié par Mysstic1, 26 mai 2011 - 11:23 .